Hunter Killer (2005)

by Robinson Patrick

  The racket from the rotors was still echoing, unseen, in the mountain air when the three of them reached a point where Jacques Gamoudi told them to unclip their packs and haul out the mountaineering gear.

  He swiftly uncoiled the ropes, hammered in the securing crampons, and made the lines fast. He then looped the harness expertly around Rashood’s chest, clipped on the climbing ropes, handed over the gloves, and told Rashood to assay over the edge and down the rock face for forty-seven feet exactly and then swing into a cave.

  “Who, me?” said Rashood. “What if there isn’t a cave?”

  “There is,” replied Gamoudi. “I’ve been in it dozens of times. Go now, feet first, and hang on tight to both lines.”

  Rashood slithered over the edge, leaned back, and began, effectively, to walk backward down the sheer cliff face.

  “You’re secure up here…this’ll hold you, even if you fall.”

  “I’m not going to fall,” Rashood called back. “I’m going straight into that bloody cave when I find it.”

  Colonel Gamoudi chuckled and watched for the little black sticky tape he had attached to the line to reach the edge. When it did so, he called, “Right there, Ravi! Right in front of you.”

  “Got it!” yelled the General. “I’m in!”

  “Great work!” called Gamoudi. “Now unclip and send the line back. Okay, Shakira, you’re next…and I want you to understand: I have the spare line attached to your belt, and it’s playing out through this fitting. You CANNOT fall. Even if the rope broke, which it wouldn’t because you weigh less than a ton, you still could not fall.”

  Shakira was terrified. She watched Gamoudi clip on the harness, then the lines. She pulled on the gloves and slithered backward to the edge. However, the thought of leaning back was too much and she just kept scrabbling at the rock face with her feet, until she felt her husband’s hands grab her and haul her into the cave. She was trembling like a songbird’s heart.

  Gamoudi checked that the lines were set for the climb back, and then he went over the edge, hot-roping it down in five long strides, landing dexterously on the front ridge of the cave.

  “Have you done that a few times before?” asked Rashood.

  “Just a couple,” grinned the French Colonel. “I could do that when I was nine years old.”

  Ten minutes later, the first of the Cougars came rattling around the mountain, about 400 yards from where the three fugitives sat at the back of the cave, thirty feet from the entrance. It was impossible for anyone to see into the cold gloom of the place, and the dark brown of their lines outside made their climbing equipment invisible. Even the crampons were black.

  But Rashood feared the heat-seeking radars, and he told the others to flatten themselves against the floor of the cave as far back as possible. The lead helicopter came past twice more, and intermittently, throughout the afternoon, they could hear the search continuing.

  Just before dusk both Cougars flew once more, slowly across the west face of the mountain. Rashood was relieved they did not fire a couple of rockets straight into the cave, as he himself would most certainly have done if he’d had even an inkling that his quarry was inside. But perhaps they didn’t.

  As night fell, Jacques Gamoudi hammered one of the crampons into the hard rock of the wall and made the climbing rope fast. He clipped on, and with a bag of crampons attached to his belt, he moved out onto the rock face, left of the entrance. Secured now by two ropes, he began the climb up, hammering in a stairway of steel crampons for Rashood and Shakira to use to follow him.

  At the top he dropped the rope down for Shakira and called for her to clip it to her harness. He half pulled her, and Shakira half climbed her way to the top, following the zigzagging line of crampons expertly smacked into the mountain by Jacques Gamoudi.

  Rashood brought up the rear, faster than Shakira but not like a true mountaineer. In fact, the Hamas C-in-C looked mightily relieved to be standing on firm ground rather than in an eagle’s nest, 2,000 feet above terra firma.

  The next leg of the journey was a long four-day haul through the wildest lands, over the Ouimeksane Mountain range and down to the deep blue waters of the d’Ifni Lake. But they were no longer being pursued, and the days passed easily. They hit the tiny village of Taliouine on the morning of April 23, purchased a hot meal of spiced lamb and rice in the town’s only restaurant, and bought the proprietor’s car for 30,000 dirhams.

  Three hours later, after a fast run down the P-32 highway, they reached the outskirts of Agadir. It was 3 P.M. Gamoudi touched base with the Shiloh, suggesting that they send in the ship to meet him on the dock in five hours, after dark.

  The comms room informed him that the cell phone would now be connected to that of the SEAL team leader, Lt. Cdr. Brad Taylor, who was bringing in an eight-man squad for the getaway. “Just keep hitting the GPS beam so we know exactly where you are—every few minutes after 1930.”

  Colonel Gamoudi thanked the American communications officer and spoke briefly to Lt. Commander Taylor.

  “Try to get down there and get your bearings before we arrive,” he said. “But don’t risk anything.”

  “I’m afraid I have no idea what the place looks like, and I have no chart or even a map,” replied the Colonel. “How about I touch base in three hours? I’ll know more then.”

