“Now, at this second hold point, the Zodiacs have a very short run-in to the target. No more than eight hundred meters. We have been studying a progression of satellite pictures to see how light it is on that terminal. My own opinion is that the frogmen will have to swim the last three hundred meters. Just depends on the degree of darkness.
“But they will accomplish this very swiftly. There will be six swimmers carrying six bombs through the water. Each man fixes one bomb to one of the six principal pylons. It’s a magnetic fix. Then he sets the timer and leaves, being very careful to keep the light blue wires as well hidden and as deep as possible.
“All this must be precisely coordinated with Louis’s operation in the Red Sea. Because when they blow, they must blow absolutely together. It is essential that these huge explosions cripple the oil industry all at one time.
“So, the moment the timers are fixed, the frogmen head immediately back to where the Zodiacs are waiting. It should take them only two minutes to reach the submarine, climb aboard, and start back up the channel to the previous holding point, one hour north, and pick up Team One, which will be there by this time, after their much longer Zodiac journey.”
“If that liquid petroleum terminal goes up,” said Savary thoughtfully, “Prince Nasir will have lit a blowtorch from hell. It will probably light up the entire Middle East.”
“The Sea Island Terminal would also have a fairly spectacular edge to it,” said Captain Roudy. “Imagine a million barrels on fire out in the ocean? Ablaze. That would be quite a sight.”
“But I am afraid you will not see it, Alain,” said Admiral Romanet, smiling. “When Team Two is back inboard, you will have the Perle steaming away, straight back up the tanker route, directly to the missile launch point, right here…thirty-four kilometers east of the terminals.
“That’s going to take you five hours at a tanker speed of ten knots. You’ll need to be on your way by twenty-three-hundred, in order to launch the cruises at o-four-hundred. The bombs on the pylons probably want a seven-hour time delay. But you’ll work that out.”
“And, of course, we leave the datum immediately after firing the missiles?” asked Captain Roudy
“Of course. You target the pipeline, the inland pumping station, and the Abqaiq complex. They will explode simultaneously with the pylon bombs. At which time you will be thirty-four kilometers away, heading quietly east, well below the surface. The Saudi oil industry will blow to smithereens within four minutes of your departure from holding point three, the firing area.”
“Sir,” said Captain Roudy, returning in his mind to the place that worried him most, “do we get the Zodiacs back inboard when the SF guys return?”
“No time. Scuttle all of the boats. Same for Commander Dreyfus. Get the frogmen back in, and take off, back up the tanker route.”
“And then head east, through Hormuz and south to La Reunion, submerged all the way?” asked Captain Roudy.
“You have it, Captain. Then you have a vacation, and in a few weeks, bring the Perle home, around the Cape of Good Hope.”
“Well, sir. That sounds like a very good plan. And of course we do have a terrific element of surprise on our side. No one would ever dream a Western nation would be crazy enough to slam Saudi Arabian oil out of the market for two years.”
“Correct,” said Gaston Savary. “It would seem like that English proverb…er…cutting your nose to spite your face…but not in this case. I understand France’s need for oil products has been taken care of. We do not need Saudi oil for several months. And when it comes back on stream, it will effectively be ours to market, worldwide, at whatever price we fix.”
“What about OPEC?” asked Commander Dreyfus.
“I don’t think Prince Nasir, the new King, will want to compromise his position with France, not to placate his fellow Arabian producers,” replied Admiral Pires. “This is the most extraordinary military action, It could only have been created by a potential new King. It is also devilishly clever — a plan direct from le diable.”
“Except that at the heart of it all lies an honorable objective,” said Admiral Romanet. “To restore the best elements of the Saudi royal family and to give the people a new, enlightened ruler: our friend, the Crown Prince.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I think we should raise a glass to the takeover by Prince Nasir, and, of course, to the…er…prosperity of France.”
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1030
FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION OUTPOST
GULF OF ADEN, DJIBOUTI
The former SAS Major Ray Kerman had made his headquarters eighteen miles north of Moulhoule, close to the Eritrean border, on the northern Gulf Coast of Djibouti. He had chosen the semi-active Foreign Legion outpost of Fort Mousea, because the training of his fifty-four-strong assault squad would attract less attention there.
There, in one of the world’s hottest climates, even in the cool season the temperature rarely dipped below ninety degrees. They were only eleven degrees north of the equator, and in summer the heat was around 106 degrees day after day. The entire country had only three square miles of arable land, and it hardly ever rained. Ray Kerman imagined he must have been in worse places than this tiny desert republic, but, offhand, he could not recall one.
His squad had been in hard training now for many weeks. The men had willingly driven themselves, pounding the pathways through the Taverny woods, fighting the Legion’s obstacle courses down in Aubagne, and then hammering their bodies through the heat of the rough desert tracks around Fort Mousea.
To his men, he was known by his formal name, Gen. Ravi Rashood, Commander in Chief of Hamas. Even the more senior French officers now referred to him as General, and every day he joined them in their relentless military training. Some of them had served in the Foreign Legion and understood how hard life could be. But nothing, repeat nothing, prepares anyone for the regime of fitness required by a former SAS Major.
