Mission Compromised (63 page)

He walked outside into the courtyard and saw some fruit trees in blossom and several tomato plants. Songbirds sang in the foliage outside this quiet little home. The setting was so tranquil that it was hard for him to believe that he was still in Iraq.

Habib was sitting outside on a stone patio, enjoying the sun. The morning was still a little cool, but Habib appeared comfortable sitting there, reading from his Arabic Bible. When Newman came outside, Habib closed the book, stood up, and greeted him. He showed the American around and pointed out the small vegetable garden out back. Then he escorted Newman back inside, into the living room. He offered the American hot tea, some biscuits and honey, and some slices of cheese.

During the meal, Newman told them the cover story that he was
told to give—that he was a worker with a UN humanitarian organization, and their plane was on its way from Istanbul to Pakistan when it must have been mistaken for an intruder and shot down. Now he needed to contact this humanitarian organization for instructions on getting back to Turkey. Newman asked if there was a public telephone in the town.

“Yes, but it is very public. You may not be safe using it. It is bound to attract attention.”

“Please… can you think of one that is less dangerous to use? Maybe a friend or another Christian that you can trust?”

Samir said something to his father, in Arabic. The older man thought for a moment and then nodded his head. “Perhaps there is one. It is at a bank in Khutaylah. It will be on the way when we leave, and it will not take us long to get there.”

“What is the plan?”

The two men explained how they would help him get to Turkey by following the ancient trade route to Iskenderun, a seacoast city in Turkey, just across the border from Syria. “It will be a long and complicated business, and will involve several changes of transportation,” Samir told him.

While they were talking, Newman reached under his T-shirt and pulled out the cloth money belt that Habib had removed from the wounded Marine in the desert and later returned.

In the belt's scorched pouch was Newman's false passport for his identity as a UN aid worker, along with a Visa card with the same name, and an international driver's license with his picture. Newman peeled back the Velcro cover and pulled out a large wad of foreign currency—five thousand dollars in Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish notes. “I can pay,” he said.

Habib waved his money away. “Please, Peter… put your money away. You are my new friend.”

Samir brought out a map of the region that he had gotten in an old National Geographic magazine some time earlier. “If we get separated for any reason, you should carry it,” he said. Newman looked at the map. It was extremely detailed—showing roads, towns, railroads, rivers and streams, elevation—it was nearly as good as the military map that he lost when the MD-80 went down.

For nearly half an hour the three men discussed the preferred route. “I still think the best thing is to follow the Euphrates,” Habib said.

“It is where the cities and towns are located, and they will help you to blend in. If you go on these roads,” Samir said, pointing at the map, “you will be more readily detected.”

“We will take you to the pumping station just before the border crossing. You can stop in Khutaylah along the way to make your telephone call.

“From the blacksmith at the pumping station, you and I will borrow some horses and ride across the border ten kilometers south of the guarded crossing. Father will drive the truck to Abu Kamal—inside Syria—and wait for us. We should be there by nightfall.”

Habib nodded and said, “While I wait for you, I will also find a boat that you and Samir can use on the river—one with a good motor. The two of you can travel all night. It will take you about ten or twelve hours to reach Bahrat Assad—”

“Bahrat means ‘lake,'” Samir interrupted. “There is a dam on the lake so when we reach it, the boat will go no farther. We will have a person we trust meet the boat before we get to the power plant at Tabaqah and take it back downriver to its owner. But I will call ahead and arrange for a second boat to wait for you at the top of the dam,
in the water by the two radio towers. It will be waiting there beginning at 0600. They will be fishing near the shore. There will be a green sash tied on the front of the boat if it is safe. A red one, if it is not safe.”

Newman committed the directions to memory and nodded. “How far up the Euphrates does the boat take us?” he asked.

Habib answered, “The first part of the journey goes as far as the dam at Bahrat Assad. The second part, the rest of the way.”

Samir added, “It will take you all the way into Turkey. The border is not guarded well on the river, and you should be able to stay on it all the way to Birecik, about 25 kilometers north of the Syria-Turkey border, located right on the Euphrates River. The trip from Tabaqah to Birecik is about 180 kilometers and will take another full day, perhaps more if you have to hide. Adana, Turkey, is 250 kilometers due west by air. It may be possible to take a regional airline from Birecik to Adana. Otherwise it would be best to go overland to Iskenderun. There is a train that runs from there to Adana where the NATO base you call Incirlik is located.”

“How soon can we leave?” Newman asked.

“Right away,” Habib told him.

Office of Leonid Dotensk

________________________________________

Hotel Rashid
Baghdad, Iraq
Wednesday, 8 March 1995
0915 Hours, Local

 

It seemed to Leonid Dotensk that sleep had become as elusive as the American Marine he was trying to find. He had finally asked if this American had a name, and Komulakov had told him: “His name is Peter Newman. He's a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marines. He was
assigned by the American government to head this mission. And you had better make sure that your friend Kamil finds him.”

Dotensk had been trying his best to do just that. He had been here in his combination apartment-office ever since returning from Tikrit with Hussein Kamil on Monday. He'd been on the phone with both Komulakov and Kamil almost non-stop ever since.

Now, General Komulakov himself was on a special UN flight headed this way ostensibly at the direction of the UN Secretary General, to investigate the Iraqi military incursion into the so-called “Kurdish Safe Area” in the mountains of Iraq, north of Mosul—an apparent violation of some UN resolution or other.

The Iraqi military operation, which had begun the day before, had been the usual bloody affair, with whole towns and villages being wiped out. Men, women, and children were dead in the streets, and Saddam was claiming over the state-run media that some CIA officers had been killed. Dotensk hoped that the elusive Peter Newman was one of them. The American air support for the Iraqi National Congress forces had never materialized. It must have been a rude surprise for the resistance fighters, Dotensk thought—just like the Bay of Pigs, decades ago.
Oh, well. That's what they get for making league with the Americans.

