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Clark smiled slyly. "I think there'll be more than enough for both our committees to handle."
The two men took a moment to gloat over the destruction of Kennedy. It was cut short by the voice of dark's personal secretary emanating from the phone.
"Senator, President Hayes is holding on line one."
Clark 's eyes opened wide in an exaggerated show of surprise. "Thank you, Debbie. I'll grab it in a second." Looking at Rudin he asked, "What do you think this is about?"
Rudin clapped his hands together and gleefully announced, "He's calling to withdraw her nomination. What else?"
Clark thought he was right. With Kennedy out of the way he could breathe a sigh of relief and help select Brown as the next nominee. Beyond that, he would still be able to hold hearings. He could explain to the President that it was needed to balance out what would undoubtedly be a rabid persecution of Kennedy by Rudin and the House Intelligence Committee.
Finally he reached out and grabbed the handset. "Mr. President."
"Hank, I don't have much time so I'm going to make this real quick. In about ten minutes we're going to start bombing Iraq. I've already informed the leaders of both houses. I've also signed a Presidential Finding authorizing lethal force for U. S. Special Forces personnel who are in the area. I can't get into any specifics right now, but we're trying to put together a briefing for later tonight. Please do me a favor and keep this under your hat until the story breaks."
"Absolutely, Mr. President."
"Thanks, Hank. I'll be in touch."
The line went dead and Clark slowly hung up the phone. Rudin was still gloating. "What did he say? Did he pull her nomination?"
It took Clark a moment to answer. "No. He called to inform me that we're ten minutes away from bombing Baghdad."
"What?" screamed Rudin. He jumped out of his chair. "There's no way. He can't I can't believe he's-" "He can and he is," said Clark firmly as his mind raced to figure out what was going on.
"It's Wag the Dog. It's all a diversion to get the media to ignore Kennedy"
The congressman's words gave Clark pause. He thought about it for a moment as Rudin paced back and forth in front of his desk spewing obscenities, Clark knew Robert Hayes pretty well, and he didn't take him for the type to put soldiers and airmen into harm's way just to divert attention from a political crisis, but the presidency did funny things to peoples morals. Looking at the red-faced Rudin, Clark decided to bait him a bit. "Do you really think he'd do that?"
"You're damn right he would! He'd sell my fucking party down the river to save his own ass!" Rudin stopped and jabbed his thumb into his chest. "And I'll be damned if I'm going to let him do it. I'm going to go tell every reporter who'll listen that this is a farce!"
"You do what you need to do, Albert, but you're going to wait until the bombs start falling before you say a word."
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.
Baghdad, Monday night
Rapp had given the members of the Delta team one piece of serious advice. They were true professionals, men who did not take well to outsiders telling them what to do, so he was careful how he said it, but he was firm. He told them, "Be bold, be arrogant, and if anybody gets in the way, threaten to kill them." This was the way of Uday Hussein. He had learned it from his father, and young Uday had bested him. Saddam had no heart, but it seemed at least that there was some logic to his use of force. It was used to rule, to keep his subjects cowering. If the people cowered they couldn't look up long enough to strike back. Uday, on the other hand, seemed to take perverse pleasure in maiming and killing innocent people in the most random of ways.
Saddam tolerated Uday's brutal behavior for three reasons. The first was that Saddam himself was no saint, the second was that Uday was his son, and the third was that Uday's sadistic behavior served a purpose. It helped to spread fear among even Saddam's most senior people. The message was clear, don't screw up or you'll end up as Uday's evening entertainment.
The stories were well known throughout Iraq and in the western intelligence agencies. In 1995 Saddam's two sons-in-law, Hussein Kamel, and Saddam Kamel defected to Jordan with Saddam's daughters. After a short period Saddam convinced them to come back to Baghdad. He promised them that he had forgiven them, and that the important thing was that they were family. Upon their return to Baghdad, Uday convinced his father that they needed to made an example of them. Saddam was swayed by his son. Uday then proceeded to torture them for hours on end, kill them, and then as a final message to all the people of Iraq, he burned their houses to the ground. He did it all in front of his sisters, who were allowed to live.
Then there was the story of a friend who had dared to criticize the son of Saddam. Uday had a string tied around the man's penis and then forced three bottles of gin down his throat. The man died an excruciating death. Just a year earlier his father had sent one of his top advisors to talk to Uday about certain affairs of state. Uday felt the man was too condescending, so he had his testicles cut off and fed to his dogs. The man was allowed to live as a reminder to all that Uday was to be treated with absolute respect. Rapp had told all these stories and more to the Delta boys so they could understand the real fear that Uday Hussein strikes into the hearts of all Iraqis. It was this fear that they were depending on to get them into the facility.
The cars had proceeded without difficulty up Route 144. The six lane highway was very modern and relatively quiet as the clock approached 11:00 P. M. The few cars and trucks that they encountered moved quickly out of the way as the caravan of three white Mercedes sedans rolled past at 75 mph. When they reached the city limits they turned onto the Abu Ghurayb Expressway, another six lane thoroughfare that would carry them into the heart of Baghdad and right through the very teeth of the enemy. On the left was the sprawling Abu Ghurayb munitions factory and on the right was the main barracks for the Republican Guard, over ten thousand shock troops ready to put down any revolt launched against Saddam.
Suddenly Rapp noticed the lead car begin to slow a bit. Looking ahead he saw a police cruiser in the middle lane. He spoke decisively over the team's com net "Don't slow down. There isn't a cop in this country who'd pull over one of these caravans. Speed right past him."
The Mercedes all had deeply tinted windows so it was impossible to see in. As they passed the police cruiser Rapp looked over at the officer. Just as he thought, the man didn't dare to even glance at the speeding luxury sedans.
The computer mapping in the car was very nice. The system was uplinked to the Global Positioning System and showed them their exact location on a map of the city. Their course to the hospital was also clearly marked in green. As an extra precaution each member had also memorized the location of the hospital and the streets leading to and from it.
The lead car hit its right turn signal and began to move over. Their exit for the hospital was coming up. As they reached the top of the ramp, and prepared to turn onto Shari'Arba'at, Rapp saw a flash off in the distance. For a split second he thought it was lightning, but it was quickly followed by three more. The strikes were not coming from the sky, they were erupting from the ground. Suddenly fiery streaks appeared in the night sky, and Rapp realized they were cruise missiles. It was an amazing sight, like a low-level meteor storm. Bright flashes began popping to the south of them, each one moving closer until they could hear the explosions. The drivers kept moving toward the hospital. When they reached Shari'Al Mansur they took a left and sped down the road. Several blocks later they passed the Russian embassy and had to race around cars that were stopped in the middle of the road.
At that exact moment, a block in front of them, a blur of fire breathing cruise missiles screamed overhead less than a hundred feet off the ground. The cars shook from the noise, but continued on even faster. The hospital was only blocks away. Over the com net Rapp said, "Major, did you see the crowd gathering in front of the Russian embassy?"
"Affirmative."
