by Fred Burton
The last wounded warrior deplanes. The vans finish loading them up and race off. A truck arrives, and crates with the critical components of PAK-1 stored away inside are carried into the cargo bay. Just before dawn, it is time to get aboard. We grab our things and start for the ramp. Cheech picks this time to say, “Agent Burton, you were right. Thank you for your efforts here. I hope we were able to get you all the information you needed.”
“Yes, Colonel, but we still have a lot of work to do to figure out what happened to PAK-1.”
“At least we know it wasn’t shot down,” Brad injects.
“True, there was no missile hit,” Cheech admits.
“But were there really snakes?” I ask. I can’t help myself. I’ve got to know.
Cheech gives me a sly grin. “I’ll never tell. Have a nice flight home, gentlemen.” Without another word, he turns and disappears into the Pakistani night.
twenty-six
THE PERFECT MURDER
September 1988
Foggy Bottom
The NSC was right: The investigation bought enough time for emotions to calm and tensions to ease. The Indians pulled back from the brink and stood down their military. The surviving Pakistani leaders did not face a coup. Pakistan held a huge state funeral for their fallen leader, and as brutal as he was, they gave him a tremendous memorial. The CIA continues to run the war in Afghanistan out of Islamabad, and the Soviets are still withdrawing their forces from that country. Overall, the world moved on pretty fast, just as it did in 1962.
It takes some time, but the test results finally come back. They stun all of us and cause me to rethink some of the conclusions we drew in Pakistan before we left.
Mechanical failure did not knock PAK-1 out of the sky. That much is clear. Tests were conducted on the surviving parts of the hydraulic boost system to the elevators. The valves did not stick or jam. The pumps functioned normally, even as the plane flew into the ground. The surviving instruments show that the maneuvers conducted as the C-130 porpoised through the sky could only have been carried out if the controls’ hydraulic boost system was working. The pilots just wouldn’t have had the strength to move the Hercules through those gyrations while under manual control.
The hydraulic fluid itself is the one caveat. It was contaminated with particles, including bits of brass. Analysis could not determine why or how this happened. The fluid had been replaced only fifty flight hours before the crash. Nevertheless, the amount of particles found trended to the high end of acceptable levels. Still, the valves functioned fine. In the final analysis, the crash team determined this could not have caused PAK-1 to go down.
With mechanical failure ruled out, there can be only two remaining answers: pilot error and sabotage.
The pilots were in peak physical and mental condition. Their fitness reports spoke volumes about both how well respected they were and how they were trusted by President Zia. The fact that they did not call a Mayday is supremely unusual. It strongly suggests that something, or somebody, incapacitated them at the controls.
Brad and I had been thinking an assassin shot them both. The findings of the air force crash team do not support that theory. No weapons were recovered from the crash site. That in itself is not damning evidence, as we do know some of the VIPs were carrying weapons. They were immolated in the fire. However, Colonel Sowada’s men did not find any evidence of a firefight in the cockpit. At close range, a pistol shot would stand a good chance of going through a human target. The bullet would exit and lodge in the instrument panel or another part of the cockpit. No such bullet hole was found among the pieces recovered from the flight deck.
Although fatal gunshots cannot be ruled out, the possibility looks remote now. But there is another, far more sinister explanation.
The ATF lab results disclose the truth. Their tests discovered traces of antimony, chlorine, and phosphorous in the cockpit and on a recovered mango seed. The rear cargo door tested positive for PNET, a type of explosive compound.
Antimony. Phosphorous. Chlorine. All are ingredients in various types of nerve gas. One of the most deadly, VX, causes near-instant paralysis followed by death within seconds. Somebody planted nerve gas in the cockpit. This can only mean one thing: President Zia and his staff were assassinated.
The autopsy done on the remains of Brigadier General Herbert M. Wassom shows that he had not inhaled any smoke before he died. This proves that PAK-1 did not suffer an onboard fire prior to its crash. It also helps rule out a large onboard explosive as one of the potential causes of the C-130’s destruction.