They were getting there now. Many of the assault team members possessed power that bordered on animal strength. They could run like cheetahs, fight like tigers. Even the Iron Man from the Pyrenees, Col. Jacques Gamoudi, who had visited for two days that week, was deeply impressed by the level of their fitness.
Out there on this burning shore they practiced every form of assault-troop warfare, building temporary “strongholds” designed to be attacked only by their own colleagues. All through the dark hours, they would watch, wait, study the stars and the cycles of the moon, slowly growing into their chosen roles as predators of the night.
They learned to cut wire, silently, within earshot of their own sentries, sharp but unheard. They learned to move quietly across rough ground, on their elbows, armed to the teeth. They learned to attack from behind with the combat knife. They learned priceless skills in near-silent communication one to the other. And they learned expertise in explosives. Some were just brushing up prior knowledge and training. Others were rookies at the combustion game. But not for long.
Above all, they learned to listen in the dark: to the soft breezes of the desert, to the approach of a distant vehicle — with the wind, and then against it, because the sound was different. They could recognize the snap of a breaking twig at forty yards, they could discern the sound of a footstep on the sand. By the end of February, General Rashood’s men were supremely attuned to the rhythms of the night.
By day, they were trained physically, starting every morning at 0500, before the sun was up — jogging, sprinting, push-ups, and finishing with a four-mile run into the desert and back. There was a two-hour break, before a sumptuous lunch, the food flown in from France in a special refrigerated French Air Force jet. No group of combat soldiers was ever better fed. The French Republic had a very large investment in these men.
An entire barrack room block was converted into a kitchen. Cooks and orderlies were flown in from Taverny. There was beef, lamb, sausage, fish, chicken, and duck. If a man wanted a large fillet steak every day, he could have it. But the salad, spinach
, cabbage, beans, brussels sprouts, and parsnips were compulsory throughout the week. There was also fresh French bread and milk, fruit from all around the Mediterranean. Gallons of fresh fruit juice, tea, coffee, and fresh cream.
The camp ran entirely on two large generators driven by diesel engines. Every afternoon, after the late two-mile run, there was a briefing before dinner, where General Rashood and the commanding officers would go over the plan of attack. Over and over.
The assault on Khamis Mushayt would begin on the night of March 25. And on this evening, February 23, at 1700, General Rashood was presiding, speaking in his native English, which all the Arab warriors understood, and most of the French. He outlined the various points of departure, informing them for the first time that they would make the 250-mile journey from Fort Mousea in seventy-foot-long Arab dhows, the traditional craft of the Red Sea, the one least likely to attract attention. Each man would be disguised as a Bedouin, dressed in traditional Arab tribal clothes.
The dhows’ appearance was unique. They were lateen-rigged, with yardarms diagonal to the mast. Their single sails had propelled them on a million stately journeys through these waters for thousands of years; their high, peaked sails distinguished them from all other craft. As did their total unsuitability in rough water.
General Rashood’s dhows would make this journey from Djibouti and run north, crossing one of the narrowest points of the Red Sea from west to east, and then sailing up the long coast of Yemen.
“These things make a fairly steady seven knots,” said General Rashood. “In a light westerly breeze, that is, straight off the desert — which is what we usually get in these parts. The journey to the north coast of Yemen will take us less than two days, and we will leave in relays from here, beginning at first light tomorrow morning.
“The first convoy will be three dhows carrying my Team Three and the command staff of our headquarters. That’s twenty-four passengers, eight per dhow. I do not want everyone concentrated together, in case of the unexpected. Each man will take his personal weapons, AK-47, service revolver, and ammunition, combat knife, and hand grenades. We will take food for seventeen days, plus water, radios, cell phones, bedding, and first-aid requirements. At no time will any dhow be out of sight of the other two.
“Teams One and Two will leave two days later, each of them in two dhows. That’s two leaving around o-six-hundred, and two more at fourteen-hundred. All the dhows will land on a very lonely stretch of coastline in northern Yemen, each team in a separate location. Again I am trying to avoid a concentration of personnel and equipment. I am unworried about being attacked. I am worried only about being noticed. Your landing sites have all been selected after long study of reconnaissance photographs taken specially by French Air Force surveillance aircraft.”
Everyone nodded in both understanding and agreement. There were even a couple of “D’acs” from the French officers. “And now,” said General Rashood, “comes the bad news. I have wracked my brains for a comfortable, unobtrusive way into southern Saudi Arabia from the coast of Yemen. But there is none. There’re hardly any roads except the one along the coast, and that carries whatever traffic there is between the two countries. Which means it’s busy. Which rules it out for us.
“We can’t go by air, because the only landing places are Saudi controlled. We daren’t risk helicopters because they’re too noisy and may easily be located by military surveillance around Khamis Mushayt. And that means we’ll have to walk.”
“How far is it, sir?” called one of the Saudi troopers.
“Less than a hundred fifty miles, but more than a hundred thirty. Probably only a hundred and ten as the crow flies.” General Rashood shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “We must walk through the mountains, and it will take us ten to twelve days. Anything we need we carry, and that means heavy bergan rucksacks, and there are not many armies that could do it.
