by Jeff Nesbit
Abe fumbled in his pocket and eventually produced an ID badge that he generally kept in his shirt pocket. He was barely recognizable from the picture, but the words explaining that he worked for the government were clearly visible.
“I work for the Ministry of Infrastructures,” he explained. “I was just wondering what you all were up to here. I’m assuming you have a permit for this work?”
The driver shrugged. He pulled a piece of paper down from the dashboard and handed it down to Abe. “It’s all legal, as far as I know. We’re here under INOC.”
Abe looked over the permit. Sure enough, the work had been authorized by INOC, and it was all legal. “How much of the pipeline are you working on?”
“All of it,” the driver said.
“The entire pipeline?” Abe asked.
“As far as I know,” the driver said. “They have at least three dozen crews working on it at different points. The plan is to have the entire pipeline redone by the end of this week.”
“In a matter of days?”
“Yes. We’ve been at it for a month. We’re almost done.”
Abe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Granted, his office only handled exploration permits—not construction permits or work on pipelines—but he was still surprised that something of this magnitude could happen so quickly without his knowledge.
“And what about the oil that’s supposed to flow through it?”
“We connect everything by the end of the day, and the oil flows at night,” the driver said.
“You’re all working together?”
“We are. They’re paying us a lot to make sure we start and finish on time.”
Abe shook his head. “And you’ll be finished in just days? And oil will be able to flow south?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Thanks,” Abe said and started to walk away. He turned back, though, and asked one final question. “So who’s paying for all of this?”
The driver looked back at the permit. “Aladdin Oil and Gas,” he called out. “I think they’re American. But I don’t care—as long as the checks clear.”
25
Foggy Bottom, State Department
Washington, DC
Jennifer Moran did not like being kept in the dark. What was especially galling was that she’d witnessed the terrorist attack, and now it appeared the White House was deliberately keeping her at arm’s length. It was more than frustrating.
She walked across the office quickly, her heels making a sharp click, click, click as she left the carpet around her ornate desk and headed across the wood floor that made up most of her rather large office. She leaned out of the doorway and spotted her executive assistant. “I need the president,” she snapped.
“The president of the United States?” her assistant asked meekly.
“Yes, that president,” said Moran.
“I should just call the White House and ask for the president?” her assistant asked.
“Yes,” she said simply, then walked back into her office. She knew she shouldn’t be so hard on her staff, but she was flat-out irritated. And when she got this way, her staff knew enough to stand clear. They had no choice but to get their assigned jobs done, without asking too many questions.
A minute later, the executive assistant buzzed her boss on the intercom. “Madame Secretary, I have President Camara’s assistant on the line for you,” she said.
Moran picked up the phone. “But does she have the president?” she asked her assistant.
“I—I don’t know for sure,” said the anxious assistant. “She said she would let you know when the president could speak to you.”
“How about now?” Moran asked curtly. “Can you please tell the president’s assistant that I’ll be here in my office, waiting for his call?”
“Yes, Madame Secretary.”
Moran hung up the phone and swiveled her chair away from the doorway. She closed her eyes and waited. Less than a minute later, the intercom buzzed again.
“The president is on your private line,” her assistant said quietly.
“Thank you,” she said, only slightly concerned that she’d just put her assistant through the worst five minutes of her young career. She switched lines. “Mr. President?”
“Secretary Moran, I’m delighted you called,” said President Camara. “I was about to call with a briefing on the Dulles incident.”
“I’m certain you were,” she said with only a slight trace of sarcasm. “I’ve heard nothing from your national security team. Have they confirmed the nature of the attack at the airport?”
The president paused only briefly. “In fact, they have. Just in this past hour. As we suspected, it was someone loosely affiliated with al Qaeda. What made the person so much harder to track is that he’d been here, working in a nondescript job quietly from before September 11.”
“Which nationality? Pakistan or Yemen?”
“Neither,” the president said. “That would have been too obvious. No, he’d lived for years in Bahrain, then the United Arab Emirates, and London before that. He’d gone to school in England then transferred to the United States. He was in the final year of his PhD program at a school here in Washington.”
Moran caught her breath. “That can’t be. Really? It doesn’t fit any known profile.”
“No, it doesn’t. But what that tells me is that this is all becoming much more difficult. And that our enemies are getting that much smarter about avoiding obvious traps and filters.”
“What’s NSC say about a rationale?”
“They’re still working on that. I’m being briefed by Susan Wright within the hour. But the preliminary facts on the ground indicate that al Qaeda has determined they will no longer stay out of the kingdom.”
“So Saudi Arabia is now a target?”
“It would appear so,” the president said. “The complicated deals that the House of Saud has managed to make all these years are no longer working. Money bought peace for a time. But that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.”
