I need him to look without preconceptions.
David steps back. “Matt, you’re right. That isn’t Mel…the eyes…”
To everyone else I say, “Mel has myopia in one eye and astigmatism in the other. Due to the corrective lenses she wears, if you’re looking straight on at her, one eye would appear larger than the other.”
I tap the screen. “This girl…she looks like Mel, but it’s not her.”
I almost feel dizzy from the range of emotions I’ve gone through during the past few minutes.
I say, “This girl’s eyes are perfect. My daughter is at the other site. And we’re going there, soon as we can, to get her.”
Chapter
111
Nafusa Mountains, Libya
Mel Keating is sitting in darkness, for a little while ago—with her moistened fingers—she unscrewed the sole lightbulb in her cell, leaving it in the socket. Glasses in her hand, she is forcing herself to relax, to listen, to think and be quiet.
Once Dad said, Whenever you feel trapped and helpless, take a deep, deep breath, and look at everything fresh. You might be surprised at what comes into view.
She tears up.
Dad, I’m doing my best, honest to God, she thinks. But I’m trapped and I’m scared, and I know what’s going to happen to me tonight, for real. No more fakery.
Help me, please.
Something flickers against the back of her neck.
Mel yells, slaps at the back of her neck, and puts her glasses back on.
Spiders.
Bugs.
Scorpions.
What the hell was that?
She fumbles in the darkness, her hand up above her—God, suppose there’s a rat up there, ready to bite my fingers?—and she finds the still-warm bulb, twists it tight, and blessed light comes back into her cell.
What the hell was on her neck?
There’s nothing on the floor.
She looks up. Nothing seems to be flying around.
But something was on her neck. She’s positive about that.
Mel really wants to keep standing but forces herself to go back to where she was sitting.
She sits down, both the light and her glasses on, and waits.
Low talk on the other side of the door from some of Asim’s men, who also use these old stables as living quarters.
A bit of music.
A muffled pop-pop-pop as someone fires off a rifle.
Mel freezes.
A slight tickle at the back of her neck.
She slowly brings her hand up there but doesn’t feel a thing.
But the tickle is still there.
Mel quickly stands up, walks to the wall behind her, and reaches for an area up near the ceiling. She licks her fingers and holds them up against the stone and dirt and—
A bit of a draft.
A slight breeze.
Mel frantically starts digging at the stone and dirt, and a trickle of soil begins to come out. The rock here is loose, and she digs and digs.
More dirt falls.
The draft increases.
Oh, God, please, she thinks.
Mel goes to the wooden shelf and takes everything off, and then works the wood free from a couple of metal stanchions. She balances the shelf on a rock and jams her good foot down, breaking it into pieces.
She picks up the largest piece, with a sharp jagged edge at the end, and goes back to work.
The earlier trickle of stone and dirt nearly becomes a flood. An old chimney, water stanchion, or feed trough was once there and had been sealed up.
Mel slams the wood into the widening opening, again and again.
The door to the room is so thick she’s sure she can’t be heard.
Good.
She’s getting the hell out of here.
Chapter
112
Sfax-Thyna air base, Tunisia
To our NSA rep, I say, “Claire, we need anything and everything you can pull up on that site.”
“On it, Matt,” she says, and her fingers fly across the keyboard.
Our little group is clustered behind her, and there are whispers and I hold my hand up and say, “Shut your damn traps. Claire is working. Don’t disturb her.”
Silence, then, as Claire whispers to herself and toggles various screens and links, and at about the time I realize what she’s looking at, she’s already moved on to something else three links down the line.
“Here,” she says.
“Here” is an overhead shot of a mountain terrain, boulders and narrow gorges, two flat areas separated by what looks to be a rock wall, and slides.
No vegetation.
Or vehicles.
Or buildings.
“Claire, what’s the date and provenance?” I ask.
“Sorry, Matt,” she says. “Ten years old. Defense Mapping Agency. Best I can do.”
I say, “Damn it, there has to be more out there than just this.”
Nick says, “Have you tried—”
Voice sharp, she says, “You got a better idea? Do you? Any of you? Anybody want to sit in front of my keyboard?”
Crap, I think.
“Sorry, Claire,” I say, wanting to keep her straight and focused. “You’re the expert here. Everybody, back away. Let her do her job.”
She exhales in a loud sigh of frustration, goes back to work on the keyboard, and I see:
Lines of code.
North Africa maps.
Global orbital elements.
More lines of code.
Claire says, “I need a sat phone. Now.”
Nick ducks away, comes back, and gives his sat phone to her. She takes it, chews on her lower lip for a moment, and starts pressing in a series of numbers while we speak in hushed voices behind her.
“Guys?” she says. “Love you all, but shut the fuck up, okay?”
We all shut up.
The phone is apparently answered, and in a flat voice, Claire says, “Access.”
A second or two pass. She says, “Bravo, Oscar, Oscar, November, Echo. One, four, niner, four.”
I hear a plane take off nearby. I can hear David breathing next to me.
“Extension twelve.”
