by Jeff Nesbit
Fahd wondered, almost in passing, whether they’d send someone after him. But he was old and no longer cared about that. And even if that happened, Natal would likely be the one tasked with such a covert mission on his life.
So General Fahd finished his audio broadcast calling on the “Free the Kingdom Army” to mobilize around the coming Day of Anger and sent it out to the mVillage network.
The audio had been replayed within the hour for both the king and crown prince of the House of Saud in Riyadh. And shortly thereafter, Natal had been called into the king’s office with new orders. He obeyed some of them and ignored others.
44
The Ministry of National Infrastructures
Jerusalem, Israel
Abe Zeffren was baffled. Nothing was making a great deal of sense.
When he’d first become Israel’s deputy oil commissioner, his mother had been proud. She’d told all of his friends and extended family about the appointment. Never mind that no one discovered oil in Israel, or that the country was wholly dependent on imports for its energy needs and likely would be so for as long as anyone could imagine.
Abe was serious about his job. He’d done everything in his power to encourage legitimate energy exploration companies, make connections that could lead to novel energy sources, and serve as a cheerleader for companies that wanted to drill one dry hole after another in and around northern Israel.
But he was also a realist. He’d long ago come to terms with the fact that, while Arab nations were flush with oil wealth, palaces, and lifestyles of opulence even as they told their own people about how they would one day defeat Israel on one battlefield or another, Israel had no oil wealth and had to carve a place for itself in a land mostly barren of any rich natural resources.
It always seemed more than a little ironic to Abe that Israel was so powerful in the midst of such wealth in the region. He’d often wondered how the world might be different if the tables had been turned.
Abe kept close track of the world’s oil and gas economies. He felt like it was part of his job, even if the country itself had no ability to play in such vast export markets. He read the reports online, day after day. He tracked developments on that global media network, mVillage.
And the world was buzzing, spinning, churning, and whirling right now. Word was leaking out in myriad directions about a terrorist attack on the vaunted Saudi Aramco oil complex. News of the attack had sent crude oil prices soaring.
Then there had been word of an attack at the huge West Qurna oil reserve fields in southern Iraq. Abe knew enough to realize that this was an enormous setback for several large oil companies that had hoped the US military war in Iraq had secured a new source of oil there. That effort was now delayed, perhaps for years.
And just this morning there was word of a third body blow to the world’s oil economy, a shocking nuclear suitcase attack against the largest oil fields recently discovered in Iran, the vast Azadegan oil field that the Chinese, Russians, and Japanese had just begun to develop.
Like West Qurna, the world’s oil powers had hoped that Azadegan would bring new crude oil markets into play. But those efforts would be set back for years as Iran dealt with the nuclear radiation fallout in the region.
Three actions and three significant Arab oil regions were crippled, potentially for years. Abe had never seen, or imagined, anything like this. It was as if some unseen force had simply decided to act against three Arab nation-states all at once. Abe knew that wasn’t really possible. But it still seemed odd that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran would suddenly find themselves struggling to supply the world’s oil.
But as disturbing as these actions were to the world’s oil economy, they weren’t what had Abe confused. No, what was baffling was the steady flow of e-mails and messages raining down on his office in the past twenty-four hours. He was hearing from everyone, from the prime minister’s office and aides at the White House in America to Russian Prime Minister Andrei Rowan’s office and the Chinese prime minister’s office in Beijing.
All were asking the same sets of questions, none of which Abe had any ready answers to supply. Was the Shfela Basin secure? Had the oil reserves been calculated there to any degree? Was there adequate infrastructure that would allow oil mined from there to head south or west? Was the Haifa oil terminal secure? Was there infrastructure at Eilat? Was the pipeline now running both ways between Haifa and Eilat? Who had filed paperwork at the ministry?
Abe had grown accustomed to tracking developments to the world’s oil export markets, analyzing them and sending them along for members of the Knesset and the prime minister’s office to read about— or ignore, which seemed much more likely.
The sudden explosion of interest in information about Israel’s oil and gas infrastructure, its capacity, or its ability to secure passage of oil inside the country’s borders had happened swiftly, with no advance warning. Someone, somewhere, had seemingly placed a very large gambling bet on the table. And that table was Israel.
The Russians were especially insistent. Abe had no less than a dozen requests for information from various parts of government agencies in and around Moscow. In fact, there were now so many requests from that part of the world that he’d asked for help from one of the other departments in the same office complex. For whatever reason, someone in Russia was awfully interested in Israel’s capacity and infrastructure surrounding its natural resources.
Abe wasn’t lazy. But the surge in interest was beyond anything he’d ever seen, even though he’d glimpsed, with his own eyes, the work on the oil pipeline, the beginning of the refining plant in the Negev, and the research underway at the Shfela Basin.
But he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Israel, after so many years of being the poor cousin at the party, would find itself the center of attention from wealthy individuals and companies that hoped to explore and build something around natural resources there.
