She looked over at her partner, Jean Marchand. His wiry, weathered frame sat behind the wheel, steering the Jeep over the equally weathered terrain. John Lennon-style sunglasses perched on his face, along with an expression of sophistication that only the French could pull off. Jean firmly believed he was a ladies’ man. He boasted that his French accent could get him into the knickers of any young lady he desired. He had put his signature moves on Kimberley when she first arrived in Yemen two years earlier. He soon learned that Kimberley liked men who could talk about subjects other than themselves. To his credit, after she turned him down, he had never propositioned her since.
Kimberley figured Jean had slept with a quarter of the foreign women working for the UNHCR… the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Yemen. That probably equated to one conquest every couple of weeks. She didn’t know where he got his energy from.
Despite the fact that Kimberley had not slept with him, or perhaps because of it, the two had become good friends. He respected her, and chose her for his fact-finding missioning into the middle of bloody nowhere. The Houthi invaders from the north were already causing mass displacement of refugees across the failing country. Jean and Kimberly were scouting out potential locations for displaced people camps. Locations close enough that refugees could reach them without much hardship, but far enough from the conflict to be safe. Access to the limited utilities available in this country was also a consideration. So far, they had found nothing.
“How are you holding up, Kimberly?” Jean asked. His accent was smooth, seductive… She could have almost fallen for him, if she closed her eyes and imagined his words coming from a younger, more attentive Frenchman.
“I don’t bloody know,” she snapped. Jean would often laugh at her heavy Australian accent. Especially when she slipped crass Aussie slang into her speech, such as lazy ‘mad as a cut snake’ and ‘bloody pervert’. “I wasn’t prepared, that’s all.”
“Nobody is prepared.” Keeping one hand on the wheel, he slid a cigarette from a packet of Scorpions in his shirt pocket. He had bought them in bulk during his last trip to Dubai. He placed the cigarette in his mouth and lit up. Kimberley had given up complaining about the dangers of secondhand smoking. Jean would only argue that Yemen's diesel pollution was far worse for her health. ‘Would she like the windows wound down and the heat to get in? Or endure the smoothing scent of tobacco in a nicely air-conditioned vehicle?’
Even though he asked this question often, Jean didn’t really care what she thought. He knew he was never going to sleep with her. There was no point in being nice.
“How can they do that to people?” she asked. Then she shuddered, as she remembered the scene on the road north out of Al Abr.
About fifty local men, women and children had been gunned down, execution style, on the side of the road,. Their bodies were left to rot and fester in the baking sun. She hadn’t expected to see that, not this early in the conflicts. The stench had been horrific. Yet Kimberley and Jean had managed to document it all, taking photos and making notes while the soldiers of the CSO looked over them. Much to her embarrassment, Kimberley had gagged many times. She had seen dead bodies before, even helped clean away the corpses of refugees when they died in camps. But she had never witnessed so many killed in such a brutal and pointless act of violence.
When they got back to Sana’a, an official report would be filed with the UN. She would also send her findings to her contacts in Amnesty International. They might not have stopped this atrocity, but the least she could do was expose it to the world.
Jean waved the cigarette in his hand, circling it in the air to emphasize his point. “These people have nothing. They have experienced floods, droughts and now war. They will kill if it means their own survival.”
Kimberley sighed. He was lecturing her again. She knew all this, of course. She’d been working the refugee aid circuit for five years now, through Iraq and now Yemen.
“Have a cigarette, Kimberley,” Jean continued. “The smoke covers up the stench of the dead. I know you can still smell them, even now. Scent has the greatest memory recall.”
“Jean, you are unbelievable.”
He nodded, appreciative of her words. “Oui! I am, aren’t I?”
She shook her head. Had he incorrectly translated her dig at him, or had he chosen to take it as a compliment? She could never tell with Jean. He seemed more like an aging rock star than a UN aid worker.
“Why did you decide to do this kind of work, Kimberley? It is not for everyone. There is no shame in saying it is too much, and going home.”
Kimberley remembered her previous life back in Sydney. Five years ago, she had been studying economics, politics and Arabic at the University of New South Wales. She surfed on the weekends, and partied with her mates most nights. There had been a string of boyfriends, of course. Impromptu weeks away at raves, beach parties in Bali and Thailand. Upon graduation, she received a position with an international business consulting firm, much to her parents’ delight. High powered suits, liquid lunches with the partners… An office cubicle crammed between twenty other graduates on the twenty-second floor of a slick, glass-clad skyscraper. A window overlooking Sydney Harbor, the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. The view was spectacular. The money was okay. Life wasn’t supposed to get any better than this.
But suddenly, she quit. She moved back with her parents to save money. She dumped her boyfriend dejour, a man who loved only his work in share trading. She applied for every job she could with the UNHCR. A month later, her qualifications and language skills earned her a volunteer role in Baghdad. Her parents had almost died of fright when she told them where she was going. They begged her to stay, but there was no talking her out of it. Twenty-four hours later she was inside the Green Zone of Bagdad. Minutes later, she had already witnessed her first suicide bombing.
