The First Casualty (25 page)

59

Aboard Air Force One

Forty-Two Minutes Later

“Colonel,” the blonde flight engineer said, “time to switch tanks.”

At cruise, the 747 burned a gallon of fuel every second. With six separate tanks in the wings, one in the body of the aircraft and an auxiliary in the tail's horizontal stabilizer, allowing a disparity in the amount of jet fuel in any one tank would cause an imbalance of weight, hence the necessity of periodically alternating between the corresponding numbered tanks in left and right wings. The fuselage tank was used mainly for takeoffs and landings, the one in the tail should an additional 350 miles need to be added to the trip to reach an alternate.

Colonel Hasty touched the
transmit
button on the intra-cockpit communication system. “OK, Captain, switch to both number twos. Major, we're coming up on Hamid. Give Gibraltar a call.”

Unlike most military aircraft, Air Force One was equipped with both VHF and UHF radios, using the former for communications with civilian installations and the latter, more precise and reliable, for military. Since the president's personal aircraft used almost exclusively civilian airports once outside the United Sates, the seemingly redundant equipment was necessary. Major Patterson's voice filled Hasty's headset. “Good morning, Gibraltar Center, U.S. Air Force One with you at flight level four-two-oh.”

The Irish accent was thick enough to be spread with a butter knife. “Top 'o the morning to you, too, Air Force One. We have you radar contact two-eight northwest of Hamid at flight level four-two-oh. Squawk two-zero-one-zero.”

“Two-zero-one-zero,” Patterson repeated, confirming the new transponder code as he entered it into the beacon-like device.

Hasty stretched in his seat. “I make a little more than 2,500 nautical.”

“Confirm that,” piped the flight engineer. “2,657 to be exact. If there are no changes in the winds aloft, we need to move the ETA up about forty minutes.”

Arriving before the host country had the normal bands, military ranks, and welcoming committee arrayed on the tarmac would create an international incident. More than once, Hasty had had to fly a holding pattern upon an early arrival. The waste of fuel appalled him.

“Major,” Hasty said to Patterson, “text our people in Cairo of the new ETA.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And make sure they acknowledge.”

Hasty hoped the premature ETA would be the biggest glitch the flight had to offer. He enjoyed excitement as much as the next person, just not on the job.

60

Gendarmerie

Timbuktu, Mali

Forty Minutes Earlier

From his recon the day before, Viktor had learned only a few streets had names in Timbuktu. At least not names posted at corners or on buildings like any city he had ever seen. Best he could tell, there was simply “the street where bazar is” or “the street that runs by the police station.” Things like that. If one of the narrow, meandering lanes with sand over your ankles didn't pass some landmark, it simply had no name.

That was true of the kilometer of road that went from the police station west to the Sankore Mosque. The police station was also a puzzle. Like many third-world countries, there was no such thing as police in the sense of a civil force whose function it was to preserve order and keep the city safe from crime. These men were militia, soldiers, whose main job, Viktor guessed, was to discourage any number of rebel, separatist, or religious factions from taking over the area.

After his trip to the Sidi Yahya Mosque yesterday, he had come to this street and haggled with a street vendor whose donkey-borne wares had included flashlight batteries, rubber flip-flops made in China, strips of brightly colored cotton cloth, and plastic bottles full of murky water, the source of which was something Viktor didn't dare speculate upon.

Viktor had been interested in none of the above but the pantomime debate had afforded him an opportunity to observe the police station. Three trucks, two Toyota pickups and a Suzuki with what looked like a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on the bed. Through glassless windows of the station itself, he could see perhaps four or five figures lounging under an overhead fan. There might be more he could not see.

No matter; it was the vehicles that had his interest. That was why he was standing in this sandy road in the predawn darkness. The police station was dark, apparently unused during the night. The important thing was that the three trucks were silhouetted against the darker night sky.

Unslinging a sack from his back, he heard voices and the squeak of footsteps in sand. Hastily picking up his bag, Viktor retreated into the darkest shadows he could find, that given by one of the five million or so trees the World Food Program had planted in and around the city in hopes of slowing the encroaching desert, now one of the few remaining trees that had not been chopped down to make charcoal as soon as the well-meaning but naive WFP representatives had left.

Viktor could hear two voices now, a series of sounds more like clicks and grunts. Certainly not French, the country's official language. Koyra Chiini, Arabic, Bambara, or one of the dozens of dialects indigenous to the city. The only thing he knew was they were getting closer. He guessed no one other than the militia or those early for worship would be out at this hour. And the footsteps were coming from, not toward, the mosque.

