Countdown to Mecca

by Michael Savage

  “What Brooks hopes is that it will bring on an all-out war,” Jack explained. “In his opinion, that can be the only way Islam will be contained.”

  “The Kaaba has been damaged before,” the chauffeur informed them, “but those were accidents. A deliberate act against our religion’s holiest site would be catastrophic not for Islam but for the world.”

  Jack, desperate to get his mind off their helplessness, grabbed on to the only hope he could conceive at that moment. “Maybe it would bring war,” he said. “Or maybe the act would be so heinous, so incomprehensible, that it would bring people to their senses. Maybe they would see that extremism meant death, and death is not the answer.”

  “You sound like Abe when you talk like that,” said Doc, referring to their liberal friend who had been murdered years before. “A wild-eyed, bleeding-heart, new-age hippie.”

  Jack turned on him. “It comes down to what you believe about people,” said Jack. “If you think people are basically good—”

  “I think it was Cervantes who called the world a dungheap and everything on it a maggot,” Doc said. “If you think people are basically good, you’re insane. The extremists will go all carpe diem on our asses and take this situation over, Jack. That’s human nature.”

  “There’s good in the world,” countered Jack.

  “Not in my experience,” Doc said. “You know what Islamist radicals are like. They blow themselves up to kill children. What does that say?”

  “Not every Muslim is like that,” the driver pointed out.

  “Enough are,” Doc replied. He turned to his old friend. “Frankly, I’m surprised at you, Jack. You used to be a realist.”

  “I am a realist, dammit. I’m just not hopeless. I can’t be.”

  Doc grinned. “Well, you’re in love. Maybe Dover is responsible for this.”

  Jack softened a little. Thinking about the young woman made him smile inside. Doc could have a point.

  “Anyway,” Jack said, “just because we’re up against evil, that doesn’t mean we have to be evil as well.”

  “Okay,” Doc said. “Tell me one Muslim who would have tried to stop someone from nuking the Vatican in Rome.”

  “I bet Jimmy would have.”

  “All right—maybe,” admitted Doc.

  “I would,” came a voice from the front seat.

  Doc looked at the back of the chauffeur’s head, remembering what he had already done for them. He sat back. “Touché to you both. I’ll shut up now.”

  “Don’t shut up, Doc,” Jack said, softening. “Just help me. We’ve got to figure out a way to stop this.”

  “I’m stymied,” Doc admitted. “For the first time in my life, I don’t know who to shoot at. And I don’t like it.”

  “We’re here,” said the chauffeur.

  The heat of the discussion instantly dissipated as all three men barreled from the limo and charged into the lobby. Despite the hour of the evening, the place was as active as it had been at noon. The chauffeur was first at the information desk and spoke in rapid Arabic. Doc raised his eyebrows at Jack when they saw the deference the men at the desk paid him in body language, expression, and action. He was certainly not just a chauffeur. A desk man raced to prepare the way as if his hair was on fire as the chauffeur motioned for Jack and Doc to follow him.

  “This way,” he said. He led them quickly to the building’s security office, which looked to Jack like a set out of a James Bond movie. Glittering lights were everywhere and a row of desks were outfitted with the most sleek, costly, and futuristic machinery oil money could buy. Huge, flat, wide-screen monitors encircled the room, showing every inch of the building and surrounding grounds.

  “Here, here, here,” said the chauffeur, striding over, and pointing, to a desk on the right side wall. Jack grabbed the phone while Doc tried to resend the video. The general’s confession was already flying across the world, seemingly before the digicam even registered SEND.

  Jack checked his watch. San Francisco was ten hours behind Riyadh, so it was midmorning for Dover. Perfect. “Do I have to dial anything to get out?” he asked the chauffeur, who had sat down at the computer.

  “No,” he said, his fingers dancing on the keyboard.

  Jack dialed “their number” and waited anxiously, his toe tapping nervously. As soon as the connection went through, Jack’s energy welled up and he started talking.

