Mission Compromised (39 page)

Now, with this new scenario, Aidid would simply perish in a ball of fire from the warhead of a high-tech machine—a robot programmed to kill. It would have to do.

Something else bothered the Marine: Harrod's comment about “after-action reports” and “filling in the blanks.” Newman thought,
If Harrod has said it once he's said it a thousand times: he doesn't want a lot of paperwork floating around on this stuff. Now all of a sudden the mission has changed from Somalia to Iraq
—
and there are going to be questions to answer. I have no doubt that I'll have to answer the questions …I just wonder who will be asking them.

If anything went wrong, he knew who the fall guy would be.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Headquarters of Amn Al-Khass

________________________________________

Baghdad, Iraq
Monday, 20 February 1995
0910 Hours, Local

 

T
he phone on Hussein Kamil's desk jangled.

“Leave,” Kamil said to the two ranking officers sitting in front of his desk. “I must take this call.”

“Who are you and what do you want? And how did you get the number of my private line?” he said as soon as they had shut the door behind them.

The voice on the other end of the line did not identify itself and ignored the questions. “I must talk to you. Your three nephews are planning to visit. We must make arrangements.”

Kamil recognized the voice of Leonid Dotensk. He sat up straight in his chair.
The warheads must be ready.

“I will meet you where we last met,” Kamil said, glancing at his watch. “At the same time. I will come with two of their uncles who will be anxious to make sure they are healthy.”

“No … I'm afraid they are not
here
, but merely
ready
to visit. That is why I want to make arrangements with you.”

Kamil did not say anything for a moment. “All right. I'll meet you anyway.”

He hung up the telephone. He smiled, again enjoying the brilliance of shooting his chauffeur, then blackmailing Dotensk. He had even given the Ukrainian his handsome pistol just before dropping him off a block from his office—and after removing the remaining bullets from the magazine. He realized that even if Dotensk got rid of the gun, the Ukrainian knew Kamil could “find” other evidence to use against him.

Unfortunately, there were questions about the disappearance of the chauffeur. Abu's wife and son worried when he did not return that evening; they went directly to Hussein Kamil himself to ask about his whereabouts. He had to give them a line about a special mission and “national security” to keep them quiet. He reassured them that they would see him soon, but he told them not to speak about the matter to anyone in the meantime.

Kamil picked up the phone again to call one of his security officers. “Bring Abu's wife and son to my office. And get me a car from the palace motor pool. No, I don't need a driver. And no bodyguards.” It wouldn't do to have witnesses to his meeting with Dotensk.

When the wife and son arrived, Kamil escorted them into his private office. He gave them refreshments of tea and date loaves. Then,
when the large shelf clock across the room began to chime, he said, “I will take you to see Abu now.” He led them to the rear entrance of the building where the Mercedes was parked, its motor running.

He leaned toward them as they approached the car. A motor pool driver was holding the door for them. “Say nothing, get into the car,” he whispered. They did as they were instructed, happy at last they would see their loved one who'd been missing for almost a week.

The trip took about forty minutes. Kamil saw the Ukrainian's car parked near the spot they had last met. Dotensk opened the door and got out as Kamil's Mercedes pulled up. He held up both hands in greeting so that the Iraqi could see that he was unarmed.

“I am afraid that I have bad news for you,” Kamil said when they were standing in front of the car. “Abu has been killed. Come, I will take you to his remains.”

Abu's wife screamed and fell into her son's arms. Kamil took one of the woman's arms and her son took the other and they half-led, half-carried her to where her husband's body was. Animals had been at the body and the wind had coated what was left with sand. The widow and son both dropped to their knees beside the corpse and began to wail. Kamil pulled on a pair calfskin gloves, walked over to Dotensk, and said, “Give me your pistol.”

“No … don't do this,” said the Ukrainian, backing up against his car.

“Give it to me or I shall kill you here and now,” said Kamil, his hand on his holster.

Dotensk handed over the gun and looked away. Kamil lifted the pistol and fired two shots. The son and his mother dropped on top of the corpse of the man who had served Kamil so faithfully.

“Dear God!” Dotensk cried out. “What are you
doing?
Must you kill someone every time we meet?”

“It had to be done.”

Kamil ejected the clip from Dotensk's pistol, cleared the round out of the chamber, and handed the weapon back to the Ukrainian. “They were the wife and son of the chauffeur, and they would have begun to ask more questions.”

The Ukrainian was trembling. He wasn't sure whether it was because of fear or rage.
This man is a lunatic!
he thought.
He is evil
—
even by my standards.

“Two birds with one stone. Or, more correctly, three birds with one gun,” Kamil said. “Now there is no one who will ask questions.
And
I have added to the means that will ensure your trust and loyalty.”

“You didn't have to kill
any
of them for that. I told you, I
do
trust you and you can trust me.”

“Nothing like honor among thieves, eh?”

“Well, let's get down to business,” Dotensk said. “I do not have much time. If I am to complete the arrangements, I must leave this evening. Here is the plan. Make arrangements to have your scientists in Damascus by Wednesday noon. There will be a plane there to take them to the place where the three warheads are hidden. Your experts will accompany me there and be able to make their tests. I will provide the test equipment—they will have trouble getting their own equipment out of Iraq.”

“Where will all of this take place?”

“I cannot tell you. It's better that no one else knows.”

