Dead or Alive (78 page)

Luckily for Shasif and the others, they needed only sixteen ounces of explosives for their purposes, so the piecemeal shipments had taken only a few weeks. From this pound of Semtex they had formed six shaped charges—five each of two ounces, and one of six ounces.

“I performed my last survey of the facility yesterday. As we’d hoped, the diversion berm and canal aren’t finished yet. If we do our job correctly, there will be nothing they can do to stop it.”

“How many gallons, do you think?” This from Ahmed.

“Hard to say. The line is fully functional, and the capacity is almost three-point-two billion gallons a year—almost nine million gallons a day. From there the calculations become complex. Suffice it to say, it will be enough for our purposes.”

“No change in the exfiltration plan?” asked Fa’ad.

Ibrahim looked hard at him. He lowered his voice. “No change. Do not forget, though: Live or die, we must succeed. Allah’s eyes are upon us. If He wills it, all of us or some of us will survive. Or not. Those concerns are secondary, is that understood?”

One by one, each man nodded.

Ibrahim checked his watch. “Seven hours. I’ll see you there.”

 

 

 

A
fter the initial excitement of their first getaway weekend and the flush of lovemaking faded, she began distancing herself from him, staring out the window, declining his suggestion that they go out, allowing just the right amount of pout to her lips. . . . After thirty minutes of this, Steve asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Allison replied.

“It’s something. I can see it on your face. You’re doing that thing with your lip.” He sat down beside her on the bed. “Tell me.”

“It’s stupid. It’s nothing.”

“Allison, please. Have I done something wrong?”

This was the question she’d been waiting for. Kindhearted Steve. Wimpy Steve, so worried about losing her. “Sure you won’t laugh?”

“I promise.”

“I was talking to my sister Jan yesterday. She said she saw this documentary, something on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic, I think. It was all about the geology of—”

“Of where I work? Allison, I told you—”

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing. Okay, go ahead.”

“She said a lot of scientists are against the whole thing. There are protests all the time. Legal stuff, trying to shut it down. They saw there are earthquake faults all around that area. And they were talking about the groundwater, if there’s a leak.”

“There’s not going to be any leaks.”

“But what if ?” Allison insisted.

“The slightest leak would be detected. They’ve got sensors everywhere. Besides, the water table is a thousand feet down.”

“But the soil—isn’t it soft or something? Permeable?”

“Yes, but there are redundant systems, levels upon levels, and the stuff will be sealed in casks. You should see these things, they’re like—”

“I’m worried about you. What if something happens?”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Can’t you get another job? If you and I . . . I mean, if we keep going . . . I’d worry all the time.”

“Listen, right now it’s not even operational. Hell, we’re just now getting around to doing a mock delivery.”

“What’s that?”

“Just a simulation. A trial run. A truck comes in, we offload the cask. You know, check all the procedures to make sure everything’s working like it should.”

Allison sighed, folded her arms.

Steve said, “Hey, I’m not going to lie. I think it’s kinda cool you’re worried about me, but there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Really? Here, look at this.” Allison walked to the nightstand, grabbed her purse, and came back. She rummaged inside for a moment, then pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Jan e-mailed me this.” She handed it to him.

Though only an artist’s cutaway rendering, it was detailed enough to show the facility’s main level, two sublevels, and far below that, through layers of brown and gray “rock,” a blue horizontal stripe labeled “water table.”

“Where did she get this?” Steve asked.

“She Googled it.”

“Ally, there’s a lot more to the place than this . . . cartoon.”

“I know that. I’m not stupid.” She got up, walked to the balcony window, and stared out.

“I didn’t mean that,” Steve said. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“So is Jan wrong? Are you telling me nobody at that place worries about this stuff?”

“Of course we do. It’s serious business. We all know that. The DOE has—”

“The what?”

“Department of Energy. It’s done years of research on this. Spent tens of millions just on feasibility studies alone.”

“But that documentary—it kept talking about these rifts in the ground. Weak spots.”

Steve hesitated. “Ally, I can’t really talk about—”

“Fine, forget it. I’ll just stop worrying. How’s that?”

Allison could feel him standing there, staring at the back of her head. He would be wearing that scolded-puppy-dog look and have his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. She let the silence hang in the air. After thirty seconds, he said, “Okay, if it’s that important to you—”

“It’s not that that’s important to me. It’s you.”

Arms still folded, she turned to face him. She forced some tears into her eyes. He held out his hand to her. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“Just come here.”

She stepped over to him, to his hand. He said, “Just don’t tell anybody I talked about this stuff, okay? They’d throw me in jail.”

She smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Promise.”

 

 

 

T
he Panamax cargo ship
Losan
was three days from its destination, having made the bulk of the Atlantic crossing on calm seas and under clear skies.
Losan
’s captain, a forty-seven-year-old German named Hans Groder, had been the box ship’s master for eight years, having spent ten months out of every one of those years at sea. A tougher schedule than his previous job—captain of a German Navy Type 702 Berlin-class replenishment oiler—but the pay was much better and the stresses much fewer. Better still,
Losan
was a blue-water ship, a nice change for Groder after twenty-two years of navigating the labyrinthian waters around Eckendorf and Kiel Naval Bases. Such a pleasure to simply point one’s bow into the Atlantic and steam away with hundreds and thousands of feet beneath your keel and not a speck of land on your radar. Of course, on his more introspective days Groder indulged that sense of melancholy all sailors and soldiers felt once they’ve left military life behind, but on balance he enjoyed his life and the autonomy it allowed. He answered to only one man, the owner, not a chain of stuffed-shirt flag officers who wouldn’t know the difference between a chock and a cleat.

