WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  By the time Cole arrived in Riyadh and had found his luxurious suite in the Ritz Carlton hotel – courtesy of Abdullah al-Zayani and Saudi National Oil – Treyborne had already sent him the CIA file on Abd al-Aziz Quraishi.

  The file revealed two interesting things to Cole – one, that Quraishi had spent considerable time in the United States; and two, that he was under no suspicion whatsoever by US intelligence. He was as clean as a whistle in every respect.

  Quraishi had been born in 1972, his father a very distant cousin of King Faisal, who had ruled Saudi Arabia until his nephew assassinated him in 1975. The family was therefore tied to the royal family, and yet was never a part of the true upper echelon. But it did mean that the male members of the Quraishi family could serve in the Saudi government, and Abd al-Aziz Quraishi did just that, joining the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment at the tender age of seventeen. From there he was selected – apparently due to his high intellect and potential for future leadership – for an exchange program with the American military, and was sent to West Point to undergo officer training in the US Army.

  He graduated near the top of his class, and reportedly didn’t restrict himself purely to military life during his four years in America; contemporary reports indicated that he travelled far and wide, and used his royal connections to establish links with many political and business figures.

  Cole thought this strange – if not downright suspicious – but the CIA and FBI hadn’t been concerned, as this was common practice for foreign cadets; the whole exchange program was to help foster closer ties between nations on an unofficial level.

  Quraishi had gone on to serve with distinction in the Royal Guards, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before joining the Ministry of Interior as head of the feared Mabahith. Again, he seemed to have made a positive impression on everyone, for he had steadily worked his way up to his current position as Assistant Minister for Security Affairs, about as high as a minor relative of the House of Saud could ever hope to rise.

  Cole had searched the file for any information which might shed light on why Quraishi was – according to al-Zayani, at least – so rabidly anti-monarchy and anti-Western. On the face of it, it just didn’t make sense; Quraishi held a high position in a society which favored the royal family, of which he was a part. When did the religious zeal enter his life? At what point was the man turned?

  It wasn’t in the report, that was for sure, and Cole wondered if he would be able to learn more from the man himself.

  The door opened at the same time he arrived outside, and he was surprised to see an American face framed in the doorway.

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ the man said, extending a hand. Cole took it and shook firmly. ‘You must be Dan Chadwick, right? Texas Mainline Oil?’

  Cole nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’m Jeb Richards, a fellow Texan,’ he said with a smile. ‘Just leaving as a matter of fact, though unfortunately I’ve got to go back to Washington and not Texas.’ He sighed. ‘Still, I might get back there one day. Be sure to pass on my regards to Ezzard,’ he continued as he moved past Cole into the corridor beyond, ‘not seen him for years but we used to enjoy a game of tennis together.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to do that,’ Cole said after the man, who was now half-way down the corridor, Cole’s mute escort accompanying him. ‘Have a safe flight.’

  ‘Will do, my friend,’ Richards shouted back over his shoulder.

  Cole concealed his concern as he turned back to the open doorway, watching as Quraishi came towards him across the office. What the hell had Jeb Richards, the Secretary of Homeland Security, been doing here?

  What was of more concern to Cole was whether Richards recognized him or not; with an arrest warrant out on him, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that Richards – as a member of the National Security Council – might well have seen a picture of him.

  But, Cole reflected, such a picture would hardly be up-to-date; whatever there was on file for the Caribbean diving instructor named Mark Cole would no longer tally with the man waiting outside Quraishi’s office. The fireball which had engulfed the house in Kreith had left Cole with extensive scarring which – although surgically corrected – had altered his appearance quite considerably. Added to which was the fact that Cole had partially disguised himself for the role of Dan Chadwick anyway.

  But if Richards knew Ezzard Kaplan, might he also know the real Dan Chadwick? But he’d said that he hadn’t seen Ezzard for a long time, and Chadwick was new at Texas Mainline, one of the reasons for Cole choosing him in the first place.

  In the end, Cole decided that he had nothing to be concerned about; his identity was secure. But he did still wonder about Richards’ purpose here in Riyadh.

  But he could worry about that later; right now he had more pressing concerns, and he offered his hand to the man who floated gracefully towards him over his tiled floor, bedecked in the traditional Saudi white dress known as a thobe, with a red and white checked headdress to complete the image.

  Quraishi smiled beneficently at his guest and took his hand. ‘Two Texans in my office in the same day,’ he said amicably. ‘It must be providence, no?’

  Cole returned the smile. ‘It must be. I guess it is a small world, after all.’

  Quraishi gestured for Cole to sit, and then swept elegantly around the other side of the desk and took his own seat across from him. ‘Water?’ he asked, gesturing with his hand to the water jug and glasses to one side of the large desk.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cole said, reaching forward to help himself.

  ‘And now,’ Quraishi began in his perfect English, his lilting voice pleasantly melodious, ‘how may I help you?’

  5

  The crematorium was located at the rear of the compound, close to Jake Navarone’s position.

  It had been no use; he had just had to know what was going on here, and with time pressing, he had announced his intentions to his colleagues and then proceeded to slip down the forested bank which protected the valley.

