Suddenly, a van came out of an alley and stopped next to him, almost pinning him against the car.
Fitzgerald knew what was about to happen; knew the horrid nightmare was about to swallow him. He turned to run but a young Palestinian leapt from the van, blocking his way. He reversed direction and ran into another, who pressed a gun to his temple and ordered him into the van. But Fitzgerald had long ago decided that capture wasn’t an acceptable option, that if the moment ever came, he would escape or die trying. He slapped the pistol aside, drove an elbow into the Palestinian behind him, and ran, expecting the searing sting of bullets to follow; but a third Palestinian appeared and drove the butt of a rifle into his solar plexus. The three terrorists dragged him into the van, slammed the door, and drove off.
No more than fifteen seconds had elapsed.
Later that week in Washington, D.C., a bodyguard assigned to Director of Central Intelligence William Kiley left the DCI’s home on the old Rockefeller estate on Foxhall Road to retrieve the Washington Post. As he did each morning before delivering the newspaper to his boss, he carefully checked it for explosive devices. This was standard security procedure.
Today the bodyguard found a package. It contained a videotape cassette. A Polaroid photograph of a haggard Thomas Fitzgerald was taped to the slipcase, announcing that he had been kidnapped—not by Abu Nidal’s Fatah Revolutionary Council, but by Hezbollah, a fanatical, pro-Iranian terrorist group.
The DCI’s face was ashen when he finished viewing the videotape of Bassam’s torture and death. He sat in stunned silence for several moments before his eyes drifted to the Polaroid of Fitzgerald. The chilling implication that his longtime colleague and friend could suffer the same fate horrified him.
This was the second time in as many months that Kiley had been personally burned by terrorists. The first, the discovery that two former CIA agents had set up and equipped numerous terrorist training camps in Libya, still tormented him.
“Goddamned animals,” the DCI whispered hoarsely, seething with hatred. “They turned the worst of my people, now they kidnapped the best.”
And that was the moment he went over the edge; there were no rules anymore, no cost too great, no person too valuable. Whatever it took, Bill Kiley would find a way to satisfy his hunger for vengeance.
BOOK ONE
A PEOPLE THAT EATS IMPORTED FOOD CANNOT BE FREE.
1
Not a blade of grass, not a single plant, bush, or tree, nothing but burnt sienna sand stretched for miles across this wind-burnished landscape — nothing except a concrete pipeline that slithered over the dunes like an immense, sunbathing rattlesnake.
The infernal stillness was soon broken by the rising whisk of rotors. A Libyan Air Force helicopter came streaking low over the Sahara, sunlight reflecting off its windshield like a flashing strobe.
Saddam Moncrieff sat next to the pilot, staring at the endless miles of concrete pipe that passed directly beneath him, contemplating a problem. A hydrologist of international repute, the pensive Saudi had engineered a plan to solve Libya’s serious water shortage, a shortage compounded by the high salt content of rain-fed wells, the nation’s only source. Even in Tripoli, tap water had become barely drinkable.
Subterranean aquifers discovered beneath the Sahara by American geologists searching for oil were the key to Moncrieff s plan: hundreds of wells drilled in the desert would pump 200 million cubic feet of water a day, twice OPEC’s daily output of oil, through 2,500 miles of pipeline to Libya’s thirsty cities.
The sections of concrete pipe, each 13 feet in diameter and weighing 73 tons, were manufactured round the clock at a modern desert complex; and Moncrieff s aerial survey of wellheads and pipeline had confirmed that the project was right on schedule. Despite it, Libya’s Great Man-Made River Project was in jeopardy. The subterranean reservoirs were drying up. By the time the $20 billion undertaking was completed, there would be little if any water to pump through it; and the Saudi had just determined beyond doubt that the cause was a dam that had diverted its source — a dam built several years before in neighboring Tunisia.
Contrary to popular conception, Tunisia had plenty of water, as did neighboring Algeria and Morocco. The mountain ranges of the northern Maghreb — where ski resorts remain open well into April — were a copious watershed, supplying a string of oases that ran south to the city of Nefta. Here, hundreds of natural springs were funneled into an east-flowing tributary. It eventually drained deep into thirsty salt lakes, creating underground rivers that for eons had flowed hundreds of miles beneath the Sahara into Libya, feeding the subterranean Jabal Al Hasawnah water fields.
But Nefta Dam had blocked this tributary. Now, where there had been nothing, an immense, glass-smooth lake encircled by lush palm forests, olive groves, and fields of barley stretched to the horizon. Unfortunately, though a boon to Tunisia’s economy, the dam had cut off the supply of water to Libya’s reservoirs.
That was Moncrieff s problem; that and the fact that he was on his way to meet with Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi to decide how to deal with it.
The sun was burning through a light mist as the helicopter came in over the desert and landed at the Bab al Azziziya Barracks south of downtown Tripoli.
Moncrieff was ushered into the boldly patterned tent that served as Qaddafi’s personal domicile, joining the colonel, his chief of staff, General Younis, and several economic and industrial advisers.
Qaddafi wore a bulletproof vest and maroon beret embroidered with the Insignia of Islam. He sat on the edge of a desk beneath the soaring fabric and harsh fluorescents, digesting Moncrieff s report.
Ten years before, Qaddafi, the son of an illiterate Bedouin shepherd, had cut a shrewd deal with the Ivy League presidents of Western oil companies. The money provided free housing, education, and medical care for his people. But the lack of water threatened his vision for Libya’s future.
When Moncrieff and the members of Qaddafi’s staff were seated and had ceased to murmur among themselves, the Libyan leader looked up and broke the stillness. “We’re going into Tunisia,” he said quietly.
A stunned silence fell over the group.
A look flicked between Moncrieff and Younis.
The general was a short man with rigid posture that suited his title. “Send a military force across the border?” he finally asked, wary of Qaddafi’s impulsive bent for invading his neighbors. An attack on the Tunisian city of Gafsa in 1980 and the current war with Chad, a demoralizing struggle over a worthless strip of desert, were its most recent manifestations. True, the lack of water was arguably a more noble and justifiable motive but, as the general knew, Tunisia was a far more formidable adversary.
“We have no choice,” Qaddafi replied, going on to remind his staff that relations between the two nations were strained and that it would be unrealistic to expect even a staunch ally, let alone Tunisia, to destroy a multibillion dollar investment. “I suggest an air strike, carried out at night by bombers flying below radar at supersonic speed,” Qaddafi concluded. “In a matter of minutes that dam would be a pile of rubble; and it would be over before Tunisian Air Defense knew it had even happened, let alone who did it.”
Younis’s face stiffened with grave concern.