Purpose of Evasion (19 page)

27

THE F-111
that had once had
AC MAJ SHEPHERD
stenciled on the nose gear door was streaking down Okba ben Nafi’s south runway at 145 knots when the Libyan pilot eased back the stick and the sleek bomber rose into the balmy North African darkness. Its Vietnam-era camouflage had been painted over with a pattern of soft desert browns; all U.S. markings had been replaced by the bold green square of the Libyan Air Force.

“It would be best if they remained unmarked, sir,” General Younis had counseled when Qaddafi gave the order.

“Have you no national pride?” Qaddafi exploded, launching into one of his tirades. “You’re too easily cowed by the Americans. Did you know they sold dozens of these aircraft to the Australians?
Dozens.
So who’s to say where we got them?” He threw his copy of
The Military Balance
at Younis and added, “Now you know where to go for spare parts.”

Younis had no choice but to console himself with the knowledge that the F-111s would be flown only at night.

The two aviators in the cockpit were the cream of a mediocre crop from which Younis had selected four crews. Like test pilots in an unfamiliar aircraft they were coping with a barrage of flight and mission data. Twenty minutes after takeoff, the fast-moving bomber was 250 miles from base and closing on its target.

“Thirty miles,” the pilot reported.

“Attack radar engaged,” the wizzo replied, eyes riveted to the Pave Tack monitor, as he manipulated the control handle that swings out from the right sidewall.

Qaddafi and Younis were in the tower at Okba ben Nan with the East German avionics expert, hovering over one of the radar screens, listening to the pilot and wizzo.

SHK Chief Abdel-Hadi sat off to one side, the Akita heeled patiently next to him.

Moncrieff paced nervously behind them. He wasn’t thinking
about F-111s, water shortages, or pipelines, but about getting Katifa to Saudi Arabia, where she could safely convalesce. Rejecting commercial flights as too vulnerable to attack by Nidal’s hit squads, he had gone to his family for assistance and one of the Royal DC-9s was due to arrive at Okba ben Nafi shortly.

Qaddafi and Younis flinched as the crackle and hiss from the radio was suddenly broken.

“Twenty miles,” the F-111’s pilot reported. He pushed the throttles to the stops, beginning a high-speed bombing run designed to minimize the time that the plane would spend in hostile airspace.

“They should have acquisition by now,” the bony East German groaned, avoiding Qaddafi’s angry glare.

“Ten miles,” the pilot announced. “Five . . . four . . .”

“Blank screen,” the wizzo reported, his eyes darting between the columns of alphanumeric data.

Younis snatched a microphone from the tower radar console. “Save the ordnance,” he ordered, knowing the bombs would miss the target—a defunct oil pumping station in the desert, selected because it was the same distance from Okba ben Nafi as Nefta Dam in Tunisia.

This was the third training sortie in as many nights and, each time, despite the F-111’s being right on target, the Pave Tack program invariably wasn’t.

“I thought you had this solved,” Qaddafi challenged the East German.

“So did I,” the flustered engineer replied. “We’ve checked and double checked every sequence point; the data is accurate and precise; it’s the entry key that we haven’t been able to crack.”

“We’ll just have to wait until the Americans get their hands on the hostages,” Younis counseled softly.

“What about the Palestinian?” Qaddafi demanded, shifting his glowering eyes to the secret police chief.

Abdel-Hadi’s thick brows went up apprehensively. “Nothing. He has a strong will, and I’m concerned we’ll—”

“Find a way to break it,” Qaddafi retorted angrily. He was still smoldering when the pilot of the Saudi jetliner radioed the tower for landing clearance.

Moncrieff had been paying no attention to the others; now, he came to life. “They must have immediate clearance,” he exhorted in an urgent tone.

The air traffic controller glanced at Qaddafi.

Qaddafi nodded sharply. Then making one of his legendary mood shifts, he turned to Moncrieff with a warm smile. “Allah be with you,” he said, embracing him. “Both of you.”

