Hi-Tech Hijack (31 page)

As day ten of the kidnapping was nearing its end, a Falcon business jet was getting ready for takeoff at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. The large airliners usually takeoff west from Ben Gurion, but this relatively light aircraft had the privilege of heading directly east, making a sharp rise above the slopes of Judean Mountains east of the airport.

It continued in an almost straight line east, crossing Jordan and into Saudi Arabia. The tail of the plane was painted in the American stripes and stars, and it had a symbol that indicated it belonged to the Sixth Fleet. Called
Navy One
, the plane was the airborne command center of the commander of the Sixth Fleet in the Middle East. It was fully equipped with the most advanced technological communications devices, as well as every necessary piece of office equipment—fax machine, internet-capable computers, and scanners. On board was the head of the CIA in the Middle East, Paul Mathews. With him were six Navy Seals, their troop commander Major Jack, and the force commander, Lieutenant Colonel Rossini.

The tenth passenger was Nir who had been brought on as the Israeli representative of the extraction team, carrying just his American passport. The prime minister’s anti-terror advisor convinced the Americans to bring him on. Nir used all his gravity to fervently explain how important it was that he personally knew Reuben and Eddie in case something went wrong and negotiations with the kidnappers needed to take place.

“But your emotional involvement in this, given that Reuben is your brother-in-law, could lead to you making an error in the critical minutes of the extraction,” said the prime minister’s advisor.

“Normally, if the operation were done by our forces, I’d say you’re probably right. But in this case, the whole action is American, and there’s no danger of them giving in to any sort of emotional pressure from me. However, the fact that I know the kidnapped men could come in handy should there be negotiations with the kidnappers,” said Nir. The Mossad representative protested against the fact that such an international issue should be given into the hands of a Shabak man. Ultimately, the advisor was convinced that Nir’s close relation with Reuben and Eddie could do more good than harm and decided in Nir’s favor.

“Good luck, Nir,” said the advisor, thus making it clear the argument in this matter was over.

“Thank you.”

The flight took about two and a half hours, during which the fax machine and printer continuously spewed out essential information. Shortly before landing in Riyadh, the printer produced a summary of the details that came up in Amit’s conversation with the Mossad headquarters in Israel the night before.

The team of soldiers on board memorized the most recent aerial footage taken earlier that evening by one of the espionage satellites positioned above the Middle East and compared them to photos taken the night before to make sure there hadn’t been any changes that might indicate some sort of irregular activities at the compound.

They carefully examined the photo that zoomed in on the northern part of the compound. There was a fence surrounding the entire parameter creating a square that was about two miles on each side. In the center of the area was a circle fenced in with two more lines of fences, three hundred feet apart. There was an unpaved road leading from the gate to a small one-story building. When zooming in on the building, they could see a path that went around it and ended all of a sudden in one of its walls.

That building and fences did not appear in the blueprints they had been given by Jacob Goldman. They were clearly a later addition, and it was back at a meeting in Tel Aviv that the team concluded this was an entrance into the closed compound. The end of the underground tunnel, sketches of which were provided by Jacob, as well as its length and direction, were a perfect match with the location of the small building.

“Let me remind you,” Rossini reiterated, repeating what had already been stated, “as we’ve said before—the wide path that ends in that wall is the road used for cars. We can see there isn’t any marked parking, and we’re working on the assumption that there is a very large elevator shaft to take the cars underground. However, should we be surprised at the last minute and it turns out this isn’t the exit, we’ll have to move over quickly to the revealed compound. We’ll be switching from a quiet, surgical operation to a loud and public one with the help of our ground forces in Saudi Arabia. We ordered some more drone footage that should come in any minute now. The drone was instructed to take pictures in a diagonal angle so that we’ll have a clear image of the vertical walls and can easily identify the opening.”

At the American base near Riyadh, a team of Green Berets was standing by. They were ready to be deployed wherever was necessary and had two CH-

47 Chinook  helicopters to carry the team and two Apache AH-64D Longbow choppers armed with missiles to secure aerial movement and ground assistance, should that be required. The head of the combined task force, which included armored personnel carriers as well as the helicopters, was Colonel Johnson, a Green Beret himself and formerly the commander of helicopter squadron.

“Colonel Johnson, please,” asked Rossini over the secured wireless phone.

“Johnson here,” said a voice seconds later.