Groder strolled across the bridge and glanced at the radar. There wasn’t another vessel within twenty miles. Their nav radar wasn’t the most powerful in the world but was sufficient for their purposes. For a watchful captain and crew, twenty miles was plenty of time to adjust course and give fellow travelers a wide berth. Groder walked to the windows and stared out across the foredeck, going through his instinctive scan of the stacked bulktainers. They’d experienced some shifting, most of the time due to those damned propane tanks. Packed four to a container, they were secure enough, but their shape lacked the user-friendly geometry of crates and pallets. It could be worse, Groder knew. At least the damned things were empty.

L
ATER, GERRY HENDLEY would reflect that the hardest part of the whole damned affair—aside from the event that prompted it, that was—was simply finding a private place to bring them in. Former President Ryan had finally stepped in, making one phone call to the chief of staff of the Air Force, CSAF, who in turn called the commander of the 316th Wing, the host unit at Andrews Air Force Base.

They arrived in two black Chevy Tahoes, Hendley, Jerry Rounds, Tom Davis, Rick Bell, Pete Alexander, and Sam Granger in the first; Clark, Chavez, and Jack Ryan Jr. in the second. Both vehicles turned left onto C Street and coasted to a stop beside a hangar at the edge of the tarmac. Former President Ryan arrived five minutes later in a Town Car flanked by the Secret Service detail in two Suburbans.

The Gulfstream V touched down eleven minutes later, three minutes behind schedule, and taxied to a stop fifty yards away. The engines spooled down, and the scaffold stairs were rolled out and locked onto the plane’s main door.

Jack Ryan Jr. climbed out of the Tahoe, followed by the rest, who stood a few feet behind him.

The Gulfstream’s door opened, and thirty seconds later Dominic Caruso appeared at the threshold. He blinked at the sunlight, then started down the stairs. His face was drawn and showed five days’ worth of stubble. Jack walked out and met him halfway. They embraced.

“I’m so sorry, man,” Jack whispered.

Dominic didn’t respond but broke the hug and nodded. “Yeah” was all he said.

“Where is he?”

“Cargo hold. They wouldn’t let me take him in the cabin.”

 

 

 

A
fter leaving the quarry, Bari had driven as fast as possible with the Opel’s headlights off, making it back to the main highway in less than ten minutes. Brian drifted in and out of consciousness as they raced west along the coast, as Dominic gripped his hand and cradled his head in his lap. He kept his other hand pressed to the bullet wound, which kept oozing dark blood, coating Dominic’s hand and forearm and soaking the seat beneath his legs. Seven miles from Zuwarah, Brian started coughing, lightly at first, then spasmodically, his body heaving off the seat as Dominic lay across his torso and whispered for him to hang on. After a few minutes, Brian seemed to relax and his breathing steadied. Then stopped. Dominic wouldn’t realize it until much later, but he’d felt that moment, that too-slight gap between Brian being alive and dead. Dominic straightened up in his seat and found Brian’s head lolled to one side, his sightless eyes staring at the back of the seat.

He told Bari to pull over and stop the car, which he did, then Dominic took the keys from the ignition, got out of the car, and walked ten yards away. To the east, the first faint rays of pink sunlight were showing over the horizon. Dominic sat in silence, watching the sunrise and not wanting to look at Brian, half hoping that when he did he’d find his brother breathing again and looking at him with a stupid, goofy smile. Of course, that didn’t happen. After ten minutes, he got back into the car and ordered the Libyan to get off the main highway and find them a place to hole up. After thirty minutes of driving, Bari found a shaded grove of palm trees and pulled in.

Dominic called Archie’s cell phone; help from The Campus would take too long. In two curt sentences, he told the Aussie what had happened, then handed the phone to Bari, who gave Archie directions to their location. It took two hours. Archie arrived in a Range Rover, and without a word pulled Dominic out of the Opel, put him the Rover’s backseat, then retrieved a plastic body bag from the hatch and returned to the Opel, where he and Bari carefully slid Brian’s body from the backseat and sealed him in the bag. After placing the bag in the Rover’s cargo area, he returned to the Opel and cleaned it out, dumping all the gear and weapons into the trunk. Once he was sure the car was clean, Archie doused the Opel’s interior with the contents of a five-gallon gas can and lit it on fire.

They were back in Tripoli by noon. Archie bypassed the consulate and drove straight to what Dominic assumed was a safe house off Bassel el Asad near the stadium. Bari, bound hand and foot, was locked in the bathroom, then Archie made sure the landline’s scrambler was running, then left Dominic alone to make the call home.

 

 

W
ho else knows?” Dominic now asked his cousin.

“No one,” Jack replied. “Just who’s here. I figured you’d want to do it. Or if you want, I can—”

“No.”

Jack asked, “You wanna go home?”

“No. We got some stuff. You guys are going to want it. Let’s go back to the office. Hendley or somebody needs to get with Archie in Tripoli. If we want Bari back here, we’re going to have to—”

“Dom, you don’t have to worry about that stuff. We’ll handle it.”

Former President Ryan walked up, and he and Dominic embraced. “Sorry doesn’t quite seem to do it, son, but I am.”

Dominic nodded. To Jack: “Let’s just go, okay.”

“Sure.”

Jack turned and signaled to Clark and Chavez, who walked up and escorted Dominic back to the second Tahoe. Jack asked his dad, “Get a ride with you?”

“Of course.”

Jack gave Hendley a nod, then followed his dad to the Town Car.