Arabian Deception

by James Lawrence

  Mike placed his right hand over his heart and said, “Shakrun, Cee Dee.”

  The crown prince said, “Now tell me about this business in Kuwait.”

  Mike replied, “Two nights ago, Sheik Meshal was executed while sleeping in his bed. The intruder entered the bedroom through an exterior window, shot the sheik dead, and managed to escape the same way. The intruder, as I am sure you’ve guessed, was Pat.”

  “Did you help him?” asked the crown prince.

  “Your Highness, we’re only days from a presidential election. The party in office is trumpeting the defeat of ISIS in Mosul. There is absolutely no interest in risky foreign policy actions at the moment.”

  “After the death of Sheik Rasheed, Meshal must have known what was coming. It’s hard to believe that your man was able to do it without your assistance.”

  “Your Highness, it was done without our help, and I have to tell you—I know how it was done, and it was truly one of the most creative missions I’ve ever seen.”

  The sheik grew intrigued. “Tell me what you can.”

  Mike then described the mission in detail. When he was done, he explained that after the Agency had learned of the sheik’s death, they had been able to use satellite footage to piece together the operation. He also mentioned that while they didn’t object to the outcome, they had been prohibited from any involvement.

  The sheik just smiled, understanding Mike’s message.

  “Tell your man to return to Abu Dhabi. I wish to sit with him. Daesh is failing in Mosul, but the fighters are blending in with the population, and if they’re funded, they will continue to be a problem. Millions have died, and while the butchers holding the knives must be killed, those who are providing the funds must be stopped and brought to justice. Bring your friend Pat to me.”

  Chapter 22

  Muscat, Oman

  Pat arrived early at the small office in the hangar in Paphos. The fatigue from the mission had faded away with the ten hours of sleep he had gotten last night. For the next four hours, Pat worked on his laptop, updating the tedious contracts, purchase orders, proposals, and invoices that were the daily reality of his business. The aircrews had returned early the previous night, and both Hercules aircraft were parked on the tarmac. There was a cargo 777 parked inside the secured area with a complement of contracted security. Today’s task was going to be transloading the cargo from the 777 over to the two C-130s for delivery to Iraq the next day.

  Looking at the airway bill and commercial invoice, Pat saw that the load consisted of four thousand AT-4 rockets and eight explosive ordnance disposal kits. The task ahead of the Peshmerga in Mosul was going to be to use the EOD kits to neutralize the IEDs. Pat had no idea why someone needed four thousand 84mm bunker busting/antitank rockets, but those decisions were not his to make.

  The aircrews drifted in at ten o’clock, and Pat spent a few minutes with each of the guys as they went about their daily chores. They were all men from the SOF community, and they had all been made aware when they were hired that they worked for a company with CIA ties that was a direct contractor to the US government. Pat could see on their faces that jumping to the alternate base and helping him with mission prep for the Kuwait job made them curious. Professionals knew when not to talk, and they avoided the subject.

  The equipment and munitions in the 777 cargo plane belonged to Falcon. Once they were transferred to the C-130s, they became the property of Trident. It was Falcon’s responsibility to provide the end user certificates needed to obtain the export licenses necessary to ship the items out of the United States. It was Trident’s responsibility to receive the items from Falcon and deliver the goods to the Peshmerga in Iraq. Pat managed the finances for both Falcon and Trident on all projects. He even wrote both sides of the contracts. Beyond signing the contracts, the only thing Falcon ever saw was a big check for ten percent of the value after every delivery. Given the fact that he’d recently executed one of the top UAE sheiks, he was a little surprised that Falcon and the UAE government were still fulfilling their part in the arrangement.

  At three o’clock, Pat said his goodbyes and went around to the passenger terminal. He passed through the security and passport control and caught a private charter to Muscat, arriving at the Marina Al Bustan with a couple of hours of light remaining in the day. He was glad to be back on the Sam Houston, and he used the last light to pull the covering and clean the accumulated dirt and sand off the decks. Once inside, he retrieved the bug detector and did a complete sweep of all the interior compartments. He didn’t find any listening devices. He then did a test start on the engines and the generator and checked the other systems and gauges.