“It’s not unexpected, if you think about it,” Moran said. “The Arab Spring revolts—combined with the death of their leader— have changed everything for al Qaeda. They’ve lost the ability to convince the world that change occurs in these regimes only through violence and terror. The peaceful student uprisings have changed everything, and al Qaeda knows it. They will need to radically change their own plans, their allies—and their way of operating in many of these countries.”
“It’s hard to believe that the world could have changed this much, so quickly, through the rapid-fire dissemination of information and peaceful protest.”
“No one could have predicted these movements in all of these countries. I know we didn’t. And our enemies certainly didn’t.”
“But it means that the game has changed,” the president said. “In fact…”
“What is it, Mr. President?” Moran said quickly. “Has something happened that I should know about?”
The president hesitated. Moran knew she’d once been the president’s rival, and he probably wondered whether he could entirely trust her. Nevertheless, she was now his secretary of state, and she deserved to hear of developments that would change everything in the Arab world, regardless of whether there was any truth to what they’d heard.
“Can you make it here to the White House in an hour, for Dr. Wright’s briefing?” he asked.
“I’m on my way,” Moran answered, even as she grabbed her bag and jacket from the chair nearby. “In fact, I wanted to brief you on my meeting with Prince Muhammad.”
“Was your guess correct?” the president asked.
“It was. Once I told him that we’d neutralized the threat on his life at the airport, he reciprocated with information.”
“So he is in line to be the new king?”
“He is. He will become the interior minister first. Natal will become king for a time, and Prince Muhammad becomes the crown prince, while stil
l serving as the governor of Mecca.”
“Israel won’t like the Natal play,” the president said.
“It won’t be for very long, I don’t believe. The changes will occur quickly in the kingdom. Natal is quite old. They need to transition to the grandson as quickly as possible, and I think they know that.”
“I think you’re right.”
Moran hurried toward the door of her office. “I’m headed your way. Can you tell me what I’ll be hearing about?”
The president paused. “The Twelfth Imam, if you can believe it. And a meeting between Ali bin Rahman and the Reverend Amir Shahidi in Tehran not long ago.”
26
Camp 16
North Korea
It was ironic. The very same person at the highly secret nuclear research compound who’d once turned Kim Grace in to the authorities for privately expressing doubts about the direction of North Korea’s nuclear program was now entering the gates of Camp 16.
Times change, Kim thought. There may be a new leader in Pyongyang, but the military still purges all dissenters.
Yet Kim harbored no thoughts of revenge toward her former colleague as she watched him trudge down the steps of the dilapidated bus that had creaked slowly through the main gates of the prison camp. Kim felt only sadness for him. She knew that he, too, would die in this terrible place.
The guards generally allowed the prisoners to watch as every new group of prisoners entered the camp compound. It was a reminder of just how hopeless their situation truly was. They could see the desolate mountain range through the gates and the downtrodden prisoners enter with bewilderment, fear, and panic on their faces.
Kim had watched every bus enter the gates. Against all rational hope, she scanned every face, hoping to see one of her children or her husband. She knew it made no sense. Yet she refused to give up the only thing that kept her alive—the possibility of seeing her family again someday.
There had been a flicker of anticipation when the peace talks between the North Koreans and the United States had been announced. Some of the prisoners even talked of release and going home to their families.
Yet those days were long behind them. No one had been released. If anything, the days had become longer, the labor much harder, and the hope of an end to their misery a distant memory.
Kim approached her former colleague as he left the bus and made his way toward the throng of prisoners who’d gathered near the bus. “My friend,” Kim said to her colleague.
Her former colleague looked up. Consternation, then recognition, and finally sadness swept across his face as he spotted Kim. “Oh my. It is you. I had forgotten that you were here.”
“It is where I was sent after…” She didn’t have the heart to remind him that he had been the one responsible for her imprisonment. When Kim had expressed doubts to him about her work with a nuclear doomsday device, in confidence, the colleague had reported her. She, her husband, and her children had all been sent to camps within days.
“Yes, I remember,” her dispirited colleague said. “I am so very sorry. I had no idea they would arrest you and send you…to a place like this.”
“It is just what they do,” she said simply. “So can you tell me? Is there news of my husband? Of my family?”
The man’s face fell even further. “Oh, I am so very, very sorry. I thought you’d have heard.”
“What?” Kim held her breath.
“Your husband. He has…he died two years ago, in another camp. We heard the news. I thought they would tell you something like that.”
Kim fought the tears. Long, hard years at Camp 16 had made it much easier to suppress her emotions. “No, they tell us nothing here. I’ve heard nothing of my family. Have you heard anything about my children?”
Her colleague shook his head. “I have heard nothing of your children. Prisoners were released at some camps. I know that…”
“Though not here.”
“No, I suppose not. This is a camp for political prisoners, and I suppose it would be too much to expect that anyone would see freedom here.”
“But you said some of the camps released prisoners?”
“Yes, as a show of good faith to the Americans. Some camps allowed prisoners to go home.”
“But you have heard nothing about any of my children returning home?”
