Mission Compromised (56 page)

“Rug dance?”

“You know, make apologies, and tell them how sorry we are. Let him know that when I get there I'll provide information we have obtained about a group of mercenaries that may be trying to stir up trouble in Iraq. Now, if I understand things, you have a secure way to get information to some of the authorities in Iraq, is that correct?”

Despite his fatigue, Komulakov, the disciplined KGB officer, was thinking clearly and he didn't want to reveal that his connection was
through Dotensk. It raised too many other questions. So he simply said, “I… have away of getting information to Hussein Kamil, the head of the Amn Al-Khass.”

“Good. There is one final thing we must do if we're going to keep all this from blowing up in our faces. Neither the President nor the Secretary General can afford to have another counterterrorism failure on their hands. If there are survivors to talk about all this, it'll be worse than that fiasco in Somalia. You botched both attempts against Mohammed Farrah Aidid back in '93, and neither you nor I will be at our jobs next week if word gets out that this was a failed attempt on Saddam and bin Laden.”

“May I remind you, dear Simon, that the twenty-three cruise missiles fired at Baghdad on June 26 of 1993 were all made in America. And when it comes to Somalia, on the twelfth of July '93, when the attack helicopters tried to kill Aidid, though the UN sanctioned the mission, the pilots were all Americans. And if memory serves me right, when the raiders were killed in Mogadishu, in October that year, they were all American Delta Force soldiers and Rangers. Your President's record at proving his manhood isn't very good, but I don't see what that has to do with me.”

“Look, we don't have time for this. The QRF has fifteen men in it who know everything. If they are captured in Iraq, we'll be getting a bill from the devil himself. Contact your Amn Al-Khass commander and tell him that you have reliable information that a group of mercenaries has crossed into Iraq from Turkey and plans to cross the Tigris River near Faysh Khabur. If any of them are captured and expose my government's or the UN's role in what they are doing, we're finished.”

Komulakov thought for a moment. Harrod was right. Though gratuitous killing had never been part of how the KGB operated, when it was a necessary means to an end, it was done with a minimum of soul-searching. “You are correct, Simon. I will see to it,” the Russian said quietly.
“What about the one that's left at Incirlik? A sergeant major, I believe. And there's that officer you still have back there with you. Robertson, isn't it?”

Now it was time for Harrod to think. “I think I know how to take care of Robertson. Can you handle the sergeant major in Incirlik?”

“I suppose so, Simon. But it's getting very complicated. What if there are survivors from Newman's MD-80 inside Iraq? Do we have to hunt them down too?”

“We'll do what we have to do.”

 

 

After hanging up with Harrod, Komulakov had Major Ellwood contact Captain Bart Coombs, the QRF commander; the satellite radio had finally started working again. Komulakov told Coombs that ISET Echo was likely dead and he should try to rescue any survivors from the downed MD-80. He gave them the last known location of the aircraft from earlier in the day—east of Tikrit and almost due north of Lake Tharthar.

Coombs, the good soldier from Delta Force and close friend of Peter Newman's deceased brother, dutifully altered his original plan of trying to extricate the trapped ISET and set out to find Newman or any other survivors of the downed MD-80. As instructed by the Russian general in New York, Coombs kept in communication with his UN superior via sat comms encrypted with an EL-3. And, as Komulakov had planned, the GPS transponder in the little encryption device provided the exact location of the QRF every time Coombs communicated. After each radio call came in from the QRF, Komulakov contacted Dotensk, who in turn passed on the latest grid coordinates of the QRF to Hussein Kamil.

It was a little past 1300 hours in New York—2100 in Iraq—when Dotensk called Komulakov. The Ukrainian reported that a company of Kamil's Amn Al-Khass had ambushed the fifteen-man QRF as it crossed
the Wadi ath Tharthar, thirty miles east of Sahl Sinjar. There were no survivors.

The Russian general consulted the map spread out on his desk and was impressed at how far into Iraq the American-British QRF unit had gotten.
Those were good troops. A shame, somehow.
But he knew, just as he had back in 1986 when he'd ordered the assassinations of those who had diverted the munitions train in Poland, that sometimes people just had to die.

TWA Terminal Food Court

________________________________________-

Dulles International Airport
Washington, D.C.
Monday, 6 March 1995
1520 Hours, Local

 

Rachel had left word for Mitch Vecchio to meet her for five minutes before she left on the overnight flight to London. She glanced at her watch. He was already twenty minutes late, and she had to check in at 4:00 P.M.

Then she saw him walk into the restaurant, between the “A” and “C” gates overlooking the runways and the new midfield terminal, look around for her, then cross the room to her table.

“Hey, babe, what's up? You sounded kinda serious.”

“Mitch… I have to go in just a couple of minutes before checking in, but I had to tell you this face to face.”

“Whoa… I'd better sit down. This
does
sound serious.”

“Mitch… we can't see each other anymore. We have to break off our relationship,”

“Oh? Why?”

“Well, for one thing, it's
wrong.
We're both being unfaithful to our spouses, and I'm not going to do it anymore.”

“Why the sudden change?”

“Mitch, I… I've been thinking a lot about my life lately. And this past weekend everything all came together. My life was a mess, and I knew what we were doing was wrong. I think God is giving me another chance to get my life straightened out. To make a long story short… I committed my life to Jesus Christ, Mitch… and I can't do some of the things I used to do.”

Mitch threw his head back with a look of surprise on his face. “Well, glory, hallelujah! Don't you think it's a little late in life to become a nun?”

“Please don't joke about it, Mitch. It was a serious step for me, and I know it's the right thing to do. I have such peace about my decision. It's really like they say—like being ‘born again,' and I have been given a whole new chance at life.”