  “Perfect,” replied the SEAL boss. “And remember, they’ve got a couple of Moroccan Navy warships at one end of the harbor. We’ll be staying well away from them. Check out the other end, to the north. We’ll talk in three.”

  Out there on the edge of the town, Gamoudi could see no sign of his French pursuers, but of course that did not mean they weren’t there. He gassed up the car and parked it in a deserted, unobtrusive square above the town. Then they all changed out of their mountain gear and into the light pants, sneakers, and shirts.

  It was much warmer down here. They strolled down to the port, where they were shocked to see maybe twenty or even thirty French commandos standing around in small groups all along the docks.

  They instantly turned back up the narrow, busy street, secure in the knowledge that no one knew them, no one would recognize them, and no one had any idea they were traveling as a group of three. Nonetheless, it might not be easy to make a break tonight, and board a boat in the harbor, not even with the help of the fabled U.S. Navy SEALs.

  And so they waited, out on the edge of town. At 7:30 Colonel Gamoudi beamed up his GPS position, and told Lt. Commander Taylor he was about to walk down to the dock, and would meet the SEALs, as agreed, on the south side of the north harbor, the one filled with little blue fishing boats and surrounded by a rocky sea wall.

  Gamoudi had seen a tall yellow crane on the shore side. They would use that as a beacon.

  “We’re less than a half mile offshore,” said the Lt. Commander.

  “We’re gonna cut the engine and row in.”

  “Copy,” said the Colonel.

  In company with Rashood and Shakira, he walked on down toward the water. Out in the offshore waters, Brad Taylor, in company with four other SEALs, went over the side, complete with wet suits, Draeger breathing apparatus, flippers, and sealed waterproof automatic rifles.

  There were 400 yards left to swim. They headed straight for the crane, all five of them, maintaining a depth of twelve feet below the surface. Brad Taylor wanted an armed guard on that dock, and he was not going to get one by driving the big inflatable up to the jetty and tying up beneath the lights, in full view of anyone who might be watching.

  They landed on the pitch dark beach, around the corner from the seawall, and took off their flippers, clipping them to their belts. Each man kept his black rubber hood on, which was damned uncomfortable but rendered them almost invisible.

  They hovered in the darkness, taking up positions in the construction areas that seemed to surround the entire place. Taylor checked the GPS. So far as he could see, Colonel Gamoudi was walking within 200 yards, straight toward him.

  Taylor
hit the button of his phone and Gamoudi answered. “How many of you?” asked Brad.

  “Still three. My two friends,” replied Gamoudi.

  Suddenly, the SEAL boss could see them walking through a shadowy narrow gap between two buildings. As he watched, an armed patrol of three uniformed men stepped from the shadows and challenged them.

  “Shit,” muttered Taylor, and signaled for two of his team to follow him along the other side of the alleyway. He watched from the darkness. Gamoudi and his companions appeared to be answering the uniformed men’s questions.

  Taylor knew these soldiers were French, and his orders were to take no chances. He hissed to his team to open fire. No mistakes. The chatter of the submachine guns was instant. The three French commandos went down like three sacks of laundry.

  Lt. Commander Taylor burst out of his cover and crossed the rough ground. “GAMOUDI!” he snapped. “Which one?”

  “Right here,” replied the Colonel.

  “Let’s go, buddy!” And with that, all four of them took off toward the water, leaving an astounded Rashood and Shakira gawping at the running figures, three of them with scuba kit on their backs.

  Out of sheer habit, General Rashood leaned down and seized one of the rifles on the ground and led Shakira back into the construction site and toward the town. Their waiting car, up in the square above town, would take them back down the main highway to Marrakesh airport. For them it was over.

  It was not, however, over for Jacques Gamoudi. Two more French commandos came racing along the dock following the sound of the gunfire. One of them kept going straight into the rough ground, toward his dead comrades. The other drew his pistol and came straight at the U.S. SEALs. But that was like charging a full-grown Bengal tiger: they cut him down in his tracks.

  The SEALs reached the edge of the seawall. “JUMP, GAMOUDI, JUMP!” yelled Brad Taylor. All six of them leaped over the side and into the harbor, bobbing up in the middle of the front row of fishing boats. Gamoudi, gasping for air, was not that great a swimmer, but the others were experts.

  Behind one of the boats, they clipped on their flippers and rifles, which were stowed in waterproof back holsters, and began to swim, kicking fast for the harbor mouth, each of them with one hand on Jacques Gamoudi. The Colonel was lying motionless on his back, being dragged through the water faster than an Olympic one-hundred-meter freestyler.

  There were only three hundred yards to go—that was thirty powerful kicks from these guys. And at the end of that, Jacques Gamoudi was dragged inboard the twenty-four-foot-long inflatable.

  They kicked the twin Yamaha outboards into life, and the boat surged to the west, making almost forty knots across the calm water, the lights of Agadir growing fainter behind them.

  Taylor took the cell phone off the dashboard and hit one button. And for the second time in a week there was a loud burst of applause in the comms room of the U.S.S. Shiloh, for the same three identical words…We got him.

