Keys to the Kingdom

by Bob Graham

  OCTOBER 30

  The Petronius ☆ Long Beach

  At daybreak, yet another squall had overtaken the Petronius from the west.

  The bridge was swaying. The lighting technician had hinted to Laura that the shoot be suspended until the afternoon, when smoother seas were projected.

  “Damn it, John, we need to get this done now. Tie down the legs of the lighting stand with gaffer tape. Inform Stephanous we’ll start in thirty minutes.”

  On cue, Stephanous took his position at the bow. The increased crosswinds and darts of rain gave his mane of silver hair an even more leonine flourish. In less than an hour Laura had taken sixty-five images from her perch. In another two hours she had collected a sufficient number in the engine room, cargo deck, and crew mess to meet her needs, or at least give the impression that she had. For once, something other than her images and her ego demanded precedence.

  Aristotle was a handsome man with an ego and pomposity to match the scale of his newest possession. Laura felt she had captured those qualities. Stephanous was flattered.

  On the tarmac of the LAX executive air terminal, Tony stretched and twisted his torso, releasing the accumulated tensions of the flight halfway round the world. State had arranged for a limousine. He was surprised to find Mark Block waiting in the backseat.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Tony asked.

  “I thought you’d need some backup,” Mark said, “and I didn’t exactly see a long line offering to help.”

  “Any leads on Muhadded?”

  “He’s staying at the Hyatt in Long Beach. The cops are still looking for his car, but think they have a lead from an Avis lot south of here. I’ve changed your reservation to the Hyatt so you can be near your new closest friend.”

  “Yeah, I’m considering friending him on Facebook.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

  Mark continued, “What’s your buddy up to?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What never has made sense to me is the Saudis helping bin Laden. Here he blows up Aramco and kills several tens of thousands of Saudis and foreigners. Why are they lending him Muhadded?”

  Tony took a sip from his Diet Coke. “He’s a known and seasoned professional intelligence officer and assassin. That and the king’s long-standing partnership with Peninsular explain why he was detailed to do its dirty work.

  “As for al-Qaeda, it’s following its old habits, repeating what it did with al-Harbi and the hijackers. Bin Laden asked his allies in Riyadh to task the Saudi consulate to arrange for a trusted operative, and they found him in the same place: San Diego. And you know why Muhadded’s in Long Beach?”

  “I think I do,” Mark said. “We’ll probably find out for sure in a few hours.”

  Muhadded had been up since eight when the phone rang. He had dressed, fulfilled his prayer duties, and reread the instructions. He moved the blue-steel Beretta, which had been under his pillow, to the top of the chest of drawers.

  “Abdul,” the crisp, nearly unaccented voice of the counselor said, “it appears it will be another thirty hours before you will be called upon to execute your highest responsibility, praise be to Allah. I trust it will be completed sufficiently early for you to attend your mosque. For today, at precisely three this afternoon, you should have your equipment at the ready to prepare and practice under the same conditions as you will face on Friday. I’ll call you back at ten minutes of three.”

  “I will be prepared.”

  In room 2030, Tony and Mark rewound the recorder and replayed the wiretapped conversation. “It looks as if we have the rest of the morning off,” Tony said.

  With Brewster’s assistance, Muhadded had placed the NE wireless triggering instrumentation by the open window. Developed initially to assist utility meter readers working remotely from an office or truck, it had been converted to a lethal detonation device for IEDs in Iraq. Now further enhanced, the NE had a signal reach of more than ten kilometers.

  Muhadded moved the wide-angle lens device to point directly at the midsection of Pier 38A of the Port of Long Beach. Even at a distance of five miles, with field binoculars Muhadded could clearly see what would be his target.

  He was on the phone to the consulate, making final adjustments, familiarizing himself with the equipment when the door crashed open.

