to, that the envoy’s wife had made, to inform her husband that she and their daughters were being held in protective custody by a secret intelligence group.
As I sat there on the bench looking all around like a normal tourist, I was also plotting my escape path, which for me is a force of habit. I thought to myself, I know once I get them out of the secret hideaway building, there would be absolutely no reason why I couldn’t walk right down the street to the Green Square, over to the Castle and get into the plane behind the Castle and leave. I can see hundreds of people just walking around which makes a perfect cover for me and the ladies. I am told that on any given night, there are thousands of people out on Green Square and we would blend right in with everyone else on the street. Well, at least that was the plan.
From my bench location, I had a good view of the entire harbor and especially the far eastern end of the harbor where I had landed several hours ago. In the moonlight reflection on the water in the harbor was the shadow of the flying boat bobbing in the waves. Heather had done her job of silently sneaking into the harbor without attracting too much attention to herself and anchored the “The Mississippi Goose Flying Boat.” Her instructions were to just sit tight and wait at the edge of the harbor for me to do my thing. When I rescue the ladies, I will radio her and she will on a moments notice, move the flying boat up to the castle, pick us up and we all would get the hell out of dodge. Once we rescued the envoy’s family and were airborne, we were scheduled to fly along the coast to a prearranged place on Egyptian soil and turn the ladies over to Egyptian authorities who would be waiting for them.
I must have sat on that bench for about 20 minutes, just becoming familiar with the area. I finally decided that it was time to make my move and I got up from my seat and slowly strolled down Al Fat’h Street passed the illuminated Castle Museum. I passed over the crosswalk and strolled over to the huge open Green Square acting like any other tourist looking around enjoying the sites. I strolled amongst thousands of people of all ages sitting on motorbikes, in cars, on bicycles, people just basically walking and milling around the Green Square that evening. I strolled across the huge open square to the crosswalk at Al Mukhtar Street and over the pedestrian walkway. I continued along the illuminated sidewalk, along the arched arcaded green and white painted building on Al Mukhtar Street for about one block to Al Mada Street. At Al Mada, which turned out to be a dark, very poorly lit, back alleyway tucked away between a sea of white painted two story buildings. It was a real great place to get jumped by someone. As I started walking up the dirty cobbled stone back street, I saw in the distance, the illuminated arched top of my target building. Just as I was briefed, it was surrounded with a dark brownish iron fence set on top of a two foot brown stone wall with sandstone columns either side of the fence. As I slowly strolled past the stone wall, I noticed that the courtyard was poorly lit and the front gate was unlocked and partially open with no intercom system and no outside cameras, which was a good sign.
My target building looked quite normal and you wouldn’t have suspected that it was a place of death. Well, people are held here and most likely taken for a ride and killed at another location. But, it still just looked like a normal building tucked away off a back street with well landscaped gardens, with a fence, green lawn, palm trees and scrubs; nothing out of the ordinary. Even though it was pretty dark except for an occasional street light and the illumination of lights from other buildings, I knew from experience that I was most likely being watched. You just don’t walk up to the front door of a secret hideaway house and knock on the door and ask if anyone is home.
As I walked past the building, I started plotting my entrance into the building. I was especially looking for cameras and guards and much to my surprise from what I could see, there was nothing. I thought this was very interesting. I passed the building and continued on down the street for a hundred yards or so and stopped near some bushes at the other end of the brown iron fence where no one could see me, and especially from my target house.
I stepped back out of the street, back along the iron fence, out of sight and into the darkness. I put down my travel bag and I took off the dark shirt, folded it up and put it in the bag. I felt around in the bag and pulled out my hood and mask. I pulled the hood down over my head and attached the mask over my face so that I was completely covered. I opened my travel bag and pulled out the two 9 mm guns and holstered them in my uniform jacket. I reached back into my bag and pulled out two pocket guns and put them in my jacket pocket. I pulled out my 24 inch sword and slipped the case straps over both shoulders with the sword on my back and the handle hanging above my shoulders, and clipped the straps together in the middle of my chest. I pulled out my blow gun and took a dart out of its protective box and put it in the mouthpiece end of the blowgun. I clipped the dirt box to the outside top of my travel bag for easy access when I needed a new dart.
I was ready for action.
I put my hands on the iron gates atop the stone wall and rose up on the toes of my feet and looked over the stone wall into the compound. I was looking especially for guards or cameras and I saw nothing. I thought it was very interesting that nobody seemed to be around. I climbed upon the stone wall and stepped over the brown iron fence and down onto the ground where I sat down to have a look around in the dark shadows of the wall. It was all quiet, which was the way I wanted to keep it. In the distance, between several palm trees, I could see the arched doorway that led to the steps to the main compound. I sneaked across the lawn over to the trees for cover and then up to the doorway and entered.
