Assassin's Silence

by Ward Larsen

  “They’re into Syrian airspace,” Sorensen said.

  The jet was so far behaving normally, holding true to its filed track and level at the requested altitude of fifteen thousand feet. A conscientious crew undertaking an ordinary flight.

  “So what are they after?” Coltrane said, voicing the question on everyone’s mind. “Dubai could be a target. Banking and tourism, the tallest building in the world. We have the forged identity operation, so maybe this was sourced in Iran—there are a lot of Shiites who don’t like the Emirati.”

  “No,” said Sorensen. “I don’t think we should fall into the trap that this is state-sponsored. Half the characters involved are not even from the region.”

  “She’s right,” Davis agreed. “This is terrorism, but I don’t see religious or political aims. We’re watching something else.” He looked at a projected flight path that spanned hundreds of miles of empty desert, sand and hills and widely dispersed villages.

  “Sir,” said a comm tech near the front of the room. “I have CENTCOM requesting a secure link.”

  “What do they want?” Coltrane asked.

  “They have a patch to the C-17 on the ground in Lebanon. Apparently the man we were watching earlier wants to talk.”

  Looks were exchanged all around the room.

  “The Israeli wants to talk to us?” Coltrane asked rhetorically. “All right, maybe he can shed some light on this.”

  Coltrane chose a speaker option so that everyone could listen in.

  “This is Thomas Coltrane, director of the CIA. Am I speaking with the former Edmund Deadmarsh?”

  There was a significant pause, longer than necessary for the cross-continent link. “You are,” the assassin answered.

  Behind Coltrane the mood of confusion only heightened, no one in the room having ever heard the name before.

  The man who answered to the name of Deadmarsh said, “I assume you know by now that the jet you’re after was not contained here?”

  “Yes, we’re tracking it.”

  “Where is it heading?”

  Coltrane paused.

  The voice from Lebanon said, “Look, I’m sure you’ve been watching this place for the last thirty minutes, which means you’ve been watching me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you not convinced that I’m on your side?”

  “I’m convinced,” Coltrane said, “that you have some serious issues with these people. If I better understood your motivation I might be more inclined to—”

  “No time, Director. Where is the airplane now?”

  Coltrane was silent for only a moment. He relented. “They’ve flown east into Syria, and we think the jet is bound for Saudi airspace. They’ve filed a flight plan that runs all the way to Dubai. Can you think of any targets along that route?”

  There was another hesitation that Coltrane read as thoughtfulness.

  “I might know, at least in a general way. The details would take too long to explain, but I think it relates to oil supply. These people have made bets in financial markets that the price of crude oil is going to rise.”

  Coltrane glanced at Sorensen and could almost see the puzzle pieces linking in her head. She too was remembering the recent plays in energy markets they’d uncovered, all related to a Barclays account in the name of David Slaton—the man they were presumably talking to right now. That complication, evident as it was, had to be swept aside. There was room for but one question.

  Where would the strike occur?

  Analysts went to work, and in no time had assimilated the idea of a strike against oil assets into their pixelated big picture. On the central wall-mounted map a geologic survey of oil reserves was quickly laid under the aircraft’s flight path. Every set of eyes in the room went to one spot.

  “Christ almighty!” said Coltrane. “That’s got to be it!”

  SIXTY-NINE

  An accident of nature, the Ghawar oil field of Saudi Arabia was born some 200 million years ago. Shaped as a convex ridge, its Jurassic limestone reaches over one hundred miles south from Ain Dar in the general outline of a sleek nose-diving bird. The shelf beneath, a perfect geologic fusion of permeability and porosity, is ideally suited to the creation and retention of low-sulfur, high-quality hydrocarbons. Since first coming on line in 1951, Ghawar has produced nearly two-thirds of all Saudi Arabia’s oil, and even after sixty years the field shows no sign of exhaustion. The managing corporation, state-owned Saudi Aramco, tirelessly pumps seawater, steam, and carbon dioxide into the earth to force more than five million barrels a day to the surface, this representing over 6 percent of the world’s crude output. Fitting to its Jurassic origin, Ghawar is a monster without equal, and undeniably the largest oil field in the world.

