Purpose of Evasion (26 page)

40

WATER EXPLODED
from the nozzle of the fire hose with incredible force. It caught Shepherd square in the center of his chest and knocked him to the floor of the interrogation chamber. Stark naked, he went tumbling across the rough concrete, the high pressure deluge ricocheting off his body, splattering over the walls and ceiling, and swirling down the rusted drain that Shepherd was certain had carried off the lifeblood of countless torture victims.

The guard clutched the unwieldy hose with both hands, bracing it against his torso, and came at him.

Shepherd scrambled to his feet, trying to elude the ice-cold blast that pummeled him; but the guard’s pursuit was relentless. There was no place to hide in the windowless room, no protection from the stinging onslaught. The stream of water pounded Shepherd’s body with punishing force, trapping him in a corner. The powerful jet knocked his hands aside and smashed into his groin. He howled in pain, spinning around to protect himself, and yelped as the water surged between his buttocks, trying to penetrate him. Then it slammed into his back, the extreme pressure pinning him flat against the wall. The roar from the gleaming nozzle was deafening. He felt as if he was drowning, certain the high-powered jet would soon be stripping the flesh from his bones.

Suddenly the guard pulled back on the nozzle’s cutoff valve. The vicious flow stopped abruptly.

Shepherd slumped against the wall, coughing up water as if he had been pulled from the sea. To his relief, the guard set the hose aside, dragged him to his feet, and directed him to an anteroom where SHK Chief Abdel-Hadi and his two young thugs were waiting.

Shepherd’s eyes darted to some clothing on a table,
his
clothing. It had been laundered and folded neatly. When the swarthy guard
threw a bath towel at him, Shepherd realized he had just been treated to a shower, Libyan prison style.

The SHK chief watched stone-faced and silent as he toweled off and began pulling on his clothes.

“What happens now?” Shepherd knew from experience it would be a waste of time, but asked anyway. “Am I being extradited, executed, what?”

“What does it matter?” Abdel-Hadi replied slyly. “In your case, they would be one and the same.”

The son of a bitch is right, Shepherd thought. If ever two men were soulmates, it was Abdel-Hadi and Larkin; and as he was led through the maze of corridors and security doors—leaving the foul stench of excrement and unwashed bodies behind—the horrid idea that the colonel had gained entry into Libya and would now take custody of him grew stronger with each step.

They went up a concrete staircase to the central processing area where, at Abdel-Hadi’s instructions, the officer on duty made an entry in his ledger. Then they went out the main entrance of the prison.

It was mid-afternoon. The sun blazed, unchallenged by a single cloud, the searing heat intensifying the suffocating odor of camel dung. They led Shepherd to Abdel-Hadi’s Krazz and opened the door to the prisoner’s compartment behind the cab, where the Akita waited.

The powerful canine sprang to a standing position and growled, its black lips curling back to reveal lethal fangs that dared Shepherd to enter. Abdel-Hadi uttered a command in Arabic and the dog backed off. The SHK officers grabbed Shepherd’s arms, shoved him inside, and slammed the doors shut.

Shepherd sat on the wooden bench, his face crosshatched with harsh shadows from the heavy wire mesh that separated the prisoner’s compartment from the cab.

The two officers got in, followed by Abdel-Hadi, who uttered another command in the same tone he had used with the dog. One of the officers responded by unbuckling a heavy canvas shade that rolled down over the wire mesh, plunging Shepherd and the Akita into almost total darkness. The engine started and the vehicle drove off across the Bab al Azziziya compound.

Shepherd heard the clank of tank treads as the T-55 that was parked in front of the entrance backed up to let the Krazz exit.
He realized they were leaving the grounds. A series of turns, stops, and starts accompanied by the sounds of traffic ensued; the cacophony was followed by a high-speed drive that Shepherd reckoned meant they were traveling on a highway outside the city.

About three-quarters of an hour later, the driver backed off the gas and began down-shifting through the gears. The Krazz slowed and finally stopped.

