Corsair

NINE

CORINTHIA BAB AFRICA HOTEL, TRIPOLI, LIBYA

AMBASSADOR CHARLES MOON STOOD FROM BEHIND HIS DESK as soon as his secretary opened his office door and stepped aside. In a show of respect, Moon met his guest halfway across the carpeted room.

“Minister Ghami, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to come see me in person.” Moon’s tone was grave.

“At a time like this, President Qaddafi wishes he could have expressed our government’s concern in person, but affairs of state wait for no man. Please accept my humble presence as a sign that we share your anxiety at this disastrous event.” He held out his hand to be shaken.

The U.S. Ambassador took his hand and motioned to the sofas under the glass wall overlooking the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. Near the horizon, a tanker was plowing westward. The two men sat.

Where Moon was short in stature and wore his suit like a gunnysack, the Libyan Foreign Minister stood a solid six feet, with a handsome face and perfectly coiffed hair. His suit had the distinctive tailoring of Savile Row, and his shoes were shined to a mirror gloss. His English was nearly flawless, with just a trace of an accent that added to his urbane sophistication. He crossed his legs, plucking at his suit pants so the fabric draped properly.

“My government wants to assure you that we have scrambled search-and-rescue teams to the area, as well as aircraft. We will not stop until we are certain what happened to Secretary Katamora’s plane.”

“We deeply appreciate that, Minister Ghami,” Charles Moon replied formally. A career diplomat, Moon knew that the tone and timbre of their conversation was as important as the words. “Your government’s response to this crisis is everything we could wish for. Your visit alone tells me how serious you feel toward what could turn out to be a terrible tragedy.”

“I know the cooperative relationship between our two nations is in its infancy.” Ghami made a sweeping gesture with his hand to encompass the room. “You don’t even have a formal embassy building yet and must work out of a hotel suite, but I want this in no way to jeopardize what has been a successful rapport.”

Moon nodded. “Since May of 2006, when we formalized relations once again, we have enjoyed nothing but support from your government, and at this time don’t believe anything, ah, deliberate has occurred.” He emphasized the word, and drove the point home further by adding, “Unless new information comes to light, we view this as a tragic accident.”

It was Ghami’s turn to nod. Message received. “A tragic accident indeed.”

“Is there anything my government can do to help?” Moon asked, though he already knew the answer. “The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is currently in Naples, Italy, and could aid in the search in a day or two.”

“I would like nothing more than to take you up on your kind offer, Ambassador. However, we believe that our own military and civilian search units are more than up for the task. I would hate to think of the diplomatic consequences if another aviation accident occurred. Further, the people of Libya have not forgotten the last time American warplanes were flying in our skies.”

He was referring to the air strikes carried out by Air Force FB-111s and carrier aircraft on April 14, 1986, that leveled several military barracks and severely crippled Libya’s air defense network. The strikes were in response to a spate of terrorist bombings in Europe that the U.S. had linked to a Libyan-backed group. Libya denied they had been involved, but history notes that there were no further such bombings until Al-Qaeda emerged a decade later.

Ghami gave a little smile. “Of course, we accept that you have most likely retasked some of your spy satellites to overfly our nation. If you happen to spot the plane, well, we would understand the source of that information should you choose to share it.” Moon made to protest, but the Libyan cut him off with a gesture. “Please, Mr. Ambassador, you need not comment.”

Moon smiled for the first time since the transponder on Fiona Katamora’s plane went silent twelve hours earlier. “I was just going to say that we would doubtlessly share such information.”

“There is one more thing we need to discuss,” Ghami said. “At this time, and with your approval, I see no reason to cancel or even delay the upcoming peace conference.”

“I spoke with the President this morning,” Moon informed him, “and he expressed the same sentiment. If, God forbid, the worst has happened, it would do Secretary Katamora’s memory a disservice by canceling what she believed was the greatest opportunity to achieve regional stability. She more than anyone, I believe, would want us to proceed.”

“In the event that, well, as you say, the worst has occurred, do you know who would represent your government at the conference?”

“Frankly, no. The President refused to even speculate.”

“I understand completely,” Ghami said.

“He and Secretary Katamora were particularly close.”

“I can well imagine. From what I’ve read and seen on the news, she was a remarkable woman. Forgive me, is a remarkable woman.” Ghami stood, clearly irritated at his gaffe. “Mr. Ambassador, I won’t take up any more of your day. I simply wanted to express our concern in person, and you have my word that as soon as I hear anything I will call you regardless of the time.”

“I appreciate that.”

“On a personal note, Charles”—Ghami used his Christian name deliberately—“if this is Allah’s will, I certainly don’t understand it.”

Moon recognized that only the most heartfelt sentiment would cause Ghami to even suggest that he was questioning the will of his God. “Thank you.”

