Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [127]
For the most part, that was propaganda and paranoia. Ironically, today it was true. As Bob Herbert had put it when Hood called Op-Center from the embassy, "It's like the broken watch that's right twice a day. Today, the Turkish and Syrian Kurds are the enemy."
Herbert told Hood that operatives in Damascus had reported movement among the Kurdish underground. That morning, beginning at 8:30, most of them had begun leaving their five safe houses scattered around the city. These were houses Syria allowed them to keep to plot against the Turks. Shortly before noon, when Syrian security forces realized there might be a plot involving the unified Kurds, they went to the safe houses. All of them were deserted. Herbert's people had managed to keep up with a handful of the forty-eight Kurds. They were all in the vicinity of the Old City. Some of them were sitting along the banks of the Barada River, which flowed along the northeastern wall. Others were visiting the Muslim cemetery along the southwest wall. None of the Kurds had gone inside the walls.
Herbert said that he had not passed this information on to the Syrians for two reasons. First, it could very well expose his own intelligence sources in Damascus. Second, it might cause the Kurds to panic. If there were a plot against the President, then only the President and those close to him would be targets. If the Kurds were forced to act prematurely, a firelight might erupt in the streets. There was no telling how many Damascenes might be killed.
Hood did not bother telling Herbert that he might be one of those targets close to the Syrian President.
The embassy car entered the southwest sector of the Old City. The walls had fallen along a five-hundred-yard stretch here, and security was extremely thick. Jeeps had been parked fender-to-fender along the edges of the wall, leaving only a fifty-yard gap in the middle. This area was lined with over a dozen soldiers, all of them armed with Makarov pistols and AKM assault rifles. Tourist passports were being checked, and locals had to show identification.
The ambassador's car was stopped by a tough-looking corporal. He collected passports, then used his field phone to call the palace. After each passenger in the car had been okayed, they were sent through. Before proceeding to the palace, the driver waited for the DSA car behind them to be cleared. They took al-Amin Street northeast to Straight Street, and went left. They turned right on Souk al-Bazuriye and drove three hundred yards. They passed the oldest public baths in Damascus, the Hamam Nur al-Din, as well as the nine-domed Khan of Assad Pasha, a former residence of the builder of the palace.
The palace was located just southwest of the Great Mosque or the Umayyad Mosque. Named for the Muslims who renovated it early in the eighth century, the mosque is built on the ruins of an ancient Roman temple. Before that, three thousand years ago, a temple dedicated to Hadad, the Aramean god of the sun, stood on this spot. Though burned and attacked repeatedly over the years, the mosque still stands and is one of the holiest sites in Islam.
The palace is no less imposing than the Great Mosque. Three separate wings surrounded the great court, a quiet retreat with a large pond and abundant citrus trees. One wing was for the kitchen and domestics, another for receiving guests, and the third was the living quarters. On the south side of the palace was a spacious public receiving area with marble walls and floor and a large fountain.
The palace was typically open to the public, though the private apartments were shut when the President came here. Today, the entire palace was closed and the President's personal security force patrolled the grounds.
After parking along the northwest side of the palace, the DSA agents were shown to a palace security room while the ambassador and his party were conducted to a large receiving room down the corridor. The