Hunter Killer Page 47

“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.”

  FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1730 (LOCAL)

  ROYAL NAVY DOCKYARD, GIBRALTAR

  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. Shiloh, fresh from a 900-mile run down the Portuguese coast from the outer reaches of the Bay of Biscay.

  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. Shiloh, complete with the Gamoudi family and the SEAL team, would leave the Med within two hours, heading 428 miles south down the Atlantic, along the long sand-swept coast of Morocco. Latest orders, direct from the Pentagon, recommended that the SEAL team go in and grab the French Colonel sometime in the next three or four days.

  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. Shiloh would cast her lines and leave immediately.

  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 spent much of her life wondering how she could possibly have given birth to this miniature King Kong.

  Brad was six foot two, but every stride he took looked as if he were just out of the gym and on his way to a world heavyweight title fight. To complement that natural-born swagger, he had wide shoulders, massive forearms and wrists, and thighs like mature oaks. He seemed shorter, but he looked like a young John Wayne, with slightly floppy brown hair worn longer than the standard SEAL hard-trimmed buzz cut.

  Brad Taylor had won collegiate swimming championships, over 100 yards, a half mile, and one mile. He also won a U.S. Navy cruiserweight boxing championship, flattening all three of his opponents in the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final. Only injury had prevented him from playing free safety for the cadets in the Army-Navy game.

  Brad Taylor was one of those people born to service in the U.S. Navy, born to lead a combat SEAL team, born to carry out SPECWARCOM’s orders, no matter how difficult. And today his orders were short and succinct, straight from the White House, via the Pentagon: Get the French Army Colonel Jacques Gamoudi out of Morocco.

  The U.S. guided-missile warship cleared Gibraltar at 1930 (local) and made all speed through the Strait and into the Atlantic, turning south on a course that would keep her 100 miles off the Moroccan coast, steaming past Tangier, Rabat, and Casablanca.

  At thirty knots, it took the Shiloh five and a half hours to cover the 165 miles to a position off the capital city of Rabat—which was where the first activity of the night took place. At midnight (local) one of the two boarded helicopters, the SH-60B Seahawk LAMPS III, took off into the night, and headed directly into Rabat.

  Clasped in the first officer’s hand was a cardboard box containing the cell phone Admiral Morgan had ordered. It was satellite-programmed to connect with the comms room of U.S.S. Shiloh from any point on the globe. It also had a built-in GPS system, operational via satellite, that would pinpoint its user’s position accurate to thirty yards.

  Furthermore, that position could be relayed to the Shiloh without the user’s even speaking. With the phone held in the open, one touch on one button would automatically inform the warship’s ops room precisely where the caller was standing.

  The LAMPS III took twenty-five minutes to reach the city. It made a long sweep to the north and, following the lights, came clattering up the river before banking right and putting down in the expansive grounds of the U.S. Embassy on Marrakesh Avenue.

  On the strict instructions of Admiral Morgan, the Moroccan authorities had been fully informed that a U.S. military aircraft would make this night delivery to the embassy, the normal courtesy between countries. Right now Admiral Morgan had a golden chance to humiliate and embarrass the French, and he did not wish the United States to put a foot wrong diplomatically.

  Which was the principal reason why he had insisted that the rescue of the French Colonel should be a clandestine grab by the SEALs, rather than a winch-out by a U.S. Navy helicopter operating illegally over deep Moroccan sovereign territory. As the Admiral had stated it, “When you want to play the knight in shining armor, you don’t walk around with a goddamn blackjack.”

  And now, awaiting the helicopter, next to the flashing landing light on the embassy lawn, was the U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and one of the CIA’s top North African field officers, Jack Mitchell, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, who kept a careful eye on Algiers and Tunisia from his Rabat base.

  The helicopter never even opened its door. The cell phone was tossed out into the waiting hands of agent Mitchell and the pilot took off instantly, not even bothering with his northern detour, just ripping fast above the city and out into black skies above the Atlantic.

  No one beyond the aircrew, the Ambassador, and the CIA knew of this swift insertion—which was precisely as planned. Because Morocco leaks. And Morocco has deep French connections. It had been, after all, a French protectorate for half of the twentieth century, and at this critical time the Americans understood full well that the French Secret Service were bound and determined to end the life of Le Chasseur.

  Jack Mitchell, watching the departing Navy chopper climb away to the west, was now awaiting a flight of his own, due here on the embassy lawn in twenty minutes. This would be a nonstop 145-mile flight to Marrakesh, where Mitchell, a divorced former Nebraska State Trooper, would pick up his Cherokee Jeep and head into the Atlas Mountains, in search of either Jacques’s father, Abdul Gamoudi, or the proprietor of the only hotel in the village.

  So far, he knew King Nasir’s Boeing had landed at a crowded Menara airport, four miles southwest of Marrakesh, just before 7 P.M. But the young CIA man there had not been able to see anyone disembark, and it was impossible to find a man who may or may not have been traveling alone, and may or may not have been in Arab dress. Right now the CIA had no idea where Colonel Gamoudi was.

