Saif nodded. “Go. I’ll clean up and follow.”
Ahmed got into his BMW and drove quickly through the Manama traffic, fighting his shock, increasingly feeling a sense of vulnerability and dread. What if Saif hadn’t been there? How long had the Iranians been planning to kill him? Would they try again? He had been so stupid: the amateur spymaster. Ahmed violently shook his head, refusing to give in to fear. There was no time. Not now. So this was what his brother dealt with every day of his life. So now it was his turn. Good.
He wove rapidly through the late-afternoon flow, south toward Sitra, the industrial area near the refinery. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled another cell phone from the console between the front seats and hit a speed-dial number. “Two blocks out,” he said and disconnected.
As the blue BMW approached the faded warehouse, a metal door rolled up. It closed again after Rashid was inside. He took the stairs inside the warehouse two at a time to an office looking down on the darkened interior.
“You used the emergency code phrase, Fadl,” Ahmed said as he came through the office door. “What is your definition of an emergency?”
“Saif ’s device in the Qods Force office...he put it in their printer, we downloaded it...two hours ago and it . . .” Fadl was flustered, stammering. He handed a paper to Ahmed bin Rashid.
Ahmed took the paper and studied Fadl. He was certain that the young man’s distress had nothing to do with what had happened at the hotel. Fadl didn’t know. Ahmed decided to keep it that way. He looked at the paper.
“This is incomprehensible, Fadl. What am I supposed to...” Ahmed said, squinting at what looked like some sort of message format. Fadl stood next to him and pointed at a paragraph toward the bottom of the page and read aloud, “ ‘Karbala team to move to site by 16 this day, board and take down without alarm, and set sail no later than 1730. Jamal 2157 will proceed out as normal to marker red twelve, then turn north with maximum speed to ASU. Ram DD if possible or drive on to land, then ignition.’ ”
The doctor stared at the earnest young man in front of him. “What is that supposed to mean, Fadl? Who is Jamal 2157? Do you even know him? And Karbala, why do I care what happens at some Shi’a shrine in Iraq?”
The door opened and Saif joined them. “Jamal is not a person, brother Ahmed. It is a Japanese ship with 2157 painted on its side. The Qods drove two trucks to a pier here in Sitra this afternoon. Taha, from our group, followed them. He said the Qods had Iraqis with them. He said they took two harbor service boats out to the ship an hour ago. He is on a roof near the dock now, keeping watch.”
Ahmed swallowed. “Let me see the message again. What kind of a ship is this? What are they smuggling into Bahrain, explosives?”
“Type? Taha said it is very large . . .” Saif responded.
Ahmed looked anxiously around the office, filled with books, boxes, and papers. “The computer, is it connected to the Internet?” He typed “www.google.com” and then “Jamal 2157.” In twenty seconds, the screen changed and a list of Internet pages appeared. Ahmed clicked on the first listing. Another screen appeared with a picture of a large ship with five spheres protruding from the deck. On the side of the red ship were the white letters “LNG Jamal.”
“Allah help me,” Ahmed gasped. “Liquid natural gas! Where is this ship now?”
“Taha said it is offshore, tied up to a special floating dock or point of some kind. I will call him.” Saif quickly changed the SIM chip in the back of his phone and punched in a number. He mumbled a few words into the mouthpiece, listened for a minute, then quickly disconnected. “They are beginning to move the ship, to untie lines. They did not unload explosives into Bahrain. Taha...Taha thinks they brought explosives out to the ship. Some of the Qods people left the ship, left the Iraqis on board.”
Fadl had taken a maritime map down from the office wall and was laying it out on the table in front of Ahmed. “Here is where they are now,” Fadl said, pointing to a channel off the Sitra oil and gas facility.
Ahmed looked at the navigation chart and saw a red triangle with the notation “R-12” east of the ship’s location. From there the channel went east to the Persian Gulf. Directly north of that buoy, however, was a notation, “NOMAR: Permanently Restricted Military Area.” Above the Notice to Mariners notation was Juffair, and the American naval base called the ASU.
“Who do we know in the harbormaster’s office, the port police?” Ahmed asked, moving to the door.
