by David Nees
R ashid al-Din Said was worried. His calls to Herr Aebischer were not answered or returned. He didn’t leave any messages. His number was blocked from Aebischer’s phone but Aebischer always took his calls and now he wasn’t. Rashid also knew that when Aebischer saw a blocked number he knew it was one of his more important clients. Something was wrong.
He was sitting in his office in Riyadh in one of the high-rise buildings along King Fahd Boulevard. It was a block from the Saudi Stock Exchange which suited Rashid’s purposes just fine. Ten days had gone by since he had visited Herr Aebischer. His calls to tell the Swiss banker to disperse the funds were not answered. Now he was being held up.
After two days with no reply, Rashid placed a call to Jabbar Khalid in Frankfort.
“Jabbar, something is not right. I haven’t heard back from our banker. The funds haven’t moved yet.”
“What do you want us to do, Sayyid?”
“What tools do you have in your possession to do the task?”
“We have side arms, automatic weapons, but only one rocket launcher.”
“Ammunition?”
“We have enough.” Jabbar paused before adding, “But the other groups have only their individual weapons and some grenades. There are no explosives.”
Rashid thought about what Jabbar had told him. His grand plan was in danger of becoming a small terrorist attack. The cells could do some damage but his vision was for something much larger. What had gone wrong?
“I will call you back. Put everyone on alert. The plans may be compromised and we may have to act quickly.” He ended the conversation.
Rashid sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. He had a calculating mind. He was analytical and thorough. That was how he had made more millions out of the millions he had inherited. He was faced with a problem. He needed to solve it.
He picked up his phone again.
“Da,” said a guttural voice on the other end in Russian.
“Hello, Yevgeni Kuznetsov?”
“Who wants to know?” The man answered in English.
“My name is Rashid. I sent some funds to our Swiss contact, Herr Aebischer. I can’t reach him and I’m trying to determine if you received the payment.”
“Nyet. I have assembled the list of what was ordered but have not received any funds.”
“Herr Aebischer is out of communication at the moment. I would like you to release the order and I will personally see that the funds are transferred to your account.”
“It is not possible. I don’t work like that.”
“I assure you I am good for the money, many times more than the funds required.”
“That is not the issue. I don’t move product without payment. If I do, I may be out the product and the money. If I hold on to the product at least I’m not out of both.”
“This is for a very important cause Yevgeni Kuznetsov. The goods must be delivered without delay.”
“Rashid, I don’t know you or your cause. I also don’t care to know about your cause. It is not mine. My cause is getting paid for what I deliver…before I deliver.”
“I can transfer the funds you ask for today. Just give me the bank numbers.”
“No, no. That is foolish and you should know it. Direct transfer of large amounts will set up a clear trail between you and me. I am not anxious for that to happen. Herr Aebischer is a middle man for a reason. If he is not available then find another one who can establish himself with me and we can do business. Otherwise we have nothing to talk about.”
“You would turn your back on millions of dollars?”
Kuznetsov sighed. “I will sell the goods to someone, probably sooner than later. I am turning my back on the complications of acting foolishly as you request. Call me when you have found Herr Aebischer or his replacement.” He ended the call.
Rashid sat with a scowl on his face. He was not accustomed to insubordination, to people not deferring to his wishes. The Russian was direct and rude. It was something Rashid disliked. They were so uncultured, the Russians, especially the gangsters.
Back in the States, the NSA computers, coded to detect key words, spit out the transcription of the phone call. The words “automatic weapons” and “rocket launchers” triggered the action. The computer further analyzed the text and the algorithm decided a human should review the conversation.
The information was forwarded to the CIA and the name “Jabbar” cross referenced to the terrorist in the Frankfurt cell. The NSA was asked to monitor both phone numbers and pull any calls made on them.
Rashid’s second call was then intercepted and the CIA now was alerted to the names, “Rashid” and “Yevgeni Kuznetsov”.
The DDO was alerted and passed the information down to Henry Mason’s boss who called Henry into his office.
“You’ve got an operation going on to try to interrupt a pending terror operation.” He said to Henry. “We’ve just intercepted two phone calls from a Rashid. One to Jabbar in Frankfurt and one to a Yevgeni Kuznetsov in Russia. The good news is it looks like you’ve successfully interrupted the money. The bad news is that this Rashid may be ordering the cells to attack with what weapons they already have. How much damage can they do?”
Henry lifted his palms in the air. “Who knows? We’ve alerted the Brits, the French and Germans to the pending operation. I’ve got an operative in Frankfurt to disrupt any attack by Jabbar. But I can’t cover all the possible targets.”
“Nor should you have to.”
“I just want to make sure that Jabbar is taken down. That will set back future operations for some time, if nothing else.”
“You’ve got a full green light on that. Just stay below the radar so we don’t ruffle German feathers. If they can do the job, so much the better.”
“I’ve instructed my operative to do that.”
Henry went back to his office to call Jane with an update.