“My apologies for what happened,” Moncrieff replied. “I know how frustrating it has been for you.” He waited until Qaddafi nodded, then hurried to the elevator. At the base of the tower a waiting jeep whisked him across the airfield.

A DC-9, sporting the Saudi royal family coat of arms on the tail, touched down on the west runway and was directed by air traffic control to the military helicopter port. Two royal bodyguards deplaned, joining Moncrieff, who led the way to a Libyan Air Force helicopter. The Soviet-made Mi-8 lifted off and set a course for Al Fatah University Hospital.

AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME,
a battered van came down University Road in the Al Fatah district and turned into a people’s shopping precinct. It stopped in front of a market where the nurse who had been caring for Katifa was waiting. He got into the van, joining a two-man PLO hit squad, and directed them the short distance to the hospital.

When reporting Katifa’s survival, he had withheld her whereabouts, insisting they meet in Tripoli, at which time he would reveal it in exchange for money.

“She’s in room three seventeen,” the nurse said as they pulled into the parking lot. “But there are . . .” Before he could finish, one Palestinian had a handful of his hair, the other a knife to his throat.

“Wait, wait,” he blurted as the blade nicked his flesh, sending a drop of blood along the edge of polished steel. “You can’t get to her without me.”

The Palestinians hesitated; they had planned to kill him and keep the money for themselves.

“There are bodyguards—two—outside her room,” the nurse went on, shrinking from the blade. “They’re heavily armed; but I can get—”

“
You’re
going to get us past them?” the Palestinian with the knife interrupted sarcastically.

“No, no, I can get
her
past them. I’m her nurse. I will bring her to you. I will bring her right here.”

The Palestinians exchanged looks, clearly pleased at the development, and released him. “Go,” the driver said, throwing open the van door.

“My money, please,” the nurse said nervously, edging toward the door.

“When we have her,” the one with the knife retorted, snapping the blade closed.

“I would have to be a fool to agree to that.”

The driver removed a packet of bills from his jacket and grudgingly gave him half of it.

The nurse pocketed the fistful of cash and hurried across the parking lot in the darkness to the emergency entrance. He put the money in his locker and slipped into a lab coat, then went to the administrative offices.

In Libya, medical care, like education and housing, is fully covered by the government and there was no bill to be paid. The clerk knew Katifa was being discharged that evening and her release papers were ready for her signature. The nurse picked them up and took the elevator to the third floor.

Katifa had shed her hospital gown and robe in favor of jeans, turtleneck, and jacket. She was putting her few personal belongings into a bag when the nurse entered pushing a wheelchair.

“Ah, good, you’re ready,” he said, presenting her with the papers and a pen.

“Is it time?” Katifa asked, puzzled, as she signed them. “I didn’t hear the helicopter.”

“You’re going to the airport by van.”

“Are you sure? Moncrieff said a helicopter.”

“There must have been a change of plans. He’s waiting for you in the parking lot with a van,” the nurse replied coolly as Katifa limped to the wheelchair. He helped her into it, slung the strap of her bag over his shoulder, and rolled her to the elevator.

One of the guards accompanied them to the ground floor, where they exited into a lobby area. “Would you take these to administration?” the nurse asked, handing him the release papers. As the guard strode off, the nurse wheeled Katifa down a corridor that led directly to the parking lot. The doors opened automatically and he continued through them without breaking stride, pushing the wheelchair into the night.

Katifa was looking about anxiously for Moncrieff when the Palestinians emerged from the darkness. She gasped at the sight of them, her hand tightening on the pistol in her jacket. She had the element of surprise and decided to keep it, waiting until they were at point blank range before squeezing the trigger. The bullet caught one of the Palestinians in the center of his chest, knocking him back against the van. The other recoiled in surprise, his eyes darting to the smoking hole in the pocket of Katifa’s jacket. He was armed but hesitated an instant before drawing his pistol; not because he had qualms about killing her but because Abu Nidal had ordered otherwise, and the weapon in his hand was a pentothal-filled syringe.

