The Assassins

by Oliver North

  Should any government or extra-governmental entity in the Middle East or Southwest Asia succeed in uniting the two principal Islamic sects for this common goal, it is possible that Western influence and institutions could be replaced in a matter of months by Islamic theocratic bodies that would govern every aspect of day-to-day life in the region: civil authority, business, judicial matters, the media, and foreign policy. We should expect that such an outcome would create a regime or regimes innately hostile to the U.S. and our allies in the region. Under such circumstances it is unlikely that any pro-American governments in the region [e.g., the UAE, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Iraq] would long survive the transition.

  Recent technical intercepts indicate that a highly structured effort to create a “cataclysmic event” may be in the late stages of planning in Tehran. It is possible that the event could be on the scale of the 9/11/01 attack on the U.S., although a specific target is undetermined. Intensive collection efforts have been undertaken with U.S. diplomatic, military, intelligence, and commercial activities in the region. To date, all reports from the field, based on queries to “moderate leaders” in the region, have dismissed the possible action as “unfeasible.”

  Two reporting agencies take exception to this finding:

  1. The British SIS report in Addendum A indicates that Russian nuclear scientists have been tracked entering and leaving Tehran consistently for the past three years. The SIS report also surmises that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “closed a deal” with the Iranian leadership—that in exchange for Tehran's help in Chechnya, the Russians are providing the nuclear technology and materiel sought by the Iranian regime.

  2. The CIA CT Branch, as indicated in Addendum B, notes that all of those who have been intercepted and/or observed discussing the aforementioned “cataclysmic event” are clerics or government officials who are beyond the reach of U.S. counter-terrorism units under current guidelines. The analyst notes that they all appear to be aware that they are “protected” from any USG action by Executive Order 12333.

  When he finished reading the last line of the Executive Summary, Ralph Monroe whistled through his teeth and looked up at his boss. Senator Waggoner stood there grinning and said, “Well, what do you think?”

  “Good grief, this is exactly what we need to get your bill passed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But how do we get this around to the naysayers?” Monroe asked. “It's restricted dissemination.”

  “Well now, son, you're just going to have to make some copies of this thing and get it around to the people who need to see it,” Waggoner replied, in his best, southern, “good ol' boy” twang. “You know how to run a copy machine, don't you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Monroe responded, unsure of himself for the first time. He thought, People could go to jail for making copies of classified documents.

  “Well good,” said the senator, still smiling. “Send one of the ‘gofers’ or interns out to buy some cheap copy paper and plain white envelopes at a busy office supply store somewhere in Virginia—the older the better. Have 'em pay for it with cash. Burn the receipt. Tonight, use the copier down in the mailroom—not ours. Make thirty copies of just the summary. Cover up the document and copy number—and make sure you don't touch any of the paper copies with your bare hands. Bring the originals and those copies back here. I'll tell you what mail boxes to stuff 'em into.”

  Monroe stood, marveling at the “senior senator's” guile. But as he started for the door, his boss called to him yet again.

  “Ralph—wait. I almost forgot. Make thirty-one copies—and on your way home tonight, stop at a mailbox in Virginia and send the extra one to that nice boy, Alan Michaels, down at the Washington Post.”

  Home of Eli Yusef Habib

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  Anah, Iraq

  Sunday, 14 October 2007

  2230 Hours Local

  “Welcome home, Samir,” Eli Yusef Habib said, rising to greet his son as the younger man entered the comfortable living room.

  “Thank you, Father,” Samir answered, embracing the patriarch of the family. Even in his stocking feet, the forty-six-year-old son towered over his father, as they held each other with sincere affection.

  “Where is Mother?” the young man finally asked.

  “She is next door at your house, talking to your wife,” the old man replied. “The women have been anxious for you since you called yesterday to tell us that you were on the way home. With all of the news of what's happened in the neighboring kingdom, they were worried when you did not arrive before dark.”

  “But you were not worried, eh?” Samir asked with a smile.

  “Ahh, no,” Eli Yusef replied, “I do not worry, my son. I pray.”

  Samir laughed, but he knew that was true. His father was one of the most devout men he had ever met. The old man prayed and meditated several times a day—not in the words of the Quran—but using a different text—the Holy Bible.

  “Go now, to your wife and children,” the old man commanded. “Bathe the dust of the desert from your body and then return with Hamilah.” Then he added with a smile, “Your mother has prepared a feast for the return of our ‘prodigal’ son.”

  “All right, Father,” Samir said. He walked down the carpeted marble floor and out the front door. As he slipped his shoes back on he looked northeast across the broad Euphrates. It seems as though there are more lights on every night, he thought, seeing the reflections in the barely moving water.

  Walking the twenty meters to the large house next door, Samir waved to one of the many guards that were posted both outside and within the walls of the large gated compound. As he approached his front door he could hear the sound of music. His mother Zahira and wife Hamilah were singing hymns to the accompaniment of the Sony sound system that he had brought back from Beirut on one of his many trips to the “Pearl of the Levant” for the family import-export business.