  The only lead was Asni, the tiny mountain village of his birth and boyhood, which lay thirty miles south of the airport. There was a chance Gamoudi’s family might still be in residence, and Major Laforge might still be at the hotel.

  But the trail was very dead. Jack Mitchell’s man at the airport had conducted an airport search as best he could, questioning and tipping the sales clerks at the rental car desks. But nothing had been signed by any Gamoudi, or indeed any Jacques Hooks.

  For all Jack Mitchell knew, the Colonel could have deci
ded to hide out in Marrakesh. Although he doubted that because of the strong French presence in the city. There was no doubt Asni was the key. That’s where Agent Mitchell would have headed if he had been on the run. There was a lot on his mind as his helicopter took off from the embassy grounds. He was clutching the little super cell phone which would be, ultimately, the lifeline of Le Chasseur, if Mitchell could deliver it.

  SAME FRIDAY NIGHT

  MARRAKESH AIRPORT

  From the first moment they disembarked from the Boeing, Rashood, Shakira, and Jacques Gamoudi split up, making for three separate destinations inside the terminal.

  They had no luggage except duffel bags. Shakira with her several passports and driver’s licenses made for the Europcar desk in the arrivals hall, Rashood went to the bank to try and change $10,000 into local dirhams (10.5 to the dollar), and Gamoudi went to a coffee shop for supplies for the journey.

  They met in the Europcar parking lot and threw their stuff into the trunk of a small red Ford. It was 10 P.M. before they were ready to go. Gamoudi took the wheel, heading south up the old mountain road to Asni, where the French Colonel knew his father would be, even though they had not been in contact for several months.

  Gamoudi had no intention of going into the village, where the French might be waiting. But he intended to contact his father by phone. The old man would arrange for all three of them to get kitted out tomorrow with good mountain gear, for their journey into the still snow-covered peaks of Jacques’s boyhood.

  This was certainly the one place on this earth where the odds favored them against a determined military pursuer. All three of the fugitives knew the French Secret Service could not be far behind. As yet they had no knowledge of the intention of the Americans, and Gamoudi had not the slightest clue about his family’s kidnapping in the main square of the Pyrenean town of Pau.

  Gamoudi had decided they should trundle up into the mountains, call his father, and then wait for the dawn. Banging on the door of his father’s house in the small hours of the morning was out of the question. In a place like Asni, that would most certainly attract the attention of someone, somewhere, who might suspect who it was.

  As it happened, Jack Mitchell got there first. He slipped into the Moroccan tunic and hat he always kept in the rear of his car and inquired at the local bar where he might find Abdul Gamoudi. His house was only fifty yards away. Mitchell went to it and tapped sharply on the front door.

  The man who faced him was lean and tanned, a true Moroccan Berber of the mountains. He was in his mid-sixties and he was wearing jeans and no shirt. He confirmed readily that he was indeed the father of Jacques Gamoudi.

  Mitchell explained rapidly that he was expecting the Colonel either to arrive there within the next few hours or, somehow, to make contact. Either way, the CIA man said, Gamoudi was in the most terrible danger.

  Gamoudi’s father nodded, almost as if such a scenario were not entirely foreign to him. “Ah, Jacques,” he said slowly, in French. “Mon fou, mon fils fou.” My crazy son. “Malheureusement, vous êtes en retard.” Unfortunately you are late. Abdul Gamoudi admitted that his son had been in contact during the past hour, but that he was not coming to the house.

  “Est-ce qu’il vous téléphone encore?” Will he call you again? Jack Mitchell’s French was passable, but nothing like fluent.

  “Bien sûr, demain.” Of course, tomorrow.

  This was no time for idle chatter. Still speaking in French, Mitchell told Abdul that there was a hit squad somewhere behind him, searching for Gamoudi, determined to assassinate him. He told him that the Americans had the Gamoudi family, and their money, safe. Gamoudi was to use this cell phone, which would connect him direct to the U.S. warship where Giselle and the boys were waiting to speak to him. The Americans would get Gamoudi out of Morocco, with the help of this cell phone. Jack Mitchell struggled through the French verbs, informing the old man about the phone’s GPS, which would beam its position to the ship’s communication room.

  “Les Américains sont les amis, Abdul,” said Mitchell. With some heavy gestures he made it clear that everything would be fine, if the Colonel could reach them. He hoped his final, dark warning was understood by Mr. Gamoudi. If the French find him first they will kill him.

  Abdul Gamoudi nodded gravely. “Je comprends. Je lui donnerai le téléphone et votre message.”

  Jack Mitchell handed over the phone, and hoped to hell that old Abdul would remember everything.

  In fact the French were some way behind. They did not even learn that the Saudi Boeing had left Beirut until after 10 P.M., when the local radio station announced the death of four French agents in the Crusaders’ Castle. The two men still on duty outside the Saudi embassy heard this, and tried to contact Paris.

