Abdullah leaned forward and touched a button below his microphone, causing a green light to come on in front of him. “The religious police are supposed to enforce religious practices, not to enforce the civil law.” The room went still. Abdullah continued, “I am in charge of law enforcement and security, by decision of this Shura, not the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Publicly dissenting from proposals before the Shura, including those having to do with Sharia law, is not a violation of our religious practices.” A chorus of voices disagreed. “These men did nothing to warrant their arrest, let alone their flogging,” Abdullah concluded, and he hit his microphone button again to shut it off.
The chorus of disagreement grew louder. A man in cleric’s robes across the table repeatedly pounded on his microphone button. “So what does the director of security propose we should do with these boys who have done haram, prohibited acts? Give them sweets?”
Abdullah straightened in his chair and slowly leaned forward to press his microphone. “It is not what I propose, it is what I have done. In the rightful exercise of my legal authority, I have released citizens who were being illegally held, citizens who had violated no law.” The room erupted. Ahmed was pleased to see that his brother had supporters who could also scream and point their fingers, wave their arms in the air.
Bin Tayer hit his microphone button and began to speak. “Minister Rashid. Why do you think we fought this revolution, to let the decadence continue that the al Sauds did in private and overseas? To allow anyone to pretend to be a Koranic scholar? To allow Muslims in other lands to practice deviant strains of Islam? To give power to the infidel kafirs and to women? No, it is the mission of government to end such jahiliyah, such ignorance. Those who violate the laws must be punished!” More commotion followed.
Finally, Abdullah responded. “First, Zubair, I did not notice that you did fight at all.” Cries of outrage followed. “Munafiqeen!”
Over it all, Abdullah continued, “Second, those of us who did fight did so to change our country, not to impose something on others elsewhere. Third, it is not the job of hakimiyah, of those in governance, to force Salafism or any other school of thought on our own people. The Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, accepted the Jews and the followers of Jesus as children of Abraham. For centuries, Muslims have chosen their own paths. Some choose to be murtadeen and live a secular life, but very few choose the ways of Taymiyyah or Wahhab, or the Salafists. We who fought did not do so to change the ninety percent of our Muslim brothers who disagree with you, Zubair.”
Abdullah shifted his body, showing his back to Zubair bin Tayer as he appealed to the others on the Shura. “It is the duty of a country to develop its people’s full potential, and to allow the smartest to build for the rest of us. So we should, as the government, be promoting education in the sciences, in medicine and mathematics. These are not un-Islamic studies. These are things that Islamic scholars created and promoted centuries ago at the height of our power. This is what we should be doing, not flogging students, not punishing acts which are halal.”
After an hour of highly agitated and excited debate, the Shura Council of the Republic of Islamyah adjourned without taking any action. Abdullah left the chamber quickly by a side door near his seat. Ahmed stuck to his side. “I am proud of you, brother,” Ahmed said when they slowed down in a corridor leading back to the director’s office.
“Now do you see why the sessions are not televised, as you proposed?” Abdullah laughed.
“No, all the more reason why they should be. The people would not stand for it. The people would support you against these Neanderthals,” Ahmed urged.
Back in the office, the brothers were joined by six of Abdullah’s supporters from the Shura. “Are you happy now, my friends?” he asked them.
“It was the right issue to pick, Abdullah. It makes it clear to the people that this is not a struggle about religion, but about its place in our government,” Ghassan bin Khamis said, patting Abdullah on the shoulder. Ghassan had been with Abdullah in exile in Yemen and was now head of one of his intelligence units.
“It is a struggle about whether we are part of the modern world,” Hakim bin Awad objected. “Modern states do not flog people. And people have a right to say what they think about laws. That’s why we overthrew the al Sauds, because they locked us up when we expressed ourselves against the things they were doing.”
“Ghassan, Hakim, you are both right. We did not fight to become the al Sauds—at least I didn’t,” Abdullah said, throwing himself down on one of the four couches that formed a semicircle in his office. He adjusted his robes. “I fought so that this country could breathe again, the way it did when our grandfathers were free in the desert. And so that it could be the people’s country, its own country, not some privately held company, part of some British or American network. Democracy our way.”
