by I A Thompson
One look in Hernandez’ direction convinced Regina that now was not the time for excuses, but the time to pony up results. Just like she did the previous day, she made herself comfortable behind the DDA’s computer and pulled up maps and other relevant information to support the narrative she was about to give the two men.
“Meet Khaled Al-Najd,” she said as she projected the image of a bearded man with gold-rimmed glasses on the big screen. “Sixty-two years old, from a long line of religious leaders in Qatar, he was brought up in a madrassa that taught Wahhabism in its strictest form. He lived a relatively scholarly life up until the latest Emir took office. Apparently, the new Emir’s ideas of loosening up on the rigid order of things were sharply contradicting with how Al-Najd saw the world. What he was preaching became increasingly more radical and he began to connect with likeminded clerics and leaders across the region.”
Regina pulled up a picture of Omar Salib and placed it next to Al-Najd’s image. “He found a willing partner in Salib. It appears that Omar here thought for some reason he’d be better suited for the position of Emir than the incumbent. It’s not clear if Salib actually shares the Al-Najd doctrine or if he’s in it for purely personal gain, but there is a plethora of correspondence between the two, going back years, that demonstrate a very close relationship.”
“How does ISIS fit into that picture?” Treadwell asked.
“They don’t. As a matter of fact, they had nothing to do with the attack on the Burj Najjar either. Because we obviously didn’t know what we needed to, we were looking in the wrong direction. Once I was able to make the connection between Al-Najd and Salib, a lot of what we previously perceived as white noise suddenly began making sense. Mawan, for example, is one of their staging grounds to reach deeper into Saudi Arabia. The intel picked up by the drone was correct, but because we didn’t know, and because ISIS conveniently claimed the attack for themselves, we drew the wrong conclusions.”
“Any thoughts on why the Salafi network let ISIS take the credit?” Hernandez asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Regina shrugged. “ISIS being as decimated as they are needed a ‘good news’ story for their remaining followers. Al-Najd, on the other hand, can lean back, enjoy the fruits of his actions, and watch as the wrath of the world targets the wrong guys. The longer he can stay out of the limelight, the stronger he will be when he finally comes out of the shadows.”
“How the hell did this thing get so big that it now spans four continents?” Treadwell leaned forward, looking intently at Regina.
“There isn’t much known about the early days of their operations. My guess is, money was likely moved via the Hawala system and its incredible network of small money brokers, hence the lack of any trace on the financial side. Fortunately for us, they were not quite as thorough on the weapons side of their dealings. A beginner’s mistake on Salib’s part. He got one of his early shipments from a shady businessman in Laos who refers to himself as ‘The Buddha’. This character, who clearly suffered from a super inflated sense of self, sang like a canary about all his dealings when he got scooped up by local police a few years back. Although the authorities in Laos made the information available to all their partners in the region, not much credence was given to it, based on the lack of credibility of the source. Long story short, the connection to Salib went completely unnoticed until it popped up in one of CP’s extended search algorithms.”
“Please tell me you didn’t hack into the computer system of a foreign government.” Hernandez looked slightly unsettled.
Regina chuckled. “CP is good, but not that good. Not yet anyway. No, for some reason, the government of Laos shared their records about this and other operations to crack down on illegal trade activities with the World Trade Organization during their admission process. Fortunately for us, the WTO partners with us on another case, so I had access to their databases.”
Hernandez frowned. “That’s very thin ice you’re walking on, Miss Livingston, and you know it. Better find another source to corroborate this information.”
“No worries, Mr. H. It’s just like triangulating someone’s location. Once you have enough reference points, you can put a reasonably complete picture together.” She entered a few commands and displayed the entity-relationship-diagram she had been working on since the beginning of the case.
“Can you translate this maze into laymen’s terms?” Hernandez asked.
“Certainly. Let’s start from the beginning. Don’t hold me to exact dates; that part is somewhat fuzzy. I’m just going to say, roughly in the middle to late nineties, Al-Najd and Salib got their first shipment of weapons from ‘The Buddha’. Origin of the weapons was reported as the Chinese Triad, but I can’t verify that. The weapons were sent to a Salafi network training camp in Qatar and I have not been able to trace them from there. My working theory is that Al-Najd and Salib financed these early transactions personally.”
Regina clicked on a box in her diagram and a spreadsheet appeared. “Here you have the dates of subsequent weapons shipments, correlated with locations and dates of jihadist attacks where these weapons were reportedly used. As you can see, Al-Najd and Salib were equal opportunity distributors of arms to anything from Al-Qaeda to quarreling parties in various civil wars, ranging from Algeria to Somalia and from Syria to Afghanistan. All they cared about was that whoever they dealt with acted in accordance with the Salafi doctrine. These customers, if we want to call them that, paid with money and commodities that quickly surpassed the capacity of the Hawala system. In order to scale their operation, Salib built out his trading network to reach beyond the Middle East, specifically, he partnered up with Trans European Cargo.”
