Part 14 (1/2)

Badri was surprised again, this time by the sudden change of subject.

”Of course. I built it.”

”Exactly. Do you know what now resides within it?”

”No.”

The senior officer told him.

”He cannot be serious,” said Badri.

”He is completely serious. He intends to use it against the Americans.

That may not be our concern. But do you know what America will do in return? It will reply in kind. Not a brick here will stand on brick, not a stone on stone. The Rais alone will survive. Do you want to be part of this?”

Colonel Badri thought of the body in the cemetery, over which the s.e.xtons were even then still heaping the dry earth.

”What do you want?” he asked.

”Tell me about Qa'ala.”

”Why?”

”The Americans will destroy it.”

”You can get this information to them?”

”Trust me, there are ways. The Qa'ala ...”

So Colonel Osman Badri, the young engineer who had once wanted to design fine buildings to last for centuries, as his ancestors had done, told the man called Jericho.

”Grid reference.”

Badri gave him that too.

”Go back to your post, Colonel. You will be safe.”

Colonel Badri left the car and walked away. His stomach was heaving, turning and turning. Within a hundred yards he began to ask himself, over and again: What have I done? Suddenly, he knew he had to talk to his brother, that older brother who had always had the cooler head, the wiser counsel.

The man the Mossad team called the spotter arrived back in Vienna that Monday, summoned from Tel Aviv. Once again he was a prestigious lawyer from New York, with all the necessary identifying paperwork to prove it. Even though the real lawyer was no longer on vacation, the chances that Gemutlich, who hated telephones and fax machines, would telephone New York to check were regarded as minimal. It was a risk the Mossad was prepared to take. Once again the spotter installed himself at the Sheraton and wrote a personal letter to Herr Gemutlich. He again apologized for his unannounced arrival in the Austrian capital but explained he was accompanied by his firm's accountant, and that the pair of them wished to make a first substantial deposit on behalf of their client. The letter was delivered by hand in the late afternoon, and the following morning Gemutlich's reply arrived at the hotel, offering a meeting at ten in the morning. The spotter was indeed accompanied. The man with him was known simply as the cracksman, for that was his speciality. If the Mossad possesses at its Tel Aviv headquarters a virtually unrivaled collection of dummy companies, false pa.s.sports, letterhead stationery, and all the other paraphernalia for deception, pride of place must still go to its safecrackers and locksmiths. The Mossad's ability to break into locked places has its own niche in the covert world. At the science of burglary, the Mossad has long been regarded simply as the best. Had a neviot team been in charge at the Watergate, no one would ever have known. So high is the reputation of Israeli lock-pickers that when British manufacturers sent a new product to the SIS for their comments, Century House would pa.s.s it on to Tel Aviv. The Mossad, devious to a fault, would study it, find how to pick it, then return it to London as ”impregnable.” The SIS found out about this. The next time a British lock company came up with a particularly brilliant new lock, Century House asked them to take it back, keep it, but provide a slightly easier one for a.n.a.lysis. It was the easier one that was sent to Tel Aviv. There it was studied and finally picked, then returned to London as ”unbreakable.” But it was the original lock that the SIS advised the manufacturer to market. This led to an embarra.s.sing incident a year later, when a Mossad locksmith spent three sweaty and infuriating hours working at such a lock in the corridor of an office building in a European capital before emerging livid with rage. Since then, the British have tested their own locks and left the Mossad to work it out for themselves. The lock-picker brought from Tel Aviv was not the best in Israel but the second best. There was a reason for this: He had something the best lock-pick did not have. During the night the young man underwent a six-hour briefing from Gidi Barzilai on the subject of the eighteenth-century work of the German-French cabinetmaker Riesener, and a full description by the spotter of the internal layout of the Winkler building. The yarid, surveillance team completed his education with a rundown of the movements of the night.w.a.tch, as observed by the times and places of lights going on and off inside the bank during the night. That same Monday, Mike Martin waited until five in the afternoon before he wheeled his bone-shaker bicycle across the graveled yard to the rear gate of the Kulikov garden, opened the gate, and let himself out. He mounted and began to ride down the road in the direction of the nearest ferry crossing of the river, at the place where the Jumhuriya Bridge used to be before the Tornados offered it their personal attention. He turned the corner, out of sight of the villa, and saw the first parked car. Then the second, farther on. When the two men emerged from the second car and took up position in the center of the road, his stomach began to tighten. He risked a glance behind him; two men from the other car had blocked any retreat. Knowing it was all over, he pedaled on. There was nothing else to do. One of the men ahead of him pointed to the side of the road. ”Hey you!” he shouted. ”Over here!” He came to a stop under the trees by the side of the road. Three more men emerged, soldiers. Their guns pointed straight at him. Slowly he raised his hands.