So as he always did when he had too many questions—and far too few answers—Abe decided he’d start his own relentless campaign to get access to information. He’d decide later what to do with that information once it had been assembled.
Abe turned on his computer and sifted through each of the e-mails that had piled up in his inbox over the past twenty-four hours or so. For each e-mail, he fired back more questions in the opposite direction. Russia wanted to know about INOC.
Fine, Abe thought. I want to know about Russia, and why it has suddenly decided to pay attention to a country that it has never truly had in its sights.
The American White House wanted to know about the terminal at Eilat, and whether it was secure.
No problem, Abe thought. I’d like to know what the White House knows about a company called Aladdin Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of another American company that includes uber-wealthy individuals like Wolf Corps’ K. Robert Moorhead and a former vice president of the United States.
Turkish officials wanted to know the status of the oil terminals at Haifa, and whether they were equipped to handle an influx of oil or gas shipments.
Wonderful, Abe thought. I’d like to know why Turkey, after months of tough talk, has suddenly decided to play its NATO card and seek information about how it might again work with Israeli authorities outside military channels.
The Chinese wanted to know the status of US peacekeeping and infrastructure improvements in and around Beersheba and its road improvements throughout the Negev desert.
Well, then, Abe thought, I’d like to know why the Chinese government, after arming our enemies with cruise missiles, planes, and other assorted military exports, is suddenly taking an interest in our affairs? Where in the world did that interest come from? Would oil make its way through Israel and then to China?
The world’s largest private oil companies wanted to know about technology permits needed for one thing or another.
Great, Abe thought, but what I’d really like to know is why anyone in their right mind would suddenly find anything in I
srael worth investing in when they’d paid no attention to the country’s natural resources for a generation.
Abe didn’t move for hours. He simply fired off one e-mail after another. For every question posed from one corner of the world or another, Abe fired back three more questions.
He kept his speculation in check as he wrote. He made very few declarative statements in the e-mails. Mostly, he asked questions, one after another. Some sounded downright ridiculous on the surface. But, Abe knew, the most outlandish questions occasionally produced the most unexpected answers.
Abe became so absorbed in his one-man crusade to make sense out of a world that had seemingly descended on his doorstep overnight that he lost all track of time. By the time he’d pressed SEND on his last e-mail to some remote corner of the world that had written to inquire about Israel’s oil and gas infrastructure, the sun had already set. His office had grown dark.
So Abe switched on the crummy desk lamp that he rarely used and waited for answers. He read mVillage network reports from around the world. He created new electronic file folders on his computer’s desktop while he waited for the world to come to him.
And when the answers began to stream into his computer from around the globe, Abe sat back at his desk and absorbed them. People were willing to speculate about all sorts of interesting things. Sometimes, asking the questions was enough.
As the night advanced, Abe started a new round of memos. But this time, they weren’t merely responses to e-mail queries from around the globe. Abe was armed with a few facts of his own, as well as a handful of educated guesses.
The last memo he created was to the executive assistant to Israel’s prime minister, Judah Navon. Abe had learned long ago that the route to power advanced through the administrative offices. For this reason, and the fact he was a nice person, Abe had befriended the prime minister’s executive assistant in the past two years. She always received Abe’s regular memos and promised that the prime minister would receive them. Whether he read them or not was another question.
But Abe put in a special request with this particular memo, asking the assistant to make sure that Navon read the confidential assessment attached. It was important, Abe had written. When he finally turned off his computer, Abe was satisfied. He’d done his job and provided his best assessment of a unique, unfolding situation.
What others did with that information was well beyond his pay grade—despite what his mother might believe and tell her friends.
45
The Gulf of Aden
“Seriously? Those are my orders?”
Captain Bingham rarely questioned his orders. And when he did, it certainly wasn’t over the airwaves. Granted, this was a secure communications line, and they could speak freely.
Vice Admiral Truxton knew his orders seemed crazy, so he repeated them. “Yes, Captain Bingham, your orders are to take the McCain past Djibouti and into the Red Sea. Make your way up the coastline in Yemen and then Saudi Arabia. Send your planes out when you can.”
“Into Saudi Arabia?’
“Yes, into the Saudi mainland.”
“And what, exactly, am I looking for?”
“Any evidence of cavalry movement northward, toward Mecca.”
“Okay, but I want to make certain I heard that correctly. I’m looking for cavalry movements?”
Truxton smiled to himself. Bingham was a very good sailor. He could understand why he was questioning his orders. But he also knew that Bingham would carry them out without question and deliver results.
“Yes, Captain, you’re looking for cavalry movements,” Truxton said dryly.
Bingham paused. “You do realize, sir, that cavalry, well…it sort of died out after the First World War.”
“Yes, Captain, I’m well aware of that fact,” Truxton said. “I studied at the Naval Academy, too. But if you remember, there was some limited cavalry use during the Second World War.”
“And they have tanks now,” Bingham added.
