by Tom Clancy
“I can assure you,” said the prince, parading up to Fisher and getting in his face. “This delivery has been thoroughly inspected by three of my engineers, by my radiological teams, and by anyone else we deemed necessary to ensure it is not, and I repeat, not some kind of explosive device that you and your people suggest may be en route here. These items were ordered months ago, and the company verifies the shipment and invoices through their own security personnel, and then those items come through our very rigorous process. And I remind you, even after Ms. Grimsdóttir called, we searched this entire facility, just as a precaution. I was very explicit about that. You’re wasting your time with these radiation detectors and with this whole nonsense. No one got past my security. No one can get past it. I hope you and your people understand that now.”
Fisher stood there.
Part of him felt deeply embarrassed, the other part ready to commit murder.
Shammari bared his teeth, but his lips curled into a grin.
Fisher averted his gaze. “We’ll be leaving now.”
33
BEFORE climbing into the Humvee, Fisher stole a moment to have a word with Grim, who’d been monitoring the conversation he’d had with Prince Shammari.
The wind was beginning to howl in his ears as he listened to her through his subdermal: “I don’t know, Sam, I was positive all the dots were connecting.”
“They still are.”
“Maybe Abqaiq’s not the target.”
“Then why are those Russians in Dammam?”
“Maybe it’s been the port all along. Or maybe the capital. Maybe it’s Riyadh. That’s only two hundred miles southwest.”
Fisher mouthed a curse and said, “We’re heading over to Dammam. We’ll see what we can pick up there. You keep working with Kasperov and his right-hand guy. I’ll be in touch.”
As they drove away from the warehouse, Prince Shammari glanced up from his surfboard-sized smartphone and announced that out to the west, a thunderstorm traveling at up to 45 knots was beginning to collapse and dump torrents. Wind directions were reversing and gusting outward from the storm. Reports from Riyadh said a haboob was beginning to form and that everyone should seek cover.
“Haboob” was an amusing word for a very deadly and intense sandstorm common on the Arabian peninsula.
“Where are you headed now?” Shammari asked Fisher.
“Dammam.”
“Then you’d best hurry.”
“We will. I’m sorry we wasted your time. Your security is impressive.”
“As I’ve demonstrated.”
“Your deliveries here, they all come in by truck?”
“And by rail. With a few small ones by helicopter.”
“The oil is shipped by pipeline up to Dammam.”
“That’s correct.”
Fisher sat there, considering that.
“I hope for our sakes that you’re wrong,” said Shammari. “There is no plot. There is no bomb. I know we’ve been talking about terrorists with nuclear weapons for years, but the world cannot afford it. Not ever.”
“I agree. But I’ve been doing this for a long time.” Fisher glanced out the window. “There’s a bomb out there. And we’re going to find it.”
* * *
BY the time they hit the helipad, the chopper was already warm since Fisher had called ahead to the pilot. They bid their tense and somewhat awkward good-byes to the prince and his troops, then started for the helicopter.
While stars shimmered directly overhead, the western sky was no more than a churning brown wave that consumed the entire horizon. Briggs pointed, and they both gasped.
This could be the largest and most formidable haboob Fisher had ever seen, and that was saying something because he’d spent enough time in Arab countries to ride out his share of storms. This bad weather could buy them some time. If the storm extended all the way up to the port it could shut down operations, perhaps delaying the oligarchs’ plan.
They climbed into the chopper, Briggs taking one of the backseats, Fisher up front with the pilot. They rolled shut the door, and just as they were lifting off, Grim called.
“Sam, I’ve got new intel from Kasperov. He called one of the oligarchs directly. Kargin, the guy who was talking to Chern. Kasperov threatened to unleash the Calamity Jane virus on the man’s company and holdings if he didn’t call off the attack.”
“Then it’s over?”
“Kasperov thinks Kargin killed himself while he was on the line. The guy said it’s too late. There’s nothing that can stop them now.”
“Aw, shit. Did he get anything else?”
“He didn’t, but his partner Kannonball did. More intercepted comms between the GRU and an agent in Dammam. Best we can tell there are four Iranian MOIS agents at the port. They’ve linked up with the rogue GRU agent and were ordered to meet up with a railcar broker.”
Fisher’s OPSAT flashed as Grim sent him a satellite map of the desert between Dammam and Abqaiq, with a flashing red line between the two. Fisher zoomed in on that line to expose a set of railroad tracks, noting how the railway left Dammam, ran right through Abqaiq between the Saudi Aramco compound and the processing plant, then arrowed farther south to Riyadh.
“Grim, what if they—”
“I’m ahead of you. The Saudis have GID agents at the port, and I confirmed with them that one of the Iranian ships offloaded an HEP car.”
“A what?”
“An HEP car. These are high-end power cars that sit directly behind the locomotives. They look like engines sitting backward and they generate extra power needed for refrigerator cars and tractor trailer cooling units. The Saudis have some older diesel locomotives and still use some of these power cars on their lines. There was nothing unusual about this shipment, and all the paperwork checked out with the railway.”
“So why are we interested?”