Ahmed was stunned. He had never heard his brother so articulate, so passionate, and so much in agreement with what Ahmed himself believed.
“We also need to lead the Arab world back to the leadership it once had in the arts, sciences, medicine, mathematics,” Abdullah said, looking across at his brother. “We have lost all that. We have closed the minds of our people.” Ahmed smiled, remembering the Arab Development Report he had left with his brother.
“This is all about the Wahhabist clerics trying to do now what even the al Sauds would not do,” Hakim added.
“Let me tell you about Wahhabism,” Abdullah replied. “They won’t even use that phrase, you know, but they say it is the natural way of Islam. Ninety percent of Islam rejects Wahhabism. Muslims who live here should be able to do so as well, if they choose. Our government should not be telling citizens which of the Muslim scholars are right and wrong on interpreting the Holy Koran or the Hadith.”
“If you say that out there, they will try to have you killed,” Ghassan cautioned. “Bin Tayer fears that you will run against him when we have the elections. That is why he keeps postponing, why his people say only the righteous should be allowed to vote. You are in danger, Abdullah.”
“The Corps of Protectors is solidly behind you, Sheik.” It was General Khalid, the commander of the united force that was made up of what had been both the Saudi army and the national guard.
“Maybe your men are behind him, but half your weapons don’t work anymore. And they are bringing in more Chinese. And how do we know they will keep the Chinese in the desert with the missiles?” Ghassan shot back.
Abdullah turned quickly. “What’s this, Ghassan? More Chinese?”
“I haven’t had time to tell you yet, Abdullah. My men have confirmed that there are preparations at ports in both the Gulf and the Red Sea, preparations to offload and billet more Chinese. Others will be flying in. This is no troop rotation. These are more.”
Abdullah stroked his short beard. “The Shura has not approved this. Why do we need more?”
Ahmed, who had sat back listening to the exchange, now leaned in. “Maybe to protect nuclear weapons?”
“No,” Abdullah said emphatically. “We have not agreed to request nuclear warheads for the missiles.”
“Maybe bin Tayer has, behind the back of the Shura,” Hakim wondered aloud.
“No,” Abdullah repeated. Then he turned to General Khalid. “Find out.”
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
“Are you Russell MacInytre?” A young man with a British accent was approaching the taxi.
MacIntyre paid the driver and turned. “Who the hell are you?” “So sorry, sir,” the young man said, presenting a business card.
“Clive Norman, British Consulate. I am from the Exchanges Office.” “Look, I have an appointment here,” MacIntyre said, brushing past. “With Admiral Adams. Yes, I know, sir. There’s been a change in plans and he’d like you to join him at one of our facilities nearby.”
MacIntyre examined the business card and looked at what was undoubtedly a young Brit.
He doubted that he was looking at a terrorist or kidnapper. “We have a consulate car and driver here, sir, if you’d please . . .” Norman pointed at a Jaguar with diplomatic plates parked down the drive. “The admiral said you could telephone him to verify.”
MacIntyre was unsure but said, “All right. Let’s go.” The car drove a short distance and pulled up to a gate with two uniformed guards from one of the many Dubai security firms. Inside the compound, the car stopped in front of a large domed villa, one of the shining, oversized homes that lined the beach.
Clive Norman led the way up the stairs and into the high-arched marble foyer. MacIntyre could see through to the glass doors in the back and the Gulf beyond. He was still unsure of what was going on. “They are dining on the patio in back, sir. Please go right ahead through.”
MacIntyre walked ahead and pressed open the door to the outside. “Rusty, over here!” It was Brian Douglas. He was bald, there were bags under his eyes, and his nose looked to be a different color from the rest of his face. His polo shirt was too tight...but it was Brian Douglas.
“I believe you know of Admiral Adams.”
MacIntyre shook hands with the Navy officer and turned to Douglas. “It’s good to see you. Both of you, actually. There was a time last night when I thought I would never see either of you, ever.”
