CHAPTER 43
Ali Mevlevi sat alone in the spacious cabin listening to the pilot announce their initial descent toward Zurich Airport. He put down the sheaf of papers that had held him in their embrace the past three hours and tightened his seat belt. His eyes burned and his head ached. He wondered if it had been a smart idea coming to Switzerland, then dismissed the question outright. He hadn't had a choice. Not if Khamsin was to succeed.
Mevlevi returned his attention to the papers in his lap. His eye wandered from top to bottom. It began with the heading, written in large Cyrillic script and emblazoned in maroon ink across the top of the page. He knew it to read "Surplus Arms Warehouse." A polite introductory paragraph written in English followed. "We sell only the finest new and used armaments, all in perfect operating order." He half expected to see a disclaimer informing him that he could return the merchandise after thirty days if he was in any way dissatisfied. The Russians were giving international commerce their best shot. He turned the page and reviewed the list of the material he had purchased.
Section I: Aircraft. Item 1. Hind Assault Helicopter Model VII A (the winged beast of Afghan fame). Price: $15 million per copy. He'd taken four. Item 2. Sukhoi Attack Helicopter. Price: $7 million. He'd taken six. Item 3. Unpronounceable air to ground missiles at fifty thousand a pop. Two hundred sat in his hangar. Turn the page. Section II: Tracked Vehicles. T-52 Tanks at $2 million apiece. He had a damned fleet of them, twenty-five in all. Mobile Katyusha Rocket launchers. A bargain at half a million per. He'd taken ten. Next to item seven, page two, the Zhukov armored personnel carrier with rear-mounted quad.50-caliber machine guns on sale at $250,000 per, there was a star and a handwritten addendum: "Still in use by the Russian Armed Forces- spare parts available!!!" He'd taken a dozen. The list went on and on. A devil's cornucopia of deadly toys. Field artillery, mortars, machine guns, grenades, mines, t.o.w.'s. Enough weaponry to fully equip two reinforced companies of infantry, a company of armored cavalry, and a squadron of attack helicopters. Six hundred men in all.
And to think they were only a diversion.
Mevlevi laughed slyly while he turned to the final page of the document. The main event, as it were. He moved his eyes across the page. The words leaped up at him as if it were the first time he had seen them, and not the hundredth, causing his scrotum to tighten and his skin to bristle with goose bumps.
Section V. Nuclear Ordnance. 1 Kopinskaya IV two-kiloton concussive bomb. Mevlevi's mouth grew dry. A battlefield nuclear weapon. An atomic device no larger than a mortar shell carrying one tenth the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb with only one fiftieth the radioactivity. Two thousand tons of TNT with hardly a stray atom.
It was the only item he had not been able to purchase. It would cost him roughly eight hundred million Swiss francs. He would have the money in three days' time. And the bomb in three and one half.
Mevlevi had chosen the target with great care. Ariel- an isolated settlement of fifteen thousand Jews in the occupied West Bank, constructed even as the Israelis proclaimed their good faith in negotiations concerning their withdrawal from that exact area. Did they think the Arab stupid? No man builds a town he will leave in one year. Even the name was perfect. Ariel- no doubt in honor of Mr. Ariel Sharon, the Israelis' most belligerent Arab hater, the beast who had personally supervised the massacres at Shatila and Sabra in 1982.
Ariel- the name would come to symbolize the Jews' woe.
Mevlevi yawned unexpectedly. He had risen at 4:00 A.M. to conduct a predawn review of his men on the main training field. They had looked magnificent, clad in their desert warfare utilities. Row upon row of inspired warriors, ready to advance the work of the prophet; ready to give their life for Allah. He walked their ranks, offering words of encouragement. Go with God. Inshallah. God is great.
From the field, he continued on to the two immense hangars he had had carved into the hills at the south end of his compound five years ago. He entered the first hangar and was deafened by the roar of twenty battle tanks conducting final checks on their transmission and drive trains. Mechanics swirled around the mighty beasts, asking drivers to rev the engines and rotate the turrets. Last measures of petrol were added to the lumbering giants, jerricans strapped to their steel hulls. He stopped to admire the immaculate paintwork. Moshe Dayan would turn over in his grave. Every tank had been painted to the exact specifications of the Israeli Army. Each carried an Israeli flag to be raised at the moment of the attack. Confusion was a raider's greatest ally.
Mevlevi walked to the second hangar, which housed his helicopters. "Death from above," cried the Americans and their Israeli vassals. Now they'd learn firsthand. He looked at the Hind choppers, their stout wings bent under the weight of so much ordnance. And the sleeker Sukhoi attack helicopters. Just staring at these instruments of destruction sent a chill down his spine. The helicopters had also been painted the dirty khaki tones of the Israeli armed forces. Three of them carried Israeli transponders captured from downed craft. When the birds crossed the Israeli border, they would activate the transponders. For all the world, or at least every radar installation in the Galilee, they would appear to be friendly forces.
Mevlevi's last stop before climbing aboard the aircraft to Zurich had been to the operations center, a reinforced underground bunker not far from the hangars. He wished to conduct a final review of the tactical situation with Lieutenant Ivlov and Sergeant Rodenko. Ivlov summarized the plan of battle: At 0200 Saturday, Mevlevi's troops would cross into Syria and move south toward the Israeli border. Their movement was timed to coincide with the beginning of an anti-Hezbollah exercise conducted by the South Lebanese Army. Syrian reconnaissance would be expected. Intelligence confirmed that no satellites would be overflying the operational area at this time. One company of infantry would take up position three miles from the border near the town of Chebaa. The other company, working in concert with the armored cavalry, would travel seven miles east to Jazin. The tanks themselves would be transported to the staging area by seven lorries normally used to deliver tractors. Each lorry could take up to four tanks. All troops would be in position by dawn Monday. They would attack on their master's command.
Mevlevi assured Ivlov and Rodenko that the plan would go forward as set forth. He didn't dare tell the two Russians that their incursion across the border to destroy the newest Israeli settlements of Ebarach and New Zion was only a feint, a bloody charade designed to lure the Jews' attention away from a small flight corridor above the northeasternmost corner of their homeland. To be sure, a few hundred Hebraic settlers could count on losing their lives. It wasn't as if Ivlov's attack would have no positive consequences. Just insignificant ones.
Mevlevi dismissed the Russian mercenaries, then descended a spiral staircase to the communications facility. He asked the clerk on duty to leave and, when he was alone, locked the door and moved to one of the three secure telephone lines. He picked up the phone and dialed a nine-digit number.
A groggy voice at the Surplus Arms Warehouse in downtown Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, answered. "Da?"
"General Dimitri Marchenko. Tell him it is his friend in Beirut." Mevlevi expected Marchenko to be sleeping. However, this was his private line, and the general was proud to offer twenty-four-hour service, a concept he had no doubt picked up during one of his military exchanges to the United States. Besides, he was one of the general's better customers. So far he had paid him and his sponsors in the Kazakh government $125 million.