  A half hour later, bathed and wearing a clean linen shirt and trousers, Samir, Hamilah, and his mother and father were seated around the parents' dining room table. Before they ate, Eli Yusef prayed—first in thanksgiving for his son's safe return, then “for all the blessings bestowed on this faithful family,” for the food set before them, and last, “for all those in peril in Saudi Arabia and particularly for ‘the believers’ who may be in jeopardy from evildoers.”

  As they passed the trays of garlic-covered lamb, seared vegetables, spinach pie, and fresh-baked flat bread, the old man said, “Tell us, Samir, about your journey. You left Beirut with four truckloads of appliances and other goods almost a month ago. How do things look in Tehran? Were you able to meet any ‘believers’ among the Persians?”

  Samir smiled at the way his father had worded the last question. That's the old British spy in him, he thought. And indeed Samir was correct. To Eli Yusef, the World War II, teen-aged spy for the British, the Iranians would always be known as “Persians.”

  The younger man leaned back in his chair, took a long drink of tea from his cup, and said, “Ahh, first…Mother, thank you for a delightful meal. It is good to be home. Now—where to begin? Well first, let me tell you about Iraq. Baghdad is much more peaceful than it was on last year's trip. The road through Ramadi and Fallujah to Baghdad is now free of bandits. Other than a few flat tires, we had no trouble whatsoever anywhere in Iraq.” Samir told them about other things that he'd seen in Iraq that were also encouraging the spread of democracy in the ancient land. “But I am getting tired now,” he said, putting his teacup back on the saucer.

  The two women got up and began clearing the table, leaving the men to their conversation. “How about crossing the borders?” asked the old man.

  “I want to talk to you about Beirut and Syria in the morning, Father,” Samir said. “I believe we have some great opportunities there if the rail line opens as planned. But tonight, let me tell you about Iran because I am wondering if we should close our offices there.”

 
The old man frowned at the thought. He had been building their little trading business for more than five decades—through four Arab-Israeli wars, the Lebanese Civil War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, the first Gulf War, the American-led invasion of Afghanistan to throw out the Taliban, and finally, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the removal of Saddam Hussein. Through it all he had persisted—never closing an office or trade route once opened. In reply to his son's suggestion, he asked, “If we shut down in Iran, how would we supply our customers in Afghanistan?”

  “I don't know, Father,” Samir answered, “but I just spent a week in Iran. We were able to make all our deliveries, but it is the first time I have actually felt what you described to me about that place—that ‘real evil’ resides there.”

  The old man nodded because he understood. There had been many times in his life when he had felt the presence of what he called “real evil.” He said simply, “Tell me about what you saw and heard.”

  “Well, first of all, I could not locate any of our friends from the ‘Fellowship of Believers,’” said Samir, reaching in his pocket and holding up a tiny metal fish. “In Ahvaz I went to the address of your old friend, Petra—the family you stayed with on your last trip three years ago. Petra and his whole family are gone. None of his neighbors could—or would—tell me anything about where they had gone.”

  “I hope that nothing has happened to them,” said Eli Yusef. “What else did you find in Iran?”

  “The Pasdaran—the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps—are everywhere. So are the ayatollah's secret police. Every time I turned a corner—you know, using the techniques that Peter Newman taught me when we were helping the Americans find the Baathists and the foreign terrorists here four years ago—I could tell that I was being followed. And on Iranian state radio every day there are reports of people being hung, beheaded, and having their tongues cut out for not abiding by the Quran—or for violating some new Islamic regulation. One afternoon in Tehran while I was waiting for one of our trucks to be repaired I was even questioned about why I was in Tehran by two Russians.”

  “Russians?” the old man asked.

  “Yes,” Samir said. “There are hundreds of them in Tehran. My truck broke down near that place you once reported on—the Centre for the Development of Advanced Defense Technology—and I went to a coffee shop to wait for a mechanic. The two Russians spent about an hour questioning me, asking why I was there, what I was doing and the like.”

  “But such things have happened in the past—the Russians come and go. And some authority is always checking your documents or asking questions.”

  “No,” Samir said. “It is different this time. You can feel the evil everywhere. On Friday I was passing by a mosque during afternoon prayer. Over the speakers on the minaret the mullah who was preaching kept calling on the people to prepare for what he called ‘the last jihad’—for ‘the final conflict.’ On the street even the Iranian people looked afraid.”

  “Hm-m, yes, I see,” Eli Yusef said.

  “I also heard many Iranian Muslims talking about the number eleven. Do you know anything about that?”

  “The number eleven? Yes…I have heard something about that too,” the old man replied. “I heard it from one of our Fellowship of Believers, who passed through here several weeks ago on his way to Kuwait from Syria. He said that in the Bekka Valley—among the Hezbollah who offered themselves to be martyred—there were young men who asked if they could choose to die on the eleventh.”

  “It sounded to me from what I heard in Tehran that it has some significance to their jihads. But I do not know what it means,” Samir told the old man.

