The Marada Base, which was actually 120 kilometres from Marada, was difficult to pick out as they neared it. The only visible signs were the small concrete bunkers containing antiaircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles, and radar and radio antenna complexes, along with the single wide and long runway. The runway was finished in camouflage colours that matched the desert surrounding it, but al-Qati was certain that America and Europe knew exactly where it was as a result of their satellite surveillance.
The base was not hidden, but it was protected.
Marada Base was underground.
From the runway, the taxiways led to slanted ramps that allowed the aircraft to descend some twenty meters below ground level. They were parked in caverns protected by blast-resistant doors and hardened steel-and-concrete roofs covered with many kilotons of sand.
Al-Qati had toured the facility once, and he knew that the Libyan Republic Air Force had deployed to the base its twelve Sukhoi bombers, as well as two squadrons of MiG-23 interceptors and MiG-27 strike aircraft.
His driver pulled directly onto a taxiway, scooted across it, and followed the ramp downward to pass through the huge doorway created by the shunting aside of the thick steel sliding doors.
He braked to a stop next to what, after his briefing, al-Qati now very well knew was a Sukhoi bomber. The driver pointed to a doorway in a concrete wall.
“The headquarters is through that door, Colonel.”
“Thank you.”
He climbed down from the truck, taking his canvas carryall with him. Compared to being in the direct sun on the desert floor, it felt relatively cool, inside the hangar. Banks of fluorescent lights bathed the bunker in non-glare light. A large contingent of specialists of one kind or another moved among the four fighter-bombers in this hangar, performing maintenance chores.
Moving to the steel-clad door, he pulled it open and entered a hallway. There was a rudimentary air-conditioning system in use, and the corridor was perhaps ten degrees cooler than the hangar.
Halfway down the hallway, he found the operations room, peopled with air controllers and radar operators. Next to it, set off by a window wall, was Ramad’s office. Al-Qati left his bag in the hall, crossed the operations centre, and knocked on the glass door.
Colonel Ibrahim Ramad was at his desk, his head bent low over the papers spread across it. Al-Qati thought the man was probably a bit near-sighted, but too vain to acknowledge the deficiency. He was, to be kind, portly. His waist approximated his chest in circumference. His uniform, though crisp, did not seem to fit him well.
Ramad’s face was moon-shaped, and he wore a moustache and goatee in the attempt to elongate it. The hair on his face and on his head was thin and brown. His nose was hooked and dominant, and his eyes were brown, but in the right light, appeared to flame with redness and lack of sleep.
Upon hearing his knock, Ramad looked up, smiled, and waved him in. He stood up to come around his desk and embraced al-Qati as if they were long-lost brethren. Or even friends.
“Ahmed, it is good to see you.”
“As it is to see you, Colonel.”
“Nonsense! I congratulate you on your well-earned promotion, and you must call me Ibrahim.”
Al-Qati nodded his thanks.
“I have, naturally, been notified that we will work together to coordinate air and ground movements, and I am excited at the prospects.”
“As am I,” al-Qati lied.
“Come. I must show you what we have, and then we will find a room for you. Tonight, you will meet my staff officers at dinner.”
Ramad led him back out of the operations room, back down the corridor, and back into the hangar. Crossing the floor between the aircraft, they reached yet another steel door — this one some two meters wide — in the back of the hangar.
On the other side of it was another corridor. It was five meters wide and four meters tall. On the right, it was dead-ended. Spaced along the opposite wall were more doors. On al-Qati’s left, it seemed to go on forever, the walls narrowing with perspective, and the end a pinpoint never to be reached.
“This leads to the factory,” Ramad said, “twenty kilometres away.”
“An amazing achievement,” al-Qati said and meant.
“All open excavation work was accomplished at night, so that surveillance satellites would not detect the activity. I am very proud of what we have accomplished.”
“As well you should be, Ibrahim. Why did you make it so large?”
“We have electric-powered transports, and the tunnel had to be wide enough to allow them to pass each other. Otherwise, we would get bottlenecks.”
“I understand. It is well-done.”
“Come.”
Ramad crossed the tunnel to another wide steel door imprinted with Arabic lettering: “Entrance denied to non-authorized persons.”
He produced a key and unlocked one of the double doors.
They stepped inside.
Ramad turned on overhead lights.
It was a large room, dismal in its concrete finish. The air carried a sour odour.
Around its perimeter, resting on wheeled cradles, were dome-nosed canisters.
Al-Qati recognized the yellow skull-and-crossbones symbol stencilled on them.
He stepped close to the nearest canister and read the legend: “Poison Gaseous Elements. Extremely Hazardous. Move with Extreme Caution.”
“Are they not lovely?” Ramad asked him.
Five
After five days, they were settled into the routine that was necessary to accomplish the job, They were up by five, had breakfasted at the Rancher’s Cafe and Lounge on pork sausages, bacon, eggs, pancakes, waffles, wheat toast, muffins, hash browns, orange juice, and gallons of coffee, and carrying their large boxes of lunch, were ensconced in the hangars by six. At seven or eight o’clock at night, they trooped back into the Rancher’s Cafe to order stacks of hamburgers, or steaks, or chicken, or veal cutlets surrounded by baked potatoes, homemade fries, and Texas toast. Not many in Wyatt’s work force were fans of green peas, com, or broccoli. Max Jorgenson doubled his order with the Budweiser route delivery truck. When they came in at night, they were sweaty and tired and ragged, and most ambitions were aimed at showers and clean sheets.
Bucky Barr was getting to know Julie Jorgenson well. She wasn’t nervous around him anymore, and after they had eaten, she would sit with him and talk about her life in Ainsworth, her hopes, and her dreams. Barr was a good listener.
Out at the old bomber base, the locals who hung around the airport office had become accustomed to having them down the way, and if they were still curious, were polite enough to not press inquiries into the activities at Hangars Four and Five.
The Cessna Citation and the Aeroconsultants C-130 were parked in front of the hangars, and their thin blue fuselage stripes had disappeared, replaced by two parallel and wider, bright scarlet stripes that zipped along the fuselages, then swooped at a steep angle up the vertical stabilizer. The Noble Enterprises logos on the tails were also in red. The Hercules tanker was parked next to them, but it still wore its Air Force uniform.
Bucky Barr was in charge of decorations for this party, and he had made certain that the red stripes and logos, on adhesive-backed tape, were perfectly aligned and straight.
And after five days, the six F-4 Phantoms were simply shells parked in Hangar Four. Norm Hackley, Karl Gettman, Ben Borman, and Lucas Littlefield had climbed through and around them with air-powered die grinders, attacking any serial number they came across, burnishing it into near-oblivion. A number of fuselage and wing panels had been removed, also, in order to access hidden numbers identified by Demion as requiring obliteration. Exposing the interior ribs also gave Demion a chance to evaluate the structural members. Because of the high hours on all of the airframes, there were a few stress fractures, and Demion and the airframe technicians designed reinforcement repairs.