“But how are we going to find him?” asked Ramshawe.
“Why don’t you call Admiral Morgan and see what he says?”
“Okay, sir. I’ll do that right away.”
He marched back down to his office and went through on the direct line to the White House at a particularly bad time. Admiral Morgan was wrestling with a statement from the United Nations condemning the action of the United States of America in sinking at least two, maybe three, and possibly four French ships. The statement was withering for the UN, which spent a certain amount of time each year expressing “dismay,” a small amount of time being “disappointed,” and considerable time finding things “incomprehensible.”
But, essentially, the UN did not “condemn.” As a word, it was too inflammatory, too likely to make a bad situation worse, and too difficult a word from which to retreat.
Today, however, the United Nations not only condemned, it issued a paralyzing anti-American statement that read,
It added that the Security Council intended to summon the United States representatives to appear before the General Assembly, the main debating chamber of the UN. And there, every Member State, all 191 of them, would be invited to cast a vote in favor of the severest censure the UN had issued in a quarter of a century.
Either way the UN could not condone the actions of the U.S.A. The General Assembly would also be asked to decide whether substantial damages, possibly $1 billion, ought now to be paid in reparations to the French government.
When he read it, President Bedford shuddered at the enormity of the ramifications. Not many U.S. Presidents have been accused of “murder” by the UN. And Paul Bedford was not much enjoying his place in that particular spotlight.
Since Admiral Morgan had masterminded the entire exercise, he asked him to come into the Oval Office. And that’s exactly where they were when the phone rang with Lt. Commander Ramshawe on the line from Fort Meade.
Arnold Morgan just growled, “We got him yet?”
“No, sir. But we’re in better shape than we were yesterday. We know where he is, and we think we know where he’s going.” He outlined to the Admiral the developments of the day and the new significance of Morocco, and then posed the question he had asked Admiral Morris.
“If we want to pick him up in Agadir, sir, how the hell do we find him?”
“Jimmy,” rasped Morgan, “we got to get him a cell phone, one of those little bastards with a GPS system attached. That way we can hook him up with his wife onboard the
“They don’t know whether Paris understands yet that Gamoudi is on his way to Marrakesh. But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“Right. Meanwhile you better get Langley to deliver one of those phones to Le Chasseur.”
“How and where, sir?”
“If the CIA can’t get a telephone to a guy who’s trying his damnedest to get into the U.S.A., they might as well close the fucking place down,” snapped Morgan, slamming down the phone.
President Bedford was extremely relieved to see that his main man had not lost his nerve in the face of a frontal assault by the UN. “This is very serious, Arnie, don’t you think?” he said.
“Serious!” growled Morgan. “You think we ought to be nervous about some half-assed, know-nothing Security Council that contains among its fifteen members the Philippines, Romania, Angola, Benin, and Algeria. Jesus! These guys are pressed to feed themselves and plant fucking soybeans, never mind have a hand in running the goddamn world.”
Even President Bedford, in the darkest moment of his presidency, was compelled to laugh.
“And I don’t want you to lose your nerve, Mr. President,” added Admiral Morgan. “Remember what we know has happened: the French, in partnership with some kind of a robed nutcase, have forced the world into its worst economical crisis since World War Two. With reckless disregard for any other nation’s plight, they cold-bloodedly smashed the Saudi oil industry with naval explosive, and then provided two Supreme Commanders to force the surrender of the Saudi armed forces and then assault the royal government in Riyadh.
“Now half the world’s without oil, and not everyone realizes, yet, that the French did it, for some sleazy financial deal with this Nasir character…that’s a guy dressed in a fucking bed sheet.
“And
“But, Arnie, what about this United Nations censure?”
“Sir, this is a momentous chain of events. It’s something history will judge in the fullness of time. Ignore the short-term rantings of a few nitwits who only know about a tenth of the facts. Sit tight, don’t crack, and we’ll win this. Probably in the next week.”
“You mean if we can get this Colonel Gamoudi to testify at the General Assembly for us?”
“Absolutely. And he will, because his own land has turned against him, he’s been betrayed, and he only has one set of friends in the world — that’s us. We’ve rescued his family and his money, and we’ll save him. And when we’ve done it, he’ll sing — that curly-haired little French Moroccan will sing like Frank Sinatra.”
“You’ve only seen a picture of him in his Arab kit,” said the President. “How do you know he’s got curly hair?”
“North African, sir. All North Africans have curly hair. Christ, most of them live in the Sahara Desert. If they didn’t have thick, curly hair for protection, their heads would blow up.”
“Which of Darwin’s theories of evolution are you currently studying, Arnie?” asked Paul Bedford wryly.
“Right now I’m concentrating on the bit about the ever-evolving diabolically devious nature of the French,” retorted Morgan. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll just call Alan Dickson, we’ll have a couple of cups of coffee, and we’ll hear more. This is hotting up, and I’m darned sure we’re out in front.”
The eight-man U.S. Navy SEAL team, which had been airlifted from a joint exercise with twenty-two SAS in Hereford, England, arrived in a red-painted Royal Navy Dauphin 2 helicopter in the great sprawling British base that stands guard over the gateway to the Mediterranean.
Moored alongside, on the North Mole, the great breakwater that protects the strategically important harbor, was the 10,000-ton Ticonderoga-class cruiser U.S.S.
Back in Norfolk, Virginia, Adm. Frank Doran had reasoned that if they were going to haul Le Chasseur out of some Middle Eastern banana republic, they were going to need a big U.S. warship on hand to deal with the problems. The middle of the Mediterranean, somewhere east of the Italian peninsula, seemed as good a place as any to set up shop.
However, the way things were now moving, there had been a major change of direction.
Capt. Tony Pickard had been ordered to make all speed from Gibraltar to an ops area 100 miles off the Moroccan seaport of Agadir. When SEAL Team Number Four, home base Little Creek, Virginia, was safely aboard, U.S.S.
The SEAL’s team leader was Lt. Cdr. Brad Taylor, the Virginia garrison’s resident iron man, one of those SEALs who pins the Trident on his pajamas before he goes to bed. A veteran of the Iraq war, thirty-one-year-old Brad Taylor was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, and leading classman in the SEALs’ brutal indoctrination course BUD/S, known in the trade as “The Grinder.”
His father was a U.S. naval Captain from Seattle, Washington, and his mother, a former actress who had