  Eli Yusef was silent for a few moments, but his son could see that he was deep in thought, and did not interrupt. Finally the father spoke. “I have noticed that some of the terrorist attacks on the West took place on the eleventh day of the month—September eleventh in America, and the train attacks in Madrid on the eleventh of March. Perhaps the number eleven has something to do with their attacks and jihads.”

  “I wonder, though,” said Samir. “The attack this morning in Saudi Arabia—today is the fourteenth. That does not seem to fit with our theory.”

  “Perhaps…and then again perhaps not,” said the old man, clearly now deep in thought. “Please, Samir, bring me my Holy Bible and a copy of the Quran off the bookshelf in my library, and I will study the matter and pray for discernment. Now, you must go to your wife and get some rest. We will talk in the morning and see if the Lord has something to show me besides your smiling face.”

  ULTIMATUM

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  Filaya Petroleum Building

  ________________________________________

  14 Al-Aqsa Street

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Monday, 15 October 2007

  1718 Hours Local

  Nikolai Dubzhuko was watching the BBC International news satellite feed on the top floor of the dummy corporation's offices when the German-made secure telephone on his desk buzzed. The gray-haired, former KGB colonel picked up the receiver, listened for the ping as the system engaged—and after a momentary hiss of static as his encryption unit synchronized with the caller's, heard the slightly garbled voice of his superior say, “Nikolai, how are you?”

  It was the first time that the two men had spoken since the operation began. All other communications had been encrypted electronic data exchanged via the Persian Gulf undersea cable—to Iran and then on the secure Tehran-Moscow-Murmansk-Lourdes circuit. Dubzhuko replied, “I am well, General Komulakov, as I trust you are. I hope for your sake that things are not as exciting for you, wherever you are, as they are here.”

  Standing at a communications console in Lourdes, Cuba, Dimitri Komulakov smiled at his subordinate's clumsy attempt at figuring out where his “employer” was. “Nikolai, all the years we worked together you never mastered your insatiable curiosity. You're like the ‘Elephant's Child’ in Kipling.”

  Now it was Dubzhuko's turn to smile, and he replied, “Ah, yes, my dear General—and I should much prefer to be young again and with you back on the banks of ‘the great gray, greasy Limpopo River’ rather than here right now.”

  Komulakov was suddenly all business. “Enough reminiscing about our youth, Nikolai. You are being paid much more these days. How are things there?”

  “Well, General,” Dubzhuko replied formally, catching the change in tenor, “things have gone according to our plan—but we may have succeeded beyond our client's expectations. I have received positive reports from all but one of our teams. All but two of the Saudi individuals were successfully located and eliminated. It will all be in my next report in less than three hours.”

  “Yes, your reports have been good,” Komulakov said, “but what did you mean by ‘exciting’ and ‘better than our client expected?’ Is everything all right?”

  “Well,” the KGB colonel continued, “all of our ‘Muslim allies’ performed well, but I had forgotten how bloodthirsty they can be. I well remember how the Afghanis and Chechnyans were toward us—but I expected them to be somewhat more considerate toward their own kind. The women and children …”

  Komulakov waited for Dubzhuko to finish, but when he heard nothing for a moment he interjected, “You aren't going soft on me are you, Nikolai? How can you talk this way—you were my best executioner. I used to give you the toughest missions. I sent you to kill that Roman priest in Warsaw back in '86 with your bare hands because we knew the Poles would mess it up. What do you care about these people—they're just Arabs!”

  “Yes, General. I understand—you're right—it is just Arabs killing Arabs,” the KGB colonel replied. “But now it's out of control. The police have abandoned their stations, and the Saudi National Guard has stripped off their uniforms and deserted faster than Saddam's army fled from the Americans in 2003. Mobs have
taken over the streets and sacked every palace, government building, and most businesses—not just here in Riyadh, but in every other Saudi city as well. The locals finished what we started and managed to kill some of the members of the royal family before our teams even got there.”

  “Are you sure that all the ‘princelings’ are dead?” asked the general.

  “We're quite certain that there are none left alive here in Saudi Arabia,” Dubzhuko responded, as though he were talking about exterminating insects. “I trust you have seen the follow-up report from Yemen that there were three, not two, who were in the car explosion. In my next report I'll summarize all this, but as of now, two more members of the royal family were caught and killed in Geneva just an hour ago. Another three were killed in Thailand, and Prince Al-Habib Rasul and his family members were ambushed outside their hotel in Paris. I'm still waiting to hear from our teams that followed other ‘princelings’ to Marseilles, Rio, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Belgium. We didn't hear from our teams in London or Montreal, but if you've watched the satellite news channels, you no doubt saw the reports of the successful operations there. Apparently the police in London killed three of our men. The BBC announced that two members of the ‘Russian mafia’ accompanied by a Middle Eastern male killed five of the Saudi royal family. That would be Dusko's team.”

  “What about Australia?” Komulakov asked.

  “That's Voytetsky,” Dubzhuko responded. “He reported from Sydney that his targets got some kind of warning and all three Saudis fled by chartered airplane. He thinks they may be in New Zealand. If they are, he'll get them. But the explosion aboard the yacht was an accident. It's floating firewood now.”