Executive Actions (49 page)

He pulled out fifteen inches of files and held it up to the cameras. Recht moved in. The president told J3 to get even closer. The word was relayed. “‘Top Gun’ wants to be able to be close enough to read the fine print.” Recht obliged.

Roarke imagined his audience 285 miles away, watching the multiple television screens. It was also being recorded on hard drives and burned onto DVD’s. Every effort had been taken to insure proper authentication. The Western press would need it. So would the Muslim world.

Roarke removed his backpack within view of Recht and Aplen’s field of view. He took out a roll of gaffer’s tape and wrapped it around the entire thick file. He checked his watch. 0110. Using a Sharpie tucked in his sleeve, he wrote across the tape.
0110/20 Jan/Fullback. Open at locker.

Roarke carefully placed the package in his backpack and stepped aside. Now the rest of the team unloaded the other files from the cabinets and split up the cache in their own knapsacks. No one knew what secrets they held. But they weren’t about to leave without them. In under two minute’s time they carried the sum total of Fadi’s
Personal
files on their backs.

“Reverse action play,” Slange squawked. They returned in formation, back to back, covering each other as they stepped to the window sills.

Almost immediately two harnesses dropped directly in front of the window. Roarke grabbed one, Recht the other. His camera never strayed from the fullback. “Hike” was Slange’s next command and the power wenches aboard the lead Black Hawk immediately jerked both men up to the waiting helicopter.

Suddenly shots rang out from below. An armored personnel carrier had gotten through earlier than expected. Recht took a bullet in the leg. “Shit!” he yelled as Gardner pulled him to the roof.

Twenty seconds later, the harnesses were down again. Slange and Aplen’s turn. But now they needed a play from the sidelines. They didn’t have to wait long. An Apache gunner answered the attack from the ground, taking out the enemy with a volley from a M230. The lead Apache hovered looking for another target to pop up. There were none.

“Reverse complete. Let’s go for touchdown.”

At that moment, Black Hawk One sharply descended. Captain Dale Coons put its wheels lightly on the roof while still hovering. He knew that the weight of his armored helicopter—some 20,000 pounds at this point in the mission—could collapse what assuredly was a substandard top floor ceiling. Quickly, all six men leaped through the open door and belted themselves. The Black Hawk immediately lifted up and flew off, joining the twin Black Hawk another 800 feet above the building. At 3500 feet they scrambled for the goal line. The fourth quarter had begun.

It was at that point that their Lockheed Martin AN/AAR-47 missile approach warning system detected a threat.

Michael O’Connell sat in the back tier of the CommCenter located on the upper deck of the USS
Carl Vinson
. He had asked for and been granted five requests: Desk space to type notes on his Sony ultralight Vaio. His own video feed with a running clock to track the real time images closely. A separate video camera focused on him and his immediate work area establishing a non-stop audio/video record of O’Connell's “in the moment” presence. An intelligence officer to remain at his side to translate any techno speak. And finally, continued access to the president.

O’Connell typed for speed, not accuracy. Initially he was full of questions, but from the moment the team crashed through the windows he never uttered a word. He touch typed, watching the screens, totally caught up in the events which were unfolding at a dizzying speed. The writer was astonished at the clarity of the pictures from Fadi’s offices. He could read the lettering on the files that Roarke held up to Recht’s camera and he automatically ducked when bullets passed by Recht as he he was hoisted onboard.

Michael O’Connell was so caught up in the images that he missed the shrill deedle-deedle-deedle alarm that pulsed out of the helicopter’s threat detectors.

“Targeting SAM’s,” the pilot of the command Black Hawk announced.

From another speaker, “Confirmed.” The overflying AWACS reported in. Nothing passed unseen or unheard from its powerful electronic eyes and ears. And everything was automatic. Seconds earlier, the location and range of the threat had been diagnosed, by computer fed to the circling F/A-18’s, and an attack plan had been plotted.

The
Vinson
command center heard a faster deedle-deedle-deedle now.

“Oh shit.” The president knew that sound first-hand.

“Missiles away,” was the report from the AWAC’s cool radar officer, Lt. Linda Rodriguez. She plotted four missiles targeted for the Black Hawks. “Probably old Volga SA-2 SAM’s.” Old, but still deadly Soviet-built surface-to-air missiles with a range of thirty-one miles.

“Down range 17 miles,” Rodriguez called out. “On course to intercept.” She ran some fast calculations and keyed a command to the Eagles. The Black Hawk pilots knew what to do.

The SAM’s maximum velocity was Mach 3.5, or approximately 2640 miles per hour. It was deadly enough to bring down Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 over Russia in 1960, and reason enough for the United States to prepare for war when they were shipped to Cuba in 1962.

“Thirty seconds.”