A few more seconds, and Claire’s tone instantly changes. “Hey, Josh, how’s it going in Cheyenne? Missing daylight? No? Well, your complexion is so fair you’d probably burst into flames if you went to the beach.”
She laughs.
Nick looks to me and I shoot him a glance to keep his stance, and to keep his mouth shut.
Claire says, “Hey, Josh. Need a favor. Off the books. It—”
She stops.
“Josh,” she says. “Josh…c’mon, look, do I have to remind you that you owe me one? Do I? You would have never gotten to the twelfth level of Universal Conflict without me…”
She waits, rubbing her eyes and forehead.
“Josh, don’t make me beg…okay? Don’t…”
Waiting.
Waiting.
Mel, so damn close…so damn far away.
She sits up, looks to me, smiles. “Josh, perfect. You’re a dear…honest. Okay, I need a full sweep of the following location, all angles, all spectrums.”
Claire slowly reads off the coordinates provided to us by Ahmad Bin Nayef.
Then repeats them.
Waits.
“Thanks for the read-back, Josh,” she says. “You’ve got a Jason that will be able to give us a good live view in about ten minutes. That’s all I need.”
Another pause.
“Sure, but you can get away with it, I know,” she says. “The damn thing still has stabilization problems. I know you’ve got a calibration schedule for that bird. Just do it ahead of schedule. Say this is just a test run, that’s all.”
She laughs again. “How do I know that? Do you forget where I spend my time? Okay, I’ll let you get to work…and I owe you big-time. Really big-time.”
Claire disconnects the sat phone, hands it back to Nick, and t
hen bends over at the waist. “Man, I feel like I’m going to hurl…wow.”
She sits back up, rubs her eyes, and says, “Okay, let’s see what’s what.”
On the screen it suddenly goes black.
A line of green letters and numbers appears at the top of the screen and—
Crisp overhead view of mountains and valleys and ridges in faint green illumination. The view slowly slides up to the top of the screen and I get a funny feeling at the base of my skull. As president, you often get a “behind the curtains” look at what our military and intelligence systems can deliver, and this is definitely one of those times. It’s like we’re hovering maybe fifty or sixty feet above the ground.
Live.
At night.
“Buildings,” Claire says. “Here we go. There’s been a lot of changes from ten years back.”
Alejandro whispers, “God.”
There are six buildings in a semicircle, apparently stone or brick, various shapes and sizes. A flat area in front, fuzzy white shapes moving about, what looks to be a stone wall to the south, and a flat stretch of mesa before it drops off.
“People,” she says. “And look…road leading up from the left. Which is west.”
Those shapes down there. Could one be Mel? I squeeze my hands.
“Vehicles,” she says. “Four trucks.”
Nick says, “I got a head count of twelve.”
Alejandro says, “Down the road. Two guards, one on each side. Flanking.”
I say, “Claire, you’re recording this, right?”
“Uh-huh,” she says.
I look at the buildings, seeing how they seem to glow from the night-vision capabilities of the overhead surveillance satellite.
Six buildings.
But where is Mel?
We can probably hit one building, maybe two, without getting overwhelmed. But in the event of firepower and attack, does Asim have a plan to spirit Mel away? Or shoot her before she’s rescued? Do we have time to maintain surveillance on all six buildings to find the one that’s holding Mel?
Where—
“What’s that?” I ask.
Claire says, “What?”
I lean over her, gently tap at the screen.
“Right there,” I say. “That.”
Claire minimizes the live broadcast and goes to a video recording.
Plays it back, enlarges it, sharpens it.
David says, “I’ll be damned.”
From the largest building, one that seems to have been built right into the base of a rocky peak, a faint line seems to extend out to the flat stone and dirt in the middle of the compound.
And at the end of the line, going right up to the building’s entrance, an arrowhead shape has been scraped away.
Someone’s made a straight arrow in the dirt, pointing right to the center building.
Like with a stick or by dragging a foot.
My smart daughter.
Good job, Mel.
“Mel’s there,” I say. “That building. Time to get to work, people.”
Part
Five
Chapter
113
The raid on Nafusa
After an hour of briefing, planning, and more planning, we go out into the night in a quick moving line, down the runway to the Tunisian Army’s Black Hawk helicopter, its rotors already in motion. We’re all geared up and armed, pretty similar in terms of what we’re carrying, but each of us has our own little quirks and preferences in how we’ve prepped.
When it comes to arms, I’m carrying a fully automatic Colt M4 5.56mm rifle with an infrared laser sight, and holstered at my side is a SIG Sauer 9mm P226 pistol; extra magazines for each gun are secured in pouches. On my head is a level III high-cut ballistic helmet, with an ATN PVS14 night-vision device extended up into the air. I’m also wearing Point Blank level III body armor, and on my tactical vest I have a variety of other gear: water bottles, IFAK (individual first aid kit), QuikClot combat gauze for bleeding control, spare batteries, an Ontario MOD Mark 3 knife, a Gerber multi-tool, and a small rucksack with a couple of other key items.
Funny thing: the gear is heavy and bulky, but there’s a muscle memory in putting it back on, and I don’t feel burdened at all, walking along this runway pavement.
