Countdown to Mecca

by Michael Savage

  “Me?” he said, pointing at himself and smiling. “Yes. With you in car?” He pointed at Jack and Doc. “No.” He shook his head. “Not a good idea.”

  Jack looked to Doc in confusion. “This place has one of the highest accident rates in the world,” Doc explained, checking the new flight plan manifest that the pilots needed to negotiate once they had landed. “And if a foreigner is involved in one, they’d be dropped into a legal system that would make both Kafka and Escher blanch.” Doc handed the clipboard back to the pilot. “Driving, ten hours or so. Flying? About an hour. Welcome aboard, Jimmy.” Doc let their interpreter enter first.

  Unlike Jack, Jimmy was ebullient with his appreciation of the private jet’s amenities. Even so, they managed to get him belted in before they took off. The desert spread around them as they flew north, and within a few moments it was all Jack could see—open brown space—a harsh environment where even the smallest patch of green seemed a miracle. Farming was out of the question.

  Below they could see that the highway traffic was mostly tractor trailers. Even though the jet cut their travel time enormously, there was still almost an hour to sit. Rather than worry, Jack let his reporter instincts lead him. He turned to Jimmy.

  “How did you start working for the SEALs?” he asked.

  “Didn’t know they were SEALs,” the man answered, eyes still looking out the window. “Working for army. One day sergeant asked if I wanted to make more money. I said yes.” He gave Jack a big grin.

  “Don’t be so modest,” said Doc, turning to Jack. “He was always more than a terp.” He turned back to Jimmy. “Tell him about the smugglers.”

  “Oh, nothing big,” said Jimmy. When he stayed humbly silent, Doc took up the story. “There were these black-market guys, hijacking trucks north of Baghdad,” Doc told Jack. “Jimmy was an interpreter with an Army MP unit. One day they went to make an arrest and no one was there. The captain was pissed. Jimmy told him if he wanted to catch some bad guys, he should go to this market north of town. They got there around midnight, just as the operation was in full swing. The smugglers, who, as far as Jimmy knew, weren’t actually terrorists, just criminals, were unloading their latest prizes—a pair of tractor trailers loaded with cigarettes and booze. The MPs pulled up in a pair of Humvees, and immediately came under fire.”

  Doc looked at Jimmy encouragingly, but the man just kept looking out the jet window.

  “The sergeant Jimmy was with went down, shot in the leg,” said Doc. “Jimmy grabbed the guy’s MP4 and ran at the bad guys, blazing away, so others could come and drag the sergeant to safety.”

  Finally Jimmy spoke. “Stupid move,” he said without turning from the window.

  “Killed two bandits,” said Doc. “The rest ran away.” Doc glanced at Jimmy again, but the man wouldn’t take the bait. Jack realized that Jimmy wasn’t about to toot his own horn. That would be arrogant and unseemly. That only made him more impressive in Jack’s eyes.

  “After that,” Doc continued, “the MPs loved him. He went on all their tough patrols. Two months later, when the SEALs needed a terp to go on missions, the MPs recommended him. Interpreters weren’t supposed to be armed, but Jimmy always seemed to have a weapon with him. He’d ended up becoming one of the SEALs’ most valuable assets, passed from unit to unit as the Americans rotated in and out of Iraq. Several men credited him with saving their lives.”

  “Maybe I save someone there,” Jimmy quietly admitted, as if convincing himself. “Explain to people SEALs only look for bad guy. People excited, worried. They don’t know what is going on. I warn. I help.”

  “As a rule, interpreters stayed in the back of the ‘train,’” Doc went on. Jack knew that the “train” was an informal term soldiers used to describe the lineup of men who made the first entrance into a terrorist’s house or stronghold. “Jimmy always managed to be near the front. His work earned him enough respect with the SEALs that the terrorists honored him by putting a price on his head—ten thousand American dollars.”

  “I think sometime I turn myself in for that,” Jimmy said, silently chuckling. Then Jack noticed that, while his head didn’t move, his face grew dark. “Okay, you make Jimmy big hero,” he said quietly. “Now you tell him the rest.”