A technician onboard the
Vinson
superimposed a digital clock on screen.

“Countermeasures,” was the only word from Coons in Black Hawk One. He dropped his chaff and flares in hopes of drawing the incoming missiles away from his two T700-GE-701C turboshaft engines. Captain Spencer Dayton, piloting Black Hawk Two, did the same.

Even Michael Connolly knew what was happening now. He stopped typing and watched the monitors.

Army captain Dale Coons might have had fewer than 30 seconds to play with, but he certainly didn’t act as if they’d be his last. He was calm and focused in the cockpit of his lead Black Hawk. His tactical display showed the threats, but also his assets—the Super Hornets.

They were all computer linked to the AWACS for targeting. Thirty seconds was like the two minute drill in football. Ample time for a solid offensive play; time for Quarterback Sneak to get pass protection.

The computer fed the coordinates to his missiles onboard guidance systems. The chief weapons in Coons’ stores were Hellfire missiles. These miniature aircraft carried copper-lined-charge warheads, powerful enough to burn through the thickest tank armor in the world. His Black Hawk employed eight of them—a pair mounted to each of four pylons split between the wings. They would target the mobile SAM launch sites that sent the missiles aloft, as well as their radar guidance centers.

Coons triggered the release sequence, igniting the propellant. In an instant and with 500 pounds of force, the first two missiles broke free of the firing rail, accelerated and locked on their aiming coordinates, which read a laser light reflecting off the target. Another two fired, followed by two more, then the final two.

Coons banked his helicopter away. His work was done. The rest was up to the F-18’s.

High above them, Commander Rico Rupp was earning his day’s pay as pilot of the command F/A-18E. Within eight seconds of the SAM launches, he had called up two AIM-7 Sparrows, attached to his nacelle fuselage stations. Not waiting for a launch order, for they had been authorized in his briefing before takeoff, he released the two 500 pound supersonic missiles. The air-to-air heat seeking missiles had earned their stripes in the Persian Gulf War. Testament to their capabilities were the twenty-two Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft and the three helicopters that were downed by the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missiles during that brief war. Most of them were killed within ten miles of launch. Rupp’s missiles, and those of the other three Navy pilots in the skies, had just under nine miles to work with now.

Rupp’s second wave came from his AIM-120 AMRAAM, or Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. This killer had even greater speed and range than the enemy’s SAM’s. At supersonic speeds, the distance quickly closed between the incoming and returning fire.

“Six to impact,” Rodriguez radioed.

Exactly twenty-six seconds after the first SAM launch, and barely four seconds from intercepting the Black Hawks, Rupp’s missiles scored.

Seconds later the SAM sites were obliterated by the Hellfires. The same for their radar installations.

“Opposition sidelined,” sqawked Rupp.

Coons cut in, “Four blocked field goals.”

“Heading back to the showers. Fullback has the ball for coach,” chimed in Cpt. Coons from his Black Hawk.

Ground radar painted them three more times on the return leg. The installations were quickly turned to smoldering cinder blocks when their radar was answered by the deadly force of the aptly named Hell-fires. No more Libyan SAM’s gave them trouble after that.

“W
hat do you mean?” screamed Fadi Kharrazi. “Who came? From where? How?”

The self-appointed heir apparent expected better from his aide, Lakhdar al-Nassar. Al-Nassar was lucky for now that he was on the telephone and not facing Fadi in person.

“They came in on helicopters and went through the windows.”

“
Who came
?”

“It had to be Americans.”

“And the building guards. Exactly where were they?”

“Downstairs.” He decided to add, “Like always. But they were cut off. Four were killed, more on the street in an armored vehicle. By the time the rest made it to the top floor it was all over.”

“What was over?”

“The break-in.” Al-Nassar smiled. “But good news. All they took were some files.”

“What files? Tell me in the name of the Prophet what they took!”

“I don’t know. The guards who got there just said the file cabinets were ransacked.”

“Which ones?” But Fadi knew the answer even if al-Nassar was too stupid to figure it out.

The chaos on the Tripoli streets successfully stalled General Kharrazi’s troops. The single armored vehicle that did get through had been taken out. No others made it across the debris field in time. It had all been too quick.

Vinnie D’Angelo slipped into the busy street scene and disappeared. But he had one more bit of business. Purely personal. He knew exactly where Secret Police Major Yassar Hevit lived and where he would die.

Sami Ben Ali followed his pre-arranged escape route, not waiting another moment. He was finally going home, vowing never to return.

One hour later the Black Hawks carrying the Special Ops team touched down on the USS
Carl Vinson
. The Apaches landed three minutes later, followed by the four F/A-18C’s.

The cameras kept rolling. A Secret Service officer took over Aplen and Recht’s video cameras assuring uninterrupted coverage to the CommCenter. Smiles, handshakes and high-fives greeted the Special Ops team.