  In the Langley command center Ghawar was displayed as an elongated vertical blob on the map, and of prime interest was what perfectly intersected the oil basin’s northernmost border near the place called Ain Dar—the projected flight path of CB68H.

  “That’s the target,” Davis agreed.

  “They’re going to irradiate the world’s biggest oil field,” Coltrane said aloud and with some deliberation, clearly trying to wrap his mind around the idea. “It’s a hundred miles long. Could they contaminate something that size?” The director shifted his gaze to Dr. Stan Zimmerman, a physicist from DS&T, Langley’s Directorate of Science and Technology, who’d been summoned after the confirmation of radiological involvement in Al Qutayfah. “Could the amount of material we’re talking about cover such a large area?”

  Zimmerman, a bearded, professorial type, appeared thoughtful before answering. “We have to think in terms of radiation density. There’s no way to tell exactly how the contamination will disperse—it depends on the method of release and atmospheric factors. As Mr. Davis has already suggested, wind, humidity, and precipitation can bring great variances in coverage. Putting that aside, the amount of radiation is static. Given what we know, I’ve estimated these sources will contain between fifteen and twenty thousand terabecquerels. Confine that to a small area, and the localized readings would be extreme. On the other hand, if these people spread that amount of material over an area the size of Ghawar, or even half of it, the local levels of radiation would be modest. Unfortunately, the impact in this scenario is far greater. Fear and uncertainty would reign, and every hospital and clinic within five hundred miles would find itself overwhelmed. Oil production would cease immediately, and the subsequent decontamination process—that would be measured in years.”

  Davis said, “In the military we call it area denial. You can perform the same mission with land mines or chemical weapons. The idea is to keep an opposing force out, to shut down their ability to operate in a specific geographic region. We’re looking at the same strategy applied to the world’s most vital commodity.”

  “So that’s it,” Coltrane surmised. “These people silently invested in oil markets, and now they’re going to shut down the world’s largest source of crude for years.”

  “Supply and demand disruption, inelastic prices, fear,” said Davis. “That’s textbook economic terrorism.”

  “It leaves no option,” Coltrane announced. “We have to shoot this airplane down.”

  “I’d be careful there,” said Davis. “Shoot a Sidewinder into that monster, and you’ll get a helluva midair fireball.”

  “He’s right,” agreed Zimmerman. “An explosion at altitude would create a significant cloud of radioactive particles that will carry on the wind.”

  “But it’s the desert, for God’s sake,” countered Coltrane.

  “I’ve flown quite a bit over this corner of the world,” said Davis. “Parts of Saudi Arabia look like the moon. But you’ve also got villages, oil workers, Bedouin. Shoot the jet down anywhere on that track and people are going to die.”

  “He is correct,” Zimmerman seconded. “Contamination of this magnitude cannot be contained. Wind and rain will drive it to populated areas. You can expect near-term fatalities, and s
erious health issues for decades to come. The only question is how many will suffer. Hundreds? Thousands? If you shoot that airplane down now, you lose control of the outcome.”

  “So what the hell do we do?” the director asked in a raised voice, clearly nearing the end of his tether. “The House of Saud will pop an aneurism if they hear about this!”

  “Probably a bigger one if they don’t,” Sorensen commented.

  Zimmerman said, “To begin, I think Mr. Davis has a point. We must have a meteorologist involved. It’s important to know the winds aloft in order to mitigate risk.”

  “He’s on the way,” said Coltrane feebly.

  Davis remained quiet. He stared at the map, but unlike the rest of the room he was not seeing oil fields or towns, or even the floating dot that represented CB68H. He was looking south of the course line, toward the far end of the Ghawar field. He then alternated his gaze to a secondary screen that was still transmitting from Wujah Al Hajar Air Base in Lebanon.

