Against All Enemies (23 page)

Assam jerked his head in agreement and two hours later, they were on his C-130 headed for the underground laboratory deep in the western desert. Assam traveled with a large retinue of sycophants who clustered around him, trying to capture one of the airline-type seats that were on-loaded whenever Assam used the aircraft. Kamigami sat near the portable lavatory module at the rear of the aircraft. The two stewards concentrated on Assam and left him alone, which was just fine. But he was worried about al Gimlas. Among the Sudanese, he alone worried Kamigami.

When al Gimlas had gone forward and climbed onto the flight deck, Kamigami stepped into the vacant lavatory. He urinated as he examined the interior. Someone had smudged the vanity mirror over the washbasin with a small backward check mark. The tail of the check mark moved upward in a slightly longer-than-expected stroke and curved off to his left. Kamigami allowed a mental sigh of relief. It was what he had been looking for since arriving in the Sudan. He turned around and faced the wall opposite the mirror and looked where the tail of the check mark pointed. He quickly ran his hand along the top right side of the storage cabinets built into the wall. At the back of a pile of paper towels he found what he was looking for: a half-used pack of cigarettes.

The check mark was the signal that a dead letter drop was activated and the message would be in one of the cigarettes. Since the Sudan was a Moslem country, the sender was most likely a male. But other than that, Kamigami could only surmise it was someone who had access to the plane. Should the wrong person inadvertently find the cigarettes, they would most likely think they were hidden there by someone who was afraid of the Moslem prohibition against using tobacco. The finder would probably smoke the cigarettes himself, destroying the message.
Very good
, Kamigami thought.
Someone who knows his tradecraft
.

He stood over the toilet and unwrapped a cigarette, carefully examining the inside of the paper. Nothing. He dropped the tobacco into the toilet, confident that no Moslem would be too concerned about examining the holding tank. The CIA had no such compunctions and were shit divers of the first water. He ate the paper wrapper. He repeated the process with three more cigarettes before he found the faint mark he was looking for. He moistened the inside of the paper with his tongue, careful to barely wet it. Dull, but very fine lettering emerged and started to fade almost at once.

These were the location, contact, and recognition signals he needed. Kamigami flushed the tobacco down the toilet and ate the paper wrapper, chewing it into oblivion. He wiped his fingerprints off the pack and placed the unused cigarettes back in their hiding place, confident they would be smoked. He squeezed around and rubbed off the check mark on the mirror indicating the message had been received.

He had made contact.

7:30
P.M.
, Thursday, June 24,
Hurlburt Field, Fla.

The tech sergeant who described himself as Gillespie’s “flight inga-neer” met Durant and Rios when they arrived at the MH-53J Pave Low helicopter. Durant talked to Gillespie while the sergeant and Rios did a walk-around in the rapidly fading light. “Don’t you pay no-never-mind to all those hydraulic leaks dripping on the ramp,” the flight engineer told him. “If it’s leaking, then it’s working right.”

“And if it’s not leaking?” Rios asked.

“Then it’s dry and we got to refill it.”

“Have you flown much with Colonel Gillespie?” Rios asked.

“For a college boy, he ain’t bad.”

“Does that mean he’s a good pilot?”

The flight engineer nodded. “I’d go play cowboys and Iranians with him or Captain Harold any time, any place.” They climbed up the rear ramp and Rios strapped in next to Durant while the crew brought the big helicopter to life. Slowly, the six big blades on the seventy-two-foot rotor picked up speed and beat at the air with the characteristic whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter. Both Durant and Rios were wearing earplugs under their headsets and still found the sound deafening. Then a gunner raised the ramp and closed the hatches, lowering the noise to a more tolerable level.

Harold radioed ground control for taxi clearance and the Pave Low moved like a giant insect into the takeoff position. Harold read the before-takeoff checklist and then called the tower for release. The tower cleared them for takeoff, the flight engineer pushed the throttles on the overhead panel to one hundred percent, and Gillespie lifted them easily into the clear night sky.

Gillespie turned west and flew just over the coastline at two hundred feet as they headed for Pensacola. A gunner handed them NVGs, night vision goggles, and helped them fit the cumbersome devices over their eyes. “Look toward the ocean,” he warned them. “Otherwise, bright lights will blind you.” He gave them a friendly grin. “You’d be surprised at what we see.” He guided them to the left gunner’s position just aft of the cockpit, and they scanned the shoreline as the gunner had suggested. Although depth perception was not very good through the NVGs, the bright apple green images were very sharp.

“Hey, Gunny,” Harold said over the intercom, “we got some live ones up ahead.” The forward-looking infrared in the cockpit was much more powerful than the NVGs. Gillespie altered course a few degrees to the right to move them inland. “Clear left,” Harold said, clearing the airspace on their left side. Gillespie wracked the helicopter into a tight left turn and did a pylon turn over a naked couple fornicating on the sand.