Shepherd heard a few words of Arabic before the throaty engine came to life and the vehicle started down a sharply curving road that caused him to lean into the turn, followed by another series of sharp lefts and rights.

Throughout the drive, the Akita had been too busy clawing at the steel deck with its huge paws to compensate for the vehicle’s movement to pay any attention to Shepherd. Now the powerful animal stood expectantly, sensing the journey was over.

Shepherd heard the engine shut off, the ratchet of the hand brake being applied, then doors opening and slamming closed as the SHK officers got out.

The harsh guttural mumble of Arabic followed; then footsteps approached the rear of the Krazz.

The doors were yanked open.

The Akita lept to the ground and bounded off.

Shepherd recoiled at the sudden blast of light as the officers took his arms and pulled him out. Temporarily blinded, he stumbled, then straightened, squinting to determine where he was, to resolve the amorphous figures that seemed defined by the sharp edges of weapons, of rifles and bayonets. His eyes strained against the whiteness, unable to discern if it was Larkin and a group of government representatives or a firing squad. Finally a compact figure slowly emerged from the haze.

It was General Younis.

Several armed guards were posted behind him.

They stood in an immense hangar on an immaculate, glossy white floor that was boldly slashed by red, yellow, and green stripes used to position aircraft.

“Major Shepherd,” the general said, striding forward with a smile.

“General,” Shepherd replied apprehensively.

“As you can see, Major,” Younis began, gesturing behind him, “it would be to our advantage if you are who you say you are.”

Shepherd turned to see the two F-111s parked side by side. He knew the Libyans had acquired them, but was still taken by the sight; indeed, they were the last thing he had expected to see.

“Where did you get them?” Shepherd wondered, knowing Younis would expect him to ask.

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew,” the general replied with a sly smile. “Besides it’s hardly relevant to our arrangement.”

“Our arrangement . . .” Shepherd echoed flatly.

“Yes, the colonel decided to abide by it.”

“Just like that.”

“Hardly. As you observed, he has an obsessive concern for his safety that sometimes triggers these ‘episodes.’ Fortunately, he’s quite rational when he comes out of them, almost contrite, at which time we review decisions made under the stress. Sometimes I win; sometimes I lose.” He paused and pointed to the Libyan Air Force markings on the bombers. “In your case, he decided to accept your offer to share your knowledge and skills with us.”

Shepherd mulled it over, concealing his elation, and decided a challenge was the most natural response under the circumstances. “That’s all well and good,” he said. “But I’d like some assurances that I won’t end up back in that hellhole as soon as I do.”

“You have my word, Major,” the general said.

“And his?” Shepherd asked, inclining his head toward Abdel-Hadi.

The SHK chief responded with several phrases delivered in sharp, rapid-fire Arabic.

“He said you can be assured that’s exactly what will happen if you
don’t.
”

Shepherd stiffened and nodded resignedly. “Nothing like having a clear choice,” he said, reinforcing the impression that they had coerced him.

“I knew you’d make the right one,” Younis replied. He and Abdel-Hadi watched as Shepherd crossed to one of the F-111s and began a walk-around, working his way along the fuselage to the nose gear. He crouched to inspect it, then stole a glance at the doors. The vague outline of stenciled lettering that had once proclaimed
AC MAJ SHEPHERD
was still slightly visible, despite being painted over. A surge of adrenaline went through him. He remained there for a moment, then moved to the adjacent bomber.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more tail droop,” he observed,
indicating the trailing edge of the stabilizers. “I’d have my crew chief fine-tune the flight control system, if you don’t mind me suggesting it.”

“Not at all. We’d like to hear whatever you have to say, Major,” Younis replied, impressed by how Shepherd handled himself. When he had finished the inspection, the general directed him into the office, where his technical staff had assembled with several Libyan flight crews.

“We have flown both aircraft and have a working knowledge of the flight systems, Major,” the East German avionics expert said in his clipped cadence. “ANITA is where we stumbled. Unfortunately, none of the codes we developed proved operative.”