  “There might be a way,” he said.

  An exasperated Coltrane said, “A way to what?”

  “A way to take this airplane down without people on the ground getting hurt. Without the radiation being released anywhere over Saudi Arabia.”

  “You do that, mister, and I’ll put you in for a citation.”

  Davis frowned, but didn’t bother to say that he already had a drawer full of citations—both the kind you wanted and the kind you didn’t.

  “Do you think we can trust him?” Davis asked.

  “Who?” responded Coltrane.

  He pointed to the screen where three white dots stood next to a C-17 in Lebanon. “The Israeli.”

  “What good is he now?”

  Davis explained his idea. It was radical. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before.

  “Could that work?” Coltrane asked.

  Davis’ eyes remained locked on the feed from Lebanon. “You’ve got a lot of fancy gadgets in this room. Right now, they’re leading to nothing but paralysis. You need to take the initiative. And you need to realize that today’s little war is like any other … in the end, it always comes down to a grunt with a rifle.”

  SEVENTY

  Slaton listened intently to Langley’s plan, and he had to admit surprise. He’d expected them to simply shoot the aircraft down, because in his experience, Americans always went for firepower. Shock and awe. What they proposed was quite the opposite, a plan requiring precision and nuance. After three minutes the final question beamed halfway around the world.

  “Can you do it?” Director Coltrane asked.

  The plan was audacious. It was stricken with risk, and Slaton would have only one chance to get it right. Which was perhaps why he liked it.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Nothing like that’s ever been tried. I’m willing to give it a shot, but I do have one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  Slaton did, and then he handed the comm handset over to Lieutenant Colonel Bryan. The ensuing conversation lasted thirty seconds, the Mississippian clearly not liking what he heard. Slaton registered a second voice that was not Coltrane’s crackle from the handset speaker, and Bryan was red in the face when he hung up.

  He said, “Whoever you are, mister, you’ve got some pull.” Turning toward his copilot, he said, “Fire her up. We’re flyin’ again.”

  “What?” the captain replied.

  Bryan’s hands were already working switches. “Our guest here has been given complete operational control of this aircraft.”

  “Where are we going?” the copilot asked, his eyes going back and forth between his aircraft commander and a stranger with a rifle—as if not sure who he was asking.

  Bryan said, “Our immediate orders are to get airborne, head east, and establish communications with an AWACS air battle manager.”

  “Air battle?” said the former Marine. “I like the sound of that. And here I thought we just hauled trash so other guys could do the fighting.”

  “The Air Guard ain’t no flying club, mister. When we get back stateside, you can tell all your buddies at your cushy Southwest day job what an adventure you had.”

  “Less talk, more movement,” Slaton instructed from behind.

  Both pilots turned a shoulder in time to see their jump-seater cradle his rifle, eject the magazine, and jack four rounds of ammo inside. Six minutes later the C-17 was rumbling down the runway into a darkening night.

  The big jet was no more than a fading shadow when a convoy of three limousines—all bearing diplomatic license plates—careened in from a dirt road and skidded to a stop in the middle of the chipped concrete runway. A trim man dressed in a dinner jacket and powder blue Hermès tie got out, took one look at the sky, and slammed both hands on the roof of the car.

  * * *

  After a heated discussion with CENTCOM, it was decided that the Saudi Air Force, competent as it might be, would be roundly ignored. Two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors, on temporary deployment from Langley Air Force Base to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, were quickly fitted with an internal load of air-to-air missiles and their guns charged with a full quota of 20mm high-explosive incendiary rounds. Eighteen minutes after receiving the order to scramble, the fighters were shrieking down the two-mile-long Runway 34 in full afterburner, each trailing plumes of orange fire fifty feet long.

