Two vehicles, one a large stake body truck and the other a smaller jeep, entered the frame. The jeep drove directly under the wing to the right rear of the jet, the larger truck swinging wide around.
“Note the men getting off the truck,” Bud suggested. “Uniforms.”
Each man wore a dark olive drab uniform and carried an assault rifle. They formed a rough oval around the 747, directed by one of the officers from the jeep. About every ten meters the soldiers stood, their rifles at their chests.
“Mr. President,” Bud said, freezing the recording once again, “there are three things to take note of here. First, the soldiers are regular army troops — not militia or second-line. General Granger pointed that out to us. They’re wearing full uniforms and battle dress, and those are AK74s. Newer rifles. Their second-line troops don’t have those yet.
“Second, it appears to be a single unit. Probably a platoon. These”—Bud pointed to a few points on the screen—“are the officers, probably equivalent to our own NCOs, and the platoon commander… here. The Libyans are notorious for using hodgepodge formations with a variety of equipment for ground missions. Granted, this is somewhat of a special occasion for them, but it is an indication of the seriousness. Plus, this officer from the jeep is a full colonel. We can tell by the shoulder boards.”
“We should be able to identify him and the captain with him in a few hours,” the DCI announced. “Luckily they obliged and looked up a few times.”
“Amazing,” the president said.
“And third, notice which way the troops are facing — toward the aircraft. Not one is faced outward, as you might expect if they were there to protect it.”
“Could they be guarding against the hijackers doing something?”
“Another place, another time — maybe.” Bud advanced the recording. “But not when you take into account this.” The image slowed to a normal rate.
“What are those?” The president leaned in, closer to the screen. From the front of the 747 a squat-looking tug appeared pulling a short train of baggage containers. Or were they? The four dark-colored cubes sat on separate carts in the train, which made a tight half-circle turn behind their tow vehicle and came to a stop near the right rear cargo hatch. Two other vehicles approached from the same direction.
“The one that went to the back is a GPU — Ground Power Unit,” Bud explained as he let the recording run on. “It provides power for the aircraft system when the engines are off. Air-conditioning and the like. They’ll be running a cable to ‘plug it in.’ The other one is a heavy lift truck — a sort of forklift.”
The president glanced worriedly at the DCI and NSA. “This is not comforting, gentlemen.”
“It gets worse,” Bud said. He advanced the scene further.
“Here you can see they’ve opened the cargo hatch at the rear,” the DCI commented as the picture sped by at eight times normal speed, “and are unloading the baggage containers. Okay, Bud.”
The picture slowed to actual. “Watch carefully, sir,” Bud directed.
After the last baggage container was removed by the lift, several soldiers manhandled the first of the four dark boxes onto the lift, though the machine itself did most of the work. Four soldiers looked down from the hold as the box began to rise.
“Sir, that is a heavy lift vehicle,” Bud pointed out. “You saw that it took two baggage containers off at a time. Those are not light. Now note the trouble it’s having with these objects.”
Haltingly, the box rose. Its weight visibly affected the lift, whose rear tires bounced as the bulk of the back-mounted counterweights struggled to keep the vehicle planted on the ground. The clarity of the picture allowed the soldiers in the cargo hold to be seen stretching their arms downward, as if willing the box to rise. When the first was raised and pushed in on the rollers, the second was loaded onto the lift. Herb Landau had already made a call to Langley, directing that the analysts working on the images identify the capacity of that lift vehicle.
Bud pressed the fast-search button. “Whatever they loaded took an hour to complete.”
“And they were damn heavy,” the DCI added, shifting in his seat to relieve a sudden twinge.
“This is kind of hard to pick up, but watch the shadows.” Bud slowed the recording, pointing to the hidden side of the aircraft. “There comes a mobile ramp, just like the old days.”
“You don’t see those much anymore.” Air-conditioned ramps and elevated lounges for the jumbos these days, the president thought. But the president still walks up a set of stairs to board Air Force One.
When the ramp made contact there was a visible jolt. It had to back off and line up a second, and then a third time to correctly align with the number one door.
“He’s a novice, sir,” Bud said. His Air Force days gave him the confidence to analyze this. “The driver of that ramp truck is probably a soldier.” Another point. Bud had never seen the president angry, even in his days as the VP, but he sensed now that the man was. He drew audible breaths through his nose, both nostrils flaring. “There, at the front.” Three figures jogged past the nose of the 747, disappearing behind it. “Now watch the bottom of the stairs — here. You can just barely see it.” Thin shadows appeared, then faded. “One. There goes number two. And three.” A minute later the ramp pulled away and drove out of view, leaving just the aircraft standing alone, ringed by the soldiers and attended by the GPU. The TV went off.
The president stared at the screen for a few more seconds. There was a silence. Only the soft crackling of the static charge dissipating from the screen’s surface was heard.
Bud knew it was time. He was reversing a decision he had made the day before. “Sir, there are some obvious questions raised by this.” He motioned to the TV. “Before we get to those I need to inform you of something.”
“You make it sound ominous.”
“It very well could be, Mr. President.” Bud’s mouth was suddenly very dry. He wanted a drink of water, but there was none close. “Yesterday Director Landau informed me of an…operation that was carried out during the last administration. Initially I made the decision not to inform you. The information is extremely sensitive.”
The president understood. “Deniability.”
Bud nodded.
Director Landau said, “Apparently the operation was conceived at the highest level of the Agency and carried out upon the authority of the previous director.”
“What are we talking of?”
“Sir,” Bud began, “an asset we have high in the Libyan military responded to a request from us and notified the Agency of a trip Colonel Qaddafi was taking to Rome. We knew he was having health problems — gallbladder ulcerations, I believe — so the trip was anticipated, but the exact time was unknown. Our asset gave us that. The colonel underwent surgery for the problem in Italy.”
“I heard nothing of this,” the president said, his voice up considerably. “I understood the Italians were distancing themselves from him.”
“Exactly, which is why it was so quiet. Another reason being that the Agency didn’t want the information out. That might have caused the colonel to cancel his trip. They wanted him there. It’s even possible the Agency exerted pressure on the Italians — through which channels we don’t know — to let Qaddafi in. We just don’t know, and probably never will.”
“Why? Can’t the CIA trace this, Herb. It was internal, so what is stopping you from finding out?”
“Sir,” the DCI said, pushing himself upright. He found himself slowing in chairs more. “Any investigation would invariably lead to our asset in Libya. He very possibly could be compromised. Weighing his value as an intelligence source against the negligible benefit we might gain from getting the ‘whole picture,’ it is not worth it.”