A Navy detail led Roarke through a maze of corridors. No one offered to take the files from him. They didn’t know what he was holding, but rumors had spread that it was explosive.

Roarke and the accompanying vid ops entered a heavily guarded conference room at a running clip. It was brightly lit for optimum video coverage and completely mic’d for sound.

Three six-foot-long folding tables draped with white table clothes formed a U-shape in the room. Men and women were at each, with a pile of books Roarke presumed to be foreign dictionaries. Two copy machines were humming against the back wall. Two scanners and a pair of printers were also on-line. A grease board marked
Assumptions/Strategies
hung at the head of the room. A forth table with food was in the far corner.

“Scott! So good to see you.” The first words were from President Taylor who greeted him with a sincere and gratifying bear hug.

Roarke let out a sigh and allowed his body to relax. “I felt like an old man out there.”

“Well, you don’t look too worse for the wear,” the president said to Roarke. “Then again…”

“Someone had to do the heavy lifting,” Roarke joked.

“And while we’re on the subject, let’s take that package off your hands.”

“Be my guest.” Roarke handed over the backpack. At the same time, four Secret Service agents brought in backpacks carrying the rest of the material snatched from Fadi’s offices.

“Thank you, Scott. Let’s give it to some people who can make more out of it.”

The president passed the signed and sealed parcel to Jack Evans, who in turn opened it in view of an overhead camera.

“Now, Scott, while they’re getting started, how about some coffee. There’s also cold cuts from the mess. What’s your pleasure?”

“I’ll just go for the java, sir.”

The president nodded and walked Roarke over to the food table.

“What’s the situation? Are we gonna make it in time, boss?” It was already very early in the morning of January 20
th
in the Mediterranean. But the time difference was on their side. Washington was seven hours behind. It was still evening on the 19
th
.

“We have sixty-eight minutes to wheels up,” the president explained. He didn’t tell them that the weather wasn’t going to hold much longer. They
had
to get back to Washington. “First to Ramstein. Then we’ll high tail it to Andrews on Air Force One. We’ll be home by oh-eight-hundred local time. It’ll be tight and we’ve got a helluva lot to pour through before we go.”

By pouring through, Taylor meant translating. He had Arabic and Russian experts from the NSA waiting at two of the tables. Everyone wore a microphone, feeding discreet audio channels to multi-track DAT machines. Every word they said or read would be part of the record.

“Any idea what’s really there?” Roarke asked.

“Probably more than we counted on. We’ll know soon enough.”

“And then?”

“Then we do everything we can to stop this. I have the attorney general working up legal precedent.”

Roarke swallowed hard. “Sir…”

Roarke’s unusual use of “sir” immediately put the President on alert.

“You should know I also have someone on it.” He had to tell the president what he had done; which was a direct violation of his security clearance.

“Mr. President,” he continued.

Taylor thought that something was way out of line.
Sir
and now
Mr. President?

“My lawyer friend may be further along in that research than the AG.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Sir, my decision. The woman in Boston…”

“Who?”

“Kessler. The woman at Marcus’ law firm. The one I’m seeing…”

“You did what?”

“I told her…confidentially.”

“You risked the entire security of the operation?” the president shouted right into Roarke’s face.

People couldn’t avoid overhearing the president.

“I trust her. And I ask you to trust her, too.”

“I could have you arrested on the spot.”

Other members of the president’s Secret Service team stepped closer. Morgan Taylor nodded for them to stay away.

“Mr. President, I believe she can help us. Give her the chance. Let her present what she has to the AG.”

Morgan Taylor, still inches from Roarke, studied his eyes; the eyes of a man he also trusted with his life. “Roarke, you realize you’ve broken the law?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And willfully?”

“Yes, sir.”

Morgan Taylor continued to look deeply into Roarke’s eyes. Finally, he relaxed his stance.

“And you think she’s that good?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stay right here. Don’t move a muscle.”

Morgan Taylor went directly to a secure phone across the room. Roarke, watching him, now prayed that he was right about Katie. The president talked for two minutes then hung up.

Taylor then motioned to O’Connell to join him across the room. He mouthed the words,
“Come meet someone.”
It was Roarke.

Without explaining anything about the last few minutes, the president launched into a casual introduction. “Mr. O’Connell, this is Scott Roarke, Secret Service. He’s going to fill you in on what went down.” Roarke nearly choked on his sandwich.

“But sir,” he complained without going further.

“We’re going to release the videotapes, Scott. He might as well have the details first hand.”

Then the president told O’Connell, “But no names, O’Connell. He’s simply a member of the Special Forces team. Is that okay?”

“Is that all?”

“Yes,” Taylor answered.

“I can live with that.”

