London, 15 February, 1900 GMT

Stuart showered quickly, shaking off the residue of the fever. He felt weak from the malaria attack, but his mind was clear after nearly three hours of sleep. Alison had returned to the flat while he was dressing, and when told of his sudden recall to active duty, and nothing else, she quickly gathered her things and left without a word. Stuart couldn’t decide how he felt about that. The Wheelus situation had driven his problems with Alison out of his mind.

Stuart dressed carefully in a quiet gray wool suit, light blue cotton shirt, and dark blue tie bearing the device of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. He would have liked to wear a uniform, but his blues were in storage in New York, and anyway, the rank devices would have been wrong even if the trousers had fit. Stuart took a cab to the embassy and presented his ID and his newly issued orders. The marine guard had him sign the duty roster and sign again for his new ID. Stuart hung the embassy Access 1 ID around his neck and proceeded as directed to the third-floor conference room.

Men in various uniforms and in civilian clothes were milling around, getting coffee and shaking hands with each other. Stuart nodded to Captain Harris, who was talking with a rear admiral in the front of the room. Stuart waved to Forrest and nodded to Maniero and to Professor Masad. A huge, heavy hand dropped on his shoulder and spun him around. Stuart looked up into a face that seemed to have come from a Frederic Remington bronze sculpture.

“Hello, White-Eyes!” boomed the bronze giant cheerfully.

Stuart grinned and shook the hand that dropped from his shoulder. “Why, Rufus Loonfeather! I haven’t seen you since Nam in, I guess, early sixty-eight. I’m glad to see you!”

Loonfeather grinned. He was a full-blooded Indian of the Dakota Nation, with a nose hooked like the beak of a hawk, dark mahogany skin, and deep-set black eyes. He smiled, his teeth gleaming white as they shone against his dark, thin lips. Loonfeather’s uniform, that of lieutenant colonel in the Army, was covered with decorations and badges. “That’s right, William. The famous battle for Horsehead Mountain. But I’m not glad to see you! You were bad medicine for me that day; I lost many coups because your navy assets chewed up my targets.”

Stuart laughed. He remembered Loonfeather had liked to put on the accent and manner of a Hollywood Indian, especially when telling war stories. “And I never apologized.”

“That’s all right; we always expect you to speak with forked tongue. Besides, when I first met you, in that hokey survival school when we were both newly commissioned butter-bars, you and that insane marine friend of yours got me a beating and a trip to the box. Very bad medicine! No, sir, Commander, I’m not glad to see you.” His grin belied the statement.

Stuart’s own smile faded momentarily. He remembered that marine well; Billy Hunter had engineered their escape from the prison camp of SERE training and had later been killed while under Stuart’s command on the first night of the Tet Offensive of 1968. Before the end of Tet and the counterattacks that followed, Stuart’s small unit of air and naval gunfire spotters had been virtually wiped out.

The rear admiral rapped on the lectern in the front of the room, and the men quickly found seats and were quiet.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” began the admiral. “I’m Rear Admiral Wilson, N-2 for Admiral Lee at CINCUSNAVEUR.” CINCUSNAVEUR was Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, as only the military could compress it. “You all know why you’re here, in general, so let me go briefly through the Table of Organization, and then we can split up and try to do some useful work.” The admiral went through a series of flip charts, obviously hastily prepared, showing that Admiral Lee was in charge of organizing the task force, reporting to the Joint Chiefs, and that Admiral Wilson was head of Plans. Everybody in this meeting belonged to Plans. Other charts set forth the forces that might be brought into the actual operation, if one were needed. The combat operation was under the overall command of Admiral Bergeron, commander of the Sixth Fleet. The forces included one carrier battle group around the America, one more around Nimitz, now crossing the Atlantic from Norfolk at high speed, and two marine battalion landing teams, embarked on two naval amphibious squadrons that had been steaming off Lebanon, complete with their helicopter squadrons. These forces were expected to do the extraction itself, but several specialized units from the Army and Air Force were also listed, including Airborne units, Rangers, helicopter gunship squadrons from the Army, and fighter-bomber and heavy transport squadrons from the Air Force.

Clearly enough force to obliterate Wheelus and the entire Libyan military, if it came to that, mused Stuart as the briefing droned on, but we still need a scheme to protect the hostages from the terrorists until they are actually lifted out.

