by Paul Clark
*****
Mohammed tried to focus on the prayers, but he was thinking about the tactical problem and he couldn’t stop. So, he moved when his neighbors moved, and tried to remember to move his lips as though praying while he kept working on it.
It was not looking like an easy job to him. The compound was huge, even for a rich family in Saudi Arabia. He’d counted the roofs of eight villas inside a wall that had to be 4-5 meters high. Along the street the wall was all of two hundred meters long, with a gate in the center. The gates were stamped sheet steel, he was pretty sure they were rusty, perhaps the hinges also, but stout enough. On either side of this wall there were the deep wadis with their steep sides crowned by the same 5 meter wall running to the back of the compound. There was no way to get around to the back wall without being seen, which would be awkward, but he thought he could see the dome of a mosque centered at the back, perhaps another hundred meters, or maybe a hundred twenty, straight back from the gate. Big place, and a strong place.
The street in front of the gate was not much help—it was an empty street, no buildings on the other side until nearly a block to the south, on the next street away. So there was no cover from which to observe the place for any length of time. All he’d had was two drive bys, each in one of his two vehicles. That had told him nothing of what was inside, or how many people, or whether his entire target set was there yet or not.
But what he did know he didn’t like. First, there was only one sure way in and one sure way out, that was the steel-doored gate. He could breach the gate, he was sure, but it would be noisy and it would not necessarily be quick, so surprise might be lost no matter what time of night he struck. Once inside, he had no idea which villas would hold what people, or of course how many. Allah be merciful, EIGHT villas? To do it all at once he would have to assign just four men to each house, and he didn’t like those odds. With the length and breadth of the place as it was, he couldn’t do it simultaneously in any case—it would be a long, hard sprint for all the teams and some would arrive at the doors of their targets at least several seconds after the luckiest who drew the closer buildings. And all that after a big noise caused by getting through the gate. Breach the gate, maybe 20 seconds to get all 30 men through and into the compound depending on how clean the opening was, and then at least another 10 to 20 seconds before he had men at each villa. No time and no place to practice, and it would be very dark. Add another ten seconds to get people sorted once through the gate. It could be almost a full minute between the crash at the gate and the moment his men could get into houses and start killing. That would be a long minute if there were even ten men in the compound, and if they were even moderately well armed his larger force could be cut to ribbons before they even got into a house.
And even if he was lucky? The noise at the gate, a minute to reach the houses, figure three minutes to clear each house of 3 floors, another two minutes to get everyone back to the gate. Load the vehicles, and leave. Add something for confusion and adrenaline. What would it all take? At least ten minutes, all of it noisy in the middle of the night in a desert town in Saudi Arabia. Somebody with a gun would be moving and curious in less than 5, he was sure of that. He doubted he’d get away without being seen. He might be pursued. And, ten minutes, he reminded himself, probably was only a good estimate if there was no resistance in the compound. If there was a fight and he stayed to get the job done, it would take time, time, time, and he would leave dead men behind.
He didn’t like it. And then there were the men. The five with him he knew well enough, except for Jabreel, but he’d seen enough there that he thought the man would do fine. He had no clue what the other 25 Khalid was sending would be like. Any experience? What kind of training? How much, how recent? What was their discipline like? Could they handle the heavy weapons they were supposed to be bringing with them? Ahh, how heavy—anything more than a Kalashnikov would only slow things down.
The prayers had ended, men were standing up and shuffling toward the lines of shoes. As he did the same it occurred to him to think, “this is nuts. If we do this we break all the rules. No planning, no practice, no real intelligence, no time for the men to get to know each other.” He slipped on his shoes, draped his shamak and its igall over his head, walked out into the gathering dusk as the tide of the other faithful washed around him.
The others caught up and they walked together back up the street toward the small shwarma shop where they’d left their vehicles parked and where they’d eat their evening meal. Mohammed ordered and sat down with a Pepsi and some bread while he waited, still thinking. The others sat and said nothing.
He thought. Crash the gate with one of the vehicles? Dangerous. It might be damaged or stuck in the debris, and useless for the getaway. He didn’t know how many vehicles the twenty-five would come in, but he didn’t think it’d be enough to lose a vehicle and still get loaded up quickly. And re-allocating at that point would be confusing, a change of plan, would eat up time. Explosives, then? He wondered if Mohammed was sending any, and if anyone was competent at using them? He was not, himself. How to do the gates quietly? Maybe they could climb the wall? Some ropes perhaps, they might buy them in the souq tomorrow . Could all the men climb ropes. . .?”
The doors of the shop opened and two Europeans came in, chatting in what he thought was probably French. Each about six feet, fit men, they walked to the counter and switched to English to order a bag of a dozen shwarma. Back to French, or whatever it was. They leaned on the counter while they waited and looked about the shop. The bigger one finished a look around the room and then looked Mohammed straight in the face and didn’t flinch away. Blue eyes, light blue, cold and hard. And then a smile. Mohammed felt like something had just looked right through him. “I see you” that look seemed to say. He felt it very deep in his belly, and he had to suppress the urge to shiver and shift about. He looked at Jabreel and started to chat in Arabic about his mother in Ras Tanura.