“Tough without the entry key,” Shepherd said, jotting the alphanumeric table on a chalkboard:

“Let’s say you want to enter a hundred-and-seventy-eight degrees, fifty-three minutes north latitude. Well, the first digit of each number is encrypted as a simple letter equivalent; the second as a numerical equivalent of that digit written out in Roman letters without vowels; then you alternate as you go. In other words . . .” He wrote on the board:

1=A

7 = SVN or S = 19, V = 22, N = 14

8 = H

5 = E

3 = THR or T = 20, H = 8, R = 18

N = 14

178/53/N entered as: A: 19:22:14:H/E:20:8:18/14

The East German’s brows went up. ANITA was neither complex nor brilliant; it wasn’t based on top-secret prime numbers or on the polyalphabetic substitution tables commonly used for com-
munications cyphers. Unlike them, ANITA didn’t have to withstand enemy interception and subsequent scrutiny by expert code breakers who, working from a purloined cipher, might eventually crack it. No, his technicians had only the Pave Tack entry keyboard, blank screen, and microprocessor with a protected internal entry program that defied them to literally guess what alphanumeric input format it would accept. There were no clues, no intercepted samples to study, only infinite, random possibilities.

When Shepherd finished, Younis produced maps marked with the location of the desert practice target the Libyan crews had been unable to destroy.

They gathered round Shepherd as he encrypted the data, writing the alphanumerics on a programming sheet that he had drawn up; it listed all ANITA functions—longitude, latitude, range, angle of attack, air speed, among others—that the Pave Tack computer required to locate a target and destroy it with laser-guided bombs.

“Encrypting ANITA and entering it is the easy part,” Shepherd observed. “
Flying
to it—that’s something else. Now the Pave Tack console has two sets of function readouts.” He turned to the chalkboard, writing as he continued. “PRESENT—the actual position and attitude of the aircraft in flight, and SELECTED—the target acquisition data. The trick is—”

“Getting the two to match,” the East German interrupted. “We’re quite aware of the problem.”

“There’s only one way,” Shepherd declared, about to utter the words that he hoped would literally put him in the cockpit of his plane. “Expert instruction. Lots of it. Each crew member has to fly a lot of hours with an expert one-eleven driver next to him.”

“I don’t doubt it, Major, but as you might imagine, one doesn’t place a want ad for one-eleven instructors.”

“Now that you’re here, now that we finally have ANITA,” General Younis chimed in, “I suggest that we reassemble here at eleven hundred tomorrow and plan a mission; a training mission which you and one of our aviators will fly after nightfall.”

Shepherd nodded coolly, suppressing his delight; not only would he soon be flying his F-111, but he also would have some time to plan just how he would steal it, how he would overcome the Libyan who would be in the cockpit with him, elude the inevitable fighter escort, and fly the bomber to D’Jerba. “See you on the flight line,” he replied in a flat professional tone.

41

MORE THAN A WEEK
had passed since Moncrieff and Katifa had escaped from Tripoli and flown to Jeddah, a port city on the eastern shore of the Red Sea 600 miles south of Suez. Though Riyadh was Saudi Arabia’s capital, Jeddah had long been the center of banking and commerce, and the royal family maintained a palatial residence there.

Set against a background of craggy mountains, the palace stood majestically on a bluff above the sea. Its numerous domed buildings were masterful examples of Middle Eastern architecture, replete with intricate tilings and delicate mushrabeyeh latticework.

Katifa had been taken directly to the royal infirmary where she was attended by court physicians. After a few days they removed her bandages and prescribed that she swim to rehabilitate and strengthen her weakened muscles. Prior to discharging her, the Infirmary’s chief of staff–an aging, Harvard-educated physician who had brought Moncrieff into the world and had no qualms about voicing his opinion–took Moncrieff aside for a brief discussion.

“What’s the problem?” Katifa prompted after the old fellow had left.

“The Koran,” Moncrieff replied, knowingly.

“I don’t think I’m going to like this.”