Inside the doorway, I could see that the stone steps had a small two foot high stone wall all the way up the steps which would provide cover for me. I got down on all fours and began to climb the steps so that in the darkness if anyone was watching or watching with cameras, they couldn’t see me in the dark shadows of the wall. At the top of the steps, I laid down on my belly while I paused by the last step for a minute, next to the wall and had a good look into the darken compound. In the distance, I could see a set of six arches shaped connected columns ahead of me that I had to pass through to get into the building. I couldn’t see any cameras, there were no guards so far and it was still all very quiet. I got up on my feet and moved forward silently in a fast walk the 50 to 60 feet to the six arches and paused by one of the columns. I thought, so far, so good.
From where I was standing next to the column, I could see a short flight of steps that led into the building. I continued to watch and look all around for guards and cameras. I even turned my head so I could listen for human sounds, but I could hear nothing, no one appeared to be around. I thought this is very strange, as it was supposed to be a hideaway place for an intelligence agency, but no-one appears to be here. I sneaked up the steps into the hallway of the main building. The white painted arched hallway led me to another open air courtyard inside the building.
As I started to enter the open air courtyard, I paused by the doorway and leaned up against the wall. I looked into the courtyard; the floor was a mosaic of Roman style tiles with white square clay pots with small trees dotted about the floor. The building had an arcade of arches supported by columns forming a gallery. The white Roman arches span from column to column going all the way around inside the courtyard. The second floor balcony was also another set of white Roman arches also spanning from column to column with iron banister railings between columns continuing around the courtyard. Between each set of columns were doorways to rooms with what appeared to be air conditioners mounted in the wall above each door.
As I stood at the entrance to the courtyard, I could hear distant voices echoing off the walls. People were talking from what appeared to be the second floor balcony above me. I slowly moved around the courtyard to a point where I could get a look upstairs, but staying under the second floor balcony for cover so no one above could see me. I eventually got into a position where I could see the second floor balcony above the entrance where I came in. Sure enough, t
here stood two big hairy men in the doorway. I thought, well, we now know where the envoy’s wife and daughters are being held. I asked myself, are these guys guarding a room or an entrance to a hall with other rooms off the main hall.
While I was pondering this matter, I heard footsteps coming down the hallway from the front entrance to the courtyard where I had just came in from. The courtyard was not well lit so I crouched behind a big planter and watched.
In the entrance doorway walked a man carrying a tray of food. He ducked into the doorway beside the entrance and I could hear his feet shuffle as he was going up the steps. I kept watching and I saw him come out the doorway on the second floor by the guards and stop in front of the two hairy men.
They talked to him for a few minutes and looked over the tray of food. I watched the guy with the tray exit into the hallway behind the two hairy men. It was only seconds and I could hear a distant knock on the door and voices. The guy with the tray said “room service” and I heard the door open. I couldn’t see down the hall, but it sounded like he turned over the tray to a third person. The guy walked back out to the hallway, passed the two guards and down the steps and out of the front entrance way.
I thought to myself, ok, we have two guys on guard duty, most likely one or two people on the inside of the room as minders, and the minder opened the door to the words “room service”.
So, I started thinking about my options and how I could take out these two guards without one of them setting off an alarm.
At my current position, I would have about a 60 to 70 feet shot with a blow gun, which is no problem, but most likely the other guard would see his partner fall and raise the alarm. I could make some noise and maybe one of them would come down the steps to investigate and then I could shoot him.
I could go up the stairs and maybe distract one of them and shoot them, one at a time.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked the last idea, because I wanted to drag everybody into one room to hide them.
So, I looked around and found a couple of small rocks and put them in my pocket.
The next thing I needed to do was get back around to the front entrance where I could go up the stairs. So slowly, I started working my way back around to the first floor arcade to the front entrance where I came in.
It only took me a few minutes to arrive back at the front entrance. I looked into the hallway entrance of the stairs and the stairs turned out to be a one light bulb lit stairway which was subdued and very dimly lit which was ideal for me.
With a blow gun in hand, I started quietly easing myself up the stairs to a point where I could see the two guards who were busy talking amongst themselves.
I put my bag down gently on the stairs, trying not to make a sound. I reached down and repositioned the attached box of darts so that they were available for fast access and got ready to take out these two guys. I pulled a rock out of my pocket and pulled back my arm to throw it and then I heard from down the hall, a door open.
I heard from the distant hallway “come here” in Arabic and with that, one of the guards disappeared down the hall.
I thought perfect.
I raised my blow gun and took good aim and blew down the mouthpiece. The dart hit the guard right in his left arm and he looked down at the dart and just slid down the wall to the floor fast asleep.
I opened my dart box and took out another dart and inserted it in the mouthpiece. I
The Tripoli Mission Page 3