Hostile Fire (7 page)

The guides waved and the SEALs marched over to a pair of low-lying buildings that looked more like college campus dorms than barracks. Inside, though, they were barracks, with double bunks and room for sixty men. The two officers stayed with their men. They went through the same chow line and were ready when the guides came to take them to the meeting.

They entered a three-story brick building with ivy blanketing half the near wall, and went up to the third floor. The conference room looked like one from a major corporation. The oval walnut table was twenty feet long, with chairs all around the outside. Already in the room were four men, one in an army general’s uniform and three civilians.

The SEALs stood in two ranks along one side of the table
and the four other men sat down. Deputy Director of the CIA Glenden Swarthout nodded at the SEALs.

“Gentlemen, it’s good to have you here again. We’re facing a problem that has been growing for sometime but was confused with false information, rumors, and downright lies. Now we have the facts and we’re prepared to act on them.

“Our top agent in Iraq has told us that the government there now has four operational atomic weapons. They are crude but functioning. We have no information on what they plan to do with them, but we can’t afford to wait and find out. Those weapons must be destroyed as quickly as possible. We know they have staged at least three underground explosions, and from all reports the weapons worked as planned.

“Right now, we’re not even sure where the bombs are. We know they are in the desert, probably at least two hundred miles west of Baghdad. That could be anywhere in a large arc of locations. Your job is to go to Iraq, infiltrate the country, learn where the bombs are, and destroy them. Next you will take out the production facility where they have been manufactured. A big task? You bet. A deadly important one? One of the highest on our agenda. Most of you have been here before and taken our quick Arabic and Iraqi indoctrination program.

“By this time you’ve probably figured out that we can’t infiltrate sixteen men into Iraq. We can put in three, and we hope all will be fluent in Arabic. We have few resources in Iraq. Our best man there is continuing to send us vital information on this problem. I realize you men are not experts on nuclear weapons and how to destroy them without blowing up the whole countryside. We will be sending an expert along with you. Some of you know this person. She’s Katherine ‘Kat’ Garnet. You’ve worked with her before. She comes on station here tomorrow morning. She will be dressed as a man to avoid female restrictions in any Islamic country we are in.

“We will know tomorrow if we can use Saudi Arabia as our staging area. Our relations with that nation have been good, and when we tell them that Iraq has these weapons and may use them on its neighbors in a drive for new territory, we believe they will give us total cooperation. Saudi
Arabia has a border with the far western section of Iraq, in the edges of the Syrian Desert. If the bomb location is in the desert, we will be much closer to it from Saudi Arabia than from Kuwait, but if we can’t use Saudi Arabia for staging, it will be Kuwait. Are there any questions so far?”

Murdock stepped forward. “Sir. You said we don’t have an exact location of the weapons yet. So we’ll have to go to Baghdad, meet your man there, and ferret out that location. For this we would take in only three men. Then when we know the location, the rest of the platoon can move in from Saudi Arabia?”

“That was our best plan so far. Rather than work up from Kuwait with our three men, we are considering an airdrop from the northern edges of the Iraq Southern No-Fly Zone, which we patrol regularly, so aircraft there would not arouse suspicion.”

“How close can you get our men to Baghdad with that airdrop?” Jaybird asked.

“About forty miles, which is a lot better than the three hundred and seventy-five miles from Kuwait to Baghdad.”

“Then Kat would remain with the bulk of the platoon in Saudi Arabia while our three men dig out the location?” Murdock asked.

“That is our suggestion.” The deputy director looked at the SEALs, then at the others at the desk. “Are there any more questions?”

Murdock spoke up. “I’m assuming that we’ll use all non-U.S.-made weapons and that we’ll have all non-U.S. uniforms and gear for the fighting part of our platoon, so we leave no fingerprint of our presence.”

“Right. You’ve been there before. The three men who go into Baghdad must be as Arabic as possible. Who will you send, Commander?”