  Tony, crouched low to the ground, chin touching his knees, led the way with Mark behind. Muhadded locked his arms together and, using them like a sledgehammer, crushed them into Tony’s face, throwing him back into Mark and the two of them into a pile of thrashing arms and legs crashing to the floor next to the king-size bed. Brewster leapt from the bed, on top of the pile. Mark slammed him against the open door, lacerating Brewster’s bald skull.

  Muhadded spun and reached for the chest of drawers. As his fingers grasped the Beretta, Tony regained his balance and launched his right foot into Muhadded’s underarm, knocking him back, sending the chest and pistol to the floor. Tony pirouetted, sliding the weapon with his right foot to Mark. Muhadded snatched the NE, lifting it from the tripod. Tony was able to deflect it by lowering his head and raising his right shoulder into the tripod’s arc.

  Two bursts of light—the first from outside the hotel balcony was a blinding flash like a line of lightning bolts—the second was from ten feet with a .45 caliber explosive force and discharge. Mark’s shot hit Muhadded in the chest. He staggered backward to the balcony’s steel railing, crashed through it, and fell twisting in a summersault until his body ripped open the top of the valet station shed 220 feet below. The horrified attendants scattered in full flight from the first burst of light.

  Brewster, blood flowing through his eyebrows, grabbed Mark’s right wrist, attempting to dislodge the Beretta. Mark wrapped his left arm around Brewster’s neck and grounded him with a horse-collar lock, the pistol jammed in his obese torso.

  “Back off, Mark,” Tony shouted. “I want the bastard alive.”

  After a buffet luncheon in the owner’s dining room, this time open to all of Laura’s crew and the pilot and copilot, the captain announced his calculation that the ship was 450 miles from the Port of Long Beach. Once the helicopter was topped off with jet fuel from the Petronius’s onboard tanks and loaded with photographic equipment, Laura and her three assistants lifted off the helipad while waving to Stephanous, the captain, and the crew. With a slight tremor, Laura snapped on her stopwatch and counted down.

  As the Agusta climbed farther from the Petronius, Laura distanced herself emotionally. For a lifetime, she acknowledged, she had been preparing for this moment. Her life had been devoted to herself, the feelings of others a matter of indifference. She reflected how, as a teenager, when a boyfriend had dumped her, she had accused her older sister of enticing him away and told her parents that she was a slut. Her own sexual competition had started early. Carol’s death, she realized, was probably the first time Laura had truly regretted anything she’d done. The consequences of that murder and her role in it finally moved her to consider and confront some moral and human dimensions of her life. Maybe that was preparation for what she was about to do.

  She could see the Petronius on the horizon. She could still taste the food and wine they had all just shared, and here she was, about to kill each and every one of them. Laura even had a twinge of regret for deceiving Stephanous. What Tony had accused her of doing to Carol Watson she was about to do to Stephanous. The thousands who would be saved would be unaware of what she had done.

  Will there be some higher being who will give absolution? she wondered. When this is over I want to talk it through with Tony. He understands the calculus of moral trade-offs.

  At fifty-five seconds after liftoff from the deck, which the instructions indicated should be two and a half kilometers, Laura withdrew the box and, carefully following paragraph 8, inserted the code a second time. She waited ten seconds, drew a deep gulp of air into her cactusdry throat, and firmly pushed the red button.

  Laur
a heard a roar like she had heard as a child in advance of a Florida thunderstorm. The blue skies became red; the helicopter began to swing from side-to-side and then bow to aft. She felt the onset of air sickness. In mounting panic, she glanced down at the instructions. She was trying to convince herself that at this distance the helicopter should be well beyond the blast zone, when a broken rotor blade cracked the cabin window with less than a thousand feet separating them from the water below.

  What Tony may have miscalculated or misinterpreted in preparing the instructions was the power of the Ramallah bomb. This was not two, but five times the power of Hiroshima.

  The helicopter spun out of control and fell clumsily into the Pacific. Without nautical buoyancy, it quickly sank.