Nidal hadn’t sent them to kill Katifa but to bring her back to Beirut. Despite her apparent disloyalty, she had written
Intifad
a, had fought long and hard for the Palestinian cause; and as her adoptive father, Nidal wanted to hear her side before taking extreme measures. At the least, he would learn what position others who had attended the fateful meeting at Assad’s villa in Damascus had taken.

The Palestinian hesitated no more than a second or two, but it was long enough for Katifa to pull the trigger again. He fell to the ground mortally wounded and lay motionless next to his colleague. The syringe dropped from his hand and went rolling across the macadam. Katifa glanced behind her for the nurse, but he had run when the first shot rang out and was long gone. She was getting out of the wheelchair when she heard the rising whomp of the helicopter.

It came in over the hospital at a steep angle and landed in a designated area in a corner of the parking lot. Moncrieff and the two Saudi bodyguards were coming down the steps when Katifa limped into the helicopter’s headlights.

“Hit squad,” she called out over the rotors.

Both bodyguards produced Uzi machine guns from beneath their jackets and secured the area while Moncrieff helped her up the steps into the helicopter.

Fifteen minutes later they were at Okba ben Nafi Air Base. Moncrieff settled Katifa in the elegant compartment aft of the cockpit as the Royal DC-9 began rolling down the long runway. It lifted off and banked sharply to the east, coming onto a heading for the Arabian peninsula.

THE WHINE
of the jet’s turbofans was a perfect match to the chilling scream that echoed through the prison beneath the Bab al Azziziya Barracks. It wasn’t a short, sudden outburst born of fright, but a prolonged, desperate bellow of excruciating pain.

The Palestinian lay naked on the floor in a corner of a pitch-black cell. He was curled in a fetal position to protect his face and genitalia from further assault by his cellmates—cellmates ordered placed there by Abdel-Hadi, who knew that the solid steel door, which kept the light out, would also keep the hungry rats in.

The young terrorist shivered with fear, listening to them scurrying about in the darkness. Soon, the scratch of claws on concrete quickened. He swept a hand blindly across the floor, batting away the vile attacker; he smacked it aside again and again, until he finally clamped his fist tightly around the snarling rodent’s torso. The frantic animal dug its claws into his palm trying to get loose. He smashed it against the floor repeatedly, until blood oozed between his fingers and the crunch of bones had become a pulpy thump. He had just tossed the limp carcass aside when he felt a stabbing pain in his buttock. Razor-sharp teeth tore loose a piece of his flesh and the snarling rat scurried off with its prize as another chilling scream echoed through the prison.

Abdel-Hadi was still smarting from Qaddafi’s reprimand when he arrived at the barracks compound. He went directly to the prison and entered an interrogation chamber where a guard was waiting.

“Is that the Palestinian?” Abdel-Hadi asked.

The guard nodded.

“Fetch him,” the SHK chief ordered. “We should have a chat before the rats get his tongue.”

28

MOMENTS AFTER
Shepherd had captured Applegate outside Liverpool Station, Stephanie, who had continued walking to the opposite side of the building, approached the Broad Street colonnade. The two Special Forces agents were following close behind.

Spencer had slowly circled the building in his taxi. Now he spotted her coming from the station and, perfectly timing his arrival, came to a stop just as she reached the curb. Stephanie got in without breaking stride and the taxi drove off.

One of the agents hurried to the street for a taxi, but those for hire were all properly queued on the opposite side of the building. The other agent hurried back through the station in search of Applegate and discovered the sedan was gone.

It was a few blocks away on Middlesex, nearing Commercial Road, when the radio came to life. “Major? Come in, Major,” the agent’s voice crackled. “She’s back in the cab. Major, do you read?”