Mitch grinned at her. “Rache, who are you trying to kid? Look, it's me, Mitch, your lover, your friend. Surely you can come up with a better exit line than that?”

“It's true, Mitch. It all happened over the past couple of days, and I made my decision to place my life in God's hands. That means I no longer decide what's right and wrong. And no matter what we think, adultery is wrong, Mitch. You must know that too. We both need to be faithful to our spouses.”

“You're serious about this, aren't you? Well, listen Rachel, it's been a great ride. You can buy into religion if you want. Me, I'm not interested. I'm the only guy I have to be accountable to, and what I do is my own business.”

They looked at each other for a long time without speaking. Then his face softened. “Look, honey, I know things have been stressful for you lately, with your husband gone off on some mission. But don't go off the deep end. Give it a little time… and then think about us. I'll be here if you change your mind. Just give it some time.”

Rachel suddenly had doubts about what she had decided the day before. Her feelings were arguing with her intellect and winning.…
No! I know this is the right thing to do!

She stood up. “Please don't call me again.”

“Listen, Rachel,” Mitch said, leaning toward her, “we both have to check in now. Let's leave it for now. I won't call you or bother you any more if that's what you want. Just remember, I'm here for when you need me. Just give it some time.” Then he stood and took her hand with both of his. “Take care,” he said, then he walked away.

There was something sad about their parting, but Rachel felt a sense of relief as well. She knew it was something she had to do. She had already started a daily journal listing all the other changes that she anticipated making in her life. This had been a suggestion from Pastor Brooks.

After the unexpected meeting with the pastor's wife on Friday, Rachel had decided to take up her offer to meet with them for brunch after the Sunday service. The pastor hadn't pointed the finger of condemnation at her, even when she told him about the affair she'd been having. Instead, he gently encouraged Rachel to break it off, to focus not on the past but on the future, and to start her spiritual journey by doing as much as she could to alter her old routine.

Part of her new schedule was to spend a few minutes every day reading Scripture. He had called it “the armor of God.”

Reverend Brooks had also encouraged her to join a small Bible study in her neighborhood. That Sunday night she went back to the church—the first time in her life that she had ever gone to church twice in the same day—and signed up for a Bible study that met on Wednesday evenings in the home of a woman who lived less than two miles from their home on Creswell Drive.

The pastor suggested that Rachel find time to write her thoughts in a
journal and list all the prayers that she wanted answered. That morning she had made a list of things that she wanted to do for Peter—including telling him about her conversion to Christ.

Rachel wondered if P. J. would have the same response to her newfound faith as Mitch just had. She decided to pray that Peter would understand and that someday he might make the same choice. But at that moment she also felt a sudden compulsion to pray for her husband, for his safety and protection.

N Shore of Lake Tharthar, Iraq

________________________________________

Monday, 6 March 1995
1915 Hours, Local

 

Newman was faced with a difficult choice; he was debating about whether they could take the risk of starting a fire. It was fully dark when he returned from burying the navigator. It took him nearly another half hour to make his way in the darkness to where he had left Major Jane Robinette. She had seemed to be OK when he left, but by the time he returned she was moaning and her breathing was quite labored.

He knelt down beside her and apologized for leaving. “I shouldn't have left you alone.” Robinette was shivering with intense, wracking chills. Was she going into shock? He found the thin Mylar-backed blankets he had recovered from the survival kits and folded them over her. Newman saw that she had dropped the can of water he had left with her; whatever was left in it had run out. He opened a second one. He told her about finding Haskell's body on the ground about a mile from where they were. “I never even had a chance to learn anything about him,” he told Robinette.

“He was a good guy,” she panted. Her breathing was coming in quick, uneven gasps. “He has a wife and daughter…”

“Don't talk now. Try and get some sleep.”

Newman wondered if he was far enough away from Tikrit that he could build a fire without attracting attention. Across the lake he could see some scattered lights, but other than that, it was a vast, empty darkness and it was rapidly getting colder. Even if he could gather enough fuel for a small fire, could he risk giving away their position to whomever might be out there?

He looked away from the lake, to the north. The highway was there, probably only two to three kilometers away. Wait—was that a fire? It appeared to be on or near the highway that he recalled from his descent. It had seemed to him then that the road ran from horizon to horizon in an almost straight line northeast to southwest.
Maybe someone stopped for the night, or perhaps a car broke down.
Newman thought it best not to make a fire.

He knelt to check on Major Robinette. She was shivering so much that her teeth were chattering. He wished he had more of the Mylar blankets. Her body couldn't afford the energy spent in shivering; he had to get her warm, somehow. Newman lay down beside her and took her in his arms.
Careful of her arm and chest.
She felt his warmth and instinctively moved closer.

“I—I'm so cold,” she chattered.

The ground was still a bit warm from the sun's heat. For several hours they lay in that embrace, and eventually her chills subsided. Neither of them slept.

Newman was trying to form an escape plan. He did a mental inventory of their equipment: two parachutes; three survival packs, counting the dead navigator's; three .38-caliber survival pistols; two PRC-112V radios, two tiny little survival flashlights; three aviator's survival mirrors and three red pop-up flares for signaling; three collapsible water bottles; three sur
vival knives; three first-aid kits; two survival compasses—but no maps—and the EncryptionLok-3 device he had jammed into a pocket of his flight suit before taking off from Incirlik. That was it. He had tasted the water in the lake; it was brackish, but drinkable. He decided to fill the three containers with lake water before they set out. The prearranged escape plan was to walk north into Turkey, a trek of nearly two hundred miles in a straight line, but since they had alerted the entire Iraqi military establishment, it was a safe bet the hike north would be anything but a straight line.