I feel like I can walk all night.
We all have Motorola SRX 2200 single-band handheld radios, frequencies already keyed in, and Peltor ComTac headsets so we can talk to each other on the ground.
The communications tonight will be easy, first names only, and our Black Hawk helicopter pilot is going by his SEAL-issued nickname of Joe.
KISS: Keep it simple, stupid.
Claire is carrying an extra weapon, a .308 bolt-action Remington rifle with mounted scope, since she’s our sniper tonight. After a brief but heated discussion back at the maintenance shed, it turns out she’s a better shot than all of us.
It’s two hours after sunset. In usual times, we would go in at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., the best time to hit when there’s a minimum of awake and alert bad guys, but this isn’t a usual time. I know where Mel is. I’m taking a gamble, going in early.
Closer to the helicopter, bits of dirt and gravel are tossed our way, we’re bending our heads, and I remember the last couple of hours back in our temporary quarters.
Looking at the screen of Claire’s laptop in hopes of determining means of entry and exit, Joe pointed to a small area to the west of the compound and said, “This wadi here. I can drop you here. It’s about a klick and a half away from Asim’s place. It’s narrow enough and a thousand meters lower. That should mask the noise enough that you won’t be noticed.”
I nodded and said, “Here. This flat area in front of the buildings, just beyond that low stone wall…we’ll mark it with IR glow sticks when it’s time to exfil. Prepare to pick us up within forty-five minutes after you drop us off. We can’t stay there any longer.”
Joe said, “Oh, I wish I had a door gunner.”
Nick, Alejandro, and I kept our mouths politely shut. We were all glad he didn’t have a door gunner because we haven’t trained with one, and we don’t know how good Joe’s door gunner might be. It’d be a hell of a thing to get to the exfil area and be cut down by friendly fire.
Nick said, “These two guard locations. Alejandro and I will leap ahead, eliminate them before the final staging.”
I checked my watch.
It was time.
David said, “Matt, just so there’s no confusion. Rules of engagement?”
I said, “This is a rescue. Nothing else. I don’t care if we stumble across documents or piles of hard drives or blueprints for a dirty bomb. Mel is our sole objective. No prisoners are coming back with us. Nor bodies.”
They all nodded in acknowledgment, and I was struck by the composition of this odd group: a Tunisian Special Forces pilot, two SEALs, an NSA field operative, a Secret Service agent, and a former POTUS. Band of strange brothers and a sister indeed.
I added, “Except for Mel, there are no innocents up there. Armed or unarmed, running away or running toward us, kill ’em all.”
As I get close to the Black Hawk helicopter, a spasm of doubt hits me, just at the last moment. Am I doing the right thing? Is this really a rescue mission, or is it an attempt by an angry and humiliated dad to get payback for what’s happened to his daughter?
A quick phone call by me, Nick, or Alejandro to JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, telling them where Mel is located would get the professionals up and running.
But that’s the key point.
Up and running.
Unlike what some History Channel programs might have viewers believe, Special Forces aren’t stored somewhere, geared up and ready, straining against a leash, ready to head out at a moment’s notice. No, there would have to be activation, planning, preparation, phone calls up the chain of command, and maybe—just maybe—as the sun rises tomorrow, a unit might be on its way to the Nafusa Mountains.
Too late
.
One by one, we climb up into the helicopter, take our positions along the canvas seats. Overhead is a dangling headset with a mic, and I take my helmet off, put the headset on, and say, “Joe, Matt here. We’re all on board.”
“Thanks, Matt,” he says, and the helicopter’s crew chief slides the door shut, gives us a smile and a thumbs-up, and we wait.
And wait.
And wait.
“Joe, what’s going on?” I ask over the intercom.
“Ah, Mr. President, a slight problem,” he says.
“What is it?”
A little hiss of static. “It seems the tower isn’t satisfied that this is an unannounced night training flight. And a colonel is racing over here right now to stop us.”
Nick Zeppos is the only other one here who’s wearing the Black Hawk’s comm gear, and he catches my eye, looks concerned.
I say, “Joe, what are you planning?”
He chuckles. “I’m planning a communications problem, that’s all.”
The pitch and sound of the Black Hawk’s engines increase, and there’s a slight sway as we take off and head out into the night, to the east.
Mel, I think, just a few more minutes.
Just a few more minutes.
Chapter
114
Mel Keating takes a quick break, eyes her progress. By working with the jagged piece of wooden shelving, she has widened the hole so that she can put her head and shoulders up into it, but her hands are blistered and cut.
So what?
Mel takes a long swallow of warm bottled water and then stands on the pile of dirt and rock so she can work with the wood up higher.
Shove, shove, shove.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
Rocks and dirt and bits of stone shower down, getting into her hair and mouth, and she keeps on frantically digging.
Scrape.
Shove.
Mel waits.
What’s that?
Voices, from beyond the door.
Mel’s breathing quickens.
If the door is unlocked and someone comes in, what can she say? That she was suddenly struck by inspiration from Mom’s career and decided to start an archaeological dig in the last hours of her life?
The President's Daughter Page 39