“We have a source in the traffic police . . .” Saif was saying.
Ahmed bin Rashid stood in the office door at the top of the stairs. “Send out the emergency signal to all of your people, tell them go to ground, disappear, no communication for five days. And get out of here, drive inland, to the west coast. Now!” He ran down the stairs and searched frantically in the BMW’s console for the card that Kate Delmarco had given him.
As the metal door lifted and he backed the BMW out of the warehouse, he punched in her Dubai number. It took what seemed a long time and many clicks before it rang. She answered on the fifth ring. “Kate Delmarco.”
“Kate, don’t say anything, just listen. I am the man you had coffee with an hour ago. Don’t speak my name. Are you with your dinner date yet, just yes or no.”
“Yes, yes, we are having cocktails, yes . . .” she answered uncertainly.
“Listen to me. You must persuade him that at this minute a liquid natural gas tanker in the harbor, the LNG Jamal, has been seized by Iranian commandos and is about to sail into the Americans’ base and explode the liquid natural gas. The blast will go for miles, like a mini-Hiroshima. There is no time to ask questions. Don’t hang up, just put down the phone on the table so I can hear him.”
There was a long pause. He heard music and clinking. Then he heard Delmarco’s voice, made out some of what she said: “Good source, Johnny... intelligence... right now a gas tanker which has been seized could be, no is, is actually... right now...driving toward ASU....I am serious, very.... Look, just check, call, you can call...what do you have to lose?”
He was driving erratically, with one hand holding the phone, speeding toward the hospital. If his call failed to persuade them, as he thought it would, there would be thousands of people in need of emergency medical attention shortly. There was only music and noise coming over the phone.
He ran a red light and sped into the traffic circle, almost getting hit by a bus. He dropped the phone onto the floor. On the other side of the circle, he pulled into a parking lane and stopped, searching for the phone. He put it to his ear in time to hear a man’s voice say in American-accented English, “...may be something wrong... be right or regret... going to Threatcon Delta...my word... drill... SEAL...you stay put...be back...”
Then he heard Kate clearly; she was speaking to him. “He just left. He’s pissed as hell, but his duty officer seemed to think something was wrong, so he has ordered something. He thinks I set him up. Did I?”
“No. You didn’t. I didn’t. You’ll see now. If you can see the harbor from where you are, go look.” He disconnected and began driving again, more carefully, to the hospital.
Kate was at a bar on the Corniche. She looked around. Across the street and a block away was the Banc Bahrain Tower office block. She ran for it. Darting across the street, she walked into the lobby and noticed a sign for an express elevator to the “Top of the Corniche.” Minutes later, stepping out of the elevator fifty-three stories up, Kate Delmarco ran into the rooftop bar, walked to a window, and scanned the horizon.
“Wanna borra dees, miss?” the bartender said in some version of English as he thrust a pair of Nokia binoculars across the counter. “Your ship coming, yes?”
Administrative Support Unit,
Southwest Asia (U.S. Navy Base)
Juffair, Bahrain
The klaxon finally stopped.
“. . . assume Force Protection Condition Threatcon Delta, repeat, Threatcon Delta . . .” a voice of God said from seemingly everywhere on base. Ma
rines poured out of the security barracks, throwing on flak jackets and carrying M16s. Humvees with blue lights blinking moved down the middle of the street toward the main gate.
At the SEAL dock, Lieutenant Shane Buford was on the red Alert Phone to the COMNAVCENT Operations Center on the other side of the base. “It will be hard to coordinate with the Marines’ helos, Commander, if we move this fast....Aye, aye, sir.” Bufordlooked at his chief, a seasoned, gnarled enlisted man with twice as many years in as Buford. “Chief, launch all three boats. We are to marry up with the duty boat and move toward the channel and...get this... board the LNG tanker Jamal near the R-12 buoy.
“We are to presume the LNG may have been seized by heavily armed men who may have explosives. The Marine FAST, if it can get going, may rappel from Black Hawks onto the deck, simultaneously with our assault if possible. And”—the young SEAL shook his head—“this is no drill.”