“We’re here on the
Navy One
. What’s the status on the drone footage?”

“There’s a major sandstorm at the action area, and the images have turned out very grainy. We’re trying to wipe the dust with a deciphering program and sharpen the image. By the time you land, I’ll have the image, and we can examine it together. In any case, we’ll send the drone back out tomorrow morning. The forecast says the storm will die down over night.”

“Let’s hope what we have is enough, since if it turns out there’s no opening, we’d have to switch to the other course of action, which requires a whole lot more preparation especially on your side.”

“You’re right. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” As the
Navy One
landed at the Riyadh airport, it was almost midnight. A starry sky and full moon greeted the men. A spacious black Dodge van with tainted windows from the American embassy waited for them. From it emerged John Foster, the third delegate at the embassy and effectively the highest ranking CIA man in Saudi Arabia.

“Welcome to the land of sand and oil,” he greeted them. “We are now in the American military part of the airport, which saves us the trouble of passport control. We’re going to the embassy for a short briefing to coordinate our plans and expectations, and then we’ll let you sleep for a few hours. You’re going to need to rest before tomorrow night.”

The next morning Amit shared a leisurely breakfast with George at the hotel. He had already come to learn that the maintenance team had been there for six months and was scheduled to stay for six more months before being replaced by another team. Goldmining had committed to provide PSSIC with five years of free service, of which two and a half had already passed. The current team took part in the installation stage, went back to South Africa for two years, and was now completing their duty year with the financial benefits that sugar-coated the bitter pill of being away from home. The two techs were still single while George was married. His wife had been to visit him twice, but they preferred spending their week off together in nearby Dubai and not in conservative Saudi Arabia. The two techs also had two trips to Abu Dhabi to see the world and some women without veils, as they put it.

When they got back to talking about the agenda for the day and evening, George checked with Amit.

“Are you sure you want to be at the facility by yourself for a few hours tonight?”

“Absolutely! Why not? It’ll give me a chance to really see what your job is like. Plus I’ll be more than happy to let you three spend an evening out and break the routine for a bit.”

“As you’ve gathered, Al-Yamamah isn’t exactly big on night life, but we would love to spend an evening together, so thank you for offering.”

With breakfast over, they got in the car and made their way to the facility.

“By the way,” said Amit, pretending to just think of something, “when my father-in-law described the place, he showed me the blueprints for the building and mentioned a tunnel leading from the north compound about sixteen hundred feet long and divided into three segments that form a sort of zigzag. Where does it lead to?”

“We have no idea. Its opening is at the back of one of the labs. It’s just an ordinary steel door that’s always locked, and we don’t even know who has the key. We know that at the other end of the tunnel is a second, underground compound. It was our men who dug it, and some of the air-conditioning and power units service that area as well. I’ll show you when we get there which units exactly. Ongoing maintenance there is done by locals, and we’re only in charge of the energy center, so we don’t know what’s going on in that part.”

“And you never had to shut down the power supply to that part for repairs for example?”

“We did. There happened to be unscheduled power outages that triggered the emergency generators for both parts of the compound. When normal current resumed, the backup generators needed to be manually turned off, but as I said, that’s something the locals do. We just supervise so that they don’t cause any damages.”

“That’s a strange division,” said Amit, careful not to raise any suspicion with his technical questions.

“Yeah, we’re not clear on that either. The workers in that part, if there even are any, go in and out through the elevator exit at the end of the tunnel. There’s a little building there that was built later, not by us. You can see it from the north labs in the main campus. There’s a separate access point from a road parallel to the one we’re using.”

At the same time, the American forces were gathered in the briefing room at the Riyadh embassy building.

Present in the room were the eight commandos; Nir; three CIA agents; the commander of the ground task force, Colonel Johnson; his operations officer; the pilots of two Apache combat helicopters and two Chinook transport helicopters; and a team of seven Green Berets, who would act as backup for the Navy Seals in case something went wrong. Their job was to memorize every stage of the operation and be able to step in at any given moment and continue the action from the exact spot if the commando team were incapacitated for some reason.

Drone footage confirmed the assumptions regarding the shape of the building and the size of the opening that was big enough for cars, such as large American vans. Around noon Nir received further confirmation of that information in a call from Israel reporting that Amit had called minutes earlier and reported his conversation with George. Amit also suggested the start time would be at ten o’clock that night. This was approved and forwarded to all participants of the briefing.