A voice in unmistakable English asked, “Kremlin, you online?”

Dermo!
Shit! He should have remembered to turn off the little two-way radio Jason had given them all!

The approaching voices stopped. Then resumed. The inflection was certainly a question answered by a single word. Carefully placing his feet, Viktor pressed backward until stopped by a wall. He turned the knob on the device in his pocket. He thought he had turned it off, but he sure wasn't going to chance exposing the lighted dial if he were mistaken.

The footsteps began again, this time much slower. They—whoever “they” were—were searching for the source of the radio broadcast. Viktor was trapped. The slightest move might well give him away.

Wait a minute. What was he hiding from? He had done nothing wrong, not yet.

But what if they looked in the bag?

Why would they? In a city where merchandising was largely a curbside enterprise, a man in Bedouin attire carrying a sack would hardly be worthy of a second look. At least during daylight hours. Well, he couldn't stay where he was and do the task he had been sent to do.

He took a step forward, then another. One hand gripped the bag, another the butt of the Glock under the Bedouin vest.

Suddenly, he was blinded by a flashlight. A voice was demanding answers to questions he could not understand. In the periphery of the light, Viktor could see uniforms. Militia. He shrugged and shook his head as his eyes rolled. In third-world countries the nonviolent mentally disabled are more often left alone than institutionalized. The problem in playing this role was that few would mistake the fair-skinned, clean-shaven Russian for a bearded, desert nomadic Bedouin.

Viktor kept the lower part of his face covered by the flowing ends of his kaffiyeh while he muttered, a man not comprehending.

Now the questions were coming harsher and in another language. Viktor's mumbling became more agitated.

One of the two spoke, this time to his companion. The other man laughed. The light went off, and the two vanished in the direction of the police station.

Viktor stood still for a full minute, making sure they had really gone before he reached into his bag and began the task he had been assigned.

61

Sankore Mosque

Timbuktu, Mali

A Few Minutes Later

If any of the waiting worshipers noticed the sound, they did not comment on it. A rough rumbling that seemed to come from the ground up, from a single minaret, from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It was a noise that came and went there. Updating the electrical work, the imam had explained, although no one had ever seen an electrician coming or going, nor, for that matter, was there an electrician of that level in the city. Except for the few hotels, such work was done by general handymen, for there was not enough of it to support a specialist. Many homes had electric lights and fans, a few even televisions, but none possessed the elaborate schemes of climate control, lighting, cooking, and other electronic systems found in the most humble of American homes.

The paucity of electrical equipment was the reason the facade of the mosque was not illuminated, as would become a World Heritage site. It would be difficult to imagine Notre Dame or Westminster in total darkness, but Sankore, possibly older than either, with its exterior beams jutting from its face, was just that: dark.

At the base of the west-facing minaret, Emphani and Andrews waited, also in Bedouin garb, as the night's darkness began to fade into a dishwater dawn.

Inside the minaret, Moustaph and Abu Bakr also waited.

“Only minutes until the infidel American's plane reaches the target area,” Abu Bakr announced.

“How will you know exactly when to fire,” the other man asked.

Abu Bakr pointed to the tiny earbud almost obscured by his headdress. “Our friend who is monitoring both the radio transmissions and radar returns will tell me the instant the plane reaches the designated point, Hamid. Allah willing, the electronic aiming system will deliver kilometer-wide bursts of particles at the plane's altitude and a point just east of Hamid on an intercept of the aircraft's heading.”

Moustaph nodded in what he hoped was a knowledgeable manner. He understood few of the devices of the modern world. TV, cell phones, and computers were not specifically condoned in the Holy Book, and were therefore contraptions of the devil. Had not cell phones been perverted by the American devils to serve as a means of pinpointing a number of his former comrades to those devices of Satan himself, drone aircraft? Even now, that thing Abu Bakr had in his ear could be guiding one of those invisible, soundless engines of death. If it was Allah's will, so be it.

Still, the thought gave little comfort.

Hell's contraptions or not, only a fool would deny modern devices were imperative if a modern-day caliphate were to be established, no matter how unholy. The answer was to let the Abu Bakrs of the world use them, thereby saving the true believer from becoming
khawarij
, outside the religion.

He became aware Abu Bakr was saying something.

“Can you assist in moving the machine closer to the window? For our safety, I want the nozzle outside.”

Moustaph was reluctant, praying he would be forgiven for touching the machine in a greater cause. He was surprised at how easily the large weapon swiveled, the nozzle now inches across the windowsill.

Below, in the dawn's gray light, Emphani and Andrews saw the protrusion break the plane of the minaret's side.