Shepherd was in the backseat of the sedan, holding the gun on Applegate and smiling with relief at the bewildered voice. As he had planned, Stephanie was safely back in the taxi and he had Applegate where he wanted him. Soon the sedan was snaking between the warehouses; then the drumbeat of cobblestones rose as it started down the winding hill, thundering across the desolate wharves to the barge.

Shepherd prodded Applegate up the gangway into the cabin and shoved him into the captain’s chair.

“Let’s see some ID,” Shepherd ordered.

Applegate scowled, removed his wallet from his jacket, and threw it on the table. It was a large travel type. Along with the usual cash, identification, and credit cards, it also contained his pilot’s license and passport.

“You bastard,” Shepherd said with disgust, coming upon Applegate’s
military ID. He had been hoping he would find evidence to the contrary, something to dispell the ugly implications.

Applegate shrugged impassively.

“That won’t cut it, Major,” Shepherd warned, his drawl thickening with anger and indignance. “If I’m going to die for my country, it better damn well be in my one-eleven. Now you’re going to tell me what the hell this is all about.”

“And you’re going to kill me if I don’t,” Applegate retorted with weary insolence.

“I might.”

“Either way you lose, Shepherd.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Shepherd shot back, matching his smug tone. “You ever thought about being a cripple, Major? A paraplegic? Maybe a quad?” He had the pistol aimed at Applegate’s forehead; now he began slowly lowering it. “I knew a pilot once; flew over a hundred sorties in Nam without a scratch; he wasn’t home a week when he got rear ended on the freeway.” The muzzle came to rest against Applegate’s kneecap. “Whiplash; paralyzed from the neck down.” Shepherd’s eyes narrowed to vengeful slits as he squeezed the trigger. The pistol fired, emitting a blinding flash and loud report.

Applegate lurched and let out an involuntary gasp before it dawned on him that the bullet had missed, that Shepherd had purposely moved the gun off line. The bullet blew a hole in the chair, sending up a shower of splinters between his legs.

Shepherd pressed the muzzle against Applegate’s knee again. “I asked you a question, Major.”

Applegate glared at him.

Shepherd held the look for a long moment, waiting, waiting, letting the tension build, letting the weapon dig into Applegate. The sweat on the Major’s forehead began rolling down his face; his mouth turned to cotton, his tongue flicking nervously at his lips.

“Something you want to say, Major?” Shepherd taunted.

Applegate’s lips tightened into a defiant line.

Shepherd thought back to that terrifying day in Hey ford. The sickening memory of blood and brains that had suddenly filled the air, spattering his face and flight suit, consumed him as he methodically pulled the trigger again.

The bullet creased the inside of Applegate’s thigh. He groaned, his hands clutching his pants as blood seeped through the torn
fabric from the burning wound in his flesh; then through clenched teeth he finally rasped, “Qaddafi wanted a couple of one-elevens,”

“You gave my one-eleven to Qaddafi?” Shepherd exploded, his eyes ablaze with anger. “Why?”

“I was following orders.”

“So were the Nazis. You killed a fellow officer in cold blood; been trying to kill me. I want to know why!”

Applegate’s eyes darted anxiously to the gun. “Qaddafi can’t make any trouble with them.”

“Keep talking, Major,” Shepherd snapped, punching the muzzle into Applegate’s other kneecap.

“We had a deal put together,” Applegate continued, clearly in pain. “Qaddafi didn’t hold up his end so we held back ANITA.”

“Who’s we?” Shepherd demanded. “Who?”

Applegate shook his head no, stonewalling.

Shepherd pulled the trigger and blew another hole in the wood between his legs.

“CIA,” the Major answered. “Kiley’s been off his nut over the Fitzgerald thing.” In nervous bursts he went on to explain how and why the F-111 s were delivered to Libya, concluding, “The bottom line is Qaddafi gets one-elevens, the Palestinians get a sanctuary, we get the hostages.”