  “Dover, listen,” he barked. “Doc’s just sent you a video where Brooks admitted it. He’s planning to bomb Jerusalem and Mecca. Get it to Carl Forsyth, Kevin Dangerfield, everyone! They’re planning to do it tomorrow.”

  “Christ, Jack—”

  “But be careful,” Jack cautioned. “There may be people even higher than Brooks involved in this. Maybe the administration has set Brooks up—maybe they were the ones who thought we’d all benefit from Armageddon. Regardless, we’ve got to stop it, any way we can!”

  “Jack, are you—”

  “I’m fine!” he shouted. “Go! Please!”

  Jack took a breath and listened to the sound of rampant activity going on behind her. It was too busy to be in the safe house. It had to be the offices of the FBI.

  “Jack, we got it!” she said after a few long, tense moments. “The video came in from Sol minutes ago.”

  “From Sol?” Jack asked.

  Then he realized what Doc had done. Although he would have gotten an UNDELIVERED message for Dover’s line, Sol’s more powerful safe house system must have pulled it in.

  “Good, good,” Jack said. “What can I—what should I do?”

  “Jack,” Dover said urgently, as if she hadn’t heard him, “listen to me.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “General Brooks is dead.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, stunned.

  “Fresh from the Pentagon,” she replied. “Jack, talk to you later. We’ve got to find out who’s really running this show.”

  48

  Pyotr Ansky walked quickly through the maze of narrow, refuse-strewn, potholed paths that made up the district of Al-Suwaidi in the southwestern corner of Riyadh. He ignored the notorious places where prostitutes of both sexes secreted themselves, despite contentions that they didn’t exist or had been wiped out by the dens of criminals, terrorists, and strict ultraconservatives who infested the place. It was a closed market on depravity in any form. No one entered the district at night unless they were looking for death. Pyotr Ansky entered the place after dark, and quickly ducked into a seemingly benign, peaceful café, filled with the smell of potent coffee and clouds of hookah smoke. As always, Pyotr’s eyes had taken in everyone even before he stepped completely inside, but then he moved quickly to a table in the back, where a small, wizened, man sat. Although he wore a dirty robe and up-raised hood, Pytor could see his face—both the color and texture of a shelled walnut.

  “Teacher,” Pyotr bowed his head as he sat down.

  “Here, we are as one,” the imam said, his voice just above a whisper. “We wear the enemy’s costume. Something to drink?”

  Pyotr sensed it was a test. He had not lived a blameless life. There had been long periods of dissolution—not just in Russia but Chechnya itself. For long intervals vodka had been a great solace, providing both courage and forgetfulness—qualities much to be valued. But he had put those needs behind him even before meeting the imam and coming to understand the true nature of his calling. The smell of the café brought the evil of his vices back. His stomach turned bitter, and he tasted the first pangs of vomit in his mouth.

  “A bit of tea, if it is convenient,” he said.

  The imam smiled, and signaled a waiter. Moments later, a fresh cup had been poured. Pyotr, still uncomfortable, remained silent, and didn’t sip until the imam nodded to him.

  “What news?” the imam asked. He spoke in Russian to make it difficult for eavesdroppers to understand. This was a surprise; Pyotr had not thought the imam could speak Russian so well. He should have known. After all, he knew Py
otr so well.

  “The weapon will be in place within twelve hours,” Pyotr replied, also in Russian. “I have the fusing device. It will be a simple matter of attaching it and flying to the proper altitude.”

  “You will do this yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are using the general’s own transport?”

  “It was there, it was best,” said Pyotr. “My man is there. I have nothing to fear.”

  “You are sure?”

  “I am absolutely positive.”

  The imam stared at him and Pyotr felt a single bead of sweat begin to emerge from his scalp. “You have failed before,” the imam said without judgment—simply as a statement of fact.

  That was true. A year before, Pyotr and his men had stolen a bomb from a Russian storage depot at great cost. But it had a core of uranium refined to only seventy-six percent quality for the weapons-grade material. It was too weak to explode properly. The original intention was to refine it further, but that proved beyond the imam’s means.

  “I learned a great deal from that failure,” Pyotr stated. It was a failure that had led directly to the present plot, where Pyotr had pretended to cooperate with the American general.

