Jacques brightened up considerably. “But, sir,” he said, “when will our great army begin to muster? Remember, I’ve never even seen it.”
“Jacques, I have observed you since you have been here, and I have observed the great importance you put upon communications. I have seen you demand the most expensive cell phones, radio, and satellite communications in the world…and I know you have briefed your commanding officers in the greatest detail.
“Each one of the men you speak to every day, the Saudi officers who will fight for us, the men who masterminded the acquisition of the arms, have an area of the city that they control. And many, many people understand that something is going to happen soon. On Wednesday night, after ten o’clock, the people will begin to gather their arms at our safe houses all over the city.
“Jacques, when you lead our convoy of tanks and armored vehicles down the main road and into the city, the people will come from every dwelling in Riyadh. They will come in the thousands, and they will flock behind your battle tanks, and they will march with you and your high command. And they will follow you into the mouth of hell.
“Oh yes, Jacques Gamoudi. They will come. They will most definitely come…Bismillah, in the name of God.”
Colonel Gamoudi brightened up some more. But he said, “You mean I will never see this army until it falls into line behind our artillery?”
“No one will ever see this army until it falls into line behind your artillery. We must both have faith.”
Right now Jacques understood why he was being paid a minimum of $10 million dollars to organize this people’s revolution. It was Sunday evening, and he knew that on Tuesday morning there would be $5 million paid into his private account in the Bank of Boston in the Champs-Elysées. He also knew his bonus check of yet another $5 million was being handed to Giselle at their home in the Pyrenees.
She would instantly call and inform the Bank of Boston that her check had arrived. At 2 P.M., here in Saudi Arabia, given the three-hour time difference from Paris, Jacques would dial the bank’s number on his cell phone and tell the operator, “Extension three-eight-seven.”
The reply would be simple: “Three-eight-six.” And he would cut the call off. Three-eight-six meant that his account showed a balance of $10 million, and they had heard from Madame Hooks that she now held an irrevocable cashier’s check for $5 million, to be deposited on the day King Nasir assumed power.
Either that, or he, Jacques Gamoudi, was on the next plane out of King Khalid for Paris, $5 million richer, and no further obligations. The money from the French government, he knew, would be there.
“Your Highness,” he said, “I have faith in you. And I have faith in the officers I have met here in Riyadh. I have been impressed by their planning, and their staff work. Each of them knows and understands our objectives. I am sure that on Friday morning they will confuse and demoralize our enemies, with their audacity and daring.”
Prince Nasir smiled. “Then your opening attack will follow the master plan you have worked on?” he asked. “The military vehicles will leave here in convoy the moment we hear that Khamis Mushayt has fallen? Two combat tanks and eight vehicles will head cross-country, straight to the airport, and you head into the city, where Colonel Bandar’s brigade will peel off and go directly for the principal television station?”
“Correct,” replied the French Colonel. “It is essential that we control the airport, and hold power over all public communications. Major Majeed, who has become a wonderful friend to me, will take the airport by storm, and it will surrender easily. But I have instructed ten al-Qaeda commandos to go straight to the control tower and capture it with gunfire, if possible with no damage to the equipment.
“Colonel Bandar will take television channels one and two by force of arms, but hopefully without loss of life. If he drives that Abrams tank straight through the front door they’ll put their hands up, believe me. Journalists die only by accident, not from choice.”
“And the remainder of the convoy?” asked the Prince. “Will that advance into the city for three miles, as you suggested, as if in a military parade, right to the edge of the central area?”
“Yes, sir…while it gathers our followers. But then it will swing left, back onto Al Mather Street
and return north, to join the four main battle tanks and the six armored vehicles we leave back at the junction of the Jiddah Road
.”
“Of course by then we shall have thousands of armed followers behind the tanks,” added the Prince.
“And hopefully a substantial group from the Makkah Road
,” replied Colonel Gamoudi. “Men who will march to join us—maybe a thousand of them—under the command of our good friend Major Abdul Salaam.”
“Good, very good. And then?”
“I lead the convoy to the east, straight around the diplomatic quarter, and into the area where the main palaces are located. Major Abdul Salaam’s brigade immediately hits the Prince Miohd bin Abdul Aziz Palace, where the full-morning council meeting will be taking place before the King’s arrival at 1300.”
“And attempt to capture them, round them up?” asked the Prince, perhaps considering the fate of his several cousins and childhood friends, who would be attending that meeting.
“Absolutely not,” replied Colonel Gamoudi. “That’s our first objective. We go in hard, rockets, grenades, and gunfire. We take out every single person in the building and then knock as much of it down as we can. We cannot allow the officials inside to live, for fear of later uprisings, and we do not want the building. That palace and all of its occupants is on our critical hit list. To seize a ship of state, you first smash its rudder.”
The Prince nodded. “And then?”