Life had never been the same since. Work in the Iraqi refugee camps had been hard work. She had been forced to confront and challenge everything she believed about herself. She knew most volunteers didn’t last through the first six months, but she was determined. The only thing that got her through her ordeal was the knowledge that she was making a difference. Her life was no longer about hedonism, meaningless sex and making gross profits for multinationals. Kimberley had come to realize, until she had come to the Middle East, her life before had been pointless.
“It’s not too much Jean. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, if I spend one more day in the office trying to work out what the hell happened to those missing vaccine shipments, I’ll go mad.”
“Trips into the field remind you why you are here? Right?”
She nodded. Jean was good at being sympathetic when it suited him. “I hate the bureaucracy in this country. I’ve talked to every government department, in length, and no one knows what happens to it. The medicine just… bloody disappears.”
Jean nodded sagely and focused again on the road. He took a drag from his Scorpion cigarette.
She gazed through the dusty windshield. They were in the middle of a long strip of the desert, with nothing but sand dunes on either side. This was the edge of the Rub’ al Khali desert. The vast sea of sand dunes was greater in size than Jean’s home country of France. It stretched all the way north to Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia.
As she continued to stare at the endless stretch of burning sand outside the window, Kimberly narrowed her eyes in surprise. A lone local woman, dressed in a brightly colored Sana’ani cloth, walked along the road ahead. She was at least fifteen kilometers from the nearest settlement. In this heat, it was surprising she had not passed out, or died already from dehydration.
When they drew close to her, Jean didn’t seem to be stopping. She was about to ask why he could be so cruel, when the woman stepped out onto the road in front of them.
“Bordel de merde!” he cried out as the cigarette dropped from his mouth. He gave the wheel a sharp turn as he pumped the brakes.
The Jeep went int
o a spin, skidding through the gravelly sands.
Kimberley tensed, grabbed the dashboard and held on tight. She was waiting for the sickening, squelching crunch she expected when they hit the woman, but… nothing. They jerked to a stop without hitting anything.
“Putain!” Jean yelled when they came to a stop, trying to put out the cigarette as it burned a hole in his frayed cargo pants. “Putain! Putain! Putain!”
Kimberley didn’t care for Jean’s wellbeing. He wasn’t seriously hurt and could look after himself. She leapt out of the Jeep, covering her face with her veil so as not to offend the soldiers of the CSO. She searched for the woman.
She found her standing alone on the road, her head hung and her body slumped. Two of the CSO soldiers had raised their assault rifles at her. They were shouting at her in Arabic, ordering her to get down onto the ground and place her hands behind her head. She wasn’t complying. Perhaps she wanted them to shoot her.
“Aintazar daqiqa!” Kimberly yelled back at the soldiers. Wait a minute! Her hands raised, she didn’t wait for permission and went to the woman. “Are you okay?” she asked in Arabic. “I can help you? Are you lost?”
The woman looked up at her and stared without focus through her dark, almond shaped eyes. Kimberley guessed she was a Bedouin woman judging by her clothing. She looked to be mid-thirties, probably even pretty behind the veil. There was bruising around her eyes suggesting that she had recently been assaulted. She also looked to be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Would you like some water?”
She nodded.
Kimberley took her to the Jeep, calling over her shoulders to the DSO as she did. “We’re taking her with us. She needs medical assistance!”
The soldiers grumbled and returned to their APC. They just wanted to go home. It had been a long day, scouting the desert in the crazy heat of forty-plus degrees Celsius. A crazy Bedouin woman was Kimberley’s problem now, and not their concern.
Kimberley offered a water bottle. The woman slipped it under her veil and gulped quickly, draining the lot.
“Are you lost?”
She shook her head .
“Is there someone we can take you to? Your family, perhaps?”
“I have no family. They were taken from me, by Al Qaeda.” She sobbed, then spoke in articulate and practiced English. Kimberley was shocked that she knew any English words at all.
“I have been forsaken by Allah, for breaking his commandments,” the woman moaned. “I saw a plane, an airplane shot out of the sky. An ill omen, a sign of his anger with me. As it fell into the desert, I too have fallen from his grace!”
Chapter Eight
AL-WATAH BALLISTIC MISSILE BASE, RIYADH REGION, SAUDI ARABIA
Colonel Sulieman Rashid stepped outside into the baking heat and wondered… should he feel annoyed? The burner cellphone in his pocket had vibrated three times. That was a signal. His contact needed to speak to him, urgently. So Rashid paced across the sand, walking far from the administrative building. Moments before the phone had disturbed him, he had been scouring recent satellite images. He was trying to assess if Hezbollah militants were meeting with former members of the FSB near a decommissioned nuclear missile silo in Kazakhstan. He preferred to focus on his work, but he knew if he didn’t respond, his contact would keep ringing. He couldn’t have that.
