“There used to be an underground storage chamber around here,” Jabril answered, pushing back strands of gray hair. “A German company helped us build it back in the nineties.”
Mancini and Akil retrieved an underground locating device, a shovel, and other tools from the back of the SUV. The locating device was a handheld gadget about the size of a toaster. Within minutes it started buzzing.
Akil removed his shirt and started digging. Under three feet of sand he struck a concrete door.
“That’s it,” Jabril said.
Akil cut through the lock with an acetylene torch.
A dozen concrete steps led down to a room that stank of mildew and rotting garlic. Mancini, holding a flashlight and wearing a white plastic hazmat suit and hood, went down first. He scurried back seconds later and removed his hood.
“What’s the matter?” Crocker asked.
“There are snakes down there. Lots of ’em. Give me the shovel. Davis, you hold the light.”
They’d brought only two suits, so Crocker descended nine steps and crouched down to look. It was a long, narrow room, approximately ten feet wide and sixty feet long. The side of the room to Crocker’s left was filled with racks of artillery shells and torpedoes, and the floor was covered with snakes.
The chamber looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years.
After they’d scared away the snakes by waving their arms and stomping on the floor, they managed to remove one of the artillery shells, which tested positive for sulfur chloride-a main ingredient of mustard gas.
Jabril said, “This whole area needs to be sealed off immediately. This material could be terribly dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands.”
“The mustard gas?”
“Even if it has decomposed, the substances it creates can be extremely toxic.”
Lasher used his satellite phone to notify NATO command, which said it was dispatching a team to secure the base.
“Tell them to get here fast.”
They stood in the afternoon sun and waited. Akil, whose mind always seemed fixated on women, asked Jabril if it was true that Gaddafi had surrounded himself with an entourage of sexy female bodyguards.
“He called them his Amazons and had sex with all of them.”
“How many of them were there?” Akil asked.
“Four or five hundred.”
Akil smiled. “Nice.”
“A group of them traveled with him everywhere, dressed in tight-fitting camouflage uniforms and high heels, nail polish, mascara. He also had a staff of Ukrainian nurses who stayed by his side all the time. His favorite was a girl named Galyna, a beautiful blonde, like a Playboy Playmate.”
Akil said, “I’d love to meet her.”
“She’s an old woman now.”
“What do you mean by old?”
“Fifty.”
Ritchie said, “As long as she’s still breathing, Akil doesn’t care.”
Jabril told them a story of traveling with the Libyan leader to Paris. Since Gaddafi didn’t trust elevators and didn’t like staying in hotels, he had ended up pitching his Bedouin tent on a farm outside the city.
Coincidentally, the soldiers who arrived to secure the base were French. There were a dozen of them, with German shepherds. They were businesslike and unfriendly. As they unloaded sandbags and rolls of razor wire from the back of a truck, Akil said, “I think we interrupted their nap.”
The French captain, who spoke English, got in his face. “I think you should show a little more respect.”
“Sorry, monsieur, I meant no offense.”
“He’s a wiseass,” Crocker offered, aware that NATO soldiers might be especially sensitive after the heat they had taken over the Sheraton attack. “He can’t help himself.”
The French captain grinned and, leaning toward Crocker, asked, “How much longer before this country turns into Iraq?”
It was a question that Crocker had been quietly asking himself for the past two days, and it was underscored by more gunshots and screams from the refugee camp.
“Brutal savages,” the French captain said with a sneer.
On the way back to the SUV, Crocker nodded in the direction of the camp and said to Lasher, “I think we should take a look.”
Sunshine gleamed off his Oakleys as Lasher shook his head. “Bad idea. Besides, we’re not allowed in there without permission.”
Lasher’s skin had turned bright red in the afternoon sun.
“Says who?”
“The NATO commander.”
“It sounds like they’re shooting people. We’d better find out what’s going on before it gets ugly.”
Remembering how NATO had been caught off guard at the start of the genocide in Rwanda, Crocker ordered the driver to proceed a couple of hundred yards farther east to the camp gate. Several dozen women were crowded in the shade of the concrete arches, waiting to get inside. Most were carrying food and clothing; some were accompanied by young children.
When they saw Crocker and his men getting out of the vehicle, they surrounded them and started pleading. Jabril, Lasher, and the driver elected to stay inside.
“What do they want?” Crocker asked Akil.
“They’re hoping for news about husbands and sons they believe are inside the camp.”
“It only houses men?”
“Apparently.”
“And it’s a refugee camp?”
“That’s what they call it.”
“Strange, don’t you think?”
“Very.”
A trio of buzzards circled overhead.
The dozen guards at the gate wore a motley collection of military and civilian clothes and ranged in age from teenagers to men in their forties. Some of the younger ones were cocky and menacing, shouting at the women and waving automatic weapons.
Another gunshot went off inside, and the women screamed together.
Crocker turned to Akil and said, “Tell the guards we’re UN inspectors and we have permission to enter.”
Initially the guards didn’t want to let them in, but Akil threatened to call the prime minister and have them arrested.
“No problem…no problem,” said an eager young man with a big set of brilliant white teeth and a red baseball cap worn backward, stepping forward with what looked like a Russian submachine gun-a PP-91 KEDR. “We want no trouble. We are Thwar.”
“Thwar is the local word for militia,” Akil explained.
“Who left them in charge of this camp?”
Akil asked the young man in Arabic, then translated for Crocker. “He says they’re in charge of policing the whole area.”
“What about the national police?”
“All bad men here,” the young man said in broken English as he led them down a hallway that stank of human waste. Dirty water dripped from the ceiling.
The five unarmed Americans entered a large concrete room. The windows had been shot out, which created a big open space that overlooked the sea. But the breeze blowing in was foul with the smell of excrement and rot.
“Look,” Ritchie said, pointing down to a multitude of red, blue, green, and yellow plastic tarps. They had been used to create makeshift tents on the land below that led to the beach.
The rectangular space was surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire.
It was a dramatic juxtaposition-the calm turquoise water of the Mediterranean and the human degradation.
“What’s that saying, hell in a very small place?” Akil asked. “I think we’ve found it.”
“Revolting.”
Mancini: “Reminds me of a scene from the movie Saw.”
Crocker said, “Follow me.”
There seemed to be a stark contrast in skin color between the lighter men running the camp and the darker ones living there.
Crocker turned to the smiling young militiaman who strode next to him and asked, “Approximately how many people are housed here?”
He held up two fingers.
“Two hundred?”
“Two thousand.”
“All men?”
“Bad men.”
A table with one leg missing stood on a wooden platform on the left side of the room. Three men sat behind it wearing sunglasses, one of whom was enormously fat, with a brown shirt and dark goatee. They seemed to be presiding.