Shepherd gasped. He was beyond being shocked now. A lifetime of unquestioning patriotism had just been destroyed. A few moments passed before he reached under the table and removed the voice activated tape recorder from the sling that held it in place. “Anything you want to add?” he asked in a weary tone, setting it on the table in front of Applegate.

The Major winced at the sight of it and glowered at him in silent hatred.

Shepherd held the look; then hearing the rumble of tires on the wharf, he glanced out the window to see the taxi’s headlights cutting through the darkness.

Applegate took advantage of the distraction and leapt to his feet, shoving the table into Shepherd, who went reeling backward, losing his grip on the pistol; it went skittering across the deck along with the tape recorder. Applegate scrambled after the gun, scooping it up on the move. Shepherd took cover behind the bulkhead that separated the main cabin from the galley just as Applegate opened fire.

Outside on the wharf, the taxi came to a stop next to Applegate’s
sedan. Stephanie and Spencer were just getting out when the crack of gunshots shattered the silence. A bullet struck one of the barge’s windows, sending a shower of glass onto the dock.

“Walt! Walt! Oh, my God!” Stephanie cried out, lunging toward the gangway.

Spencer grasped her arm and pulled her behind the taxi as an exchange of shots rang out.

A tense silence followed.

It was broken by the rumble of the barge’s old door sliding back. A figure emerged and started down the gangway in the darkness, reaching the bottom before a shaft of light illuminated Applegate’s face.

Stephanie paled at the sight of him.

Applegate stumbled across the dock, heading for the sedan, heading right for Stephanie and Spencer, who were crouching between it and the taxi. They froze with terror as he raised the pistol at point blank range. A single crisp report, a blue-orange flash that came from behind Applegate, split the night. The big man stiffened, swayed, and collapsed onto the wharf.

Shepherd lowered the Baretta he had taken from Applegate earlier, and hurried down the gangway. Stephanie let out a cry of joy and ran toward him. He embraced her, his head filling with her familiar scent. They clung fiercely to each other.

Spencer was bent over Applegate’s lifeless body. The bullet that felled him was the last of three that had found their mark, and the major was near death.

“He’s barely breathing,” Spencer announced. “You want me to take him to a casualty room?”

Shepherd considered it for a moment and scowled. “It’d serve him right if we threw him over the side,” he replied, gesturing to the Thames.

“You’ll be no better than he is if you do that,” Stephanie admonished.

“Yeah, I guess,” Shepherd said somewhat grudgingly, knowing she was right. “Besides, even if he pulls through, he won’t be in any shape to make trouble.” He and Spencer took hold of Applegate and loaded him into the backseat of the taxi. “Better say you found him in the street,” Shepherd warned before the cabbie drove off.

Shepherd stood there clinging to Stephanie, watching the clattering diesel climb the hill and disappear into the night. This
certainly wasn’t the first time he had killed, but it
was
the first time he had done it face to face, the first time he hadn’t been insulated in his cockpit. He shifted his eyes to a small pool of blood on the wharf and stared at it for a long moment before he led Stephanie up the gangway into the barge.

The cassette recorder was lying on the floor of the cabin along with Applegate’s wallet and ID. “It’s all right here,” Shepherd said, retrieving the recorder. He saw Stephanie’s bewildered look and gently put a fingertip to her lips to stem the barrage of questions he knew was coming. “In the morning, okay?” he asked softly. He took her hand, crossed to the alcove, and collapsed onto the bed. They burrowed beneath the mound of wool blankets, their arms and legs entwined, torsos pressed together, breathing in unison and listening to each other’s heartbeats.

“The kids with your folks?” he finally whispered.

Stephanie nodded.

“What did you tell them?”