“Yes,” Rashid said in English, figuring he was less likely to be understood if he were overheard. No one would question that he spoke the American tongue. As a member of the Royal Saudi Land Forces’ Military Intelligence division, he was expected to be fluent in many languages. He spoke Persian, Turkish, French and Hebrew just as fluently.
“You’re not in the desert. I thought we had agreed?” asked the American. His contact distorted his dialogue with voice changing technology every time they spoke. But Rashid still knew he was an American. In fact, he knew far more about the man than that.
“Where I am is of no concern to you,” he answered in a low voice.
“I take it the aircraft is still missing?”
“You worry too much. The sands have buried it. And now, I can no longer convince my superiors it is still worth searching for.”
There was a crackling pause. Then the American cleared his throat. “You know if the data stick onboard is found, you and I are effectively done for?”
“It won’t be found.”
“Don’t be so sure. What about those satellite images I sent you? They show a single Bedouin man with two camels, trekking away from the most likely crash site… He might have found the stick in the wreckage.”
“Unlikely,” Rashid said in a cold, flat voice. “Besides, he is dead now.”
“Dead? How do you know?”
“Because I put a bullet in the back of his head.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Despite the modulation, Rashid could sense the agitation in the man’s tone. “Well?” the American continued, his voice rising with concern. “Did the Bedouin have the data stick with him or not?”
“No.”
“Is there any sign he found the wreckage?”
“No, he had nothing. If he did stumble across the plane, then he had no idea of its importance. And as I said, he’s dead now. Any secrets he may have found died with him. His family will not talk. Nor will anyone from his tribe, for that matter. I have seen to it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Rashid wasn’t used to other people questioning his operations or his methods. He wondered if he should feel offended about this. “Their sons are being held hostage by the Al Qaeda cell you put me in contact with. If the Bedouin talk, their boys die.”
“You didn’t just wipe out the whole tribe? Ensure everyone’s permanent silence?”
“Such a massacre would draw too much attention, a UN investigation. This way, it is in everyone’s best interests to keep quiet.”
The American took a deep breath. “That sounds… acceptable.”
“For you, perhaps. I don’t like that I have to deal with Al Qaeda. The risk to me is high.”
Rashid looked around him. The base was built in the middle of a low, rocky desert mountain range. The terrain served to deter civilians from wandering into the area and taking photos. This was a highly secure ballistic missile facility, with weapons aimed at Iran and Israel. Each missile could be loaded with chemical and biological warheads. The base stood ready to take out thousands of enemies with a single strike.
If he was caught with an unregistered cellphone inside this facility, it would be a major breach of security. It could be construed that he was passing classified details to foreign powers. If he were even suspected of such treason, then his life would be forfeit. He had to be cautious.
The American seemed oblivious to his concerns. “So, you’re saying you can’t return to the desert, to ensure the plane won’t be found?”
“You ask too much. Remember my government endorses this operation. They believe it has been concluded satisfactorily.”
The American chuckled. “What you should be asking yourself, is what could be on that data stick that could incriminate you personally. This operation might be sanctioned, but neither side, under any circumstances, wants the truth to get out. Imagine what path our respective governments might be forced to take, if that happened? We could be talking an escalation in the conflicts across the Middle East. ”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m informing you. Information is power, after all. But before I fill you in on developments here, there's something I need to know. If you needed to, could you mobilize a small force to take out a single target? If the plane is discovered?”
Rashid took a moment to consider the question. He didn’t like how the conversation was going. He had a card up his sleeve, as the Americans were fond of saying. He was tempted to play it now, to show this American he did not hold all the power in their relationship.
“Yes, that sounds possible,” he said. “But I sti
ll feel I am taking more risks than you. Far more.”
Another laugh crackled over the phone. “Oh, trust me, I’ve been busy my friend. I’ve just got word that the CIA is sending in one of their rising stars, a paramilitary officer in the Special Operations Group. He's been tasked with locating the downed aircraft.”
“You want him taken out?”
“On the contrary, I think we should let him be for now. From what I’ve read of his files, this agent seems highly capable. If anyone can find the plane, he can. And when he does…”
“I bring in my men, destroy him, the aircraft and the data stick in one strike.”
“Damn skippy. You’ve proved again why I have you on my team.”
His team? This American made it sound like Rashid was his servant, a dog sent to fetch a bone. He considered how he might have felt in this situation, if the now deceased Mossad agent hadn’t carved away his emotions. Frustration? Anger? Rage? Fear even? He didn’t know. He could only rely on logic. And the only conclusion he had come to was that he was more exposed in this operation than the American. That wasn’t right.
“Who is the agent?” Rashid asked.
“I’ve posted the name on our shared encrypted website.”
“Then hold a minute.”
Rashid keyed in the eighteen-digit alpha-numeric darknet address into his burner phone. The name was hidden in the bogus code spread in volumes across the web page. It was difficult for most people to spot, but Rashid had been looking at this site too many times not to see it immediately. His lips formed the name without making a sound.
Thomas Caine.
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