The team started checking out the rooms. They were typical nondescript quarters, with a bed, a small desk, one bureau, and a closet. They were new and spotless, and the men were too exhausted to complain. Within twenty minutes, all of them were fast asleep with orders not to wake the coach or face a firing squad.
Chapter 24
Al Hamaq
Rasheed and Jamal had driven from one small village to another. The first meeting was to switch from their own car to an oversized van that had two large suitcases of cash in the back. Unlike the first driver, these men knew exactly what they were transporting and would be part of the planned attack in the coming weeks. The first attempt had failed—they would not. Both men were armed with knives, Glock pistols, and AK47s.
They arrived at Al Hamaq at eight in the morning, after driving three hours through the dessert sunrise. It was a tiny village of forgotten stone houses and buildings. The buildings were made out of the same stone that surrounded the village, and everything was the same reddish-brown color as far as the eye could see. There were very few signs of life, and their large vehicle was the only thing in the village that wasn’t a thousand years old.
Twenty minutes after they arrived, three black SUVs pulled into the village and drove to the field where they had parked their van. One door opened and a man appeared in white robes and sunglasses.
“You have the money?” he asked bluntly.
The driver, Rasheed, said yes.
“You will follow us.”
The man ran back to his car and the truck tore off, kicking up dust. Rasheed took off after him, and the two other SUVs pulled up behind them. The four vehicles sped along Highway 10 until they reached a small turnoff that led to the farm where Tariq had met his fate.
The vehicles came to a stop by the small house, and men quickly emptied out of the SUVs with AK47s, rushing to Rasheed and Jamal, who instinctively grabbed their own weapons. After two minutes of excited screaming from every man in the courtyard, the outnumbered couriers placed their weapons on the ground. They were thoroughly searched, and their pistols and knives were taken from them, as well as their cell phones.
Two men grabbed the suitcases out of the back of the van, and the other two men were pushed along at gunpoint through the house to the rear courtyard where Abu Mohamed sat waiting. His face showed his displeasure at having been made to wait the extra two days for his fifty million dollars.
Abu looked at one of his men and motioned with his chin. The man opened the two large suitcases and looked inside. Bundles of American hundred dollar bills were packed like bricks inside each case. Fifty million dollars took up a lot of space. He nodded.
Abu Mohamed stood and walked around the table to the two nervous men. “You don’t work directly for the man responsible for making me wait and will not be held accountable. Come.”
Abu walked out of the courtyard and crossed a small field with the two men and a few bodyguards following close behind. They walked to a small barn and the men opened the door. Inside was the wooden crate that had taken a journey from Syria to Lebanon to Egypt to this small Saudi farm. Abu Mohamed didn’t know where it was headed and didn’t care. He knew the men’s association with Jihadist radicals and any target they chose would be fine with him.
Rasheed and Jamal walked to the crate and saw the crowbars laid on top of it. Abu nodded when they looked at him for permission. The two of them worked together carefully to remove the end of the crate, prying and pulling ever so gently. Together, they removed the wooden end, revealing a large aluminum bomb that sat strapped into a metal cart with hydraulic wheels. Heavy straps and chucks prevented the cart from moving, and the two men worked to remove the encumbrances. When the cart was free, they pulled it out. The special wheels made it possible for two men to move the seven hundred pounds. This same type of system was used to roll the munitions under a jet’s wing to be loaded for a bombing mission.
“I need to look inside,” said Rasheed nervously.
“Why? You don’t trust me?” asked Abu.
“Fifty million dollars is a lot of money. And I’m responsible for delivering the Sarin. I mean no disrespect.”
Abu pointed to a red metal box on the side of the barn. “There are tools there if you wish to open it.”
The two men walked over and pulled out screwdrivers, then returned to the large bomb. They carefully removed the twelve screws and then pulled off the plates on top of the deadly munition. Inside, a hundred round glass bomblets were stacked like grapes in a myriad of wires. The weapon had been designed to be dropped by plane, and then detonated above the enemy. The airburst would scatter the liquid into a fine spray mist which would kill in less than a few moments.
