First Strike Read online

  “Shall we make a start?”

  The President glanced at his watch.

  Melanie finished thumbing through her notes, cleared her throat, pressed the start button on the recorder and got straight down to the nitty gritty. “Mr President, if I can take you back to the weeks leading up to 9/11, there were several indications an attack was planned. You received warnings from a number of foreign intelligence sources, most notably the French and the Israelis. US agencies knew the names of four of the eventual hijackers, yet none of them were questioned. An FBI agent in Arizona reported his suspicions of Arab nationals training at flying schools here in the States. Yet, in spite of all this evidence, no steps were taken to prevent the attacks. How do you explain the incompetence of the intelligence community?

  The President frowned.

  “There appears to have been a failure of co-ordination among the intelligence agencies. It’s something we’re still looking at. Until that process is complete I can’t really comment.”

  Melanie adjusted a setting on the recorder.

  “Mr President, the first attack was timed at 8.20 a.m. on 9/11. The third plane ploughed into the Pentagon at 9.38 a.m. In the intervening hour and eighteen minutes no military jets were scramble from Andrews Air Force Base. Not one. Yet this is standard FAA procedure. It’s a legal requirement. It’s also quite routine. Military jets are scrambled every week to investigate commercial flights that stray off course. How do you justify this massive failure to react?”

  “I guess the military must have been in shock. The whole nation was in shock.”

  Melanie paused.

  “Mr President, nothing here reminds you of Pearl Harbour? Reliable intelligence from foreign sources is ignored or buried. American military aircraft remain grounded. A calamitous attack becomes the pretext for a pre-determined war. An American city is sacrificed on the altar of public opinion."

  “Miss Drake, I can assure you nothing like that ever happened, either then or now.”

  Melanie took a couple of deep yogic breaths.

  “Mr President, there’s one question the whole world wants an answer to. Is war with Iraq inevitable?”

  “No it’s not.” The President’s smile was reassuring. “All Saddam has to do is comply with the UN resolutions. Problem is he doesn’t have much time.”

  “Does that imply you’ve already fixed a timetable? The mid-day temperature in Baghdad at this time of year is in the mid-sixties Fahrenheit. In July it’s way over 1200. You can’t fight a land war in Iraq in the middle of summer, especially not in protective clothing. It has to be over by April.”

  “Time is short but no, there’s no fixed schedule.”

  “So you haven’t agreed a timetable with the Prime Minister?”

  “A timetable hasn’t even been discussed.”

  Melanie noted the President’s hesitation.

  “This is a dangerous world we live in, Miss Drake. Not just Saddam. Al Qaeda’s still active. Then there’s the FARC in Colombia, the most dangerous terrorist organisation in the Western Hemisphere, right on America’s doorstep, just a few hundred miles from Miami. Though I’m pleased to see the IRA ceasefire appears to be holding.”

  “Mr President, are you suggesting there’s some kind of global network? Are all these organisations linked in any way?”

  “There is some evidence of contact, exchanges of expertise, maybe some weapons training. I’d put it no higher than that.”

  Melanie made a note to explore this at a later date. The idea there were contacts between the IRA, the FARC and Al Qaeda was explosive but it wasn’t today’s issue.

  “With regard to weapons of mass destruction, Mr President, why is Iraq different to India or Pakistan or Israel? Great Britain, France and the USA, come to that?”

  Another hesitation.

  “Uniquely, Iraq has used WMDs. The others haven’t.”

  Uniquely? Melanie was tempted to cite Hiroshima and Nagasaki but she didn’t.

  “Mr President, how exactly do you define a weapon of mass destruction? In Rwanda one million people were kill with the machete. Does that make the machete a WMD?”

  “No it doesn’t. A weapon of mass destruction is by definition a strategic weapon.”

  “So that would specifically exclude battlefield munitions? Artillery shells and the like?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “Mr President, UN inspectors have been looking for evidence of WMDs since the end of the last Gulf War. I assume the US intelligence community has been doing the same thing. Mr President, don’t you share your intelligence with the UN inspectors?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  The President steepled his hands, relieved this wasn’t going out live on television. He could see where the journalist was heading and he didn’t want to go there.

