General Younis lit another cigarette and went outside to see the fast-moving, aerodynamic shapes emerging from the darkness; then, in an eyeblink, two fully armed United States Air Force F-111 attack bombers touched down and roared past in a startling blur.
Younis smiled, nodding to personnel who began rolling back the huge sliding doors. Soon the black needlenose of an F-111 stabbed into the hangar, followed by a second.
Libyan Air Force maintenance and ground crew personnel were waiting for them. They rolled ladders up to the cockpits the instant both bombers were safely inside. Larkin and Applegate popped the canopies and climbed down the ladders, followed by the Special Forces aviators who had acted as their wizzos. Each carried a small gym bag that contained civilian clothes.
“They’re all yours, General,” Larkin said to Younis, who came forward to greet them.
“You have brought ANITA with you?” the general asked, referring to the Pave Tack programming key.
“On the sub,” Larkin replied, not too exhausted to share a little smile with Applegate. “I’ll turn them over to Moncrieff soon as the hostages are aboard.”
Younis grunted, led the way to the command post office, and placed a call to Qaddafi at his quarters in Hun. While the general reported the good news, an aide went to another phone, dialed, and handed it to Larkin.
In Tripoli harbor, on a desolate wharf where the hostages would be released, Saddam Moncrieff and Katifa Issa Kharuz stood in the darkness, scanning the expanse of choppy water.
That morning they had boarded a regularly scheduled Middle East Airlines flight in Beirut, arriving in Tripoli just before noon. They had spent the remainder of the day at the Bab al Azziziya Barracks, going over details of the exchange with Younis and other members of Qaddafi’s military staff.
Now, as a steady breeze blew across the harbor, Moncrieff and Katifa waited. Soon, two vessels — the Cavalla and Abu Nidal’s gunboat, which was delivering the hostages — would emerge from the foggy blackness and tie up on opposite sides of the narrow wharf; the hostages would walk the short distance between them. They had just spotted the gunboat’s running lights streaking toward the wharf when the radiophone that Moncrieff was carrying twittered.
“Yes?” he answered in Arabic.
“Moncrieff, it’s Larkin,” the colonel said, the exhaustion evident in his voice. “We’re here.”
“So are the hostages,” the Saudi replied, watching the gunboat making its way between two Libyan Navy patrol boats stationed in the harbor.
“Thank God,” Larkin replied. “What about the Cavalla?”
Moncrieff glanced to the other side of the wharf.
The immense submarine was lurking just beneath the brackish water. Duryea had taken advantage of the fact that Tripoli harbor has some of the highest tides in the world, and moments earlier had quietly slipped into position at periscope/antenna depth. Only the upper head of the boat’s main scope was visible. The command center had switched from redlight to blacklight — a condition of total darkness broken only by the dim glow of essential instrumentation — which dilated Duryea’s pupils, maximizing his night vision.
The lanky skipper had his face pressed to the eyepiece of the periscope, panning it slowly as he tracked the gunboat across the harbor.
“Take her up,” he ordered as the vessel reached the end of the wharf and began pulling into position.
The black water erupted into a tumultuous bubbling as the football-field-long hull began rising.
“Colonel? Cavalla just broke the surface,” Moncrieff reported as water cascaded off the sub’s sail. “It’ll be good to see you.”
“Tell me about it,” Larkin said. “On our way.”
Larkin, Applegate, and the two Special Forces aviators quickly exchanged their helmets and flight suits for the civilian clothing in their gym bags in order to maintain the cover scenario Larkin had given Duryea. Then the group piled into an unmarked Libyan Air Force helicopter that wasted no time in lifting off and heading for Tripoli harbor.
In Beirut, on the sixth floor of the Turk Hospital, Abu Nidal’s physician sat in his office studying a lab report. It baffled him, as had the previous one — which had prompted his order that the test be repeated. His notorious patient’s health was an all-consuming concern and he had waited anxiously for the results. He pondered their implication, then headed down the corridor to one of the VIP suites in the private clinic.
Despite the late hour, Abu Nidal sat propped up against the pillows in his bed, reading reports from terrorist groups around the world that were faxed to Casino du Liban and delivered to the suite daily.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Better. Much better,” Nidal replied, delighted at his progress. “It’s like a miracle.”
“No, it’s called insulin,” the doctor said with a smile, shaking a finger at his patient admonishingly. “All you have to do is take it regularly.”
Abu Nidal’s brow furrowed. “I was taking it.”
“Certainly not as prescribed.”
“Yes, of course,” Nidal said adamantly.
“You’re positive?”
“Yes, yes, absolutely positive. Why?”
“Well,” the doctor replied, clearly baffled, “your blood workup found no evidence of it.”
“None?”
“That’s correct. I ran the tests twice just to be certain. I know it sounds odd but it was as if you hadn’t been taking any at all.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I just started a fresh supply.”
“I’d very much like to see one of those vials.”
“I’ll arrange for it right now,” Nidal said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion at an upsetting notion that struck him. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, lifted the phone, and dialed. “Mobile operator, please.”
In Tripoli harbor, the breeze had died and a taut stillness prevailed. The two vessels flanked the wharf.
Duryea stood on the Cavalla’s deck. The team of navy SEALs armed with AR-16 assault rifles was deployed around him.
Directly opposite, heavily armed PLO terrorists, faces concealed by checkered kaffiyehs, lined the rail of the gunboat. The canvas shroud had been peeled from the 14-mm deck gun, which was loaded and manned.
Moncrieff stood alone on the wharf between the two vessels. His nerves crackled with tension as he watched Katifa walk up a gangway onto the gunboat’s deck and disappear into the cabin.
Moments later she emerged, leading the hostages. They paraded behind her like a line of obedient schoolboys, uncertain as to their fate.
They were all men — faces gaunt from malnutrition and anxiety; pale from months — and, for some, years—of confinement in darkness. Seven men with atrophied muscles and minds who had been deprived of life’s sweetness, their hope destroyed by the fear of being forever lost to the forces of political extremism and religious fanaticism. They stood there timidly, heads bowed, staring blankly into the night.
They were close, so close, Duryea thought, as he watched the deckhands roll a gangway into position. So close he could almost touch them. His eyes caught Fitzgerald’s and he smiled, nodding reassuringly.
The haggard station chief was just committing his heart to the scenario, just starting to believe that he and the others were actually being released, when the ship-to-shore phone in the cabin behind him buzzed, shattering the tense silence.
It was Abu Nidal calling.
The gunboat captain’s eyes filled with panic as they spoke. The instant he hung up, he began shouting in frenzied Arabic at the terrorists on deck. They sprang into action, descending en masse upon the group of hostages, and began roughly pushing and shoving them back into the cabin.