Jamal looked to Rasheed nervously. How could they know what they were looking at? “It looks like it, right?” he whispered to Rasheed.
Abu motioned to his men who were on the two immediately with their AK47s pushed into their chests. There were a few seconds of terrified confusion, and then Abu spoke.
“You say you mean no disrespect, and yet you keep me waiting three days for my money and have the nerve to question my integrity?” He barked orders at his men, who grabbed Jamal by the hair and pulled him to a post in the barn. They tied him against the pole so tightly he couldn’t move his arms or legs at all. Rasheed was held at gunpoint.
Abu barked a few more orders, and one of his men carefully pulled off one of the glass balls. The men all moved away from Jamal, who was now begging to be released with tears running down his cheeks. Abu walked out quickly while his bodyguards pulled Rasheed behind them. The last man out, the one holding the Sarin bomblet turned when he got to the door and threw it as hard as he could at Jamal’s chest. The glass shattered and sprayed him with the colorless, odorless liquid. Jamal’s face began blistering immediately.
Rasheed and Jamal were both screaming as the men raced out of the barn, slamming the door behind them. Jamal’s screaming went on for almost twenty seconds—a high pitched wail that pierced Rasheed’s heart. The screaming turned into a bubbly gurgle, and then went silent.
Abu walked to Rasheed and stood almost nose to nose with him. “In fifteen minutes, you can go inside and tell me if it was Sarin or water in that weapon. I suggest you wait the fifteen minutes. And then you have another fifteen to get that in your van and get out of my sight before I put you next to your friend.”
Chapter 25
Al Udeid
The team woke up leisurely and headed to the mess hall, a few at a time. No one woke Mackey, and the overall mood was that of “a day off”—a very rare occurrence. The SEALs were up early, along with Marine sniper Hodges, who had grown up on a farm and was always up before sunrise. The eight of them walked together over to the mess hall.
“Why ain’t you sleeping in like the boss?” asked Hodges to Cascaes.
“You could have slept, why didn’t you?” asked Chris.
He shrugged. “Must be the farm boy in me.”
“Well, nothing wrong with hitting the ground running. Lots of pilots around here, I’m betting the food is good.”
The men lined up with everyone else and filled trays with food from the buffet. Hodges had guessed correctly, and there was a huge selection, including grits and biscuits and gravy. Eric filled his plate with grits and mixed scrambled eggs into it. Then he poured gravy all over the biscuits.
“You do that on purpose?” asked Moose, staring in disbelief at the mess on Eric’s plate.
“You never ate grits and eggs?”
Moose was still staring. “That would be a no. And what the hell did you do to your rolls?”
“Biscuits! Biscuits and gravy! I can’t believe they have it here in Qatar! Feels like I’m home.”
A young kid working behind the counter smiled at Eric and quietly said, “Quartermaster’s from Georgia.”
“Well it’s high cotton. I�
�m a happy man,” said Eric.
“And I’m going to puke watching you eat,” said Moose as he grabbed a stack of pancakes and a huge pile of bacon and sausage. Moose glanced over at Ripper’s plate and saw the immense pile of food Ripper had stacked on his tray. “Jesus. Between country boy over here and your fat ass, I could really lose my appetite.”
Ripper shrugged. “I don’t see you worrying about your diet, Mr. Sausage-Bacon-Pancake Fatass.”
“That really hurts, man,” said Moose sarcastically. He then reached over and grabbed a sausage off of Ripper’s plate, which he shoved in his mouth.
By the time the eight of them were finishing up, everyone else except Mackey had joined them for breakfast. The group relaxed and joked, enjoying the morning off. Mackey walked in just as they were all about ready to leave. They all said hello to the boss, who filled a plate and took a seat by Cascaes.
