Wings of Fire pm-10 Page 25

"I'll stay here, just in case Ouda wants to talk-I want him to think we're still here," Patrick said.

  "How many men do you want here with you?"

  "Zero," Patrick said. "Everyone else will depart and go to the exfiltration points."

  "I don't think that's wise, sir."

  "Chris, I think the Egyptians are no longer our friends," Patrick said. "I think they'll come for us first thing in the morning, when they've built up their forces to maximum. But I still don't want to get into a firefight with the Egyptians. I can stall them until you are safe." Wohl nodded. "Get moving." Wohl barked an order, and the Night Stalkers got on their feet and headed out to get their gear and evacuate.

  Hal Briggs and David Luger stayed behind. "What are you thinking about, Muck?" Luger asked. "Why stay?"

  "I'm afraid that if Khan or Ouda have Wendy and the others, they'll use them to get to us," Patrick said. "If we bug out completely, they'll hold them hostage to get us back."

  "So you intend on staying here and getting captured?"

  "It's the only thing I can think of to keep all our bases covered," Patrick said. "But I need you guys out so we can organize a rescue. When they realize you guys have disappeared, they'll be less likely to hurt us-they know what you can do."

  Hal Briggs shook his head. "I sure hope you know what you're doin', Muck," he said. He held out a hand, and Patrick shook it. "We'll stay in touch. Keep your head down."

  "That's what I do best."

  "Since when?" Luger asked with a smile. He shook hands with his long-time partner. "I don't want to lose another McLanahan, my friend. When it's time to get out, give us a call, and we'll come in and help get you out."

  "I'll be right behind you. Now get moving." He and Briggs headed for the tunnel. "Hal?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Set some mines on that emergency exit after you get clear," Patrick ordered. "If the Egyptians try to come in that way, I want it sealed."

  "You got it. Be careful."

  THE PENTAGON, WASHINGTON, D.C. THAT SAME TIME

  Director of Central Intelligence Douglas Morgan entered Secretary of Defense Goff's office, holding a thin imagery file marked "CONFIDENTIAL." He held it up, a questioning look in his eyes. "Here's the data you asked for," he said. "What's up?"

  "Our friends might be at it again," Goff said, waving him to a seat. Already seated at the meeting area in front of Goff's desk was Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Richard Venti. "The general has some data to show us, but he needed your latest overheads to nail it down. What did you find?"

  "Satellite imagery from over north Africa," Morgan explained. "Infrared detectors picked up four large blasts in eastern Libya last night. They were first classified as oil derrick fires. But their location was right over a small Libyan military base called Jaghbub, mostly used as a border security outpost and a security base for one of the Libyan president's retreats-sort of Libya's answer to Camp David."

  "I'm familiar with Jaghbub, General," Goff said. "What happened there?"

  "We got some overhead shots of the area, and analysts say there was an air strike against that base," Morgan responded. "Precision guided attacks against air defense sites, communications, security, and even pinpoint attacks against armor."

  "Interesting."

  "This is even more interesting-the Libyan president, Zuwayy, was there at the time."

  "Really? Did they get him?"

  "Doesn't appear so," Morgan said. "We have been tracking aircraft coming and going from there ever since the attack, and we think we tracked a helicopter convoy leave there for Tripoli shortly after the attack. Shortly thereafter, Libyan state television announces a terrorist attack on Jaghbub, accusing the Egyptians and Israelis of attacking a Muslim holy place. The reports claim Zuwayy is safe, but we haven't seen him yet. Our guess is he got out but may be injured."

  Goff shook his head, then nodded to Venti. '"Bell him what your boys found, Richard."

  "About an hour after those fires broke out," Venti said, "a Navy Hawkeye over the Med is tracking a flight that took off from Athens bound for Shannon, Ireland. Pretty routine stuff, except the plane's not exactly on course for Shannon-he's flying basically westbound, over the Med, instead of getting a clearance direct. But he's following his filed international flight plan, he's on time and on courseno problem. The Navy is watching him. Soon, he's slowing down-way down. He's lost about a hundred knots. We call up the guy and ask if there's a problem, and he says no, they're just doing some engine performance data checks where they have to retard throttles. It's weird, doing stuff like that over water far from home-the aircraft is based in North Las Vegas, Nevada-but it's no big deal.

  "We happened to have a couple Tomcats on patrol nearby, so we vector them over and do a silent join-up on the guy to make sure he's okay. They got a picture of the plane with the F-14's telescopic FLIR." Venti opened another briefing folder and showed it to Morgan.

  It was a very fine, detailed picture of an EB-52 Megafortress bomber being refueled behind a DC-10 aircraft.

  "Oh, shit," Morgan muttered. "Is that one of Sky Masters Inc.'s modified B-52s?"

