Allah's Scorpion (24 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion
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KARACHI
Osama bin Laden, dressed in traditional Muslim garb, entered his inner sanctum prayer room at ten thirty in the evening, local time. He paused for a longish moment to study the faces of the four men gathered at his request, then stepped out of his sandals and took his place on the rug at the head of the room, his back to the television set that had been switched off.
“Good evening, my friends,” he said, his voice soft. “May Allah’s blessing be upon you. We are nearly ready to strike again at the infidel and this time we will hurt them worse than we did in Manhattan and Washington combined.”
Rupert Graham, the only Westerner at the meeting, gave bin Laden a bleak look. There was a leak somewhere in al-Quaida and it could very easily be either the Sudanese, Ghassan Dahduli, or bin Laden’s Saudi adviser Khalid bin Abdullah. The third man, Abdel Aziz Mysko, was from Chechnya, and Graham hadn’t met him until this evening. But he was in the inner command circle, which made him a suspect.
“Is it to be Allah’s Scorpion finally?” bin Abdullah asked, his eyes bright. He was a stoop-shouldered man with a dark complexion and a hawk nose; a third cousin of a minor Saudi prince, which made him royalty. He was an idiot, but he was a major money source for the cause.
“Yes, we have waited far too long since 9/11, and already the world is beginning to forget,” bin Laden said. He avoided Graham’s eyes.
“A wait that would have ended last week, if Captain Graham had been more thorough with his preparations,” bin Abdullah said harshly. “Pray that his spirit is more steadfast this time.”
“Perhaps we should find someone else to lead the mission,” Dahduli suggested gently. He was a homely, round-faced man with a closely trimmed full beard and very large lips and ears. He had been with bin Laden almost from the beginning, but hadn’t risen to the inner circle of advisers until many of bin Laden’s top people had been killed or captured during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for the simple reason he wasn’t very bright. He’d been a carpet merchant in Khartoum.
“That’s out of the question, my friend,” bin Laden replied patiently, as if he were a father explaining something to a son. “This is a submarine operation, and Mr. Graham is a submarine captain.”
Dahduli refused to look at Graham. “If that’s the case, why did we send him to Panama aboard an oil tanker? If he had been killed or captured, we would have lost his expertise.”
“Because the time was right to strike,” bin Abdullah said. “My money sources are beginning to demand action. They want something in return for the risk they are taking. With the Panama Canal destroyed by a Venezuelan ship and crew, oil from Saudi Arabia would become even more critical to the United States than it already is. Two hundred dollars per barrel would be conceivable. And such prices would surely bring the infidel to their knees.”
“As well as enrich the royal family,” Dahduli commented dryly. “But the question needs answering: If Mr. Graham’s skills are so important to our righteous cause, why was his life placed in danger on that mission?”
“Because we did not have a submarine or a weapon to fire or a crew to operate it,” bin Laden said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Graham’s breath quickened, catching in his throat. He shot a glance at the Chechen, who was the only man in the room other than bin Laden
who didn’t look surprised. “Son of a bitch, you got a Russian Kilo boat,” he said, in wonder. “From the Pacific Fleet.”
Bin Laden smiled broadly. “You’ll see,” he said.
“We don’t have the boat yet, but it would only be a matter of days once I am given the word,” Mysko said. He had been introduced to Graham this evening as a major in the Russian Special Forces. He was a hard-looking man, very compact, with a three-day growth of whiskers, deep black eyes, and narrow high cheekbones that made him look like some dark jungle cat. Very dangerous. He’d pretended to go along with the Russians, fighting against his own homeland until eight years ago, when he came down to Afghanistan and joined forces with al-Quaida and the Taliban.
Graham turned to bin Laden. “Can we count on this man’s promise?”
Mysko flared. “You have never trained aboard a Kilo boat, can we count on you to know how it’s done without fucking it up?”
Graham willed himself to remain calm. He knew that he could kill the man here and now, but he did not want to ruin the chance to return to sea aboard his own submarine. With a Kilo boat the world would be his, because once he submerged, no navy on earth would be able to find him.
Even bin Laden’s Allah would be no match.