The United States Ambassador led the Libyan Foreign Minister to the bank of elevators. Almost as an afterthought, Moon asked Ghami, “I wonder, if there is wreckage, how we should proceed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If the plane crashed, my government would most likely request that a team of American examiners inspect the remains in situ. People from the National Transportation Safety Board are experts at determining exactly what forces were in play to cause an airplane to crash.”

“I see, yes.” Ghami rubbed his jaw. “We have specialists who perform a similar function here. I can’t see it as a problem. However, I’ll need to consult with the President.”

“Very well. Thank you.”

A minute after Moon returned to his office, there was a knock on the door. “Come in.”

“What do you think?” asked Jim Kublicki, the CIA station chief at the American Embassy. A former college football star, Kublicki had been with the agency for fifteen years. He was nearly as tall as the doorframe, which meant he would never be a covert operative because he stood out in any crowd, but he was a competent administrator, and the four agents assigned to the embassy liked and respected him.

“If they’re involved in some way, Ali Ghami’s out of the loop,” Moon replied.

“From what I’ve heard, Ghami is Qaddafi’s fair-haired boy. If they intentionally shot down that plane, he’d know.”

“Then my gut tells me the Libyans didn’t do anything and whatever has happened was an accident.”

“We won’t know for certain until they find the wreckage and get a team to examine it.”

“Obviously.”

“Did you ask him if we can bring over folks from the NTSB?”

“I did. Ghami agreed, but he wants to talk it over with Qaddafi. I think Ghami wasn’t prepared for the question and wants a little time to figure out how to accept without admitting our people are better than his. They can’t afford a diplomatic flap by refusing.”

“If they do, that would surely tell us something,” Kublicki said with a spook’s inherent paranoia. “So, what’s he like in person—Ghami, I mean?”

“I’d met him before, of course, but this time I got a better sense of the man behind the diplomatic niceties. He’s charming and gracious, even in these circumstances. I could tell he was truly disturbed by what’s happened. He’s poured a lot of his own reputation into this conference, only to see it marred before it starts. He’s really upset. It’s hard to believe a regime like this could produce someone like that.”

“Qaddafi saw the writing on the wall when we took down Saddam Hussein. How long after we pulled him out of the spider hole did Libya agree to abandon its nuke program and disavow terrorism?”

“A matter of days, I believe.”

“There you go. A leopard can change his spots once he sees the consequences of jerking around the good old U.S. of A.”

The corners of Moon’s mouth turned downward. He wasn’t much for jingoism, and had been dead set against the Iraq invasion, though he acknowledged that without it the upcoming peace summit might never have been proposed. He shrugged. Who really knew? Events had unfolded the way they had and there was no use revisiting past actions. “Have you heard anything?” he asked Kublicki.

“NRO has shifted one of their spy birds from the Gulf to cover Libya’s western desert. The imaging specialists have the first pictures now. If that plane’s out there, they’ll find it.”

“We’re talking thousands and thousands of square miles,” Moon reminded. “And some of that is pretty mountainous.”

Kublicki was undeterred. “Those satellites can read a license plate from a thousand miles up.”

Moon was too upset about the situation to point out that being able to see details of a specific target had no relation to searching an area the size of New England. “Do you have anything else for me?”

Realizing he was being dismissed, Kublicki got to his feet. “No, sir. It’s pretty much a wait-and-see kind of thing now.”

“Okay, thanks. Could you ask my secretary to get me some aspirin?”

“Sure thing.” The agent lumbered out of the office.

Charles Moon pressed his thumbs against his temples. Since hearing about the plane’s disappearance, he had managed to keep his emotions in check, but exhaustion was cracking his professional façade. He knew without a doubt that if Fiona Katamora was dead, the Tripoli Accords didn’t stand a chance in hell. He had lied to Ali Ghami during their meeting. He and the President had discussed who would represent the United States. The President had told him that he would send the VP because an Undersecretary simply didn’t carry enough clout. The problem was, the Vice President was a young, good-looking congressman who’d been put on the ticket to balance it out. He had no diplomatic experience and, everyone agreed, no brain either.

The VP had once met with Kurdish representatives at a White House function and wouldn’t stop joking about bean curds. At a state dinner for the Chinese President, he’d held out his plate to the man and asked, “What do you call china in China?” Then there was the video clip, an Internet favorite for months, of him staring at an actress’s cleavage and actually licking his lips.

Not one for praying, Charles Moon had the sudden urge to get on his knees and beg God for Fiona’s life. And he wanted to pray for the untold hundreds and thousands who would keep dying in the seemingly unending cycle of violence if she was gone.

“Your aspirin, Mr. Ambassador,” his secretary said.

He looked up at her. “Leave the bottle, Karen. I’m going to need it.”