Chapter 21.

That afternoon in Riyadh, the British and American amba.s.sadors met, apparently informally, for the purpose of indulging in the peculiarly English habit of taking tea and cakes. Also present on the lawn of the British emba.s.sy were Chip Barber, supposedly on the U.S. emba.s.sy staff, and Steve Laing, who would tell any casual inquirer that he was with his country's Cultural Section. A third guest, in a rare break from his duties belowground, was General Norman Schwarzkopf. Within a short time, all five men found themselves together in a corner of the lawn, nursing their cups of tea. It made life easier when everyone knew what everyone else really did for a living. Among all the guests, the sole topic of talk was the imminent war, but these five men had information denied to all the rest. One piece of information was the news of the details of the peace plan presented that day by Tariq Aziz to Saddam Hussein, the plan brought back from Moscow and the talks with Mikhail Gorbachev. It was a subject of worry for each of the five guests, but for different reasons. General Schwarzkopf had already that day headed off a suggestion out of Was.h.i.+ngton that he might attack earlier than planned. The Soviet peace plan called for a declared cease-fire, and an Iraqi pullout from Kuwait on the following day. Was.h.i.+ngton knew these details not from Baghdad but from Moscow. The immediate reply from the White House was that the plan had merits but failed to address key issues. It made no mention of Iraq's annulment forever of its claim on Kuwait; it did not bear in mind the unimaginable damage done to Kuwait-the five hundred oil fires, the millions of tons of crude oil gus.h.i.+ng into the Gulf to poison its waters, the two hundred executed Kuwaitis, the sacking of Kuwait City. ”Colin Powell tells me,” said the general, ”that the State Department is pus.h.i.+ng for an even harder line. They want to demand unconditional surrender.”

”So they do, to be sure,” murmured the American envoy.”So I told 'em,” said the general, ”I told 'em, you need an Arabist to look at this.””Indeed,” replied the British amba.s.sador, ”and why should that be?”Both the amba.s.sadors were consummate diplomats who had worked for years in the Middle East. Both were Arabists.”Well,” said the Commander-in-Chief, ”that kind of ultimatum does not work with Arabs. They'll die first.”There was silence in the group. The amba.s.sadors searched the general's guileless face for a hint of irony.The two intelligence officers stayed quiet, but both men had the same thought in their minds: That is precisely the point, my dear general.

”You have come from the house of the Russian.”It was a statement, not a question. The Counterintelligence man was in plain clothes but clearly an officer.”Yes, bey.””Papers.”Martin rummaged through the pockets of his dish-dash and produced his ID card and the soiled and crumpled letter originally issued to him by First Secretary Kulikov. The officer studied the card, glanced up to compare the faces, and looked at the letter.The Israeli forgers had done their work well. The simple, stubbled face of Mahmoud Al-Khouri stared through the grubby plastic.”Search him,” said the officer.The other plainclothesman ran his hands over the body under the dish-dash, then shook his head. No weapons.”Pockets.”

