“That about sizes it up, Bill.” Donnegan paused. Beaman listened to the hum on the secure line. “I need for you to take a trip. How is your Pashto?”
Ψ
Nabiin, the Prophet, sat back on the piled cushions and prepared to listen. It was time for his top lieutenants to report and then they would receive their orders. A drawback of living in this isolated mountain cave—although only a minor one considering the many advantages—was that his people were required to make the dangerous and time-consuming trek to report even the most mundane activities or to receive guidance in carrying out their missions. Employing the usual modern communications technology was certainly possible. Nabiin’s organization owned plenty of it and had the capability to use it. But the risks of detection, of someone catching wind of the momentous events about to play out, were simply too high. Nabiin had learned the lessons obvious in the fate of the late Osama bin Laden. The Prophet knew to remain safely hidden, well back in the shadows, even in supposedly friendly territory. To deal harshly with even the most minor slips in secrecy or discretion. And he did not employ the available electronic systems, no matter how much easier they would have made communication between his far-flung network and his mountaintop aerie.
When necessary and prudent, Nabiin summoned several of his top commanders for a strategy session. In person, carefully concealed, with intricate steps taken so as not to raise the suspicions of some intelligence agency somewhere. Just such a meeting was now playing out before the Prophet.
“The Chinese continue to expand their facilities in Gwadar,” reported Farian Gurmani, one of the two men standing in the back of the chamber. “Their submarine piers will handle at least six vessels at a time, even including nuclear-powered ones. And they continue to construct facilities for their surface fleet. Especially impressive are the ones for their aircraft carriers.”
Nabiin nodded. “Good, good. It is as Allah wishes.”
A slender, hawk-faced man seated on a cushion to Nabiin’s right suddenly raised both hands in consternation. Gurmani and the other man tensed. A slight move of Nabiin’s index finger told them to allow the man to speak.
“Forgive me, Master,” Beren Sheedi interjected. He represented the Balochs of Wuristan, the nomadic people who clawed life from the sandy plateau region where Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan slammed together. “I do not understand how Chinese in-roads into my own homeland could possibly be Allah’s will. And certainly not when they persecute our Uyghur and Hui brothers in Xinjiang. Please help me understand.”
Nabiin looked sideways at Sheedi for a long moment. No one in the room breathed. Then the Prophet spoke as if addressing a particularly slow child. “I will explain, then. It is written that it is better to stand aside and allow the jackal to worry the tiger. They will both grow tired and thus become easier prey. Be assured, the Chinese are unwittingly doing our bidding. Allah’s bidding. They are making our Hindu neighbors very nervous and, meanwhile, effectively keeping the American dog at bay. And that further assures that none of them will hear the subtle rustlings of our movement until our adversaries have been stalked and speared.”
“I now understand, Master,” Beren Sheedi said humbly, dropping his head. “Thank you for answering my ignorant question.”
Nabiin ignored the man’s obvious groveling.
“Now, someone tell me, where is the report from our Sudanese banker friend? What was his name?”
“Phillip Tong,” Gurmani answered quickly, proudly. The Prophet thought highly of his followers who could supply correct and immediate answers to his abrupt and most unanticipated questions. Gurmani would have shoved his own mother aside to be the first to respond to his master. “He reports that the payments are in place, as are the orders for the participants. This we have been able to confirm. Our operative in New York has also been especially efficient and effective to this point as well. Clearly, your meeting with him...”
Gurmani paused, assaying Nabiin’s reaction to the information. The Prophet had a slight smile on his face, a good sign. A frown could portend fatal results. Gurmani went on.
“Also, I am most pleased to report, Master, that the Ocean Mystery operation was conducted precisely as planned. The ship has been taken, effectively concealed, and is now being moved to the island for investigation. And in monitoring the usual channels, it appears no one has even missed the ship to this point.”
Nabiin nodded slowly and rubbed his chin. The smile behind his beard was noticeably larger, approving. “It is good. The plan is proceeding as intended. Soon now the infidels will feel our wrath. And by then, it will be far too late for them to do anything about it.”