  At nine o’clock, Pat was walking through the salon doors onto the deck to walk to dinner when he noticed Walt Berg standing at the entrance gate on the starboard side.

  “Walt, it’s good to see you. I was just leaving for dinner. Do you want to join me?” Pat said, shaking his hand.

  “I can’t. I’m just here to deliver a message.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Mike’s in the region. He’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Ask him to come early. I’m planning on going out to catch mahi-mahi tomorrow morning, and I’d like to leave by ten.”

  “I’ll let him know.”

  Walt departed. Pat caught an Uber and went to the Muscat Intercontinental Hotel. He felt like blowing off some steam. He walked into Trader Vic’s and sat at the bar. The Polynesian-themed restaurant chain was a winning concept from Pat’s viewpoint. It was Thursday night, the first night of the weekend in Oman, and the place was packed with Western expats. The exterior windows had a nice view of the ocean, and a three-piece Cuban band was playing on a stage set between the bar and the dining room. On the small dance floor, adjacent to the stage, a group of salsa aficionado couples were showcasing their highly practiced moves.

  The bartender was a Filipino man wearing the requisite Trader Vic’s floral Hawaiian shirt. Pat ordered a mai tai, because it was Trader Vic’s and that was the law. He also ordered the ginger scallops with fried rice and spring rolls. Western expats in the Middle East gravitated to the bars in the countries where alcohol was allowed. Because of the restrictive licensing requirements, the number of bars in places like Muscat were limited, and unlike in the United States, where the night spots tended to have a narrow demographic and target audience, in places like Muscat and particularly in Trader Vic’s, you’d find a broad range of people. Young and old, male and female, rich and not so rich, and a veritable United Nations of races and nationalities.

  After he finished dinner and had a few drinks, Pat was befriended by a group of British schoolteachers. Pat was a respectable salsa dancer. Having taken his Filipina boat crew dancing at least once a week for the past two years, he had learned a few things. The three girls and Pat moved to a table, and the food, drinks, and laughter flowed for several hours of escapist fun.

  The next morning at around eight, Pat sensed someone on the deck above. He put on a white terry-cloth robe and walked up the stairs to the main deck. He saw Mike through the starboard window and quickly walked outside to meet him.

  “I wasn’t expecting you until a little later. Come on in and have a coffee.”

  They walked in through the triple glass doors dividing the stern deck from the salon, which Pat left open. Pat made two cups of coffee and signaled Mike to meet him in the galley breakfast nook.

  “I’m glad you came early. I have a situation, and I need your help,” Pat said.

  “What do you need?”

  “It’s not a small ask. I need you to put all of your CIA training and intel contacts to use and find something out for me.”

  Mike’s expression became serious.

  “I went out last night and a met a woman, and we had a lot of fun. She’s amazing. Totally gorgeous, Mike. I’m talking about extraordinary talents. Gifted, even—
a former ballet dancer.”

  Mike’s curiosity was piqued. “So, what’s the problem?”

  “I can’t remember her name.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t remember her name? Do you have Alzheimer’s or something?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I do. There were three of them, and they told me their names, but it was loud, I had a few drinks, and I couldn’t keep track, so I just numbered them by hotness. Right now, number one is downstairs in my stateroom, and I have no freaking idea what her name is.”

  Mike began to laugh. Softly at first, but the mirth grew the more he processed the absurdity of the request, until he had tears in his eyes.

  Pat got up and made two more fresh cups of coffee.

  “You know, Pat, the Iranians are going to go nuclear any day now. They’re testing long-range missiles. Aleppo is under siege, and thousands are dying daily. Mosul is surrounded, but the offensive has been stalled. A million and a half people are anxiously awaiting liberation. But you’ve given me a new priority. You want the head of CIA clandestine activities in the Middle East to spy out the name of your latest conquest.”

