Gaston Savary hardly left his office these days. And mostly he just sat and fretted, unshaven, praying for the phone to ring, praying it was someone with the news that Col. Jacques Gamoudi had been eliminated.
So far he had been out of luck. And tonight was no different. Maj. Raul Foy was on the line from Riyadh, imparting the precise information Savary did not wish to hear.
“Sir, I gained entry to the house at ten-thirty tonight. I entered his bedroom only to discover he had already left and was not expected to return. The guards there of course know and trust me. One of the guards told me Gamoudi had left Saudi Arabia; I understand the King himself organized his escape.”
The name of the Major’s target was naturally never mentioned, but Gaston Savary did not need reminding of it.
“Nossir. All we know is one of the King’s private jets took off from King Khalid Airport shortly before midnight, and that our man may have been aboard.”
Major Foy, treading the treacherous line between traitor and efficient undercover agent, added helpfully, “It’s damned hard to trace the King’s aircraft, sir. They never file a flight plan from his own airport, and of course no one has any idea where it’s headed.”
“Sir, that Boeing can fly more than twenty-four hundred miles. But General Rashood may also be onboard. He was staying at the Colonel’s house. I suggest we place agents in the Middle East airports where we think they might be going. I’d say Jordan, certainly Damascus, where it’s possible the General lives. Cairo, which is a hell of a good place to hide. Maybe Djibouti, because that’s where General Rashood came in before the attack. Certainly Tripoli, because Rashood could get help there, and possibly Beirut, which is often beyond the rule of law.”
“How about Baghdad, Kuwait, or Tehran?” suggested Gaston Savary.
“Not Baghdad, because the General might have enemies there. But perhaps Tehran. He is, after all, from Iran. And Kuwait…I don’t think so…it’s too close. It’s like going nowhere.”
Gaston Savary scribbled the names on a pad in front of him. He told Major Foy to stay in touch, and he prepared to put at least two DGSE agents into the airports where the Boeing might land. That would be his first call. The second one would be to Pierre St. Martin. Savary was not looking forward to that one.
General Rashood had regained his composure. Relaxed here in the first-class compartment, he pulled out his state-of-the-art cell phone and for the first time in almost four months dialed his wife’s number in Damascus.
Shakira answered immediately, despite the late hour, and was overjoyed to hear from him. She told him she had been at her wit’s end to know whether he was alive or dead, but she understood he could not risk calling her.
And was it safe now? Could someone be listening in?
“Since I’m calling from a passenger jet about five miles above the desert, it’s unlikely,” he said.
“Are you coming home?” she asked. “Please say yes.”
But Rashood’s answer was stern. “Shakira, I want you to get a pen and write some things down. Meet me tomorrow afternoon in the town of Byblos; that’s less than thirty miles up the coast road from Beirut. To get there, you’ll drive sixty miles along the main Damascus highway, straight over the Lebanon Mountains. It’s a good road, but you should allow four hours from home to Byblos.
“When you arrive, you’ll find the main attraction is some Roman ruins right at the edge of the town. You get into them through an old crusader castle. I’ll meet you in there, in the castle, at three P.M.
“Before you start, please go to the bank and get money. A minimum of fifty thousand U.S. dollars, a hundred thousand if you can. We’ve got five million on deposit in the Commercial Bank of Syria. I’m guessing you’ll be out of the bank and on the road by ten-thirty in the morning.
“And, Shakira, bring an AK-47, hide it in the compartment I had built into the Range Rover. There are a few checkpoints on that Damascus highway, but they won’t be thorough. Use your Syrian passport, and bring your Israeli one.
“Shakira, just tell me you have your notes correctly written down, and then ring off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Are we in trouble, Rashood?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, I love you anyway. Wait for me.”
The eight-hour time difference meant it was still late on Thursday afternoon in Washington when Colonel Gamoudi’s Boeing roared up into the midnight skies above Riyadh.
Within minutes, there had been a check call from the CIA’s duty officer at King Khalid Airport, informing the Riyadh embassy that one of the King’s private aircraft had taken off with just two unknown passengers. As always with the Saudi royal family’s personal transports, its destination was unknown.
The embassy in Riyadh was very quickly off the mark, and on the phone to the CIA’s busy Middle East Desk in Langley, Virginia. They already knew a Navy helicopter transmitting military radar had landed in a well-guarded private residence near the Diplomatic Quarter just before midnight, and had taken off immediately.
Inside the NSA, Lt. Commander Ramshawe already had a report from the CIA’s man at the airport who had photographed the chopper with night lenses as it arrived at King Khalid, and he had seen the Boeing take off. The assumption in Riyadh, Langley, and Fort Meade was that Le Chasseur had been airlifted out of Saudi Arabia and that he was somewhere above the desert in the Boeing.
The Americans, after all, knew the French had already tried to assassinate him once, and it was now obvious the King was taking steps to protect him, in return for the enormous favor he had done the kingdom.
The question was, where was he going? The CIA did, more or less, what the French DGSE had done: they posted men at the likely Middle East airports, watching and waiting for King Nasir’s Boeing to touch down.
There was, however, one major problem. Beirut was last on the Americans’ list, and their man did not arrive there until 4 A.M., by which time General Rashood and Colonel Gamoudi had been whisked away to the new Saudi embassy in Beirut, by orders of the King.
It took the CIA agent an hour to ascertain that the Boeing had indeed landed, which left him with little to do except sit and watch until it took off again.
The French agents were, however, on time. And while they never got anywhere near the two passengers, they were able to follow the diplomatic car to the embassy, so at least they knew where the fugitives were. Whether or not they would be lucky enough to get a sniper shot in was very questionable.
Nonetheless, the French were plainly winning this race. And when a different, smaller vehicle pulled out of the embassy the following morning, with a chauffeur driving and darkened rear windows, the four French agents now involved in the chase elected to tail it — all the way up the coast road to the ancient city of Byblos.
Shakira Rashood had been an active member of the terrorist organization Hamas since she was twelve years old. She was rarely out of reach of an AK-47 rifle and she had served on combat operations ever since she was seventeen.
She and Rashood had fled a battle in the Jerusalem Road, Hebron, in the hours after they first met four years before. He saved her life, then she saved his. Their subsequent marriage was conducted inside the deepest councils of Hamas, of which General Rashood swiftly became the Commander in Chief.
They had thus met and married in the harshest of environments, a place without sentimentality, only a brutal desire for victory. But theirs was a love match, and the beautiful Palestinian Shakira, stuck now in a diabolical traffic holdup five miles out of Beirut, was beside herself with worry.
She sensed danger. Why did Rashood want so much money? Why had he been so reluctant to talk after all these weeks apart? Why had he told her to be sure to bring her rifle, when he knew she never made a journey without it?
Every inch of her sensed that something terrible was happening. Again she leaned on the horn of the Range Rover, like everyone else. There were few places in the Middle East where traffic could snarl as comprehensively as