  OCTOBER 30–31

  Long Beach ☆ Laguna Niguel, California

  The Long Beach police and FBI had taken over Muhadded’s room as a crime scene and dispatched Brewster to the bureau’s downtown detention center.

  Until almost midnight Tony was debriefed by the FBI’s special terrorism unit. He recounted the events of the last six weeks and, with particular detail, the final twelve hours.

  Tony dropped Mark at LAX for his American red-eye to Dulles.

  Mark confessed, “That was the first time I killed a man, and I have a feeling I’ll be working through it a long time. I know he was a killer with no regard for human life, but, well ... he was a human being.”

  “You did what you had to do,” Tony counseled.

  “Whatever, I am extremely proud of what you have done and that I could be your sidekick for the last act. See you on the court Tuesday, same time, same place.”

  That night was another sleepless one for Tony. At sunrise, he stood at the balcony for an hour staring at the expanding haze over the western horizon, trying to get his adrenalin-driven emotions to subside. As he was returning to the bedroom, his BlackBerry hummed.

  “Hello, Tony Ramos here.”

  “This is Talbott. Tony, there is no way the world or I can recognize or fully appreciate what you have done. If bin Laden had accomplished his objective, the earth would be in total chaos and panic.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Talbott commented, “for all our sakes.”

  “And I wouldn’t have had it without your confidence in this desk-bound analyst’s ability to be an on-the-ground operative. I’m not sure I would have trusted me.”

  “You’ve got good judgment, Tony. And that holds up whether you’re at that desk or out in the ‘real world.’”

  Tony paused for a moment, then said, “The FBI has asked me to stick around in case it needs a second round of debriefing. They’ve already got a name for this thing.”

  “I know: TERRORNUKE. Cute, huh?”

  “I guess. May I get an extension of my leave from the office?”

  “Of course. And one more item: I’m recommending to the secretary and the director of the INR bureau that a unit be established within INR that will not be geographically structured; rather, it will be tasked to respond to whatever the most immediate and urgent international challenge to the nation happens to be. What you have just been through demonstrates the bureau needs this capacity on a permanent basis. I’d like you to be a part of it. Are you okay with that?”

  Without hesitation Tony responded: “That is exactly what I would like to do. And if the secretary balks, there’s likely to be a new person in her office when the next administration arrives. Thank you for giving me this chance.”

  “I like your game plan. I’ll keep you up to speed. Is there anything else?”

  “There is. What do you know of the status of the search for the Agusta?” Tony asked.

  “Because of the radioactive nature of the site, it’s been impossible to launch a recovery operation. But there are no false illusions. The helicopter went down in twenty thousand feet—unfortunately, there is no hope of survivors.”

  Tony was silent. Talbott continued, “I have briefed the White House on your involvement and strongly recommended it make a commendatory statement on your role and valor. They have declined. Hector Sanchez, the officer who has taken Ben Brewster’s Saudi portfolio, has given me a public statement and an accompanying private message Riyadh has sent. King Abdul Aziz has implored the president to remain silent as to the kingdom’s role, and he has agreed to do so.”

  “What did the Saudis say?”

  “Hold on, I’ll read it to you directly.” Tony waited while the ambassador searched his emails. “Here it is: ‘The worst people in the world have gained access to the worst weapons and have shown again their intention to use them against innocents. The kingdom has been a victim of this brutality. The world is at risk, and we join our American friends in the most aggressive and sustained efforts to halt the carnage and bring the perpetrators to justice.’”

  Tony felt a tightening in his gut. “The Saudis know, of course, that’s total bullshit.”

  “I suspect you’re right, but I also know the election is next Tuesday and—”

  “I don’t give a goddamn about the election,” Tony shouted into the receiver. “Tens of thousands of people have been killed, starting with Senator Billington, to protect their dirty secret and the political power of the administration. If it requires resigning my position at State, I will not be a party to covering up their bloody laundry.”

