There was no doubt.
He looked at his men poking through the wreckage. "Got the briefcases?"
He got their answer, then signaled for the Nighthawk to pick up the search team.
Chapter Thirty
The director steepled his fingers under his chin. "That's a pretty strong accusation you're making."
Gereg towered over the other three people arranged around the chair the director still occupied and she didn't react to the comment he directed at her.
"There are girls missing," Parker stepped in. "Girls kidnapped by the men that were just killed. They're the priority."
"Whatever Mr. Jawhar and Mr. Akil have been up to," Hancock said, "they no longer are a threat. My team has taken care of that."
"Very convenient," Parker snapped.
"Listen, Colonel—" Hancock began, but he was interrupted by a loud curse coming from the front of the operations center.
Dilken came rushing up. "It's not them. In the chopper. It's not Jawhar and Akil. And the VZ cases aren't there. Just a small dispenser."
There were a few seconds of silence as everyone digested that information.
"Looks like things haven't worked like you planned," Parker said, breaking the silence. "You've been double-crossed."
"We have to find the VZ." Gereg turned to Dilken. "Get the KH-14 and AWACS to backtrack to the airport that chopper took off from. Trace every flight that's taken off from there."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Wait a second—" Hancock began, but the director's sharp voice cut him off.
"Enough. Gereg, you're in charge. Mr. Hancock, you are relieved of your position until further notice." The director slapped his hand on the arm of the chair. "Find that nerve gas, Ms. Gereg. I have to inform the President."
There was always a Boeing E-3A Sentry AWACS on duty over the Balkans. A new model based on the 767 airframe was entering the system, but the current plane on duty was the venerable one based on the Boeing 707 airframe, painted dull gray with a thirty-foot-diameter radome piggybacked on top.
Using the radar inside the dome, the crew inside could paint an accurate picture of the sky for two hundred miles in every direction. Ever since the U.S. Secretary of Commerce had been killed in bad weather visiting the region, the workload for the AWACS had gone up considerably. The plane was the air traffic controller for all NATO flights in the region, from aircraft bringing in supplies to Sarajevo's main airport, to helicopters conducting local reconnaissance.
Coordinating with a KH-14 spy satellite, Lieutenant Jack Boorstin had tracked the helicopter thought to contain the two Saudis at the request of the CIA. Now, at the CIA's request, Boorstin was doing another search, backtracking through the tapes, to see if any other aircraft had taken off from the same airfield as the helicopter.
It took less than a minute and a half. Boorstin keyed his mike and his message was relayed back to the Direct Action operations center at Langley.
"I've got a fixed-wing aircraft that took off from Budapest twenty minutes after the chopper," Boorstin reported.
A new voice came over the radio. "This is Kim Gereg, Central Intelligence Agency director of Operations. Where is that aircraft headed?"
Boorstin reached up with a stylus and traced the path the craft had followed, south across Romania, over Bulgaria and Turkey to its current location over the Mediterranean just southwest of Cyprus, heading southeast. "Middle East somewhere. Maybe Egypt. If it continues past there, then it will be over the Red Sea, which gives us the Sudan or Saudi Arabia as options."
"They're going home with the VZ." Gereg was watching the electronic screen where a new red dot had just appeared over the Mediterranean. Parker felt helpless watching the symbol move across the screen. Hancock had left the operations center shortly after the director, and neither Gereg nor Parker had the time or the inclination right now to find out where he had gone.
"We could contact the Israelis," Dilken suggested. "They could scramble some jets and take the plane down."
"How fast is the plane moving?" Parker asked.
Dilken relayed that question to Boorstin.
"It's a jet — got to be, at that speed — maybe a Lear," Boorstin's voice came over the speaker. "It's making about four hundred miles an hour."
"Jawhar's personal jet is Learjet 35A," Dilken added. "It's flagged as a Saudi air force jet."
Parker knew what that meant. "We shoot it down, we're committing an act of war."
Gereg nodded. "And we might make the same mistake. What if they aren't on board that plane either? And even more important than making sure we get Jawhar and Akil is making sure we get the VZ. We've got to be one hundred percent certain we've interdicted the nerve gas."
"There's only one way to do that," Parker said.
Gereg nodded. "I'll inform the director once we have an option. He'll have to get sanction for us to do anything." She claimed Hancock's seat. "What about the DAT?"
"Still on the ground," Dilken said. "They'd have to reboard their choppers, head out to the Nimitz and then take a flight from there to the Italian mainland to get a flight capable of transporting them and their gear to wherever the plane is going."
Gereg swiveled to face Colonel Giles. "What about your Delta Force team in Tel Aviv?"
"They should be ready to go wheels up," Giles said. He glanced at his watch. "If that plane is making for a landing somewhere in Saudi, it will do so just after dark. Our people — already closer — can be overhead as they land. Perfect time for a strike."
"U.S. Military forces assaulting an objective inside of Saudi Arabia?" Dilken was aghast. At least he appeared to be. Parker wondered how much allegiance he still owed to Hancock.
"Thorpe is in Tel Aviv," Parker said. "We need to get him up to speed on what is going on."
"Do it," Gereg ordered. "Have him hook up with the Delta Force team."
"That will clue in the Mossad!" Dilken objected.
"Get the Delta team in the air," Gereg ordered. "At least the director will be able to give the President an option."
Thorpe turned off his SATPhone and turned to stare at Rotzinger. "You were in on it with Hancock, weren't you?"
"What are—" Rotzinger began, but Thorpe cut him off.
"The mission to interdict the VZ failed. It's believed that the two brothers and the VZ are on a Learjet currently over the Mediterranean, heading for Saudi Arabia."
"That cannot be!" Rotzinger protested.
"But it is," Thorpe said. "It appears Jawhar and Akil are not playing their parts the way they were scripted. The Delta Force forward element will go airborne in twenty minutes. We're going to track the jet to its landing field and then interdict there."
"You cannot cross Prince Yasin," Rotzinger said. "He is too powerful."
"It's not Yasin we're going after," Thorpe said. "It's his two bastards. And I think they've already crossed him also."
The door to the room opened and Yaron walked in. He took the seat at the end of the table, steepled his fingers.
He waved a hand as Thorpe began to speak. "I know of the failure to interdict and the Learjet." He pointed a long finger at Rotzinger. "If I find out that you were part of the betrayal of my team in the Ukraine—" Yaron abruptly turned to Thorpe. "I have a car waiting to take you to the airfield. Please make sure you succeed or else we will have to take extreme action."
Chapter Thirty-one
Dublowski prowled about the Delta Force Ranch like a caged bear, thinking about the information Parker had relayed. Finally, he went into the electronics shack. He found Chief Warrant Officer Simpkins working over the innards of a computer.
Dublowski told the warrant officer what he wanted to do and, as he'd hoped, Simpkins had just the thing.