  Doc’s smile also stopped when he remembered the rest. “His family had been moved for their safety,” he said, even as Jack knew what was coming. “They had a safe house in a very quiet area of Baghdad.…”

  “Quiet street,” Jimmy echoed hollowly. “Safe, they said. The bad guys, they kill my wife and daughter if they find them.” Jimmy shook his head. “They don’t find them. Not on purpose. They killed by car bomb at market, with twenty others. Accident, not assassination.”

  “Murder, by any name,” Jack said grimly. He glanced at the reflection in the jet window to see Jimmy’s face. It was pained, his eyes narrow slits. But he didn’t cry. Jack guessed he had no more tears left.

  “Jimmy kept working,” said Doc. “Another year. Two. A couple of attempts on his life. He kept going out on missions. The SEALs tried getting him a visa to come to the States. They knew it was just a matter of time before somebody got him. No luck. But they kept finding ways to move him around the Middle East. It’s our good fortune that Sol got him assigned to us.…”

  “Look,” Jimmy declared, pointing. “We close now.”

  Jack looked out the other window to see the same green-spotted expanse of dark brown and tan countryside, only this time knifed in the center by a swath of dark blue and light green-blue.

  “Yanbu’ al Bahr means spring by the sea,” Jimmy explained. “Because it’s an oasis, with water. Green in the desert.”

  “I see,” said Jack. “I do, indeed.”

  “Saudis all rich,” Jimmy added. “But like rich uncle, not give money freely. You work here, you are slave. Most workers, not Saudi.”

  With that knowledge rattling around his brain, Jack was glad that his prince-driven fame held him in good stead here as well, despite the airport not being nearly as grand as the one in Riyadh. It was far smaller, in fact, than a comparable facility in the United States. Instead of the massive fields of parking lots and garages, there was a single lot that wouldn’t have impressed a McDonald’s restaurant back home.

  The three were out of the airport and over at the car rental stands within minutes. The man there wanted to give them a Chevrolet Caprice but Jimmy came away with a Mercedes E-Class.

  “Shouldn’t we keep a low profile?” Jack wondered once more.

  “Here, Mercedes is low profile,” Jimmy assured him with a big grin. “With Chevy we stick out like … what you call it? Shore thumb.”

  Neither man bothered to correct him. In this port city, “shore thumb” worked fine. They hadn’t gone two blocks before Jimmy spoke up again.

  “Someone following,” he said.

  Both Americans knew better than to turn around and look, but Jack couldn’t keep himself from saying, “You sure?”

  “I go back and forth, they go back and forth,” said Jimmy. “I twist, they twist.”

  Doc slid down in the seat so he could see out the side mirror. “White Opel. Ten years old.”

  “Too old for a government car,” said Jack.

  “Not here,” answered Doc. “It’s not like America. Bureaucrats don’t get a new car every year.”

  “Qaeda used cars like that in Iraq,” said Jimmy, glancing at Doc.

  Doc shook his head. “The Saudis aren’t going to let Al Qaeda operate here. Two men in the front seat. Can’t make out their features. My guess is it’s local cops.”

  Jimmy didn’t answer. Jack thought Doc was probably right—the car more than likely belonged to either the local police or the interior ministry’s notorious Mabahith—the central government’s secret police. They routinely kept track of foreigners. This was better than being trailed by terrorists, though he wasn’t sure by how much.

  “The question is, why did they decide to trail us?” said Jack. “Just bec
ause we’re strangers in town? Or do they know who we are?”

  “The first,” answered Doc. “Routine in Saudi Arabia.”

  “I can lose them,” said Jimmy.

  “I doubt that,” said Doc.

  Jimmy mashed the gas pedal. Jack put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “No. Take it easy. If it’s the police, we’re not going to get very far. They’ll call for help and then we’ll have other problems. We have a lot to do here. Play it cool. If they stop us, just be honest and up front.”

  “We say we look for weapon of mass destruction?” The interpreter took his foot off the gas. The other car had not sped up appreciably.

  “Not that honest and up front,” Doc said.

  “We’re working on a documentary about Saudi Arabia,” Jack fudged. “We’re here to look at the port because it’s an important place.”

  Jimmy glanced at him. “You do not have a lot of camera equipment.”