“I understand, but my scientists cannot get back here in time to be in Damascus when you want them to. One will be coming
from Montreal and the other from Bonn. Can you arrange to meet them somewhere closer? And they will have their own equipment.”

Dotensk looked at the three bodies grotesquely sprawled in a pile and decided not to push his “customer” any further. “All right. Tell them to meet me in Kiev, at the Izakov Hotel. You can't miss it—all the other buildings are painted in soft pastels; this is the only white building. They call it
Aqmola
—The White Tomb. It's right on the main street, Khreshchatyk. Tell them to leave a message for me at the same hotel when they check in, and I will meet them. All in all, the trip will keep them in and around Kiev for a little more than forty-eight hours.”

“And, assuming all is well and the scientists give me a favorable report of their inspection of the warheads, how will you get them to me?”

“I can't tell you the details just yet, but I am working on a way that will enable us to fly them into Iraq under the very noses of the United Nations inspectors.”

“That sounds risky. Why not bring them to Karachi or Istanbul and have them smuggled into Iraq along one of the regular land routes?”

“And they take weeks, sometimes months. Trust me, my way is faster and safer. The less time that they are en route reduces the chance they will be captured or observed by unwanted eyes. This much I can tell you: the shipment will come into Iraq aboard a United Nations airplane that we will be controlling. If you will look at the schedule, you will see that UN inspectors are to be here on the first of March to inspect your Al Atheer site. And since you have advance notice of their schedule, I'm sure the inspectors will find no evidence of nuclear
weapons. But unknown to them, they will be bringing in as cargo the very thing that they will be looking for!”

Kamil did a little dance in the sand and laughed. “Audacious! I
love
it!”

The Ukrainian smiled. “You can tell Saddam it was all your idea.”

Kamil liked that part of the plan even better. At last he would have some kind of parity with his troublesome brothers-in-law. “But how will you manage to do such an incredible thing?” he asked.

“You can do anything if you have enough money. I'm bribing an entire Ukrainian brigade,” Dotensk said.

“Well, I don't care how you do it or how much it costs. I'll be ready with your money as we agreed. After the inspection I'll wire 50 million Swiss francs to your account in Kiev, and the other 100 million will be transferred to your account as soon as I take safe delivery.”

“Agreed. And here is the number of the account to wire the funds into. On the first of March, when you take final delivery of the complete package, you need to wire the funds before the close of banking activity for the day. On the following day, there will be a number of transactions to move those funds where they cannot be traced. The same will be true of the first deposit, but it is important that your second deposit is received on time because after I move the money, the account will be closed.”

“I will do as you say. Can you get me more of these warheads?”

“Not right away. It is too risky. In a year or two, perhaps. But even if we can locate some, they will be more costly.”

“I cannot wait a year—or did you forget? You are also making it possible for me to defect,” Kamil reminded him.

“I have not forgotten about your defection. I am making arrangements with the CIA for you to go to Jordan. It would pose too many
political problems for the American president to bring you to America right away. They will listen to what you can tell them and give it a value before they determine how far you will travel with them.”

“Well, no matter—I may just decide to stay in Jordan … but I want to leave no later than August of this year. That gives you at least four months to find me some more nuclear weapons. I don't care what they cost. Just get me some more,” Kamil ordered, sounding again like the ruthless man that murdered so carelessly.

“I'll … I'll get right to work on it.”

 

Muscat, Oman

________________________________________

Thursday, 23 February 1995
1330 Hours, Local

 

Customs control in Muscat was a mere formality. An official stamped Newman's passport and waved him through with a pleasant smile. “May Allah grant you a profitable stay, Mr. Newman.”

Once outside the double doors that enclosed the customs area, Newman spotted Bruno Macklin, the SAS captain who served as Weiskopf's second in command on the ISEG. Standing with him was a wiry, well-tanned, Anglo-Saxon who could have doubled as Macklin's brother. “Welcome to our little bit of heaven, Peter,” said Macklin. “Meet me brother, Harry.”

Newman shook hands with the two men. “Bruno, is this really your brother?”

“Aye, that he is. Da' made sure all of his sons went into the oil business.”

They went outside and climbed into a dusty, well-used Land Rover emblazoned with
ANGLO-AMERICAN PETROLEUM EXPLORATION DIVISION
in neat green lettering on its dented side.
Within a half hour of leaving the airport, they were off the paved road, headed almost due west on a well-traveled dirt track, toward a range of mountains.

Harry drove, Newman rode shotgun, and Bruno Macklin took on the role of backseat tour guide. “The base we're headed to, up in the Al Jabal Al Akhdar mountain range, is one of seven bases that the regiment has run here in Oman ever since World War II. Qaboos bin Sa'id Al Sa'id knows how important his little sultanate is to keeping the Straits of Hormuz open for oil shipments. He's also smart enough to know that having us here is a hedge against Iranian mischief and the crazies of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman, which is based next door in Yemen.”

Harry crashed through the gearbox and rode the brakes to avoid the ruts and potholes in the deserted road. “Yeah, and the sultan also knows it's a lot safer and cheaper to have us here than it is to hire more soldiers for his own little army,” he said.

For the rest of the seventy-eight-kilometer trip to the inland SAS base, the two brothers talked while Newman reflected on how he had come to be sweltering under the equatorial sun with these two tough characters.