The colonel nodded. A steward approached with a tray. A cup full of strong Bedouin tea rattled on its dish. The colonel accepted the cup without comment and leaned back to sip the tea. He motioned for Major Samir to continue.
“Our friends in the east have kept their promise, Colonel. Earlier today North Korea staged an air attack against Seoul, and they have commenced massing their forces for an attack along the DMZ.”
“An attack that will never come,” the colonel added softly.
“Yes, sir, an attack that will never come. The Americans are confused.
Because of the North Koreans, the Americans are reviewing their options. Forces that could have been threatening our shores are still in America, waiting for a decision. The North Korean deception has worked as we expected.”
“Don’t forget, Major,” the colonel said, leaning forward to emphasize his statement. “The American warship violated our territorial waters and fired on our peaceful forces when we asked them to leave. Because of the war crimes of the USS Gearing, many wives weep and orphans cry in Libya.”
“Yes, sir,” the major answered, covering a cough with his hand. “Our agents monitoring the base at Fort Bragg in North Carolina will report if the super transports that have arrived take off.”
“How are their reports being transmitted, Major?” the colonel asked.
“How can we maintain communications with someone in America without being caught?”
“The Internet, Colonel. The Internet transcends all borders. No one watches it. We put a covert web site on the line and then, regardless of where our agents are, all they need is a laptop computer, a place to plug it in, and a search engine to find our home page. Once there, they can download their report, ask questions or receive instructions.
Granted, there is little security, and we get e-mails and orders from ordinary people who believe they have found a source for inexpensive vitamins. For those, we honor their business. For our agents, they provide the information we need, and once down loaded, we erase it from the web. So, a hacker, venturing into our web site, would have a very hard time discovering the true nature of the home page.”
“This is confusing, Major. I’ll take your word. Who else do we communicate with in this matter?”
“Colonel, every agent wherever they may be.”
“Enough! You’ve given me, once again, more information than I really need, Major.”
The major coughed slightly as he nervously played with the file cards containing his cues for the brief. He motioned to the computer operator managing the slide show. A second Power Point briefing slide faded onto the screen, replacing the previous map of North Africa with a map of Tunisia” and the surrounding border areas of Algeria and Libya.
“Colonel, Algeria has moved several battalions of its revolutionary volunteers to the border with Tunisia, including two companies of tanks backed by two mechanized infantry units. The Algerian Liberation Front government has grounded its Air Force for the past twelve hours to prepare for the attack; with the exception of certain helicopters involved in the search for Alneuf. Two hours ago they reported their Air Force ready for event zero two zero.”
The major took a swallow from a nearby water bottle. “Our side of the border with Tunisia is not accurately represented here, Colonel. We have moved a tank battalion and two mechanized infantry companies to the Tunisian border. They are in place. The map reflects only one mechanized infantry unit. Two SU-20 ground-attack squadrons are fueled and armed. Air protection is to be provided by Mig-25s out of Tripoli.
Helicopters with Army Special Forces landed inside Tunisia late last night and await our signal.”
The major cleared his dry throat, but before he could continue the colonel asked, “How is Tripoli Airfield? Is it operational? Tell me again.”
“Sir, we lost the TU-20 and three Mig-25s to the Italian F 16s, but airfield damage was minuscule and easily repaired. The repair by our engineers took less than two hours.”
“Good.”
“Yes, sir, SU-20s were approaching the landing pattern when the Italian fighters attacked, but were safely vectored south.”
The colonel leaned forward and stared directly into the intelligence officer’s eyes. “Tell me, Major. I seem to remember you telling me that it would take the Italians, and the Greeks, a minimum of forty-eight hours to respond to our attacks. Forty-eight hours to prepare for any retaliatory strikes. Instead, we have four Italian fighters attacking our air base immediately after we attacked Sigonella, Sicily, and we have Greek aircraft shooting our aircraft down even as they bombed Souda Bay, Crete! Where was this incompetence that I was promised?”
“Yes, sir, I understand. We did not expect the Italians to pursue our force, nor for the Greeks to be this prepared. It is not in their natures to go on the offensive. Our analysis indicated that if our aircraft encountered any resistance, it would be against the vintage Italian Tornado fighters. We were amazed when the Italians committed their new F-16 fighters to an attack over Libyan soil.”
“Amazed? You think we were amazed? No, Major, we weren’t amazed; we were surprised! We were caught with our pants down. We looked stupid. Because of intelligence, because of you, we failed to have interceptors up or air-defense units at maximum readiness. Well, scratch another one for the intelligence community, Major.”
“I apologize, Colonel,” Major Samir replied, his face burning. “We know the aircraft did not have sufficient fuel to return to Italy. The destruction of Sigonella destroyed the air tankers necessary to refuel them. As for the estimate …” Major Samir stopped abruptly. He had nearly slipped and reminded the colonel that it was the colonel’s idea not to have combat air patrols over the airfields or to raise air-defense readiness because of the risk that the actions would be detected and alert the West. An alerted West could have destroyed the surprise of the Libyan offensive. But Colonel Alqahiray was not one to accept blame for failure, especially when it was his own.
“So, what happened to the F-16s?” the colonel asked.
“Two made it to Lampedusa and glided in on fumes to the small airfield there. Two pilots ejected twenty-five miles southeast of the airfield, and were immediately picked up by Italian fishing boats.”
“So, for our three Foxbats and one Tupelov Twenty, we can subtract two F-16s, but not one Italian pilot. That means those four pilots can be given new aircraft and returned to the fight. We, on the other hand, lost not only our aircraft, but more important, we lost pilots we can’t replace.” He snubbed his cigarette out, grinding it fiercely into the side of the chair.
“Go ahead, Major, and finish this. I have more important things to do.”
The major motioned to the operator, who projected the next slide.
“Here is a photograph, down loaded from an agent in Gaeta, showing the damage to the USS La Sane and the USS Simon Lake. The submarine alongside the USS La Sane departed soon after our attacks on Souda Bay and Sigonella. Of note is that the admiral’s flag, three white stars on a field of blue, was hauled down shortly before the submarine cast off and left Gaeta.”
The colonel leaned forward to scrutinize the computer-enhanced photograph. He bit his lower lip and then, apparently satisfied, he grinned. “If the USS Gearing didn’t show the world, these daily reminders, sitting in Italy, demonstrate that Americans are not invincible.” He leaned back, a freshly lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
“What do we think about the submarine?” he asked. Ashes fell on his shirt.