  Melanie persisted.

  “So you share your intelligence with the UN. The UN has teams of inspectors on the ground. And still no WMDs have been found? Mr President, if you’ll forgive me, something somewhere isn’t working.”

  “None have been found yet.”

  Melanie noted the President’s emphasis.

  “Iraq is a big country, Miss Drake. WMDs aren’t that difficult to hide.”

  “And if none were ever found Mr President, would you still go to war?”

  This was the one essential question.

  “If Saddam refuses to comply we certainly have that option.”

  “Mr President, the inspectors are asking for more time. Under the circumstances that doesn’t sound unreasonable. They’re making good progress. The Iraqis seem willing to cooperate at last and the West is under no immediate threat. If there’s no fixed timetable, you have that flexibility. How long will you give them?”

  “We’re talking weeks. Not months.”

  “So in conclusion, Mr President, the world should prepare itself for war.”

  “Ultimately that’s down to Saddam Hussein. The solution is in his hands. But if he doesn’t comply then yes, war is the likely option. The American people understand that. I think they support it.”

  This was the positive message he needed to convey. The message he knew the American people wanted to hear.

  “One last question, Mr President. Can you assure the world this is not a war against Islam?”

  “I most certainly can. This is a war against terror wherever it appears, whether in the Middle East, Colombia or Northern Ireland.”

  Again that linkage.

  Melanie switched off the recorder, ran her fingers through her auburn hair and gathered up her things.

  “Scary stuff, Mr President.”

  “If you think that’s scary,” the President laughed, “you should talk to the Secretary of Defence.”

  ***

  3

  Deep in the equatorial south of Colombia, in an isolated region of impenetrable rain forest, snow-capped peaks and precipitous ravines, lies the FARC safe-haven; an area the size of Switzerland officially ceded to the narco-terrorists by a government no longer in control of its own territory. Within the safe-haven the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is the sole authority. The elected government holds no sway at all. The best equipped and by far the richest terrorist group operating in the Western Hemisphere, the FARC was number two on Washington’s hit list, second only to Al Qaeda. But the FARC did not have Al Qaeda’s reach or reputation. The Colombian terrorists had not accomplished anything significant on the international stage. They remained a highly localised phenomenon, though their ambitions as well as their resources were truly global.

  The head of FARC, universally known as Tirofijo – Sureshot, in tribute to his skills in marksmanship as a young man was now in his late fifties, overweight, tanned, with thinning hair and a flourishing grey beard. He wore sweat encrusted army fatigues without insignia, dark glasses and a Yankees baseball cap. His lined and pitted face and calloused hands bore the marks of decades of struggle, decades fighting for the dream. The destruction of capitalism. T
irofijo yearned to complete the trinity with Castro and Guevara in the pantheon of the South American revolution. For if Ché outshone him for glamour, and Fidel for achievement, Tirofijo surpassed them both in the purity of his socialist zeal. Late in his career, Tirofijo still ate and slept with his troops, shared their dangers, led them into battle. Above his head turned his only privilege of rank, a whirring fan.

  Opposite Tirofijo sat a man of Middle Eastern origin in pressed white linen trousers, short-sleeved cotton shirt and wrap around gold-rimmed shades. Jamal Habib had a bald freckled head, a round jovial face and full luxuriant moustache flecked with grey. His manicured hands were toying with a string of beads. He was sweating. He could hardly breathe. Habib could tolerate the heat but not the fetid, ninety-five per cent humidity of the insect-infested rain forest. This place really was the pits. The slight draught from the overhead fan barely reached him. Habib longed for the air-conditioned sanitation of his home back in the States.

  They sat on hard upright wooden chairs without upholstery. Face down on the desk between the two conspirators lay a battered dog-eared manual.

  “So, Jamal, is everything prepared?”

  Tirofijo emptied his glass and poured himself another Tequila. He waved the bottle at Habib but the Arab shook his head and opted for a can of ice-cold Pepsi.