“Yes, sorry I stood you up. There were... complications, but I’m here. And I just got off the secure line with Sir Dennis, who has authorized me to brief both of you on what I found out. On condition that you not report on it, yet. You’ll see why.”
“Gentlemen, your lunch is served,” Clive Norman said from a table nearby. “I will leave you alone, sir, but buzz if you need anything.”
Almost an hour later, Norman responded to a buzz by bringing more coffee.
“I know the position it puts both of you in, considering it is your government, or part of it, that seems to be involved,” Douglas said, pouring. “But is it really so hard to believe?”
The admiral spoke first. “No, no, it’s not. Regrettably, it’s all too likely to be true.” MacIntyre remembered that Senator Robinson thought the world of this Navy man, who looked too young to be wearing three stars. Adams continued, “I was at Central Command Headquarters in Tampa last week. A guy there, senior guy whom I trust, had some conspiracy theory that the Bright Star Exercise was in fact just a cover for a planned U.S. invasion of Islamyah. Said the exercise is too big otherwise, too many troops, supplies for a month. He thought SEAL Team Six was already looking at landing sites.”
“Okay, but shooting down a U.S. AWACS as a provocation and blaming it on Islamyah? Blowing up the Navy base in Bahrain?” MacIntyre asked, skeptically.
“The Iranian documents make clear that the Americans did not know about the planned attack on the Bahrain naval base. The Iranians wanted them to think it really was Islamyah,” Brian Douglas clarified. “But, yes, Kashigian did agree to Iran’s shooting down an AWACS and making it look like it was Islamyah.”
The two Americans looked at each other. “But, Brian, does it make sense that Kashigian, Conrad, whoever is behind all this, would agree to letting Iran land forces in Islamyah?”
“It does, Rusty. Here’s why,” Douglas replied, “the Pentagon will point to the Iranian landings as another reason why the U.S. has to step in. Iran, of course, will say that the government in Riyadh is being beastly to the Shi’as living in the Eastern Province, and that they have to step in to protect them. Conrad will then claim success, because he has contained the Iranians in a small coastal enclave,” Douglas explained, moving cutlery about on the table to indicate the sequence. “But here’s the rub. The Iranians also plan to take Bahrain. They expect the U.S. fleet to be gone at the time for some reason.”
Admiral Adams pushed back from the table. “It will be. I am to move all surface combatants into the IO, allegedly to join Bright Star in the Red Sea, but actually to block Chinese navy ships from going to the aid of Islamyah. I see now why the Secretary was so intent on getting me orders to do that. He wants the Americans to land before the Chinese do and then to prevent the PLA from arriving by sea.”
“Yeah, okay, that part fits,” MacIntyre said, pounding the table absently with his fist. “Conrad does believe the Chinese are coming. He thinks they even have nukes for the missiles they sold Islamyah. But if you try to block their fleet, that’s an act of war.”
Adams shot MacIntyre a glance. “Tell me about it. Their fleet is well equipped. And they actually are bringing nukes for the missiles. I got that from my office this morning when I called in on the consulate’s secure phone. We confirmed it by scanning them off Malaysia.”
“So Conrad was right about that,” MacIntyre muttered.
“But he’s wrong about what Iran is up to,” Brian Douglas said, trying to get the conversation back to his point. “He believes Iran is only landing near Dhahran. They actually plan to take the whole Gulf coast of Islamyah—and Bahrain. He thinks they will then withdraw after they cut a deal to protect the Shi’a, but in fact, Tehran plans to use their enclave to supply a terrorist guerrilla war to evict the Americans and the al Sauds, again, from the rest of the country. They want to bleed America dry in a long desert war.”
“Great. So Conrad has done a secret deal with the Iranians to give him cover to reinstall the Sauds, and Tehran is actually double-crossing him, taking half the Gulf, and suckering us into another occupation war in an Arab country. Fucking great!” Adams shook his head in disgust. His pale face was reddening with anger. “We gotta stop this motherfucker.”
