Just then Ward caught the barest flicker of motion off to the west. Something was coming down the main goat trail. But whoever or whatever it was, it was coming really slow and careful.
“Heads up, guys,” Ward whispered into his throat mike. “Someone sneaking in from the west. Master Chief, be ready.”
The young SEAL officer stole a glance downslope to where Johnston was set up. Johnston knew his team leader was watching. He signaled a thumbs-up before slipping back down behind his cover and doing his best impression of a boulder. Ward knew that the experienced SEAL was doing one final check to make sure his gear was absolutely ready to go. There would be only one chance to make this all work. No do-overs out here.
The movement slowly resolved itself. It was precisely what Ward feared. And simultaneously hoped for. Only a true black ops guy would ever understand that dichotomy.
A quartet of heavily armed desert fighters deliberately moved closer and closer. Behind the first four was another half-dozen moving parallel to the roadway. But the second group slipped along, from hiding spot to hiding spot, never more than a couple of them visible at any one time.
Ward licked his chapped lips. These were not the movements or operations of a ragtag bunch of religious zealots. Their advance, even way out here at a spot where they had no reason to suspect they might be observed, was carefully choreographed and obviously very well practiced. Ward watched with interest as the men moved from rock pile to hillock, covering each other’s movements as they paralleled the advance of the four more visible fighters. And they did it all in absolute silence. Not even the jingle of a stray piece of gear disturbed the quiet of the desert night.
No, this was no mob of ill-trained would-be terrorists. This was a well-equipped and proficient troop of warriors. Ward grinned when he could tell they even wore panoramic NVGs identical to the ones he and his team were using, likely made on the same assembly line.
As the SEALs watched, the fighters dispersed to quickly take up positions around the patch of ground where the ill-defined trails formed a crossroads. Their attention and their clear line of fire were directed to where the two roads met.
Then, all was quiet. Time passed. The newcomers were equally as patient as the SEAL team.
Ward settled back down. The curiosity was overwhelming. He could not wait to see what events might transpire down there, but he had no other choice but to do just that. Clearly, this group or their leaders expected something to happen. Why else would they be out on ambush in this out-of-the-way desert crossroads? It would be several more hours before daylight. This might prove to be a long and interesting night. Hell, it already was!
The eastern horizon was just starting to show a bare glimmer of the coming day when Ward’s earbud made a soft noise. Doug Broughton, farthest out down toward the secondary goat path, whispered, “I got movement. Looks like a technical. Lights out and driving real slow.”
Ward carefully turned his head and looked back over his shoulder. Sure enough, an old Toyota pickup truck with what looked like a ZU-23 machine cannon bolted to its bed was grumbling up the path toward the crossroads, raising billowing dust even as it crept along.
“Skipper, couple of technicals coming from the west,” another squad member, Tony Martinelli, reported. Sure enough, two older Nissan SUVs bounced along, apparently coming to join the soiree.
Jesus! Jim Ward thought. This place was starting to look like Saturday night at the oasis.
“Skipper, we got a problem,” Jason Hall whispered. “Guardian angels report bingo on fuel. They’re bugging out to tank up.”
A pair of F-35 Lightning IIs flying air cover for them somewhere off to the west had come up low on fuel at the worst possible time. Now, they were heading out over the Red Sea to rendezvous with the waiting KC-46 tanker to refuel.
Refuel and pick up a Pepsi and some jerky, Ward thought. Not good. It would be at least thirty minutes before Ward had his ace-in-the-hole back, flying near enough to come to their aid if things got dicey. Just when Ward’s SEAL team finally had a good indication that they might soon need a little extra fire power.
As expected, the vehicles all came to a halt at the crossroads that was getting the fighters’ attention. Ward focused in on the truck from the south. The passenger door swung open and a tall man wearing a white thobe and red checked smeagh stepped out, stretched, and looked around warily. The man’s sharp, hawk-like features looked familiar. Like someone the SEAL was supposed to know and make note of should he ever encounter him.
