Slaton had no idea what had happened. The team watching from Langley could do nothing but sit helpless as, fifty miles above Morocco, a state-of-the-art infrared satellite lens blinked like a human eye trying to stare at the sun.
They would all learn the specifics in days to come. In cruel irony, the attempt on the king’s life was captured in high resolution, and from a dozen different angles, by the photographers he himself had commissioned. Yet in that moment, as the cataclysm played out over Slaton’s head, everyone feared the worst.
The 747 was directly above the cape to the south, just coming into view for the flock of waiting photographers, when the MiG reached its closest proximity. It would later be determined that the drone was 143 meters away, and on a perfect collision course with the widebody’s central fuselage, when it exploded in midair—at the detonation of the self-destruct charge Tikhonov had installed as a precaution. From the Saudi point of view, it would have been far more useful had the self-immolation occurred ten seconds earlier. As it turned out, the MiG was traveling at such a high rate of speed that in spite of its obliteration as a functioning machine, a large number of fragments carried on to reach the Boeing.
Fortunately, the king’s pilots were the king’s pilots for a reason. Drawn from the most elite ranks of the Saudi Arabian Air Force, the two senior officers were among the most steady and highly trained aviators on earth. So it was that, when remnants of the MiG’s third stage turbine punctured a wing spoiler actuator on the 747, the resulting loss of hydraulic pressure in system number two brought barely an intake of breath on the flight deck. No fewer than twelve pieces of the MiG penetrated the plane’s hull at various points, but because the big jet was at very low altitude, the loss of cabin pressure was a complete nonevent. The most pressing concern arrived in the form of a slab of the MiG’s vertical tail which sailed straight into the outboard port engine. The engine immediately caught fire and began disintegrating, throwing off shrapnel of its own that damaged an adjacent fuel line running to the inboard port engine.
It was at this point that the king, who’d remained on the flight deck for his sightseeing excursion, heard a most unprofessional word from the seat in front of him.
The pilots became a blur of motion, working levers and silencing warning bells. Checklists were run while the captain fought the controls to keep the jet airborne. In short order the crew secured the number one engine, little of which remained on the wing, and were able to coax the number two engine to keep running, albeit at a reduced power setting. With a bit of rudder thrown in to keep the behemoth flying in nearly a straight line, the hulking jet passed beachside of the king’s new palace within seconds of the prescribed moment. Less according to plan was the picture it presented: the Boeing limped through the air in a decidedly uncoordinated dance, black smoke trailing one of its engines and fuel vapor streaming from another.
And that was exactly what Slaton saw when he stepped outside the control vehicle. From the highest hill on the coast, he watched the massive jet claw for altitude and begin a very gentle turn seaward. It rolled out on a northerly heading, certainly making for the nearest emergency airfield. When Slaton lost sight minutes later, the jet was marginally higher and still trailing smoke like a barnstormer at an airshow.
* * *
Slaton started back toward the villa, a host of new aches and pains governing his pace. After trotting downhill, he reestablished contact with Langley and explained what had happened.
When he finished, Coltrane said, “I’d like you to wait there at the scene.”
“Why?”
“We’ve dispatched a team from our embassy in Rabat. With any luck they’ll arrive before the Sûreté Nationale. We’d like to go over the place before the police get involved.”
Slaton didn’t respond for a time. “Did the royal family land safely?” he asked.
“A few minutes ago—a military airfield near Casablanca. You just saved the House of Saud from annihilation. I think the king will be surprised to find out that it was a former Mossad man who—”
“Actually,” Slaton interrupted, “I’d like to keep my name out of this mess. Completely out.”
“All right … I think I understand. We owe you that much.”
“No—you owe me a lot more. And I’m going to start collecting right now.”
Slaton explained what he wanted.
Before Coltrane could respond, the line went dead.
* * *
In fact, the CIA squad from Rabat beat the police to the scene by thirty minutes. They discovered three bodies at the villa, along with one in the truck on the nearby hill, and began taking pictures immediately. What they didn’t find was one weary and severely bruised kidon. Slaton was gone, as was the tan sedan.
In fact, the operations center at Langley, still referencing their satellite feed, had noted his departure. When the duty officer inquired whether they should track the car, the director’s answer had been unequivocal.
“No, let him go.”
In time, detailed reconnaissance images of the villa would be compared to onsite photographs taken by the embassy team. After painstaking analysis it would be determined that, aside from Slaton and Ovechkin, two items had gone missing from the villa. One was a large rectangular shipping case. The other was a fifty-caliber Barrett sniper rifle.