  That seemed to satisfy his imam. He nodded approvingly. He had been working on both plans—and perhaps a dozen more—for years and years. Pyotr wondered what else he contemplated.

  “Others attempted to take your weapon,” said the imam. “They were not content with what you gave them.”

  “As I anticipated,” Pyotr responded. “So I created a distraction for them.”

  The imam nodded again. “Then you alone will make the final attack.”

  Pyotr nodded. It was a decision borne partly of determination not to fail, and partly of selfishness—he didn’t want anyone else sharing his glory. “My target remains true?” he asked.

  The imam nodded once.

  “We cannot change it back to Jerusalem?”

  “No. The result would not be as desirable,” said the imam calmly. He could have been speaking of a soccer strategy. “There would have been no stopping the Israelis, and they are the ones we must fear. The Jews are the ones who will be ruthless, because they have already tasted so much blood. The Americans will remain weak for quite some time.”

  Pyotr nodded. “They are weak, but they can be tenacious.”

  The imam shook his head sagely. “Not they. He.”

  “The reporter?”

  “More than likely he is with the CIA and only claims to be a reporter.”

  Pyotr did not contradict the imam, though he knew this wasn’t true. He had learned a great deal about Jack Hatfield in the past few days.

  “This will be an attack ten times greater than the one on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon,” said the imam. “A practical, as well as a symbolic strike. The heart of the American evil will be torn out. The filth it purveys to the world will be shut off at the source.”

  “The target is well chosen,” said Pyotr. He had heard this speech many times over the past several years.

  “The devil’s songs will cease, and it will be easier for us to lead our people,” said the imam. “But you will be in Paradise, enjoying your bounties, thanks to the Prophet’s largess, blessed be his name.”

  Pyotr bowed his head. He needed no more encouragement—he understood that his entire life had led him to this moment. His name would be enshrined at the head of the list of martyrs; he would be better known than them all.

  And he would savor the moment of death. It would come at exactly 18,500 feet, in exactly thirteen and a half hours.

  “I must go now, imam, if I am to catch my plane,” Pytor said abruptly, rising.

  “Eternal peace be with you, brother,” said the imam, without a trace of irony. “May Allah’s will be done.”

  “It shall be,” said Pyotr firmly before striding from the café to find a taxi.

  49

  San Francisco, California

  “You’re kidding, right?” Dover said, gripping the coffee mug so tightly Carl Forsyth thought it would shatter in her hand.

  “Dover, we’ve only known each other a short time,” her boss said, “but I have to believe that you wouldn’t think I’m a kidder. Yes? Certainly not about something like this.”

  She nodded.

  “The whole thing has to be a hoax,” he went on. “There’s nothing there. Believe me, I’ve talked to a lot of people in Washington who know … or would know if something were going on.”

  “Isn’t that the whole point of covert operations?” she asked. “Secrecy?”

  “In the field, yes. In D.C.? No. Everything gets found out, usually sooner rather than later. This one? You’d need a lot of moving parts.”

  “Or a bunch of tight-lipped, loyal fanatics like on 9/11.”

  “Again, you don’t find that in Washington, at the Pentagon, Dover. That’s why authors write about it. It’s fiction.”

  “Until one day it isn’t,” Dover said. “Until one day someone depends on exactly that mind-set.” She felt as though her head would explode. “Carl, it was right there,” she continued, trying to keep from gesticulating wildly. There were too many windows in his office and too many eyes were on them. “General Brooks said so right into the camera. He said, in effect, ‘I … am … going … to blow up Mecca!’”

  “Agent Griffith,” Forsyth said patiently, and not without some sympathy. “Think like an agent for just a second.”

  “I am thinking like an agent,” she seethed. “An agent who wants to prevent a catastrophic attack before it’s too late!”

  Forsyth just shook his head sadly. “No, you’re thinking like a—a friend of Jack Hatfield’s.”

  Dover’s mouth snapped shut and her lips grew very thin. He was going to say “girlfriend.” Dover knew it. And her narrowed gaze told Forsyth that she knew it. But he had checked himself in deference to her previous good work.