Dotensk also knew that the real reason for the general's visit was to conduct a house-cleaning mission with a handful of retired KGB officers. Komulakov was having them fly to Damascus to meet him there the next morning.

When Komulakov had called Dotensk to tell him that he was coming out to supervise this part of the operation, the Ukrainian had noticed that his old KGB boss had sounded nervous. He had told Dotensk that the missing American Marine seemed to be always one step ahead of them.

When Komulakov called from his plane, he had not seemed surprised when Dotensk told him that there still was no sign of Newman nor the truck that seemed to have spirited him away from the helicopter attack.

Dotensk also sensed that Kamil was also getting more nervous—if that was possible. He had a dozen people working through the day and night to try and match the tire tracks at the place where Newman had disappeared. Unfortunately, all they had learned was that the tires were quite common, used on 80 percent of all trucks in Iraq. It would take them years to investigate everyone who owned a truck with such tires.

Kamil had abandoned that effort and committed even more military resources to the search of the area that was the most probable escape route to the north, along the Tigris River. Kamil had said, “It is the most logical route, and the shortest, which gives it more credence. Newman must have been planning to rendezvous with the fifteen-man unit that we ambushed coming into Iraq from Turkey.”

Kamil then rounded up every guard dog he could locate. He sent the guard dogs and their handlers out, forming lines on either side of the river, and moving north, alert for the scent of the American. It may have been that the items from the helicopter attack site smelled of smoke too much to be of use; in any event, Kamil had told Dotensk that the dogs had not turned up anything.

Dotensk had not heard from either man in more than four hours. He got up from the couch where he had been dozing and cleared away the empty coffee cups and whiskey glasses, dumping them with a clatter into the small sink at the back of the office.

He was brewing another pot of coffee when the telephone rang again.

It was Komulakov.

“Listen very carefully,” Komulakov began. “I am still aboard my personal plane and will land in Damascus late this afternoon, local time. Is there any word from Kamil?”

“No… nothing. The tire tracks proved to be a useless lead. Kamil is putting all of his efforts into finding the American somewhere along the Tigris River on his way back to Turkey,” the Ukrainian told him.

“That's what I thought. And why I called you. Listen, this American is very smart. He would not take the obvious escape route. I think he will go west, into Syria, and try to make it back to Turkey that way.”

“But that could take days… even weeks if he has no help. Why would he choose that way, unless—”

“Unless he does have help.”

“The tire tracks.”

“Yes. I believe that whoever is helping him is taking him across the country on a direct route, one that will not draw as much attention. Look at your map. If he follows the Euphrates River, he can go directly to Turkey. Once he gets into Turkey, he will be more difficult to capture or kill. I am going to take a dozen or so of our old associates with me. I have hopes that I may be able to borrow some helicopters from our friends in Damascus, and if he communicates with anyone before he gets back into American hands, while he transits through Syria, we will have him. Of course, he will try using his EncryptionLok-3 to call someone he trusts to get instructions for coming in,” the general said.

“That device can help us track him. I had the UN communications people equip my plane with a direct link to the command center. If Newman uses his EncryptionLok-3 device, they can instantly check his GPS coordinates and tell me. And then, we can take him out,”
Komulakov told Dotensk. “I want you to stay in your office so when I call I can reach you right away. Do you understand?”

“Yes, General,” Dotensk said in a flat voice.

“I will call you again in a few hours,” Komulakov said, and hung up.

Dotensk wondered,
Will it never end?

Newman Home

________________________________________

Falls Church, VA
Wednesday, 8 March 1995
0150 Hours, Local

 

Once again Rachel Newman was awakened by her telephone in the middle of the night. This time she woke quickly and grabbed the cordless phone on the nightstand.

“Hello?”

“Honey… listen, it's me—”

She screamed as she recognized her husband's voice immediately. She called out his name and began to cry. “Oh, P. J., I've been sick with worry. Are you all right? Where are you?”

Newman spoke quickly and distinctly because of the poor connection. “Rachel, I want you to use that phone I gave you the day I left and call the number on that card. And when that call is returned, tell the person on the other end that I'm in trouble and need some ‘good' help. Give it to him word for word.”

“Yes… I'll do as you say. ‘You're in trouble and need help.'”

“No… word for word, Rache—I'm in trouble and need
good
help.' Understand?”

“Yes… all right. I'll say it just like that. P. J., what kind of trouble is it? Where are you?” she asked frantically.

“I'll tell you everything when I call back. It's going to be all right. Rachel, I miss you, and I'm realizing more and more just how much I love you. I have to go now.” There was a click, and the line was disconnected.

Rachel sat in bed, shivering with anxiety and wondering what in the world was going on. She had never really taken that much interest in what Peter did in the Marines, but now she quickly grasped that whatever he was doing at the White House was even more dangerous than the things he had done in places like Beirut, Panama, and Honduras—and during the Gulf War, when he'd been awarded the Navy Cross.

Peter had just said that he'd explain everything when he called next time. When would that be? she wondered. He also told her to use the cell phone to call the number that he left with her. Rachel then assumed that he was on the run somewhere, and he had not yet checked in with his unit—at least according to Sergeant Major Gabbard, who had called her the night before.

Then she remembered the other instructions and went over to the dresser. Rachel rummaged through her husband's socks drawer and found the card he had mentioned. There was no name or address on the three-by-five card: only a toll-free number that Peter had said was Oliver North's pager number.

Rachel decided to wait until she left the house before calling the number. She wrote down the exact words that Peter had given her to pass along to North, so that she wouldn't forget them.

She tried to go back to sleep, but she was wide awake and her thoughts were racing.

Situation Room