“We pass two more minor palaces as we go out to the east, and we take them by force of arms. I do not expect many important people to be in them, whoever is, we wipe out—not women, or children, of course, but anyone who may later bear arms against us.”
“Do we knock down the buildings?”
“No. We need those big buildings to set up our new command posts. And once we’ve taken them, we push right on to the King, who will be in the Al Salam royal palace. And as you know, this is a very large building. I will press the red button on my comms system, and the suicide bomber instantly takes off from the airport, which by now we control.”
“Straight at the palace?”
“Straight at the upper levels of the palace. I’ll take care of the lower levels, and the guards.”
“And the King and his family?”
“The King dies. And so do any princes serving him. If the great man is as smart as I think he is, he’ll have many of his family already evacuated. Probably within hours of the oil bombardment on Thursday morning.”
“And the families, Jacques? The King’s wives and many children…if any of them are still there?”
“Sir, if you had asked me to slaughter women and children, there would be a different commander sitting here with you. And I would be with my wife, Giselle, in the Pyrenees.”
“Even for fifteen million?” asked Prince Nasir.
“Even for fifteen billion,” said Colonel Gamoudi quietly. “I’m a soldier, not a murderer.”
Prince Nasir again nodded his head gravely. “And when the palace falls?”
“I recall Maj. Abdul Salaam to organize a total occupation of the building. I have detailed six al-Qaeda staff officers to assist him in this. All prisoners will be marched to the smaller royal palace, a half-mile down the road, where they will be held under guard.
“I will then open a new communication center and Colonel Bandar will transport television crews there, and you, sir, will make your first broadcast to the nation, informing the populace that the King has fallen and the city is in the hands of the armed forces of Prince Nasir Ibn Mohammed al-Saud, the great-great-grandson of Ibn Saud. And you will address them with your message of hope, inspiration, and future prosperity.”
“An
d you, Jacques, what further degradations do you have in mind for my country?” The Prince smiled.
“I will regroup my army, sir, hopefully with many more trucks and transports, and make my way to the southwest, to downtown Riyadh, where we take and occupy several places, no more firing unless there is serious resistance. And if there should be, I am afraid we must be utterly merciless.”
“Which places?”
“Oh, the big shopping centers, the council building, King Fahd Medical Center, the post office, the bus station and railway station, Central Hospital, because there may be wounded.”
“And the main Army? The ones in the other great military cities of Saudi Arabia?”
“That will all be taken care of by General Rashood. He will compel the Commander in Chief of Khamis Mushayt to speak to his opposite number in Tabuk, informing him that Khamis Mushayt has fallen to the troops of the Crown Prince.
“He will also tell him that the King has been removed and that his great friend Prince Nasir implores him and his men to change their allegiance immediately, particularly as the Prince is the only man in the world who can pay them and take care of the families. The King is dead. Long live the King.”
Crown Prince Nasir remained slightly quizzical. “And you are not concerned that the opening action in this great saga is all concentrated around the east side of the city, while the central area scarcely knows what’s going on?”
“Not with a man like General Rashood taking care of the rest of the Saudi armed forces, sir. To take any country, you must first cut off its head. That’s the King. When he falls, everything starts to cave in. You will be the King of Saudi Arabia by Friday afternoon.”
Prince Nasir rose and beckoned to Le Chasseur.
“Come, Jacques,” he said, “it is almost eight o’clock. And I would like you to pray with us.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied the devout Muslim colonel from Morocco. “I would be greatly honored.”
And the curious thing was, he meant it. And the great bond of Islam seemed to engulf him along, as he stood next to the Arab Prince, out there on the shifting sands around the oasis of Dir’aiyah.
SAME DAY, SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 1900
24.10N 37.35E, SPEED 5, DEPTH 100
The Améthyste moved slowly through the dark waters west of the jagged island of Shi’ib ash Sharm, guardian of the ten-mile-long deepwater bay along the coastline north of Yanbu al Bahr.
Shortly after 1900, with night settling heavily over the ocean, Commander Dreyfus ordered his ship to the surface, and the French nuclear hunter-killer came sliding up out of the depths of the flat, calm Red Sea to take up her ops station. Water cascaded off her hull as she shouldered aside the ocean, moving forward slowly, making as little surface commotion as possible for a 2,500-tonner.
Just ahead they could see the warning light on Sharm’s rocky headland, flashing every few seconds and casting a white light on the glinting waters, mostly to warn tanker captains of the dangers inherent in not making a sharp landward turn.
Shi’ib ash Sharm sat five miles off shore, directly west of the loading platforms that serviced the world’s biggest oil tankers at the far end of the seven-hundred-mile trans-Saudi pipeline. That was the one that ended at the port of Yanbu, having cleaved its way across the vast central desert and over the Aramah Mountains, all the way from Pump Station Number One, near Abqaiq.
