As this was Tarquay’s initial contract with Senegal and in fact its first overseas deal, a quick refund was issued, along with an official apology from the board of directors, and replacement tanks were dispatched immediately. In Dakar, the defective tanks were listed on the bill of entry with the code R3001c-“Re-exportation of quality-rejected non-petroleum products following storage warehousing”-then transported to a government customs warehouse in Port Sud and offloaded in a vacant weed-filled lot surrounded by a four-foot-high hurricane fence.
Eight months later, arrangements were made to have the defective tanks returned to Smithfield. The Losan, making its final port of call before crossing the Atlantic to the United States, had the requisite space to take the cargo.
Two days before departure, the tanks were loaded by forklift onto platform railcars, locked into place, and transported two miles down the tracks to the Losan’s berth, where the tanks were offloaded by crane into open-top “bulktainers”-four tanks to a container-then hoisted to the Losan’s deck and stacked twelve abreast.
Having been inspected upon entry, the tanks, which had been under the control of customs since their arrival, were neither weighed nor examined before being loaded aboard the Losan.
The headache and nausea had been getting progressively worse for the last ten hours, which somewhat surprised Adnan; he hadn’t expected symptoms this soon. His hands were trembling and his skin felt clammy. Clearly the stories about the vessel’s toxicity hadn’t been exaggerations. No matter, he thought, it was almost time. According to Salychev’s chart, they were only twenty kilometers from the drop-off point.
By Allah’s grace they’d found the containment drum precisely where it should have been, still resting in its bulkhead-mounted rack. It had been lighter than Adnan had anticipated, which was both a blessing and a curse. He knew the approximate weight of the core, so it was relatively easy to estimate the weight of the containment drum; it was obviously lead-shielded but not as thickly as their intelligence had suggested. This meant the vault itself had been intended as the primary shield, but that wouldn’t help them. However, the drum was still sealed and seemed to have suffered no damage during the incident those many years ago.
They’d unlatched the rack enclosure, lifted the drum up and out by its four welded D-shaped handles, then walked it out of the vault and across the flooded deck to the ladder. Here they’d moved slowly, cautiously, one step at a time, to the catwalk, then out into the main passageway. The last two major obstacles-the ladder up to the weather deck and the accommodation ladder down to the rafts-passed without incident, and soon they were back on shore. They gratefully shed their protection suits and gas masks, then stuffed them in one of the backpacks, which was weighted down with a stone and tossed into the cove.
The walk back to the headland took an hour. Adnan ordered the men to put down the drum and rest, then he walked to the shoreline and peered through the mist toward the bay. He could just make out the outline of Salychev’s boat. He pulled a flare from his backpack, popped off the ignition cap, and waved the sparking tube over his head. Thirty seconds passed, and then from the boat there came the double wink of a flashlight. Adnan turned to the others and waved them ahead.
Thirty minutes later they were back aboard the boat and returning the way they’d come. By the time they reached the main bay, the containment drum was sealed inside the second, more heavily shielded, drum they’d brought along. Salychev eyed the container suspiciously but said nothing as he steered the boat toward open water.
Now Adnan stood beside Salychev in the pilothouse. It was nearly midnight, and nothing but blackness showed through the windows. “You’ve certainly earned your fee, Captain,” Adnan said. “We’re grateful.”
Salychev shrugged, said nothing.
Beside his hip, Adnan could feel the square outline of the radio jutting from the wooden helm console. Moving slowly, he withdrew the small knife from his jacket pocket and thumbed open the blade, which he pressed against the radio’s power cable. It made a barely perceptible snick as it parted.
“I’m going to check on the men,” Adnan said. “Can I bring you a cup of coffee? Something stronger?”
“Coffee.”
Adnan went down the ladder into the main salon, then down another short ladder into the sleeping compartment. It was dark, save what little light filtered down from the salon. The men were asleep, one to a bunk, all lying on their backs. Earlier he’d passed out what he’d told them was another dose of potassium iodide; it was in fact three grams of lorazepam stuffed into a generic cellulose capsule. At three times the standard dose, the anti-anxiety medication was enough to put the men into a profoundly deep sleep. A blessing, Adnan thought.
For the last four hours he’d wrestled with what he had to do next-not the necessity of it but the method. These men were already dying, and nothing could change that; he was dying, and nothing could change that, either. It was the cost of war and the burden of the faithful. He took some consolation that they would never awaken, never feel any pain. The only other consideration, then, was noise. Salychev was old, but he was tough and hardened by a life at sea. Safer to take him by surprise.
Adnan went to the workbench mounted on the aft bulkhead and opened the top left-hand drawer. Inside was the knife he’d found during his earlier search. It was J-shaped, with a needle-sharp point and a finely honed edge, used, he assumed, to gut fish.