She clicked on another box in the diagram. “In order to not become singly dependent on the Chinese for their weapons, they also began to work with the Russian Mafia, the Bratva. They stuck to types of weapons that could easily use ammunition of various origins, which made them quickly a preferred vendor for groups who didn’t have the option to pillage stockpiles of weapons left behind by crumbling governments.”
“And here is where they began delivering weapons to the Colombian FARC and National Liberation Army. Although not at all related to their quest for Salafi dominance, they saw the two groups as fighting a common enemy, us. Once Salib crossed that threshold, he looked at any area of potential violent conflict as a honey pot. I even found evidence of him delivering weapons to the Midwest Minutemen, a rather scary bunch of so-called constitutionalists from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, who loosely connected their own state militias into an interstate alliance. Across the four states, they have a little more than a thousand active members, but their firepower is significantly larger.”
“Is there anything pointing to Congressman Birmingham having a relationship with these Minutemen?” Treadwell got up from his seat on the couch and walked up to the TV screen, pointing at the box with Birmingham’s name on it.
“Not directly,” Regina replied as she keyed in a few commands and new names and lines appeared. “He is part of the Conservative Caucus along with the Congressmen from Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. The closest connection from there to the minutemen is via Congressman Douglas Baxter from Indiana. His nephew, Tom Baxter, is a member of the Indiana militia. It’s possible that Doug Baxter has friendly feelings for them, but if so, he is very careful not to disclose them. At the same time, he is certainly not speaking out against them.”
“And Western Europe is nothing but the laundromat in this whole scheme?” Hernandez asked.
“For the most part, yes.” Regina clicked on another box and a new spiderweb appeared. “With a preference for using the Euro Rail system for quick and easy distribution of larger shipments coming through the big seaports. And trucks and cars for smaller cargo, specifically drugs, diamonds, gold and the likes. But given that the ‘Aida’s’ QBZ-97s went to French’s La Défense, we can safely assume that other European extremist movements are on Salib’s customer list.”
55
Three days later, the first of the task force’s coordinated strike kicked off in the Saudi desert. The silhouettes of the two Blackhawk stealth helicopters looked grainy against the silver-green background of the night vision camera filming. Each carried seven Navy SEAL special operators from SEAL Team 10 and their gear deep into the Saudi desert. Operation ‘Plain Sight’ was officially underway.
Once the helicopters reached their target, the two teams fast-roped to the ground and made their way to their designated positions around two main buildings, while the helicopters returned to their staging area behind the hills where they would be waiting alongside the Marine Corps Quick Reaction Force team, QRF, that accompanied them in case the SEALs ran into stronger than expected opposition.
The team operated like a well-oiled machine, with skills and senses honed by thousands of training hours and hundreds of missions across the globe. Pitch-dark blackness engulfed them, courtesy of Esin’s CIA asset who cut the power to the village.
To the observers in DDA Treadwell’s office, the nearly soundless approach, broadcasted from the Senior Chief’s body camera, appeared almost like a well-choreographed ballet. Every step, every move was deliberate and controlled.
All of that changed in the blink of an eye once the door on the larger of the two buildings was breached. A pandemonium of loud bangs sounded as shots rang out amidst screaming that seemed to come from all angles. Armed guards appeared out of nowhere. Then the rhythmic sound of bullets being shot from an AK-47 added yet another layer of noise.
“Grenade!” One of the SEALs threw an object in the direction of where the AK-47 fire seemed to come. Everyone had just enough time to hunker down before the grenade exploded, showering them with debris. The assault rifle stopped firing.
Within minutes, the eight operators cleared all the rooms in the one-story building. Once its residents realized that resistance was futile, they surrendered surprisingly fast.
The smaller building didn’t pose any type of threat. It was occupied by women and children who were huddled together, crying in fear for their lives. The two SEALs reassured them in broken Arabic that they were safe, and all would be well.
Thousands of miles away, Regina watched anxiously how the operators navigated to what the intel thought to be the command and communications center, judging by the satellite dish on its roof, which was a couple of hundred yards behind the two main buildings. She was worried about the wide-open space the team had to cross. It was quiet; too quiet, given the earlier firefight in the large building.
Before she had a chance to voice her concerns, the first SEAL stepped out from behind the tree that had provided him with cover. They saw light flash rhythmically on the side of the mountain to the East and the soldier got spun around by whatever had hit him before he fell to the ground.
“Man down! Man down! We’re taking heavy fire!” The team leader had turned his throat microphone on and now they could hear the unmistakable sound of a 50-caliber machine gun firing in the distance.
Small arms fire erupted from all directions in the periphery of the buildings where enemy fighters had been dug in. The ambushed SEAL team suddenly found itself in a kill zone with no way out. They were pinned down between the buildings with minimum cover.
“Falcon Base, this is Falcon One, we need immediate close air support.” The team leader addressed the operations coordinator at the staging location.
“Negative, Falcon One,” a disembodied crackling voice said. “The helicopters can’t take off for the next thirty minutes due to a sand storm on this side of the mountain. Dispatching QRF.”
“With all due respect, it’ll take them hours to get here. We need this machine gun taken out now!” The team leader’s voice sounded frustrated.
