Far away to the southeast, two huge USAF Starlifters began to drop toward the sultanate of Oman. They came from the East Coast of the USA, with one midair refueling by a tanker out of the Azores. The two aerial juggernauts came out of the sunset on the Dhofari hills, heading east, and asking for landing instructions at the Anglo-American desert air base of Thumrait. In their cavernous hulls, the two giants contained an entire military unit. One had the living accommodations, from flat-pack, skilled-assembly hutments to generators, air- conditioning, refrigeration plants, TV aerials and even corkscrews for the fifteen-person technical team. The other cargo aircraft carried what is called “the sharp end.” Two pilotless reconnaissance drones, Predators, along with their guidance and imaging kit and the men and women who would operate them.
A week later, they were set up. On the far side of the air base, out of bounds to nonunit personnel, the bungalows were up, the air conditioners hummed, the latrines were dug, the kitchen cooked; and under their hooped shelters, the two Predators waited until their mission should be given to them. The aerial surveillance unit was also patched through to Tampa, Florida, and Edzell, Scotland. Someday, they would be told what they had to watch-day and night, rain and shine-photograph and transmit back. Until then, men and machines waited in the heat.
Mike Martin’s final briefing took a full three days, and it was important enough that Marek Gumienny flew over in the agency Grumman. Steve Hill came up from London, and the two spymas-ters joined their executive officers, McDonald and Phillips.
There were only five of them in the room, for Gordon Phillips operated what he called “the slide show” himself. Rather more developed than the slide projectors of yesteryear, this projector threw up picture after picture on a high-definition plasma screen in perfect color and detail. At a touch on the remote, it could close in on any detail, and bring that detail up in magnification to fill the screen.
The point of the briefing was to show Mike Martin every last piece of information in the possession of the entire gamut of Western agencies concerning faces he might meet.
The sources were not just the Anglo-American agencies. Over forty nations’ agencies were pouring their discoveries into central databases. Apart from the rogue states- Iran, Syria and the failed states like Somalia - governments across the planet were sharing information on terrorists of the ultra-aggressive Islamist creed.
Rabat was invaluable in targeting its own Moroccans; Aden fed in names and faces from South Yemen; Riyadh had swallowed its embarrassment and provided columns of faces from its own Saudi list.
Martin stared at them all as they all flashed up. Some were face-on portraits taken in a police station; others were snatched with long lenses on streets or in hotels. The faces’ possible variants were shown: with or without beard; in Arab or Western dress; long hair, short hair or shaven. There were mullahs and imams from various extremist mosques; youths believed to be simple message carriers; faces of those known to help with support services like funds, transport, safe houses.
And there were the big players, the ones who controlled the various global divisions and had access to the very top.
Some were dead, like Mohammed Atef, first director of operations, killed by an African bomb in Afghanistan; his successor, serving life without parole; his successor, also dead; and the believed present one. Somewhere in there was the doctorly face of Tewfik al-Qur, who dove over a balcony in Peshawar five months earlier. A few faces down the line was Saud Hamud al-Utaibi, new head of AQ in Saudi Arabia, and believed very much alive. And there were the blanks, the outline of a head, black on white. These included the AQ chief from Southeast Asia, successor to al-Hanbali, and probably the man behind the latest bombi ngsof tourist resorts in the Far East. And, surprisingly, the AQ chief for the United Kingdom. “We knew who he was until about six months ago,” said Gordon Phillips. “Then he quit just in time. He is back in Pakistan, hunted day and night. The ISI will get him eventually…”
“And ship him up to us in Bagram,” grunted Marek Gumienny They all knew that inside the U.S. base north of Kabul was a very special facility where everyone “sang” eventually.
“You will certainly seek out this one,” said Steve Hill, as a grim-faced imam flashed on the screen. It was a snatched shot and came from Pakistan. “And this one.”
It was an elderly man, looking mild and courtly; also a snatched shot, on a quayside somewhere, with bright blue water in the background; it came from the Special Forces of the United Arab Emirates in Dubai. They broke, ate, resumed, slept and started again. Only when the housekeeper was in the room with trays of food did Phillips switch off the TV screen. Tamian Godfrey and Najib Qureshi stayed in their rooms or walked the hills together. Finally, it was over.
“Tomorrow, we fly,” said Marek Gumienny.
Mrs. Godfrey and the Afghan analyst came to the helipad to see him off. He was young enough to be the Koranic scholar’s son.
“Take care of yourself, Mike,” she said, then swore. “Damn, stupid me, I’m choking up. God go with you, lad.”
“And if all else fails, may Allah keep you in His care,” said Qureshi. The JetRanger could only take the two senior controllers and Martin. The two executive officers would drive down to Edzell and resume their mission. The Bell landed well away from prying eyes and the group of three ran across to the CIA Grumman V A Scottish snow squall caused them all to shelter under waterproofs held over their heads, so no one saw that one of the men was not in Western dress.
The crew of the Grumman had tended to some strange-looking passengers, and knew better than to raise even an eyebrow at the heavily bearded Afghan whom the deputy director of operations was escorting across the Atlantic with a British guest.
They did not fly to Washington but to a remote peninsula on the southeast coast of Cuba. Just after dawn, on February 14, they touched down at Guantanamo and taxied straight into a hangar whose doors closed at once. “I’m afraid you have to remain on the plane, Mike,” said Marek Gumienny “We’ll get you out of here under cover of dark.”
Night comes fast in the tropics, and it was pitch-black by seven p.m. That was when four CIA men from “special tasks” entered the cell of Izmat Khan. He rose, sensing something wrong. The regular guards had quit the corridor outside his cell half an hour earlier. That had never happened before. The four men were not brutal, but they were not taking no for an answer, either. Two grabbed the Afghan, one round the torso with arms pinioned, the other round the thighs. The chloroform pad took only twenty seconds to work. The writhing stopped, and the prisoner went limp.
He went onto a stretcher and thence to a wheeled gurney. A cotton sheet was placed over the body and he was wheeled outside. A crate was waiting. The entire cell block was devoid of guard staff. No one saw a thing. A few seconds after the abduction, the Afghan was inside the crate. It was not badly equipped, as crates go. From the outside, it was just a large timber box such as are used for general freight purposes. Even the markings were totally authentic.
Inside, it was insulated against any sound emerging. In the roof was a small, removable panel to replenish fresh air, but that would not be taken down until the crate was safely airborne. There were two comfortable armchairs welded to the floor, and a low-wattage, amber light.
The recumbent Izmat Khan was placed in the chair that already had restrainer straps fitted to it. Without cutting off circulation to the limbs, they secured so that he could relax but not leave the chair. He was still asleep. Finally satisfied, the fifth CIA man-the one who would travel in the crate-nodded to his colleagues, and the end of it was closed off. A forklift hoisted the crate a foot off the ground and ran it out to the airfield, where the Hercules was waiting. It was an AC-130 Talon from Special Forces, fitted with extra-range tanks, and could make its destination easily. Unexplained flights into and out of Gitmo are regular as clockwork. The tower gave a quick “Clear to take off” in response to the staccato request, and the Hercules was airborne for McChord base, Washington State. An hour later, a closed car drove up to the Camp Echo block and another small group got out. Inside the empty cell, a man was garbed in orange jumpsuit and soft slippers. The unconscious Afghan had been photographed before being covered and removed. With the use of the Polaroid print, a few minor snips were