What was PNET doing on the cargo door, then? During their own investigation, the Pakistanis conclude that a small detonator had been aboard the plane. Attached either to a timer or a barometric pressure device, the detonator touched off a very-small-yield explosion, perhaps just big enough to blow the top off a Coke can placed on the flight deck. The interior of the C-130 is so loud that I doubt anyone would have heard such a small pop.
But that’s what killed the pilots. When the detonator blew, it released the chemical agent into the flight deck. With the flight-deck door open, the small explosion blew enough particles into the rear of the aircraft to be detected on the cargo door.
The pilots never knew what hit them. The crash team determined that the pilots were not wearing their oxygen masks at the time of the crash. That fits with the low altitude the plane was at when the shepherd saw it oscillating through the sky. That rules out a poisoned oxygen system and lends much more weight to the Coke can theory posited by the Pakistanis.
I think they’re right. Now all that’s left is to figure out who did it. I spend most of September and early October trying to find a smoking gun that will allow us to name the assassins. In a dime-store spy novel, the hero always finds one critical piece of evidence that ensures the guilty pay for their crime. If the real Dark World worked like that, I would sleep better at night. The truth is, all we can do is assemble the evidence and look at who has the capability to execute such a sophisticated operation.
The Indians have a well-respected intelligence service, but planting nerve gas in Zia’s aircraft is well beyond their capabilities. They have no history of pulling off such a sophisticated hit. That doesn’t mean they weren’t involved on the periphery, but it does rule them out as the actual organization behind the assassination.
The CIA has access to nerve gas and has the ability to orchestrate a covert operation like this. The DCOS acted very strange when we interviewed him, and given some of the rogue operations the CIA has been involved in over the past three decades, their involvement in Zia’s death might be plausible if not for one huge issue: motive. The CIA had a good relationship with Zia and the ISI. They worked hand in hand to bring the Soviets down in Afghanistan. Taking him out makes no sense. Zia was our biggest Cold War ally next to Britain.
Scratch the CIA off the list.
What about the Israelis? Tension existed between Zia and Israel for years over Pakistan’s nuclear program. The Israelis took out Iraq’s nuke program in 1981 with a stunning air raid that signaled to the rest of the Muslim world that Israel was prepared to go to any length to ensure that an Islamic country did not get the bomb.
Could the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, have killed Zia because of his nuclear weapons research program? It does make for an interesting motive. But it does not hold up. The Pakistanis already have the bomb. They joined the nuclear club in late 1987. Killing Zia in August 1988 doesn’t change the fact that Pakistan now has nukes. The timing of the attack makes the Israelis look like poor suspects. I doubt they had anything to do with this.
What about Pakistani extremists or dissidents? Zia was hated in many circles in his own nation. There had been several attempts on his life, and he’d recently angered the radical Shiite community when one of its leaders was assassinated. Zia’s government was blamed for the hit.
That is a good motive for assassination, but the Pakistanis lack the capability to execute such an attack. Only a few
countries have such sophisticated chemical agents. The Pakistanis, especially the radical Shiite dissidents, have no access to such a specialized, highly technical weapon.
That leaves the KGB. The Soviets had about fifteen thousand motives for doing away with Zia. That’s how many Red Army soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 1979, thanks to the insurgency we’ve sustained through Pakistan. Zia played a key role in defeating the Soviet juggernaut, something that the Hungarians failed to do in 1956 and the Czechs couldn’t do during Prague Spring in 1968. Since World War I, the Russians have not lost a war—until now. They are bitter and angry over the disaster that befell them. And that makes them exceptionally dangerous.
A few weeks before PAK-1 went down, Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet Union’s minister of foreign affairs, publicly stated that Pakistan would pay dearly for its support of the mujahideen.