“I hope that ain’t your daughter down there,” the flight engineer said to no one in particular. “Maybe we outta go around again and check to be sure.”

“No way,” Gillespie said.

“Ah, why not?” the flight engineer replied.

“We can get arrested for disturbing the piece,” Gillespie quipped.

Durant’s smile turned into a laugh. It was a rich, warm laughter that came from the heart. Rios felt his eyes tear up and blinked twice. Durant hadn’t laughed like that in years. The flight engineer stowed his seat and let Durant stand on the step between and just behind the pilots. From the intercom chatter, the radio calls, and the precise actions of the crew, there was no doubt that they were flying with highly trained and proficient professionals.

But there was more. Special operations demanded every one of them be an independent thinker yet capable of being a team player. They had a measure of self-confidence the average civilian could never understand for the simple reason the average civilian was never challenged the way they were. These men would fly the most difficult of missions, betting their skills were equal to the task. And if they were found lacking, the survivors consoled themselves with “We had a bad day.” Then they trained harder.

“Special ops,” the flight engineer said to Durant over the intercom, “never gets any credit because we make it look so easy.”

Durant smiled. He was having the time of his life.

Harold switched radio frequencies and they headed out over the Gulf toward the old aircraft carrier the Navy used for flight training. The VHF crackled with transmissions as they neared the carrier, and judging by the strain in their voices, a few of the student pilots were on the edge of panic as they practiced night carrier landings. Gillespie caught it first. “One of them is disoriented and doesn’t know where he is.”

“He’s not in the pattern,” Harold said. Both pilots strained to see in the night, hoping to pick up a rotating beacon or position lights. “I hope he’s at the right altitude,” Harold added.

The flight engineer tapped Durant on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir.” Durant stepped aside so the sergeant could help scan the skies. Durant moved over to the right gunner’s hatch and scanned to the right. Nothing. A flashing strobe light suddenly materialized at their five o’clock position and didn’t move. An aircraft was on a collision course! “Break right!” Durant shouted. “Down!”

Gillespie didn’t hesitate and maneuvered violently, throwing Durant to the deck. His head banged against an electronic equipment rack. A jet blast deafened them and the big helicopter rocked from the jet wash, throwing them out of control. Only Gillespie’s lightning-quick reflexes saved them from crashing into the ocean. “My,” the flight engineer said when they were flying straight and level, “I do believe I wet my knickers on that one.”

“That sucker was close,” Harold said. “I never saw him.”

“I need help!” Rios shouted. “He’s cut his head.” The two gunners were on Durant in a flash, pushing Rios out of the way. Hours of training again paid off as they quickly stanched the flow of blood.

“There’s a crash team on the carrier,” Gillespie said.

But before he could call for priority handling to get them aboard the carrier, one of the gunners shouted. “Shit! I think he’s having a heart attack!”

“Give him CPR and get him on oxygen,” Gillespie ordered. He wrenched the Pave Low around and headed for the hospital at Pensacola. The flight engineer reached up and pushed the throttles to 105 percent.

“Come on, baby,” he urged, wringing every knot he could out of the machine.

Rios bent over Durant and took over the CPR from the gunner.
Please, God
, he prayed,
not yet. Not yet!

7:25
A.M.
, Monday, June 28,
Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

Sutherland automatically looked at the countdown calendar when he came to work Monday morning. Toni had changed the numbers to red and a big 14 loomed at him.
Two weeks to go
, he told himself. The vague itching was back.
What’s out there waiting to bite us in the ass?
It was the question that loomed large in every prosecutor’s mind as a trial date approached. He was confident he and Blasedale had covered all the bases, but he would continue to work the evidence, twisting it around, examining it from different angles, and trying to see it from Cooper’s perspective. If he did it right, he would be in Cooper’s head when the court-martial started and know what the defense attorney was going to do. Sutherland hated surprises.

A surprise walked in immediately behind him in the form of Brent Mather.
What’s he doing here?
Sutherland grumbled to himself. The answer was obvious when he walked into the law library where Toni was still working her way through the file boxes on Osmana Khalid, looking for one more piece of the puzzle.
Maybe it’s business
, he thought.

A bit peeved about Mather’s intrusion on his territory, he decided to reestablish his eminent domain. It was time for a staff meeting. He called Blasedale first and when he buzzed Toni, told her to bring Mather along. They all trooped into his office, wondering what he had to say. “Well, folks, it’s time to switch gears. I want to play ‘Napoleon’s Sergeant.’”

“Napoleon’s what?” Blasedale asked.

“Napoleon had a sergeant,” Sutherland explained, “who read all the orders Napoleon sent to his generals. If the sergeant understood them, the orders went out. If not, Napoleon rewrote them. So we’re going to present our case to a sergeant today.”

“Do you mind if I sit in?” Mather asked, looking at Toni.

“Another point of view is always welcome,” Sutherland answered.

