"Were your Navy guys able to track that bomber?"
"They lost it," Venti said. "When the bomber was done refueling, they must have fired up their radar again, spotted the fighters, and evaded them. We have no idea where they went. With the stealth capabilities of that aircraft, they could fly right over Washington, D.C., and we'd never know it."
"Pretty circumstantial evidence," Morgan pointed out. "We don't have any actual evidence that the Megafortress bombed Libya, or that the Night Stalkers had anything to do with it."
"This isn't a court of law-yet," Goff said angrily. "But I don't need a warrant to search a Sky Masters installationthey're federal contractors working on classified government programs, which means we can walk in on them anytime."
"Let me play devil's advocate," Morgan said with a smile, "and ask-why not let these guys do their thing? They obviously uncovered something in Libya with that attack on Samah — Libya was definitely storing weapons of mass destruction there, and was probably getting ready to use them-and they probably uncovered something in Jaghbub, too. The U.S. government is not in any way involved in this, and that's for reaclass="underline" We're not avowing any knowledge of the Night Stalkers or their activities-we're not directing them in any way, shape, or fashion. They're terrorists as far as we know, but we have no legal reason to pursue them."
"I am not going to let a bunch of Lone Rangers fly an intercontinental bomber from American shores and bomb another country with explosives big enough to show up on a satellite as a nuclear explosion and let them get away with it," Secretary Goff said angrily. 'They're going to start a war in north Africa before this is over, and I don't care how deniable they are, we're responsible if we don't try to stop them."
"You going to run this by the boss first?"
"Sky Masters is a Department of Defense contractorthat means I'm responsible for their activities," Otoff said.
"I'm going to start my investigation, and I'm going to use all my enforcement authority to find out what they're up to. In addition, the Night Stalkers are under federal indictment as well-if we uncover evidence that Sky Masters is aiding them, I can and I will shut them down." He looked at General Venti. "Any way we can find that bomber again?"
"We know the tanker's profile," Venti said. "Basically, the Night Stalkers are doing an en route air refueling rendezvous, with the tanker flying a long, slow anchor route-they're obviously very well coordinated and in constant secure contact. They'll probably stay over the Med, although they can certainly do the refueling over Europe-they'd be worried about being spotted visually. We just intercept any aircraft matching that refueling profile. It'll keep our Navy guys hopping, but I think we can do it."
"Can you find the bomber before it links up with the tanker?"
"That'll be tougher," Venti said. "The Megafortress is pretty stealthy-we'd have to get in pretty close before the fighters' radar will be able to lock on, well inside the bomber's laser radar detection range. If they see us hanging around, they'll just bug out."
"That's what I want, then," Goff said resolutely after a few moments' thought. "If the tanker guys are in such good contact with the bomber, they'll tell the bomber to get out as soon as we intercept the tanker. I assume McLanahan has some kind of contingency plan in place, an alternate landing location somewhere in the region-they'll have to abort then- attack run and head right for it. They'll be out of the fight."
Venti looked at Morgan quizzically, then nodded. "I'll give the order, sir," he said.
"I'll ask you one more time, Bob-you sure you want to chase McLanahan and his boys out of there?" Intelligence Director Morgan asked. "They may be cowboys, but at least they're fighting on our side."
"They're not cowboys-they're wild dogs," Goff said. "They need to be put away in cages."
Traffic at the As-Sallum border crossing between Egypt and Libya was always busy, both because of the number of persons crossing the border-thousands of Libyans flocked to Egypt every week on three-day visas to go shopping, buy food, enjoy Egypt's superior beach resorts, or to get better medical treatment-and because of the tight security. Even before the current conflict with Libya, Egypt maintained strict security at the border crossing-today, it was even tighter. Every vehicle was searched, every person was photographed and questioned, every truck was unloaded and thoroughly searched.
That's why it was so unusual to see an unmarked limousine, three buses, and a refrigerated truck being waved through the crossing without so much as one customs officer peeking inside.
The convoy was met by an Egyptian army escort and driven off at very high speed another two hundred kilometers east to Mersa Matruh Joint Military Base. The vehicles were driven inside a government warehouse facility, where over a hundred soldiers, clerks, doctors, translators, and medical examiners were waiting. A military officer went on board the buses and explained to those inside what was about to happen.
One by one, the individuals on board the buses were taken off. Most were suffering from a variety of injuries, mostly burns to the upper half of the body and head injuries of all kinds-the result of trying to swim through or surfacing through spilled-oil fires on the Mediterranean Sea. Many had to be helped off; about two dozen were taken off the third bus by stretcher, some unconscious. Clerks, nurses, and doctors with interpreters were on hand, steering the men and women to interview examination cubicles.
The refrigerated truck was driven to a separate area of the warehouse, closed off from the main section. Six autopsy tables had been set up, with forensic pathologists and medical examiners waiting to begin their work. One by one, light gray body bags were carried out of the truck. Each body bag had a plastic bag with various records inside. A clerk took the paperwork, then escorted the body to an examination table, where video cameras were rolling, recording everything. While dictating into an overhead microphone, the medical examiner unzipped the bag and began his work.
It was not the examiners' job to ascertain cause of death-their main task was gathering enough information to assist in identification. But most times the cause of death was plainly-and painfully-obvious. Most of the fortynine corpses had died of blast trauma or fire from exploding ordnance or systems on board their vessel when the Libyan air force attacked. Severed body parts were sometimes simply thrown into a body bag, often without any real attempt to try to match the parts by gender or race. Many suffered no injuries from blast trauma or fire-they obviously died from wounds inflicted by gunshots at very close range, blunt-force trauma, knife wounds, crushed throats, slashed arteries, mutilated genitalia, or burn marks all over the bodies.
It was obvious they had been tortured to death by their captors after being rescued from the sea.
In all, eight female corpses were examined. They were not exempt from the torture the others endured.
A few hours after the examinations began, a helicopter landed at a helipad outside the warehouse facility, and a group of government officials, surrounded by bodyguards, were quickly taken directly from the helicopter to a waiting limousine and then directly to the warehouse. On his orders, a special corridor had been erected from cubicle dividers with one-way mirrors installed that allowed anyone walking inside the corridor to look out but no one to look in.
Ulama Khalid al-Khan, wearing a military garrison cap and sunglasses to hide his identity even though he was safe from any outside scrutiny, could not believe what he was looking at. The stench was horrific-he wanted to put a cloth up to his nose to block the smell of these tortured, bloody, unwashed bodies, but he dared not show any weakness in front of the soldiers escorting him. The corridor took him and his aide, Major Amr Abu Gheit, into the makeshift morgue, where he was able to view several of the corpses, and he had to struggle to keep his stomach from turning inside out. Finally, he was escorted out of the warehouse complex and into a separate office.