  “That’s what I admire in you, Tony. And unless I have already gone first, I’ll be at your side.”

  It took Tony a half hour to settle himself and ponder the future. The first step was to call Senator Billington’s widow.

  “Mrs. Billington, this is Tony Ramos.”

  “Tony, I’ve been so worried about you. Since I saw the television reports of the explosion, I’ve been able to think of nothing except what you and John had set out to do.”

  “I can’t tell you how much worse this horrid scene would have been were it not for your husband’s wisdom and tenacity. I know there is nothing that can ever replace him in your life, but I trust that Mumbai, Aramco, and now, almost, Los Angeles have given added meaning to the significance of his life and death.”

  Tony could hear her quiet sobs. He waited, then said, “Mrs. Billington, there will be a recovery effort made for Laura, but I would be dishonest to hold out much hope. She and her father are now forever joined in their common commitment to avoid mass death and destruction. I hope that can bring you some solace.”

  Twelve hours later and less than eight blocks from the Hyatt Harborside, in the executive suite of Peninsular Tower, Roland Jeralewski and the chairman looked out over the Pacific. The cloud was drifting closer. Beneath them in the streets thousands were huddled, ignorant of the causes of what they were experiencing, panicked at the potential consequences.

  His eyes never deflecting from the scene to make contact, Jeralewski intoned, “Mr. Chairman, what have we done?”

  “We pursued legitimate corporate goals with a sovereign government allied to the United States. It is not for us to try to impose morality—if you could even define it in this context—on the world.”

  Jeralewski stared directly, incredulously, at the chairman, and then he did what he seldom had done before—refuted him, “No, Mr. Chairman, that’s not what we have done. After a life devoted to public service we succumbed to the belief that we had earned special treatment and rewards, that we were entitled. Our weaknesses—arrogance, greed, lust for power—have placed the world at risk. They have surely destroyed us. That is what we have done.”

  FBI agents had driven Sergeant Alvarez and Terri McKenzie to L.A. to confirm the identification of Muhadded’s corpse and to brief the officers interrogating Benjamin Brewster. Even with the beard shaven and body mutilated by the gunshot wound and the long fall to the roof of the parking attendants’ shed, Alvarez was unflinching in his assertion that the man in the morgue was the man who had tried to kill him. Terri provided background on Brewster’s invo
lvement with Peninsular.

  The sun was setting as Tony and Terri in their Hertz Mustang convertible passed Newport Beach on Highway 1 headed toward Pacific Grove. Terri drove. The extreme tension of the clash with Muhadded and Brewster and the mental exertion of intense interrogation had exhausted Tony’s emotional reserve and separated him from his innermost feelings. But now, suddenly, it was as if the wall had lifted, and tears began to roll down his cheeks.

  Terri put her hand on his arm and quietly said, “Share it with me. Tell me what you’re going through. Maybe I can help.”

  “I don’t know if anyone can,” Tony responded.

  “At least I can listen.”

  “I don’t know where to begin. I feel as if I’ve lived an entire lifetime all crammed into the last hundred days. Senator Billington, Jeddah, Brewster, Mumbai, Pakistan, you, of course, Carol, Laura ... It’s like it’s all become a halo of bright lights flashing in my brain. Whatever you might think, whatever your training, you’re never prepared for this hurricane of unknowns, each one swirling in its own ocean, until they collide.”

  His last words hung in the ocean air. His head fell back on the headrest. “It all happened so fast ... I just can’t make any sense of it. I loved Carol, I think; I didn’t even get the chance to be sure. And she died because of me; Laura, too. And with Laura it all got so twisted. I shouldn’t be laying all this on you, especially about Carol and Laura.”

  “No, Tony, I want you to. If we’re going to have a relationship going forward, you need to be able to deal with what’s happened and share it. But listen to me: I’m presuming a relationship that hasn’t ... well ... you know.”