Kinkaid hesitated. This piece of information could make his career. He could ride off into the sunset knowing he had brought to the United States the single most important piece of intelligence information in the last decade — the exact location of the one of the most hated and feared terrorists ever to attack the country. He had already promised to cut Sami out of the loop — even though he had no intention of doing it — after the Sheikh. Now he had to promise to attack Alamut. Whatever that meant. How could he promise that politicians and the military would do something about anything? And what if they didn’t? What was Efraim going to do about it? Not tell him the information? That couldn’t be it, because he would already know it. “Yes. They have the nerve. I am sure.”
“Can you guarantee they’ll pursue the Sheikh? I need your personal assurance, Joseph.”
“They will go after him. The only thing keeping them from it now is they don’t know where he is.”
“But you already know Alamut is a target, and it has not been attacked. They are afraid to go into Iran.”
“Not at all. I’ve already given you our reasons. It was just easier to start with the others.”
“I remember your President sitting for four hundred or more days while Iranians held American diplomats hostage in Tehran. Were you afraid of them then?”
Kinkaid laughed to himself. “President Carter had a different way of handling these kinds of things than our current President. He’ll go.”
“Very well,” Efraim concluded. “There is someone on the ground within visual range of Alamut. The Sheikh arrived at Alamut yesterday morning, local time. He went directly into the mountain fortress and is currently there.”
“We haven’t seen any foot traffic to that fort at all.”
“Nor will you. They know your satellite schedule. They are also masters of camouflage.”
“How do they know our satellite schedule?”
“Most of them are on the Internet. You type in your latitude and longitude and they tell you when visible satellites will be overhead—”
“But not all of them—”
“And you know of other sites that are trying to do the same for all satellites. There are many people out there who believe intelligence gathering is illegitimate and they try to expose us in whatever way they can. You know all this.”
“I didn’t think the sites had made it that far, that’s all.”
“Maybe they haven’t… Does your young Turk have access to the satellite schedules?”
Kinkaid thought about it, and realized Sami did have access to the overhead imagery schedule. To a great extent, he was the one who had requested it. “Probably.”
Efraim said nothing.
“Where is he likely to be in the fortress? Do you know the structure, how it is organized inside?”
“Yes. We had someone inside—”
“The same person?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Efraim said, cutting off Kinkaid’s inquiry. “The approach is impossible on foot. Tell your people not to send Marines, or airborne troops. They would be able to surround the mountain, and that is all. They could never approach the fortress. The approach is too narrow for even a mule. There are many turns too tight. Only a walking man can approach, and only one at a time and very slowly. And the entire path is guarded by men who hover above you. No one could possibly approach uninvited and live.”
“So we bomb him out.”
“Ah. That is not so easy, my friend. This is the problem that has confounded us. We cannot send anyone in. They would be killed. With certainty. We cannot send our Air Force, because they could only cause a disturbance. Our bombs cannot reach where they need to go.”
“You have the same bombs we have. Are you saying we can’t bomb him out?”
“That is exactly what I am saying. His primary room, a large, round room with a stone floor covered with beautiful Persian rugs, is deep inside the fortress. Below what you can see.”
“Inside the mountain?”
“Yes. We estimate he is one hundred feet under the surface of the mountain.”
“A hundred feet?”
“Yes. Approximately. It could be less or more I suppose, but he is deep inside the mountain.”
Kinkaid was stumped. How do you attack someone a hundred feet under the ground? “That’s deeper than our Strategic Command Headquarters in the mountains of Wyoming.”
“That I wouldn’t know.”
“We can’t drop a nuclear weapon on one man.”
“Obviously.”
“So how does one attack him?”
“That is what we have been unable to figure out.”
“I’ll leave it to the experts. If I give them his location, I have done my job.”
“That is exactly what I said to my people.” Efraim was about to hang up. “Remember what I said, about who knows this information.”
Kinkaid bristled. “I heard you. But you have already killed one of ours.”
“What do you mean?” Efraim asked, concerned.
“Your Air Force went into Lebanon to get the Sheikh, to drop laser bombs on a motorcycle shop.”
“There were many targets in the area—”
“One of which was the motorcycle shop at Dar al Ahmar.”
“Perhaps.”
“When you dropped your bombs to get the Sheikh, one of my men was there to kidnap him. He would have succeeded. Your bombs killed him instead of the Sheikh.”
Efraim didn’t know what to say. He had never heard anything about Americans being killed in the raid. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me you had someone there, Joseph? We could have worked together.”
“Yes. Perhaps I should have.”
“It is good that we have talked today. We must talk more. Avoid these things in the future. We must work together to stop this killer. That must be our focus. I’m sorry for your man in Lebanon. If only we had known.” He paused. “But at least one of your planes escorted the strike that killed your man.”
Kinkaid was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. “It’s true?”
“Joseph.”
Kinkaid closed his eyes. “I don’t want to know.”
“They found him?” Woods asked enthusiastically.
Bark nodded his head with a gleam in his eye. “CIA.”
Woods laughed. “The CIA? They couldn’t find their ass with both hands.”
“Maybe somebody told them.”
Woods wanted to know. “So, where is he?”
“That fortress in Iran.”
Wink’s face sobered. “That Alamut place?”
“Yes,” Bark replied. “Northwestern Iran.”
“How far is it?” Woods asked. “Where’s Pritch?”
“CVIC, I suppose.”
Woods looked at Bark. “Are they sure?”
“They’re sure.” Bark handed him the message they had just received. No one else in the squadron had seen it. “They canceled the ground strike into Syria.”
“Must be pretty sure,” Woods acknowledged. “How we going to get him?”
“Long way. We’re the only ones who can get there and put ordnance on target and get back.”
Woods glanced at Wink and saw the look he was hoping for. “We’ll go,” Woods said too quickly.
Bark replied, “You’ve been flying a lot.”
“We can hit it, Skipper. You know that. We will not fail.”
“May not matter.”
“Why?”
He handed him the message. “Guy’s buried underground. A hundred feet. We could drop bombs on top of him all day long, and it wouldn’t touch him. I’m sure we’re not going to send TACAIR into Iran to make a big bang and accomplish nothing.”