The Alexandria Connection (11 page)

T
he lanky crewcut ex-F15 pilot walked toward the unmanned aerial vehicle ground control station. Just eighty kilometres to the south of the base, the staff of some of the world’s largest hotels and casinos were coming to the end of another night on the famed Las Vegas strip, but for Captain Trent Rogers, that might as well have been in another world. Once the sun rose out here, the heat haze shimmered off the desert, drifting toward craggy brown mountains almost devoid of vegetation and etched by myriad small ravines. In this godforsaken place, the top secret 432nd Wing of the US Air Force operated MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator drones. When terrorists were on the move, no matter where they were in the world, pilots like Captain Rogers supported allied forces by flying remote reconnaissance, surveillance and attack missions. Rogers wasn’t sure why, but the commander of the Wing had rung him personally to tell him his leave was cancelled, ordering him to report for the early morning briefing.

Captain Rogers took his place in the briefing room and the nuggety commander of the 432nd, Colonel Joe Stillwell, another ex-fighter pilot, took the podium. A normal shift would have been briefed by one of the duty mission commanders. Something out of the ordinary was clearly afoot.

‘We’ve recently received intelligence of increased terrorist activity to the north-west of the Khyber Pass in the Hindu Kush,’ Stillwell began, flashing up a map of the area marked ‘TOP SECRET’. ‘As part of Operation Sassafras, an element of SEAL team six was sent in to investigate but their aircraft, a Chinook from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, was shot down here,’ he said, indicating with the red dot of his laser pointer, ‘twenty kilometres west of the Pakistan–Afghan border, to the north of the town of Asadabad.’

Stillwell flicked up more satellite imagery, which gave a close-up of the foothills of the towering, snow-capped Hindu Kush. ‘At the time, the aircraft was flying at altitude, and the wreckage is scattered over a wide area, so we suspect a SAM . . . and a surface-to-air missile has serious implications for our own operations,’ he continued.

‘Another patrol, call sign Mohegan One Zero, has been inserted into this area here,’ Stillwell said, circling with the red dot of his laser an area of steep, almost impassible terrain. ‘The CIA is also sending in one of their most experienced field teams, call sign Hopi One Four. They’ll be landing at Bagram shortly, where they’ll marry up with another fire team from SEAL team six for an insertion to the north of where Mohegan One Zero is searching for the bodies from the downed Chinook, and Hopi One Four will take over the original task of surveillance. You’ll be given an update as soon as we have Hopi One Four’s flight plan and coordinates for their insertion.’ Colonel Stillwell turned away from the map to face his pilots.

‘The task list today is like four pounds of sugar into a two-pound bag,’ he observed wryly, flashing up a top secret tasking pane. ‘There are twice as many missions as we have aircraft, but the top priority goes to Operation Sassafras, and as the most experienced pilot, Trent, you’re first cab off the rank.’

Rogers nodded, allowing himself a sardonic grin. Stillwell’s compliments were as rare as rocking horse shit.

As the sun was coming up over the Nevada desert, it was setting behind the Hindu Kush and Bagram Airfield, one of the busiest airports in Afghanistan. No fewer than nine different parking areas housed different types of aircraft. The Special Forces ramp housed some of the most highly classified aircraft; the ISR or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ramp contained Beechcraft MC and RC-12s, bristling with surveillance equipment; the big C-130 cargo planes were on the tactical ramp, alongside the transient ramp for aircraft passing through; and further down, scores of Black Hawk helicopters and twin-rotored CH-47 Chinooks were parked on the Army ramp. Across the runway, there were bays for dozens more OH-58 and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, bays for the squadrons of F-15E and F-16 fighters, and a ramp for the Predator and Reaper drones. The Russians had built the base in 1976 during their invasion, and the base was still littered with the remains of rusted Soviet equipment. A new runway, 21-03, had been added, allowing the original Russian runway to be turned into Taxiway Zulu, but it was so bumpy that the fighters were unable to use it, making things even more complicated for the hard-worked air traffic controllers with fighters needing to taxi on runway 21-03.