This went on for three of four of the most uncomfortable minutes Mohammed could remember in his life. Finally, the men took their sack of food and left as casually as they’d come. He felt like he could breathe again. Jabreel looked at him like he thought he might drop dead. The cook came out and put three plates of food on the table. Mohammed took a long swallow of Pepsi.
And he began to eat, and went back to his problem. The Frenchmen were probably connected to some oil company, or they were construction engineers. Ropes . . .perhaps that was the thing after all. If they could get ropes, something to toss over the top of the wall and anchor there, the men could climb, and it would be quiet. They’d have all this evening and all day tomorrow to think about it, get organized, maybe go far out into the desert and practice with the weapons . . .”
XXIV. Langley/al-Ha'il
An amber glow settled into the treetops across the wide lawn from the Langley HQ, the last vestiges of what had been a crystal clear April day in the DC Metro area. Why exactly he was at Langley this late on a Saturday afternoon was pissing Jones off just a little, but he drew his eyes back from the now orange-ish trees to his monitor with the consolation that the day was almost done and tomorrow would be a Sunday to sleep in, laze around, watch some baseball, grill some burgers, and drink some beer. He was tired: tired of this Op, tired of his boss, tired of his office, and tired of the Agency. "That is not productive" he said to himself, which then made him wonder if he'd said that out loud, or inside his head. "Time to get out of here" he said, definitely aloud this time, recognizing that talking to yourself was a little weird, but talking to yourself and not knowing you were was actually pretty scary.
He was looking at the latest satellite photos from a pass just a few hours old over Ha'il, Saudi Arabia. There was not much to see. Shots that showed the team's arrival in the convoy of SUVs, all now stowed somewhere in a garage according to this slightly later photo. A person in the wide avenue between th
e row of houses in this picture, nobody outside in this one, but it would be hot there already during the day. There was nothing on either side of the Compound but deep wadis, and to the rear the wall and then nothing for miles, and though the angle of the photo didn't give him a view of the wall face, or the terrain at the base of it, he could tell from the depths along the side walls that there had to be a drop back there of at least ten, maybe fifteen feet, from the wall's base to the desert floor. Nasty place to have to take for a bunch of light infantry, if that's all you have.
Across the front of the Compound was that long, lonely street, with nothing directly across from it in the way of buildings. Traffic was light, most of his photos didn't show a vehicle on the street at all, apart from the one that showed the convoy's arrival. Two others did: on both it was a white vehicle, looked like a small SUV, probably Japanese but maybe Ford Explorer sized. Looking closer..."hmm, is this guy parked?" He zoomed in on the car. It was pretty close to the curb, and there was no other traffic, should have been closer to the middle of his side of the road, not hugging the right side. He looked at the other shot. Same vehicle, nearly same spot. Time of each shot: separated by just a few seconds. Nothing else.
Jones sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. "Same car, nearly the same spot, three seconds. Is he parked, or is he just moving slowly?" He looked at each shot again. There was nothing close enough in either photo to establish whether they were in exactly the same spot or not, at least to his eye. Maybe a photo specialist could figure that out. He made a note on his pad. Three seconds. Town road in a more or less, albeit sparse, residential area. Speed limit maybe 35 or 40? Do they even have speed limits in Saudi towns like this, and does anybody pay any attention even if they do? The next shot he had was 30 seconds later, and the car was gone. He tried to do the math in his head: "5280 feet, times 40 miles per hour, divided by 60, divided by 60 again..." He was too tired. How many feet per second is that? He opened the calculator on the computer: 58 feet per second, three seconds about 180 feet. He looked at the two photos again. Way closer to the same place than 180 feet unless the Compound was a couple miles wide, which it wasn't. "So, going way slower than 40 mph. On the other hand...looking at before and after shots, this guy wasn't there long, even if he did stop for a few seconds. Could have got out and taken a leak for all I know". This made him chuckle.
But it paid to be safe, he had guys in the field. So he switched to his email, addressed one to his favorite photo analyst, explained what he was looking for in which photos, attached them, and hit "Send". "Now I'm done" he said aloud again, noting he'd also just laughed out loud at himself. Not healthy. As he stood up and grabbed his jacket he noticed there was an email in his inbox about something called Fluffy. Really? No kidding? He didn't recognize the sender, and he figured it was another chain email of the kind that had gotten out of hand lately at the Agency. He wondered why nobody'd put a stop to it yet, but maybe someone higher up thought it was good for mental health to let the overworked Agency staff have a little fun on the email. He wasn't interested, at least not tonight. He stabbed the button that put the monitor into Standby mode, shut off his light, and headed for the parking lot. Fluffy, whatever the fuck that was, could wait until Monday.