Truxton heard the laughter edging Bingham’s voice. “I understand. Can you just get moving, please?” Truxton was already trying to move different boats around the region. The vice admiral was simultaneously deploying ships to the northern waters of the Persian Gulf due to the two actions in southern Iraq and Iran.
Now the joint chiefs had given him a highly unusual order. He was to move a handful of ships up the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean.
The joint chiefs told him there wasn’t time to move ships around Africa into the Mediterranean. They needed a presence near Cypress immediately. He’d asked about Cypress. The answer back had been cryptic. The orders would be forthcoming, they’d told him, and involved both Haifa and Turkey.
“Yes, sir, right away,” Bingham answered. “But can I ask you something? Does this have anything to do with the strange cargo we discovered in the possession of the Harardhere pirates a few days ago?”
Truxton sighed. “Honestly, I couldn’t tell you yet. I’m waiting on orders myself. But my guess is that it does. They seem connected.”
“White flags and double-edged swords?”
“Yes, as crazy as this sounds, they’re connected to the actions we’ve seen in both Yemen and the Saudi Aramco complex.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Truxton said. “We’re starting to get all kinds of strange reports about movements.”
“Like?”
“Like their goal is to reach Mecca.”
“And when they get there?”
“Who knows?” Truxton stated. “We’ve had folks doing some research. There are legends about an appearance of the Mahdi—or the Twelfth Imam, depending on the source—who arrives at Mecca just as cavalry storms the place and hands the empire over to him.”
“So let me guess,” Bingham said. “They’re carrying white flags and these Zulfiqars?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“And the Saudis would stand for that?”
“Hardly. But we’ve seen stranger things recently. Who’d have thought that students with cell phones could cause so much trouble in capitals around the world recently?”
“I guess,” Bingham replied. “But still…”
“I know, but the thing we must pin down is whether there is a cavalry effort massing and about to move up the coastline in Saudi territory. You are our best hope of tracking that. You can send unmanned drones in with eyes. So I need you there, as soon as you move.”
“Will do. But you also realize that horses, at best, can only cover twenty or thirty miles a day. It’s at least 250 miles from the Yemen-Saudi border. If someone was sending a cavalry up the coastline, we’d have days and days to find it. There’s no way they’d escape our coverage.”
“I know,” Truxton said. “I told that to the joint chiefs. But they told me they didn’t care, and that we needed to get eyes in there as soon as possible. But you’re right. My guess is that, if something is about to happen, it’s going to come off a cargo ship that unloads along the coast of Saudi Arabia.”
“So you want to look for that?”
“Yes, please,” Truxton said. “That Harardhere pirate nest you tripped across recently was our best clue. They’ve probably secured a ship, and they’re going to deliver live cargo along the coastline—within a day from Mecca.” Truxton glanced at the maps on his office wall. “I’d look south of Jeddah. That’s the closest, straight line to Mecca from the Red Sea.”
“And if I find a ship that’s carrying horses and soldiers?”
“Then they’re most likely our guys,” Truxton said.
“Should I engage?”
“If they’re pirates, yes. And if they’re still on board.”
“And if they’re flagged forces—like Yemeni?”
“Then check with me.”
“What if they’ve already made it to land and they’re on their way toward Mecca?”
Truxton grunted. “Then it becomes a Saudi problem. We can help, but they’ll have to deal with
it somehow, in their own fashion. We can’t send US troops into the kingdom—not without explicit instructions from the royal family.”
As soon as Captain Bingham signed off, Truxton turned to his next task order. The McCain would reach Jeddah before the day was out, which meant they’d have information soon.
Truxton had no idea why the Pentagon needed ships in the Mediterranean so quickly. There hadn’t been action in that part of the world since the last confrontation between Israel and the relief ships that kept trying to land at Gaza. But that had been months earlier, and the region had been quiet since then.
But he also knew that, once his new orders came through, he’d be able to sort through the picture. Most likely, it had to do with oil. The combination of events in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran over the past several days had created one of the most unstable moments in the global economy that Truxton could recall.
Everyone was on edge. The classified cables were flying everywhere, all of them speculating about wars and rumors of wars about to break out.
Iran had immediately accused Jundallah of securing a nuclear suitcase from the United States. The peace talks between the two countries were about to fly apart as a result.
The US had denied any role in the attack on the Azadegan oil fields in southern Iran. In fact, Truxton knew, the US was as much in the dark as anyone. They had no idea who’d launched the attack and where they’d procured the nuclear suitcase.
Anti-proliferation experts had warned of the possibility of a suitcase attack for years. Loose nukes had been a threat since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Efforts to tighten the black market had been mostly successful—but not completely.
Until someone took credit for the attack in southern Iran—and no one had yet, beyond unconfirmed reports from rogue individuals loosely attached to Jundallah—everyone would be left guessing. The IRGC had already delivered some damning evidence to the United Nations Security Council tying the explosion to the notorious, violent Sunni opposition group that had attacked the IRGC on occasion in Iran.