“I said I needed to get away for a few days to put myself back together,” she explained, her voice cracking with emotion. “I didn’t want to get their hopes up. I mean, I was going crazy. I knew you were alive but I was so afraid something would happen to you before I got here. I . . .” she paused, her eyes brimming with tears. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

They clung to each other for hours before their anxiety subsided and their passions rose. Soon they were inside each other’s clothing, his hands moving over the familiar swells of her body, hers gently grazing his bruised flesh, soothing the pain, releasing the pent-up tension. Several weeks had passed since they were last lovers, but the intervening events made it seem like an eternity. Grieving one minute, making love the next, they soared to moments of pure joy that crested in an electrifying affirmation of life; then, satiated and wracked with exhaustion, they collapsed into each other’s arms and slept.

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.,
dusk was falling when one of the Special Forces agents called Kiley from London to report that Shepherd had eluded them and that, after mysteriously vanishing from Liverpool station, Applegate had turned up dead on arrival at The London Hospital. “Better screw the lid down as tight as we can, sir,” the distraught agent concluded.

Kiley listened in thoughtful silence, his mind racing through the myriad of moves and countermoves like a chess master. “Maybe not,” the DCI finally said, enigmatically. “After forty years in this game, I’ve learned that sometimes,
sometimes
, the very thing we’re trying so desperately to hide is precisely what ought to be revealed.”

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
in London, a cool, clear dawn broke over the Thames as the waterfront began coming to life, the slow-moving traffic gently rocking the river barge.

The haunting sounds that came through the windows were soon rudely joined by a voice, a familiar voice, a grating voice that drummed at Shepherd in his sleep. No! No, it can’t be, he thought, convinced beyond doubt he was in the throes of a cruel nightmare. Try as he might to shut it out, Applegate’s voice droned on, the insolent tone filling Shepherd with anger and fear. He suddenly sat bolt upright in the bed, emitting an anguished cry. His eyes wide with terror, he tried desperately to focus on the hazy figure hovering over him.

“Easy, hon,” Stephanie said, embracing him comfortingly. “Easy. It’s okay, everything’s okay.”

But it wasn’t; despite her presence, despite her assurances, the voice continued.

Shepherd’s eyes soon focused on his tape recorder atop a small built-in dresser next to the bed. “The tape,” he said with an immense sigh of relief. “You’re listening to the tape.”

Stephanie nodded, eyes full of compassion and concern, knowing now all that he had been through. She shut off the tape, draped a blanket over his shoulders, and kissed him lovingly; then she fetched them both a cup of coffee from the galley.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Shepherd said, sipping from the steaming mug. “Our own people—”

“I know,” she replied glumly. “Your commanding officer works in the White House.”

“Larkin?”

Stephanie nodded.

“A little detail Major Applegate forgot to mention,” Shepherd observed, thinking he was going to need every piece of ammunition and data he had amassed.

He gathered Applegate’s wallet, credit cards, passport, and
identification, which were strewn across the floor, and put them in a manila envelope along with his tape recorder and the cassette containing Applegate’s account of the conspiracy. He was about to add the strip of snapshots of him holding the signed newspaper when he paused thoughtfully, then fetched a pair of scissors from the galley and cut one snapshot from the strip.

“Hang onto this,” he said, giving it to Stephanie. “Anything happens to me you can—”

“Walt,” she protested.

“Just in case. You can use it to prove I was alive and well the day
after
the air strike.”

They left the barge, got into Applegate’s car, drove along the waterfront to Knightsbridge, in London’s West End, and parked in a multilevel garage around the corner from the Underground. A sense of exhilaration at having prevailed came over Shepherd as they hurried toward Bowater House, the modern office tower on Knightsbridge Road opposite Hyde Park, where CBS News was located.

CBS was the network of Murrow, Severeid, and Cronkite, the network that had exposed McCarthy, that had damn near invented electronic journalism and, for decades, had set standards of quality and integrity for the industry. Shepherd imagined the stunned reactions, the buzz of excitement as a dead man walked into the newsroom; imagined the lead story that evening as Dan Rather, with patented, thin-lipped gravity, would reveal the ugly conspiracy to the nation and world.