WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  No. The unhappy fact was that he couldn’t take that chance. He’d already gone against his instincts with Boom Suparat, and that had turned out badly for everyone. Cole’s only hope of a lead was his meeting with Quraishi the next day; if that was jeopardized, then who knew what would happen?

  When Cole returned to the cabin below, his mind made up and steeled for what he had to do, he saw that al-Zayani was sleeping. He sighed; that would make it easier, at least.

  Approaching the sleeping body, Cole’s hands reached out and struck three of the nerve points on al-Zayani’s exposed skin; points which caused instant death, and al-Zayani’s eternal sleep.

  Cole’s remorse was short-lived; he couldn’t afford to have it any other way, and he immediately set about making plans to scuttle the ship.

  He would swim back to shore and – if anyone came looking for al-Zayani and his friends when they didn’t return the next night – all that would be found would be pieces of the million-dollar yacht strewn across the blue waters of the Arabian Gulf.

  And the men on board would never be seen again.

  2

  The raindrops collected on the leaves above the three men hiding in the forest, showering them repetitively every few seconds when they got too heavy.

  Jake Navarone was soaking wet, but never even noticed; his entire attention was focused on the industrial buildings which lay beyond the fence line in their own private compound.

  Navarone, Devine and Liu were nestled in the trees which bordered the camp, just a hundred yards away from the curious compound. He could see that one of the structures had a huge chimney, which belched smoke up into the cloudy sky.

  It was daytime, although the sun was struggling to break through the storm clouds above, and the valley remained dark and grey. But Navarone was now able to see more of the eastern side of the camp, especially from his new vantage point.

  The rest of his men, under the leadership of Frank Jaffett, would be taking detailed notes on the rest of the complex, drawing up plans of the buildings, establishing timings of guard changes, camp routine, how many prisoners they could see and what they were doing, the list was endless.

  But Navarone wanted to find out what was going on in these outbuildings. Why was there a group of buildings fenced off from the rest of the camp? What purpose did they serve?

  A claxon sounded then, and Navarone recoiled in surprise; but it was just used to summon the prisoners to the camp square for roll-call, and Navarone watched in wonder as they began to stream out of the four barracks blocks, each person dressed in grey fatigues, heads down.

  Navarone had estimated that each barrack building could hold about one hundred prisoners, and yet still they poured forth, spilling out of the concrete dormitories in huge numbers until the square was completely covered.

  He couldn’t perform an exact count from his current position, as he was now too far away and there were simply too many to count; but he could see that it wasn’t just men who were imprisoned here, there were women and children too, some barely able to walk. Navarone clenched his fists in anger. What kind of political crimes could children be guilty of?

  ‘Are you seeing this, boss?’ Jaffett asked over the radio.

  ‘You can’t miss it,’ Navarone whispered with gritted teeth.

  ‘They’ve got kids here, man,’ Jaffett breathed in disgust.

  ‘I know. Can you see on your side how many prisoners in total?’

  ‘Best we can make out is about eight-fifty, nine hundred per block.’

  Navarone breathed out in disbelief. That was nearly four thousand people cooped up in a space for four hundred. They must have been sleeping one on top of the other in there. Heaven only knew what sort of diseases were running through the place.

  ‘Okay, hold tight and carry on with the recon,’ Navarone said, and Jaffett gave him a double-click on the radio to confirm.

  Navarone continued to watch through his high-powered binoculars as North Korean soldiers followed the prisoners out, shouting orders to the ones at the rear.

  These prisoners returned reluctantly to the barracks, picking up the wheelbarrows which rested by the doors as they went. Several minutes elapsed before Navarone saw them reappear, pushing the wheelbarrows which now contained what appeared to be dead bodies.

  Navarone felt Devine’s fingers grip his forearm. ‘Dammit Jake,’ he whispered, ‘they’ve got kids on those fuckin’ wheelbarrows! What the fuck kind of place is this?’

  Navarone’s jaw was clenched as he saw the same thing; two of the dead bodies were those of children, what appeared to be a boy of about six, and a girl who might have been in her teens.

  He remained silent as he watched the prisoners wheel the dead bodies past their comrades, who kept their heads down, eyes staring at the floor beneath them. Soldiers at the western edge of the compound moved to the heavy steel gates there and pulled them open, and Navarone watched as the wheelbarrows were pushed across the open ground, headed for the very area that he and his men were watching.

  The gates of the secondary compound were opened, and the prisoners wheeled their dead colleagues through, heading for the building with the chimney; and it was then that Navarone’s fears were confirmed, and he knew what the building was. It was a crematorium, just like the Nazis had used at their death camps back in the worst days of World War II.

  Navarone watched in horror as the bodies were wheeled inside, the prisoners appearing with empty wheelbarrows just moments later and starting their sickening journey back towards the main camp.

  Navarone was sure that the smoke turned darker then, thicker and more intense. It could have been his imagination, but he could have sworn he smelt the burning of human flesh.

  It was probably from disease, or else starvation and weakness from being worked too hard; there were probably deaths in the barracks every night.