Admiral Wilson finished with the overview and returned to the detailed chart for Plans. Stuart saw his own name and Loonfeather’s in a box marked “On the Ground Tactics,” along with the name of a Colonel Brimmer, USMC.

When the admiral came to that box in his briefing, he said that “On the Ground Tactics” was meant to devise ways and means of securing the hostages at the onset of the operation, and of neutralizing threats to them from either the terrorists of the Abu Salaam faction, who were presumed still to be holding the hostages, or from the Libyan forces on the air base. Simple enough, thought Stuart, grinning at Loonfeather, who shook his head.

The briefing broke for supper, which was sandwiches and coffee served by embassy staff in the conference room. During the meal, Doctor Masad briefed on political developments.

Doctor Masad was a short, energetic-looking man, slightly stout, and fifty years old. He had weak, red-rimmed eyes behind half-glasses, smooth, sallow skin, wooly graying hair, and a short-trimmed beard. He looked like the professor the briefing list said that he was. He spoke slowly, in Oxford-accented but slightly singsong English.

“Gentlemen, this part of the briefing is also top secret,” Masad began. “Naturally, the U.S. government would prefer a political, and bloodless, solution to this problem.”

Doctor Masad drank some coffee, picked up the admiral’s pointer, and referred to his own flip chart, headed “The Abu Salaam Faction.” The professor tapped the chart and looked sad. “These men are fanatics of a particular order, gentlemen. They are Shi’ites of an especially orthodox bent. To die in the defiance of God’s enemies, they believe, will grant them immediate entry into paradise. And to die for Abu Salaam amounts to virtually the same thing.” The professor took another sip of coffee. “Abu Salaam, whose nom de guerre, gentlemen, means Father of Peace in Arabic [there was a murmur of anger in the room] was born, we think, in Bethlehem, on the West Bank, in 1945. We don’t know his true name. It’s unlikely that he was originally Shia, coming from that area.

“His early political career began with Al-Fatah, the group headed by Yassir Arafat. But in the sixties, he moved to the side of Dr. George Habbash, a Lebanese physician and the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, where he pledged himself and his growing group of followers to terrorist activities inside Israel. Later, we think about 1980, he abandoned Habbash, considering him too moderate, and moved his group to Libya and into the sphere of Colonel Baruni.”

Loonfeather got up quietly and brought back a full pot of coffee. The room had become very still, the men totally absorbed.

“Baruni, and more recently, Khomeini, have spread the doctrine that the true enemy of Islam, the Great Satan, is not Israel alone, but the superpower the Shi’ites view as Israel’s partner and protector, the United States.” Doctor Masad paused and drank some water from a glass on the podium.

“So his operation has two goals, gentlemen. To embarrass the United States and to publicize the power of the terrorists of Abu Salaam. And, gentlemen,” the professor took off his half-glasses and paused, rubbing his red eyes, “the more violent the end of this drama, the better they will like it.”

Admiral Wilson rose. “Professor, what about Baruni? Where does he fit in all of this?”

The professor had picked up his notes. Clearly he had thought he was finished and was glad to be going. He put the notes down. “Admiral, Baruni has been ruler of Libya,” Masad paused and rubbed his tired eyes, “my country, since the coup in 1969. Nevertheless, little is known of him. He was born in Surt, of Arabized Berber parents, in approximately 1942. He was educated by Arab tutors.” The professor seemed to be rushing, and his voice was taut. “He was a member of the Free Officers’ Movement, which studied together in the now-closed Benghazi Military Academy, and later plotted to overthrow, and indeed overthrew, the government of King Idris. He is very religious. He believes he guides a sacred pan-Arab crusade against the Great Satan, the United States. That he supports Arab, and indeed, non-Arab terror is beyond dispute. Whether he has any control over Abu Salaam, we can only speculate.” The professor looked pained.

“Speculate,” directed Admiral Wilson.

“I would say not, Admiral,” said the professor, as he seemed to shrink into his rumpled suit. “Abu Salaam is unmindful of the influence of any man, even Baruni. It is even said that he believes he is the Mahdi, the Messenger of God.”

“Thank you, Professor,” said the admiral very quietly. Doctor Masad nodded and shuffled out of the conference room, his head bowed.