“Nor am I,” the Saudi said, explaining that the physician had concerns about where she would be living. Though not radical hard-liners like their Iranian neighbors, Saudis
were
fundamentalist Muslims: women were forbidden to smoke, drive, or drink, and were strictly segregated from men; they neither worked nor dined with them, let alone exposed their bodies to them in public. Even the wives of Western businessmen spent the evening in the women’s quarters while the men dined alone. The idea of Katifa living with Moncrieff and swimming in the palace pool was unacceptable.

Undaunted, Moncrieff arranged for them to move into the royal guest house. Located in Al Hamra, the city’s most fashionable area, it was a high-security estate with an immense pool reached by a marble staircase that descended from the main building.

Now Moncrieff sat at a table on a palm-shaded terrace above, watching Katifa’s lithe body gliding effortlessly through the water. The instant her fingertips touched the wall, she did a graceful swimmer’s turn, her long hair streaming behind her as the momentum propelled her through the sparkling water. She had grown up with political activisim and violence; had
advocated
them; but now, the shock of bullets tearing into her flesh along with her narrow escape from Nidal’s hit squad had given her pause. Indeed, though predisposed to reject the privileged opulence of Moncrieff’s world, she found the security and the time she had spent with him in this idyllic place more and more to her liking.

Moncrieff had been dividing his time between the guest house and his office in downtown Jeddah. Despite the problem created by Nefta Dam, Libya’s Great Man-made River Project was proceeding as scheduled: wells were being drilled and pipeline manufactured and laid, and several other projects were in development as well.

Moncrieff was primarily an intelligence observer; the encounter in Tripoli had been his first and, he had since decided, last field operation. Life was back to normal; and with each day, he was becoming more and more confident that as he had hoped, as he had
conspired
, he and Katifa would be spending their lives together.

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” one of the Filipino servants said, pulling Moncrieff out of his reverie. “A Colonel Larkin is here.”

“Here?” Moncrieff echoed with a surprised scowl.

“Yes, sir, in the entry. Shall I show him in?”

Moncrieff glanced thoughtfully to Katifa in the pool, then shook his head no. He left the terrace, hurrying through the house to the entry chamber where Larkin was waiting. The colonel wore civilian clothes; he stood next to a magnificently carved fountain that was centered beneath the soaring dome.

“Colonel,” Moncrieff said, crossing toward him.

“Good to see you,” Larkin replied brightly. Indeed, despite almost a month of wearying travel, his fighter pilot’s conditioning had kept him from becoming fatigued.

“I’m sorry we missed each other in Tripoli,” Moncrieff said facetiously. He forced a smile and led the way outside, where they wouldn’t be overheard. “Really, you should have called,” he went on in his British-flavored English as they walked in the gardens that radiated from the domed buildings with geometric precision. “I would have sent a car.”

“I barely made my flight,” Larkin replied in a bold lie. Yesterday, having been forced to wait until late afternoon to meet with Al-Qasim, he had missed his flight to Saudi Arabia. He spent a second night at the airport hotel on D’Jerba and could have easily called; but he knew Moncrieff was angry and wanted out; he also knew that a royal prince could block his entry into Saudi Arabia with a phone call of his own, and purposely hadn’t notified Moncrieff he was coming. “You see Arafat’s speech?” he asked, getting to business.

“Yes, I did,” Moncrieff replied cautiously.

“It hit the old man pretty hard. But he’s worked out an insurance policy and he’s counting on you to—”

“I’m out of the loop, Colonel,” Moncrieff interrupted. “I told him that.”

“I know. We need the lady.”

“Katifa?”

Larkin nodded.

“What for?”

“I’d prefer to go through it once. Is she here?”

“Yes. I don’t know what you have in mind, Colonel, but the old man briefed me on the hostages. If this has anything to do with the rescue, if it’s fieldwork, something dangerous, I’m unalterably opposed to her taking it on. She’s just getting back to normal; just starting to enjoy life, and I . . .” He paused, seeing the amused smile that broke across Larkin’s face.

“Am I picking up on something here?” Larkin asked.

“Maybe.”

“Then maybe you’re not the best judge of this.”