Nabiin smiled and then slowly rose. He stretched and walked around the confined room, his hands clenched behind his back. Then he pointed to a large map hung on the far wall of the cave room, illuminated by lights recessed into the granite wall. And he began to preach in an odd, sing-song voice.
“The Yawm al-Qiyamah, the Last Judgment, is at hand. All of the signs written in the holy Qur’an foretell it. The Hadith in the words of Muhammad teaches that there will be a time of great tribulation. The faithful will be required to come through the fires of purification. The infidels will ultimately fall to our swords. At last, it is time for the final Jihad!”
Nabiin’s voice rose in pitch as he ranted on. He was practically screaming when he finished with, “The Al-Malhama Al-Kubra, the Great Battle of the End Times, is at last about to rage across the planet. The Mahdi’s return is near. You are leaders of his army. And I...I am his Prophet.”
7
The dawn was little more than a bare glimmer of shimmering gold on the eastern horizon when an impossibly big ship appeared, virtually wiping away the rising orb. It was a massive tanker, steaming confidently straight and true, far from the normal shipping routes. But not far enough off to raise anyone’s curiosity. There could be any number of reasons why such a vessel might deviate from the usual tanker superhighway. Maintenance. A pickup from one of the smaller backwater refineries. Delivery to one of the out-of-the-way storage facilities in the region.
Now, though, if anyone was watching, the tanker appeared to be heading straight for a little group of vessels that had been sitting in one spot for the past five hours or so. The group of gunboats and the much larger research ship seemed to be waiting patiently, bobbing easily in the gentle swell of a mostly calm sea. The tanker, the Persian Star—in no apparent hurry—steamed ever closer, finally slowing to a stop only a few hundred meters away. The towering sides of her dark-green hull continued to blot out the rising sun and dwarfed the Ocean Mystery.
Watching through a porthole on the research vessel’s lower deck, Yves Monagnad needed only a moment to conclude that this was no chance encounter, that the captain of the tanker had not simply grown curious and steamed over for a closer look. No, this was clearly a planned rendezvous. The captain of the Ocean Mystery was in a situation with which he was unaccustomed: not in charge. Instead, he was now locked in a storage compartment on his own ship, confined with most of his crew and frustratingly unable to figure out where he was or what was happening or how he might regain control. The abrupt appearance of the tanker only heightened his sense of powerlessness.
Monagnad gritted his teeth as he watched the four gunboats that had seized his ship. As if preplanned, they motored over and snuggled up against the high-sided tanker like piglets at the teats of a mother hog. They all but disappeared once they settled in against the big ship’s bulk.
A light went off in the experienced captain’s head. Monagnad now understood how the gunboats had managed to come all the way from Iran without being detected by any of the world’s navies, each of which had a heightened interest in what was happening in this region thanks to Iran’s aggressiveness. The gunboats had once again hidden themselves in the shadow of their mother hen. Radar would show only one massive return and satellite photographs would show one image unless someone looked very closely. Even an inquisitive warship would n
eed to swim dangerously close before being able to make out the gunboats.
In minutes, the Ocean Mystery was also snuggly tied up alongside. Her mast did not even reach the massive tanker’s main deck. Green tarps and netting thrown down from the tanker quickly covered the smaller ship, obscuring it from all but a very close-up observer. At sea, other ships typically would not approach to within a couple miles of these ocean-going behemoths, afraid of being run down if the vessel suddenly shifted course. From that distance, the Persian Star would look just like the rest of her overly large tanker sisters. Ocean Mystery and the tiny gunboats were virtually invisible against the dark green background.
The door to the storage compartment was suddenly unlocked behind him and thrown open. Armed men, waving their weapons but remaining silent, ushered Monagnad and his crew out of the room, up a stairway, and onto Ocean Mystery’s main deck. Next, they were directed up a steep Jacob’s ladder that led them onto the decks of the Persian Star.