  EPILOGUE

  THURSDAY, MAY 20, 11:00 A.M.

  UNITED NATIONS

  NEW YORK CITY

  Col. Jacques Gamoudi stood before the General Assembly in one of the most extraordinary sessions ever to take place inside the great round hall of delegates. He was surrounded by bulletproof glass on all four sides.

  There were seventy-four different interpreters in the UN’s operations room. The glass was the idea of Adm. Arnold Morgan, as a continuous world precaution against the lawlessness of France, whose representatives were not present. The Admiral had also framed the questions that would be directed to Colonel Gamoudi by the soft-spoken North African diplomat who now served as Secretary-General.

  The interrogation lasted for two hours, and by the end of it the international reputation of the Republic of France lay in shreds. Among the exchanges, which were heard around the world, was the following:

  Q: And did you personally command that large assault force in Riyadh that overthrew the Saudi King?

  A: Yes, sir, I did.

  Q: And who hired you to do so?

  A: The French Government, sir.

  Q: And how much were you paid by the French Government?

  A: Fifteen million dollars, sir.

  Q: And could you prove that beyond any doubt whatsoever?

  A: I could.

  Q: And who was responsible for the destruction of the Saudi oil fields and the loading docks?

  A: The French Navy, sir. Two submarines, the Améthyste and the Perle. Frogmen and submerged-launch cruise missiles.

  Q: And the destruction of the King Khalid Air Base?

  A: French Special Forces, sir. Ferried in from Djibouti. Specialists, trained in France, blew the aircraft to pieces.

  Q: And could you name the French Commanders?

  A: Yes, sir, if you wish.

  Q: And why have you decided to betray your country?

  A: Because they have tried to assassinate me after I carried out my orders, direct from the President, to the letter.

  Q: And how were you saved from the assassins?

  A: By the United States Navy, sir. I owe them my life.

  Q: And do you know why they saved you?

  A: Yes, sir. In order that the world should know the truth of France’s actions.

  Q: And will you ever be returning to France?

  A: No, sir.

  At 3:25 that afternoon, on behalf of the General Assembly, the United Nations Secretary-General apologized unconditionally to the President of the United States for the previous directive condemning the actions of the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. This was formally accepted by the U.S. Ambassador to the UN.

  The following morning, Admiral Morgan himself opened negotiations with King Nasir for the U.S.A. to take future charge of the Saudi oil industry. The Saudis would still receive the same money, but the U.S.A. would be responsible for security and the marketing of the product worldwide.

  Admiral Morgan was in fact surprised by the ease with which the negotiations proceeded, the relaxed way the King cut the French right out of the equation, confirming, for the moment at least, that he wanted nothing more to do with the Republic of France.

  Arnold Morgan thought the King’s attitude bordered on treachery toward his old partners in crime, in the overthrow of the free-spending former Saudi royal household. But then, he was not party to a conversation between the King and the French President, which unhappily ended thus:

  “I am afraid, Mr. President, your conduct toward a very close friend of mine is entirely unacceptable to me. As a Bedouin, I cannot condone such betrayal of a good and loyal soldier and, I believe, a friend to us both.

  “If it helps you, I should remind you I was a student of the works of E. M. Forster. I wrote my English literature thesis on him at Harvard. That, perhaps, is all you need to know.”

  But the French President did not know. And probably never would.

  TWO YEARS LATER

  BOISE, IDAHO

  The two Royal Saudi Air Force Boeings touched down lightly, one after the other, on the runway at the little airport south of the state capital of Idaho. Here, in one of the great mountainous regions of the American Midwest, was the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Jack McCaffrey.

  Jack and Giselle stood in the doorway of the tiny arrivals lounge awaiting their guest, who was, incidentally, accompanied by an entourage of forty-seven family and staff members—kid’s stuff compared with the retinue of 3,000 that had often traveled with his predecessor on the Saudi throne.

  The guests would be filling the biggest of the local hotels, but the King himself insisted on staying at the McCaffreys’ home for three days. We fought a great battle together, I stay under your roof. And, it was a pretty reasonable roof for the King to…well, pitch his tent: a beautiful white-columned colonial at the edge of the small city, with the snowcapped Sawtooth Mountains rising spectacularly to 6,000 feet to the east and then, beyond, to 11,000 feet.

  The family had come here to Idaho with their two boys immed
iately after the United Nations hearings were concluded. Gamoudi, in different but soon to become beloved mountains, had never been happier.

  With his great fortune, he had bought the big house and a large ski chalet over in Sun Valley, and set up a chain of three ski shops and mountain guide centers, which immediately prospered.

  The boys, now Andy and John, had settled in swiftly in American schools. Gamoudi spent hundreds of cheerful hours with them and Giselle, exploring the great Idaho peaks above the hundreds of cold, blue lakes.

  There were a few very large bears up there, which meant he never ventured far without his old hunting knife, the one that long ago had ended the life of the Mossad hit man at the Marseille restaurant, in a faraway country to which he would never return.