“Our key man is Omar Rafii, a native of Saudi Arabia and totally fluent in Arabic. I’ll be the second one. My Arabic is passable. The third man I want along is Kenneth Ching. He speaks four languages and picked up well on Arabic on our last outing when we needed it.”

“Good. You three will start your training at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. The rest of the platoon will report to our
uniforms and wardrobe department. We’ll probably go with Kuwait army cammies for you. Miss Garnet will be outfitted with the rest of the platoon.”

He pulled down a large scale map that showed Iraq and portions of the nations around it. “So you can orient yourselves. If we don’t get confirmation from Saudi Arabia before you fly out, we land in Kuwait, then we’ll work from there. Our timetable looks like this. Training tomorrow and the next day. We want you three to be as invisible as possible while in Baghdad. That way you can stay alive. We want your Arabic to be as colloquial as possible. Three days from today you’ll fly out in another VC-11, heading for the Middle East.” He nodded to the men. “Thank you all, and have a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we get to work.”

The general and the three civilians stood.

“Ten-hut!” one of the SEALs bellowed. The SEALs snapped to attention as the general and the civilians walked out of the room.

Baghdad, Iraq

Salah Rahmani watched his two sons and his wife at the breakfast table. She had captured his heart four years ago and he had married her at once. Now he was a family man and had to start thinking about his responsibilities. The food and living conditions were adequate, but not nearly as good as they could be in the United States. But first he had his commitment to the CIA to be as useful here in Iraq as possible. He prayed that he could get out soon. There had been some hints about his loyalty in the past, but nothing came of it. He had not been aware of any innuendo that the president’s secret police suspected him. He knew the dangerous track he walked. There was absolutely no margin for error. One miniscule misstep and he would be shot down at his desk or wherever one of the elite hit squads found him.

He had been back in Iraq for four years. He was born here, and before he left he had graduated from the top military academy in Baghdad. He placed first in his class and was recruited to go to college in America and take ROTC training to learn as much about the American military system as possible. He wouldn’t exactly be a spy, but he was to soak up as much U.S. military information as he could. While in the States he fell in love with America, with the people, the government, the relaxed, marvelous way of life. It took a CIA man only two months to turn him and convince him to become a spy for America in Baghdad.

He quit college and took a four-month course at the Farm at Langley and went back to Iraq with his college degree and his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army reserve. Both were fabricated by the CIA. Since then he had been increasingly important as a source to the Company
about Iraq and what the government really was doing. In Iraq he had been assigned by the War Ministry to the American Forecast Desk and had told them just enough about the U.S. Army’s operation to keep them happy. In his position as a captain in the Iraqi Army he was privy to some but not all of the Iraqi military plans. He did have an up-to-date plan for the placement of antiaircraft guns in and around Baghdad.

The most dangerous part of his life was transmitting his reports to the CIA via the SATCOM. The small CIA version of the satellite radio had come into his hands in various pieces and he assembled it and made contact. The radio was so advanced that it spurted out the transmissions in a tenth of a second, far too quickly for any triangulation to pin down its location. He had the foot-high, four-inch-square radio hidden in an unused chimney in the flat that he rented from the government.

Two days ago he discovered that Iraq’s push to develop a nuclear weapon had been a success. He had kept the U.S. up-to-date on the progress over the past three years. He learned that the military now had four nuclear bombs. They were crude by Western standards, but operational. Iraq had already exploded three in deep-well tests far underground. There had been no international recognition of the tests. The Iraq Ministry of Science had reported a minor earthquake at the same time. Seismographs around the world had recorded the disturbance and scientists agreed that it was an extremely small earthquake located in the Syrian Desert. Now he had to find out where the bombs were kept and, more important, what Iraq’s new president intended to do with them. A tough assignment for a lowly captain in the army. It would be the most dangerous intelligence-gathering work he had attempted so far. He had some contacts who might help. He knew that Iraq had no aircraft capable of delivering the nukes over a long distance. They had short-range missiles, but he didn’t think they were large enough to take nuclear bombs in their payloads. So what was President Kamil going to do with the weapons? He could bluff his neighbors, threaten to vaporize them unless they allowed Iraq to take over their country without a fight. But would the rest of the Arab world stand for that? No, he must have other plans.