“My apologies, Major, I meant no disrespect,” Graham said humbly, his thoughts soaring. He was beginning to see Jillian’s face again.
Mysko’s smile was as sudden as it was disingenuous. “Nor I, Captain. But it has taken me many months, and a considerable amount of al-Quaida’s hard currencies to get to this stage. I would not like to see all of that effort go to waste.”
“I understand,” Graham said.
“Please tell them everything, Abdel,” bin Laden prompted, still smiling gently, and it came to Graham that the man was hiding something from them. Something important.
Mysko nodded. “I have arranged for us to steal a Kilo Six-fifty Class boat from Rakushka, which is about three hundred kilometers northeast of Vladivostok.”
Graham’s breath caught in his throat again, and he looked at bin Laden, who nodded. Almost every Kilo Class submarine was equipped with standard 533mm tubes, which gave it the capability of firing standard high-explosive (HE) short antisubmarine torpedoes as well as the long antiship
weapons. But it had been rumored that a new class had been fitted with 650mm tubes that would allow the submarine to fire the SS-N-16 nuclear-tipped missile. That’s the class Kilo that Mysko was talking about.
Mysko glanced at Graham to make sure the 650 designation had been understood, and he smiled. “Security up there is normally loose, but I paid more than one million U.S. to a lieutenant general in charge of overall intelligence operations for the region, to divert the key guards for our boat during a twelve-hour window. When the time comes I will share all the details with you, for now I need only to know the target date.”
Bin Laden shook his head. “The details are not as important as the results,” he said. “And I will give you the date very soon.”
“Very well,” Mysko said. “I managed to come up with eighteen Russian crewmen, who were a lot less expensive than the one general. Eleven of them are already at Rakushka, but I will need forty-eight hours to get the rest of them up there.”
“Will they be sufficient to operate the boat?” Abdullah asked.
“The Kilo normally carries a crew of sixty men and officers, but it can be sailed with as few as eighteen men, if all of them are officers,” Graham said.
“All the men I recruited are officers,” Mysko said. “Russian navy pay is very bad, and prices are high. Even an officer has a hard time supporting himself.”
“Then what?” Graham prompted.
“Security at the weapons depot there will also be nonexistent during those twelve hours. Time enough to load two missiles.”
“That will create a lot of attention,” Graham said. “There’ll be heavy lifting machinery and a lot of lights. Someone is bound to ask questions.”
“I’m assured that won’t happen. But we must be done and out of there before the twelve hours is up,” Mysko said. “That means we must be at sea and submerged by then.”
There had to be much more than a simple breach in security for the plan to work. At the very least, U.S. surveillance satellites would pick up the submarine’s move out of the pens and then the loading of weapons. The bay emptied into the Sea of Japan, which was constantly monitored and patrolled by the U.S. Seventh and the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, but Graham let those considerations pass for the moment. “Where am I in all this?”
“Standing by aboard a North Korean fishing boat five hundred kilometers to the east. Within twenty-four hours the submarine will rendezvous with you and surface,” Mysko said. “After that she’ll be your boat.”
“How long to reach Panama?” Dahduli asked.
Graham was working it out in his head. “Can’t go straight there from Vladivostok, Japan’s in the way,” he said. “I expect we’ll have to sail north along the inside passage between Sakhalin Island and the Russian mainland. That’s about a thousand miles north, and another thousand south before we could head through the Kuril Islands and then southeast.” He shrugged. “It’s a long trip. Seventy-five hundred miles perhaps, right at the Kilo’s extreme range at seven knots. I’d need a schedule of U.S. satellites so I could know when to run on the surface.”
“How long?” Dahduli pressed.
“If we were lucky, it’d take a month and a half, maybe six weeks,” Graham said. “And you realize that once the Russians figure out that one of their subs is missing they’ll come looking for us. Just like
The Hunt for Red October,
only for real.”
“Are you saying now that you are incapable of doing this?” Dahduli demanded.
“Not at all,” Graham responded sharply. “But it may take much longer than six weeks if I have to spend time submerged, evading detection. It’s even possible that we’ll need to take on diesel fuel somewhere.”