Then, when Ward brought the image into better focus, he caught his breath. He realized that he was staring at Sheik al-Wasragi, the reputed head of all terrorist activity in Somalia and one of the most wanted men on the planet. What was this character doing way out here in the middle of the Sudanese desert, more than fifteen hundred miles from his lair?
“Jase, get on the horn quick,” Ward ordered. “Tell Papa Bear that Sheik al-Wasragi just showed up for the party.” Then, to Johnston, “Master Chief, get that shotgun mike aimed. I want to hear anything this guy has to say. And get Dumkowski into position to take a shot just in case Papa Bear wants this guy dispatched to the hereafter.”
“Lieutenant, you better look at the other trucks,” Johnston whispered back.
Ward looked down the hill toward the other pair of vehicles, now parked closely together. A group of six men were slowly climbing out of the vehicles, led by a shorter, stouter man dressed in khakis. He also wore some kind of campaign hat. It took the young SEAL a few seconds to mentally riffle through all the mug shots before he realized who else he was looking at.
General Farad Babak, the Iranian head of the Yemeni Houthi rebels. Here was another brutal and much sought-after terrorist who was very far from his normal stomping grounds.
Ward’s curiosity was at a peak now as he watched the two groups converge. It simply did not compute. Sheik al-Wasragi was a devout Wahabi Sunni Muslim. General Babak was a Shia Muslim. Their two cultures, countries, and religions had been fighting a war for a thousand years. When the Bible promised there would always be “wars and rumors of war,” it prophesied these two men and their warring sects.
So why would these bloodthirsty bastards be meeting way out here in this moonscape at a goat-path crossroads beneath a brilliant Milky Way?
But Ward just then noticed a third attendee at this unlikely powwow. A smaller man in a badly wrinkled and travel-stained suit. In physical presence and in recognizability, this man was very much in the background next to Sheik al-Wasragi and General Babak. However, as Ward quickly noted, this man spoke with authority and seemed to be the one in charge.
“General, quickly. Have your men move the gold to Sheik al-Wasragi’s truck. We must be far from this place long before the sun is fully awake.”
Unaccustomed to taking orders from anyone but his God, the Iranian hesitated for the barest second. The little man noticed and reacted.
“It is the Prophet’s will. He has ordered it. Do the Shia dare ignore Allah?”
The terrorist made a gesture of compliance, shook his head, and gave a sign to one of his men. The group struggled to move four heavy boxes from the SUVs into the Toyota truck. The added weight caused the truck to ride low on its springs.
The little man stepped over and pulled two satchels from the vehicle in which he had been riding. He handed one to each Muslim terrorist leader. “Sheik, these are your instructions on how to use the gold. Your targets and missions are all there. And General, your targets and missions are contained in your orders.” The little man paused. Neither terrorist said a word. “What we are beginning here, tonight, in this desolate place, will change the course of earth and the heavens. We will finally complete what we have long since started. Now, go and do Allah’s will.”
The two men bowed respectfully and quickly headed off in their respective vehicles. The little man made a hand signal toward the hidden fighters, who immediately moved out of their positions and headed down the road. Within minutes th
e remote desert was as vacant as ever.
Vacant except for the observing team of Navy SEALs. Jim Ward glanced over at Master Chief Johnston.
“You get all that? Do you have any idea what we just stumbled on?”
The older, more experienced SEAL could only shake his head. “Lieutenant, I ain’t got the slightest idea, but maybe Papa Bear does and that’s why he had us out here instead of in our nice warm cots.”
“Ours is not to wonder why, I guess,” Ward responded. “But I suspect we’d better upload all this stuff to Papa Bear and let him decide if we done good or not. Then make ourselves scarce. We’ve got a twenty-mile hike to the exfil point. I don’t see that Osprey wanting to sit there with his meter running waiting just to give us a lift.”