“Because that HEP car was attached to a locomotive carrying oil containers, twenty-one in all, and it’s the only shipment scheduled to run through Abqaiq this evening. It’s number 116.”
“So you’re saying they don’t use HEP cars with oil container trains.”
“No—but they attached one anyway because they wanted that car to move out tonight.”
“Tell me why oil is being shipped down by train when there’s pipeline from Abqaiq to Dammam.”
“That oil is headed for Riyadh. They still need to ship the processed oil back down to the city by rail, and as you’ve seen, that railroad passes right through Abqaiq.”
“So they got past security at the port and the bomb’s inside the HEP car.”
“It has to be.”
“So the bomb is part of a larger shipment.”
“Yeah,” said Grim. “We weren’t thinking big enough.”
“So now all they have to do is wait until the train passes through the processing facility and detonate it for maximum impact. Just like the thorium operation, they either have a spotter in Abqaiq or like Kasperov said, they’ll have someone to trigger it manually, someone on a suicide mission.”
“Plus they have the storm to cover them. No way they could’ve planned that, but they’ll take advantage of it.”
“Call Shammari. Tell him to stop the train.”
“I already did,” she said. “The train’s still coming. It’s been hijacked. Just a single rail between Abqaiq and Dammam. No way to divert it.”
“What’s our ETA to the train?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“Backup?”
“Shammari’s troops are leaving the compound now, but his F-15s have been grounded. He says he’s got some light helicopter gunships en route.”
“Tell him to hold back those gunships until I give the order—otherwise they could spook the triggerman.”
“Roger that. And, Sam, once the storm hits we’ll lose the satellite feed and maybe the rest of our comms.”
“That’s all right. We know what to do now.”
“Sam, I, uh . . . I think this time we’re right.”
“Is your gut telling you that?”
“It is.”
“Good. Mine, too.” He closed his eyes and could almost see her face. She wore the barest hint of a smile.
He wanted to say something else, something more meaningful because she was right, this was it—possibly the last conversation they’d ever have after years of working together.
“Grim?”
“Yeah?”
He stammered. “We’ll be okay.”
After a long pause, she answered, “Talk to you soon, Sam.”
Briggs, who’d been listening in on the conversation via the chopper’s intercom system, reached over and proffered his hand.
“What’s this?” Fisher asked.
“Just in case,” said Briggs. They shook firmly. “Someday, when I grow up, I’m gonna be just like you.”
Fisher shoved Briggs and smiled. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
34
THE chopper pilot from Dubai, who’d introduced himself as Hammad, knew some English—enough to deal with tourists—but that wasn’t an issue since Fisher and Briggs spoke Arabic.
However, convincing the thirty-year-old man with closely cropped beard to engage in the unthinkable with his rotary wing aircraft was the real challenge.
“We just need a ride to the train,” Fisher said over the intercom.
“To the train? The storm’s coming. We can’t do that. Besides, why there? How were you planning on boarding?”
Fisher sighed. “Very carefully. You’ll take us to the train. Now.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I won’t.”
“Then you can hop out right now, and my buddy will take over.”
Briggs reached in beside the man and began to open the side door.
“What’re you doing?” The pilot swatted away Briggs’s hand and cried, “You’re crazy! Crazy! We have the storm. We have to get back to the port and get under cover!”
“Hammad, we need you,” said Briggs, who looked to Fisher for approval and got it. “We’re talking about terrorists on board that train.”
“I’ll put it to you this way,” Fisher interjected. “If you don’t help us, we won’t kill you—but what they have on that train will.”
The pilot hesitated. “What do you mean?”
Fisher sloughed off his shirt to expose his tac-suit. Behind him, Briggs held up their machine guns. “Our business isn’t exactly oil.”
Hammad’s eyes flared. “Holy shit, holy shit.”
“Exactly,” said Briggs. “We’re just asking for a little help.”
“Don’t shoot me. Please.”
Fisher snorted. “Are you kidding? Today’s your day to be a hero. You up for it or what?”
Hammad was visibly trembling now. “My boss will kill me if I put even a scratch on the helicopter.”
“It’s cool,” said Briggs. “I know you can do this.”
Hammad gestured to a picture of two little girls taped just above his instrument panel, two gems about five and six years old. “They need their father!”
“I know,” Fisher said. “So do we.”
The man’s eyes were burning now. “Who are you?”
Fisher tensed. “We’re the passengers you’ll never forget.”
“Maybe you’re the terrorists!”
Fisher tapped a few keys on his OPSAT, bringing up some digital photographs of his daughter Sarah when she was nine. He held up his wrist for the pilot to see. “That’s my daughter. She’s all grown up now, but she still needs her father. And her father needs you. So let’s get this done. For all of them. Okay?”
Hammad pursed his lips, swallowed, then took another look at Briggs and Fisher.
Briggs put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “We have faith in you, Hammad. More than you know.”
After taking a deep breath and reaching out to touch the photograph of his girls, Hammad said, “I don’t want to die.”