  "That's it," Venti said. "And we checked the N-number of the DC-10-it's a Sky Masters launch aircraft also, modified for aerial refueling." He handed Morgan another photo, this one an even more extreme close-up. "Look under the wings."

  "Weapon pylons?"

  Venti handed him a magnifying glass. "What else do you see?"

  Morgan studied the photo, then whistled. "Missiles on rails on the sides of the pylons." He studied another photograph, shaking his head. "One missing on the right pylon."

  "Presumably expended," Secretary Goff said perturbedly. "Libya claims in its broadcast that some of their aircraft were shot down during the attack too."

  "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 real: 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."

  ON THE LIBYA-EGYPT BORDER THAT SAME TIME

  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.

  "What… what in hell was that?" Khan gasped.

  "One hundred and twenty-nine persons recovered by the Libyans from the Mediterranean Sea after their ships were attacked, sir," Major Gheit responded. It was obvious that even the veteran warrior could barely stomach the sight himself. He handed Khan a list of the survivors. "Fortynine fatalities, including nine women. Fifty-six others severely injured, some critically. They are almost done with the identification process."

  "Were… were some of those men tortured?"

  "Obviously the Libyan military wanted information out of them," Gheit said. "The king of Libya explained that the attacks were in retaliation for the commando attack on their missile base."

  "Damned brutal animals," Khan muttered, taking a sip of water to try to settle his stomach. "I've never seen men mutilated like that."

  "There are only nine Egyptians in the group, and they were working as crew members on someone else's ship, not an Egyptian flagged vessel," Gheit said. "Why would Zuwayy want to turn them over to you?"

  "He dumped those men and women on our doorstep, leaving us to clean up his mess," Khan said disgustedly. "He's either trying to implicate me in this unholy mess, or he's trying to embarrass me. Either one won't work."

  "This doesn't make sense," Gheit said. "He must know those prisoners are going to talk about the treatment they received in Libya. Zuwayy will be vilified all over the world."

  "Well, I'm not going to play whatever game fee's playing," Khan said resolutely. "This is insanity." Khan waved at the door. "Let's get out of here," he said. "The stench is too much for me to bear." Gheit ordered Khan's car pulled up beside the door. When it was in place, Khan stepped outside.

  Just as Khan was about to step into the car, his attention was drawn to an impossibly bright flash of light-he was surprised he noticed it in daytime, but it was that bright somewhere very close, followed by a tremendous BOOM! like the loudest thunderclap ever heard. Moments later there was another flash of light, bright enough to erase shadows on the ground, followed by a second explosion. A thunderstorm in an almost cloudless sky?

  Could it be some sort of attack? But there was no sign of anything wrong on the ground except a great stirring of dust and sand, like the gust front ahead of an approaching thunderstorm or sandstorm-but again, there were no clouds in the sky. He could hear sc
reams somewhere off in the distance, but still there seemed to be nothing amiss.

  "Let's get out of here," Khan said. "This place feels like death all of a sudden."

  Patrick, wearing full battle armor and exoskeleton, was watching TV coverage of the busloads of ex-Libyan prisoners being taken into the warehouses through his helmet-mounted visor. He stared carefully at the screen, trying to pick out even one familiar face, but the cameras were too far away and the prisoners were not in the open long enough for Patrick to recognize anyone.

  The commentator made several mentions of the refrigerated trucks being driven to an adjacent warehouse Patrick didn't want to think about what was in those vehicles. He just hoped and prayed that Wendy and his men were all right.

  But another movement caught his attention: the movement of men and vehicles outside the compound. Shit, he thought, here they come. "Hey, Texas," he radioed.

  "We see them, Muck," David Luger responded. Patrick's electronic visor in his battle armor automatically datalinked the view to all the others wearing the Tin Man armor. "Still think they're just going to take you into custody?"

  Patrick ignored the question. "Are you guys secure?" he asked.

  "Almost," Luger replied. The Night Stalkers had to move to a third recovery area, a set of abandoned oil rigs almost thirty miles to the southwest-most of the Egyptian army was on the move west of the base and along the coast to seal off the Libyan border. They had stolen two tracked vehicles to help their getaway across the desert. "The closest units are about three miles behind us. We're waiting for the choppers to come after us any minute. If they do, we'll ask Headbanger Two to take them out."

  "Headbanger Two is standing by," the aircraft commander aboard a second EB-52 Megafortress flying battleship reported. The second Megafortress had been able to refuel from the Sky Masters Inc.'s DC-10 tanker, but had to break off and run into southern Libya shortly thereafter because U.S. Navy fighters from a carrier in the Mediterranean had pursued it. The DC-10 landed in Iraklion, Greece, where American and NATO authorities were questioning its crew as to why it had to make the unscheduled landing and exactly what its mission was. It had been a close call. "We can stay on station for only about an hour before we have to head on home."