The lights around the Bagram hangars were already blazing, and under the watchful eye of a master sergeant, the Predator and Reaper ground crews were scrambling to prepare the drones for night flying. Satellite time delays could pose problems for the flight crews in distant Nevada, particularly where instant responses were required in take-offs and landings, so the ground crews at Bagram would launch and land the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. Once the UAVs were airborne, the ground crews would alert the crews at Creech. Using internet optical fibre to Europe, the pilot and the sensor operator would grab the required data via a KU-band satellite in geosynchronous orbit, log in to the plane, and assume control.

A crewman finished fuelling the second of two fifty-gallon tanks on the Predator assigned to Captain Rogers. Powered by a four-cylinder, hundred-horsepower engine, the same engine used on snowmobiles, the aircraft could reach speeds of 120 knots, and altitudes of up to 25 000 feet. The Reapers were even more impressive.

Another crewman checked the nose of the aircraft, which contained the Hellfire targeting system, the electro-optical infrared systems, and the laser designators and illuminators. Yet another checked the Hellfire missiles loaded on the pods under the wings. Once the crew chief was satisfied, an umbilical cord from a start cart was plugged into the starter-connector in the aircraft’s ground panel. The controller held the aircraft stationary, waiting for the control tower at Bagram to give permission for take-off.

Captain Rogers eased himself into the left-hand seat of the pilot’s console at Creech. His weapons controller, Sergeant Michelle Brady, her blonde hair tied back in a bun, was already logging into her systems, and in the third seat behind sat Major Ryan Crowe, a dour, experienced intelligence analyst from Langley who was there to assist with interpreting the images and gaining approval for a strike. The cockpit looked more like something from a financial trading floor than a fighter or 747 cockpit. The joysticks were akin to those found on a video game, and instead of gauges, switches and avionics, the pilot and weapons operator were surrounded by video and computer screens, a keyboard and throttle levers. The view screen, directly in front of Rogers, gave him live video of what the Predator’s cameras could see. Unable to see left or right, unless the cameras were panned, it was like flying an aircraft through a straw. The Heads-up Display, or HUD, provided numerical data on airspeed, angle of attack, vertical speed, bank angle and altitude, all of which was superimposed over the camera readout. Above the HUD, the map display gave the aircraft’s position, and a digital readout panel on the right showed the heading, wind speed, fuel status and ground elevation, not dissimilar to the information found on GPS units. Yet another monitor screen provided information on communications frequencies. Suddenly, Roger’s headphones crackled:

‘Night Thruster Two, this is Bagram Lima Romeo, how do you read me, over?’

‘Night Thruster Two, fife by fife.’

‘Lima Romeo, aircraft is straight and level, holding at six thousand feet, three nautical miles to the north of Bagram field. Traffic includes Nine Three Zero Heavy – a C-5 Galaxy on late finals, Arson One Seven and One Eight – two F-15s on finals, and Hopi One Four, a Gulfstream IV on approach, flight level 190. Are you ready to assume control, over?’

The CIA weren’t stuffing around, Rogers mused. Hopi One Four, he knew, was carrying the CIA ground team, and they were already inbound. The foothills of the Hindu Kush came into focus on the cockpit screens. ‘Night Thruster Two, I have control. Thank you and have a nice evening, out.’

O’Connor strapped into the Gulfstream jump seat for the landing and put on a set of headphones. From past experience, he knew the descent would be a wild ride. Bagram Airfield was still subject to both mortar and machine gun attacks, and aircraft on long, low approaches were sitting ducks for a Taliban armed with machine guns mounted in their ubiquitous Toyota pick-up trucks. To avoid this, even the big transport aircraft would dive on the airfield from altitude.

The co-pilot, ex-Marine Corps major Brad Spalding, depressed the transmit button. ‘Bagram, good evening, this is Hopi One Four, flight level 190, heading 240, request runway 030, rapid descent.’

‘Hopi One Four, runway 030, cleared to six thousand, traffic is two F-15Es on late finals, maintain heading and report when visual.’

‘Hopi One Four.’

O’Connor grinned to himself as the pilot, another ex-Marine Corps major Chuck Moran, switched out the cabin lights and threw the Gulfstream jet into a spiralling dive. He’d flown with these guys before. Both ex-fighter pilots, they knew what they were doing.