Ψ
The first transaction request was waiting on his desk the day Norman Rothbert returned to his office from the whirlwind trip to Pakistan. He had picked up a bad head cold somewhere on the journey and then took the wrong over-the-counter medicine moments before the car showed up to transport him to work. The nighttime recipe soon had him groggy as well as sniffly. On the jerking ride from Westchester to Lower Manhattan, he dozed fitfully and dreamed horrible dreams full of cold mountain caverns and wild-eyed men with Oxford accents.
Then, there on his desk, lurking like a hand grenade, was the simple note from one of his minions, asking for confirmation that he actually wanted him to perform the attached transaction.
“Jerome, I have already approved the trade,” Rothbert croaked to the young assistant.
“But, Mr. Rothbert, we’ve never done anything of that size and that would…and Mr. Starling was the one who asked me to…”
“Stop! Stop it. I’ll speak with Mr. Starling. And the quantity is of no concern. The client has the funds. Aggregate from the various entities, just as you would if there were not that extra set of zeroes to the left of the decimal. And perform the deposits into the accounts just as we typically do to avoid the unpleasantness some of these…”
But Rothbert was already out of breath. He waved his hand dismissively, settled back into his $10,000 desk chair, his head pounding, his nose running, and took in a lungful of air.
“Yes, sir,” Jerome said. “Understood. But I wondered… well… did you notice the signature on the order form? The authorization? It just seemed odd…”
Rothbert glanced at the innocent slip of paper. He closed his eyes, wiped his nose with his handkerchief, then slowly looked up through red-rimmed eyes at the young man across the desk from him.
“Does this name appear on the list of confirmed authorizations on each of the involved accounts?”
“Uh, as a matter of fact, it does, Mr. Rothbert. The passwords and verification codes are also legitimate.”
“Then why are the transactions not already being completed, before our client calls to complain about your unacceptable lack of response?”
“Sorry, sir. I will get the staff to it immediately.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much, Jerome.”
He handed the slip back to the young banker, rocked back in his chair, and tried to suck in another breath. Norman Rothbert suddenly felt very feverish.
The massive acquisition of pure gold bricks—enough to actually affect the price of the commodity on the open market—from numerous exchanges around the globe and the details of their delivery to various shadow companies and out-of-the-way drop points across the Middle East and Africa had been properly authorized and confirmed for the purchasing client by a “Mr. Chuck E. Cheese.”
5
The captain of the Ocean Mystery, Captain Yves Monagnad, watched quietly but proudly as the first of his “travelers” obediently surfaced. The robot submarine, ten meters long and almost five meters in diameter, had appeared out of the night only a few meters off the port beam. Almost immediately, it maneuvered astern of the ship and pulled into the narrow space between the vessel’s twin hulls. A pair of divers quickly attached a lifting harness to the little yellow submersible. The ship’s derrick crane lifted it up to its cradle on the broad open main deck just as a second submarine popped to the surface a hundred yards to starboard.
As Monagnad watched the hum of activity on the ship’s brightly lit main deck, a short, obese man stepped from the air-conditioned comfort of the Ocean Mystery’s enclosed bridge. Chas ben-Wabi, the United Nations Director for Ocean Conservation, was still busily picking his teeth from the evening meal as he waddled over to where the captain stood on the open bridge wing. ben-Wabi immediately broke into a sweat and fanned himself with his free hand. The hot, close night air was like a blast from a furnace after the ship’s cool interior.
“So, those are your toys, come home to the roost?” he asked, leaning over the rail to better watch as the second boat moved in astern. “And you say these pups are entirely robot controlled?”
“Yes, Mr. Director,” the captain answered. “From the time we launched them last month until they are safely in the nest. No communications with us, no external command, and no control.”
The second robot submarine swung up in the air as still another slid between the two hulls. Several crewmen and scientists were already clustered around the first boat. The activity looked as carefully choreographed as it actually was. First one coveralled deck hand pressure-washed the fish with fresh water, then another hooked up power umbilicals, while engineers inspected the hull and scientists opened inspection covers to reach into the beast’s belly.
