Hunter Killer (2005)

by Robinson Patrick

  The embassy camera had even shot pictures of the Colonel in an unmistakable gesture of urgency, beckoning to the vehicles in the rear. Above him could be seen a lone helicopter, the one that circled before the Chinooks, the one bearing General Rashood. Unhappily for the United States, the camera could not see inside that copter.

  Charlie Brooks told Ramshawe the photographs were on their way via the National Surveillance Office, and there was no question in his mind: the assault commander was the same man who had liberated the U.S. embassy in Brazzaville—Le Chasseur.

  “Hey, Charlie,” said Ramshawe, “I was just going to call you anyway. We got a name for your guy. Does Maj. Jacques Gamoudi mean anything to you?”

  “Gamoudi,” said Brooks. “Give me a minute…” He tried to remember those final hours in Brazzaville, the final days when the city was almost destroyed. The scene of chaos and terror was still real to him. He could still hear in his mind the gunshots, and if he thought hard, he could still smell the burning rubber of the upturned cars in the street. He had seen the severed heads on the antennae, watched the fury of the mob from behind the embassy walls.

  He tried to recall the first time he ever saw Le Chasseur, the morning the French Special Forces came bursting through the embassy gates. There was gunfire outside, but the lunatic bloodlust of the revolutionaries was no match for the steady, trained fire of the French troops who drove them off.

  But then he remembered: one of the French combat soldiers, the one driving the evacuation truck, had been hit as he climbed down from the cab. Brooks could see it in his mind—the man lurching in through the gates, blood pouring from a wound in his leg. Somehow, after eleven years, he had cast that image from his subconscious. But now he remembered the French trooper going down, falling, and then getting up again. He’d been standing two yards from him. And most of all he remembered the one single bellowing cry the man gave: “JACQUES!” He mentioned this to Ramshawe.

  “You got him,” said Brooks. “Le Chasseur’s name was Jacques. You can take that to the bank. And the pictures will show you he was the assault commander in the force that stormed the Saudi royal palace.”

  “And now his Pyrenean home is under the special protection of the French Secret Service,” muttered Ramshawe. And then he thanked Charlie Brooks for all he had done. Lt. Commander Ramshawe had quite sufficient data to send Admiral Morris directly to the President. After, of course, a quick check with the Big Man.

  He walked back along the corridor to the office of the Director, where he knew Admiral Morris had been for most of the night. He tapped lightly and walked in, carrying his dossier of information.

  “Hi, Jimmy,” said George Morris. “Have we nailed it down?”

  “Definitely, sir. Just spoke to Charlie Brooks in Riyadh, and he confirms he heard Colonel Gamoudi called Jacques, very loudly by one of his troops injured in the fighting. Better yet, he’s been through the film on the embassy surveillance cameras on the outside walls. A few of the frames show the convoy and clear photographs of Gamoudi leading the operation. He’s the forward commander in the lead tank. It’s him all right.

  “Back in the Pyrenees, the CIA guys ran him to ground. Found his house. But the French Secret Service were already in there. No sign of Jacques, of course, but there wouldn’t be, would there? He’s in Riyadh helping King Nasir. The CIA agent reckoned it was a race between him and the French Secret Service to get to Madame Gamoudi.

  “The French won, and by the time our guys reached Jacques Gamoudi’s village, at o-eight-hundred this morning, the Gamoudi family had been evacuated in the night. Now, I ask you, would the French have gone to all this trouble if Gamoudi had been an innocent mountain guide? Of course they bloody wouldn’t.”

  “And this was definitely Gamoudi’s house?”

  “Dead right it was, sir. The CIA guys checked in the village, and the French agent in the house said it was probably owned by Gamoudi, but he did not know for sure. He was probably telling the truth.”

  “That’ll do for us,” said Admiral George Morris. “Now all we gotta do is find Colonel Gamoudi, and somehow get him right back here to the U.S.A. That way we’ll hang the French Government out to dry.”

  “You want me to run this past the Big Man?”

  “Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Meanwhile, I’m going in to talk to the President.”

  Ramshawe drove his black Jaguar up to the door of the house in Chevy Chase at 0900. Two Secret Service agents escorted him through the front door to see Admiral Morgan, who was sitting by the fire in his study, growling at the Washington Post and the New York Times, in that order.

  The Post was banging on about A FAILURE OF U.S. DIPLOMACY IN SAUDI ARABIA, and the Times was carping about U.S. FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THE ISLAMIC MIND, both of which, according to Morgan, showed the usual sad, naive, total lack of comprehension he associated with both publications.

  “Liberal assholes,” he said. “Fucking dimwits could learn more from two hours with young Ramshawe than they’ll ever know.” Then he looked up and saw his visitor. “Hi, Jimmy,” he said. “Just thinking about you. What’s hot?”

  “Plenty. We just ran the ol’ Chasser to ground.”