After a few hours of joint briefings, the participants moved to the American air force base adjacent to the Riyadh airport. Colonel Johnson was taken in a small Sikorsky s-333 helicopter to the army base near Al-Yamamah, where he joined the force he was going to lead to the target overnight. There were two companies of Bradley personnel carriers and a Hummer company. An American, civilian earthmoving contractor was also brought in to the Al-Yamamah base and was asked to have a JCB excavator ready for a special night job.

When he was still en route in the air, the colonel called a meeting with the company commanders, and the civilian contractor was brought in for a briefing. He was instructed to lead the excavator to the point where the main road met the two-mile dirt road leading to the northern compound and wait for orders there.

When the contractor was dismissed, Colonel Johnson began a series of detailed orders informing his men for the first time about the purpose of the operation. After a Q&A session, he sent the commanders to have their companies ready for action. They were ordered to be prepared at 6:00 p.m. for departure at the last light at 7:00 p.m. and arrival at the staging area around the outer parameter fences before 10:00 p.m.

The airborne force was running its briefing at the same time at the Riyadh base. A doctor and medic joined the Green Berets team. Lieutenant Colonel Rossini gave instructions about the division between the helicopters: the naval commando force lead by himself and Nir in the leading Chinook and the Green Berets and medical staff right behind them. The two Apaches were to accompany and secure the transport helicopters and stay in the air the whole time.

During the day Amit went over and over again, each time with a different staff member, the responsibilities of the on-duty tech. He made an effort to hide his joy when George suggested he had a live practice of a power outage on a non-important segment of the labs before his shift. This allowed him to make sure he had the backup generators’ switch-on-switch-off routine under control, and he performed the three-minute-long drill to George’s complete satisfaction. At 5:00 p.m., Amit said good-bye to the maintenance team, who left for the city, and was left alone as the on-duty tech.

At an early afternoon hour, the earthmoving contractor, followed by the JCB excavator, made his way to the point at which the dirt road broke off and led from the main road to the northern compound. They arrived at the spot at 6:00 p.m., and immediately as darkness settled, the excavator started to dig a ditch parallel to the road about fifteen feet away. The ditch stretched 150 feet long on each side of the dirt road, and was extended so that no vehicle could cross it. The digging took about two hours, at the end of which the contractor informed the American headquarters in Al-Yamamah that his job was done.

“The blockage is ready. No vehicle other than a tank or an APC can go past this.”

“As we said, we aren’t anticipating a war in the area. The point is to stop any passersby or unwanted visitors. So if anyone arrives, you’re to do exactly what the briefing said—tell them you’re working on the groundwork for a water duct as a part of the preparations for a paved road that will replace the dirt path. These are the instructions you’ve been given by the Saudi contractor who hired your services, that’s all you know. If someone arrives while you wait, your engine broke down, and you’re waiting for a mechanic. At dawn at the latest, we’ll tell you to fill in the ditch. You’ll do that and go back to Al-Yamamah as if nothing happened.”

“Yes, all clear.”

“I thank you on behalf of Uncle Sam,” said the on-duty officer at Al-Yamamah chuckling.

At the designated hour after the line-up, the land force departed the Al-Yamamah base and started moving toward the destination. At 8:00 p.m., the American flight controller at the Riyadh base called his civilian counterpart at the Riyadh airport and reported that an American Apache chopper had lost one of its anti-tank missiles during a practice flight in the Al-Yamamah area, corresponding with the area north of the PSSIC compound.

“We launched aerial and land forces; three companies in total are out scouring the area. The chopper had been on a practice flight, and the missiles weren’t loaded, so there’s no fear of explosion once the missile is on the ground. We ask that you make sure the airspace above the PSSIC campus is clear for the next few hours. We’re taking it upon ourselves to finish scanning before the first light.”

A similar message was passed to the Saudi army liaison officer by the commander of the land forces base at Al-Yamamah.

The message brought on a surge of phone calls between senior staff members at the Saudi army and police and the American military headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi chief of staff placed a personal call to the commander of the US forces in Saudi Arabia to understand what happened. Once told, he offered all the assistance that might be required. He was pleased to hear the Americans believed they could handle matters on their own—he had no interest in risking his troops in a glory-free mission. The chief of Saudi police insisted on assisting or at least accompanying the search with a liaison officer on his behalf. The American general politely declined but suggested the police help by blocking two roads adjacent to the perimeter and not allowing anyone other than the PSSIC workers returning home after a day’s work to pass through until the scan was over. The chief of police happily obliged, and so the honor of the Saudi kingdom that had American forces traipsing around its territory was saved, lest they should mistakenly think the land was theirs to use however they pleased.