  Roll-call was going on all the while, and Navarone noticed for the first time the major he’d seen the night before. He was standing with a clipboard on a raised dais, gesturing to various prisoners as their names were called out, guards pulling them off to one side.

  At the end of roll-call, there was a group of a dozen men and women gathered near the major’s dais, and Navarone could see the major talking to another man – obviously a senior rank, although Navarone couldn’t make it out from here. This second man then barked at the guards and pointed to the industrial compound.

  Panic broke out in the dozen prisoners then, and Navarone could hear the screams and cries from where he lay in the soft undergrowth. A woman tried to break free, kicking out at the guards and running for the open gate.

  A shot rang out, and the women fell down face first, blood pumping out onto the dirt floor from the gaping exit wound in her chest, a 7.62mm rifle round from one of the guards having entered her upper back at over a thousand feet per second.

  The body was hauled to one side, the major pointed at another prisoner from the assembly to join the others in the dead woman’s place, and the dozen prisoners – now silent, accepting whatever horrific fate awaited them – were led out of the main camp to the mysterious buildings which lay under Navarone’s position.

  ‘Shit boss,’ Devine whispered. ‘What are we going to do?’

  Navarone shook his head, wondering exactly the same thing. ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully, remembering that his orders were strictly to observe and report back. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  3

  Abd al-Aziz Quraishi looked at the man across the table from him, trying to hide his distaste.

  He had first met Jeb Richards at West Point back when they were both young men. He hadn’t known then, of course, that the American would rise to such prominence in his government, but had identified him early on as someone who could potentially be used in the future.

  It wasn’t that Quraishi had expected Richards to ideologically support his cause; far from it in fact, as Richards was a patriot first and foremost. He had left West Point and
gone on to serve with distinction in the US Army’s 37th Armor Regiment before pursuing a career in politics. But underneath the public persona of typical southern bluster, Quraishi had perceived something else; a ruthless streak that meant he could easily be manipulated into compromising his principled façade if it furthered his own agenda in some way.

  And so Richards was just one of the people he had met during his time in the United States with whom he had developed long-term friendships, and he had been surprised yet delighted when Richards’ political career took off in later years. In fact, the man’s position as Secretary of Homeland Security dovetailed beautifully with Quraishi’s own role within the Ministry of Interior.

  Quraishi’s distaste for the man stemmed in part from his physical appearance; he was slovenly and quite overweight, indications of poor self-discipline, and qualities which Quraishi simply could not abide. It offended his religious ideals of physical restraint and the resistance of the temptations of gluttony and laziness.

  But he also disliked the man due to what he was prepared to do, even though it served Quraishi’s own interests. Quraishi simply couldn’t understand a man who was willing to betray his own people.

  But then again, Quraishi told himself, he hadn’t been entirely honest about what was happening and – to be fair – Richards really did believe that what he was doing would ultimately benefit America’s homeland security and make his country a safer place.

  Unable to help himself, Quraishi smiled at how wrong the man was.

  Quraishi was inordinately pleased with how his plans were progressing; the martyrs had been prepared, and his beloved al-Hazmi was getting ready to escort them to the correct airlines for their specially selected flights. His scientific staff had been continually monitoring wind patterns and had made complex and – they assured him – quite accurate dispersal projections. The locations chosen for his team of martyrs had been decided upon after long consideration of a multitude of factors – total population, transport links and ease of egress to other areas, climate patterns, air density and barometric pressure, availability of emergency services and the ability of local hospital systems to cope with sudden demands, casualty estimates, number of expected fatalities, and a hundred other topics of interest. But now all decisions were made, and everything was in place, ready for the actual operation itself; and Quraishi would soon know if their projections were correct.

  According to Richards, the US government had no idea whatsoever what was really going on. Apparently, there was some suspicion that a weapon developed in North Korea was on the loose somewhere, but nobody yet knew what it was, or who had it, or where it was headed.

  Richards claimed that there was a rumor of Jemaah Islamiyah’s involvement, but – due to his own efforts, and those of Clark Mason, the Secretary of State – these leads were not being pursued as rigorously as some members of the National Security Council would like.

  In a way, Quraishi pitied Richards; the man thought he was doing the right thing, thought that he was helping his nation. He knew that people would die, that sacrifices would have to be made, but that it was for the greater good of the American people.

  He was going to be upset when he realized the truth, Quraishi thought as he sipped at his tea; very upset indeed.

  Richards was nursing a sore head, a result of a too much alcohol the night before. Sure, Riyadh was as tee-total as the rest of the country, but a guy at his hotel had managed to find the wild side of the city, and Richards had tagged along. It turned out if you had enough money, people here could be quite reasonable.

  Richards looked at the man sat across from him, wishing that he had some painkillers; his head really did hurt like a son of a bitch.

  He had to admit that he didn’t much like the man he was here to see; but at the same time, Richards knew that he held the key to America’s future security.

  Quraishi was the leader of Arabian Islamic Jihad, a group which was about to launch a serious attack on American soil; an attack which Richards was going to allow to go ahead.