“You won’t,” Fisher assured him. “Now take us a mile or two south, and get us up high, another thousand feet.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” the pilot muttered, banking sharply, then gaining altitude, the chopper buffeted hard by a sudden gust that left Fisher’s stomach about thirty feet below.
“Continue nice and wide,” said Fisher. “Anyone on the train spots us, they’ll think we’re heading to the port.”
“I understand,” said Hammad. “You’re not the terrorists, then, right?”
“I know it’s hard to tell who the good guys are these days, but Allah’s on your side.”
“Yes, always.”
Hammad kept several pairs of binoculars on board for sightseers. Fisher grabbed a pair and focused on the train, just a metallic serpent chugging forward across the broad plains of desert. Twin headlights reached out into the gathering dust. Fisher panned up toward the haboob and regretted that decision.
The storm was a living, breathing creature of wind and sand, consumed by hunger and unaffected by politics, religion, or any other differences men used to justify killing each other. It was motivated only by the laws of physics, a perfect killer.
“All right,” Fisher told Hammad, shaking off the thought. “Come back around and descend hard and fast. You’re like an old fighter pilot in World War II, coming in to strafe the enemy, got it?”
“Holy shit, yes. I got it.”
Briggs had finished stripping down to his tac-suit and was double-checking their pistols and spare magazines. He handed Fisher his Five-seveN and SIG P226, then holstered his own weapons. Next he handed Fisher his submachine gun with attached sling and clutched his own tightly to his chest.
“Good to go,” Briggs said over the intercom. “Nothing beats the smell of factory-fresh ammo in the evening.”
Fisher almost smiled, then glanced to Hammad. “You’re doing great. Keep descending. Okay, now over there, we need to get lower, that’s right, bank right . . . right . . . descend again! You see it now?”
Hammad swooped down like a vulture, then he pitched the nose and descended even more aggressively. Fisher found himself clutching the seat with one hand as they came within five meters of the desert floor before Hammad pulled up and leveled off to check his altitude. Not two seconds later, he descended a few more meters.
“That’s how to do it,” Fisher said. “That’s perfect. You could be a military pilot.”
“Yeah, man,” said Hammad, sounding only half as confident as Fisher.
The helicopter was on a straight and level path directly behind the train, with the rail ties ticking by. Despite being jarred by the train’s wash, Hammad kept them less than two meters above the railway, with only the caboose container’s tiny red taillights as a reference point.
Their approach was about as stealthy as Fisher could’ve hoped for, but he still wasn’t sure how loud the locomotive and HEP car were and if they’d been noisy enough to conceal the chopper’s engine and rotors to anyone posted outside the train. The plan, of course, was to go in ghost.
Fisher lifted his binoculars. The tank cars themselves were as expected—long black cylinders with well-rusted bellies and ladders both fore and aft. There were grab irons mounted to the sides and narrow, flat upper decks with railings that allowed maintenance workers to pass from car to car.
“Okay, great job, Hammad,” he said. “Stand by to get us up top.”
As Fisher unbuckled and climbed toward the backseat, ready to give Hammad his final instructions, gunfire ripped across the canopy—
And sud
denly Hammad was jerking the stick, throwing Fisher backward.
“Get above the last car!” shouted Briggs. “Don’t pull away!”
“He’s shooting at us!” cried Hammad.
Fisher crashed into the backseat and then whipped his head around, catching the barest glimpse of a man posted between the caboose and the next tank car. He repeatedly swung out from the side of the train, single-handedly firing his rifle, the muzzle flashing—but oddly not a single round struck the chopper. Was he the world’s worst shot?
Fisher squinted for a better look.
“Oh, you’re kidding me!” cried Briggs.
In that instant oil began spraying across the canopy, mixing with the swirling dust and clouding Hammad’s view as the agent continued spraying the oil container with bullets, releasing more streams of oil.
“Pull up now!” Fisher cried.
Hammad shook his head. “I can’t see!”
The oil kept splashing and bleeding off, the streaks beginning to blur like a kaleidoscope. One false move by the pilot, and they’d either plow into the back of the train or smash into the tracks—and Fisher’s imagination took him through both of those scenarios in an instant.
“Come on, Hammad, do it!” Fisher cried, slapping his palm on top of the pilot’s and ready to take over if Hammad backed out.
Hammad’s eyes bulged. “Okay, I got it!” He gasped, shuddered, then pulled back and brought them above the oil spray, coming directly above the container car. He was leaning forward now, staring through a meager opening on the canopy no more than twelve inches wide and not yet stained with oil.
“Here,” shouted Briggs, handing Fisher his pair of trifocals.
With his goggles on, Briggs threw the latch and yanked open the door.
The wind literally screamed into the compartment.
And the sand came in needle-like torrents.
Hammad coughed and cried, “Hurry!”
“Just hold position!” Fisher told him. “You’re a hero today, my friend!”
“Holy shit, yes!”
Briggs leaped from the chopper and hit the container hard, falling forward, sliding for a second, then latching onto one of the railings. One hand slid loose and he was thrown back by both the train’s velocity and the storm, but he leaned forward and returned that hand to the rail.