The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage

by Francesca Salerno

  “It’s incredible,” Kate said.

  “No, it’s ingenious. The more I think about it, the more I realize it was inevitable, too. If not Al-Greeb, someone else like him would have thought of this. Think of how long Palestine negotiated on behalf of an ill-defined, non-ceded territory. Palestine existed only as a political idea, but with real leaders, a real army, long before there was a Palestine defined by geographical borders and hectares of land. Why not the same for Al Qaeda? The notion that one must have geographical territory to be considered sovereign is very much a 19th century idea. Al Greeb will declare sovereignty first and grab territory later.”

  “And why not any other group, for that matter?”

  "Well, forgive me if I mention the Vatican—a ‘state’ with no real territory, but one billion religious adherents. The Vatican is a kind of model, of sorts, for what Al-Greeb is planning. The Pope is regarded as a secular leader in Europe, a sovereign head of state, as well as a cleric. And in modern times, if you have the skill and panache to steal a nuclear bomb, perhaps you also have the skill to negotiate as a state,” Mahmood said.

  Kate could tell he was not entirely joking.

  “So Yasser al-Greeb is the pope of terror?”

  “The fact is, Yasser al-Greeb is not interested in mass murder,” Mahmood continued, ignoring her sarcasm. “As far as I am able to peer into the obscure corners of his mind, what he is planning is political theater, to make what he considers to be a valid political statement, and an emphatic one. And by not wantonly killing people, he is unlikely to earn the sort of condemnation that was visited upon the 9/11 hijackers. He may even be taken seriously.”

  As they were speaking in a quiet corner of the lobby, Kate saw Keven Smyth enter the hotel and walk toward the front desk. He glanced in her direction and she waved him over.

  “Keven, I don’t think you’ve met Brigadier Mahmood Mahmood of the ISI in Pakistan,” she said formally.

  “I know you by reputation, sir,” Smyth said, offering his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

  “I realize this is a bit irregular,” Mahmood said. “But I suppose that certain international situations are so profoundly dangerous that unique pragmatic partnerships are required.”

  Smyth nodded his agreement.

  “Kate, I wanted you to know that one of our guys in Suez has seen the Aegean Apollon enter Suez harbor,” Smyth said, “and is getting in line for tomorrow’s 6 AM convoy to Port Said.”

  “Has it passed beneath your electrical gizmo?”

  “Not yet. Probably this evening.”

  “The Aegean Apollon was thoroughly inspected by the Israelis at Eilat,” Kate added. “They went over every square centimeter of that ship. There was no bomb on board.”

  “Indeed, that’s true,” Mahmood said. “Because Al-Greeb had left it in a warehouse in Aqaba a few miles across the gulf. The minute the Israeli inspection was complete, they sailed right back to Aqaba to pick up their nuclear cargo. It was just a ruse to draw suspicion away from his vessel.”

  “I suppose the good news, if any, in all this,” Smyth said, “is that nuclear blackmail is not the same as a nuclear detonation. It sounds like an actual explosion is not something Al-Greeb sees in the cards.”

  “I think that’s a valid assessment, as I was telling Kate,” Mahmood said. “As your own nuclear theorist Hendryk Warsaw has often said, it is the threat of nuclear weapons that is their source of real power, not their use. In fact, to employ an atomic bomb is to invite global pariah status, a huge diminution of standing in the world.”

  “So if the Aegean Apollon is now standing in line to make the Suez transit, what is our game-plan?” Smyth asked. “How are we going to throw a monkey-wrench into Al-Greeb’s calculations?”

  “I think we have been dancing around this problem far too long,” Kate said. “We need to get aboard that ship. We need to stop this before it becomes the center of an international media circus.”

  “Given that Al-Greeb has informed ISI through me, and that the Saudis are also aware of what’s coming, I can only imagine that the Egyptians have had some contact with Al-Greeb as well,” Mahmood said. “They will deny they know anything about this officially, of course, but nothing would please the government more than to have international attention shifted away from Tahrir Square.”

  “Which means that boarding the Aegean Apollon will be next to impossible,” Kate said. “If the Egyptians are in on it.”

  ***

  In the event, Yasser al-Greeb and Al Qaeda beat everyone at CIA and ISI to the punch. The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was only a few weeks away, and Al Qaeda was again making big news all over the world.

  Using Al Jazeera and other media outlets in the Middle East, Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a taped statement at nightfall saying that Al Qaeda had obtained access to a tactical nuclear weapon which he was prepared to use in the service of Allah and the Faithful.

  The statement mentioned the Aegean Apollon, a ship Al-Zawahiri claimed he owned, and the Suez Canal, “an important transport facility on Muslim lands and in Muslim hands,” and contained language about “the destruction of the wealth and property of the Zionists and Crusaders while sparing their lives.”

  These statements created confusion at all media centers. What property and where? And whose lives? Compounded by problems of translation, the suspect origins of the tape, early reports were confused and deemed unreliable, even in Arab countries.

  Western media were caught totally unprepared and initially reported the story with an air of incredulity, full of hedging and caveats about how hard it was to verify such extreme and unprecedented claims, (although one commentator at Agence France Presse said that terrorist access to nuclear weapons was “inevitable” and “should have been foreseen.”)