Payback. That’s a big motive. As the Red Army withdraws from Afghanistan, the KGB took one parting shot at a key enemy. This makes the most sense of all. The Soviet-trained Afghan intelligence service, known as KHAD, has agents operating everywhere in Pakistan. Could the KGB have learned of the tank trials? Yes. The Indians could have picked up on that bit of intelligence and passed it to their Russian friends. That would have given the KGB the time needed to plan the operation. Using a WAD operative, a nerve gas container could have been planted aboard PAK-1. The screening process at Bahawalpur left much to be desired. There was no perimeter fence, and security around the C-130 while it was on the ground turned out to be casual at best. The pilots were supposed to stay with the aircraft but may have walked to the terminal to use the restroom.
A stealthy operative could have sneaked aboard and placed the Coke can somewhere on the flight deck. The detonator, set to explode at either a certain time or a specific altitude, would have barely drawn attention from the pilots as they flew the aircraft at full throttle on takeoff. The engines, only a few feet above their heads and on either side of them, certainly could have masked the sound of the agent being released.
What next? Both pilots inhaled the gas. In seconds, they are either dead or paralyzed. The plane flies out of control. Nose up, nose down, nose up, nose down. The VIPs in back are thrown around, prompting somebody to call out to the command pilot. Of course, he can’t respond. Finally, the Hercules pitches up one more time and stalls. The nose drops, but this time there is no recovery. The C-130 plummets to the ground. It explodes, and almost everything is consumed in the fireball.
It is the perfect murder.
The KGB loves to use arcane chemical compounds to kill its adversaries. For proof, one needs only to look at the assassination of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian defector who died when jabbed by a poison-tipped umbrella in 1978.
The KGB is the only player in this game with motive, opportunity, operational capability, and a history of similar attacks. In the Dark World, you rarely get a complete picture. There will always be missing pieces to the puzzle. All you can do is assemble the pieces you have and draw the most logical conclusion from what you’ve got.
And in this case, the evidence points to the Soviets.
At the end of September, I write up my report and submit it. A few weeks later, Mel Harrison sends us the summary of the Pakistani crash investigation report. One copy was delivered to our embassy in Islamabad. Mel sends it flash precedence, and the day it comes in I sit in FOGHORN and read it over repeatedly.
The full report runs 350 pages, but all we get is the summary, which totals about 40. The Pakistanis use my report as the basis for theirs, then integrate Colonel Sowada’s findings and their own. The report concludes that President Zia and his senior military leaders died at the hands of unknown assassins, who probably planted a chemical agent in the cockpit.
Had this been known in August, I wonder if the news would have pushed the Pakistanis over the edge. Their report does not accuse any nation or organization of the assassination, which is a good thing. But in August, with emotions running hot and the nukes on a hair trigger, these conclusions could have tipped the scales for war. Now, two and half months later, the findings seem to be swept under the rug. Here at home, the Pakistani findings are never made public. My own report vanishes in the bureaucracy. My careful notes from the crash site, including the sketches I made of the crater, disappear from the dead bodies cabinets where I had filed them. State Department officials stick to the hydraulic failure theory. Life is more convenient that way.
One night, just before Thankgiving, I sit down at my desk and open my moleskin journal. So far, my list contains two names: Imad Mugniyah and his right-hand man, Hasan Izz-Al-Din.
I add number three tonight.
3. UNSUB: KGB assassination team who placed incapacitating IED on PAK-1.
twenty-seven
AUTUMN LEAVES
December 1988
Bethesda
For DSS agents, a quiet Sunday morning is as rare to find as an honest informant. As I pour my second cup of coffee, I’m struck by how serene the townhouse is around me. My wife left a few minutes ago to Christmas shop, leaving me alone with Tyler Beauregard. My loyal dog and I went for our ritual run, and now we’re trying to relax in the kitchen. Tyler’s taken up station next to my chair, while I try to act like a normal American and read the newspaper.
The problem is I keep waiting for the phone to ring. Something always interrupts a morning like this, and for two years my senses have been tuned to expect it. I know I’ve got to loosen up my guard, but even as I flip through the front page of the Washington Post, I can’t help but be tense and alert. I look over at the phone. It sits silent on its cradle. For a moment, I feel trapped. One morning to myself, is that too much to ask?