The land force moved with lights blazing parallel to the main road from Al-Yamamah toward the southern part of the PSSIC compound. When they were about three miles away, they turned north into the rocky ground. At some point the convoy shut down its lights and switched to star-light-based night vision. When they arrived at the staging area outside the first parameter fence—located two miles away from the compound—they stopped. An engineering squad examined the fence and confirmed what observations already determined—it was not equipped with any sort of alert system. The squad carefully cut the fence without causing any unnecessary damages and placed stick lights to guide the rest of the force through.

The force continued to move forward toward the isolated building and stopped at an observation distance about a thousand feet before the building and six hundred feet before the inner fence that surrounded the building itself. One company spread out there, and another company surrounded the perimeter at a ninety-degree angle and waited by the wide side of the building facing what they assumed was the entrance. The patrol company waited a two thirds of a mile back as back up reserves. All the forces shut down their engines and waited for further orders.

At 8:30 p.m., the four choppers—two Apaches and two Chinooks—took off from the air force base near Riyadh and went south toward the PSSIC compound. On board the leading Chinook were the commander of the naval commando team and Nir, and on board the second Chinook were the Green Berets, the doctor, and the medic. Both teams were in civilian clothing wearing cargo pants, tactical vests, and webbing belts without any identification marks of any kind. Their weapons were American as were their shoes, but that made very little difference in the likelihood of the surprised guards recognizing their nationality in the dark.

At 7:30 p.m., Amit completed another tour around the energy center and after making sure he was alone in the building started the action. First, he shut down all the backup generators by disconnecting them from the main power source. Then he closed the fuel taps feeding the generators. From there he moved on to the phone hub and shut that down as well. He also unplugged the cellular antennas that provided cellular reception underground. That meant the communications modem was also disabled and would not allow any internet connection to the outside world. This process took a few minutes; and then he moved on to the next stage—switching the central air-conditioners to heating mode. He turned them on to the absolute maximal temperature and closed the air flaps so that no fresh air could enter and only the existing air flowed through the system. The air-conditioning consultant that had taken part in planning the action back in Tel Aviv had calculated the volume of the underground air plumbing and estimated that within one hour, the temperatures would get unbearably suffocating—at approximately 90° F—which would force everyone out.

Isabella was alone in her room at the lab doing some final checkups on the computer. She decided that until the problem of the information stored on the server back in Israel was solved, she was going to try and push forward something that, despite the small chance, might make the wait considerably shorter and reduce the dependency on Eddie’s goodwill to volunteer information.

At 8:00 p.m., the heat was beginning to grow, but was still bearable. One of the lab techs had prepared a sample for Isabella from one of the cultures that had been transferred from Israel. In an isolated compartment, wearing gloves and a mask, he suctioned a sample of the substance into a tiny syringe. He removed the needle, threw it in an insulated plastic bag, sealed the syringe with a cap, and prepared a clean needle for the rest of the procedure.

“Come with me. You’ll help me hold the monkey’s arm while I inject this into the back of its neck. Tomorrow morning we’ll start monitoring its temperature. I assume we’ll see signs of a fever and other symptoms by tomorrow evening.” Isabella put on gloves, and the tech handed her the syringe and needle.

As they stepped out into the hallway on their way to the rooms the monkeys had been moved to, darkness took over the entire facility. It was Amit who switched off the lights at that very same moment. Only the emergency lights above the room doors remained on. Amit quickly moved over to the main entrance where civilian security guards were posted and explained that he had to shut down electricity due to a malfunction in the air-conditioning system.

“I’m going back to work on it. It’ll probably take about an hour before I can have the power back on,” he told the two guards.

“Are you the new tech?” asked one of the guards, wondering how well Amit knew the system. “Maybe you should call one of your friends to help out? They know these systems very well.”

“I called them, and they said they’d be here as soon as possible, but don’t worry. I can handle this. There’s no one in the compound any way.”

“Yeah, but what about the TV?” joked the second guard. “There’s a show we can’t miss coming on at nine thirty p.m.”