The pockets revealed some dinar notes, some coins, a penknife, different colored pieces of chalk, and a plastic bag. The officer held up the last piece.”What is this?””The infidel threw it away. I use it for my tobacco.””There is no tobacco in it.””No, bey, I have run out. I was hoping to buy some in the market.””And don't call me bey. That went out with the Turks. Where do you come from, anyway?”Martin described the small village far in the north. ”It is well known thereabouts for its melons,” he added helpfully.”Be quiet about your thrice-d.a.m.ned melons!” snapped the officer, who had the impression his soldiers were trying not to smile.A large limousine cruised into the far end of the street and stopped, two hundred yards away.The junior officer nudged his superior and nodded. The senior man turned, looked, and told Martin, ”Wait here.”He walked back to the large car and stooped to address someone through the rear window.”Who have you got?” asked Ha.s.san Rahmani.”Gardener-handyman, sir. Works there. Does the roses and the gravel, shops for the cook.””Smart?””No, sir, practically simpleminded. A peasant from up-country, comes from some melon patch in the north.”Rahmani thought it over. If he detained the fool, the Russians would wonder why their man had not come back. That would alert them. He hoped that if the Russian peace initiative failed, he would get his permission to raid the place. If he let the man complete his errands and return, he might alert his Soviet employers. In Rahmani's experience there was one language every poor Iraqi spoke and spoke well. He produced a wallet and peeled out a hundred dinars. ”Give him this. Tell him to complete his shopping and return. Then he is to keep his eyes open for someone with a big, silver umbrella. If he keeps silent about us and reports tomorrow on what he has seen, he will be well rewarded. If he tells the Russians, I will hand him over to the AMAM.” ”Yes, Brigadier.” The officer took the money, walked back, and instructed the gardener as to what he had to do. The man looked puzzled. ”An umbrella, sayidi?” ”Yes, a big silver one, or maybe black, pointing at the sky. Have you ever seen one?” ”No, sayidi,” said the man sadly. ”Whenever it rains they all run inside.” ”By Allah the Great,” murmured the officer, ”it's not for the rain, oaf! It's for sending messages.” ”An umbrella that sends messages,” repeated the gardener slowly, ”I will look for one, sayidi.” ”Get on your way,” said the officer in despair. ”And stay silent about what you have seen here.” Martin pedaled down the road, past the limousine. As he approached, Rahmani lowered his head into the rear seat. No need to let the peasant see the head of Counterintelligence for the Republic of Iraq. Martin found the chalk mark at seven and recovered the message at nine. He read it by the light from the window of a cafe-not electric light, for there was none anymore, but a gasoline lamp. When he saw the text, he let out a low whistle, folded the paper small, and stuffed it inside his underpants. There was no question of going back to the villa. The transmitter was blown, and a further message would spell disaster. He contemplated the bus station, but there were Army and AMAM patrols all over it, looking for deserters. Instead, he went to the fruit market at Kasra and found a truck driver heading west. The man was only going a few miles beyond Habbaniyah, and twenty dinars persuaded him to take a pa.s.senger. Many trucks preferred to drive by night, believing that the Sons of Dogs up there in their airplanes could not see them in the dark, unaware that by either night or day, battered fruit trucks were not General Chuck Horner's top priority. So they drove through the night, by headlights generating at least one candlepower, and at dawn Martin found himself deposited on the highway just west of Lake Habbaniyah, where the driver turned off for the rich farms of the Upper Euphrates Valley. They had been stopped twice by patrols, but on each occasion Martin had produced his papers and the Russian letter, explaining that he had worked as gardener for the infidel, but they were going home and had dismissed him. He whined about the way they had treated him until the impatient soldiers told him to be quiet and get on his way.

That night, Osman Badri was not far from Mike Martin, heading in the same direction but ahead of him. His destination was the fighter base where his elder brother, Abdelkarim, was the squadron commander. During the 1980s a Belgian construction company called Sixco had been contracted to build eight superprotected air bases to house the cream of Iraq's best fighters.