  The problem, as he saw it, was that the US government was drastically underfunding its homeland security program. In the aftermath of 9/11, money for national defense had been inexhaustible; at last what the country actually needed, in Richards’ opinion. He had been a Captain in the 39th Armor Regiment at the time, and the ensuing years had been good ones for the military, which saw its first real investment since the heady heights of the Cold War.

  But al-Qaeda’s horrific attack, which had left nearly three thousand dead, had happened nearly twenty years ago now, and two decades had slowed the American defense machinery to a snail’s crawl. Budgets were being slashed, weapons systems culled, regiments disbanded. But, Richards knew, the threat was still there. It was always there.

  What was needed, Richards knew, was a fresh attack on US soil; so long as the American people felt safe, there would be no pressure on the politicians to increase budgets to the correct levels. Government finance was never proactive, always reactive. Money would never be spent on preventing a crisis; the norm was for a crisis to occur, and then for the money to be spent. Completely backwards thinking in Richards’ opinion, but that was Washington for you.

  Richards knew that what he needed was a new attack on America, from a new group which could be as feared as al-Qaeda had once been. And he believed that Quraishi and Arabian Islamic Jihad could well be that group, and the Lion’s planned attack could be the catalyst to get back his funding.

  Richards wasn’t psychotic; he didn’t want the deaths of American citizens on his hands. But better the devil you know, he’d thought when he’d first entered discussions with his old friend Quraishi. If an unknown group launched an attack, he would simply never know what damage could be inflicted. But with Quraishi in charge, he was assured that fatalities would be limited to just a few thousand. It was a terrible thing to be burdened with, but Richards accepted the fact that America had lived through such an attack before, and had emerged even stronger; it was a number that could be tolerated, if it meant that her security would be improved immeasurably as a result.

  He didn’t know exactly what was in the North Korean crate, only that it was a dirty bomb of some kind, a combination of radioactive material and conventional explosives. Such a device was nowhere near as devastating as a nuclear explosion, and indeed such dirty bombs were not even considered weapons of mass destruction in most circles, but as weapons of mass disruption; it wasn’t the number of fatalities which would be the key factor, but the psychological impact of nuclear fallout and the spread of radiation. There would be mass panic and terror, and the clean-up would require considerable expense and cause untold economic damage, but the number of actual deaths would be relatively negligible. And this was the beauty of the plan Quraishi had described to him; the terror and fear that would result from the attack would be enough to force politicians to raise budgets massively in order to appease the terrified population; so when a real attack came, they would be ready for it.

  Could he live with the deaths of a couple of thousand Americans?

  Yes he could, and he had decided this a long time ago. You couldn’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and that was really all that was happening here. And after all, it wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before; elements of the US and British governments had prior knowledge about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but had allowed it to go ahead in order to force America into World War II; Kennedy had been seriously considering a Defense Department plan to shoot down an American airliner so that it could be blamed on Cuba and thus justify an invasion; and American intelligence was warned about the 9/11 attacks in advance. That was just how things worked, Richards knew.

  And so Richards had supplied Quraishi with information, and tried to protect his organization from discovery, also helping to muddy the waters of the current investigation. He just hoped that the outcome would be worth the risk.

  ‘You have been most helpful,’ Quraishi said grate
fully. ‘And I think we will both find benefits from the events to come.’ There was a pause as he sipped his jasmine tea, then he looked back across the desk at his American colleague. ‘Is there anything else?’

  Richards paused; there was something. But was it worth bothering Quraishi with at this late stage? Finally though, he nodded his head.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is perhaps something – or, at least, someone – you should know about.’

  4

  Cole walked through the fourth-floor corridors of the Ministry of Interior, escorted by a stern-faced official who didn’t like to talk.

  Cole had been surprised by the look of the building; it was like something that had been built by aliens and then dumped in the middle of the city, quite unlike anything else that surrounded it. The interior was rather more conventional however, and was like government buildings the world over; cold, clinical and utilitarian.

  But soon he was outside the office of Abd al-Aziz Quraishi – Assistant Minister for Security Affairs for the government of Saudi Arabia and, if al-Zayani was to be believed, the Lion himself, the head of Arabian Islamic Jihad.

  Before leaving Dhahran, Cole had called Ike Treyborne via his secure sat phone to give his old friend an update. He had explained what he’d done to al-Zayani and his boat, and asked Treyborne to run interference in case there was any comeback; he needed the meeting to go smoothly, and didn’t want to have to worry about things back in Dhahran.

  He’d also shared the information he’d managed to get from al-Zayani, including how Arabian Islamic Jihad had been financed, and the fact that Quraishi seemed to be behind the whole thing. It was far too early to start alerting the Saudi government – as yet there was no real proof tying Quraishi to anything – but Cole asked Treyborne to find out everything he could about the man, and recommended giving the name to Bud Shaw at the NSA to activate surveillance on his calls and emails.

  Treyborne had promised to try, but Cole understood he had to be circumspect in how he went about asking; after all, Treyborne wasn’t supposed to have any leads, as he wasn’t supposed to be investigating anything. But Cole was sure Treyborne would find a way to put the intelligence services on Quraishi’s scent; he was a born improviser.