I try to read the international news, but it is so full of distortions and inaccuracies that I give up for the sake of my blood pressure. The editors at the Post will never penetrate the Dark World. The best they can do is shine a pinpoint of light into it here and there. No breadth, no depth, no context. Just a flash, a sliver of an event, served up with little understanding, that’s all I see on these pages. I turn to the sports section and get acquainted with the week’s NFL matchups. I’d love to catch a game, but I have to check in at Foggy Bottom this afternoon. Perhaps someday.
I polish off my second cup of coffee, toss the paper aside, and wonder what to do next. How do normal people enjoy a quiet Sunday? If this is all you’re used to, it must be sublime. For me, I’m finding it very difficult to unwind. Usually, I have so much on my plate that I move mechanically from one event or task to another. There is no end to the conveyor belt of crises; they just pile on and keep coming. If I’m awake, I’m working, getting ready to work, or coming home from work and thinking about it. Call it a perpetual autopilot crisis mode. I can’t seem to shut it off after all that’s happened.
The phone is silent. That only makes me strain harder to hear it.
I want to relax. I need to. But the more I try, the more I focus on the tension within me. My body’s grown used to the constant stress and pressure of my life as a special agent; it has accommodated the sudden adrenaline rushes and the subsequent letdowns. Without those things, I don’t feel complete. And that, perhaps, is the most unsettling realization of the day. Physiologically, my life in the DSS has conditioned me to be on a hair trigger.
I find myself in front of the floor safe I had installed when we first moved in. I haven’t looked inside it in months. I bend down and open it up. I find the tan leather album that used to absorb so much of my time. I pull it out. This album used to be my passion, my diversion since childhood. But I learned long ago that the DSS and hobbies are not compatible.
I find a chair and slide into it. Tyler Beauregard enters the room and waits for a scratch. Absently, I stroke her head and ears with one hand as I open the album with my other one. Inside are the football and baseball cards I’ve collected ever since I was a ten-year-old boy.
There are some treasures here. A Joe Namath rookie card occupies a special place
of honor. Not only is it worth a small fortune these days, but Namath was my idol as a kid. I loved to watch him play back in the day. And who could ever forget how he knocked the Colts down a peg in Super Bowl III? That bond between this hero of the gridiron and the kid I once was has never been broken. Perhaps that is the only enduring form of human-to-human loyalty in this world. Everything else seems to be for sale.
But even Broadway Joe had a price. I’ll never forget the first time I saw his panty hose commercial. I thought a part of me would die—though I have to admit, his legs did look good in those things.
I turn the page to find my Green Bay Packers collection. I loved the Lombardi era and dedicated many years to finding cards for every member of those great teams. I still have a few gaps, but someday perhaps I’ll be able to hit the card shows again and find the ones I need.
The USS Vincennes. We killed hundreds. The Iranians vowed revenge.
No. I’m not going to think about work right now. I won’t let my brain wander to all the threats and developments of the past few months since I returned from Pakistan. I focus on the cards.
On another page, I find my Shoeless Joe Jackson, the tragic hero of the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox.” Dizzy Dean smiles at me from another era, wearing his St. Louis Cardinals uniform. Next to him on the page is the rest of the Gashouse Gang. They were the blue-collar types of their era. They played hard and gritty ball, and weren’t afraid to talk about it. Those Depression-era teams gave fans so much hope. They symbolized what we as a country needed to do to get out of that mess.
Operation Autumn Leaves. What did the Germans kick over? Were the Palestinians really going to take down an airliner?
No. Not this morning. This is my time. I’ve earned it.
Several pages are full of Mickey Mantle cards. At last count, I had almost thirty of them from the ’67 and ’68 seasons. I traded one years ago to a buddy for a Satchel Paige. Now there was a man who overcame everything thrown his way. He was one of the first African-American pitchers to be named to an all-star team. That was in the early fifties, before Brown v. Board of Education. His story made anything seem possible to a kid from Bethesda.