  That took longer than usual. From then it took four more hours to establish that the Saudi Boeing had left, probably carrying the passenger who had fled Riyadh.

  The flight control office was closed and it was not until seven o’clock on Friday morning that the French Secret Service established that the Boeing had gone to Marrakesh, almost certainly with Col. Jacques Gamoudi, a native Moroccan, onboard.

  Back in Paris, Gaston Savary was furious. He had always felt “out of the information loop” on this case, ever since the operation began, as if he were always trying to catch up. But now in his military/policeman’s mind, he knew a few things for certain: (1) His men had failed to eliminate Gamoudi in the car “accident” in Riyadh; (2) his men had not been in time to catch him at his residence in Riyadh; (3) having successfully tailed him to a little town north of Beirut, all four of his agents had got themselves killed; (4) his men had failed to detain Mrs. Gamoudi in the town square of Pau; (5) his Beirut team had somehow failed to track the Boeing without a delay of almost twelve hours; (6) the CIA wanted Colonel Gamoudi as badly as he did; and (7) Pierre St. Martin was going to have a blue fit when he found out that, right now, no one knew where the hell Gamoudi was.

  He picked up his phone and went through on the direct line to Gen. Michel Jobert at the Special Forces headquarters in Taverny. It was the middle of the night, a fact that was not even noticed by either of the two men. General Jobert needed to move from his bedroom, and his sleeping wife, into his study next door. But that was the only delay—twenty seconds. At which point Gaston Savary recounted the entire sorry tale of the failure of the French Secret Service to put this matter to rest.

  “And now, Michel,” he said, “we have this armed, highly dangerous military officer loose in the High Atlas Mountains, in an area in which he grew up, giving him every territorial advantage. And I’m supposed to catch him.”

  Savary paused, and then said, “Michel, this is no longer a Secret Service operation. The President of France wants this man eliminated, and my organization is not equipped to stage a manhunt in the mountains. This has suddenly become military. People can get killed. We need helicopters, gunships, search radar, maybe even rockets, if we are to catch him.

  “Michel, I am proposing to hand the entire operation over to the First Marine Parachute Infantry Regiment. Quite frankly, I hope you’ll agree, but anyway I am proposing to recommend to Monsieur St. Martin that the Special Forces take over from here. You do, after all, have two helicopter squadrons under your permanent command…”

  “Gaston,” said the General, “I am in agreement with you. If they want Gamoudi killed, it will have to be Special Forces. I imagine that will also mean getting rid of the body?”

  “Oh, certainly. They want Gamoudi to vanish off the face of the earth and to stay there.”

  “Well, I have no doubt that can be arranged, Gaston,” said the General. “What’s our focus point for the operation?”

  “Little village called Asni, thirty miles south of Marrakesh. It’s way up in the Atlas Mountains, and that’s where we think Gamoudi is hiding out, until we tire of trying to track him down.”

  “You know, Gaston, it’s over a thousand miles from Marseille. We’ll make the journey o
verland, across Spain, with a refuel before we cross to North Africa. We have three of those long AS532 Cougar Mark Ones ready to deploy instantly, they hold twenty-five commandos each, and they’re well armed—machine guns, canons and rockets. Plus tons of surveillance. I can have them in Marrakesh tomorrow morning. Do I speak to St. Martin, or do you?”

  “I will, now. I’ll tell him you’re on the case. And I’ll send detailed briefing papers via e-mail in ten.”

  “Okay, Gaston. Let’s go and silence this troublesome little bastard once and for all.”

  SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1100

  HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS

  Abdul Gamoudi had made an excellent delivery. His closest friend owned the main ski shop in the area. He borrowed equipment and met his son at the foot of a high escarpment, 500 feet below the ice line. Gamoudi’s father arrived cross-country in a pickup truck full of equipment—boots, socks, climbing trousers, sweaters, weatherproof jackets, and, as requested by Gamoudi, nothing in bright modern colors, all of it in drab, almost camouflage coloring. There were sleeping bags, gloves, rucksack bergans, ice axes, crampons, hammers, nylon climbing ropes, and a small primus stove to heat food and water.

  Abdul had followed Jacques’s instructions to bring everything three people would require to stay alive up there for a week. He had also brought the “magic” cell phone.

  Abandoning the hired Ford, Rashood, Shakira, and Gamoudi climbed aboard the pickup. Rashood, sitting on the sleeping bags in the back, handed over 60,000 dirhams to Abdul, who now drove them even higher into the mountains to a point east of the ski-center village of Imlit.

  This was their last stop-off. They unloaded the truck and gladly put on warmer clothes, and distributed the climbing equipment, while Abdul drove into Imlit to collect food and water. When he returned, they dumped their old clothes and bags into the pickup and made their farewells.

  Abdul smiled and shook hands with Rashood and Shakira, and he hugged Jacques. There were tears streaming down his tough, weather-beaten face as he stood alone on the mountain and watched them trudge off to the northeast, uncertain whether he would ever see his only son again.