“I think in this case, it may well end the whole thing. This seems like an operation run by one man. If he’s gone, that may very well end it.”
Wilson pulled a second tripod out of a nylon bag and started to extend the legs. “You ever heard of this guy before?”
“No. No one had before he started killing people.”
“The Old Man of the Mountains goes back nine hundred years. There’s always someone to replace him.” Wilson adjusted night-vision goggles over his eyes. The Ambassador suddenly looked ominous — Wilson could see his dilated pupils. He looked like a zombie. Wilson directed his attention outside, through the crack in the gauze curtains. The side streets were clearly visible.
“Well, I guess that’s right,” the Ambassador said a full ten seconds after a normal response would have been due.
Wilson saw someone move toward a doorway in an alleyway beside the embassy. He took off his night-vision goggles, reached for the huge night-vision scope, and pointed it toward the doorway, where a man stood, his face covered. Wilson transmitted on the lip mike that trailed a cable to the radio on his belt. It was digital and secure. “Suspect at 26/33, grid 6. Get the locals out there.”
He heard a double-click on the radio in response. Wilson waited. The man appeared to be expecting someone. He should have moved long ago. Wilson wanted to check his watch but didn’t want to take his eye off the suspect, who still lingered in the doorway, extremely cautious. Wilson’s attention was drawn to movement through tiny side streets two blocks away. Two police officers approached the quiet street carefully. Wilson listened to the sounds of rhythmic cars throughout the city as the two walked toward the doorway brushing against the stucco along the wall of the building as they approached.
The Ambassador interrupted his thoughts. “So how long you think—”
“Just a minute,” Wilson said as the two policemen the Ambassador couldn’t see cautiously neared the doorway. Wilson watched them as the sounds of distant cars interrupted the silence with their unceasing honking even though there was no other traffic below.
The policemen gripped their automatic rifles as they crept along the wall ten feet from the opening. Suddenly they charged the doorway, rifles ready. Wilson watched the fuzzy green images, horrified, as they stepped in front of the doorway and pointed their weapons at the unidentified man. The policemen were thrown back into the street, the fire from the silenced machine pistol surprising Wilson as much as it did them. He could hear their weapons clatter to the stone street as they fell backward.
Wilson stared helplessly as the intruder, his face still covered, walked confidently away from the embassy down the narrow street. He transmitted on the encrypted radio, “Race, you there?”
“Here.”
“Get on the Sat phone. Tell them we’ve got contact and our friends know we’re onto them. We will pursue, but likelihood of capture or significant intel is low. Tell them to get out as many Snapshot Teams as they can. This guy is taking it to a different level.”
The next morning on the Washington found a lot of very tired aircrew anxious to know whether the war was over or just beginning. Syria had started the day by going apoplectic about the American attacks. It was a violation of their sovereign statehood. A violation of international law. An act of war against a country that had done nothing to the United States. The outrage must stop.
The Air Wing Intel Officer was conducting an unscheduled brief over the ship’s broadcast closed circuit television system to all the ready rooms showing the BDA, based on satellite images and reconnaissance flights that had gone in at dawn.
Every ninety minutes, airplanes off the Washington and the Eisenhower had gone all night, attacking the targets in Syria and Lebanon and the surrounding SAM and AAA sites. The bombs had mostly been on target, but determining how much damage had actually been done was difficult. They also now had evidence that several mobile SAM sites had been moved to the areas around the targets during the night and might be operational within twelve hours.
“As you can see, we’ve had numerous hits with our laser-guided bombs on the fortresses that were our targets last night. The damage is obvious, here, and… here, and on the side, there. It is impossible to know how much internal damage has been caused. These hills are very hard. The bombs didn’t penetrate very deeply, and if he is underground, we surely didn’t get him.”
The Air Wing Intelligence Officer put up a video image of Marines landing their helicopters on a field and running out of them. “This is the video provided to the news media in the States to show on their news programs. It is what is likely to happen next, according to all sources. The President believes the only way to truly get the Sheikh is to put troops on the ground and go after him. That is why the Marines are preparing to go to both fortresses on the ground within the next forty-eight hours.
“Additionally, the Army has flown the 82nd Airborne to Sigonella, Sicily, and told them to prepare for a drop into Syria.”
The Jolly Rogers couldn’t believe their ears. If Syria was angry about some bombs being dropped on an old fortress in the mountains, the response to landing American troops on their soil would be volcanic. Syria would be required to respond. How could they possibly just let Americans walk into their country with armed troops?
“We will continue to try to soften the fortresses, but the assessment of the intelligence community is that ultimately it will be necessary to put troops on the ground. To ID the Sheikh, if for no other reason. How will we know we’ve gotten him if we don’t ID him?”
“Any indication of what Lebanon or Syria might do?” asked a voice off screen.
“Well, they have told us in no uncertain terms that they believe everything we’re doing violates their sovereignty, and their territorial integrity. This will simply make it worse. The idea of CNN broadcasting footage of Marines landing on Lebanese or Syrian territory and walking toward the target is almost sure to make them try to take action earlier rather than later. But so what? I think the thought process is that they have been harboring terrorists for years, decades. They have supported, directly, the murderers of many hundreds of people. They are now protecting and shielding perhaps the most vicious self-appointed murderer of the new millennium. I think it is fair for the United States to ask whether Syria, or anyone else, is really intending to stand on behalf of the Sheikh.
“The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, of course, is where exactly is this Sheikh? Everything I’ve seen” — he looked off screen for confirmation, and nodded — “seems to tell me that we don’t really know where he is. His most probable locations are where we’ve been going. Plus, of course, the target in Iran, which we haven’t yet attacked.”
Kinkaid sat in his office and studied the Bomb Damage Assessment reports on the fortresses the Navy had hit all night. He didn’t hear the STU-III phone as it rang repeatedly. One of his people walked by his office and came back to look at him, wondering why he wasn’t answering his phone. Kinkaid saw him, and then heard the phone. He picked it up. “Yes.”
“Joseph. How are you?”
Kinkaid immediately recognized the deep voice, the heavy accent. “To what to do I owe the honor, Efraim?”
“Greetings, good friend. I wanted to talk about the events of last night.”
Kinkaid settled back in his chair. His mind shifted out of idle, where it had been for hours. He knew he would need all his faculties for this conversation. He stood up as he held the receiver to his ear. “How have you been?”