"What about Ziegler and Maroq?" asked McCoy.
"Don't worry about them. We've got a squad of marines coming for them. They'll be fine. Anyone else? All right, let's move out."
Fires were raging throughout all the main hallways now, but fortunately they didn't have to go far. About halfway down the hallway they were in, Tariq stopped, instructed Nazir, Hamid, and McCoy to set up a perimeter, and pressed a passcode into what looked like an ordinary utility closet.
A second later, the door electronically clicked open, but inside were no brooms, mops, or buckets. There was another submarine hatch, similar to the one they'd all used to get down into Gaza Station. This one would take them down again, into Gaza's sewage system, but God willing, it would also take them all out of this hellhole once and for all.
Tariq punched in another passcode, opened the hatch, then stuck his M-4 with its small halogen search lamp into the silo, scanning it for any signs of life. The good news was there was no one down there. The bad news was the stench was horrendous, and they were going in anyway.
Tariq reached up onto a shelf in the closet, far above the steel hatch. Finding a large box, he pulled it down and began distributing a gas mask to each person. He put his own on and then helped Said and Galishnikov get theirs on and adjusted. He looked over the group, got the thumbs-up from everyone, nodded, then proceeded down the silo. Three minutes later, they were all together again, slogging through a putrifying combination of waste and slime, illuminated only by the lights on their M-4s, and a small flashlight Tariq had given to Sa'id.
"I've been meaning to ask you something, Tariq, ever since we got here," said Bennett, as the group pressed forward. His voice echoed through the huge steel pipe. "What's that, Mr. Bennett?" Tariq replied.
"How did you guys ever build Gaza Station, anyway? I mean, you know, without the whole world knowing about it."
Bennett instantly recoiled. He'd just betrayed the name of a CIA safe house. True, these men were friends. They knew most of one another's secrets. But not all of them. Nor could they. The world had just changed. He had to be more careful.
Tariq's stomach tightened, too. He knew the station's entire history — how the Hotel Baghdad had once been the headquarters for Egyptian intelligence in Gaza since first being built in 1962; how the facilities — including the underground bunkers and tunnels — were secretly offered to the CIA by President Sadat in the spring of 1980, after the Camp David peace accords were concluded; how senior State Department officials, seething with bitterness at the CIA for its failure to anticipate the Islamic revolution in Iran and prevent the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in November of '79 persuaded Carter to turn down the deal; and how the Reagan administration, soon after the release of the hostages from Tehran, secretly reopened talks with Sadat and nailed down a deal that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians ever knew about.
Galishnikov's ears perked up. He'd also wondered about the history of this "Gaza Station." So had Sa'id, and the wheels began to turn.
Sa'id had always suspected the CIA was operating in Gaza, but he'd never known it for sure. Now he did. He'd been inside. He'd seen some of its layout. He knew its name. He knew who worked there, and some of their capabilities. That could prove to be valuable, could it not?
Yes, these men had saved his life. And yes, he still needed them to lead him out to safety. But the world had just changed. He wasn't simply a businessman caught in a cross fire. He was a prime minister. He was going to have to build strong ties not just with the Americans but with his own legislators, with other Arab leaders, with their generals and intelligence offi cials. It was a dangerous neighborhood he lived in, and would now have to govern. He had to work with the Americans, but he couldn't be their puppet. He needed them to take care of the Islamic militants, and to force — perhaps persuade was a better word — Doron to cut a deal. But there would come a day, no doubt sooner than he'd prefer, when he'd have to stand up to the Americans. Declare his independence. Show his people and the Arab world that Washington was doing his bidding, not the other way around. Kicking the CIA out of Palestine wouldn't be a bad first step.
Tariq knew that a significant portion of the $2 billion a year Washington gave to Egypt in foreign aid was to buy Cairo's continued silence about the facility's location and purpose. And he knew nearly every sordid detail of the bureaucratic tug of war inside the CIA that had prevented Gaza Station from coming on line for year after frustrating year. Besides the president, Jack Mitchell, Danny Tracker, and a handful of others on the National Security Council, only Jake Ziegler knew as much as he did about the origins and history of Gaza Station. But he didn't dare utter a word. Not with their lives in grave danger. Not with the new prime minister of Palestine just a few yards behind him.
Didn't Bennett get it? This was a world where every mistake could be your last.
"I'm sorry, sir," Tariq finally said. "I'd tell you. But then I'd have to kill you."
THIRTY-FOUR
The strike force shot hard and fast into Gaza.
Twenty choppers. Almost 250 special ops forces. Orders to rescue the new Palestinian prime minister and the American "point man for peace." Operation Briar Patch was under way.
"Br'er Rabbit, this is Br'er Fox," said the pilot of the lead Super Cobra.
Commander Ramirez in the command-and-control helo, Storm One, adjusted his headset and opened his microphone.
"Go ahead, Br'er Fox. I read you five by five."
"Roger that, Br'er Rabbit. I've got the Tar Baby in my sights and it's swarming with bandits. Please advise, over."
"Are the bandits armed?"
The lead pilot scanned the situation on the ground. The rains were still torrential. And even though it was late morning, the sky remained as dark as night and visibility was minimal. Still, through night-vision goggles and the chopper's onboard thermal imaging, the pilot was learning all he needed to know to make an assessment.
"Armed and firing, Br'er Rabbit. I say again, armed and firing. There are several large flashes under way. They appear to be using explosives to penetrate the Tar Baby."
"Roger that, Br'er Fox. Commence firing. I repeat, commence firing."
The lead Super Cobra took one pass at less than five hundred feet, with two others right behind him. They cleared the target, banked right, then came back around and began unleashing their guns. Tracer bullets lit up the sky and the insurgents on the ground began dropping like flies.
Five blocks away, Storm Three now swooped in.
It took up a hovering position just a few feet over a six-story tenement building, the tallest in the squalid, crumbling neighborhood. Out of both sides of the chopper, ST-8's Red Team jumped out and moved like lightning. Each man knew his job. Each worked in rhythm with his teammates.
"Go, go, go," shouted their team leader, a thirty-one-year-old lieutenant from the Bronx, a graduate of Annapolis and the son of two career naval officers.
Three American snipers took up positions on the roof. Others cut power lines. They shot up the transformer box on the roof, shutting down all the power in the building. At the same time, a breacher smashed through the door to the stairwell, using a sledgehammer and just two swings. Six shooters and their leader — each clicking on their night-vision goggles — now raced inside, weapons up, safeties off.
The top floor was abandoned, as was the fifth floor below. Only the rats— their eyes glowing red in the flashlight beams of the commandos — counted the dark places home. The SEALs proceeded cautiously through the shadowy stairwells, littered with shards of broken glass, giving away their position with every step. Each man wished they'd had more time to prepare, to send in a recon team to find out just what they were up against, to get precise floor plans and map out every step. They were moving blind and even the Rangers and Deltas in Somalia were better prepared than they were.