“Showtime,” Andrews muttered as he clicked twice on the transmit button of his radio.

They still had to wait, but this time only for seconds. Then they would be executing a plan that worked only with split-second timing.

62

Hamid Intersection

42,000 feet

Colonel Wild Bill Hasty tapped gently on the door before a muffled “Come in.”

The “White House” part of the aircraft—the presidential suite, office, and conference room—was located along the starboard of the 747, leaving a hallway along the portside wide enough to accommodate two Secret Service members who were posted there from the time the president entered the plane until the time he left it.

Hasty entered the office section. With its solid wooden desk and heavy leather chairs, there was little to suggest the room was not a normal suite in any office building in the world. Only the muted hum of four General Electric CF6 engines and an occasional tremor of light turbulence suggested otherwise.

As pilot-in-command as well as commanding officer, protocol required that Hasty, not a subordinate, deliver any significant news of the flight.

The president looked up from some papers on the desk, a question on his face. “Yes, Colonel?”

“Looks like we'll be about forty minutes ahead of schedule, sir.”

The president smiled, always amused at the precision with which things were done aboard this aircraft. “
About
forty minutes?”

“I'll have the exact time as soon as the flight engineer completes her recalculations of anticipated ground speed, sir.”

“You have notified the Egyptians of an early arrival?”

“We have, sir. They acknowledged receipt.”

“Sounds as though you and your flight crew have it all under control, Colonel.”

“I believe so.”

The president gave a dismissive nod as he returned to the papers on the desk before him. “Carry on, then.”

Hasty silently slipped back into the hallway.

63

Hotel la Colombe

Rue Askia Mohammed

Timbuktu, Mali

Seconds Later

The double clicks told Jason that Emphani and Chief were in place on the western face of the minaret, the side with the window facing away from him that he could not see. An earlier triple radio click had told him Viktor had completed one phase of his assignment and was ready for the next. It should all be over in less than three minutes, 180 seconds Jason knew would stretch into a lifetime.

There was just enough light by now for him not to need the infrared scope. Jason could see the two men ostensibly in conversation just outside the open doorway of the minaret. Four more were scattered within a few feet. None of them seemed interested in joining their fellows inside the mosque as the last of the electrically enhanced muezzin's chanted
adhan
, the call to prayer, faded from the loudspeakers mounted on each corner of the mosque. Each man's loose garments could—and most likely did—conceal an AK-47, which would be of no use to its owner this morning.

Jason placed the scope's crosshairs on the forehead of the man to the right of the door and took a deep breath, exhaled, took another and held it, held it . . .

The blast of a .50-caliber rifle or machine gun was stunning in loudness, which was why, under ideal circumstances, the shooter would be wearing some sort of ear protection. So great was the reaction to such a powerful shell, without the unique recoil absorption system of the Barrett, a dislocated shoulder might have been the result.

Jason noticed none of this. A pink mist surrounded the target's head as the plain-tipped anti-personnel round removed the top third of the man's skull with near-surgical precision. He was dead seconds before the sound of the shot reached the mosque, and longer than that before his lifeless body hit the ground.

Before Jason could bring the sight to bear again, the remaining guard threw himself into the open doorway of the minaret, fumbling for his weapon as he disappeared behind the mud-brick wall.

Fine with Jason. He had anticipated the move. The next round he had loaded into the Barrett's clip was silver-tipped armor-piercing incendiary. Focusing the Leupold scope on the edge of the doorway, he could make out the muzzle of an AK-47 poking past the left side. He moved the scope's sight a few hundredths of an inch left, now seeing nothing but the mottled brown of the dirt building material.

Once again the .50 caliber fired. By the time Jason could bring the scope back, there was a hole the size of a manhole cover in the side of the mosque where a large, wet blob of red dripped down the back wall. Whether the bullet, shards of sun-baked mud, or both had done the job mattered little.

The remaining four men had scattered to what meager cover the courtyard of the mosque offered while firing in every direction, the mark of poorly trained troops. Two were cowering behind the fountain, occasionally taking a shot at imaginary targets. One or two actually hit the hotel's facade, doing little more than chipping away crumbs of mud. Another, uncertain of the source of the fire, was pressed against the buildings wall in clear sight. The fourth had managed to gain what little shelter the shattered doorway of the minaret provided.

Jason swallowed and withdrew his finger from the trigger. He had to force himself to stop the killing, destroying those people, one man at a time. They had been responsible for 9/11 and Laurin's death.

But he was not here today to indulge himself in the enjoyment of splattering Al Qaeda brains and intestines against the crude mud brick.

Reluctantly, he stepped away from the Barrett.