President Kamil was an absolute dictator of Iraq despite the handpicked parliament and the religious courts. He was a master politician as well and was winning over the loyalty of the people. Lately he had granted immediate release to more than ten thousand mostly political prisoners. He had expanded a program to give free pieces of land to all civil servants and military personnel. He had relaxed restrictions on private businesses, allowing people to open stores and small enterprises and to import goods directly from abroad.

In Baghdad he had liberalized some aspects of life. Internet cafes opened that drew hundreds of Iraqis desperate for outside news and eager to conduct business deals by e-mail. E-mail was still restricted to one government-controlled server. But just months ago people were allowed to access e-mail form their homes.

President Kamil was trying to buy the contentment of the people, and so far it was working. Salah knew from his own observation that things were much better for the middle-class people in Baghdad than they were four years ago. The roads were much improved; the telephone system, in total disarray after the Gulf War bombings, was now back in operation and worked well enough so anyone could dial direct anywhere in the world.

Even a year ago the Saddam International Airport had been dark. Today the brightly lit terminal was buzzing with flights and passengers from Jordan, Syria, and Russia. The roads in town were jammed with cars and trucks, among them Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot models. Many of these were imported by the Iraqi Trade Ministry and sold to residents at cut-rate prices.

Salah had been to one middle-class neighborhood recently where a jazz trio serenaded diners in an Italian restaurant with Beatles and Frank Sinatra tunes. Shoppers bought computers from Dubai and grabbed bootleg videodiscs for their new DVD players.

Still, with all the improvements, Iraq remained a dictator-run country with harsh laws and customs.

Salah rode his bicycle to work at the War Ministry. It was only four miles, but traffic was heavy. At his office he carried his bike up two flights and parked it inside so it wouldn’t be
stolen. Even locked bicycles left on the street were disassembled, and every part not locked down was taken. The parts were put together with parts from other bikes.

Captain Rahmani sat at his desk and worked over a plan for integrating the senior cadets at the military academy into the army at once in case of an attack. He had most of the details worked out and had devised a plan to mobilize them into a self-contained infantry company. There were a few over four hundred seniors at the academy. They would be organized into four platoons, with a regular army company commander, four academy lieutenants, and six sergeants in each platoon.

He printed out the plan and took it to his superior, Major Nabil.

“It’s a little rough, sir, but the basic plan is there. All we’d need to do would be grab an infantry captain from the army to be the company commander and draw the cadre from the top students from the academy.”

Nabil briefed the plan and nodded. “You have it set up well, Captain. Finish it and we’ll submit it with the rest of our emergency contingency plans in case of an invasion.” He moved his chair closer to Salah and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

“Did you hear about the four babies we have in the nursery? Looks like they are operational. Half the general staff is sweating bullets trying to figure out how best to utilize them. Do you threaten with them? Drop one in the desert as a demonstration and then say, ‘Okay, Syria, we’re moving in with occupation troops tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred. Any opposition and Damascus and two and a half million people get vaporized.” Major Nabil chuckled. “What a weapon that is! So damned destructive. No defense. Defy us and you die. Quick, simple.”

“But then would the West threaten us with a nuclear drop if we invaded another country using nuclear blackmail?” the captain asked.

“Probably.” He shook his head. “It’s all political now. Not just military thinking. It has to be a political cause and a political stance that is backed up with the military. We could
be in a hot spot here for years, and that should mean promotions.”

“Yes, Colonel, I’d like your oak leaves.” They both laughed. “I hope the top brass doesn’t keep those bombs here in Baghdad. Just one little mistake by somebody and boom, we’re all atomic dust.”

“Oh, no, no problem with that,” the major said. “I sit in on one of the planning groups. The whole thing has been done far, far out in the desert. I’d say the four sweethearts are probably closer to the Syrian capital than they are to us here in Baghdad.”