They talked it through and decided the only way in to the target was a high-altitude, high opening jump. Nick and Ronnie had each made one during their time in Marine Recon. Lamont and Selena had never done it.
HAHO jumps were dangerous and difficult and were only used when the risk of the aircraft being shot down on approach was extremely high. For Darraya, coming in over the target low or high was not an option. They would be over enemy territory, lighting up enemy radar. Assad's antiaircraft missile batteries wouldn't miss. They were modern and deadly, courtesy of the Iranians.
The advantage of a HAHO jump was that they could leave the plane some distance away from the target and glide in undetected. They could approach the Lebanese coast without being blown out of the air. The distance from the coast to Darraya was at the edge of HAHO capability, but it could be done.
That left the problem of getting out again. Nick called Hood and told him the Grail was in Darraya and that he wanted to take the team in to get it. He didn't tell Hood about Adam.
"I'm beginning to understand how good Director Harker is at this. I never thought much about how she got us the support we needed or where it came from. I just figured it was part of her job."
"You're the acting director now, Nick, and you seem to be doing rather well at it. You're going to have to learn on the run. Stephanie can help you with some of it. But Elizabeth had all the threads in her fingers."
"I need your help," Nick said. "The only way in there without being detected is a HAHO jump."
"That makes sense, given the situation," Hood said. "Give me a day and I can line up what you need."
"Getting in is one thing. I'm wondering how the hell we're going to get out."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then Hood said, "Let me call you back in about an hour."
Hood disconnected. An hour and a half later he called.
"I had to get your security clearance upgraded before I could tell you this," he said. "You need it anyway since you're running the Project until Elizabeth recovers. DARPA has developed an experimental stealth helicopter for penetration into enemy territory. It's fast, well armed and damn near invisible. It's also quiet. It's perfect for what you need."
"Will the Pentagon go along with it? They're protective of their toys."
"They'll go along with it," Hood said. "It gives them a chance to put it through its paces and see if everything works in a real life combat situation."
"To see if everything works?"
"I told you it was experimental. It's never been tried in combat."
"You mean we'd be guinea pigs."
"In a way. Unless you have a better idea…?"
He left the question dangling.
"Could we use it to go in?"
"I don't think I can persuade them to do that," Hood said. "They'll risk it for an extraction if I tell them it's important. They won't want to make a double run, it's too much to ask."
"Half a ride is better than none," Nick said.
CHAPTER 51
Darraya was a city pulled from a madman's darkest dreams. The deserted shells of burnt out buildings formed black and menacing shapes against the night sky. There were no lights to be seen. A light would have drawn an instant hail of sniper fire or worse. The only illumination came from smoldering fires and artillery flashes in the distance, or when a shell landed and exploded.
The streets were empty except for an occasional, furtive figure. Occasional shots punctuated the night as one of Assad's snipers fired.
Haddad had encountered little difficulty crossing the government lines. Confident in their ultimate victory, Assad's men were getting careless. Now Haddad was on the street leading to the ruined Syriac church and the library hidden beneath it.
It hadn't taken more than a few hours to discover someone who could tell him where the library was located. His informant had resisted at first but then had been most cooperative. Haddad was a master at inflicting unbearable pain and it always worked. Before he died, the student he'd questioned told him the library was often empty at night. The shelling and bombing were greatest during the day. That was when the people who knew about it sought shelter. If his luck held, there would be no one there to interfere with the search for the cup.
The street had been heavily shelled. Not a single building was intact. In the dark it was difficult to determine which was the one he sought. The student had said there was a door in a side wall that opened onto a path leading through the rubble to a wooden trapdoor. The door concealed steps going down into a basement far below street level, safe from the bombs and shells. The library was as much a place of physical refuge as a place where the mind could find a moment of normalcy in the midst of so much insanity.
Haddad stumbled on a piece of masonry and saw part of the Syriac diamond cross carved into the stone. He had found what was left of the church.
The shell of the church was mostly intact. An alley ran between the church and a burned out apartment building next door. Haddad turned down the alley. A shell screamed overhead and exploded, sending bits of debris raining down on him. In the flare of light from the explosion, Haddad saw the door. He readied his AK and went through, picking his way along a path barely visible in the rubble.
The heavy wooden trap door was there, just as he'd been told. Haddad bent down, grabbed the edge and lifted it up. A faint light shone below, at the foot of a flight of stone steps.
Haddad started down the steps. As he neared bottom he heard voices.
They will help me look, he thought.
At the bottom was a large room. All four walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves filled with books salvaged from the ruins of the city. Anyone would recognize the room as a library. There were even couches and chairs, where one could sit and read at leisure. The room provided surreal contrast to the devastation above, an illusion of safety.
Two men stood talking. They hadn't heard him come in and had their backs to him. Haddad raised his AK.
"I'm looking for something," he said. "Perhaps you can help me find it."
The men turned around. Haddad saw they were young, students no more than twenty or twenty-one years old.
"You don't need your weapon here, brother," one of them said. "Here, we leave the war upstairs."
"I'm not your brother," Haddad said.
Haddad looked at the walls filled with books. There was no obvious door or place where something could be hidden. The floor was stone, covered with tattered rugs.
Where was the cup hidden?
"You." Haddad gestured with his rifle. "Begin pulling those rugs off the floor."
"I won't," one of the two students said. "You can't do that."
Haddad drove the butt of his rifle into the man's stomach. He doubled over in pain. Haddad stepped back and aimed the rifle at him.
"I won't ask again."
"Do as he says, Ibrihim," his companion said.
"But…"
"Just do it."
The second man began pushing furniture off a rug.
"A good decision," Haddad said. He turned to the Ibrihim, bent over and holding his stomach. "Help him. Now."
Haddad watched as they moved the furniture and took up the rugs. He followed them around the room, looking for the telltale lines of a crypt set into the floor.
He found nothing.
"Start pulling those books away from the walls."
Ibrihim opened his mouth to protest but one look at Haddad's expression and the way he held the AK silenced him. Books and shelves began to pile up along the walls. On the third wall, Haddad saw the arched outline of a passage bricked up centuries before. It had been hidden behind the shelves
"Take that floor lamp. Break down the wall where you see the arch."