  By next morning, a few experts were willing to go on air stating that the speaker did indeed appear to be Ayman al-Zawahiri, that his voice was recognizable. Al Jazeera then confirmed that the tape had been received from “sources previously linked to Al Qaeda.”

  After much frenetic analysis of the tape and consultation with experts on terrorism, the global news machine began to take the story at face value. Media superstars descended upon Cairo and Suez to photograph the tiny freighter Aegean Apollon and to provide continuous patter about the unfolding story of the vessel Al-Zawahiri had designated as the delivery mechanism for a nuclear device. CIA, NSA, GHCG, Mossad, and DGSE were all reported to be solemnly analyzing the situation.

  Kate watched frenzied CNN and BBC reports when she awoke. The ship was pictured at the mouth of the Canal at the rear of a convoy of eighteen vessels. A pair of Egyptian Navy tenders was next to the Aegean Apollon, and Suez Canal Authority officials had apparently boarded her.

  The CNN voiceover indicated that government officials were “investigating last night’s claim by Al Qaeda that the terrorist group is in possession of a nuclear bomb and is prepared to use it to destroy economic targets of importance to the West,” which was a roundabout way of saying the it was the Canal itself that was likely imperiled.

  Kate called Olof Wheatley in Washington, but was told he was at the White House.

  Kate walked to the American Embassy from her hotel, a distance of just a few hundred yards. It was a fine day, with the typical Cairene smog at bay, but Kate was not enjoying the weather or the clear sky. She was lost in thought. How had events slipped into the public sphere so quickly? What could she, or anyone, do now that a thousand cameras were trained on the Aegean Apollon?

  When she reached the 16th floor of the Embassy, the first person she saw was Keven Smyth, whose face showed both the surprise and discomfort of the last few hours that she was sure was also etched on her own.

  “I suppose you’ve been glued to the cable news channels,” Smyth said.

  Kate nodded. The world was probably wondering who needed CIA when there was CNN?

  “What no one is reporting,” Smyth said, “and what none of the media know, is that there sure ai
n’t no bomb aboard that ship.”

  “What? They stated categorically it was on board! Why would they pull a stunt like this without the real goods?”

  “All I know is what the techies tell me,” Smyth insisted. “The Aegean Apollon sailed under the Overhead Crossing Line just before nightfall. The measuring devices are unequivocal—there is no radioactive material aboard that ship. None.”

  Part Three

  Chapter 37 — Suez, Egypt

  The modern port of Suez is a city of half-a-million set at the southern terminus of the eponymous canal in the Gulf of Suez, the northernmost reach of the Red Sea. Suez has three harbors—Adabya, Ain Sokhna, and Port Tawfik, and port facilities consistent with the traffic in ocean-going vessels that passes through every day.

  Port Tawfik, the largest harbor and the only one within the precincts of the town, also serves as the entrance to the Canal. Suez is the venue for a petrochemical plant and an oil refinery that supplies the energy needs of Cairo by direct pipeline.

  But Suez is not just about ships and canals. It is a way station for Muslim pilgrims travelling to and from Mecca, with the attendant hotel and hostel facilities they require, some quite luxurious. Suez is connected by road and rail to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, and Port Said, and tiny Ismailia, the village located midway on the canal route at the Great Bitter Lake. Suez as a whole is responsible for about five per cent of Egypt’s economy, a fact belied by its small size. It is always a beehive of activity. The tolls collected from ships constitute an important and prestigious source of revenue. Suez makes possible commercial transportation on a scale that has changed the dynamics of all shipping in the Mediterranean.

  Kate Langley, Brigadier Mahmood, and Keven Smyth borrowed a weather-beaten brown Embassy Jeep with bald tires for the two-hour, 80-mile drive from Cairo to Suez, arriving there around lunchtime.

  Like ordinary gawkers, they drove immediately to Port Tawfik. International media were everywhere. Portable television relay towers bloomed like metal mushrooms along the water’s edge. The air was filled with a weirdly disconcerting sound, a cacophony of desert insects—but, no, it was merely the buzzing and the clicking of fabulously expensive Nikon cameras taking still pictures on the wharf. The Aegean Apollon was easily spotted, still moored at the end of the convoy to Port Said, dwarfed by its larger sister vessels.

  The convoy had been delayed, occasioned not by the crisis, but by an unrelated event.

  As Kate and her colleagues arrived, two American naval vessels, the nuclear submarine USS Annapolis and the destroyer USS Momsen, had just pulled in from Port Said. The passage of U.S. Navy vessels was a major operation for the Suez Canal Authority, owing to safety precautions they had to take—to close off the Canal to all other traffic, shut down the tunnels and bridges, and otherwise bring Canal activity to a standstill while the heavily armed craft made their regal passage into the Gulf of Suez. The media seemed largely unaware of this secondary story, so riveted were they on the Aegean Apollon and the bizarre tape played the night before—and every hour since—on every news channel in the world.

  “Do these journalists look like they are in fear for their lives?” Keven Smyth asked no one in particular.

