phone out of his briefcase, speed-dialed McCoy in London, and told her about Iverson’s call. Next, he instructed her to track down the Signature flight support center at La Guardia and charter a private jet to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Get it big and fast and don’t worry about the cost, Bennett told her. And have Carey Limo waiting for him at Kennedy when he arrived. He would be signing all the expense vouchers from now on and this one would be the least of his worries.
Assuming he could clear Customs and get picked up by the car service between eight and eighty-thirty, Bennett figured he could get to La Guardia and meet the jet on the tarmac—engines running, flight plan cleared—sometime between nine and nine-thirty, depending on weather and traffic. He could then be in the air no later than ten o’clock New York time. With a good pilot and a tailwind, he could be on the ground in Cheyenne by midnight local time, maybe twelve-thirty. If he had to rent a car, McCoy told him the drive was about a hundred and eighty miles, or about three hours. If the Colorado State Patrol or the Secret Service could put him in a chopper, he might be able to get to the Springs—or wherever he was going—by one, maybe two in the morning at the latest.
Bennett felt suffocated—unable to think, unable to react, and half a world out of position. But there wasn’t anything more he could do. One step at a time, he told himself, one step at a time.
His name was General Khalid Azziz.
He had served as head of the Iraqi Republican Guard—Saddam Hussein’s elite military machine—since the end of the Gulf War, and no one was more trusted with the president’s personal security or the stability of the regime than he.
As head of Saddam’s intelligence services during the war with Iran in the 1980s, it was Azziz who pressed successfully for funding to build an elaborate and sophisticated maze of steel-and concrete-hardened, bombproof bunkers underneath Baghdad in case such hiding places would ever be needed for the leaders of the regime during war or revolution. Construction began in late 1986 amid various and conflicting public reports that Saddam was launching a massive archeological excavation, building a world-class subway system to rival any such system in the West, or renovating downtown and building a huge new office and shopping complex. By the time U.S. smart bombs began falling from the Baghdad sky like rain on Seattle, the construction was largely complete. But no archeological site, subway system, or commercial complex was ever officially announced, much less opened. And Saddam Hussein had almost effortlessly survived one of the most aggressive bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. It didn’t take a rocket scientist for the CIA or Saddam himself to figure out why. And General Azziz emerged as a national hero as a result.
The general was also the man almost singularly responsible for kicking UNSCOM—the United Nations’ Special Commission for finding and destroying all of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—out of Iraq forever. It had been years since UNSCOM inspectors set foot in the country. It was the general’s job to keep it that way. And to the amazement of his boss—and most of the world—he’d been spectacularly successful.
The most perilous moment of the general’s long career came in the early 1990s, when two top Iraqi nuclear scientists escaped the country and defected to the United States. Operations “Purse Snatcher” and “Glowing Thunder” were both spearheaded by Azziz’s archenemy, Jack Mitchell, and these disasters nearly cost Azziz his life.
Fortunately for the general, one of his lieutenants was able to locate one of the scientists—still in Jordan—and persuade him to come back without harm to see his family. According to the story picked up by the Jordanian intelligence services, when the scientist was finally brought to Azziz, an elaborate feast was prepared,
Assuming he could clear Customs and get picked up by the car service between eight and eighty-thirty, Bennett figured he could get to La Guardia and meet the jet on the tarmac—engines running, flight plan cleared—sometime between nine and nine-thirty, depending on weather and traffic. He could then be in the air no later than ten o’clock New York time. With a good pilot and a tailwind, he could be on the ground in Cheyenne by midnight local time, maybe twelve-thirty. If he had to rent a car, McCoy told him the drive was about a hundred and eighty miles, or about three hours. If the Colorado State Patrol or the Secret Service could put him in a chopper, he might be able to get to the Springs—or wherever he was going—by one, maybe two in the morning at the latest.
Bennett felt suffocated—unable to think, unable to react, and half a world out of position. But there wasn’t anything more he could do. One step at a time, he told himself, one step at a time.
His name was General Khalid Azziz.
He had served as head of the Iraqi Republican Guard—Saddam Hussein’s elite military machine—since the end of the Gulf War, and no one was more trusted with the president’s personal security or the stability of the regime than he.
As head of Saddam’s intelligence services during the war with Iran in the 1980s, it was Azziz who pressed successfully for funding to build an elaborate and sophisticated maze of steel-and concrete-hardened, bombproof bunkers underneath Baghdad in case such hiding places would ever be needed for the leaders of the regime during war or revolution. Construction began in late 1986 amid various and conflicting public reports that Saddam was launching a massive archeological excavation, building a world-class subway system to rival any such system in the West, or renovating downtown and building a huge new office and shopping complex. By the time U.S. smart bombs began falling from the Baghdad sky like rain on Seattle, the construction was largely complete. But no archeological site, subway system, or commercial complex was ever officially announced, much less opened. And Saddam Hussein had almost effortlessly survived one of the most aggressive bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. It didn’t take a rocket scientist for the CIA or Saddam himself to figure out why. And General Azziz emerged as a national hero as a result.
The general was also the man almost singularly responsible for kicking UNSCOM—the United Nations’ Special Commission for finding and destroying all of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—out of Iraq forever. It had been years since UNSCOM inspectors set foot in the country. It was the general’s job to keep it that way. And to the amazement of his boss—and most of the world—he’d been spectacularly successful.
The most perilous moment of the general’s long career came in the early 1990s, when two top Iraqi nuclear scientists escaped the country and defected to the United States. Operations “Purse Snatcher” and “Glowing Thunder” were both spearheaded by Azziz’s archenemy, Jack Mitchell, and these disasters nearly cost Azziz his life.
Fortunately for the general, one of his lieutenants was able to locate one of the scientists—still in Jordan—and persuade him to come back without harm to see his family. According to the story picked up by the Jordanian intelligence services, when the scientist was finally brought to Azziz, an elaborate feast was prepared,
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