Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [120]
Then there was nothing to do beyond what August did worst.
He had to wait.
* * *
THIRTY-NINE
Tuesday, 1:45 p.m.,
the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
Falah had walked most of the night and slept briefly before the sun came up. The sun was his alarm clock and it had never failed him. And the darkness was his cloak. That had never failed him either.
Fortunately, Falah had never required a great deal of sleep. As a young boy growing up in Tel Aviv, he'd always felt that he was missing something if he slept. As a teenager, he'd known he was missing something when the sun went down. And as an adult, he had too much to do in the dark.
One day it will catch up to you, he thought as he made his way.
Equally fortunate, after being driven to the Lebanese border, Falah had been able to make most of the first leg of his journey before resting. It was a seventeen-mile trek to the mouth of the Bekaa, and he found an olive grove well away from the dirt road. Covered with fallen leaves for warmth and concealment, Falah had the Lebanese Mountains to the west and the foothills of the Anti-Lebanon range to the east. He made certain there was a break in the peaks where he rested. That would allow the rising sun to kiss him before it cleared the mountains and woke others in the valley.
Virtually every village in Syria and Lebanon has its own preferred style of dress and cloth. Wraps, robes, trousers, and skirts with distinctive patterns, colors, tassels, and accoutrements are more varied here than anywhere in the world. Some of the styles are based on tradition, others are based on function. Among the Kurds who had moved into the southern Bekaa, the only traditional article of clothing is the headdress. Before leaving Tel Nef, Falah had gone into the "closet," a well-stocked wardrobe room, to dress for his role as an itinerant farm worker. He'd selected a ratty black robe, black sandals, and a characteristic black, stiff, tasseled headdress. He'd also chosen heavy, black-framed sunglasses. Under the torn, loose-fitting robe, Falah wore a tight rubber belt strapped to his waist. Two waterproof pouches were attached to it. One, on his right hip, contained a fake Turkish passport with a Kurdish name and an address in a Kurdish village. He was Aram Tunas from Semdinli. The pouch also contained a small two-way radio.
The other pouch contained a.44 Magnum revolver which had been taken from a Kurdish prisoner. A coded map printed with food dye on dried lambskin was tucked into the pouch with the radio. If he were captured, Falah would eat the map. Falah was also given a password which would identify him to any of the American rescuers. It was a line Moses had uttered in The Ten Commandments: "I will dwell in this land." Bob Herbert had felt the password for the ROC's Middle East mission should be something holy, but not something from the Koran or the Bible that someone might say inadvertently. When challenged after giving the line, Falah was to say that his name was the Sheik of Midian. If he were captured and the password tortured or drugged from him, chances were good an imposter would not think to ask for the second part. The impersonator would then give himself away by answering with the name on Falah's passport.
The Israeli also carried a large cowskin water pouch over his left shoulder. Over his right shoulder was a duffel bag with a change of clothes, food, and an EAR--an Echelon Audio Receiver. The unit consisted of a small, collapsible parabolic dish, an audio receiver/transmitter, and a compact computer. The computer contained a digital recorder as well as a filter program which was based on principles of the Doppler effect. It allowed the user to choose sounds by echelon or layer. At the press of a button on the keypad, the audio which reached the listener first was eliminated to make way for that