by Jeff Nesbit
Ahmadian asked his aide to remain outside the small room as he came to the last chamber. He paused before entering, said a brief prayer for strength and guidance, and then entered.
There were two men inside. Ahmadian recognized bin Rahman immediately from earlier meetings with the Reverend Shahidi. The other man turned and faced Ahmadian.
“Mr. President,” the man said. “I am honored that you have traveled here to meet with me. I have waited a very long time for this day to arrive.”
“No, the honor is mine, Imam,” the president said humbly.
The man was taller than both bin Rahman and Ahmadian. His hair was black and his face rugged. But his demeanor was kindly, and he immediately extended a hand in Ahmadian’s direction. He took a step forward and gazed deeply into Ahmadian’s eyes. Iran’s president, no stranger to intense encounters with powerful people, did his best not to look away.
“I have been told that you have been so kind as to tell the world of my arrival,” the man said. “I am grateful for that. It would be difficult, if not impossible, without efforts such as yours.”
Ahmadian glanced at bin Rahman, who was beaming. There would be time later to ask more detailed questions. But today, Ahmadian had only one urgent question he wanted to ask—and it wasn’t about the man’s lineage or his claims to the succession of the Prophet.
Ahmadian knew the history well. The legends said that Muhammad al Mahdi was the son of the Eleventh Imam. But there was dispute about his mother. Shi’a scholars had identified no less than four different names—Rayhana, Narjis, Ssyqal, or Sawsan—along with various stories about her status as a princess or slave.
That alone, Ahmadian knew, opened the door to possibilities about the Mahdi’s true lineage. Scholars across the Arab world would immediately begin to comb through whatever existed in the ancient texts to trace those four names once his appearance became known. The search for connections would be intense, for both the Sunni and Shi’a faithful.
Very little was recorded about the hidden imam’s early life. The most legendary story among the masses was that the young imam preached at his father’s funeral when he was just five years old, then immediately went into occultation.
But Ahmadian did not want to ask about these things. Instead he asked, doing his best to meet the imam’s level gaze, “Imam, may I ask you humbly what country you call home? Is it Iran? Is it another nation? For the world will desperately want to know the answer to that question.”
The imam smiled and nodded. “It is a very good question. And yes, you are correct. It is one the world will ask. So I will answer you in this fashion. I am from here, there, and everywhere. No nation may claim me. Yet I serve each and every one of the principalities and powers. I am their prophet.”
Ahmadian did his best to hide his disappointment. He had hoped, perhaps unfairly, that the imam would confirm Iran as his home and nationality. But the answer would suffice, for now.
“Thank you. I had hoped you might confirm Iran as your home. But you are here, today, as you appear in public for the first time. That is enough for me. My life has been devoted to you, Imam,” Ahmadian said. “Everything I have ever done has led to this day, to this time.”
“Good,” the man said. “So let us make our appearance together. I would enjoy hearing your words and seeing the pilgrims who gather here every week to pray for my return.”
“Gladly.” Ahmadian led the way up the stairs, to the portico that overlooked the concourse. He had a brief speech prepared. The imam would be standing by his side, for all to see. But Ahmadian would not introduce him.
No, that moment was reserved for another time—and the proper place. An instant later, the twelfth successor to the Prophet Muhammad stepped out onto the balcony with Iran’s president and gazed out at the tens of thousands of pilgrims who were there to pray for his return. The hidden imam smiled and waved to his loyal servants.
56
Sarum, Saudi Arabia
The USS McCain trolled as close to the shoreline of the mainland of the Arabian Peninsula as it dared.
As Captain Bingham approached the tiny coastal port of Sarum, the hairs on the back of his neck began to twitch. He could feel it. Their target was here or nearby. His hunter’s instincts were rarely wrong.
Sarum was a tiny, nearly uninhabited port south of Jeddah on the western coast of Saudi Arabia. Tourists rarely visited Sarum. There was nothing to see there.
But, Bingham knew, it was a perfect place to land a cargo ship in the dead of night if you wanted to sneak into the Saudi mainland without being detected.
As the McCain moved slowly through the shallow waters, Bingham kept his eyes peeled. The dawn was still at least two hours off, but it was a cloudless night. They could make out shapes, at least.
“We’ve got something, Captain,” one of his men called out from the side of the operations center. “Sonar picked it up. We don’t have a visual yet.”
“What?” Bingham strode across the deck floor and peered at the scope.
The officer pointed at an outline on the scope. “There. It’s too big for a port this size. It has to be our ship. It’s all the way at the Sarum shoreline.”
McCain acted immediately. “Okay, kill our engines. We’ll go in with the inflatables. Maybe we can get them while they’re unloading.”
The inflatable boats were off and headed toward the shore within a matter of minutes. The sailors were all on edge. They had no idea what to expect. Bingham had warned them that the mission was…unusual.
“We’re looking for horses, on board a cargo ship?” one of the sailors had asked him during the briefing. “Are we back in World War I?”
“Just keep your wits about you,” Bingham had answered. “We’re not entirely sure what’s occurring here.”
“But we’re looking for horses?”