  “Clearly not,” Mahmood said. “Though one would think that everyone would be travelling as fast as they can away from Suez, not toward it.”

  “Al-Zawahiri never said they were going to blow up Suez,” Kate said. “On the contrary, he said AQ would spare lives, even the lives of infidels. What would be the point of killing half a million Muslims in Suez? No rave reviews on Al Jazeera for doing that.”

  “Yeah, but why trust Al Qaeda all of a sudden?” Smyth asked.

  Mahmood pointed to the American destroyer. “Your government seems to be transferring a fair amount of firepower out of the Mediterranean and into the Red Sea. That would suggest that someone in Washington wants to put a stop to this right here.”

  “The passage of these ships through the Canal was planned long before the release of that tape,” Smyth said, glancing at Kate. “But it is sort of convenient isn’t it? That television spectacular changes the dynamics. It’s a global story now, not just a few undercover intelligence people covertly chasing bad guys with a bomb.”

  “Mahmood,” Kate asked. “If the Egyptians have already determined that there is no nuclear device aboard that ship, would they inform the ISI?”

  “I’m not sure. Our relations with the Egyptians are still evolving in the aftermath of Mubarak’s abdication,” Mahmood replied. “Before the fall, we had reasonably good military-to-military contacts, but some Egyptian officers think Pakistan is not sufficiently secular, and of course some also feel that we are deliberately harboring Al-Zawahiri, who hates all of Egypt with a passion that is deeply resented here. He is no friend of this or any previous regime.”

  “So, would they share intel with you?”

  “Probably not, though we could ask.”

  “Well, that leaves Phil Drayton in Port Said. We can ask him to contact Farooq and find out what the Suez Canal Authority knows. That would be helpful.”

  ***

  Phil Drayton was easily found via Blackberry. He was sitting in his hotel room overlooking the harbor at Port Said, switching every few minutes from CNN to BBC on his television, feeling that he had been cheated out of a ringside seat at the events now unfolding one hundred miles away at the other end of the Canal.

  He seemed grateful for Kate’s call and he was eager to chat with her.

  “Farooq has been more than willing to talk with me,” he told her, “though only in person. He doesn’t trust phones, or any other technology.”

  “One of the reasons he has lived so long,” Kate said.

  “I had coffee with him at mid-morning at his seaside villa. He says something does not add up on that ship. Suez Canal Authority people are swarming all over the vessel, and they’ve arrested the captain and the crew.”

  “What about Al-Greeb?”

  “No sign of anyone who fits Al-Greeb’s description, and no sign of a nuclear device, but of course it will take a day or more to thoroughly go through the cargo. But, get this, no one on board made any effort to stop officials from boarding the ship or searching it. They seemed as surprised by Al-Zawahiri’s video as the press were.”

  “That’s totally weird,” Kate said. “If there is no bomb aboard that ship, then Al-Zawahiri will be the world’s laughingstock. This will be the collapse of Al Qaeda instead of its renaissance.”

  Al-Greeb was missing, the nuclear bomb was missing, and Al-Zawahiri is made to look a fool. What could one conclude from this? Like a dark, towering thundercloud full of evil power, a terrible thought began incubating in Kate Langley’s mind.

  ***

  The panel truck had no windows behind the two passenger doors, but was comfortably furnished for a long road journey in privacy, with a wide couch bolted to the floor, a canvas-topped table, and a small refrigerator containing fruit juice, unleavened bread, and some cuts of mutton. The truck was covered in a thin, reddish dust, picked up on the long drive north from Al-Zaafarana on the Ras Gharib highway.

  The driver pulled up to the Palmera Beach Resort at Ain Sokhna, about fifteen miles south of Suez on the west bank of the Gulf. An adobe building flanked by two swimming pools overlooked a white, sandy beach and the crystalline, cobalt waters of the Red Sea. The beach and waves were far enough away from the Canal to be free of oil slick and flotsam. A dozen bathers reclined in beach chairs on the glistening sand in the intense Egyptian heat. Children were splashing in the warm water.

  Yasser al-Greeb emerged from the panel truck through double doors in the rear. He was dressed in the loosely fitting white ankle-length cotton thawb so common in the Arabian Peninsula, along with the checkered square keffiyeh characteristic of Palestine, held in place on the head by a cord coil or egal.

  Most of the guests at the Palmera Beach Resort were stressed-out Cairenes who had driven down for a three or four day holiday fr
om urban noise and strife, but there were enough similarly dressed Arabs at the resort that Al-Greeb did not draw attention.

  Al-Greeb’s driver preceded him into the lobby of the resort, identifying himself as a servant and driver and presenting a forged Saudi passport and a reservation in the name Abdullah Hassan, which was the alias Al-Greeb was using. Abdullah Hassan claimed to be a Riyadh cement merchant in Egypt on business. The driver obtained a key to a detached villa on the beach without anyone at the front desk having seen the face of their new guest.

  The villa was one of half a dozen square buildings on a narrow shelf or plateau above the sea, isolated from the access road and the main buildings of the resort. It consisted of a large, square central room with a red tile floor, a small dining room, and a spacious bedroom and bath. There were two additional guestrooms in the rear, one of which was taken by the driver.