  “We’re guerrilla filmmakers,” Doc explained.

  Thankfully, their contingency plans were unnecessary. Within minutes, the Opel had veered off, and disappeared into the surrounding roads. Jimmy raised his eyebrows, surprised.

  “Gave them time to check with the airport authorities,” Jack guessed. “They probably found out I was in the country to interview Prince Riad al-Saud.”

  “If it’s government, true,” said Jimmy. “Al Qaeda different.”

  “Doc said that’s unlikely.”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “You don’t agree?” asked Jack.

  Jimmy shrugged again. Just then, the call to prayers sounded from the minaret of a nearby mosque. The recorded message sounded both mechanical and lyrical at the same time—the Arabic reverberating in the stillness of the dawn. It had no effect on Jimmy, who seemed completely oblivious as he steered the car toward the port area to the south. Jack wondered what Jimmy’s attitude toward Islam was. But asking felt like violating the man’s privacy. Jack remembered a snippet from a show he’d done with a minister. It was easier to talk about how much someone earned than how he worshiped God. Maybe that was part of the problem.

  “What name the ship?” asked Jimmy as they neared the port.

  Jack looked out the windshield, scanning the area for every detail he could retain. The port was an interesting mixture of the old and new, the small and the large. There were slips for pleasure and fishing crafts as well as piers for container ships and tankers. On the basis of their research back in San Francisco, the boat they were waiting for was somewhere between the two extremes.

  “Flower of Asia,” Jack told Jimmy. “Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of time.…”

  “No we don’t,” Doc interrupted. “Look.”

  Jack stared out the windshield to see a smallish cargo ship docked at the pier Jimmy was approaching. Its containers were being off-loaded. The name on the side was in both Chinese and English. The English letters read FLOWER OF ASIA.

  The ship had arrived hours, if not a full day, early.

  33

  “Bastards,” Jack exclaimed. “Probably filled out the manifests wrong to throw off the Mossad, let alone us. Should’ve thought of that.”

  “Nothing we could’ve done,” Doc assured him. “We were already behind the time gun when we started. Could not have gotten here any sooner.”

  Jack bit his tongue as he thought about the time they could’ve saved if they hadn’t gotten the illegal guns, but he was thankful that Doc and Jimmy had them. “So what do we do now?” he finally said. “How do we find out whether the switches have already been off-loaded?”

  “No problem,” said Jimmy. “We go see.”

  “But—” Jack started, then fell back as Jimmy accelerated toward the pier. He drove directly to the gate, and after an animated conversation with the guard completely in Arabic, filled with gesticulations and several direct pointing at Jack and Doc, they sped through.

  “What did you say?” Jack asked.

  “You are representative of company, check to make sure shipment correct.”

  “But what if they check?”

  “SEAL rule: we deal with problem if it is a problem.” Jimmy flashed a smile—the first of the day. “SEALs always say, ‘Do until you are told no.’”

  They drove up to the control booth where the unloading was being supervised. The glass-enclosed booth stood at the top of a steel grid about five stories high, giving the men inside a good view of the ship and the machinery that grabbed the containers. They were large metal prongs—they reminded Jack of the Erector toy sets he’d loved as a kid.

  Jimmy led them up the steel stairs to the booth. Jack had to trot to keep up. The air-conditioned room looked very much like the control tower of a modern airport. A desk-like panel, surrounded by large display screens, covered three quarters of the space—running just under the large windows. Tinted screens sat at various heights to deal with the sun.

  Three men in white shirts and dress trousers sat in Aeron chairs. They were so intent on their screens that they seemed not to notice the trio when they entered. Jimmy walked to the nearest man and began haranguing him—not too politely, Jack noted. A second man came over, and Jimmy turned his attention to him, talking even louder and gesturing with his hands.

  The second man seemed to be in charge, though his only noticeable sign of office was a Western-style tie dangling from its clip on his unbuttoned collar. The man perspired profusely; sweat rolled down his cheeks despite the fact that the air-conditioning was blasting and even Jack, no fan of the heat, felt cold. The supervisor held up both hands as Jimmy’s harangue continued, trying to calm him down. Finally the Saudi glanced toward Jack, appealing to him for calm, but Jimmy stepped in front of him, continuing to speak in nonstop Arabic.