It was the first time Sutherland had been in the courtroom since the day he arrived on Whiteman and had met Blasedale. It had been recently cleaned in preparation for the court-martial and smelled of lemon furniture polish. Linda brought in a buck sergeant. Fred Scott was a bright and eager twenty-four-year-old from public affairs who definitely could think for himself. Sutherland sat him in the jury box with Toni and Mather while he presented their case against Capt. Bradley A. Jefferson.

“Our case relies on both direct and circumstantial evidence,” Sutherland explained. “In many respects, circumstantial evidence is as good, if not better, than direct. For example, say a cherry pie is missing from your kitchen and you find a trail of pie crumbs leading to your four-year-old daughter’s room. In the room, you then discover your daughter with cherry stains around her mouth, but no pie. This is all direct evidence. What happened to the missing cherry pie is circumstantial. However, you can be sure who ate at least part of the pie. Our case is like that. By relying on direct and circumstantial evidence, we can establish a chain of events that are linked together beyond a reasonable doubt.”

This was the first time Blasedale had seen Sutherland in action and she was impressed. He spoke without notes and in a very straightforward, simple way. The certainty in his voice alone would convince most jurors of his case. Sutherland’s logic was even more damning. First, he presented in detail the direct evidence they had: the information about the B-2’s flight plan that passed from the Islamic cleric, Osmana Khalid, to the student, to the Sudanese embassy in Washington, and then to the Sudan. “Now only one question remains,” Sutherland said. “Where did Khalid get his information?” Slowly, he proved that Jefferson had detailed knowledge of the mission and had twice talked to Khalid previous to the mission being flown. Rather than actually bringing their witnesses in, Sutherland read their statements. Only once did Sergeant Scott show any doubt, and that was when he read S. Sgt. Miner’s statement about overhearing Jefferson speak to the pilots on Saturday afternoon.

Sutherland carefully laid out the timing and geography of the conversations between Jefferson and Khalid. Then he presented a series of graphics that depicted the sequence of phone calls and contacts, i.e., the direct evidence, that took place immediately after each conversation. The timing in itself was overwhelming. “The first meeting at the Mosque might be coincidence,” he allowed. “But the second conversation took place immediately after Captain Jefferson had spoken to the pilots after a session in the simulator—a session where Major Terrant and Captain Holloway had practiced the mission they would later fly.” He played the tape of the intercepted phone call that Jefferson made after talking to the pilots. “Is this also coincidence?”

They broke for lunch. Sergeant Fred Scott and Agent Brent Mather clustered around Toni and the three went off together. “What do you think?” Blasedale asked.

“Did you see his reaction to Sergeant Miner’s testimony? That may be a weakness. Let’s work on that.”

After lunch, they all gathered in the courtroom and Sutherland let Toni describe the money trail that led from Reno, to Warrensburg. When she had finished, he stood up and demonstrated how Sandi Jefferson lived way beyond a captain’s salary. But Sergeant Scott was shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” Scott said. “It all makes sense, but I don’t see the money trail going to Jefferson.”

They had found the weak link in their case.

“Damn,” Sutherland moaned. “I must be getting senile. Talk about a basic mistake. Why didn’t I see it before?”

“Because we’ve been rushed for time,” Blasedale told him. “It is so obvious—but we just didn’t prove it to Sergeant Scott. Besides, we can prove motivation other ways. We downplay the money trail and stress Jefferson’s religion—the Islamic connection—which is the connection to Khalid.”

They were sitting in Sutherland’s office with Mather and Toni rehashing the session with Scott. As usual, Blasedale was sitting next to the door. For the first time, Sutherland noticed that Mather and Toni were sitting just a little too close together for his comfort. “When are you going to find Khalid?” Sutherland asked, taking a dig at the FBI and, by extension, Mather.

Mather gave him a hard look. “If he’s still in the country, we’ll find him.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe Habib, the bartender at Bare Essence, can help. We’ve had him under surveillance for some time. He bought a gold Rolex watch right after the money transfer from Reno to Warrensburg.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sutherland grumbled.

“They did,” Toni said in a soft voice. They all looked at her. “It was in the files they sent over. I didn’t think it was important at the time and forgot about it.” She tried to recover. “Harry’s watching Habib too.”

“We can work together on this,” Mather said, a little too eager.

“Yeah,” Sutherland groused, “do that.”

Toni smiled at him, eager to recover. “We’ve got a hired gun on the way to get on the inside at the club.”

“A hired gun?” Mather asked, a perplexed look on his face.

Toni told them about Airman Andrea Hall. “As a matter of fact, she should be here tomorrow. Harry’s meeting her at the airport.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sutherland demanded. “It could compromise our case.”

“Harry’s too good for that,” Toni replied.

Mather stood up to leave. “I’ve got to get back for my stakeout shift. Do me a favor, don’t tell Harry that we’re also investigating the bartender.”