  “We took delivery of the main consignment many months ago.”

  Jamal spoke American English with no trace of an accent.

  “But we don’t have anyone in place to co-ordinate the project, bring all the elements together and assemble the package. After 9/11 it’s impossible for our people to move about freely in the States. We’re under constant FBI surveillance. We need an outsider to complete the job. Trouble is, we don’t have one.”

  The prayer beads rotated slowly in his fingers. Habib pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his sweaty brow.

  “What about your own people? Anybody come to mind? It’s your bucks after all.”

  Tirofijo shook his head.

  “Nobody of the right calibre. We’re used to fighting in the mountains. We’re not ready yet for urban combat. We’re working on it, but we need more time. Bombing cities requires a whole new set of skills… But leave it with me, Jamal. There’s an Irishman I know could do the job.”

  ***

  4

  Declan O’Brien lived quietly with his mother and younger brother Liam in a comfortable terraced house just off Dublin’s Parnell Square, though Declan himself was hardly ever there. He moved frequently from one safe house to another, just one step ahead of the murderous Brits. The house was provided rent-free by a wealthy supporter of the Irish Republican movement.

  Declan was a hero to those who knew him, and his younger brother, Liam, a victim of one of the worst atrocities of the war. That such a family should receive the financial support it needed was routine. It wasn’t charity. It was recognition. Declan’s mother slept upstairs at the back of the house while the front room on the ground floor had been converted to a bed-sitting-room for Liam, so he wouldn’t need to negotiate the stairs.

  Declan O’Brien was a small man in his middle forties, just over five feet tall with straight fair hair, expressionless blue eyes and thin passionless lips. If his facial features were unremarkable his hands were large and strong. They seemed somehow unrelated to the rest of his frame and clearly had a function all their own.

  Declan rose at dawn and hurriedly packed his bag. He planned to be in the tropics no more than a week if he could help it. Conditions in the rain forest were primitive and he didn’t need much kit. A tube of insect repellent, a jar of water purification tablets, a spare pair of jeans, some tee shirts, a good pair of boots and a couple of bottles of Bushmills. Declan had not slept well, he wasn’t looking forward to the trip and his arm was still sore from the top-up jabs. Brother Liam wouldn’t wake for hours, the drugs that helped him through the night were very effective, but Declan’s mother was already up and made him breakfast in the kitchen, a grand fry-up, just the way he liked it.

  “Look after yerself, ma.” He kissed her on the cheek. “And look after Liam for me.”

  “He’ll miss yer, son.”

  “And I’ll miss the both of yer.” Another kiss. “I’ll be back in time for Paddy’s Day.”

  “Remember to phone him on his birthday. He’ll be mortified if you forget.”

  “Did I ever miss?”

  “No, son, you never did. You’re a good boy, Declan.”

  She gave him one last hug. She had no idea where he was going or what he was up to. If she had, she wouldn’t have let him go. But there were things it was better for a mother not to know and it had been that way with Declan since a Brit bullet had shattered his brother’s spine on that fateful Bloody Sunday.

  There are no direct flights from Dublin to Bogotá. If there had been Declan O’Brien would not have taken one. He also knew better than to make reservations on-line or travel under his own name. Because of his unusual line of work he had a number of identities, some British, some Irish, and a complete set of papers for each; birth certificates, passports, driving licenses, credit cards, national insurance numbers, down to golf club memberships and dry-cleaning receipts. He bought a fly-drive package from a High Street travel agent, paid cash and took the mid-day flight into Miami International Airport. He picked up a convertible at the car rental office, made one local phone call and drove the fifty miles north to Palm Beach where a fully fuelled, twin-engine Learjet 45 was waiting with its engines running. O’Brien had never flown in an executive jet before. He was impressed and he was flattered that someone would think he was that important. But O’Brien knew he’d earned it. Declan O’Brien deserved respect. What he resented most was that in spite of his successes practically nobody knew him, knew what he had done. Within the leadership of the Irish Republican movement his name was widely respected but not outside it, though he was well known to the British Secret Intelligence Service, more popularly known as MI6. But Declan O’Brien could still walk down any street in Dublin and fail to turn a single head. Declan O’Brien yearned to be recognised. To see his name in lights.