  The supervisor said something to the first man Jimmy had talked to. The man picked up the phone. Jack thought he was calling security and braced for a confrontation. Doc’s hand on his shoulder reassured him. Sure enough, Jimmy began nodding. He softened his tone, and, after a few more minutes of conversation, everyone was smiling. The supervisor went to a printer at the far end of the booth. Fetching a piece of paper, he headed toward Jack. Jimmy cut him off, his hand out. The man gave him the paper. The little terp nodded approvingly

  “Come on, bosses,” he said loudly. “Problem solved. Good job here. All good job. Very efficient.”

  Jack and Doc followed him out to the stairs. “Did I just promise to give them my first born?” Jack asked as they started down.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jimmy.

  “Did you bribe them?”

  “Not at all. The container left the yard a half hour ago. Here is the registration of the truck and the destination.”

  The remarkable terp led them back to the car as Doc leaned down to speak quietly in Jack’s ear. “Notice all the bribing was done Stateside?” he asked. “Get your head into the Middle East, Jack. You’re in ‘The Kingdom’ now.”

  Jack nodded grimly. “Yes,” he grunted. “That’s what’s worrying me. I can almost hear them thinking how my head would look on a stick, like Gordon of Khartoum. Get rid of me, weaken my country’s safety a bit more.”

  “Starting to hear voices like a desert prophet, eh, Jack?” Doc joked.

  “No,” Jack replied gravely. “I’m mentally replaying the tapes of my old show, the hate-calls from the radicals.”

  The men bundled into the car, and Doc leaned forward to confer with Jimmy.

  “Where to?”

  “Warehouse,” Jimmy reported, starting the car. “Other side of city. Six miles away. Time me—see how fast I get you there.”

  It was less than ten horrifying minutes. Some of Jimmy’s turns and weaving brought them to a hair’s length of other vehicles, the sidewalks, and even buildings. But they got there in one piece, and stared at the warehouse, which was nestled between what looked like a small chemical plant and an agricultural wholesaler.

  A nondescript truck had just dropped off its container when they arrived. It
rumbled out of the lot as they passed, leaving the large gray metal box near the loading dock of the one-story metal building. Jack craned his neck as they passed the building. It looked deserted.

  “Let’s take a look,” Doc said.

  “What are we going to say if someone comes along?” Jack asked.

  Doc grinned at him. “In Jimmy we trust. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

  Jack looked over at the driver, whose smile and crafty eyes made him feel certain he was in good hands.

  Jack studied the area as Jimmy studied the gate. Doc, meanwhile, watched their backs. The buildings flanking the roads were all fairly new mixtures of warehouses and small industries. A massive storage yard for containers filled the area on the north; its roughly two hundred acres was dotted with clusters of large metal boxes. There was no sign of anyone in the buildings.

  Nodding, Jimmy marched right up to the container. Jack went right along with him. They checked the markings. Sure enough, it was the one.

  “Inside that container are switches that could help trigger a bomb and kill God knows how many people,” Jack told the others.

  “Too big for car,” Jimmy fretted. “What we do? Drag it behind car with chain?”

  Jack looked around. Still no sign of anyone. “We’ve got to keep it out of Brooks’s hands,” he decided. “Let’s just sabotage it.” He looked at Doc for feedback or even approval, but the man just looked pensive. “What, you don’t like the idea?”

  “I like it fine,” Doc rumbled. “I’m just asking myself: considering what’s in that box, why isn’t anyone here to collect it?”

  Suddenly Jack felt very vulnerable and exposed. He looked around quickly for any sign of an ambush. “Good question,” he said shakily.

  Now both Doc and Jimmy were looking off in different directions.

  “No snipers,” Jimmy said with a certainty borne of experience.

  “And I can’t see anyone lying in wait,” Doc reported. And if Doc didn’t see them, there was no one there.

  Jack began to get a very bad feeling of being led around by the nose. The docking time of the ship had been purposely changed. And now the switch shipment had been dumped in no-man’s-land. He turned back to the box, which, in an extremely strange way, now felt as if it were mocking him.