“Understood, Falcon One. Repeat, helos are grounded for the next 30 minutes. Take cover and hold position. QRF is on its way.”
“Copy that.”
It was quiet for what seemed an eternity while Falcon One assessed the situation. With the team pinned down, the shooting had died down, making it difficult to identify where the biggest threats were coming from. “Falcon Six, what’s your situation?”
The sniper positioned on the roof of the largest building reported back. “I’m pinned down behind a wall on the West side of the building. Shots are being fired primarily from the North and West. I can provide coverage for Falcon Three and Four to make their way back to the women’s building, but that’s it.”
“Any cover on the roof of that building?”
“Other than about a two-foot solid railing all around, nothing. And no telling if it’s just hardened clay or something more substantial.”
“It’ll have to do. Cover Three and Four. Everyone else, stay where you are, heads’ down.”
The two SEALs inched their way back to the smaller building, dirt and rocks raining down on them as bullets hit all around them, intermittently interrupted by shots fired from Falcon Six’ TAC-338 sniper rifle.
A few minutes later, they emerged on the roof of their building and assumed positions in the Northwest corner. Between the two of them and Falcon Six, they now had the high ground on most of the enemy fighters in the flat land between the surrounding hills.
Under their cover fire, one by one, the SEALs were able to retreat to safer positions. Unfortunately, there was still nothing they could do about the machine gun that had Falcon One trapped.
And then there was nothing left to do but to wait. The SEALs had communicated target locations for the machine gun and other enemy positions to Falcon Base. Much to their dislike, what was to come next was out of their hands.
Finally, the rhythmic sound of rotor blades was heard and the two Black Hawks that had dropped the team off appeared over the horizon. Seconds later, a Hellfire missile launched from the first helicopter, slammed into the location of the machine gun and exploded in a ball of fire. A few more missiles took out the other positions in the hills that the team had indicated.
The helicopters turned their attention to the area surrounding the buildings. The staccato of the Black Hawks’ M240 machine guns drowned out the noise from the increasingly sparse fire coming from the Salafi network fighters until resistance finally stopped altogether.
With the risk of getting shredded to pieces eliminated, Falcon One was able to get up and join the rest of his team. After the helicopters landed and turned their engines off, the sound of the wailing women in the small building was by far the loudest source of noise in the area.
“Falcon Base, we’re all clear,” he updated the team’s coordinator.
“Good to hear,” Falcon Base replied. “Do you still need the QRF, or can we call them back?”
“Have them comb the hills and then join us. This may not be Afghanistan, but we can’t rule out that the mountains are hollowed out with tunnels. Better safe than sorry. We also have a handful of men here who have surrendered and a few dozen women and children. We can use the extra hands to help get them squared away.”
56
Despite Zach’s noticeable absence, the atmosphere in the situation room at the Washington Interpol office was almost giddy the next day. After the successful completion of the raid on the Salafi network compound, the task force ‘Identity’ members watched the live feeds from the arrests around the globe related to their investigation. It was an astonishing number of people in Europe alone.
“It’s like everyone in the port of Rotterdam was on their payroll,” Lena said, shaking her head. “How on earth could that have gone unnoticed?”
“Because they were all in on it,” Finn replied. “It became a matter of survival for all involved to keep their mouths shut, or the whole stack of dominoes would collapse.”
“I just want to see Amante in cuffs.” Hardy focused on the screen that showed the police closing in on Anholts plantation.
The Surinamese police had a significantly tougher task at hand than their counterparts on the other side of the globe. To make s
ure nobody was able to slip through the net they had cast, they had to cover an area the size of a small city. Which was why a helicopter, borrowed from the military and armed to the teeth, was hovering in the periphery, waiting to swoop in.
When shots were fired near the train tracks where refrigerated shipping containers again were waiting to be filled for the trip to Paramaribo and the rest of the world, the scene instantly turned tumultuous. Men and women scurried in and out of the nearby warehouses, unsure of where the shots had come from. All just trying to find shelter.
“It’s coming from warehouse three!” Hardy yelled at the screen. “Go, get them already!”
Jon grinned. “You do know they can’t hear you, right?” His upper-class British accent made the comment sound more condescending than it was intended to be.
“Of course. It’s just too damned hard to have to sit on the sidelines when the most important operation of my career is happening.”
Eventually, the police were able to clear the warehouse and roughly two dozen men came out with their hands raised over their heads, closely watched by the authorities.
The focus shifted to the main house and the administrative offices in the old kitchen building. As was to be expected, Dominic Amante’s personal security detail put up the fight of their lives to protect their boss. It was obvious that he had equipped and trained them for a situation like this.
Before long, the police were hopelessly stuck behind whatever cover they could find, unable to move without sniper fire pinpoint accurately decimating their numbers. After about ten minutes of this stalemate, the commanding officer called in the helicopter for assistance.
The pilot brought his bird into position and fired a laser-guided missile into the administrative building. What happened next, would later be called one of the greatest fiascos in the history of Suriname’s law enforcement.
