Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [122]
As he watched, Falah saw a man emerge from the cave. The man was dressed in a khaki shirt and shorts. He was followed by a man who held a gun to his back. Someone else was there, although he didn't come out of the cave. He stood in the shadows of the entrance, watching. The prisoner was led into the van.
Falah opened the duffel bag and withdrew the three parts of the EAR. The computer was slightly larger than an audio cassette. He set it on the rock. Then he withdrew the satellite dish. Folded, it was approximately the size and shape of a small umbrella. At the press of a button, the black dish fanned open like a small umbrella as well. He pressed a second button, and a tripod shot out from the other side. He stood it on the rock as well and plugged it into the computer. Then Falah fished out the earphones. He plugged them in, turned on the unit, and guessed the distance to the cave. After fine-tuning it to within a foot of the entranceway, he listened.
He heard Turkish being spoken in the front of the cave. He told the computer to go to the next layer. Someone was speaking Syrian.
" is the timetable?" a man asked.
"I don't know," said another man. "Soon. He has promised the leader to Ibrahim and the women to his lieutenants."
"Not to us?" another man grumbled.
There's evidence of the Turkish and Syrian Kurdish collaboration, Falah thought. He wasn't surprised, merely gratified. When he was finished, he'd transmit the recording to Tel Nef. From there it would be relayed to Washington. The American President would probably inform Damascus and Ankara. The conversation was also evidence of other captives being held at this location. Before contacting Tel Nef, Falah decided to probe deep into the cave.
He went ten feet at a time. He heard more Syrian, more Turkish, and finally English. It was muffled and difficult to understand. Knowing how the Kurds worked in the hills, the speakers were probably being kept in prison pits. He picked up only a few words.
"Treason sooner die."
" will."
He listened for a few moments longer, then programmed new coordinates into the computer. Sitting sturdily on its tripod, the dish began to turn. The Israeli communications satellite Falah needed to contact was in a geostationary orbit directly over Lebanon and eastern Syria.
As Falah waited for the dish to establish the uplink, one of the Arabs ran from the van. He hurried over to the dark figure standing in the cave entrance.
Falah pushed the "cancel" button on the uplink. Then he physically picked up the dish, turned it back toward the cave entrance, and entered the distance into the computer. He listened.
" turned on a computer inside," the man from the van was saying. "It told us there was a satellite dish out there."
The man in the shadows calmly asked where it was.
"To the southwest," the other man replied, "within five hundred yards--"
That was all Falah needed to hear. He knew there was no way he'd be able to outrun the Kurds and no way he could take them on. He had only one option. With an oath, he pressed a button to send a silent signal back to the base. Then he folded the satellite dish and tripod and swept the entire unit into the hole he'd dug. He reached into the pouch around his waist and dropped the radio in as well. Finally, he pulled off his sandals and dropped them in. He filled the hole with the dirt, then placed the sod on top of it. Unless someone was looking, they wouldn't see that the soil beneath the grass had been disturbed. Grabbing his duffel bag, Falah crept toward the northeast. As he headed toward the cave he saw over a dozen Kurdish soldiers run from the cave. They fanned out in columns of three, carefully avoiding the mines.
Falah crawled mostly on grass