  That made both of them laugh. “Yeah, if you think you’re up to it.”

  As they were laughing and enjoying their coffee, a woman who could have been Emma Watson’s clone emerged from the ladder that led down to the lower deck. Dressed in a Chinese silk bathrobe borrowed from the stateroom, the lovely young woman approached the galley table where they were sitting. Pat stood up and said, “Good morning.”

  Mike intercepted her and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Mike Guthrie. I’m a friend of Pat’s.”

  With a dazzling smile, the composed young woman replied in a refined British accent, “A pleasure to meet you. My name is Sarah Winslow.”

  Pat made another coffee and asked Sarah to join them for an afternoon of fishing, but she declined. Pat called for the limo service to take her home, but not before he gave her a tour of the Sam Houston and exchanged contact information.

  The Sam Houston was positioned ten miles off the coast of Al Salfa, Oman, midway between Muscat and the Yemen border, approximately thirty miles south of where they’d started from Al Basteen. It was a pleasant sunny day with light winds and a gentle sea. Mike and Pat were sitting on chairs on the hydraulic ramp at the very back of the stern. The space was empty, since Pat had left the tender back at the marina. They each had a fishing pole in their hand. They had been fishing for almost four hours. They’d started out trawling for mahi-mahi but were having better success dropping lines deep for yellowfin tuna. Mike had already caught five, and Pat had two. Mike had landed the biggest fish, which weighed in at twelve pounds.

  Tuna were fighters, and reeling them in could be a workout. Mike was having a great time. They talked about fishing, sports, and family. At around three, they decided to get out of the sun. They put down the poles and began the prep to get back to the marina. Pat put the fish in a big cooler of ice, stowed the chairs, and threw the remaining baitfish back into the water. They went into the galley, and Pat grabbed two cold bottles of Sam Adams Winterfest and settled behind the controls at the wheelhouse with Mike in the adjacent seat.

  Pat started the engines and set the speed to a comfortable twenty-two knots. He was planning on docking at Al Basteen by five o’clock. The Azimut 64 Flybridge was a luxury yacht. The gyrostabilizers made for a smooth ride, and the engines were as quiet as a luxury car.

  With both sets of eyes looking through the huge windshield at the empty expanse of ocean, Mike asked, “Have you given any thought to the next move?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “If it’s anything like the last one, I can’t wait to hear it,” said Mike.

  “It got the job done. It was an execution, nothing to be proud of.”

  “That guy practically created ISIS. He was a monster. When we left Iraq in 2012, there were almost a million and a half Christians. Now, the number is barely over two hundred thousand, and very few of them have emigrated. With some of the other populations, the numbers are even worse, like the Yazidis. It’s a genocide, pure and simple. Now that ISIS is being defeated, the fighters and leaders are melting away. If we allow the big shots who helped them start continue to fund them, then those fighters who are escaping are going to continue the battle in other, perhaps even more deadly, ways, closer to home. You did the right thing.”

  “Why don’t I get the feeling that’s the opinion of the people you work for?”

  “If the people I work for wanted you to stop, then you would be stopped. There’s a political reason why they want this hush-hush. Believe me, you have total support from those who matter.”

  “That’s good to know, because this next job is going to be difficult, and as a humble asset working without any official cover or official support, the probability of success is alarmingly low.”

  “I thought you said you had a plan.”

  “I do have a plan, but so far my best plan has barely a fifty percent probability of success.”

  “That’s no-go criteria. You need to do better,” said Mike.

  “I’m trying,” said Pat.

  “Hey, you don’t want to disappoint your fan club back in Langley. Once we had the incident report, we used satellite data to record that mission from your departure in Paphos to Kuwait and back. We have the entire mission on film, start to finish. That was clever stuff.”

  “Beyond the fawning adoration of the geek squad, do you think we can get something constructive out of that task force you set up? This next job is a ballbuster. I need the benefit of your intel, the imagery, the SIGINT, the HUMINT, everything. There are too many unknowns.”