  The rear wasn’t guarded, and as Navarone approached the barbed wire fence, close to the ground, he was pleased to see that there were no motion sensors either. Probably nobody expected anyone to ever find the camp in the first place.

  The fence was electrified though, which made things more difficult; cutting his way through the fence would cause a burnout, and get the immediate attention of the guards. But he didn’t really want to cut the fence anyway, as he didn’t want to leave any telltale signs of his visit. His plan was to quickly scout the place out and report back.

  This left climbing the eight-foot fence, which was risky in itself; during daylight hours, he could easily be seen. But the weather was overcast and visibility was poor with the unaided eye; overall, it was unlikely the guards would spot him. He would rely on the two men behind him, and the other SEALs on the far side of the valley, to warn him if anyone was watching. On this side of the compound though, he couldn’t even be seen by the guards in their watchtowers.

  He checked in with his teammates for the last time and was given the all-clear. And so, insulated gloves and boots protecting against the electric charge, he scuttled up the fence in seconds, pulling himself up and over the barbed wire as if it wasn’t even there, his Nomex bodysuit protecting him from the sharp barbs.

  He landed on the grass on the other side, just a few yards away from the dark brick of the crematorium, which continued to belch thick smoke out of its tall chimney. Keeping close to the ground, he shuffled his way towards the building, until he was touching the rough brickwork.

  He edged down the wall slowly, inch by tortuous inch, until Devine gave him the word that he was right below the small window which was the only thing on this side of the building except the brickwork.

  Out of a utility pouch, he retrieved a fiber optic wire, with a camera mounted on one end. He bent the wire into a right angle and slowly – ever so slowly – pushed it up until it rested just above the window frame.

 
Navarone checked the miniature monitor that displayed the images from the camera, and saw a large unfurnished room, the walls bare brick. There was a large door over on the right hand side, and Navarone moved the camera around, panning across to the other side of the room.

  What he saw on the monitor stopped him dead, the breath caught in his throat.

  There was a gigantic cast-iron oven over the other side, its cavernous mouth wide open, flames flickering inside as a team of people – dressed in what looked like white biohazard suits – unloaded bodies from carts and dumped them unceremoniously into the furnace.

  But it was the sight of the bodies themselves that had caused Navarone’s nauseated reaction.

  There were a variety of shapes and sizes – men, women and even children – but they all looked the same in one way.

  They were all hideously deformed, their flesh literally eaten away from their bones. On some of the bodies, Navarone could see gaping blisters on the skin, on others there was actual bone protruding through the withered skin and fat tissue; eyes were gone, melted away; noses and ears were also nowhere in evidence; and all looked as if they had undergone horrific mutation of some kind.

  Navarone had never seen anything like it before in his life, and wondered just what the hell could have happened to those people.

  He had been right about this place, at least; it wasn’t just a political prison camp. There was something very wrong going on here, experiments of some kind or another.

  But what?

  Had the prisoners been victims of radiation poisoning? Were the after-effects of a nuclear blast somehow being recreated and analyzed?

  Or did the damage to the bodies indicate that some sort of horrifying new weapon was being developed here?

  As he thought about those poor children being thrown into the furnace, his mind flipped for just an instant to his sisters, the twins; Jodie and Bobbi, so young and innocent. He cut the thought off immediately.

  What had these people done to deserve this?

  With gritted teeth, his mind flashed back to the prisoners who had been summoned forward that very morning; they were next, weren’t they?

  Slowly, Navarone pulled the fiber optic camera back down and edged away from the wall.

  Not if I can help it, he thought with an anger he had never before experienced.

  Not if I can help it.

  ‘So you can see,’ Quraishi summed up with a confident smile, ‘there is really nothing for you to worry about. Your money will be quite safe, and your business with Saudi National Oil can proceed as planned.’

  Cole nodded his head in thought. ‘Well, you do seem to have all bases covered,’ he said in his affected Texas Drawl. ‘And the Mabahith must really make people careful huh?’

  Quraishi just raised an eyebrow and let his smile widen ever so slightly.

  ‘But I do have one concern,’ Cole said carefully, pausing as he heard a knock on the office door. He waited as Quraishi admitted an assistant, who cleared away the water jugs and glasses, and replaced them with fresh ones. Once the man had left, Cole continued. ‘We’ve been hearing reports about a new group operating right here on Saudi soil, Arabian Islamic Jihad. Now, we don’t know much about them in the US, but what’s your take on them? Are they dangerous?’

  Cole watched Quraishi’s face for any hint of undue emotion at the mention of the AIJ; a twitch of the eye, a turning of the mouth, anything at all. But there was no reaction whatsoever.

  ‘Any terrorist group is potentially dangerous,’ Quraishi admitted, ‘but the fact is that the AIJ has yet to prove itself; it has been around for years, but has achieved nothing. The Ministry of Interior is confident that it will fizzle out like all the others.’ He smiled again. ‘I was just telling Mr. Richards, your Secretary of Homeland Security, exactly the same thing.’

  Cole wondered if that was true. Was that why Richards had been here? Had he been checking up on what the Ministry of Interior knew about Arabian Islamic Jihad? It would certainly make sense.