From the high perch of the tanker’s massive main deck, Monagnad now had a clear view to the horizon in all directions. Nothing but deep-blue sea joining a cerulean-blue sky at the horizon. But not another vessel to be seen. They were all alone in this watery world.
A short, rather fat man dressed in rumpled combat fatigues emerged from a hatch in the superstructure and strode to where the group of captives were herded. An ugly burn scar was only partially hidden by a scraggly gray-black beard, disfiguring the man’s mottled red face.
In his left hand, the man displayed a thick wad of passports. “Line the infidels up,” he ordered the guards. “I want to see what we really have here. Maybe we can figure out what this spy boat is doing. It would be much easier for everyone if you just admitted you were spying,” he said as he turned to Monagnad. “Wouldn’t it, Captain?”
The Ocean Mystery’s skipper stared at the short man and calmly answered, “We are an oceanographic research ship and we are working in international waters on a United Nations-sanctioned mission. You and your thugs have committed piracy and kidnapping on the high seas. I demand that you release my crew and my ship.”
“I am General Farad Babak of the Houthi Ansar Allah,” the khaki-clad man answered with an evil grin. “And you are my prisoners of war. That is until I find that you are spies. Then you will die.”
Chas ben-Wabi, the UN Director of Ocean Conservation, would not be so willingly cowed. He did not consider himself to be under the command of Yves Monagnad or this scruffy bunch of bandits.
He stopped, put his fists on his rather prominent hips, stuck out his chin defiantly, and flatly refused to go any farther.
“Enough of this herding us about like barnyard animals! I demand to speak with the captain of this vessel! Are you not aware of who I am? I will see you all in prison!”
One of the guards, an impassive expression on his face, stopped, stepped over to the short little man, and, using the barrel of his pistol, slapped ben-Wabi on the side of his head, knocking the startled United Nations official to the deck. Then, with a knee in the man’s back, he bound his hands painfully tight and then stuffed a rag in his mouth. With a powerful jerk, he pulled ben-Wabi to his feet. Blood streaked down the UN official’s face and dribbled onto his immaculate white shirt.
General Babak riffled through the passports as he strutted in front of the crew, finally stopping in front of the ship’s cook. Anni beth-Sensi was the only female in the Ocean Mystery’s small crew.
“She will be first,” he said. “Take her below.”
The young cook screamed in terror as the guards dragged her toward the open hatch.
Babak took a couple of steps. Pointing at two of Monagnad’s crew, he shouted angrily, “You two! You are Israeli Jew spies.” He threw the passports on the deck and drew his pistol.
The two started to protest and Monagnad pushed his way to protect his men. One of the guards smashed the Ocean Mystery’s captain to the deck as two shots rang out. Monagnad had a faint impression through a pain-filled haze of the two falling to the deck and then being dragged to the gunwale, where they were tossed over the side like garbage.
The guards, without another word, shoved the prisoners toward an open hatch in the white superstructure. The crew, completely cowed by the extreme violence they had just witnessed and in fear of what awaited them in the near future, made their way past the complicated maze of multi-colored piping that snaked around the main deck.
They were shoved through the hatch and then directed into a small room with the others. The door slammed shut. Monagnad could hear the lock turn behind him with unsettling finality.
Monagnad was furious beyond words but he shakily complied. For now, he was powerless to even help himself, let alone save his crew.
Then the screaming started, high-pitched and blood-chilling. Somewhere very close by.
Only an hour after the tanker had arrived on the scene, the closely bound flotilla was underway and steaming west. There was nothing left in this lonely little bit of ocean to tell that anything had taken place here, that a state-of-the-art research vessel and its crew, captured by gun-wielding pirates, had been taken under the wing of a mysterious tanker ship and led away into the bright day. Nothing. Not even a lingering eddy.
However, a hundred feet beneath the surface, three yellow, unmanned mini-subs had ceased their slow circling and pointed their blunt noses west, faithfully following the acoustic beacon attached to Ocean Mystery’s keel, a device that was still broadcasting its homing signal. Like faithful pet dogs, the little subs would follow the electromagnetic scent of their master until the research ship broadcast a rendezvous command.