The key to them was that almost everything was buried underground-barracks, hangars, fuel stores, ammunition magazines, workshops, briefing rooms, crew quarters, and the big diesel generators to power the bases. The only things visible aboveground were the actual runways, three thousand meters long. But as these appeared to have no buildings or hangars a.s.sociated with them, the Allies thought they were barebones airfields, as Al Kharz in Saudi Arabia had been before the Americans moved in. A closer inspection on the ground would have revealed one-meterthick concrete blast doors set into downward-leading ramps at the ends of the runways. Each base was in a square five kilometers by five, the perimeter surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. But like Tarmiya, the Sixco bases appeared inactive and were left alone. To operate out of them, the pilots would be briefed underground, get into their c.o.c.kpits, and start their engines there. Only when they were fully run-up, with blast walls protecting the rest of the base from their jet exhaust and diverting the gases upward to mingle with the hot desert air outside, would the doors to the ramps be opened. The fighters could race up the ramps, emerge at full power, afterburners on, scream down the runway, and be airborne in seconds. Even when the AWACS spotted them, they appeared to have come from nowhere and were a.s.sumed to be on low-level missions originating somewhere else. Colonel Abdelkarim Badri was stationed at one of these Sixco bases, known only as KM 160 because it was off the Baghdad-Ar-Rutba road, 160 kilometers west of Baghdad. His younger brother presented himself at the guard post in the wire just after sundown. Because of his rank, a phone call was at once made from the guard hut to the squadron commander's private quarters, and soon a jeep appeared, trundling across the empty desert, apparently having come from nowhere. A young Air Force lieutenant escorted the visitor into the base, the jeep rolling down another hidden but small ramp into the belowground complex, where the jeep was parked. The lieutenant led the way down long concrete corridors, past caverns where mechanics worked on MiG 29s. The air was clean and filtered, and everywhere was the hum of generators. Eventually they entered the senior officers' area, and the lieutenant knocked at a door. At a command from inside, he showed Osman Badri into the CO's apartment. Abdelkarim rose, and the brothers embraced. The older man was thirty-seven, also a colonel and darkly handsome, with a slim moustache. He was unmarried but never lacked for female attention. His looks, his sardonic manner, his das.h.i.+ng uniform, and his pilot's wings ensured it. Nor was his appearance a sham; Air Force generals admitted he was the best fighter pilot in the country, and the Russians, who had trained him on the ace of the Soviet fighter fleet, the MiG 29 Fulcrum supersonic fighter, agreed with that. ”Well, my brother, what brings you out here?” Abdelkarim asked. Osman, when he had sat down and gotten coffee from a freshly perked brew, had had time to study his older sibling. There were lines of strain around the mouth that had not been there before, and weariness in the eyes. Abdelkarim was neither a fool nor a coward. He had flown eight missions against the Americans and the British. He had returned from them all-just. He had seen his best colleagues shot down or blown apart by Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles, and he had dodged four himself. The odds, he had recognized after his first attempt to intercept the American strike bombers, were impossible. On his own side, he had neither information nor guidance as to where the enemy was, how many, of what type, at what height, or on which heading. The Iraqi radars were down, the control and command centers were in pieces, and the pilots were simply on their own. Worse, the Americans with their AWACS could pick up the Iraqi warplanes before they had reached a thousand feet, telling their own pilots where to go and what to do to secure the best attack position. For the Iraqis, Abdelkarim Badri knew, every combat mission was a suicide quest. Of all this, he said nothing, forcing a smile and a request for his brother's news. That news killed the smile. Osman related the events of the past sixty hours: the arrival of the AMAM troops at their parents' house at dawn, the search, the discovery in the garden, the beating of their mother and Talat, and the arrest of their father. He told how he had been summoned when the neighboring pharmacist finally got a message to him, and how he had driven home to find their father's body on the dining-room table. Abdelkarim's mouth tightened to an angry line when Osman revealed what he had discovered when he cut open the body bag, and the way their father had been buried that morning. The older man leaned forward sharply when Osman told how he had been intercepted as he left the cemetery, and of the conversation that had taken place. ”You told him all that?” he asked, when his brother had finished. ”Yes.” ”Is it true, all true? You really built this Fortress, this Qa'ala?”

”Yes.”

”And you told him where it is, so that he can tell the Americans?”

”Yes. Did I do wrong?”

Abdelkarim thought for some while.

”How many men, in all Iraq, know about all this, my brother?”

”Six,” said Osman.

”Name them.”

”The Rais himself; Hussein Kamil, who provided the finance and the manpower; Amer Saadi, who provided the technology. Then General Ridha, who supplied the artillerymen, and General Musuli of the Engineers-he proposed me for the job. And me, I built it.”

”The helicopter pilots who bring in the visitors?”

”They have to know the directions in order to navigate, but not what is inside. And they are kept quarantined in a base somewhere, I don't know where.”

”Visitors-how many could know?”

”None. They are blindfolded before takeoff and until they have arrived.”

”If the Americans destroy this Qubth-ut-Allah, who do you think the AMAM will suspect? The Rais, the ministers, the generals-or you?”

Osman put his head in his hands.

”What have I done?” he moaned.

”I'm afraid, little brother, that you have destroyed us all.”