“Yes,” Rusty added quietly, “yes, we do.”
The three men sat silently for several minutes. Russell MacIntyre, the American intelligence analyst, looked out at the Persian Gulf and then, after a while, seemed to know what to do. “I had a debate the other day with a friend over whether I was arrogant. She said I wasn’t, but maybe I am, because at the end of the day I think I work for the American people, not Conrad and company. And nobody has asked the American people if they want more of their children killed out here in another war.”
MacIntyre had chosen sides. “If we act, we act alone. We will never be able to get anyone in Washington or London to go along with what we will have to do. But I have an idea of how we might be able to change things.” He turned to Bradley Adams. “Admiral, you have orders to take Fifth Fleet out of the Gulf, and I know you are going to have to follow those orders, but maybe Brian and I can manage events back here so you will be free to do the right thing— at the right time.
“Brian, you and I will be freelancing. If it goes wrong for us, we lose everything, our jobs, our pensions, maybe a lot more, but I swore an oath to protect my country, not a bunch of liars who happen to be in power.” Rusty swallowed. “You in?”
“I am. And I have some friendly assets around the Gulf that we can use. I bet you do, too, Admiral.” The British spy smiled. “Besides, if it goes wrong, I doubt London will be anywhere near as mad at me as some folks in Washington will be with you.” He reached across the table to shake MacIntyre’s hand.
Admiral Adams stood and placed a hand on the shoulders of the two civilians. “You guys may think I’m just a big cornpone, but when I was a kid there was a TV show about Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. The theme song had a line that I just remembered, sitting here. They sang ‘Be sure you’re right, and then go ahead. It’s up to you to do what Davy Crockett said.’ Gentlemen, I’m sure we’re right. If there’s any way to stop another deceitful war out here that’s just gonna kill thousands more Arabs and Americans, the right thing is to stop it. You two create the right circumstances and I can put a pretty potent force on your side.”
“It’s a long shot, and everything will have to work, and in the right order,” Rusty admitted, looking up at the naval officer, “but it is the only shot we’ve got. Brian, can you get the two of us into Islamyah?”
13
FEBRUARY 17
Aboard the USAF E-5B AWACS
&
nbsp; Call Sign Quarterback Golf
38,000 Feet above the Persian Gulf
“You know, Major, it’s like them Iranians tired theirselves out,” Master Sergeant Troy White said over the intercom. “Last few weeks they been flying like crazy with all their old MiGs and shit. Today the sky over there is almost clear. Just a couple of scheduled passenger flights. This shift’s gonna be a piece of cake.”
The revolving radar dome on top of the modified 767 gave Sergeant White a view almost 200 miles into Iran as the big twinengine Boeing slowly moved up the middle of the Persian Gulf off Abu Dhabi, headed toward Kuwait.
“Copy, Troy. What about the other side?” Major Kyle Johnson asked from his position in the forward compartment. “Old Islamyah has had a hard time getting their birds up, now that we cut off their spares. You see anything goin’ on over there this morning?”
“No, sir. Not much there either. The northern Global Hawk over Kuwait sees a coupla big guys circlin’ up north. Looks like maybe Air Islamyah practicing. Maybe checkout flights. Otherwise routine.” The Global Hawk was a Bistatic UAV Adjunct, one of two unmanned aerial vehicles constantly doing high-altitude loops at either end of the Gulf, one over Kuwait and the other over the Musandam Peninsula of Oman, at the mouth of the Gulf. Each flew at over 60,000 feet and had look-down radars whose signals were bounced up to a satellite and down to the AWACS. In addition to its own active radars and those on the Global Hawks, the unarmed AWACS aircraft was equipped with passive sensors to detect and categorize emissions from radars and radios in the air, and those transmitting from below on the land and at sea in the Gulf. All of the data the aircraft collected was integrated, analyzed, and beamed directly up to a satellite for relay down to the U.S. Central Command’s forward headquarters in Qatar, the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, the U.S. Army air defense missile batteries in Kuwait, and back to stateside military and intelligence facilities.
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