Chapter 47
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J abbar Khalid had no illusions. Every action he took might be his last. It was what was expected of a jihadist. He didn’t expect to live a long life, but he did hope it would be glorious with victories for Allah against the infidel. He trusted in Rashid’s vision of Europe falling to Islam. It was soft, corrupt, and lazy. The leaders would not defend their people and only made excuses which made Jabbar’s work easier. Now the time had come to improvise. Something had gone wrong. Maybe the financier had been captured. If so, no one could feel secure. They all might be exposed.
Jabbar called his men together. There were six of them in the apartment. They never went out together, only in twos or threes. Each of them had connections to three or four other men giving Jabbar a team of twenty to set up an attack.
“We will not be getting the weapons we were promised. The money man has been compromised.” Jabbar paused for effect. “We all may have been compromised.”
“What do we do?” One of the men asked.
“We will act with what we have. I will use the rocket launcher and attack the planes. The rest of you must organize your men to attack the terminal and kill as many as you can. Leave yourself an escape route, but know that you are mujahedeen and must be willing to die for your faith.”
“I have enough explosives to make two vests,” another said.
“Do that. Use two of your men.”
“Will their families be taken care of, Sayyid?”
“Yes. I will see to it. You must prepare them for their sacrifice. We will honor them before they set out.”
The man nodded. Jabbar could see that he felt the weight of his task. He also guessed the man was privately glad to not be asked to make the immediate sacrifice. Attacking the terminal was risky enough and would probably get most of them killed, but at least a warrior had a chance to escape or to go down fighting. The suicide bombers could not get lost in the adrenaline rush of battle. They could only take heart in knowing that they would produce many casualties, maybe more than those who attacked w
ith machine guns.
A day later Jabbar received a call from London. The caller told him that the police had raided the terror cell. They hit two apartments and one house in London’s East End. Some of the men were captured; the caller had just managed to escape and was now on the run and in hiding.
“They knew where we were,” he complained to Jabbar. “There must be an informant.”
“Maybe. Our banker has been compromised, so the information may have come from him.”
After encouraging the man, Jabbar hung up. He turned to the others in the apartment.
“We must go into action now. The London group was just raided. We may be next. We have to assume the authorities know about us and are ready to act. We leave tonight. You must disperse and collect your men. We will attack tomorrow in middle of the morning. The airport will be busy, many people, and planes on the runway waiting to take off. We will make a big strike. It will be a glorious blow for Allah.”
The six men were to divide up between Terminals One and Two. The two suicide bombers would go to Terminal Two, the smaller one, and separate in the lobby. They would trigger their vests at 10:30 am. The other four teams would infiltrate the lobby of Terminal One and at 10:30 open fire on the crowds. Drivers would wait at the drop-off level to give the shooters a chance to escape after they had emptied their magazines. Once their automatic weapons, shortened AKs-47s, were out of ammunition, they would drop them and rely on their hand guns to fight their way out of the terminal to the waiting cars.
Jabbar would go to the west end of the airport on the Airportring Road, if the wind was from the north or east. The planes would be stacking up on that end and there was an open parking area for plane enthusiasts. He could wait there to attack. He had a driver with him and if their escape was compromised, there were hundreds of acres of woods behind him that they could get into and make their way unseen to the south. They could go for miles in the forest. Even without a car, they would have a good chance to escape.
Roland was on watch late that night when he saw two of the men leave. He woke Dan.
“We got some of the marks leaving. It’s late. Something’s up.”
Dan was instantly awake. He watched with Roland as the men scanned the street and then slipped out of the doorway, trying to keep in the shadows. There were no lights on in the apartment, but the two men could see occasional flashes of light.
“Flashlights. Something’s up for sure,” Dan said. “You follow those two.”
Just then two more men eased out of the building’s front entrance.
“I don’t think any of them are Jabbar,” Dan almost to himself. “I’m going down on the street.”
Dan and Roland grabbed their gear bags containing their weapons and headed downstairs. Both carried side arms under their jackets. The bags held their M4 carbines with silencers and 1x4 30mm tactical scopes mounted along with extra magazines. The weapons would allow for accurate shooting up close and out to 300 meters.
At the doorway they split up. Roland turned left and hurried to follow the first group that had departed the building. Dan waited in the shadows of the doorway for a couple of minutes. When no more came out, he walked across the street and ducked down the alley between apartment buildings. Might be a back door and Jabbar may be extra cautious. Sure enough, at the back of the building Dan peeked around the corner and saw two men leaving. They walked away from him down the alleyway. Dan followed quietly.
Chapter 48
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U nder the street light Dan recognized Jabbar Khalid. After noting the make and color of the car, he retraced his steps and got into his own vehicle. Dan had no idea whether or not the BND was aware of the movement of the terrorists. He had seen the surveillance car at the end of the block. Would they call in the activity? Would they follow one of the pairs that left the apartment? He was sure that they weren’t aware of Khalid who left via the alleyway. It was going to be up to Dan to keep track of the man.