  The Raptors’ call sign was Ruger 22, and the pilots, much like the crew of Reach 41, knew little about where they were going, and nothing about what they would face when they got there. The orders had been simple: load two jets for bear, scramble, and fly southwest. From that point, Ruger 22 flight was to make contact on a discreet air battle frequency for further instructions. To the pilots, a major and her first lieutenant wingman, it was a mission of utter mystery. There had been no briefing, no preflight planning, and no rules of engagement had been discussed or even alluded to. This void of planning only reinforced to the pilots the importance of their mission—whatever it might be.

  There was no hesitation as the jets turned northwest. Both remained in full burner a little longer than necessary, credit that to the adrenaline rush, and they climbed quite literally into the stratosphere, leveling off at fifty-two thousand feet. There they established supercruise, a blistering Mach 1.7, and contacted a U.S. Air Force AWACS airborne controller. The AWACS had been diverted from a training mission two-hundred miles north, and a pair of KC-135 tankers had also received an invitation to the party—or more accurately, what was fast becoming an intricate aerial ballet.

  Ruger 22 steered a vector given by the AWACS, and soon both Raptors trained their powerful APG-77 radars on a lone target that was traveling, in relative terms, very low and very slow. The more the fighter pilots saw and heard, the more they realized they were involved in something exceptional. This would be a mission that did not exist in any manual, nor resemble anything they had learned in flight training.

  Tonight, they realized, would be pure improvisation.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Jack Kelly cornered Sorensen in the Operations Center. “Boss, we need to talk.”

  Like everyone else, Sorensen was fixated on the aerial spectacle half a world away. “It’ll have to wait, Jack.”

  “No—this can’t wait.”

  She gave him her best this better be good look. The worry on his face held fast, and they stepped into the hallway.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “There are eight.”

  “Eight what?”

  “Eight people in this organization.”

  Her head cocked ever so slightly to one side. “And how did you come to this conclusion?”

  Kelly waved a paper in his hand. “The dental clinic in Ahvaz—the forgery mill that connected the other seven. I went backwards and studied all the data NSA got from that hack. The original seven were grouped together because their docs were paid for all at once and sent in one shipment. But I found another order one month earlier, a single identity that was paid for through the s
ame account. I’m betting whoever it is must be responsible for this whole scheme. He ordered an identity for himself.”

  “Okay … that’s good, Jack. That’s very good. Do we have a name?”

  “Arslan Omer, a Turk if you believe the document. When I ran the name it came up blank in the database except for one thing.”

  Sorensen waited through a pause.

  “Whoever it is entered the United States two weeks ago at Dulles. There’s no record that he’s left the country, so … apparently he’s right here in our backyard.”

  * * *

  Tuncay studied his navigation display and noted the distance remaining to their initial drop point. “One hundred and seventy miles,” he said.

  “Twenty-nine minutes,” Walid replied.

  “No, it will take slightly longer,” Tuncay said from the left seat. “Remember, we must slow to two hundred and fifty knots for the delivery.”

  The copilot expelled a long breath. “I envy Ben-Meir and Ghazi. As soon as we took off, their share was complete. They are probably halfway to paradise by now.”

  A surprised Tuncay regarded his second, but quickly realized that the word paradise had not been used in a religious sense. His Druze copilot was as secular as they came.

  Walid tugged his collar. “It is warm in here.”

  “So cool it off.”

  Walid reached up and adjusted the cabin temperature, but not without a wary glance aft. “That stuff makes me nervous. What good will money do either of us if we die of radiation sickness?”

  “You heard what Ghazi said. As long as we keep clear of the holding tank we are safe.”

  “And what else would he say?” Walid grumbled.

  The jet struck a wave of turbulence, bouncing gently on the cool night air. With the idea planted freshly in his head, Tuncay imagined their deadly cargo sloshing in the holding tank. He was every bit as uncomfortable as Walid, but he tried not to show it. Would he truly see his Mallorcan dream? He had long ago diverted his advance payment to three separate accounts, and twice that much awaited. Perhaps more now that fewer of the group remained. Five million? Ten? How much was enough to assume such risk?