  “Like I said, if we wanted what you’re doing stopped, we’d stop it. That’s why your Trident operation continues unabated, and why we’ve allowed the special mission-related purchases you’re making to go through. But that’s the most I can do. I can’t actively assist,” said Mike.

  “Why the hell not? Didn’t you just say these guys are genocidal maniacs?”

  “This is silly season. The presidential election is Tuesday. If you get killed or captured, nobody in the US State Department or the White House wants to explain to either our Kuwaiti or Saudi friends why one of our own is picking off members of the most powerful royal family members in their respective governments.”

  “What about the Emirates?” asked Pat.

  “That’s a different story. The folks running the UAE are cut from a different cloth than the Kuwaitis and the Saudis. They don’t like that you took matters into your own hands, but they agree with your actions.”

  “You’re kidding me,” said Pat.

  “I met with MBZ myself, and that’s what he told me. And I believe him. By the way, he wants to meet with you,” said Mike.

  “What does he want?”

  “I think he wants to offer assistance—the same assistance that you’re requesting from the USA.”

  “That’s pretty ballsy, but I’ll take what I can get. But I still don’t understand why the USA won’t step up to the plate.”

  “Let me try to explain. Prince Bandar is the tenth son of King Abdul-Aziz, the first monarch of Saudi Arabia. The guy was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His mother was a Moroccan servant. His mother, Bazza, must have been something, because when Bandar was in his teens, she managed to get the king to acknowledge Bandar as a son and receive him as a prince instead of as the impoverished peasant he had grown up as. As a bastard, he was a minor prince, and so he wasn’t gifted the big pay package of the major princes. King Abdul-Aziz has thirty thousand descendants with the title of prince. The government pays the major leaguers in the first ring in dollars—about two hundred and fifty thousand per month. The guys the farthest from the power, the minor leaguers in the last ring, get about three thousand a month. Bandar is a minor leaguer.”

  “So how does a guy like that become the Saudi ambassador to the US?”

  “He’s a clever guy, a true Machiavellian.
He formed an alliance with the house of Wahhabi to gain influence with the house of Saud.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why the United States is protecting the guy.”

  “Prince Bandar was the ambassador to the USA from the 1990s until 2005. He’s extremely close to the Bush family, and he’s a major friend and donor to the Clintons. Even though fifteen of the nineteen hijackers in the 9/11 attacks were Saudis, and there were numerous contacts and a financial paper trail leading back to Prince Bandar, the day after the attacks, when every other plane in the USA was grounded, the president gave authorization to allow Prince Bandar to fly back to Saudi Arabia. This guy and his compatriot Wahhabis have been funding every anti-Western and anti-Jewish terrorist group for decades.”

  “I fail to see why the USA is so reluctant to go after him,” Pat said.

  “Prince Bandar is a bad guy, but he’s not an extremist. For a Saudi, he’s a centrist. He’s not as progressive as the king and his court, who control the government, and he’s not as extreme as the Wahhabi imams who control the people. He’s in the middle. He’s the go-between, and he’s parlayed that role to immense wealth and power. He’s corrupt, a conniving weasel who’s clawed his way up the ladder. He represents the compromises the Saudi royal family must make with extremists to placate the masses and retain control. In many ways, he’s pro-American. He just sold his house in Aspen for forty million dollars, he mixes easily with the Hollywood and Silicon Valley crowd, and the American politicians on both sides of the aisle love the guy. Remember where he came from—he’s a bastard, and his mother was an African slave. His actions are driven by ambition, not principle or religion.”

  “You’re telling me this guy is financing the worst people on this planet to maintain support from the radical extremist Wahhabis, and the Saudi government won’t stop him because they need the support of the Wahhabis to govern?”

  “The Saudis not only won’t stop him, they’ll defend him. Unlike in Kuwait, if you try to fly into Riyadh to do a recon, you’re going to get arrested at the airport and then publicly executed,” Mike said.