“Yes, and Sa’id Nouradeen from Hezbollah, dozens of al Qaeda fighters, maybe Houthi fighters, and who knows what else,” Bingham said. “So I mean it. Take this seriously. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
As the inflatable boats approached the shoreline, the sailors throttled the motors down until the sounds coming from them could hardly be heard above the night’s natural background noises. They drifted toward the shore in near silence.
The sailors checked their weapons and sidearms. They all might have joked in the briefing room about looking for horses, but they also knew that Nouradeen, al Qaeda, and the Houthis were real, actual fighters. Whatever they were up to, they’d turn and fight if the American sailors surprised them. The Americans had to be ready for anything.
As they approached the cargo ship, they could all tell it had been forcibly steered well up onto the beach. The ship was listing badly to one side, which meant that it had been run well onto the shore. Whoever had captained the cargo ship wanted to make sure they got to shore and had no intention of returning to sea with the ship. This was a one-way mission.
The first of the inflatables drifted to the side of the cargo ship. The others drifted alongside. One by one, the sailors secured their lines. Bingham gave the signal, and the sailors scaled the side of the cargo ship quickly and boarded. They all hit the deck at roughly the same time.
But the ship was empty and dark. Whoever had been here had left the cargo hold quickly. The doors had literally been smashed off in their haste to get from the ship to shore.
The hold reeked of animal sweat. The sailors examined the floor quickly. It was covered in horse manure, and the manure was fresh. They’d just missed them.
“They were here all right, with horses,” one of the sailors radioed to Bingham.
“But they’re gone?” he radioed back on the two-way.
“Gone.”
“Anything else on board?”
The sailors combed the cargo ship swiftly and found tire tracks that had rolled right through and over the horse manure. By the look of the tread marks, they’d brought trucks with them as well.
Off to one side
, they also found empty crates that had been ripped open. They found two Zulfiqars with broken handles on the ground beside one of the two crates.
And finally, they also found another set of crates at the other side of the cargo ship. This one had contained white flags. A couple had been left behind in their obvious haste to get the cargo off the ship and onto the mainland.
“We found tire marks as well, Captain,” the sailor radioed.
“So they loaded the horses, and they’re likely driving inland,” Bingham said.
“Do we follow them?” the sailor asked. But it was a question with an obvious answer. They were sailors, not infantry. They weren’t equipped to go chasing after trucks pulling horses in the dead of night.
“No, we can’t,” Bingham said. “But at least someone will know what they’re looking for now. We’ll let the Saudis’ White Army forces know. They can decide what to do with the information.”
57
Tehran, Iran
This time, Ali bin Rahman chose to be as direct as possible with Reverend Shahidi. The great day that he, and others, had planned for over the past two years was almost upon them. He didn’t want to let the opportunity slip past them. Too much was at stake.
The forces were in play. There was only one more puzzle piece to put in place, and bin Rahman felt it was time to reveal that part of the chessboard to Shahidi.
The al Qaeda deputy knew that Shahidi had no intention, at all, of reaching a lasting peace with the Americans or the Israelis. What bin Rahman didn’t understand was why Shahidi even bothered to use diplomacy at all. It made no sense to him.
In contrast, bin Rahman was actually a religious man. He was no cleric, but he did genuinely believe that his cause was both just and holy. He believed in a united, pan-Islamic caliphate. He would work toward that unification until his death, if need be.
And he saw, in a way that he hadn’t seen before, how Iran was at the epicenter of that effort. In the space of two short years, Iran had managed to take on the Jews in Israel, the Christian infidels in America, and now the corrupted Saudis, who ruled the kingdom with an iron fist, oppressing a Shi’a minority that looked to Iran for guidance.
What bin Rahman had never anticipated—what he could not have predicted—was that they would benefit from someone inside the House of Saud who saw a common cause in dissent in the kingdom. With Prince Natal’s covert help, bin Rahman and General Zhubin believed they could create such turmoil in Saudi Arabia that Iran could very quickly become the region’s preeminent superpower and take on Israel directly. The Day of Anger had appeared, magically, at the right moment.
But there was one more puzzle piece they needed—one that would throw the suspicion squarely on the Israelis and their newfound surge toward a status as the crossing point for the world’s oil. And bin Rahman wanted to make sure that Shahidi, at least, knew who was responsible.
He also wanted to deliver a final message to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Once the Day of Anger had begun in the Saudi cities and his men had delivered a final blow to draw Israel firmly into the equation, bin Rahman had made the decision to leave the safe confines of Iran. He’d already made plans to join the Palestinian cause and fight for control of Beersheba.
It was a gamble and one that would likely end up badly. But bin Rahman knew his time was running out in Iran, and there was little else he could do. Going to stake a claim in the new Palestinian homeland, he felt, was his only play.
At a minimum, it would put Israel to the test. If the Israelis hunted and killed bin Rahman in what was rapidly becoming known as a true, free Palestinian state, then he would be a martyr. But if he survived, he had a chance to lead the country.
Once, Yasser Arafat had managed to make the transition from terrorist to world leader. He’d never managed to lead an actual Palestinian homeland—mostly because he could never curb his lust for violent opposition to the Israelis—but he had at least survived to stake a claim.