  “Chass-eur, Jimmy. Chass-eur,” replied Morgan, still sounding precisely like Jackie Gleason doing his Maurice Chevalier. But he grinned. He refrained from hurling the newspapers into the fire, which he felt like doing, and set them down on a small coffee table next to him. Then he yelled “COFFEE!” at the top of his lungs—in a bold attempt to attract the attention of the sainted Kathy, in the kitchen—and chuckled at his own appallingness. Then he settled back and said, “Right, Lt. Commander, lay it on me.”

  “Well, sir, the CIA got after him in Brazzaville…”

  “BRAZZAVILLE…that’s some goddamned dung heap in the middle of the Congo River. How the hell did he get down there? I thought he was in Riyadh.”

  “He is, sir,” said Ramshawe, chuckling.

  “And will you, for Christ’s sake, stop calling me sir? I’m retired. I’ve been a friend of your father’s for years. Call me Arnie, like everyone else.”

  “Yessir,” said Ramshawe, as they each knew he would, both of them being absolute suckers for the easy punch line. “Right, Arnie. The CIA went to work on him in Brazzaville because that’s where we know he served for several months a decade ago. Remember we only had Le Chasseur, nothing else.”

  Morgan nodded. “No name, right?”

  “No name. But we put the local man on it, and he came up with one almost immediately: Colonel Jacques Gamoudi, a Moroccan, always known as Le Chasseur.”

  “Nice accent,” said Morgan.

  “Thank you,” replied Ramshawe. “Then the CIA gave the entire French staff the task of actually tracing him. And they located his family home, wife, children—the lot—in a tiny village up in the Pyrenees where he works as a mountain guide. And guess what?”

  “The French Secret Service were in that house when they got there.”

  “How d’you know that?”

  “Put yourself in their place: They’ve handpicked this superb Special Forces officer to mastermind their friend Nasir’s takeover of the country. He’s been out there training his troops for several months. He’s probably served in the French Secret Service himself. Everyone knows him. Then, suddenly, up pops a U.S. agent, from the CIA, in the middle of France, wanting to know who and where he is. Plainly the French will deny all knowledge of him and his whereabouts. But they know Madame Chasseur is up in the Pyrenees with her children. And they know the CIA is hot on the trail of this Frenchman who is smashing up the world’s economy. What would you do, young Ramshawe?”

  “I’d get up the bloody mountains real quick and get Jacques Gamoudi’s family out of there.”

  “Precisely, Ramshawe. And then what would you do?”

  “Dunno.”

  “In my judgment, you would have little choice. You’d have to assassinate Jacques Gamoudi, and probably his wife as well. Because th
ose two alone could tell the whole world what you had done.”

  “But I imagine Gamoudi was very highly paid by the French government to do no such bloody thing?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, Jimmy. And I expect the government’s secrets would be safe with him. But what if we got a hold of him?

  What if we threatened him with crimes against humanity or something. What if we got him to tell us what happened?”

  “Well, in that case the Frogs might want him dead.”

  “Exactly. And if they somehow assassinated him, they’d have to assassinate his wife, too. Because wives who know their husbands have been murdered are likely to have a lot to say.”

  “Christ, Arnie. You’re saying the French might right now be in pursuit of the Colonel?”

  “I should think very definitely. If we want him, you’d better tell George to look sharp about it.”

  Just then the radiant Kathy came in with coffee. She greeted Ramshawe warmly and asked Morgan if he’d like her to buy him a bullhorn, just in case she was ever out of range.

  The Admiral stood up and put his arm around her, saying to Ramshawe, “I can’t imagine how she puts up with me, can you?”

  The Lt. Commander decided this was not a question he need answer, but quipped anyway, “I’m afraid that’s the lifelong problem the lower deck has when they’re dealing with an Admiral.”

  “You’ll find a lifelong problem dealing with an Admiral’s wife if you’re not careful.” Kathy laughed as she swept off the quarter deck and went back to the kitchen. “By the way, are you staying for lunch?” she called back.

  “’Fraid not, Kathy. I’ve got to get back, and it’ll take me an hour in the traffic.”

  The Admiral sat back in his big chair by the fire. For a few moments he said nothing, apparently lost in thought. But then he did speak. “You know, Jimmy, this is a terrible thing France has done. I guess this Nasir character has told them they’ll have the inside track on Saudi oil once it’s up and running, maybe even an exclusive agency. And they’ve always bought a lot of military hardware from the French.

  “But you think about it: Can you imagine the United States doing something like that? Or Great Britain? Or the Aussies? For pure personal gain, to let the rest of the world go to hell for two years? Wiping the world’s most plentiful and best-priced oil right off the map? Bankrupting little nations? Damn near closing down Japan? Hurting just about everyone? And not caring? Jesus Christ. That takes a damn special nation.”

  “Arnie, are you certain in your own mind—I mean as certain as I am—that France is at the bottom of all this?”

  “I am certain that a group of rebel Saudis could not possibly have done this themselves. I am certain they had outside help, and I am certain that outside help came from France.”

  “Is that sufficiently certain to start taking action?”

  “Jimmy, I’m not the President. I’m not even an official government adviser. But if I were the President, I could not just sit back and see the industrial world go to hell while France sat back eating escargots and getting richer and richer off the Saudi oil industry. No. I could not do that.”