“The terrain is awful, with steep gradients, and the heat’s a bloody nightmare. But we are not ordinary forces. We’re Special Forces. And we’re about to find out how we got the word special next to our names. No one else could do it, except us.”
Again the assembly of brutally trained men nodded in agreement. “Twelve miles a day does it, right, sir?” one of General Rashood’s Hamas freedom fighters called out.
“Correct, Said,” replied the General. “Sometimes it will be easier marching along the high ground. Other times it will be much more difficult. Maybe down to one mile an hour on the steep escarpments. But overall we’ll aim for fourteen miles a day, and some days we’ll cover perhaps twenty, and others only four. But we’ll make it. We have to make it.”
He waited for the interpreters to make clarifications, and there was no dissension. The General continued. “Each team will take a different route from the Yemeni coast through the mountains to our RV, which is four miles south of the King Khalid Air Base. There’ll be al-Qaeda guides out in the mountains to bring us in. There is already a carefully selected “hide,” and everyone will have a minimum of twenty-four hours to rest up before the attack. Most of us should get a little longer than that, but there will be recces throughout each night — around the air base and along the road that leads up to Khamis Mushayt.
“By the time you reach the RV, you may have used your food and water. Which is fine. There will be fresh everything awaiting us. The Foreign Legion brought the food and mineral water in through Abha Airfield, to the west of King Khalid. Al-Qaeda transported it by camel up through the foothills to our rendezvous point.
“There will also be local maps for each man, which I’ll distribute in a moment. You will see there’s a road leading up to the base, which we obviously ignore totally. We will come cross-country, to the village of al-Rosnah, then cross a secondary mountain track and into wild country above another village, called Elshar Mushayt.
“From there we look down through the hills and see in the distance the military base to the left and the airfield to the right. It’s a perfect spot for us. And the people of both these little places probably know we’re coming and will be ready to assist.
“Once we’re in those hills we’re more or less safe. Just so long as we shoot straight and hard on the night of March twenty-fifth.”
The chefs had organized a superb farewell dinner and roasted a half of everything they had left, mostly duck, chicken, and veal. There was one large joint of lamb, and they even made a cassoulet. They had run out of potatoes and rice, but there was about a half-ton of spinach and salad. The cheeses that remained were plentiful, and the dinner was topped off with a massive chocolate pudding.
The commanding officers had even allowed a bottle of wine between four men, and by 10 P.M., when the troops retired to bed for a four-hour sleep, there was just enough left to feed the diminishing force for forty-eight hours. There was French bread, eggs, fish, and orange juice for Team Three’s breakfast at 0400, one hour prior to departure.
The hours between 0200 and 0400 were spent breaking camp, with the twenty-four men packing their equipment and storing it in the most efficient manner: the processed food, water, ammunition, and bedding.
One hour before the sun rose above the Red Sea, to the east, they were driven down to the seaport on the north side of Moulhoule, where the three dhows awaited them. They had to walk the equipment out to the boats along the long jetties, and General Rashood himself supervised the seating and storing of supplies.
Each of the seventy-foot dhows was arranged for its eight passengers to rest up during the two-day voyage. Awnings were spread on poles to protect them from the pitiless sun out on the water. The moon was already setting as they pushed out into the offshore waters of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, running slowly north, sails high, in twenty fathoms and a light breeze.
The dhows sailed around four hundred yards apart, and by 0630, with the sun now just visible above the eastern horizon, they made their starboard turn, toward the blazing sky, each hidden man with a Kalashnikov inches from his hand, each man wit
h a hand grenade in his belt.
To a passing ship, the three dhows could have been nothing but peaceful traders plying the old routes, probably carrying cargo of salt from Djibouti up to Jizan. They certainly appeared nothing like an assault force that would be attempting the capture of Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of the King.
But this was the unobtrusive start of a famous land attack: three Arab dhows, their cargo under awnings, elderly captains at the helm, sons and family tending the huge sails as they slipped through the wavelets on a hot, serene morning. It was a timeless, biblical scene in the Red Sea, one that could have been a thousand years old — not a semblance of menace, even in these dangerous times in the Middle East.
But General Rashood’s instructions were clear…any intruder gets within a hundred feet, civilian or Naval, eliminate the crew and sink the ship. Instantly.
THURSDAY, MARCH 4
PORT SAID
EGYPT
They logged the French nuclear hunter-killer submarine Perle through the northern terminal of the Suez Canal shortly before midday. Captain Roudy would make most of the 105-mile journey on the bridge. But first he dealt with the formalities in Port Said, coming ashore and speaking personally to the customs officers and inspectors from the Egyptian Naval base situated beyond the vast commercial network that controlled the canal.
Egyptian officials rarely board a Naval vessel making the transit, largely because of objections by the Russians, who have always used the canal to transfer ships from the Black Sea and Mediterranean to the Arabian Gulf.
Captain Roudy watched one of the Egyptian Navy’s Shershen-class fast-attack Russian gunboats move slowly by, heading south, and shook his head at the age of the craft. “Probably forty years,” he told his XO. “I wonder if they’ve updated the old missile system — they used to be aimed manually like bows and arrows!”
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