Roland followed the two men on foot for three blocks. They got into a red Opel sedan and headed east on Glauburgstrasse. He noted the license number and ran back to get his own car. He drove as fast as he dared while watching the parked cars. Thankfully it was 3:00 am and there was little traffic on the roads. At the intersection with a grand boulevard, the Nibelungenallee, he spotted the red Opel in front of a Moroccan restaurant. Roland breathed a sigh of relief and turned the corner, slipping into a parking place along the boulevard. He adjusted the mirror on his car and sat back to wait.
Unbeknownst to both Dan and Roland, the BND did notice the third pair of men leaving in a battered VW and, after calling in to their headquarters, they began following them. The two men stopped at another apartment building and one of them got out and disappeared inside using a door key. The other drove off. The BND agents followed the car and called in the address where the passenger got out.
The local commander of the TE Directorate, which covered terrorism and organized crime, monitored the calls from the surveillance team. He thought about calling Deputy Director of the directorate but it was late at night. There didn’t seem to be an operation going on. He only knew of two men who left the building on Glauburgstrasse. It could just be the men moving into different apartments. He would monitor the activities and update the directorate office in the morning.
The man entered the apartment building and looked back through the side window at the street. He saw the surveillance car pull out to follow the VW as it drove off. He took out his phone and made a call.
“Ahmed, you are being followed.”
The driver acknowledged the call. “I’ll go to pick up the others, but we’ll go out the back and use another car. We’ll leave them watching the VW until we have completed our mission. Hakim, you make sure the two bombers are ready and continue as planned.”
Dan followed Khalid through Frankfurt. He stopped at a nondescript warehouse and went in. A few minutes later he came out with a case. It looked like it held a large weapon. The other man followed with an armload of cases. A reusable rocket launcher with multiple rounds? That had been one of the words picked up by the NSA. Dan thought about that for a moment. Going to hit the planes lining up to take off? If the others attack the terminals, he’ll be all alone out near the runways. It looked like Aebischer’s information was correct; this cell was going into action.
He pulled out his phone.
“Roland,” he said after placing the call, “What do you have?”
“Waiting at the curb. They’re in a restaurant. Maybe picking up weapons or extra men. Can’t tell yet.”
“I’m on Khalid. He’s just picked up what may be a rocket launcher with multiple rounds. I’m thinking he’ll go after the planes on the runway while the rest are attacking the terminals.”
“I’ll try to follow these guys and intercept them before they can get into action.”
“I’ll do the same with Khalid. One worry is that we don’t have eyes on two of the men.”
“Yeah. Hope the BND are on that,” Roland said.
“I’m going to call Jane and alert her. Maybe she can make sure the BND goes into action.”
“Roger that. Stay in touch.”
“You too.”
Dan hung up and called Jane. Once she woke up and listened to him, said she would have Henry call the head of the TE Directorate in Germany. He was not someone who would listen to Jane. That fact irritated her, not so much personally, but professionally. It was inefficient.
Khalid drove off and Dan started following. It was now 4:30 am. The two terrorists drove around Frankfurt in a random pattern. Probably killing time until daylight. They could be checking for tails as well. It was too risky to keep following with such little traffic to conceal his tail. Have to risk that they’ll be after the planes, not the terminals. He dropped off and headed for the airport.
He had memorized the layout and knew there was a car park on the perimeter road, at the end of the runway. It was a
place where people could watch the planes take off and land. He would position himself along the route, concealed, and wait for the car to drive by. Starting so early, hours before dawn, Dan was certain the attack would occur in the morning. Not too early. They’ll wait for the crowds to build up.
The BND assured Henry that they had the terror cell under surveillance. What they neglected to tell him was that they had only two of the six men under watch and were soon to find they were watching an empty apartment.
The terrorists had now split up into more groups. Hakim sat with the two suicide bombers, Omar and Rafik. As dawn broke through the clouds, they performed their ablutions and said their prayers. Hakim helped them into their vests and showed how to trigger them. They talked about the timing. They would exit the car at Terminal Two. After entering, they would separate and move into the crowds. At 10:30 am they would trigger their vests and be transported to heaven. Dying in jihad would mean instant access to paradise with all its attendant pleasures.
The two men were somber. They came from the slums of Baghdad and had few prospects for a better life. They had been promised money for their families. With their acts, they would secure their salvation and help for their impoverished families. Still one of them seemed to Hakim to be more nervous, even reluctant.
“Do not fear, al'akhu al'asghar,” little brother, Hakim said. He put his arm around Omar. You will feel nothing. One moment you will be in the airport, the next in paradise. Instant. Painless. I will attack with my machine gun when I hear you have departed and continue to kill the enemy. I may be killed myself and will probably die painfully. But I will be happy knowing you are well.”
He smiled at the man who gave him a half smile back.
“We will leave at 9:30 by the back door just in case the Germans put a watch on the apartment. We will use your car. I will drop you both off at 10:15 which will give you time to get through the crowds and as deep inside the terminal as you can.”
