What was coming next? What did his superiors in Washington need to know that they couldn't learn simply from watching television? How could he justify a $25 million operation if he didn't have the foggiest notion what was happening around him? Ziegler was still scrambling to synthesize everything he and his team were seeing and hearing. But he had to get something to Washington fast.
102710L DEC 27 2010
>>FLASH TRAFFIC«
FROM: STATION CHIEF, GAZA STATION //CIA-OPS//
TO: DCI, CIA-LANGLEY, WASHINGTON DC //DIR//
DDO, CIA-LANGLEY, WASHINGTON DC //OPS//
DDI, CIA-LANGLEY, WASHINGTON DC //INTEL//
NSC, WASHINGTON DC //DIR// ']
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM //OPS// ^
SECSTATE, WASHINGTON DC //OPS//
SECSTATE-BLACK TOWER, WASHINGTON DC //DS//
CJCS WASHINGTON DC//OPSPA//
HQ USCENTCOM, TAMPA FL//OPS//
HQ USEUCOM, VAIHINGEN GE //OPS//
JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC//OPS//
CLAS — EYES ONLY — PRIORITY ALPHA
SUBJECT: POSSIBLE PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR ERUPTING
INITIAL ASSESSMENT FROM THE GROUND: ATTACKS APPEAR PREMEDITATED, WELL
PLANNED, AND COORDINATED.
POSSIBLE PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR ERUPTING BATTLE TO SUCCEED ARAFAT COULD
BE BRUTAL__ WATCH FOR PLO FACTIONS TO MOBILIZE.
AT LEAST 150 DEAD SO FAR… 23 DSS AGENTS CONFIRMED KIA…. STATUS OF OTHER DSS AGENTS — THOSE NOT WITH TRAVEL PACKAGE — UNCLEAR AT THIS MOMENT…. OTHER AGENTS OFF THE AIR…. CAUTION: CASUALTIES COULD MOUNT…. NUMBERS NOT FINAL.
TRAVEL PACKAGE ATTEMPTING TO EXECUTE ALPHA BRAVO EVAC PLAN…. BUT RESISTANCE HEAVY.
MEDITERRANEAN CHOPPER EXTRACT IMPOSSIBLE DUE TO WEATHER…. NO U.S. GROUND FORCES AVAILABLE TO GO IN…. ISRAELI GROUND RESCUE PACKAGE AVAILABLE — BUT ADVISE CAUTION DUE TO POLITICAL RISKS…. REPEAT: ADVISE CAUTION DUE TO POLITICAL RISKS.
MORE TK. JZ //GS-SC//
To their left, every street was blocked by burning cars.
So the motorcade kept zigzagging to the right. Word of the bombing was out. News of Arafat's death spread through the city and refugee camps like wildfire. Angry crowds were pouring out of their homes. Teenagers were setting tires and Dumpsters on fire. Lake and the team worked their way toward the beach. It was simple, direct. It was a landmark they knew and could follow most of the way out of the city.
They were driving through wretched, filthy slums, Bennett had never seen poverty like this. None of them had. Crumbling cinder-block tenement buildings. Bombed-out shops. The scorched remains of cars. Empty playgrounds. The stench of uncollected garbage. The farther they moved from center city, the farther they seemed to plunge into a wasteland of human misery.
The road ahead would only get worse. They'd still have to make it through or around the Shati Refugee Camp — then through or around the Jabalya Refugee Camp — before racing north for the Erez Checkpoint and the relative safety of Israel. Both camps were Islamic strongholds. But there weren't a whole lot of options. If they weren't dead, they should be on Ahmed Orabi Street along the Med in less than ten minutes. Where they'd go after that, Bennett had no idea.
Lake suddenly slammed on his brakes.
But not in time.
From out of nowhere, a massive green garbage track pulled out in front of the lead Suburban and cut it off. Lake's team plowed into its side at almost forty miles an hour. The SUV burst into flames. Bennett turned the wheel hard to the left and skidded to a stop. All they could hear was the crash of metal and glass.
Lake — not wearing a seat belt — smashed against the front windshield, then back against the driver's side window. The air bags never fired. He was dead. The interior quickly filled with smoke. An engine fire engulfed them. Panicked, Lake's team burst out the side doors, gasping for fresh clean air. They didn't even see them.
Two men, dressed as garbage collectors — except for the ski masks over their faces — pulled out AK-47s and opened fire. They emptied their entire clips into the bodies of Lake's security detail.
For a split second, no one in Bennett's vehicle or Banacci's could comprehend what was happening. It all seemed like slow motion. They saw the shooters. They saw Lake's team fall. Then they saw a beat-up black Mercedes pull up to the scene and watched the two masked men toss their weapons and themselves inside and speed off. And then — their minds still trying to j process the hideous scene — they watched in horror as the garbage truck blew up right in front of them.
The fireball engulfed the lead Suburban. There was nothing they could do. More of their team was dead, and their killers were gone.
SEVEN
McCoy grabbed her satellite phone.
She punched a button. The line crackled with static. Come on, come on, she silently screamed. A moment later, the garbled voice cleared up.
"Prairie Ranch, go secure. "
"Secure, go — it's McCoy — who's this?"
"Erin, it's Marsha."
"Paine's dead — so is Arafat and Mazen."
"We know."
"We're taking heavy fire. We're in a convoy headed west to the water. Jon's driving. We've got Galishnikov and Sa'id. We've just lost another team of DSS agents."
"We've got you on video from the Predator. …"
Bennett swerved around a corner and hit his high beams. The rain was coming down so hard visibility was becoming a serious problem. Still, they could see a Jeep of some kind — fitted with a .50-caliber machine gun on top — racing toward them. It wasn't firing yet, but Bennett kept glancing back through his rearview mirror, sure the Jeep saw them now.
"Hold on!" Bennett screamed.
McCoy dropped the phone and grabbed for something to hold on to as Bennett turned the wheel hard to the left, plowed through a chain-link fence and raced through an open-air vegetable market. No one was around, thank God, because of the storms. Bennett was leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Weaving through row after row of wooden stalls, he smashed through most of them while making Snapshot a tough target to pin down. The .50-caliber was blasting away at them now, and as he came to the far end, Bennett slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel hard to the right, fishtailing into an alley draped with PLO flags and clotheslines.
The limo felt like a tank. Its engine was powerful. Its body was almost indestructible. But their bulletproof windows were so badly splintered from multiple rounds of gunfire that Bennett wasn't sure how much more they could take. Behind them, DSS agents opened the back windows of Banacci's Suburban and started firing M-l6s at the Jeep bearing down on them. With so many curves and turns, it was tough for either side to get a clear shot.
"Erin, Erin — you still there?"
Again the voice was garbled. It was Kirkpatrick.
"Yes, I'm still here," said McCoy. "Can you hear me?"
"Barely — listen — you 're about to spill out on the main beach highway."
"Right."
"When you get there, turn left, head south and floor it — got it?"
"I got it."
The heavy machine gun behind them was red hot. Even amidst the raging storm, everyone in the car could hear the rounds striking Banacci's Suburban behind them. McCoy covered the mouthpiece of the phone and relayed the instructions to Bennett.
"South?" said Bennett, incredulous. "Is she crazy? We need to go north, back toward the Erez Checkpoint."