Bin Rahman hoped to do the same, with much more at stake. The Palestinians were streaming in to southern Israel. American military forces were keeping the peace and making sure that the Israelis did not overrun the tens of thousands of refugees trickling across their borders. The time of decision on the final status of the new Palestinian nation was at hand.
The al Qaeda leader also had one other card to play—one that very few had anticipated. It would become apparent soon, though, and bin Rahman wanted to be at hand when the world took notice.
When the Twelfth Imam did make his reappearance, it would become nearly impossible for world leaders to deal with the phenomenon. And it would be doubly hard once they realized the hidden imam had no nationality to speak of. No country could, or would, be able to claim him. It would seem as if the Mahdi had materialized out of thin air.
Which was the opening bin Rahman would wait for. On that day, he would claim the Twelfth Imam as the central religious authority for the new Palestinian homeland.
If bin Rahman moved swiftly enough, the Mahdi could become the first prophet since Muhammad to lay claim to at least a piece of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Some claim to that part of Jerusalem was still very much in the thick of the peace talks over the Palestinian homeland, despite the efforts to make Beersheba the capital of the new state.
And once that happened, all bets were off. The world would have an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with the Mahdi. They were used to principalities and powers belonging to nation-states. When one or two came along without a nation as a home, the game changed.
But first, bin Rahman had a message to deliver to Shahidi and then Ahmadian after that. While the Israelis made plans to reopen the Gulf of Aqaba for oil shipping traffic to the Far East, they were about to see those plans disrupted.
58
Aqaba, Jordan
“Are you absolutely certain, Vice Admiral?” the captain asked.
“I am,” Truxton said. “Cypress can take care of itself. That’s a babysitting service. I don’t have any interest in keeping track of oil and commerce in the Mediterranean. The action is here, in either the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aqaba. Every single piece of intelligence we have is screaming at us.”
“But they’re opening the terminus at both Ceyhan and Haifa even as we speak,” the captain asked. “You really don’t want to be there to make sure no one disrupts it?”
“And what could we possibly do there in the Mediterranean?” Truxton asked, annoyed. “That’s about oil and gas. They’re going to start shipping it north and south to Europe and the Far East. They’ll twist a few knobs and turn on the spigots. No one would dare pursue anything militarily in that part of the world. It’s the Mediterranean Sea, for crying out loud. People vacation on cruise ships there. It’s not like this part of the world, where pirates kidnap entire ships at will.”
The vice admiral, as he had during the recent Persian Gulf conflict with Iran, had left his desk post and was on a carrier heading toward uncertain conflict. Truxton liked to be near the fighting. It gave him a much better view of the threats. It was an intuitive thing, not easily explained.
And right now, he was on a small convoy of ships headed north up the Gulf of Aqaba, past Sheikh al Sharma, toward the southernmost ports of both Israel and Jordan.
Truxton was making a difficult decision. They had intelligence of threats in so many places that it was difficult to assess what was either imminent or even most important. But the one report that had struck him above all others was word that al Qaeda factions had appeared in Aqaba in the past two days.
The joint chiefs assumed they were there to shadow the retired White Army general, Fahd, who’d been broadcasting to stir up opposition forces in advance of the coming Day of Anger in Saudi cities. Truxton wasn’t so sure. There was no need for any sort of al Qaeda escort or shadow in Aqaba. No, they were there for another reason.
Truxton’s plan was to travel quickly to the substantially upgraded port at Eilat and then link up with American forces on the ground in
southern Israel. The American military was already on heightened alert in southern Israel, protecting the oil pipeline that terminated in Eilat.
The Pentagon’s leadership had made it very clear they did not want a repeat of what had happened in southern Iraq, when forces had managed to do severe damage to the West Qurna oil fields. The American forces in the region had orders to protect the oil pipeline and terminus at Eilat, regardless.
All of it seemed surreal to Truxton. He had a difficult time wrapping his mind around the fact that Israel was on the cusp of becoming an oil superpower. But things changed—sometimes when you least expected it.
His one nagging thought was the empty cargo ship that Captain Bingham’s sailors had found near Jeddah. He’d notified the Saudis’ White Army leadership, who’d said they would inform Prince Natal. They’d gladly accepted the information but had said little about it or what it might mean.
But Truxton knew the American forces could only do so much there regardless. It was probably just as well that Bingham’s men had not come across the forces making their way inland. The Saudi National Guard would need to deal with the Day of Anger protests, and whatever was about to transpire in concert with them the following morning.
The sun was beginning to set as they approached the end of the Red Sea. Truxton marveled at how much everything had changed. Aqaba, on Jordan’s side, hadn’t changed much. But Eilat, a scant two miles to the east on Israel’s side, had changed considerably in the past year or so. Massive new structures were in place as far as the eye could see.
Very large oil cargo ships could now be accommodated at Eilat. Israeli naval vessels regularly patrolled the Red Sea. The days that pirates could capture ships at will in the Red Sea were long gone, thanks to the diligent efforts of the Israeli navy forces.
In fact, one of the Israeli ships was heading southward out to sea. Truxton waved at the captain from the deck, then turned his sights back toward shore as they began to pull in to Eilat.