The man looked genuinely heartbroken. “No, I have not. I am sorry.”
“At least there is still hope,” Kim said wistfully. “Perhaps they have left their camps and are in other countries. Perhaps they did not feel it was safe to return home and left the country.”
“Yes, we can hope.”
“So my friend, why have they sent you here?”
The man shook his head. Like other prisoners before him, he was still mostly in shock. The fall from grace had been swift and severe. “There was nothing I could do about it. We were told to secure nuclear materials and weapons. We had to prepare some for inspection and others for shipment.”
“Shipment?”
“Yes, not all of the nuclear weapons are to be destroyed. Many, many of them—along with a considerable amount of highly enriched material—were to be sent out of the country. The Americans knew nothing about any of it.”
“Where was it going?” Kim asked.
“I don’t know for certain, but it appears that it was going to Iran. Unfortunately, those of us who knew about the secret arrangements to ship the nuclear material to another country were felt to be a liability. We—all of us—were rounded up, forced onto a train, and sent here. It happened very quickly. I had no time… No time even to pack.”
Kim could see that her colleague still wore the very same clothes he’d likely come to work in. He seemed dazed. “And your own family?”
“I—I do not know. I was sent straight here.” The man glanced around nervously and then lowered his voice. “It happened so quickly, you know—and the police were so disorganized—that they did not search us.” He patted his suit coat pocket. “I still have my mobile with me.”
Kim moved closer. “Quiet. Say no more. The guards will take it from you if they think you might have something of value.”
“But it is really of no use here—not any longer. Who can I call? And who would help?”
“You never know what tomorrow will bring. The guards have told me for weeks that my days are numbered because of my role in the Pak Jong Un matter, but I am still here,” Kim said. “For now, let us hold to hope.”
27
Northern Yemen
Neither the Houthi fighters nor the al Qaeda warriors who’d long taken refuge in the wilds of Yemen had heard of him. They had no use for a leader who’d made the long, secret journey from southern Lebanon to take command of the operation today.
But those who’d provided the cash had told them—both Houthi and al Qaeda alike—that this man would lead them into the heart of the Saudi Aramco complex. They were to obey his every command and heed his words, whether they liked it or not.
In truth, they should have known something about Sa’id Nouradeen. He was a legend to the Shi’a rebels in southern Lebanon and widely known as the only military leader to defeat Israeli forces on the ground in the past generation.
Granted, it had been little more than a war of attrition, with Nouradeen grimly holding enough land and ground to eventually force the Israeli army back into its own territory. But that was enough for Nouradeen, and his taskmasters in Tehran, to trumpet the fact that the Shi’a rebels he led had defeated the Israelis in battle. The legend had grown from there.
What made today’s operation difficult was that Nouradeen was supposed to be engaged in peace talks with the Israelis. As Iran’s proxy in southern Lebanon, he was loosely part of the ongoing peace negotiations between Iran, the US, and Israel.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Iran had agreed to remove its support from southern Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria. Guns and supplies had stopped flowing to those regions while the peace talks were underway. Bu
t not money.
Nouradeen was privy to Tehran’s plans. Reverend Shahidi liked Nouradeen immensely and trusted him with important missions. For this reason, Nouradeen was well aware of the recent talks in Tehran. In fact, he was here today, leading this operation, as a direct result of the news Ali bin Rahman had delivered to the Supreme Leader in Iran about the plot against Saudi Aramco.
As for the news that the Twelfth Imam had reappeared, Nouradeen was dismissive. He considered the notion of a reappearance of the Twelfth Imam the wishful thinking of the believing masses. His son believed in the fantasy but not Nouradeen. He believed only in the cold, hard steel of a gun in the hand of a fighter—and not much else.
Yet he was aware that the fantasy and legend of the Mahdi was useful to guide and control the masses. He also knew that, at some point, it held an almost mystical power to unite both Shi’a and Sunni, if someone should ever wish to do so. There was an allure and mystique about the Twelfth Imam that, if properly harnessed, could be quite useful.
Today, though, Nouradeen was focused. He needed to keep the Houthi and al Qaeda fighters from turning on each other. They had a mission and a common enemy, and it was Nouradeen’s job to make sure they delivered their package to the heart of the Saudi oil complex.
Tehran had known there was some risk in sending Nouradeen to lead this mission. But once they’d heard of the plans from bin Rahman, General Zhubin had quickly convinced the others they needed someone of Nouradeen’s stature to guarantee success. He’d been dispatched within the hour and had arrived in Yemen during the night.
“Move,” he said to a Houthi fighter who was trying to finish a cigarette.
The Houthi fighter took one last drag on his cigarette and tossed the butt to one side. Nouradeen glanced over at the butt, which was still glowing, and motioned to the soldier to stamp it out. The last thing they needed was a brushfire. The Houthi fighter shrugged but stamped the cigarette out and then climbed onto the back of the pickup that carried the rods.