Within five seconds the Saudi was unconscious, and a piece of duct tape had been stretched over his mouth.
The limousine angled east to Andulus Street, leaving the city, and headed north into the desolate terrain that bordered the Red Sea. Twenty minutes later the driver turned onto a dirt road, following it to a rocky slope that tumbled toward the surf below.
A flashlight blinked in the darkness, where two more Palestinians were waiting. The Pentothal had plunged Moncrieff into a deep state of unconsciousness and he offered no resistance as they strapped him facedown to a stretcher; then they carried him to a cove at the base of an outcropping, where the refurbished gunboat was anchored. Once aboard, the stretcher was taken to the compartment where the hostages had been concealed.
The captain ordered Moncrieff be covered with blankets and posted an armed guard inside the compartment; then he closed the hidden bulkhead, returned to the bridge, and gave the order to cast off.
The twin diesels rumbled to life and the rust-stained Zhuk cut through the water on a heading for Port Taufiq and the Suez Canal 600 miles north. The Red and Mediterranean seas were at nearly identical levels and the man-made waterway that joined them had been built without locks, providing swift passage, especially for small vessels.
After setting his course, the captain radioed Casino du Liban. “Cargo aboard and en route,” he reported when Abu Nidal came on the line.
“When do you estimate delivery?”
“Within thirty-six hours.”
“Very well.” Nidal clicked off and glanced to his watch. It was 7:51 P.M; more than an hour before the Romeo was due to check in. He left the communications center, his head tucked between his shoulders like a turtle’s, deep in thought.
Duryea had proceeded due east through the southern Aegean, with the Soviet Alpha on his tail, for more than eight hours. This was hazardous terrain. The bottom was a craggy range of seamounts and escarpments, the passage between them made all the more difficult by the crosscurrents that surged like underwater rivers.
Now the Cavalla was north of Rhodes, approaching Simi, when the Alpha’s captain figured it out. “The Turkish channel,” Solom-atin mused, hovering over his chart table. “The Turkish channel to the Dardanelles.”
“Continue pursuit, Comrade Captain?” his starpom wondered. “Through that topology?” Solomatin admonished, detecting his eager tone. “Remember what happened to Borzov?” he asked, referring to a colleague who ran his boat aground in a Swedish fjord a decade earlier. “He has been captain of a desk in Polyarnyy ever since.”
Indeed, as Duryea had predicted, Solomatin decided to avoid hazardous pursuit and sprint northward on a parallel track toward the entrance to the Dardanelles.
“Alpha’s dropping off, sir,” Cooperman reported.
Duryea sat deep in thought. The whole thing would fall apart if the Alpha’s captain hadn’t really gone for the fake but was just playing a clever game of hide-and-seek; and the numerous hiding places the terrain afforded made it hard to be sure he wasn’t. Duryea contacted ASW on the America and requested a flyover.
“We’ve had an S-3A tracking him since we made that MAD run,” the ASW duty officer reported. He put Duryea on hold and contacted the Viking in flight; 30 seconds later he came back on the line. “Viking reports he just changed course and is sprinting north.”
“That’s what I want him to do. Make sure your guys let him know they’re up there,” Duryea instructed, deciding ASW harassment would further convince the Alpha’s captain he was endangering the Cavalla’s mission and encourage the leapfrog tactic.
“We’ll keep a blowtorch to his tail, sir.”
The Cavalla entered the Turkish channel and curled, not north around Simi toward the Dardanelles, but south around the eastern tip of Rhodes, sprinting at 25 knots into the Mediterranean on a southwesterly course. It covered the 150 miles to the new intercept point south of the Crete-Rhodes ridge in just under six hours, arriving an hour ahead of schedule to pick up the Romeo.
Duryea lifted the phone. “Sonar? Conn. Anything?”
“No, sir. I just did a sweep. We’re in clear water.”
Duryea pursed his lips thoughfully. “It’s probably taking Romeo longer to proceed through that terrain than I thought. Hang in there.”
For the next hour and a half Cooperman sat in his compartment, listening to the sounds of the Aegean. Most of the ferries, hydrofoils, and fishing vessels that ran between the countless islands were stilled at this hour and he was left with the melodic swish of an immense school of sardines riding the fast-moving current.
Duryea kept the Cavalla on station, nudging slowly northward into the gap between the islands. He had a cool, patient temperament, which served him well when it came to waiting, to letting a situation develop. But this one didn’t; his target never showed. The Romeo had to be out there somewhere. It lacked the speed and stealth to elude him. Despite logic, despite technology, he was haunted by the hollow feeling that the Romeo had somehow managed to get past him and was on its way to Beirut.
48
“I hate to say it, babe, but you better get back to the hotel,” Shepherd suggested when Stephanie briefed him on her run in with the D’Jerban police. “Just do whatever you were doing before I got here.”
She protested but knew he was right and drove back to the Dar Jerba in the car she and Brancato had rented.
Shepherd, who had been up almost thirty-six hours, spent the afternoon in the Transportpanzer sleeping.
Brancato had spent it thinking.
A pink-tinged glow still hung over the Gulf of Bougara as Brancato made his way through the towering marsh grass to the road. He drove Larkin’s rented sedan to the far side of Borj Castille, circling to a flat outcropping of rocks that jutted out into the sea. He rolled down the windows, put the transmission in neutral, released the handbrake, and started pushing.
“Good idea,” Shepherd intoned, joining him. He had just awakened and his eyes were still a little glazed.
They got it rolling and pushed it off the edge into the sea. The interior quickly filled with water and it disappeared beneath the surface with a tired gurgle.
“When do we go into Libya?” Brancato prompted, as they returned to the Transportpanzer and brought several cans of touajen, a North African version of lamb stew, to life in the tiny galley.
“The sooner the better; but we’re looking at a very narrow window. They only fly the one-elevens at night.”
Brancato nodded sagely. “We get there too soon and the machines aren’t fueled; too late and they’ve gone flying. How do we travel?”
“We have a choice — wheels or wings.”
“Wings? What kind of aircraft?”
“Mooney two fifty-two. But I vote for wheels,” Shepherd said.
“Why drive when you can fly?”
“For openers, the Mooney’s at the airport. Just getting our hands on it would be risky; and even if we could, the one-elevens are based at Okba ben Nan, which means we’ll be flying right into the teeth of their radar and SAM installations — without weaponry, electronic jamming gear, or TFR. Even if we defeat the perimeter radar, we’d still have to land out in the desert, which puts us in the middle of nowhere without ground transportation.”
“Yeah, and anywhere on or near the air base they’ll be waiting for us when we touch down.”
“With that,” Shepherd went on, indicating the Transportpanzer, “we have weapons, armor, and wheels. Besides, there are all kinds of goodies in there: radios, handguns, clothes, food. And whether we’re in the middle of the desert or driving across the air base, that thing looks like it belongs.”