  The Learjet had a crew of two, pilot and co-pilot, but no other passengers. The aircraft surged forward on the runway, climbed steeply over the blue ocean and up into the clear blue Florida sky, banked to starboard and soon reached cruising height at twenty-eight thousand feet. The captain switched to autopilot, lit a cigarette and opened a pornographic magazine. The co-pilot opted for a nap. O’Brien helped himself to a scotch and soda from the mini-bar. Four and a half hours later they broke cloud cover at fifteen thousand feet, thirty miles north east of Medellin in the foothills of the Colombian Andes. O’Brien gazed out of the window. It looked like any other modern city with its glistening towers of steel and glass, the ribbons of newly constructed highway. Only the vegetation indicated this was not a European city. Tropical rain forest encroached on the outskirts and held the sprawling suburbs in a lush green stranglehold.

  Medellin and its surrounding province of Antioquia had always been prosperous, there were steel and textile mills in the outlying suburbs, plantations of coffee and banana on the distant hills. But since the explosion of the cocaine trade in the early 1970s there were now more millionaires in this one small city than anywhere else on the planet.

  When O’Brien climbed down the aircraft steps and alighted onto the private airstrip it was nearly dark. A blast of hot, humid air rose up from the tarmac like the backdraught from a steam oven and hit him in the face. He removed his jacket, loosened his tie and watched an open-topped jeep speed across from the small terminal building. It seemed to levitate in the wavering heat. The driver was an attractive, dark complexioned woman in her late twenties in a white loose-fitting cotton blouse and tight crimson linen skirt. O’Brien threw his holdall onto the back seat and climbed in beside her. He smiled but he didn’t speak.

  The woman put the jeep in gear, accelerated across the runway and out through the security gate, wavin
g at the guards. There was no customs and no passport check. Twenty minutes later the jeep pulled up at the gates of a large private compound. The woman parked in the full glare of the halogen lights and stepped down onto the road. The guard unhitched his Uzi SMG, checked her photo-ID and the vehicle registration on a list and took a good look at O’Brien, comparing his features to the photograph on the clipboard. The guard motioned the Irishman to step down from the vehicle and frisked him thoroughly. He was clean. Next he checked O’Brien’s bag. It contained only clothing, an open litre of Bushmills and a sheathed Bowie knife. The guard impounded the nine-inch blade with the curved tip that was sharpened on both edges. O’Brien shrugged. The guard saluted and Declan and the woman climbed back into the jeep as the huge wrought iron gate swung open. As they drove into the compound O’Brien noted the electrified fence that stretched away on either side, the watchtowers, the armed guards patrolling the grounds with dogs. Minutes later the jeep pulled up outside one of the many guest cottages. O’Brien got out, retrieved his holdall from the back seat and smiled at the woman.

  “Thanks.” It was the first word he had spoken.

  “De nada.” She smiled. “You want I come inside?” She was playing with the buttons of her blouse.

  “I’ll just wait for Mr Ortega to call. Thanks anyway.”

  O’Brien was grateful for the offer. Pablo Ortega’s hospitality was legendary. But after fifteen hours on the move Declan just wanted to sleep and anyway the woman wasn’t his type. Too wholesome. He needed something a little more…special. Tonight he would content himself with the Bushmills.

  “My name’s Fernanda,” she turned to go. “If you change your mind just pick up the phone.”

  ***

  5

  The most dangerous man in the most treacherous country in the world was not a politician. But he did control an army. He wasn’t an industrialist. But he did control hundreds of processing plants, a fleet of planes, even a couple of submarines. He wasn’t a landowner. But he did control vast tracts of the landmass of Colombia, impenetrable forest and rough mountain terrain. He built roads, bridges, airstrips, hospitals. He gave shelter to the poor.