“You slept a long time,” said Chris quietly. “I’m jealous. I forgot how to sleep late ten years ago.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. Been on the horn with Langley. It’s going to get busy sooner than later.”
“They have something solid?”
“Not exactly, but they’re pulling a lot of intel from the bugs we dropped. When I finish eating, we’ll take a few minutes and I’ll catch you up.”
Chapter 26
Al Hamaq
Rasheed sat on the hard ground sobbing outside the barn. Abu and a few of his men had left, leaving two guards with AK47s watching over the distraught man. After a while, one of the men commanded Rasheed to get up and open the doors, which he did.
After Rasheed pulled open the large barn doors, the men told him to wait another five minutes. Even from the doorway, Rasheed could see what was left of Jamal. His body was still tied to the pole, but he was as white as Abu’s robes. The skin on his face had blistered to the point that he was unrecognizable. Foam was running out of his nose and gaping mouth, and his red eyes were wide open, not seeing anything. Quite simply, he was hideous.
Rasheed began praying. The two men ordered him inside after a few minutes, but stayed outside themselves. They waited until Rasheed approached Jamal’s body and didn’t die himself before they walked inside.
“Don’t touch his clothes!” one of them yelled.
Rasheed looked back at them.
“The air is clear, but it stays on clothes and skin for a long time. Leave him. Take your crate and go.”
“I can’t leave him,” said Rasheed.
“He’s dead. If you touch him, you’ll join him. Take your bomb and go.”
Rasheed looked at Jamal one last time and then walked quickly to the hydraulic cart, straining as he pulled it out of the barn. The two men watched him a few seconds and then decided to help so they could get rid of him. They also didn’t want him dropping any of the bomblets.
Between the three of them, they pushed and pulled the cart outside and told Rasheed to get his van, which he did. Once the rear doors were open, the cart was cranked up to the same height as the rear floor by way of a winch built into the cart, and the bomb was pushed off the rollers into the back of the van which creaked and dropped a centimeter or two. They threw a blanket from the back of the van over the huge weapon.
The men slammed the doors closed and grabbed Rasheed by his shirt. “You take that road back to the highway. If we ever see you again you’re dead, you understand? Abu doesn’t like the way you do business.”
Rasheed threw the van into drive and drove off with tears in his eyes. He hated leaving Jamal, who had been willing to die for the Jihad, but wanted to die in battle like a martyr, not the way he had been wasted. He drove as smoothly as possible on the country road, taking it slow and steady. The bomb was sitting on the floor, secured only by its own weight. When he got to the highway, he made a right and headed east, slowly increasing his speed until he began to calm down. When he felt safe, he pulled out his disposable cell phone and pressed send.
Abdul Aziz, “Servant of the Powerful One” answered his phone. Abdul was the leader of a small sect of Wahhabi Jihadists operating inside Saudi Arabia with missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and an occasional strike in Europe when possible. Only Rasheed had this particular phone number.
“Salam,” he said quietly.
“I’m on my way,” he said, sounding very distraught.
“What’s wrong?” asked Abdul, always extremely cautious, especially when using a cell phone. He constantly scanned the sky whenever he was about to make a call, fearful of the dreaded drones.
“They killed Jamal!”
Abdul’s face fell. “They double crossed us?” His face was turning red under his white robe.
“I have the bomb, but Abu Mohamed was angry about waiting for the money and was offended when I wanted to make sure the Sarin was real. He used it on Jamal to prove it. It was horrible to see.”
“Get here as fast as you can.”
“Two hours or so,” said Rasheed. He hung up and prayed for Jamal as he drove through the endless desert towards the abandoned plant that served as headquarters for some of the deadliest terrorists in the world.
Chapter 27
Al Udeid Air Base
Mackey and Cascaes were sitting in a small office near their barracks. It was typical military neat and very sterile. Beige paint had apparently been on sale when the contract had been awarded by the government. The rest of the team had been given the entire day off to do whatever they wanted. It sounded wonderful, except there was very little to do on the base, and it was over a hundred degrees outside with a wind that blew like a blast-furnace. Most of the men listened to music, cleaned weapons, wrote emails, Skyped with friends, or watched whatever was available on satellite television.