To reach the main loading terminal at Yanbu, tankers had to make a hard turn, at either end of Sharm, from the north or south. For the SF insert tonight, Commander Dreyfus had chosen the northerly route, a three-mile-wide seaway between the island and a large shallow area that had to be avoided by the VLCCs and most certainly by the Améthyste.
The water was beautifully flat, and the rising moon to the east, from behind the mountains, was casting a pale light on the narrows. The submarine was just about invisible, its black hull casting no shadow on the surface. But inside there was a frenzy of activity.
Several hands were already hoisting and hauling the deflated twenty-two-foot Zodiacs up through the big hatch on the forecasing and manhandling them onto the deck, where the seamen had already brought out the electric air pumps.
The 175-horsepower Yamaha outboard engines that would power the two craft were coming up separately from the torpedo room, where they had been stored for the voyage. Within moments, six engineers were out on the casing, three of them bolting the heavy motors into position on the stern, expertly clipping on the fuel lines, and attaching the battery cables and ignition wires while the boat was still being inflated.
The engines were clipped into the upward-tilt position. Two other seamen filled the fuel tanks with diesel and loaded a four-and-a-half-gallon spare fuel tank inboard each boat. Also being loaded were assault rifles, ammunition, six grenades, just in case, and the comms transmitter, which would guide them home after the bombs were fixed.
There were also medical supplies, morphine, and bottles of water, mainly in case someone was badly injured and needed to drink. The two “attack boards” that contained the swimmers’ watch and compass, both inbuilt, non-glare, were also placed on-board.
The lead frogmen would swim in with the boards out in front of them; they would especially need them if they had to exit the Zodiacs sooner than planned, for whatever reason—busy harbor, launch activity—anything the Zodiac captain considered might compromise the safety of the boats, if anything or anyone came too close.
When the first Zodiac was ready, they pushed it to the downward slope of the deck and allowed the hard-decked inflatable to slide down into the water, held secure by two lines attached to its bow, each one held by two brawny seamen.
Another two men attached and rolled a wooden-rung rope ladder down the side of the Améthyste, and the officer-of-the-deck signaled for the first six of the Special Forces assault group, led by Lt. Garth Dupont, to come up through the foredeck hatch and proceed to the head of the ladder.
Dupont was of course unrecognizable from the chuckling bridge player of the lower deck. He was dressed in his jet black wet suit, hood up, goggles above his face, which was coated in black camouflage cream. His big flippers were attached to his belt, and on his back, in a waterproof rucksack, he carried a massive sixty-pound “sticky bomb,” which would clamp magnetically to one of the giant steel pylons supporting the loading dock in Yanbu. Also on his belt were his sheathed specially made Sabatine combat knife and a roll of det-cord and wires, with a twenty-four-hour timer.
His air system, the Draeger, also carried on his back, was a compact model, containing air for only ninety minutes, which was about twice what he would need. The system was a special non-bubble breather, which would betray nothing to a curious sentry staring down into the water. In any event, the Frenchmen would operate fifty feet below the surface, which would render them invisible from the platform.
Privately, all four of the frogmen hoped that there would be tankers on the docks, which would cast huge shadows and shield the men from anyone’s eyes. They would work in the dark, unseen, somewhere down below the tankers’ keels, which would, of course, suit them absolutely perfectly.
The four swimmers would work in pairs, and when the bombs were stuck hard to the pylons, the timer would be magnetically clamped to a third one, with wires running to the splice in the detcord. When the timer reached 0400, it would send an impulse into the det-cord splice, which would ignite the explosive fuse.
This would streak at a rate of two miles a second, straight into the detonators fixed to the bombs, which would blast the pylons in half, probably blowing the deck on the platform into several pieces. Any ship on the dock would probably have its hull split asunder and sink to the floor of the harbor, all 300,000 tons of it, which, in time, might take quite a bit of removing.
Add to this the activity of the Perle’s cruise missiles, which were to hit the faraway pumping station at Abqaiq, and the great Red Sea port of Yanbu al Bahr was in dead trouble—starved of oil, its loading terminal obliterated, perha
ps half a million tons of shipping jamming its jetties.
Garth Dupont climbed backward down the ladder, found his footing, and slipped over the rubber hull of the Zodiac, which was still held with fore and aft lines by the seamen on the submarine.
Then, one by one, his five-man team joined him, the three other swimmers, the boat driver, and the comms officer with his GPS receiver and mobile phone to communicate codes back to the submarine if necessary.
Seaman Raul Potier took the wheel and kicked the engine over; it started first time. If it hadn’t, one of the engineers would probably have been keel-hauled. Potier untied both lines and expertly curled and then hurled them back onto the submarine’s deck. He took the Zodiac quietly away from the hull, fifty feet out into the water, and waited.
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