  Meanwhile, over at the White House, Admiral Morris was walking the President through the entire French scenario, explaining in detail how Le Chasseur was run to the ground.

  When he was finished, the President looked extremely worried—for all the reasons Admiral Morgan had pointed out to him. He was going to be blamed for the financial collapse in the United States, and on a global basis, he would probably bear the responsibility for the collapse of the free world’s economy, and some of the Third World’s.

  Generally speaking, through no fault of his own, President Paul Bedford stood on the verge of making a special kind of history.

  “You have any suggestions, George? I mean, what I might do? Since you and your assistant seem to be the only people in the country who understand what’s actually happening?”

  “Sir, I’m not a trained politician. And I’m not that good at thinking like one. My task is to find out what the hell’s happening, and then to try and interpret what might happen next. But if I were sitting in that chair of yours, I’d most certainly touch base with Admiral Morgan. He’s the best I’ve ever met at this type of thing. Especially if there’s a chance we may have to kick someone in the ass.”

  The President smiled. Five minutes later, just after Lt. Commander Ramshawe had left, the phone rang in the big house in Chevy Chase. One hour later, Admiral Morgan was back in the Oval Office, discussing with Paul Bedford another catastrophic collapse on the Nikkei, the Japanese stock exchange. In the four days since Saudi oil and gas stopped flowing, Japan’s energy analysts had been able to forecast their oncoming power grid shortfalls, and diminishing reserves of natural gas.

  It looked like a six-week problem. Which meant that on around May 10, the lights would go out in one of the biggest economies in the world. Japan’s reliance on Saudi oil had long bothered these analysts, and now they could see a gigantic coop of chickens coming home to roost.

  It would not be much different in the seething industrial hub of Taiwan. Nor on the west coasts of India and Pakistan, which stood directly opposite the main source of all their energy, the Strait of Hormuz, entrance to the Gulf.

  China seemed to have some supplies flowing continuously from Kazakhstan, but the People’s Republic was an enormous importer of Saudi oil, and right now Beijing was bracing itself for severe shortages of automobile fuel and electric power.

  Indonesia had some oil of its own, but it was still reliant on Saudi product. Canada was much the same. But Europe was in trouble. The Old World had hardly any energy resources, except for some high-producing coal mines in the east and a small amount of oil left in the North Sea. Which put Great Britain in a real spot. As bad as America’s.

  Russia was smiling, and so were some of her former satellites along the coast of the Black Sea. And South America could probably manage without the Saudis. But the interlinked global economies of the big players threatened everyone.

  As the Wall Street Journal observed that morning: “The ramifications of the crisis in the Saudi oil fields are very nearly boundless. The world’s leading stock markets have already shuddered, as millions of dollars have been wiped off share prices in Europe, the Far East, and the United States.

  “And the stark fact remains, this planet cannot function properly without a normal supply of oil. And for the next twelve months, there is not going to be a normal supply of oil. On a global scale, that means, the only thing it can mean—bankruptcies, both large and small, market collapses, blackouts, and the failure of banks and power companies all over the globe.”

  The Journal did its best with some illustrations of potential disasters—the big banks carrying a huge debt from an airline that cannot refuel its aircraft? The major automobile manufacturers who can no longer sell product to a market that’s run dry? The food industry struggling for energy to freeze and refrigerate its product? The national supermarket chains whose cold-storage facilities keep shutting down? The gas stations, the trucking corporations, oil tankers themselves?

  “What happens when the industrial world starts to shut down? No one knows the answer to that. The human race is unfailingly resilient and always resourceful. But, short of war, the human race has never faced anything quite like this. And some of the most powerful industrialists in the world are surely preparing for an extremely difficult time.”

  Both the President and Admiral Morgan had read the article. But their reactions were diametrically opposed. Paul Bedford went into defensive mode, wondering how he could distance himself from, and at the same time cope with, the crisis. Arnold Morgan’s mind raced ahead, to the time when the Saudi oil would come back on stream, and where the United States would stand at that time. He knew the solution to the problem rested right here in the present. Not next year.

  He sensed that now was the time for action. And before him stood the specter of France. Because no one cou
ld really blame some robed religious fanatic from the desert for wanting his country free of American influence. That was unfortunate but understandable.

  But France! What France had done was unforgivable. For, as sure as Arnold Morgan was sitting right here in the Oval Office, the French government had deliberately plunged the world into despair, entirely for her own gain and to the detriment of almost everyone else.

  The French government would naturally deny everything. But Arnold Morgan knew the President’s only chance was to come out fighting. And to accept that Saudi Arabia’s oil had become a world asset, not an Arab one. And that the industrial nations were right now waiting for the world’s policeman to draw his nightstick.

  The President understood that millions of Americans had not forgiven France for her dogmatic stand against the United States during the run-up to the crushing of the murderous dictator Saddam, in Iraq in 2003. Nor had they forgotten the demands France had made to be given a share of the rebuilding contracts.