Mackey had a laptop and was opening up encrypted emails that included pictures of Middle Eastern men while speaking with Kim Elton and Dex Murphy back in Langley.
“Our techs have been pouring over a ton of communications and data from the bugs you set up. We’re trying to create a picture of what’s going on over there. It’s alarming,” said Kim.
“Alarming how?” asked Mackey.
“Well, here in the US, you can’t deposit ten grand without a paper trail through the banking system. Prince Awadi’s got huge cash deposits and withdrawals happening on a regular basis, and if we didn’t have someone inside the bank, we’d never know about any of it. That fifty million you clipped must have been to finance whatever’s going on over there, and there’s a second withdrawal for the same amount a couple of days later, which we assume is the replacement money. But we still don’t know what it’s for. The smart money is on weapons of mass destruction. No one needs fifty million to build a few IEDs.”
“Right, I think we assumed that from the start,” said Mackey.
“There have been some rumors we’re trying to follow up on,” said Kim tentatively. She looked at Dex, who nodded and jumped in.
“Look, we don’t work on guessing or conjecture. I like solid intel before it gets passed around, but you guys are in the field. We may need you to do some of the follow up yourselves,” said Dex.
“Sure. What are you hearing?” said Mackey.
“Mack, for all I know it’s total bullshit. But it’s too scary to ignore. You know the UN monitored the Syrians when they took apart their chemical weapons stockpiles, but there’s no way to know if they ever got it all. Hell, there’ve been recent Sarin attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. The shit’s coming from somewhere, and the most likely culprits are Iraq and Syria. We got word through the Israelis that a shipment of Sarin went from Syria to Lebanon and then vanished. Supposedly, it was a large weapon.”
“Fifty million dollars worth?” asked Cascaes.
“Well, not fifty million to the guys who sell it the first time, but after it passes through a few middlemen, who knows? Is fifty million a fair asking price for somethi
ng that can kill tens of thousands of people?” replied Dex.
Chris and Mackey looked at each other. “Sarin?” asked Chris out loud, to no one in particular. “What kind of delivery systems were the Syrians using?”
Dex answered, “They had dumb bombs and artillery shells. Similar to the Honest John types we were using back in the sixties. Theirs are even more primitive. Glass bomblets inside the shells.”
Chris thought for a second. “So they could disassemble the thing and pass out a hundred or so smaller Sarin bombs for suicide bombers, bobby traps, IEDs; it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a singular large scale event.”
“The possibilities are endless,” agreed Dex.
“So what can we do from our end?” asked Mackey.
“Right now, nothing. We’re buying a lot of favors and squeezing where we can. I’m hoping we have a solid lead for you within a day or two.”
“That’s fast, what’s going on?” asked Mackey.
“Bank cameras captured the images of the two guys who picked up the cash for the prince. The bank won’t share that kind of information, but we have our guy inside. He’s more worried about his own bank account, fortunately for us. We have facial recognition software working on it, as well as some local informants. If these two are important, we’ll get some names and leads.
Chapter 28
Abandoned Oil Facility, Saudi Desert
Rasheed pulled into the compound slowly, and a man appeared from the shadows and opened the metal gate. The compound was a dinosaur skeleton in the desert—ancient, hulking, and dead, with giant metal machinery that had long rusted into oblivion. The cluster of buildings looked like they had been dropped in the middle of nowhere. Once inside the compound, Rasheed drove slowly into a large corrugated aluminum building. Perhaps once shiny and silver in the sun, the building was now brown and beginning to fall apart. He parked in the rear of the open structure and stopped the engine. Men began flowing into the building, excited and loud, screaming, “God is great!” as they greeted their comrade, now a very important person, indeed.
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