Or until they ran out of fuel.
Ψ
Bill Beaman gazed out the window of the Airbus 330 as the Turkish Air flight from Istanbul made its final approach into Islamabad International. He always got a window seat when he flew commercial. He wanted to know the lay of the land, to stay updated on where they were, what there was to be seen way down there below them, in the unlikely event he was called upon to do something sudden and violent. And he hated people in search of a restroom crawling over him in the dead of night.
He also enjoyed watching the scenery. Even at five in the morning, the Pakistani capital city glittered brightly off in the distance, like a bejeweled belt stretched around the bulk of dark mountains to the north.
The officially retired US Navy SEAL half listened as the flight attendant rattled on, urging the flight load of tourists and businessmen to carefully fill out the customs entry documentation. He sipped the last few drops of the very good Turkish coffee and sat back in the surprisingly comfortable seat. At least now he could bill “Uncle Sugar” for business class accommodations, which included unlimited cups of the dark coffee, a couple of satisfying meals, and a selection of popular movies—albeit with dialogue in no language Beaman spoke—on the seat-back video display. Even better, he would not be required to jump out of the perfectly good aircraft before it landed, as so often had been the case in his previous line of work.
Beaman smiled as he remembered the last time he had flown into a foreign country. With any luck, this time people would not be shooting at him as he disembarked. Good thing, too. His only weapon would be his tourist passport or hard-sided laptop computer case.
A good solid bump brought him out of his reverie as the plane bounced onto the tarmac. Then the snug tug of his seatbelt as the pilot braked aggressively to swing off the runway and onto a taxiway.
Beaman grinned and said out loud, “Well, once again we have cheated death.”
Nobody around him even smiled. None of them apparently spoke English. And the flight attendant, the lovely one with the perfect body and dark, seductive smile, was strapped into the jump seat at the front of the plane.
Well, Beaman said, this time to himself, I suppose it is time to get to work. Admiral Donnegan didn’t yank me out of the Peace and Plenty Bar and fly my ass halfway around the world to relive my past glorious exploits.
The plane eased into a parking spot without hesitation. Then the jetway bumped up against the side at the forward door. Almost immediately the herd of bleary-eyed cattle onboard the Airbus poured into the aisle and started pushing toward the exit. Bill Beaman grabbed his carry-on bag and computer case and then joined the impatient flow off the plane and toward customs.
There the equally bleary-eyed official hardly glanced at Beaman’s tourist passport before stamping the visa, asking him in brutal English if he carried any illegal drugs, weapons, explosives, or agricultural products, and then motioning him on toward baggage claim. Beaman had long suppressed the urge to answer that yes, he did have a carry-on full of C-4, a computer bag crammed with heroin, and a shiny Granny White apple in his jacket pocket. But not today. He was on the job. But how silly! What self-respecting smuggler would answer affirmatively to such a stupid question.
Beaman was surprised when his checked bag was already on the carousel, rotating back toward the opening to make another circuit. He ran to catch up with it before it disappeared, pleased the sprint did not leave him winded. The effects of all that bar-stool sitting, boat riding, red snapper fishing, cold-concoction consumption, fried-seafood-eating and post-midnight bedtime hours had been effectively offset by a habitual exercise regimen.
He stepped out of the international arrivals area into the crowd of tour groups and curbside family reunions. The big SEAL paused for a moment, pretending to be looking for a cab or hotel shuttle, but he was simultaneously getting a feel for the environment and watching for the person who was supposed to be waiting for him. Tom Donnegan had told him that a contact would meet him at the doorway from the international arrivals lobby. However, no one in the vicinity seemed to be looking for a beat-up old warrior.
There was a door to a men’s room off to the left. Convenient. That was one particularly urgent problem he could solve rather quickly. It would make thinking and observing much easier, too.
Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) Page 6