‘Hopi One Four, field in sight, request visual.’ Spalding handled the comms while Moran pulled the aircraft out of the dive and levelled out.

‘Hopi One Four, you are cleared visual, contact tower on one two zero decimal one.’

‘Thank you and good evening.’ Even in war-torn Afghanistan, the niceties on an air traffic control net usually prevailed.

‘Bagram Tower, good evening, this is Hopi One Four, four miles to run, visual 030.’

‘Hopi One Four, altimeter is 30.05, you’re cleared to land runway 030, winds three two zero at ten to fifteen knots.’

Moran rolled the Gulfstream into another dive and pulled out at 1200 feet and lined up on the runway lights. Suddenly, the cockpit was hit with a blinding laser light, and the aircraft shook as a burst of heavy machine gun fire raked the fuselage. Moran slumped over the controls while Spalding, blood streaming from bullet wounds to his wrists, battled to get the aircraft back on an even attitude.

O’Connor undid Moran’s harness, grabbed him under both armpits and hauled him back into the main cabin, but even as he laid him on the cabin floor, he knew the pilot was dead. The plane shuddered again, and O’Connor deftly vaulted into the bloodied left hand seat, crammed the headset on and pressed the intercom.

‘You okay, Brad?’ he asked. Spalding’s face was ashen. He turned toward O’Connor and then slumped back in his seat.

A fire warning sounded for the port engine. O’Connor struggled to control the stricken aircraft.

A
short distance from the director’s office, Abdul Assaf pretended to be a mature-age student sketching Pharaoh Khafre’s statue; a cruel and despotic pharaoh, he had ruled Egypt with an iron fist around 2500 BC. He had built the second largest of the Pyramids at Giza, and some academics credited him with building the Sphinx. Assaf’s sketch could have been that of a four-year-old child, and Assaf was neither aware of the history behind the extraordinary statue, nor did he care. His was an entirely different focus. The museum was strangely deserted and the guards, bored with their low-paying jobs, took no notice. The Arab Spring might have rid the Egyptians of the dictatorial President Mubarak, but the violent protests that had erupted after the removal of his successor, President Morsi, had reduced a once vibrant intake of tourists, and lifeblood of the economy, to a trickle.

Assaf turned his attention away from Pharaoh Khafre’s statue and the Old Kingdom exhibits, and made his way through the ground floor, noting the locations of the CCTV security cameras, the staircases, and the general layout of the exhibits. He made his way up the north-west staircase toward Room 3, where the funerary mask of Tutankhamun would have normally attracted a large crowd.

‘The museum has two main floors and a basement,’ the dark-faced Assaf said, laying out the museum floor plan on the dining room table of the apartment he’d rented in a crowded area of Heliopolis, not far from Cairo’s international airport. It was very high stakes, but he had broken into other museums before, and US $250 000 was an attractive enticement. Assaf’s co-conspirators were eager with anticipation. Athletic and fit, Mahmoud Nassar would be with him on the break-in, and the overweight Abdul Kassab would drive the getaway van.

‘The ground floor is arranged in chronological order of the kingdoms. The first floor is arranged thematically, and we’ll be focusing on Room 3 at the very northern end of the building.’

‘And these are the stairs?’ Nassar asked, pointing to the icons on the plan.

Assaf nodded. ‘The two closest access stairs are in the north-west and north-east corners of the building. A daytime robbery is out of the question, even if we took a hostage. There are just too many guards, but the night shift’s a lot smaller. And if we do it around midnight, there’ll be less traffic on the road. We need to be at the Alexandria airport to load the mask by eight a.m.’

‘And apart from the guards, what’s the rest of the security like?’ asked Kassab.

‘It’s tighter than it was since the museum was broken into by protestors, but they were idiots just looking for gold. They missed priceless artifacts that would have sold for millions of dollars on the black market,’ said Assaf, ‘but don’t get any ideas . . . we’ll only have time to go for two artifacts – the mask and Tutankhamun’s gold falcon pendant which is in the same location. There are 200 cameras, and they’re not all visible, but they certainly cover Room 3 and Tutankhamun’s mask. The control room is here,’ he said, pointing to where he’d marked it on the plan, ‘but my contact tells me the computers are old, and they’re not capable of recording twenty-four hours a day.’