Eighteen SEALs ran down the dock into the Zodiacs. Each boat was rigged with three heavy machine guns. The lines were untied and the boats away in seconds. Moving abreast, the Zodiacs cut through the water off the Navy base into the channel. Buford looked
back at the gray hulls tied up in the main dock area. He saw the tower of an Aegis-class destroyer, the masts of two minesweepers, the big mass of a munitions resupply and under-way replenishment ship. Three littoral patrol craft were tied up to one another at the end of one pier.
It was dinnertime and many of the base personnel who lived “on the economy” were in private apartments nearby, but at least four thousand Americans were in the ASU at the moment. Another two thousand were probably within a few kilometers, within the blast radius if the LNG tanker went up.
The Zodiacs were speeding through the main shipping channel now, and Buford was monitoring several frequencies on his headset. His call sign was Alpha Three One.
“Alpha Three One, be advised harbormaster reports suspicious responses to his hails to LNG Jamal. Bahraini navy patrol craft is getting under way from Juffair East.”
And another voice: “ASU Ops, this is Coast Guard D342. We are about three klicks from R-12, have subject vessel in sight. She is proceeding east at eight knots.” Years ago the Coast Guard had sent a maritime safety and security team to help the Navy patrol Bahrain harbor. They were still there and drove 25-foot Defender-class boats designed for harbor-security missions.
In each of the three Zodiacs, the chiefs were going over the rules of engagement with the teams: “Possibly heavily armed men, possibly explosives, but we are not sure, so do not pop some Japanese merchant marine guy without identifying him hostile.”
The fourth SEAL Zodiac, the duty boat, had been patrolling to the west of the ASU and could now be seen speeding to rendezvous with the three alert boats. Buford hailed it on a tactical frequency: “Alpha Three Four, you will team with Alpha Three Three and move down the port side of the target vessel.” As he said that, he realized that they would have none of the tactical surprise that they normally counted on when storming a ship. The sun had just set, but there was still enough ambient light from the city and the refinery that they were not exactly operating in the dark that they normally used to protect them. Buford’s laptop, which he had strapped to the deck, beeped, and he looked down to see a new PDF file with the deck plans of the LNG Jamal. They had just been sent to him from the N-2 at the base.
“ASU Ops, this is Coast Guard Delta 342, subject vessel is turning toward the Juffair Channel and making wake. We will close in three mikes. What are our orders?”
There was a pause before the ASU Operations Center answered the Coast Guard Defender boat. Then, “Roger, 342, you are to hail the target ship on radio, with lights, flares, and loudspeakers. Advise them they are entering into a restricted area and must reverse at full speed. After they clear the zone, tell them that you want to board. Do you have a Bahraini officer for boarding?”
The Defender, like all the Coast Guard boats and ships in the region, typically carried a host country rider, who had the legal authority of the sovereign state in whose waters they sailed. With him on board, they could enforce local laws and come aboard any vessel without permission from the ship’s master.
Buford could now see the orange Coast Guard Defender boat two kilometers out ahead, but the tanker had to be running with few lights. He could not make out the huge ship with his binoculars, so he raised the night-vision glasses from his belt. In the green light of the glasses, at the distant setting, the big LNG tanker, with its spherical containers, was clear. It was now heading straight up the Juffair Channel toward the ASU. A bright light erupting in the nightvision glasses forced him to pull them quickly away from his eyes.
“Coasties are shooting up flares at her,” the chief said. “She has stopped talking to the harbormaster, ignoring his hails.”
Buford switched to the Coast Guard frequency and heard in English, “LNG Jamal, LNG Jamal, this is the United States Coast Guard. You are entering a restricted area. Switch to reverse full power. Repeat...”
He saw it come from the bow of the tanker, a flash there and then a line of light shooting forward in front of the tanker, then... a ball of fire where the Coast Guard Defender had been and a thud and a crackling sound moving across the water. Someone on the Jamal had fired a heavy, man-portable antitank weapon at the Defender, which had exploded, sending flaming pieces up into the sky and sideways to the right and left.