“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I’ve got some reading to do. The translations are going to be coming fast.”

“But Mr. President,” Roarke said trying to get him to stay.

“Yes?”

“What we were talking about a moment ago. Then the call you made.”

“We’ll discuss it later, Scott. Right now, do as you’re told.” It was an obvious slam.

Taylor left Roarke and O’Connell together. They took two seats in a corner near the door. Roarke, visibly on guard, kept his distance.

“I saw you on the tape.”

“Yeah.”

This one’s gonna be like pulling teeth,
the reporter thought. He had no idea they’d talked before.

“Did you expect opposition?”

“Yes.”

“How many Libyans did your team engage?”

Roarke took immediate exception to the question. “I believe that’s classified,” he said without expression.

“I can find out later,” O’Connell responded.

“Your prerogative.”

“On the way back? What did you encounter?”

Roarke had the same answer, only shorter. “Classified.”

“Look, as you heard, you have permission to speak with me. I’d appreciate some cooperation.” O’Connell added a sincere, “Please.”

Roarke caught the president’s eye who recognized he’d left his man squirming. “Okay, Mr. O’Connell. The basic facts. Four SAM’s were up our ass. Four SAM’s scratched.”

“On who’s authority?”

“The Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution. Senate Joint Resolution 23. Signed by President George W. Bush, 18 September 2001.” He paused. “If I remember correctly.”

“Which means?”

“Which means, Mr. Connolly, that the president can take necessary and appropriate actions to insure that the United States can exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect its citizens against unusual and extraordinary threats to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. In plain English it means the president has the authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States.”

“Come on,” he said playing devil’s advocate. “Do you believe there was enough proof to invoke such extreme means?

“Enough proof to put us
in country
?”

“That’s my question.”

“Yes.”

“And you had this proof?”

“I did.”

“And where did you get it?”

Roarke’s antagonism now dissolved. He suddenly realized why Taylor allowed him to speak with the reporter directly.
Payback time.
He grinned through his response. “As a matter of fact, Mr. O’Connell, I got it from you.”

O’Connell’s pen slid across the paper right off the page. “From me?”

“From you.”

“How? I never gave you anything.”

“Yes you did. A photograph.”

“I don’t understand…”

“From a barbershop,” Roarke explained. “In Marblehead, Massachusetts. You found it for me.”

O’Connell’s mouth opened wide in utter shock.

“You?” the
Times
writer finally managed.

“Yes. Perhaps I called you under somewhat false pretenses. I said I was with the convention.”

“You?” O’Connell asked incredulously again.

“Me.”

“You’re a sonofabitch.”

“That’s me. And you should have checked your sources.”

“You used me. You fucking used me!”

“So did Lodge. But I used you to undo the damage he had you doing. And I gave you something in return. Information on Newman, remember?”

“Yes, but…”

“And now you’re here because you’re going to tell the truth, Mr. O’Connell.”

The reporter closed his eyes. It seemed everyone used him. When he opened his eyes he nodded, finally understanding why he’d gotten the call from the president.

“It’s Roarke?” he asked without any edge in his voice.

“Yes. Scott Roarke.”

“I guess you had me at a disadvantage.”

“No more than the rest of the country’s been.”

“Point taken. Tell me one thing.”

“I’ll try.”

“How did that picture make the difference.”

Roarke beamed. He tested the strength of his chair, leaned back and put his feet on the table. “Well, let me explain all about a man named Touch Parsons and the particular skills he has.”

This was supposed to be
his
day. The third circled date in his calendar. The inaugural of the new president of the United States—
his
president. But it had all gone wrong.

Fadi Kharrazi tore the calendar to shreds and cursed Morgan Taylor. He cursed his dying father for making him a rival with his brother. He cursed his mother for bearing Abahar. And he cursed his brother Abahar, supposedly—
the brilliant one, the more magnificent one—
for living.

The best thing that could happen was for everything to remain quiet. Perhaps Taylor would have the presence of mind not to create an international crisis. However, he couldn’t assume that. Depending upon how the events played out, his brother could try to assassinate him. If circumstances were reversed that’s what he would do.

Fadi needed a strategy and a scapegoat. First he would have a personal conversation with his father to explain the attack, leaving out key details, then ask him to round up some spies. That useless al-Nassar for one. The Arab world was familiar with CIA-conspired plots. This would be the Mother of them All. Then he would plant a news story expressing his outrage. Finally, he would phone his loving brother and claim how he was about to be framed.

But there was one international call he had to make first. A call to Florida.

Ibrahim Haddad’s nightmares. They had told as much as the man ranting on the phone in Arabic. He instantly gathered the gist of the outburst.

Haddad slammed his phone down without saying a word after “Hello” and went to his computer. He had one more message to send out.