‘Not automatic?’ asked Nassar.

‘No. The screens in the control room are connected to cameras in the various rooms and halls, but the system’s pretty antiquated and if an incident occurs, a guard has to press a record button on a VCR.’

‘There’s a big protest scheduled for the day after tomorrow,’ said Kassab. ‘Can we take advantage of that?’

‘That would’ve been a good idea a year ago, but since the protesters are prone to looting, the military will move in with their armoured personnel carriers, so we need to do this tomorrow night, before the protest in Tahrir Square.’

‘So what’s the best way in?’ Nassar asked.

‘From what I’ve seen, there are any number of skylights with cracked windows that are vulnerable, but once we’re in we have to be able to disable the night shift guards. Since the last break-in, they’ve installed new lasers, especially around Room 3 and the mask, so I’ve ruled out getting in through the roof. But there is another way.’ Assaf got up from the table and disappeared into the main bedroom.

‘Courtesy of one of my contacts in the Egyptian Police Force,’ Assaf said, coming back and throwing Nassar and Kassab dark blue, military-style Egyptian police uniforms. ‘I think you’ll find they’re your size, but try them on.’

As his co-conspirators checked the clothes, Assaf continued. ‘Once we’ve got the mask, it will be secured in this box.’ He took the lid from a crate lined with polyurethane foam, made to fit the mask precisely.

‘What’s with the explosives?’ asked Nassar, looking at a second box behind Assaf.

‘Just in case we have to destroy the van,’ said Assaf. ‘So watch and learn, both of you. You might have to do this yourselves one day.’ Assaf reached into his bomb-making kit and extracted one of several old Nokia cell phones he kept for remote detonation.

‘First you dismantle a cell phone – any of the old ones will do – and locate the vibrator,’ he said, pointing to the rotating head on a small element about the size of a triple-A battery. ‘When the phone receives a text or a call, the head spins. We cut a hole in the side of the phone to expose the rotor and fasten the phone to a wooden base. A chopping board does fine.’

Assaf bolted two screws through the board and attached wires, which led from the screws to the phone. ‘We use alligator clips to connect with ordinary torch batteries which will power the detonator for the plastic explosive. When the phone rings, the rotor spins, completing the circuit.’

It was after midnight when Abdul placed a portable flashing blue light on the roof of the van, drove up to the wrought iron gates of the museum, and blew the horn. A guard appeared from the small guardhouse, rubbing his eyes, and Assaf got out of the passenger seat.

‘We’re responding to an alarm – quickly – open the gate!’

‘Alarm? There’s been no alarm . . .’

‘Not here, you imbecile, at the central security control centre. If you still want to have a job in the morning, open the gate!’

The guard, a confused look on his face, fumbled for his keys and opened the double gates. Assaf got out to help the guard close the gates while Kassab drove on toward the central fountain and the main entrance. With the gates closed, Assaf pulled a CZ 75 semi-automatic nine-millimetre pistol from his holster.

‘Inside!’ Assaf shoved the guard inside the guardhouse.

‘One false move from you and you’re very dead,’ he hissed, holding the gun to the guard’s head. ‘But do exactly as I tell you and you’ll live to see another day.’

The hapless guard nodded, his face ashen.

‘Put a call through to the guards in the museum telling them you have a fault in your alarm system here. Tell them the police have arrived and they’re at the front door waiting to check things inside the museum. And remember,’ Assaf growled, glancing at a photo of a woman and two small girls, ‘one false move and you’ll never see your wife or either of your daughters again.’

With shaking hands, the guard picked up the phone and punched in the numbers. ‘No . . . I have a fault here, but the police think it’s coming from your end. They’re at the front door.
Shukran
, thank you.’ The guard replaced the dirty bakelite handpiece in its cradle and turned toward his attacker.

‘One of the night shift is on his way . . . it will take a couple of minutes for him to come up from the security room.’

‘Sit in the chair!’ Assaf whipped a length of nylon cord out. The guard winced in pain as Assaf tied his hands behind him.

