Indeed, Qaddafi had specified his escape vehicle be unidentifiable as such, and the Transportpanzer’s exterior was of basic military finish and unadorned.
“Take yes for an answer,” Brancato pleaded genially. “Okba ben Nafi’s on the Mediterranean. We can shoot right down the coast and—”
“Not so fast,” Shepherd interrupted. “I had a run-in with one of their patrol boats. They know what I want; they might be waiting for me to come back.”
“So we take the scenic route,” Brancato suggested. “Must be maps in there.”
Shepherd nodded.
Brancato set the bowl of stew aside and made his way to the cab. A rack of shallow drawers, like a dentist’s tool cabinet, was built into the console between the seats. Each contained a set of plastic laminated sector maps labeled in Arabic. It took Brancato a few minutes to find the revelant charts, which he laid out across the console. They were for Qaddafi’s use and clearly delineated not only the terrain but also the location of Libyan military outposts in the desert, as well as border patrol zones.
“See this area here,” Brancato said as Shepherd joined him. “There isn’t a road, town, or military outpost on either side of the border for miles. We can leave soon as it gets dark, work our way south along the coast in the water. Then we cut inland about here and make our way through the desert. If we cross the border between these mesas and head due east, it’d put us right on a beeline for Okba ben Nafi.”
“Lot of ground to cover,” Shepherd cautioned, digesting the plan. “And it has to be done at night. You have a fix on mileage?”
Brancato studied the chart for a moment. “Hundred seventy-five max.”
“How many in water?”
“Forty, give or take.”
“Twelve hours of darkness,” Shepherd said, thoughtfully, “figure average speed — water, desert — twenty miles an hour; doable.”
Brancato nodded. “What about fuel?”
“Tanks are still more than half full,” Shepherd said, checking the gauges for the two 50-gallon tanks, which gave the TTP its 485-mile range. “The days are getting longer,” he went on, glancing outside where the sun was still hanging on the horizon. “It doesn’t get dark now until after nineteen hundred. We’ll have a lot of time to kill once we get there.”
“According to these, there’s a patch of heavily forested terrain around this oasis about thirty miles south of the air base. We can hang out until, say, eighteen-thirty, then start moving in. It’ll be dark way before we get anywhere near Okba ben Nafi.”
“Okay, we go tonight.”
Brancato tilted his head thoughtfully. “Or we wait a day and go tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow? Why?”
“Name the holy month that celebrates the victory of Muslims over the Makkans at the battle of Badr and commemorates the revelation of the Koran?”
“Something tells me we’re talking about Ramadan, again,” Shepherd answered.
Brancato nodded. “Starts tomorrow. It’s similar to Lent. Muslims fast; they work shorter hours; businesses close early; and there’s lots of churchgoing. Their state of mind would be working for us; they’ll be less vigilant; less aggressive; and there’ll be less of them around. And since they can’t eat until sunset, they’ll be busy chowing down about the time we’re making our move on the air base.”
“Not these guys,” Shepherd countered. “Qaddafi’s pushing them hard, real hard.”
“We still have to get there. It can’t hurt.”
While Shepherd considered it, Brancato added, “Besides, you look kind of crummy. An extra day’s rest would do you good.”
“Sounds like you have all the angles figured.”
“Yeah,” Brancato said, with a thin smile. “Right up to where you radio the tower for clearance in Arabic.”
49
The Romeo’s mysterious disappearance had pinned the Cavalla in the Crete-Karpathos-Rhodes gap. Duryea had sent a cable to Kiley at CIA headquarters, briefing him on the situation. Several hours later he received a terse reply:
REQUEST VOICE COM ASAP. CITE DIRECTOR
Duryea immediately brought the boat to periscope-antenna depth and deployed a radio mast, then went to the communications room and contacted the DCI.
“I had Romeo’s twenty-one hundred wake-up calls put on surveillance priority,” the DCI began. “Keyhole made an intercept last night that sheds some light on why he didn’t show. I’m cabling you a copy of the translation.” He nodded to his secretary, who activated a fax machine that was patched into the phone line.
Seconds later, a fax machine in the Cavalla’s communications room came to life. The duty officer took the pages from the delivery tray and handed it to Duryea.
ROMEO: This is the Exchequer. This is the Exchequer. Do you read?
NIDAL: Yes. Go ahead.
ROMEO: Your currency is secure. We are proceeding with arrangements for withdrawal as planned. Do you confirm?
NIDAL: NO. The terms of the transaction remain in force but I want to postpone withdrawal for forty-eight hours.
“What do you think Nidal’s up to?” Kiley prompted.
“I don’t know, sir,” Duryea replied, scanning the cable. “Do you have Romeo’s location at the time the transmission was intercepted?”
“The southern Aegean,” Kiley replied, reciting the coordinates, which confirmed the Romeo had started to Beirut and stopped at 2100 hours to contact Nidal at the point where the Cavalla would have intercepted. “ASW follow-up indicates he backtracked to the Cyclades.”
“For what it’s worth, sir,” Duryea said, clearly relieved, “there’s no way Romeo can make it to Beirut by the deadline now.”
“I don’t find that at all comforting, Commander,” Kiley growled. “Nidal doesn’t make idle threats. He promised to execute a hostage by Ramadan and believe me, he’ll find a way to do it.”
“They’ll have to get past us first, sir.”
Kiley grunted, far from mollified, and hung up.
Duryea returned to the control room and kept the Cavalla on station for the remainder of the day, waiting for the Romeo. Twenty-one hundred came and went without any sign of it. It was almost midnight when he glanced to the countdown clock in the upper right corner of the electronic chart table. It read:
00:DAYS
00:HOURS
01:MINUTES
14:SECONDS
Duryea watched until it read all zeroes.
Ramadan had begun.
That same evening, on the southeastern tip of D’Jerba, the glow of dusk was fading to star-dotted darkness as the Transportpanzer rolled out of the marsh grass and past Borj Castille into the sea.
Shepherd and Brancato proceeded south, following the distant causeway to el-Kantara on the mainland, then continued along the Tunisian coast in light surf. They made their way past Zarzis, then cut through the inlet at Bin Qirdan, heading inland across the calm waters of the bay.
Several hours later they guided the Transportpanzer through the rolling breakers onto the beach, crossed the Al Kurnish Road into the desolate, southernmost part of Tunisia, and set off across the desert, well west of the Ras Jdyar border checkpoint.
As the charts had indicated, there were no roads here, no towns in this harsh land that defied even the iron will of desert nomads to inhabit it.