  Cole smiled at Quraishi. ‘That’s good to know,’ he said. ‘But word around the campfire is that they’re saving themselves for something big. You heard anything about that?’

  ‘Word around the campfire?’ Quraishi repeated with a good-natured laugh. ‘That’s a saying I’ve not heard in a long time. Since I was in your country as a young man, in fact.’ The smile on his face as he remembered seemed genuine enough. ‘Those were good days,’ Quraishi continued. ‘I met some fine people there. The United States is a great country.’

  Cole watched the man’s face as he spoke, senses attuned for the slightest hint that he wasn’t telling the truth, that he really despised America and everything she stood for. But there was nothing to see; Quraishi’s face was a mask. Cole knew this meant one of two things – either al-Zayani had been lying to him, and Quraishi was exactly as he appeared to be; or else the man was completely sociopathic, and far more dangerous than Cole had feared.

  There was a knock on the door again, and the same assistant popped his head through into the office, speaking in Arabic to Quraishi, who nodded his head and rose from the desk.

  Quraishi turned to Cole. ‘I am very sorry,’ he said, ‘but I just have to go and take care of something. I will be no longer than a minute or two.’

  And with that, he swept out of the room, white thobe billowing behind him.

  Cole breathed out steadily as the door clicked closed. Was it some sort of test? Was he being left alone in the room, under surveillance, so he could be monitored?

  Cole didn’t think so; it was unlikely that Quraishi’s office would be monitored. And even if it was, Cole knew he had to act anyway. He was running out of time, and it was imperative that he find something – anything – that would help his investigation.

  His mind made up, Cole was out of his seat in an instant.

  ‘Yes, Hatim?’ Quraishi asked his assistant in the empty office next door, which was used as an anteroom for Quraishi and two other officials. ‘You found something?’

  Hatim picked up the water glass Cole had used and tapped it. Quraishi noticed the equipment set up on the table next to it. ‘The fingerprints on this glass do not match what we have on file for Daniel Chadwick,’ he said authoritatively.

  Quraishi’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are sure of this?’

  Hatim cleared his throat. ‘With what little time we had, as sure as we can be,’ he said. ‘We’ve only done a visual match, we’ve had no time to feed the results into our computer system, but I can see that they are plainly different with just a magnifying glass. The man in your office is not Daniel Chadwick.’

  Quraishi considered the situation. Jeb Richards had informed him that there were no authorized operations going on in Saudi Arabia, and Quraishi believed him. Why would Richards lie about things now? He had told Quraishi that the US government didn’t have the first idea where to even start looking.

  And yet here was this man, an unknown, right here in his office. What did he want? Who was he?

  Quraishi thought back to Richards’ final words, about the covert operative who had escaped arrest in Sumatra. He was the man who had found the pirate lair in the first place, and had brought the US Navy SEALs down on the place.

  Could the man in his office be Mark Cole? The agent Richards said was known as ‘the Asset’?

  Quraishi sighed. The meeting had been arranged by Abdullah al-Zayani. Had it been done under protest? Had this foreign agent found out that al-Zayani had financed the hijacking and interrogated him? If so, what would he have found out? What would al-Zayani have told him?

  ‘Hatim,’ Quraishi ordered, ‘find out where Abdullah al-Zayani is, right now. Have him brought here if possible, immediately.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Hatim said, retreating to one of the secure telephones in the corner of the room.

  The good thing, Quraishi supposed, was that at least al-Zayani didn’t know much. He didn’t know anything about the upcoming operation. But it seemed that he had led
this agent here to Quraishi, which was more than enough.

  But if this man wasn’t authorized, if he was wanted by the US government himself, then all was not lost, and Quraishi allowed himself a smile. He could get information from this ‘asset’, this Mark Cole, do whatever he wanted to him, and the man would not be missed.

  ‘Hatim,’ Quraishi called across the room. ‘After you’ve located al-Zayani, call the zoo and arrange a visit for us this afternoon.’

  Hatim confirmed the order, and Quraishi’s smile widened. For people he didn’t want an official record to be kept on, there were other places in Riyadh to question them than the basement dungeons.

  The zoo was Quraishi’s favorite.

  Cole held the silken hood in his hands, eyes darting furtively over his shoulder every few seconds, wondering when Quraishi would come bursting back into the room.

  He had found the hood and the robes in a briefcase which had been stored in a locked cupboard. Cole had recognized them instantly; they had been worn by the person who had beheaded Brad Butler, the same man who had spoken on video about the plague about to be unleashed by Arabian Islamic Jihad.

  The bloodstains had been left on the otherwise white robes, as if in a perverse memory of Butler. The entire bag reeked of the coppery scent of blood, and Cole felt nauseated. Quraishi was able to slip out of his official robes of office and don this stinking bloodstained garment without a care in the world.

  Cole stuffed the clothing back in the bag, zipped it up and replaced it in the cupboard, sure now that Abd al-Aziz Quraishi and the Lion were one and the same.

  Cole closed the cupboard door and was securing the lock when he heard the footsteps in the corridor outside, sensed the hand reaching for the door; his fingers worked frantically to secure the lock, even as he saw the handle turning.