  She knew why her superior thought that. Jack was in trouble, and she obviously, seriously hated the fact that she wasn’t able to help him. She believed, even if Forsyth didn’t, that he’d stumbled onto something even bigger and more deadly than the Chinese plot that had spawned their relationship, and hated the fact that she didn’t have all of the information on it.

  Most of all, she hated the fact that she wasn’t with him.

  “Come on, Dover,” Forsyth went on. “Ask yourself: why on God’s green earth would Brooks admit that in public, let alone directly to a camera? Especially when there was time to stop it? Not a lot of time, I grant you, but still time.”

  Dover thought about it. Yes, it did seem reckless at the very least.

  “His immediate superior—” Forsyth checked his notes “—Army Chief of Staff Ortiz, said Brooks was borderline certifiable. A man, and I quote—” Forsyth checked the report again, “‘—whose entire life was dedicated to the army, and a man who would do anything to remain relevant on the eve of his retirement.’” Forsyth tossed the report back onto the high stack of papers on his desk. “What does that say to you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said numbly, struggling to focus on this—trivia.

  “Does it mean that we’re dealing with someone who posed a credible threat? Or a desperate, sad, lonely man who just wanted to force people to take his life’s work seriously?”

  “But the missing container … the plane c-crash?” she stammered.

  “Now, as before, they happened,” Forsyth agreed. “But that doesn’t mean they’re connected.”

  “And the Schoenberg murder?”

  “What about it?”

  “If it wasn’t part of this conspiracy—”

  “See, there’s the word that always sets off alarms,” Forsyth said. “Conspiracy.”

  Dover could practically see a satisfied grin on Forsyth’s face.

  “Schoenberg apparently had a lover back in Germany who was thrown over,” the FBI officer told her. “That’s what that is about.”

  “That�
��s absurd.”

  “Really? You don’t think a woman is capable of murder?”

  “That’s not what I mean, Carl, and you know it.” Especially not now, she thought, growing increasingly frustrated with her boss.

  Forsyth held up his hands in supplication. “Okay, but this German girl was a crack shot, and she just committed suicide. There’s even a suicide note.”

  “Anything about killing Schoenberg?”

  “No, but that’s not for us to muck about in. The murder is a local case, Dover. It is being credibly handled by our friend Jeffreys. In any event, it’s not my case, not our case, and we really can’t afford to waste time with it.”

  Dover found that her teeth were biting hard enough to threaten her fillings. She unclenched her jaw, and her fist, and tried to control herself.

  Forsyth saw and appreciated it. He sighed. And crossed the line he had hesitated to cross before. “Look, Dover, I understand you have feelings for the guy. And frankly I like him. Usually. I owe him something for letting me take all the credit for the Chinese affair. Believe me, I understand. But this—this is a lot of confetti flying around with no pattern, no sense but what he’s struggling to make of it. Hell, that’s what journalists do!” He leaned closer. “Brooks wanted to feel important one last time in his life. He wanted to alert the world of the threat he felt Islam posed. Maybe he knew he was dying. He wanted one last bit of footage that would outlive him.”

  “By threatening to destroy the world?” Dover asked incredulously.

  “What better?” Forsyth countered. “In this age of YouTube getting millions of hits for a drunk TV star eating a hamburger? The second-highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Strategic Command swearing he’s going to blow up Israel and Mecca? If this footage ever got out, hawks and doves would use it against each other for decades.”

  “So that’s it?” Dover said tightly. “That’s really why you think he did it?”

  “If I had to bet money? Yeah,” he said. Forsyth shook his head. “Believe me, Dover, I ran with it. The CIA nearly laughed me out of their office.”

  “They didn’t take it seriously?” Dover exclaimed.

  “Oh, they took it seriously, all right. For about an hour. And when nothing, and I mean nothing that they found backed it up, they saw it for what it is. A sad man’s last gasp.” Forsyth stood and took Dover by the arms. “Face it, Agent Griffith. The threat was a sham. And the threat died with Brooks.”