“My apologies for what happened,” Moncrieff replied. “I know how frustrating it has been for you.” He waited until Qaddafi nodded, then hurried to the elevator. At the base of the tower a waiting jeep whisked him across the airfield.
A DC-9, sporting the Saudi royal family coat of arms on the tail, touched down on the west runway and was directed by air traffic control to the military helicopter port. Two royal bodyguards deplaned, joining Moncrieff, who led the way to a Libyan Air Force helicopter. The Soviet-made Mi-8 lifted off and set a course for Al Fatah University Hospital.
At about the same time, a battered van came down University Road in the Al Fatah district and turned into a people’s shopping precinct. It stopped in front of a market where the nurse who had been caring for Katifa was waiting. He got into the van, joining a two-man PLO hit squad, and directed them the short distance to the hospital.
When reporting Katifa’s survival, he had withheld her whereabouts, insisting they meet in Tripoli, at which time he would reveal it in exchange for money.
“She’s in room three seventeen,” the nurse said as they pulled into the parking lot. “But there are…” Before he could finish, one Palestinian had a handful of his hair, the other a knife to his throat.
“Wait, wait,” he blurted as the blade nicked his flesh, sending a drop of blood along the edge of polished steel. “You can’t get to her without me.”
The Palestinians hesitated; they had planned to kill him and keep the money for themselves.
“There are bodyguards — two — outside her room,” the nurse went on, shrinking from the blade. “They’re heavily armed; but I can get—”
“You’re going to get us past them?” the Palestinian with the knife interrupted sarcastically.
“No, no, I can get her past them. I’m her nurse. I will bring her to you. I will bring her right here.”
The Palestinians exchanged looks, clearly pleased at the development, and released him. “Go,” the driver said, throwing open the van door.
“My money, please,” the nurse said nervously, edging toward the door.
“When we have her,” the one with the knife retorted, snapping the blade closed.
“I would have to be a fool to agree to that.”
The driver removed a packet of bills from his jacket and grudgingly gave him half of it.
The nurse pocketed the fistful of cash and hurried across the parking lot in the darkness to the emergency entrance. He put the money in his locker and slipped into a lab coat, then went to the administrative offices.
In Libya, medical care, like education and housing, is fully covered by the government and there was no bill to be paid. The clerk knew Katifa was being discharged that evening and her release papers were ready for her signature. The nurse picked them up and took the elevator to the third floor.
Katifa had shed her hospital gown and robe in favor of jeans, turtleneck, and jacket. She was putting her few personal belongings into a bag when the nurse entered pushing a wheelchair.
“Ah, good, you’re ready,” he said, presenting her with the papers and a pen.
“Is it time?” Katifa asked, puzzled, as she signed them. “I didn’t hear the helicopter.”
“You’re going to the airport by van.”
“Are you sure? Moncrieff said a helicopter.”
“There must have been a change of plans. He’s waiting for you in the parking lot with a van,” the nurse replied coolly as Katifa limped to the wheelchair. He helped her into it, slung the strap of her bag over his shoulder, and rolled her to the elevator.
One of the guards accompanied them to the ground floor, where they exited into a lobby area. “Would you take these to administration?” the nurse asked, handing him the release papers. As the guard strode off, the nurse wheeled Katifa down a corridor that led directly to the parking lot. The doors opened automatically and he continued through them without breaking stride, pushing the wheelchair into the night.
Katifa was looking about anxiously for Moncrieff when the Palestinians emerged from the darkness. She gasped at the sight of them, her hand tightening on the pistol in her jacket. She had the element of surprise and decided to keep it, waiting until they were at point blank range before squeezing the trigger. The bullet caught one of the Palestinians in the center of his chest, knocking him back against the van. The other recoiled in surprise, his eyes darting to the smoking hole in the pocket of Katifa’s jacket. He was armed but hesitated an instant before drawing his pistol; not because he had qualms about killing her but because Abu Nidal had ordered otherwise, and the weapon in his hand was a pentothal-filled syringe.
Nidal hadn’t sent them to kill Katifa but to bring her back to Beirut. Despite her apparent disloyalty, she had written Intifada, had fought long and hard for the Palestinian cause; and as her adoptive father, Nidal wanted to hear her side before taking extreme measures. At the least, he would learn what position others who had attended the fateful meeting at Assad’s villa in Damascus had taken.
The Palestinian hesitated no more than a second or two, but it was long enough for Katifa to pull the trigger again. He fell to the ground mortally wounded and lay motionless next to his colleague. The syringe dropped from his hand and went rolling across the macadam. Katifa glanced behind her for the nurse, but he had run when the first shot rang out and was long gone. She was getting out of the wheelchair when she heard the rising whomp of the helicopter.
It came in over the hospital at a steep angle and landed in a designated area in a corner of the parking lot. Moncrieff and the two Saudi bodyguards were coming down the steps when Katifa limped into the helicopter’s headlights.
“Hit squad,” she called out over the rotors.
Both bodyguards produced Uzi machine guns from beneath their jackets and secured the area while Moncrieff helped her up the steps into the helicopter.
Fifteen minutes later they were at Okba ben Nafi Air Base. Moncrieff settled Katifa in the elegant compartment aft of the cockpit as the Royal DC-9 began rolling down the long runway. It lifted off and banked sharply to the east, coming onto a heading for the Arabian peninsula.
The whine of the jet’s turbofans was a perfect match to the chilling scream that echoed through the prison beneath the Bab al Azziziya Barracks. It wasn’t a short, sudden outburst born of fright, but a prolonged, desperate bellow of excruciating pain.
The Palestinian lay naked on the floor in a corner of a pitch-black cell. He was curled in a fetal position to protect his face and genitalia from further assault by his cellmates — cellmates ordered placed there by Abdel-Hadi, who knew that the solid steel door, which kept the light out, would also keep the hungry rats in.
The young terrorist shivered with fear, listening to them scurrying about in the darkness. Soon, the scratch of claws on concrete quickened. He swept a hand blindly across the floor, batting away the vile attacker; he smacked it aside again and again, until he finally clamped his fist tightly around the snarling rodent’s torso. The frantic animal dug its claws into his palm trying to get loose. He smashed it against the floor repeatedly, until blood oozed between his fingers and the crunch of bones had become a pulpy thump. He had just tossed the limp carcass aside when he felt a stabbing pain in his buttock. Razor-sharp teeth tore loose a piece of his flesh and the snarling rat scurried off with its prize as another chilling scream echoed through the prison.
Abdel-Hadi was still smarting from Qaddafi’s reprimand when he arrived at the barracks compound. He went directly to the prison and entered an interrogation chamber where a guard was waiting.