“These UUVs have been out exploring the depths of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean from the Maldives to Oman, recording marine life, sea temperature, salinities, currents, and making precise bottom maps. A whole lot of this area has never been explored like this before. It will be very exciting when we get back to port. Then we can download the information and really start to work.”
ben-Wabi seemed concerned. “You mean that we will not be able to see anything for another week? Captain, we are supporting your efforts with very good money so you will be able to find evidence and effects of global warming, pollution…bad stuff that plays well in the press and gives us the power to deal with capitalists, industrialists, and the world’s recalcitrant governments that allow them to destroy our planet with impunity. Now, what will I say tomorrow at our press conference?”
Yves Monagnad stared blankly at the UN bureaucrat.
“Surely my staff informed you, Captain,” ben-Wabi went on. “Some of the world’s top journalists will be coming aboard your ship tomorrow to learn of the alarming things you and your yellow fish have discovered. Al Jazeera is sending out Ben Tahib, their top international correspondent, to interview us. We certainly will not be able to simply wave at those little fishing buoys of yours and tell him to come back in a few weeks for the real data.”
Exasperation was heavy in the man’s voice. At one point, he had spit out his toothpick without even noticing.
Monagnad fought the urge to laugh out loud. If this dumpy little self-important politician knew even a small bit of the truth, he would have a heart attack right there on the deck. The captain glanced down at the heavy cables that snaked across the main deck. Most of each sub’s stored data had already been downloaded across those cables and transmitted back to waiting servers. Even as the UN representative fought to get his breath back, massive supercomputers were racing through the mounds of bits and bytes, digesting petabytes of data, matching it all with sophisticated algorithms, and were already spitting out usable information. Of course, very little of it had anything to do with global warming or pollution of the oceans. The information collected by these devices and already being studied was far more valuable than the few dollars Ocean Mystery and her operators ever received from a corrupt UN agency.
“Mr. ben-Wabi,” the captain calmly said. “I suggest you simply use some of that old and bogus data you always trot out for these kinds of events, up the numbers by forty percent, we’ll point the reporters and their cameras at lots of flashing LEDs and impressive screens
and they will rush back and print or show anything you give them. It has certainly worked well up to this point.”
Monagnad’s walkie-talkie suddenly barked.
“Captain, we have three fish aboard.” It was First Officer Clyde McClellan, reporting from down on deck. “Fish Number One is washed down and going into its storage box. Two is almost done. We are having some minor problems with Three. Diagnostics are not checking out. I will let you know.”
Monagnad glanced over the rail, down to where the dark, swarthy first officer stood, characteristically with his hands already back deep into the wayward robot’s innards. Once an engineer, always an engineer, Monagnad thought with a smile. If anyone onboard could find and fix the problem with a wayward piece of underwater gear, Clyde McClellan could.
Monagnad stared out into the coal black night, mostly ignoring the UN man. The few stars that shone through the scudding clouds did little to illuminate the gently rolling sea. There was not the smallest sign of another ship or aircraft to the farthest reaches of the horizon. He was not surprised. He had chosen this particular spot in the ocean because it was well away from the normal shipping channels, keeping the most crucial part of their operation far from inquisitive minds and prying eyes.
Then, without warning, Monagnad thought he caught the slightest hint of movement out on the dark waters. He reached for his binoculars, almost always on a lanyard around his neck, but he must have left them in his stateroom in his hurry to see the recovery operation.
Just then, his radioman yelled from the wheelhouse, the distress strong in his voice.
“Captain, we are being jammed. All frequencies I have tried are wiped out. I’ve never seen interference like this.”
The captain dashed into the wheelhouse, leaving ben-Wabi behind. Sparks was the most experienced combat communicator he had ever sailed with, the best money could buy. If Sparks said they were being jammed, it was real. And it was very serious.
Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) Page 4