He gripped the wooden haft, blade angled up, then stepped to the first bunk. He took a deep breath, then placed his left hand on the man’s chin, turned the head toward the mattress, then jammed the tip of the blade into the hollow beneath his earlobe and drew the knife up, following the edge of his jawline. Blood gushed from the severed carotid; in the darkness, it looked black. The man gave out a soft moan against Adnan’s palm, then spasmed once, twice, and went still. Adnan moved to the second man, repeated the process, then to the third. In all, it took ninety seconds. He dropped the knife onto the deck, then went up into the salon and washed the blood from his hands. He knelt down beside the sink, opened the bottom drawer, and withdrew the 9-millimeter Yarygin pistol he’d secreted there. He drew back the slide an inch to ensure that a bullet was chambered, then cocked the hammer, flipped off the safety, and stuffed the pistol into the side pocket of his jacket. Finally, he grabbed a plastic coffee cup from the drying rack.
He climbed back up the ladder and into the pilothouse.
“Coffee,” he said, handing the cup to Salychev with his left hand. The captain turned, reached for it. Adnan drew the Yarygin from his pocket and shot him in the forehead. Blood and brain matter splattered against the side window. Salychev slumped backward and slid down the bulkhead. Adnan flipped the autopilot switch on the helm console, then grabbed Salychev by the ankles, dragged him to the ladder, and rolled him down into the salon.
Back at the helm, Adnan took a minute to recheck their position with the ancient Loran-C unit, then he flipped off the autopilot and adjusted course.
The linear dark streak of the island appeared on the horizon an hour later, and an hour after that, Adnan slowed the engines and came about following the shoreline east until the Loran-C’s display showed the correct coordinates.
The island was known as Kolguyev and was, according to Adnan’s chart, part of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, an almost perfect circle of wetlands, bogs, and low hills measuring eighty kilometers across and home to one lonely settlement called Bugrino on the southeastern coast, populated by a few hundred Nenets, who fished, farmed, and herded reindeer.
Adnan throttled back to idle and turned off the ignition. He checked his watch: ten minutes late. He pulled the portable spotlight from the bulkhead rack and walked onto the deck. The coded blink of his spotlight was immediately followed by the correct response from shore.
Five minutes later he heard the soft rumble of an outboard motor. A speedboat appeared out of the darkness and pulled alongside the port gunwale. Four men were aboard; each was armed with an AK-
47. Adnan didn’t recognize any of them. Not that it mattered; the spotlight code matched, and if it was a trap, there was nothing to be done about it now.
“You are Abdul-Baqi-Servant of the Creator?” one of the men, the leader, Adnan assumed, asked.
“No. Servant of the Everlasting,” Adnan replied. “It’s good to see you here.”
“And you, brother.”
“Toss me your bowline and come aboard. It will take at least two of you to lift.”
While Adnan wrapped the line around the gunwale cleat, two of the men climbed aboard, unchained the containment vessel from its position on the deck, and carried it back to the gunwale, where the two men aboard the speedboat took it and set it on the deck. The last two men joined their partners.
“Any problems?” the leader asked.
“None. Everything went as planned.”
“Can we help you any further?”
Adnan shook his head. “No, thank you. It’s almost done. It’s deep here, almost three hundred meters. The sea will do the rest.”
60
THIS, Admiral Stephen Netters knew, was going to be an unpleasant meeting, and it had as much to do with who wasn’t attending as it did with who was. By all rights, the man sitting on the other side of the desk from him should have been Robby Jackson, but it wasn’t. Some redneck with a heart full of hate had seen to that. Instead, they had Edward Kealty. The wrong man for any season. Netters and Jackson had come up together, starting at the Naval Academy, their careers intersecting now and again as they climbed the ladder until finally, in the waning days of the Ryan administration, Netters had been appointed chairman of the JCS. He’d taken the job for a variety of reasons, ambition being the lowest among them, respect for Ryan being paramount.
It’d been hard not to quit after that, and especially after it became clear that Kealty was going to win the Oval Office not on merit but by dumb fate and tragedy. But even as the votes were being counted and the electoral map inexorably tipped in favor of Kealty, Netters knew he’d stay on, lest the new President appoint one of the Pentagon’s “perfumed princes.” One only had to look at the depth (or lack thereof) of Kealty’s cabinet to know what the man expected from his people. And therein was the rub. Contradict the king too often or with too much zeal and a more amenable prince would be found. Fail to contradict the king and the kingdom goes to the barbarians.
“Tell me what I’m looking at, Admiral,” President Kealty said with a grunt, and shoved the satellite photo back across the desk at Netters.
“Mr. President, what we’re seeing is a large-scale movement of tanks and mechanized infantry moving west toward the border.”
“I can see that, Admiral. What kind of numbers are we talking about, and what the hell are they up to?”
“As for the first question, we’ve identified an armored division consisting of three tank brigades with a mix of older Soviet T-54s, T-62s, and Zulfiqar main battle tanks; four artillery battalions; and two mechanized infantry divisions. As for what they’re up to, Mr. President, we can’t think in those terms yet. We need to concentrate on what they’re capable of, then work forward to intention.”
“Explain that,” National Security Adviser Ann Reynolds said.
Translation: I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Like Scott Kilborn, the Democratic congresswoman from Michigan was unqualified in the extreme, but both her demographically friendly gender and her seat on the House Intelligence Committee had made her a shoo-in for Kealty’s cabinet. As the CEO of a Detroit-based social-networking website company, Reynolds had been savvy and capable, skills she assumed were easily transferable to the role of politician and legislator. Netters suspected it hadn’t quite sunk in that she was in over her head, a fact that scared the living hell out of him. The National Security Adviser was white-knuckling it, hoping her Donna Karan power suits, severe glasses, and rapid-fire speaking style would keep the wolves at bay.
