Katifa recoiled as they tumbled past her to the floor, fighting for control of the knife.
Hasan came out on top and tried to plunge the knife into Moncrieff s chest. The Saudi had both hands wrapped tightly around Hasan’s wrist, holding it off. Gradually, Moncrieff twisted it around until the point of the blade was facing Hasan. Moncrieff bent a knee, getting a foot under him for leverage, and tried to roll Hasan over. But the Palestinian’s elbow was planted firmly on the floor, securing his position.
Katifa slipped a bare foot behind Hasan’s elbow. He sensed what she was about to do and flicked her a horrified glance. Her face turned to stone. She kicked his arm out from under him. The tremendous pressure Hasan was exerting propelled him suddenly downward. The knife pierced his chest to the hilt.
Moncrieff pushed Hasan’s body aside, staggered to his feet, and studied her for a moment, then broke into a thin smile.
“I know,” Katifa said. “My father would have been proud of me.”
11
The snow-dotted hills of Scotland’s Southern Uplands lay basking in the warmth of a spring morning. Billions of water droplets, swelling until they could no longer cling to the basalt ledges, began plunging to the earth. Soon, a gentle gurgle rose, increasing gradually to a throaty roar as the rivulets formed streams that rushed across the moors. Finally, as they had for millennia past, they came together with thundering fury in a breathtaking cascade at the Falls of Clyde.
From there, the River Clyde flowed northward past Glasgow to the coastal Firth, where vessels steamed south toward the Irish Sea and English Channel, or north into the Atlantic Ocean and Norwegian Sea.
Centuries ago, this access to major sea routes spawned Glasgow’s legendary shipyards. More recently, it led the United States Navy to select Holy Loch on the west bank of the Clyde as a submarine base.
The USS Cavalla, a Sturgeon-class hunter-killer submarine, was stationed there. Assigned to an ongoing top-secret CIA covert action program, the Cavalla was outfitted with a hull-mounted dry deck shelter. The DDS housed a submersible vessel used to deploy the team of navy SEALs who were part of the crew. This highly trained and motivated special warfare unit was skilled in demolition, assassination, and counterinsurgency techniques.
Commander Christian Duryea was the Cavalla’s skipper. As a youth, the lanky, blue-eyed son of a New York City fireman dreamed of being a navy pilot; and he was well on his way the day the acceptance letter from Annapolis came. It was during his second year at the academy when he first noticed his vision had deteriorated.
“Twenty-sixty in both eyes, son,” the optometrist said a few days later, confirming that Chris would never fly military aircraft. “I’m sorry.”
Chris Duryea quickly decided that next to dogfighting, skippering a sub was the most autonomous command the navy offered.
Now, almost twenty years later, he was hovering over his chart table when a cable was delivered to the command center. His eyes went right to the Z prefix, which denoted FLASH priority.
Z172608ZAPR
TOP SECRET
FM: KUBARK
TO: USS CAVALLA
RE: REDEPLOYMENT
AF COLONEL RICHARD LARKIN ARRIVING 9APR. WILL CONDUCT MISSION BRIEFING. CITE DIRECTOR.
Duryea tugged thoughtfully at an earlobe. Orders usually came via COMSUBLANT, commander of the submarine force in the Atlantic. CITE DIRECTOR meant they had come directly from the DCI. Something big was in the works.
“That’s tomorrow,” Duryea said to Lieutenant McBride, his executive officer. “Better juice the crew.”
The morning after acquiring the F-111s, Larkin boarded a flight at Upper Heyford for Holy Loch. The plane headed northwest over the English countryside to Scotland, arriving at the submarine base just over an hour later. A Royal Navy hovercraft was waiting. The powerful vessel rose up haughtily on its cushion of air, slid down the ramp into the Clyde’s oily waters, and whisked him across the immense loch. In less than fifteen minutes it was approaching the concrete refitting pier where the USS Cavalla was berthed.
Larkin stepped ashore, carrying a slim aluminum attaché case. He strode beneath the towering cranes used to lower ICBMs into submarine missile hatches and went up the gangway, boarding the Cavalla.
A brisk wind came up as Duryea greeted him and led the way down into the command center. “Where we headed?” he asked offhandedly as they came off the ladder.
“Tripoli,” Larkin replied flatly.
Duryea’s brows went up. “Don’t stop now, Colonel,” he prompted, intrigued as Larkin knew he would be.
The colonel used the DCI’s cover story to explain the mission: the hostages had been shrewdly hidden in Libya. CIA had found and rescued them. The air strike was a diversion to get them out — on the Cavalla.
“Why not fly them out?” Duryea wondered.
“One Stinger and it’s all over,” Larkin replied, referring to the shoulder-mounted mobile missile launcher favored by terrorist groups. He explained that the Cavalla would ferry the hostages to the USS America, an aircraft carrier based in the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet. “We’re talking need-to-know rules, Commander. Nobody, not Sixth Fleet, Third Air, or Cinclant, knows about this yet,” he concluded, the latter an acronym for commander in chief of the Atlantic. “If word got out and it went bust—”
“I understand, Colonel.”
“Good. Only after we have the hostages aboard, and only then, will the America be notified. By the time we rendezvous, teams of physicians and psychologists will have been flown in to care for them.”
Duryea broke into a broad smile, pleased to have the challenge, and went to the electronic chart table, a large horizontal television screen linked to the boat’s powerful BC-10 computer. An inventory of surface and undersea charts were stored in its superfast bubble memory. He encoded at the terminal and a highly detailed chart of Tripoli harbor appeared on the screen.
“Right there,” Larkin said, indicating a desolate wharf near the Old City. “That’s the rendezvous point. The air strike will be keyed to your schedule. I need a guaranteed ETA.”
“Five days would be realistic.”
“The night of the fourteenth?” Duryea nodded.
“What about Redfleet surveillance?”
“My specialty.” Duryea was a genius at playing underwater hide-and-seek with his Soviet counterparts. It was the one source of pride his humble nature couldn’t suppress. “We’ll be there.”
“So will I,” Larkin replied smartly, handing him the attaché he’d brought. It contained ANITA, the key essential to programming Pave Tack computers. “Keep this in your safe. I’ll need it when we rendezvous in Tripoli.”
“You’re going in?” Duryea asked, surprised.
“Four of us. We’ll be leaving with you.”
“I can’t promise you a room with a view,” Duryea joked, shaking Larkin’s hand. “Good luck, Colonel.”
Larkin went to the communications room and sent a cable to Kiley confirming 14 April as the date for the air strike, then left the submarine.
“Cast off,” Duryea ordered in a soft, firm voice.
The departing hovercraft was still on the horizon when the Cavalla’s deck crew cut loose the hausers that had kept her lashed to the refitting pier. A stiff breeze tore at the lookouts standing on the hydroplanes on either side of the sail. Both wore safety harnesses cabled to the hull as they leaned into field glasses scanning the expanse of green-black water.