“Alpha Three One to all Alpha patrol boats, target is hostile, repeat, target is hostile,” Buford called into his headset. “Change of plans. Implement Redskins Blue Two, repeat Redskins Blue Two. Alpha Three, join me at point; Two and Four, play stopper.” Buford called out a prearranged maneuver from the SEALs’ playbook, just as he had called plays as the Springfield High quarterback seven years earlier.
The Zodiacs were running full out, without lights, changing their patterns repeatedly to avoid being targeted the way the Coasties had been, by a gunner with night-vision devices on the bow of the Jamal.
Buford heard the Marines’ Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security team commander on another frequency. “Where the fuck are the Black Hawks? My team is ready for pickup.” Probably as many as thirty-six Marines were suited up in body armor and waiting at the ASU landing zone for the ride that would take them to points above the deck of the target ship. The plan was that, as the helicopters hovered in the dark, the Marines would rope down onto the ship. It was only slightly more crazy than what Buford planned to do with the SEALs at some point tonight, which was to launch rope rockets onto the ship and then climb up special ladders onto the deck, 200 feet above the sea.
Another voice on the headset: “This is Bahraini Navy patrol craft to LNG Jamal. We are proceeding to your location. Come to full stop. Prepare to be boarded.” Buford checked the tactical plot on his secure wireless laptop. The Bahrainis were about twelve minutes away. Buford was now about two minutes from executing his play.
“Brrrt.... Brrrt....” Buford could hear arms fire and he saw flashes from the Jamal’s bow and port side, but not another antitank missile. Whoever was on board the Jamal, they were firing automatic weapons, trying to keep away frogmen who they assumed would be there. If there had been time, the SEALs would have, in fact, approached the target ship on diver sleds. The shooters seemed to know that.
A starburst flare overhead lit up the night sky, followed by another off the starboard side. The Zodiacs would be clearly seen now, without night-vision devices. Another missile could be coming from the Jamal any moment. The ship seemed huge now as she plowed up the channel toward the Zodiacs at full speed.
“Alpha Three Three, fire at will, repeat, fire at will,” Buford said, and he gave the go sign to his chief. A second later there was a crack, a whoosh of air, a shock of light. The Zodiac bucked like a horse hearing a cherry bomb go off. Then, half a kilometer away, another Zodiac also let loose with a Javelin antitank missile. As soon as they fired, the two Zodiacs began evasive action before anyone on the bow could fire at them. B
uford’s Javelin hit the tower of the ship and it lit up like a dry Christmas tree. Then the second Javelin hit and the flames on the conning tower shot higher. If anyone was steering the ship and controlling the speed from the tower, they were now toast. If the SEALs had missed and hit one of the five round gas tanks protruding from the deck, the entire harbor would have been on fire. If the fire on the tower spread, that might still happen. But the book said it wouldn’t spread.
The Jamal continued to move closer and farther up the channel toward the base at high speed. Buford saw the Black Hawk in his peripheral vision and switched to the FAST frequency. “FAST one moving into position for stern assault. Where are my other three birds?”
“Oh Christ,” Buford mouthed over the roar of the Zodiac. His chief signaled back, “What’s wrong?”
Buford yelled into the chief ’s ear above the din of the motors. “The Marine FAST Commander seems to have gotten frustrated waiting for his rides and launched only one squad with the first chopper he could get. Worse yet, he’s going to do a stern rappel just when Alpha Three Two and Three Four are about to shoot out the props on the tanker.”
Buford was only a Navy lieutenant, and the FAST commander was a Marine major, but Buford was going to have to tell his superior officer up there in the Black Hawk that the SEALs, on the Zodiacs coming around behind the tanker, were about to fire rockets at its propellers. If done properly, there was no danger of the ship’s fuel igniting, but there might be a problem for Marines roping down onto the deck above the props.
“FAST-One, this is Alpha Three...” Buford began, when he saw the light jump up from the ship’s deck. Then the Black Hawk exploded into an orange-yellow burst and he could see the fuselage buckle in the middle while the rotors still turned. The men on the Jamal had fired a Stinger missile or Russian SA-14 at the Marines, twelve of whom were now aflame as the Black Hawk fell to the sea.
The Scorpion's Gate Page 8