“Say I intend to beat the Olympic record for the marathon. That’s my intention. Problem is, both my legs are broken and I’ve got a heart condition. That’s my capacity. The latter dictates the former.”
Reynolds nodded sagely.
Scott Kilborn, the DCI, said, “Mr. President, Tehran is going to call it an ‘exercise,’ but we can’t ignore the obvious: First of all, the force is moving toward the Ilam salient-as the crow flies, it’s as close to Baghdad as any point in Iran. Eighty or so miles. Second, we just put into motion our drawdown plan in Iraq. Best case, they’re sending a warning to the Sunnis to mind their manners. Worst case, this is the real deal and they’re planning an incursion.”
“To what end?”
Kealty had asked the question, which was good, Netters thought, but there was no curiosity behind it. When it came to Iraq, the President was solution-focused to a fault. From day one, he’d made it clear that he intended to withdraw U.S. forces as quickly as possible, with only token regard paid to tactical safety. Kealty lacked two critical ingredients for good leadership: flexibility and curiosity. He had each in abundance in the political arena, but that was about power, not genuine leadership.
“Testing the waters, see how we react,” Kilborn replied. “The longer we delay in drawing down, the more time Tehran has to work behind the scenes with the Shia militias. If an incursion doesn’t reverse our drawdown now they’ve got a preview.”
“I disagree,” Admiral Netters said. “They’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose by crossing the border. Moreover, they’re light on triple-A.”
“Explain.”
“They’re fielding only token antiair elements. That’s not an oversight. They know if we come at them, it’ll be from carriers in the Gulf first.”
Kealty’s National Security Adviser, Ann Reynolds, said, “A message?”
“Again, Ms. Reynolds, that falls into the ‘intentions’ category, but I’ll tell you this much: For all their shortcomings, the Iranians aren’t blind, and they’re big believers in the Soviet order of battle model, which is big on mobile antiaircraft systems. They saw what we did during Gulf One and Two, and they haven’t forgotten it. You don’t strip out your antiair elements just for the hell of it.”
“What about air cover?” This from NSA Reynolds. “Fighters?”
“No change,” Netters replied. “Nothing moving but routine patrol flights.”
President Kealty was frowning. A fly in his soup, Netters thought. He’d promised the country he’d get the United States out of Iraq, and the clock was ticking, but not on the troops or America’s strategic welfare but rather on Kealty’s chances for a second term. Of course, Netters had from the outset his own reservations about the Iraq War, and he still did, but those were dwarfed by the very real possibility of getting it wrong over there. Like it or not, the United States was up to its eyeballs in the Middle East, more so than it had in perhaps its entire history. A painless withdrawal was a pipe dream Kealty had sold to an understandably war-weary nation. While the current drawdown plan would never succeed, it was measured enough that Iraq would slowly slip into chaos rather than fall headfirst into it, in which case he hoped Kealty would have the good goddamned sense to regroup and listen to the theater commanders.
In one respect, Scott Kilborn was correct: This business on the border may well be a preview of Kealty’s endgame for Iraq without American troops, though whether Iran would actually put troops on the ground once U.S. forces were gone was anyone’s guess. If they did, however, they’d use soaring Sunni-on-Shia violence to justify it.
It was a perplexing game the Iranians were playing. A delay in U.S. troop withdrawal seemed contrary to Tehran’s interests-or at least those visible from Washington.
Kealty leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “So, Admiral, since you’re not willing to talk about intentions, I’m going to do it for you,” Kealty said. “The Iranians are saber rattling. Testing our resolve. We ignore them, keep to the drawdown plan, and give them a message of our own.”
“Such as?” Admiral Netters said.
“Another carrier group.”
A message. Another mission without a goal. While it was true enough that carrier groups were all about projection of power, the concept was analogous to basic firearm safety: Never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot. In this case, Kealty just wanted to wave the gun around.
“What assets do we have available?” Kealty demanded.
Before Netters could answer, Kilborn said, “The Stennis-”
Netters interrupted. “Sir, we’re stretched thin as it is. Stennis group was just relieved on station ten days ago. It’s long overdue for a-”
“Goddamn it, Admiral, I’m getting tired of hearing about what we can’t do, is that understood?”
“Yes, Mr. President, but you need to understand the-”
“No, I don’t. That’s what you’re paid to do, Admiral. Get it done, and get me the plan, or I’ll find someone who will.”
Tariq walked into the living room, where the Emir was reading, and picked up the television remote control. “Something you should see.” He turned on the TV and changed the channel to a cable news station. The pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed anchor was in mid-sentence.
“-again, a Pentagon spokesperson just confirmed an earlier BBC report of an Iranian Army exercise being conducted on its border with Iraq. While the Pentagon admitted the government in Tehran failed to announce the exercise, it went on to say such events are not uncommon, citing a similar movement of troops and equipment in early 2008…”
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