“I spoke with the president a few minutes ago,” Bud said.
“I recommended that we begin the necessary preparations for any military operation that might come. The aircraft’s been on the ground for nine hours now. Something’s going to happen. Who knows what? It’s best that we’re ready.”
“You’re old Air Force, Bud,” the general reminded him, aware of the unenthusiastic ring of the NSA’s announcement.
Bud brought a hand back over his head, momentarily flattening the gray locks. “That does not exclude me from being damn worried about escalating this.”
“We can handle them — conventionally,” Granger pointed out calmly. Letting emotion into his words was not an option.
“I have no doubt about that. It doesn’t mean it’s the best option.” Bud finally sat. “My misgivings aside, can you have a report ready by…say, seven.”
Granger took his pen in hand. The light from the desk lamp shone off his smooth forehead. “The objectives?”
“Ending the Libyan terrorist threat.”
“Uh-huh. Minimum collateral damage,” the general assumed, correctly.
Bud nodded. His eyes added the emphasis. “And there’s something else. I didn’t discuss this with the president, but any order to carry it out would come from him. I do want the necessary personnel and equipment in place, ready to go.”
Granger’s expression asked the next question.
Bud went on. “If there is a nuclear weapon on that 747, we can’t allow it… I mean, there’s no way that—”
“I know,” Granger interrupted. “I know.”
Somehow it was easier not to verbalize what he was thinking. “It has to be certain. There can’t be a mess.” Bud let the words sink in for a moment. “Get it moving.”
After the NSA was gone Granger called his chief of operations at the Pentagon. The National Military Command Center — the War Room — was now operative. A planning group of senior officers and their deputies would begin work on the contingency plans, sets of which would be modified to fit the situation.
With that done he asked the Pentagon operator to connect him with the commanding officer of the Louisiana Air National Guard. Granger knew the Air Force—‘things with wings are my life,’ he would say — and where certain special abilities could be obtained. The Louisiana ANG had some F-106s left, and if the worst-case scenario happened, at least one would be needed.
Even military pilots had to defer to the mighty power of thunderstorms. This front of them had delayed Joe’s departure from Andrews by thirty minutes and kept the twin- engine executive jet, in which he was the only passenger, circling west of the air base for over an hour. Finally the clearance to land came, without the announcing lighted signs that Joe was accustomed to. The pilot had simply poked his head back, instructing Joe to buckle up. He cinched the belt snug. On his lap was a small, hard case with all the instruments he would need…hopefully. Joe held it tight. Inside were sensitive measuring devices so miniature that the fact that they were even built was amazing. There was an easy $2 million worth of gear in the case, something that worried Joe not at all. It could be replaced: The people who might die if the instruments failed could not.
A screech and a thud beneath signaled the landing. When the small jet stopped, Joe emerged to a windy tarmac. The afternoon sun illuminated the cloud bottoms above as they sped across the sky from the south. The ground was wet and slick beneath his feet on this part of the tarmac, and looking around he saw that it must have rained recently. From the look of the clouds more was on the way.
A car approached the jet, whose engines still whined. It stopped a few yards from the left wingtip. In the near distance bright perimeter lights outlined a low row of buildings and several large ones. Joe noticed several soldiers bathed in the light.
“Captain Anderson.” The soldier saluted instinctively.
“Mr. Anderson,” Joe corrected the soldier. He was a corporal. “Save your salutes for non civilians. I assume you’re taking me somewhere.”
“Yes, Mr. Anderson.” Asshole.
Joe walked around the car to the passenger door as the jet throttled its engine slightly, pushing it forward and kicking up a spray from the wet ground. The drive was short, only a few hundred yards at best, ending outside a hangar opposite the one he could see from the aircraft.
“Wait here,” the corporal said curtly. He jumped out and double-timed to a building connected to the hangar, obviously an afterthought addition.
Something struck Joe as strange. A corporal? This is an Air Force base. What’s Army doing here? The unmistakable sound of boots — more than one pair — came toward the car. A figure stood in front of the car, aglow in the headlights. The driver opened the passenger door for Mr. Anderson.
“Anderson,” the voice drawled. Joe could almost smell the cow pies. “I am Colonel William Cadler. Nichols tells me you can be quite an ass.” Joe eyed the corporal, who stared back without a flinch. “Well so can I. Understood? Good. Get your gear inside…now that we’re done with the introductions.”
Eight
A SOUL FOR THE TAKING
His life was one of routine. It was both a reminder of his dark side, and a way of retreat from the everyday realities that he had let himself become master of. Only by carving each day up into manageable portions could he hope to make it through, from sunrise when he would run, to sunset when he would finish up his duties as commanding officer of the 3rd Training Battalion. Then he would sleep.
Muhadesh Algar was a man of inward contradictions. To those around him he was a strong, confident leader, a man able to turn idealistic, trigger-happy teenagers into efficient killers in a short time. He was a revolutionary brother, one who would willingly give his own life in battle against those who would destroy his country. Never would a man who knew him question his bravery, or his skill, or his authority.
All those things he was. He was also a man who felt weak and small. Of course those who knew him would attest to his bravery, though few had seen him exhibit it, but he was painfully aware that he had failed the truest test possible of his will. He had once been afraid many years before, and that lapse of inner strength had set his life on a course that outwardly he thrived on, but was, day by day, tearing his soul from the very foundation of his being.
He held the rank of captain in the Libyan Peoples Army, a title that, at times, was passed out as a ceremonial reward. Muhadesh, however, had earned his. At twenty-three, after several years studying medicine in Italy, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the army of King Idris, Libya’s pre-Qaddafi ruler. It was a good time in his life. His uncle, who raised him after his parents’ death, saw to his nephew’s education, sending him away to learn to be a doctor. At the time the medical profession was, perhaps, the highest symbol of status in the small North African nation, one that Surtan Algar was determined to give to his brother’s only child. The pride Muhadesh felt when he was assigned to a military hospital was matched only by the sadness he felt when his uncle passed away. He vowed to make his uncle proud.
It was then that his life forever changed. The government of King Idris was overthrown by Colonel Muhammar al-Qaddafi, who ordered all of the young officers in the military to undergo reeducation and swear allegiance to the country’s new leader. Being a smart young lieutenant, one who was unaware of the enormity of the changes soon to be, Muhadesh did just that.
The hospital near Benghazi to which he was assigned resembled little of the medical facilities he remembered. It had been converted into a facility for the administration of pain. Qaddafi knew that the easiest way to silence any opponents was with a swift and brutal campaign of ‘eliminations.’ But the mere execution of someone was not always enough of a deterrent. Muhadesh became one of those who would use his medical expertise to torture those sentenced to that fate, and more often than not he would have an audience.