“Hopefully I’ll have it sorted out by then,” said Amit, and he quickly left back toward the energy center before the guards asked any more questions.

As darkness fell, Isabella stopped in her tracks and decided to hold off on the experiment until the lights were back on. In the meantime she asked the tech to join her and Alfonso for dinner.

“I didn’t get a chance to inject the substance. We were just on our way when the lights went out,” she told Alfonso as she entered. It usually took a minute for the backup generators to kick in, but now many minutes had passed and the lights still didn’t come on. Alfonso tried to call and inform someone of the problem. To his surprise the phones weren’t working either, and neither did his cell phone.

“Must be one major problem,” he said and tried to think what could be done.

“These primitive Saudis,” said an irritable Isabella, wiping the sweat off her forehead with a paper napkin. “This is absolutely unbearable.” Alfonso tried to calm her down, saying he was sure everything would be sorted out soon, but he did not sound convincing. Communications were still down. Several minutes of silence passed before Alfonso started to realize he could no longer wait passively and that something had to be done.

“If this heat goes on for much longer all the substances in the lab refrigerators will be ruined. The insulation won’t keep the cold infinitely,” he said as his glow-in-the-dark wristwatch indicated it was already nine o’clock.

“If this goes on, we’ll be ruined, too. Alfonso, I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“Yes, me too. We have to do something. I’m going upstairs.”

“But the elevators won’t work either.”

“I’ll take the stairs and use my cell phone. There must be reception outside.

“Wait, I’ll come with you. I don’t want to stay here alone.”

They left their apartment and saw the head guard. “Do you know what’s going on?” asked Alfonso.

“I have no idea,” he said in embarrassment. “The guards outside the Israelis’ rooms and in the hallways are yelling that they can’t stand the heat, and I can barely keep them in their places. The two Israelis are banging on their doors asking to be let out. I went by there and tried to calm them down. I had to shout. I told them this isn’t anything against them and that we’re all suffering from this heat. Eddie must have calmed down or passed out, but Reuben keeps shouting and crying by the door.”

“Come with us. We’ll go upstairs and I’ll try to find out what’s going on,” Alfonso told the head guard. They walked quickly through the hallways. The fluorescent emergency light showed them the path and shone on the sweaty, quizzical faces of the guards. It was a little bit cooler next to the fire escape thanks to the elevator shaft and stairway that took out some of the hot air. The chef and cleaning staff were there breathing heavily and waiting for permission to go upstairs.

“Sorry, but no one leaves just yet. We’re going upstairs to see what’s going on.” Alfonso passed by them and started going up the stairs with the head guard behind him. Climbing the forty-eight steps to the surface was exhausting. Hot air always rises up naturally, and it surrounded them as they climbed. Alfonso reached out a hand to Isabella every now and then, but she gestured him to go on ahead—she was fine on her own.

A breath of fresh air welcomed them as the door was opened. May in Saudi Arabia isn’t the coolest, but everything is relative, and Isabella gave out a sigh of relief and took a deep breath of fresh air as Alfonso tried to use his cell phone. He tried for several minutes, but to no avail.

“That’s strange there is not communication. There’s a cellular antenna in the southern compound.”

“The power outage must have disabled that as well,” said Isabella.

“Apparently so. We have to let everyone out.”

“I think we have to. But what do we do with the Israelis?”

“We have to let them out too if you still want to use them,” said Alfonso impatiently. He turned to the head guard and told him to bring everyone out to where they were standing. “Cuff the Israelis and blindfold them. They can’t know where they are.”

At 9:30 p.m., all the people from the underground facility were upstairs—sixteen people in total including the two Israelis, the chef, two cleaners, eight guards, and their commander. Eddie and Reuben were kept inside the building entrance with the doors wide open, sitting on waiting chairs opposite the elevators. Reuben found an outlet for his fears and stress with endless questions.

“Where am I? What are you going to do to us? You promised you were going to let us go in the end.”

Alfonso told him to shut up a few times, but Reuben couldn’t help it and only a slap from Isabella put an end to his frightened mumbling. Eddie sat in his chair quietly. Most of the people were standing outside the building, but within the fenced area, just staring and waiting for something to happen. There was no way out of the area, as the large van was inside the disabled freight elevator on the bottom floor, and they had no way of bringing it up.