Moncrieff nodded grudgingly and led the way to the pool area. They arrived on the terrace just as Katifa was getting out of the water. She waved as a servant handed her a towel, then draped it over her shoulders, lit a cigarette, and started up the marble staircase toward them. The bikini did little to hide the freshly healed bullet wounds that dotted her tawny flesh.

“You can thank Nidal for this,” Larkin began after Moncrieff
had made the introductions. “We had high hopes for this hostage rescue until he threatened to kill them. We still do. But there’s no guarantee the
Cavalla
can pull it off before the deadline. The old man figures Nidal won’t kill them on the sub because he’d have to dump the bodies at sea. No proof that way; no media hype.”

“I agree,” Moncrieff said.

“We’d have a chance to stop him if we knew where the executions would be carried out.”

“His headquarters,” Katifa replied, exhaling a steady stream of smoke. “Casino du Liban.”

“You’re certain—beyond any doubt?”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible with Abu Nidal.”

“Then we’ll need someone on the inside,” Larkin said, leaving no doubt he was talking about Katifa.

“I hasten to point out we’re not on the best of terms these days,” she protested.

“He tried to abduct her,” Moncrieff chimed in. “I briefed the old man. Didn’t he mention it?”

Larkin nodded. “He thinks we can
use
it; and do what we did with Yevchenko,” he said, referring to a high-ranking KGB officer who, several months after defecting to the West, claimed he had been abducted and held against his will; he subsequently returned to Moscow.

“I recall that incident,” Moncrieff said, puzzled at the analogy. “The old man looked like a fool; people thought he had lost his touch, and perhaps more.”

“Which thoroughly convinced Moscow that Yevchenko’s story 5 was bona fide,” Larkin explained with a sly grin. “He’s back at Moscow Center now, running his own section; with our blessing, of course.”

Katifa thought about it for a long moment and nodded. “I can see how something like that might work,” she finally said, “but why should I take the chance?”

“Because you and I both know there isn’t going to be a homeland in Israel by the start of Ramadan, this year or any year; and if Nidal kills those hostages, there’ll never be a sanctuary in Libya either.”

“I think you’re wrong. The hostages aren’t part of the equation anymore,” Katifa explained. “Qaddafi acquired the planes without them.”

“Which means,” Larkin countered, “he has no incentive to turn over a couple of thousand square miles of desert to anybody.”

“Of course he does,” Katifa retorted. “You must understand that he wants more than military hardware or water out of this. It’s no secret that Arab unity and the destruction of Israel are his goals. A Palestinian sanctuary would be a perfect start; the stature and power he would gain are sufficient incentives to provide one.”

“Maybe; but not without ANITA.”

“Anita?” she asked, puzzled.

“It’s an acronym for a computer entry key,” Moncrieff explained. “The F-111s are useless without it.”

“And Qaddafi won’t get it until we get the hostages,” Larkin said.

“There’s no other way he can get this entry key?”

“None.” Larkin lied, not because he knew Shepherd had already voluntarily revealed them, which he didn’t; but because he knew there was a chance the secret police might force him to do so. It was the perfect leverage to manipulate her and he would have used it regardless.

Katifa pondered his reply for a moment, looking out over the grounds and pool that shimmered in the light to the Red Sea beyond. Two thousand years, she thought, two thousand years since Moses parted it, since the Israelis fled the Egyptians; it hadn’t even been forty since Palestine was partioned by the British. “Will you excuse us?” she said to Larkin, leading Moncrieff aside.

“He’s right, isn’t he?”

“Don’t do this, Katifa,” the Saudi pleaded.

“I don’t have any choice.”

“You’ll be shot on sight.”

“No. You just said it yourself. Abu Nidal tried to
abduct
me in Tripoli, not kill me. Believe me, I’d already be dead if that’s what he wanted.”

“I doubt he would ever trust you again.”

“You’re forgetting something,” she said firmly. “I’ve been like a daughter to him for almost twenty years. He’ll hear me out.”

Moncrieff saw the determination in her eyes and knew he had no chance of convincing her otherwise. “I was hoping we had put all this behind us.”

“So was I,” she said sadly.