The increase in security at the airport and throughout the capital did not surprise Sadiq. With the announcement of the visit by the American President and rumors of short-notice joint U.S.-Egyptian military maneuvers to coincide with the visit, everyone would be on his guard. How unfortunate, Sadiq thought as his cab passed a group of police unloading barriers from a truck, that they decided to close the door after the serpent entered their house.
Planning and preparation for the operation had gone quickly and exceedingly well. Colonel Nafissi had decided almost immediately that there was insufficient time to prepare an Egyptian assault force. Instead, he insisted that a Libyan commando unit, which just happened to be ready for just such an operation, conduct the assault. It didn't take Sadiq long to realize that Nafissi had been planning and preparing for this operation. Sadiq's news had only given them the time and provided the catalyst for pulling the trigger.
Secrecy was uppermost in everyone's mind. Only those people who needed to know were told what was to happen. Sadiq doubted if even the leader of the revolution knew what was happening. The commandos who would be executing the operation themselves were given the plan one phase at a time: first, their instruction for infiltration into Egypt and a rally point. At the rally point, they would be given the route to and location of their assembly area. There they would be told of the nature of the operation but not the target or the time. In this manner, if someone was accidentally captured, he would be unable to provide much in the way of useful information. Even Sadiq did not know the whole plan. He knew what he had to: that the commandos, dressed as military police and riding in jeeps, would approach the position where the two presidents would be. The jeeps would go to the reviewing stand, one to either side. Once there, the commandos would simply get out and kill everyone in the stand.
Because of the need to get close to the reviewing stand, the operation could not be an all-Libyan affair. Support was needed from sympathizers within the Egyptian military. That was the single greatest concern Nafissi had concerning the operation. Security would be extremely tight. The memory of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat was always foremost in the minds of Egyptian security forces. To allow a second calamity such as that would be disastrous to the regime. If the American President were also killed, it would be cataclysmic. Sadiq, however, was adamant that he could make the necessary arrangements that would allow the Libyan commandos to get within striking distance. As he told Nafissi repeatedly, he had people in the right places who could make things happen. One of those people was Lieutenant Colonel Hafez.
While the taxi wound its way through the crowded streets of Cairo, Sadiq reviewed the plan in his mind. Three Egyptians, himself included, and five Libyans would make the attack. They were to be dressed in uniforms of the Egyptian military police and using two Soviet-built jeeps painted as MP vehicles. Two actual Egyptian MP vehicles would be diverted at the last minute to secure a crossroad far from the scene of the attack by an officer sympathetic to the Brotherhood. The two jeeps with the assault team would assume the mission of the real Egyptian MPs, driving through all the check points and right up to the reviewing stand where the two presidents would be. Once they were there, resolute hearts, grenades, and automatic rifles would be all that was needed.
Nafissi had liked the plan. It was like him — simple, direct, brutal. Looking at his watch, Sadiq decided that he had enough time to visit his favorite mosque before meeting with Hafez. Leaning forward, Sadiq told the driver to go to the Mosque of Hassan near the Citadel. Sadiq always enjoyed praying there, mere meters from police headquarters. It was, to him, the ultimate challenge.
The newsroom of the World News office was sheer panic and pandemonium, and Fay Dixon was loving it. A joint news release from the Egyptian Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of State early that morning had announced the impending visit of the President of the United States and the conduct of unannounced joint military maneuvers involving the United States and Egypt. Since then there had been a scramble to gather everything that would be needed to cover the story and provide background information.
Arrangements had already been made to fly in two additional camera crews from WNN's London and Paris offices. Press passes and security badges for all the members of the camera crews and support people had to be obtained from the Egyptian military. Interviews with the U.S. ambassador, briefings by the military attache, Egyptian military officials, and such had to be set up, shot, edited, and beamed back to the States by satellite. This process always required more time than was available. This was where Fay Dixon came in. She was responsible for developing the concept or angle that Jan would use in her news story. Once Jan approved, Fay put the production together and made sure everyone was doing his or her job. Far from being a simple producer, Fay had become Jan's assistant and the number-two honcho in the office in fact if not in name. Once the tape had been shot, it was Fay who reviewed it and pieced together news stories that would address the preparation leading up to the visit and the maneuvers as well as the actual thing. There was much to do and very little time.
That she had the job at all was more than a simple matter of luck. Through Jan's efforts, her former field producer disappeared almost overnight. Though he was due a promotion and reassignment back to the home office in the States, the speed with which Jan made it happen amazed everyone in the office. It shouldn't have. Jan had a way of moving heaven and earth to get what she wanted. In this case, she wanted the old producer out and her friend in. Nothing, not even the home office, could stop her.
Since her arrival in country and her assignment as Jan's field producer, Fay had been on the run. With Jan's help, she had secured an apartment in a neighborhood populated mainly by Americans and Europeans. They were mainly business types that Scott did not care for and refused to have anything to do with. Not that he was ever home. As always, Scott was gone from sunup to well past sundown, doing whatever it was he did. As far as getting the family settled in, that was left to Fay to handle. Other than a few handouts that weren't of much value, Scott gave her no guidance or advice, assuming that she would be able to sort it out on her own.
And, as always, she did. Taking the advice of the people from the WNN office, Fay enrolled the boys in an exclusive school catering to the Europeans instead of the one used by most of the American embassy staff, something that sent Scott ballistic. He was opposed to sending the children to a non-American school, isolating the boys from their own kind. The fact that his boys wouldn't receive any American history didn't help matters. Fay was prepared for Scott's disapproval but not for the viciousness of his attacks.
Though she suspected that his new assignment contributed to his dark moods, she didn't care at the moment. She was finally realizing her dream of many years — to be back in a newsroom with the flurry of activity and the rush of events. She was among the first to see the news that would shape the world, and she had a hand in shaping it. The mere thought of that was intoxicating. For the first time in years she felt completely and fully alive. The hours were long, the work stressful at times,but all in all it was wonderful.
To add to the bargain, Fay once again was working with Jan. Though they had kept in touch over the years, their worlds had drifted apart since Fay's marriage to Scott. Fay was all but chained to house and home: her life was one of dealing with children, doing laundry, running errands, performing all the pressing little duties expected of an officer's wife and playing substitute father to the children in place of the real one, who seemed always to be away from home at the wrong time. While Fay had been enjoying the so-called benefits of married life, Jan was romping around the globe, earning her spurs as an international reporter in Lebanon and Africa. It was in Africa that she really made her mark. Fortune smiled on her one day when, traveling with guerrillas, she happened across a village that the government forces, with the support of the Soviets, had hit with chemical weapons. The gruesome scenes of dead mothers clutching their dead children, cut down in mid-stride, were seen across the world. Jan appeared before both the U.S. Senate and the U. N. That story made her a star overnight. Along her way to stardom, Fay moved to the backwaters of her life. Until now.