“An exercise?”
“It appears so. It’s an odd mix of forces: elements from the First Armored Division and the Seventh and Ninth Mechanized, which will probably be replacing their counterparts in the Bekka in a couple months. It’s a routine rotation, but we’ve never seen them exercise this close to a changeover period. The other elements are remnants from the downsized Golan Task Group — the Third Armored and Tenth and Eleventh Mechanized. On the upside, the Dar’a Task Group isn’t involved; all its units are accounted for.”
“Pretty big exercise,” said Talbot. “They moving in any particular direction?”
“It’s early yet, but it doesn’t look like it. We have no idea about the mission or duration, but it matches previous exercise profiles, if a little larger. The other interesting thing is the commander in charge: General Issam al-Khatib.”
“How do you know he’s in charge?”
“He was at the site.”
“So?”
“We photographed him.”
Both the president and Talbot glanced up in amazement.
“Khatib was formerly in charge of the Saraya and Difa Defense Companies, about twenty-five thousand special forces soldiers, until it was re-formed into Unit five sixty-nine, ostensibly a regular armored and mechanized group,” Mason said. “He’s also part of Assad’s inner circle, fanatically loyal, and an Alawite to boot.”
“Alawite?” said Talbot.
“Assad’s religious sect,” Mason explained. “It’s a Muslim minority group, but it has key members in positions of power in both the government and the military. After Khatib left the defense companies, we lost track of him for a year. There were rumors he was attached to Air Force intelligence, which handles terrorist liaison: recruitment, training, supply, that sort of thing.”
“Is that significant?” asked the president
“Maybe, if it’s true. Like his father, Bashar Assad has always placed someone from his inner circle in those kinds of roles. It could have been nothing more than a career builder. At any rate, wherever Khatib was, he’s in the desert now.”
The president said, “So, bottom line?”
Mason paused. His boss wanted a prediction. Like most laypeople, the president didn’t recognize the difference between capabilities and intentions. In the intelligence community the rule was: Never talk about intentions; talk about capabilities. Talk about what the enemy can do if he decides to do it. Intentions were, after all, products of the human brain, which is an unpredictable organ at best
Mason smiled, spread his hands. “Syria is conducting a military exercise.”
The president smiled. “Okay. Jim, any statements from Syria?”
“No, Mr. President”
“Let’s let ’em know we’re curious. Have State handle it and do it quick, before the Israelis get nervous. Dick, your boys will be paying close attention, I assume?”
“We’ve retasked the bird to include the exercise area in the Golan sweep.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“One thing, sir. SYMMETRY.”
“The Beirut operation.”
“Yes.” Mason briefly explained their loss of Marcus.
“Damn it! How in hell does something like this happen!”
“It just does, sir. Not often, but it does happen. Especially in Beirut”
“So I’ve heard. What are we doing?”
“We’ve ordered the network to go quiet and we’re working the product. Maybe Marcus was onto something we missed. Also, we’re checking OpSec—”
“OpSec?” asked Talbot.
“Operational security. That includes all the communication and cover procedures we had in place: dead letter drops, safe-call locations. As far as who took him, we’re stumped. No ransom, no body… nothing. No one is taking credit for it, either. That worries me. Usually, they can’t wait to let the world know they’ve snatched someone.”
“Suppose this isn’t a routine kidnapping. Suppose somebody took him for a reason,” Talbot said. “What then?”
“If they’ve got him, he will talk. How long he holds out is the only question.”
“And the network?”
“We’d have to assume it’s blown.”
The president took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Dick, we’ve got a lot riding on this thing — on that whole damned region — and SYMMETRY is part of the big picture. You know that.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Then fix it, Dick. Whatever it takes, fix it.”
7
If polled, any pilot, military or civilian would ran takeoff and landing as the worst times for an in-flight emergency. These are times when the plane and its crew are performing their most complex functions, from braking to throttle adjustments to glide-path trimming. It’s also the time when aircraft is most vulnerable, those moments when it’s poised between being a 125-ton aircraft and a lumbering 125-ton bus with wings.
A former Thud driver in Vietnam, Carl Hotchkins was a seventeen-year veteran of the airline industry, the last five of which he’d spent in aircraft just like this 737. Today he was carrying 104 passengers, most returning from vacation in Kingston, Jamaica, and Orlando, Florida.
Crossing the runway threshold at 120 feet, Hotchkins was easing back on the throttle when the explosion came. In the cockpit it sounded like a dull crump, but Hotchkins instinctively knew what it was.
The blast had ripped a hole in the aluminum fuselage just below and aft of the port wing. Fire and shrapnel tore into the passenger cabin, most of it directed upward, but some of it engulfing the passengers on the right side of the aisle. Those opposite them tumbled, still buckled into their seats, through the gaping hole. At the wing root, shrapnel ripped open a pair of fluid lines, both of which immediately began gushing.
Hotchkins reacted instantly. Even as the 737 heeled over, he throttled down and punched a button that immediately sealed the fuel system. With his airspeed dropping rapidly, the landing gear down, and less than sixty feet of air between them and the Tarmac, his first concern was leveling the aircraft. If he could do that, the 737 could almost drop out of the sky, and they’d still have a fair chance of survival.
“Tower, this is Delta nineteen alpha declaring emergency,” Hotchkins radioed.
“Roger, Delta, we see you. Emergency crews rolling. Luck.”
Hotchkins switched to intercom. “Flight crew, prepare for emergency landing.”
“Fuel leak, Carl, port side system,” called the copilot. “Hydraulic malfunction, port side system. The wing took most of it.”
“Yeah,” Hotchkins grunted, struggling with the yoke. “Altitude?”
“Fifty feet… coming level.”
“More flap. Landing gear?”
“Starboard and nose are down and locked…. Shit! Port side’s shows half.”
“Right,” Hotchkins said, and thought: Gotta assume we’re streaming fuel. One spark and we’re gone. And they were going to spark when mat gear collapsed.
The Tarmac loomed before the windshield. Forty feet, Hotchkins judged — ten seconds. Out the side window, he glimpsed fire trucks racing down the opposite runway, their lights flashing and sirens warbling.
“We’re still losing fuel,” said the copilot.
That decided it. Their best chance was to lay the wing into the grassy median; if the gear held, good, but if not, the ploy might just keep the wing off the concrete.