Six thousand square feet at least, Clark thought sourly. A lot of territory. Plus maybe a basement.
He had half expected to find a colonel or general or two from the People’s Militia waiting for them, but there was no one. Evidently, Masudi was to be their only contact with the Libyan government, which suited Clark fine, as long as the man had the requisite horsepower to provide what they requested.
The street below looked like a damned military parade. Of the two visible streets adjacent to the embassy, Clark counted no fewer than six Army vehicles, two jeeps and four trucks, each surrounded by a group of soldiers, smoking and milling about, bolt-action rifles casually dangling from their shoulders. If he hadn’t already known it, the soldiers’ weapons would have told Clark everything he needed to know about Qaddafi’s attitude toward the crisis. Having been pushed out of the loop in his own country, the colonel had taken his elite troops off the perimeter and replaced them with the shabbiest grunts he could field.
Like a spoiled little boy taking his marbles and going home.
While Chavez and the others started unpacking the gear and sorting it in the unfinished breakfast nook, Clark and Stanley surveyed the embassy compound through binoculars. Richards and Lieutenant Masudi stood off to one side. After two minutes of silence, Stanley said without lowering his binoculars, “Tough one.”
“Yep,” Clark answered. “You see any movement?”
“No. Those are plantation shutters. Good and solid.”
“Fixed surveillance camera on each corner, just below the eaves, and two along the front façade.”
“Best assume the same for the rear façade,” Stanley replied. “The question is, did the security folks have time to mash the button?”
Most embassies had an emergency checklist that any security detail worth a damn would know by heart. At the top of the list, titled “In Case of Armed Intrusion and Embassy Takeover” or something similar, would be an instruction to fatally disable the facility’s external surveillance system. Blind bad guys are easier to take down. Whether or not the Swedes had done this there was no way of telling, so Rainbow would assume the cameras were not only functional but also being monitored. The good news was the cameras were fixed, which made it much easier to pick out blind spots and coverage gaps.
Clark said, “Richards, when’s sunset?”
“Three hours, give or take. Weather report is for clear skies.”
Shit, Clark thought. Operating in a desert climate could be a pain in the ass. Tripoli had a bit of pollution, but nothing like a Western metropolis, so the ambient light from the moon and stars would make movement tricky. A lot would depend on how many bad guys were inside and where they were positioned. If they had enough bodies, they’d almost certainly have surveillance posted, but that wasn’t anything Johnston and Loiselle couldn’t handle. Still, any approach on the compound would have to be planned carefully.
“Johnston…” Clark called.
“Yeah, boss.”
“Go for a stroll. Pick your perches, then come back and sketch it out for coverage and fields of fire. Richards, tell our escort to pass the word: Let our men work and don’t get in their way.”
“Okay.” Richards took Masudi by the elbow, moved him a few feet away, then started talking. After half a minute, Masudi nodded and left.
“We have blueprints?” Stanley asked Richards.
The embassy man checked his watch. “Should be here within the hour.”
“From Stockholm?”
Richards gave a negative shake of his head. “Here. Interior ministry.”
“Christ.”
There was no use having them transmitted in piecemeal JPEGs, either. No guarantee they’d be any better than what they already had-unless the Libyans were willing to take the shots to a professional printer and have the pieces stitched together. Clark wasn’t going to hold his breath for that.
“Hey, Ding?”
“Here, boss.”
Clark handed him the binoculars. “Take a look.” Along with Dieter Weber, Chavez would be leading one of the two assault teams.
Chavez scanned the building for sixty seconds, then handed back the binoculars. “Basement?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Bad guys usually like to hunker down, so I’d say they’re concentrated on the first floor, or in the basement if there is one, though that’s iffy-unless they’re really dumb.”
No exits belowground, Clark thought.
“If we can halfway nail down where the hostages are and whether they’re lumped together or split up… But if I had to make a snap call, I’d say enter on the second floor, south and east walls, clear that level, and then head down. Standard small-unit tactics, really. Take the high points on the map and the bad guys are at an automatic disadvantage.”
“Go on,” Clark said.
“The first-floor windows are out. We could handle the bars, but not quickly, and it would make a lot of noise. But those balconies… the railing looks pretty solid. Should be easy to get up there. A lot’s going to depend on the layout. If it’s more open, not too broken up, I say start high. Otherwise, we rattle their cages with some flashbangs, breach the walls in a couple places with Gatecrashers, then swarm ’em.”
Clark looked to Stanley, who nodded his approval. “The boy is learning,” he said with a grin.
“Fuck you very much,” Chavez replied with his own smile.
Clark checked his watch again. Time.
The bad guys hadn’t made contact, and that worried him. There were only a couple reasons to explain the silence: Either they were waiting to make sure they had the world’s attention before announcing their demands, or they were waiting to make sure they had the world’s attention before they started tossing bodies out the front door.
19
SURPRISING NO ONE, the blueprints did not arrive within the hour but closer to two, and so it was not quite ninety minutes before sunset when Clark, Stanley, and Chavez unrolled the plans of the compound and got their first look at what lay ahead of them.
“Bloody hell,” Stanley growled.
The blueprints weren’t the original architect’s set but rather a taped-together photocopy of a photocopy. Many of the notations were blurred beyond recognition.
“Ah, Jesus…” Richards said, looking over their shoulders.
“I’m sorry, they said-”
“Not your fault,” Clark replied evenly. “More games. We’ll make it work.” This was another thing Rainbow did very welclass="underline" adapt and improvise. Bad blueprints were just another form of insufficient intel, and Rainbow had dealt with its fair share of that. Worse still, the good colonel’s intelligence service had refused to give the Swedes blueprints to their own damned building, so they were out of luck there, too.
The good news was the embassy building did not have a basement, and the floor plan looked relatively open. No chopped-up hallways and cookie-cutter spaces, which made room clearing tedious and time-consuming. And there was a wraparound balcony on the second floor overlooking a large open space that abutted a wall of smaller rooms along the west wall.
“Forty by fifty feet,” Chavez observed. “Whaddya think? Main work area?”
Clark nodded. “And those along the west wall have gotta be executive offices.”
Opposite them, down a short hall that turned right at the base of the stairs, was what looked like a kitchen/dining area, a bathroom, and four more rooms, unlabeled on the plans. Maybe storage, Clark thought, judging by their size. One’s probably the security office. At the end of the hall was a door leading to the outside.
“There’s no electrical or water on these plans,” Chavez said.
“If you’re thinking sewer to get in,” Richards replied, “forget it. This is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Tripoli. The sewer system is for shit-”