‘How many guards inside?’ Assaf demanded, pressing the barrel of the gun against the guard’s head.

‘Just two,’ the guard stammered, ‘they’ve been cutting back lately —’

He didn’t finish the sentence. Assaf pistol-whipped him and the guard slumped forward, his head hitting the desk. Assaf took some gaffer tape from his pocket and quickly wound it twice around the guard’s head, sealing his mouth. He needn’t have bothered. The guard was dead. Assaf recovered the guard’s keys, locked the guardhouse door behind him and doubled past the fountain to join Nassar.

The lock on the museum door rattled and one of the night shift police opened it. ‘We don’t have any alarms going off in here,’ he said.

Assaf smiled disarmingly. ‘Better to be safe than sorry, with all the protestors on the streets. Do you mind if we check your systems? We’d like to start at the control room.’

‘Of course. Follow me.’

Assaf and Nassar followed the policeman down toward the control centre. Before they reached the outer door, Assaf swung his pistol hard, striking his target behind his right ear.

‘Bind and gag him,’ Assaf hissed. He crept up to the control room and peered over the ledge of the window. The other guard had his back to him, sitting in front of a bank of old computer screens, several of which were blank. Assaf could see the desk was equipped with just the basics: two phones, a control panel, and a microphone. The guard had accessed the internet and was watching porn on the closest screen.

Assaf opened the door and the guard turned, a sheepish look on his face. ‘It gets boring in here . . .’

Assaf smiled. ‘That’s okay,’ he said. He took a pace toward the embarrassed guard and smashed him on the side of the skull with his pistol.

The guard slumped onto the control room floor and by the time Nassar had dragged the other guard into the room, Assaf had his target bound and gagged.

‘Get their keys. We’ll need them for Room 3,’ said Assaf, searching the switches on the control desk for the laser system. Thirty seconds later he had it. ‘Here!’ he said, and he switched the system to daytime operation. ‘My contact was right,’ Assaf added, pointing to a pile of old security videotapes. ‘The Smithsonian this is not. Let’s go!’

Assaf led the way to the ground floor, through the exhibits of the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom, and up the stairs to Room 3.

Once inside, both men paused in front of the centuries-old artifact, instantly recognisable around the world.

‘I can’t believe they don’t have this more heavily guarded,’ Assaf said, staring at the boy king’s funerary mask displayed inside a glass case. Made of solid gold, the mask weighed eleven kilograms and was interspersed with blue glass stripes and precious lapis lazuli. The forehead featured a royal cobra next to a vulture, symbols of the goddesses Wadjyt and Nekhbet, and below the mask the chestpiece was covered with rows of blue lapis lazuli and turquoise, and red carnelian.

‘Probably because no one would be able to sell it, at least not on the open market.’ Nasser was nervous now.

Assaf took a small hammer from his pocket and smashed the glass on the side of the cabinet. The noise was deafening. He quickly smashed the remaining glass shards away from the wood, grabbed the bottom of the stand and eased the artifact from its enclosure.

‘The pendant,’ he said, indicating another display case. Nasser smashed the glass, extracted the priceless bejewelled falcon and slipped it into a separate bag. The art dealer in Venice had provided very strict instructions. The mask was to be delivered to a contact at Alexandria’s airport. A charter jet would be waiting to take them to a small airport in the south of Italy, and then on to Venice, where Assaf would deliver the pendant personally to Rubinstein’s gallery.

‘Let’s go,’ Assaf said. He reached for the Motorola two-way radio handset on his belt. ‘Cobra, over.’

‘Cobra, on my way, out.’ Kassab had kept the van running, and he eased away from the restaurant complex at the side of the museum and drove around to the front.

Assaf walked purposefully down the front steps to the van and placed the priceless mask and pendant in the specially padded crate. He secured the lid and leapt into the front seat

Nassar closed the front door to the museum behind him and jumped into the rear seat of the van, just as a police car, blue and white lights flashing, stopped at the wrought iron gates near the guard house.

‘
Xara!
Shit!’ Assaf swore. Assaf put the magnetic portable blue light back on top of the van. ‘Drive toward them . . . slowly,’ he ordered, screwing a silencer on to his pistol.