“Where would that be?” Dahduli pressed.
“At sea in the middle of the night. Probably somewhere north of the Hawaiian Islands.”
“That’s the U.S. Navy’s Third Fleet,” bin Laden said.
“Yes, it is,” Graham responded. “But I know someone who could bring the fuel out to us.”
“Trustworthy?” Dahduli asked, sneering.
Graham raised his left hand, a gesture very rude to an Arab. “I am beginning to tire of your lack of faith, Ghassan. Take care that you do not cross the line after which I would have to take action.”
Dahduli’s eyes bulged. “Infidel—” he said.
Bin Laden silenced him with a glance. “We have much to do before we can strike this blow. Get on with it.”
“I’ll need a timetable, and personnel files on my crew,” Graham said.
“Remain here, and we will discuss your role,” bin Laden said.
The other three men clearly wanted to remain, they felt that their positions as inner circle al-Quaida advisers had somehow been usurped by an infidel, but they got up and left the chamber.
“You have reservations about this plan,” bin Laden said to Graham when they were alone. “Tell me.”
“It’s far too risky,” Graham said. “Getting away in the middle of the night with a submarine from Rakushka is possible. I’ve actually been there, I know the waters of Vladimir Bay. But I don’t care what assurances Mysko gives us, loading a pair of weapons aboard would never happen unnoticed. At the very least, we’d be spotted by an American satellite, and before we ever got out of the bay and into the Sea of Japan, we’d have a reception committee waiting for us; either a Los Angeles Class attack submarine, or maybe a Seawolf or a Virginia. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Bin Laden fell silent for several seconds. But then he nodded. “I came to the same conclusion, my friend. But we will let Mysko carry on with his plan; it may divert the Americans’ attention.”
“You’ve found another submarine?” Graham asked. The catch was back in his throat.
“Yes, and two missiles; we have friends elsewhere,” bin Laden said. “In any event, the Russians have no love for us.”
“Will the target still be the Panama Canal?”
“In thirty days President Haynes will give a State of the Union address to Congress. If you were to get within two hundred and fifty kilometers of Washington before you fired your missiles, there would be very little time to evacuate the building.”
Graham saw it all as one piece, as if he’d been planning for something like this all his life. “I’ll get us so close that they will have
no
time to react,” he said, and smiled. “This time I cannot fail.”
 
 
CHEVY CHASE
McGarvey thought that Katy was holding up well until he walked in the door of the CIA safe house a few minutes before one in the afternoon and saw the brittle expression on her face. There was more there than the stress of their move and her husband’s being called back into the field.
She had a small bourbon, neat, ready for him at the pass-through kitchen counter, and when she came into his arms and clung to him, she was shivering. McGarvey hadn’t seen her this uptight since last year just before he’d resigned as DCI.
“Have you see CNN this morning?” she asked. “They’re running a story about a gunfight aboard an oil tanker in the middle of the Panama Canal.”
“No, I haven’t,” McGarvey said, surprised.
“A Venezuelan oil tanker. Someone aboard a cruise ship just in front of the tanker had a camcorder. There you were, right in the middle of it.”
“It’s all right, Katy,” McGarvey told her. “I’m back now.”
“You don’t understand, Kirk.”
“What don’t I understand?”
“Every crazy bastard on the planet knows that you helped stop the attack, and now they know your face.”
“It doesn’t matter,” McGarvey tried to assure her. “I was the DCI, and just about every time I testified to a committee on the Hill I made all the networks.”
“Yes, but you were supposed to be retired,” Kathleen insisted. “Everyone in the world now knows that isn’t true.” She pulled back and looked into his eyes, an intense set to her mouth. “You’ve done enough,” she said. “Let this be the end of it. Someone else can finish the job.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Katy, I can’t walk away from it. Not yet. Not like this.”
“Until when?” she cried. “How much longer, Kirk? Goddammit, give me a date. I need something to believe in.” Her fingers were digging into
his arms. “I don’t want to end up alone, just another widow in Florida. I can’t do this, Kirk. I can’t lose you. Don’t you understand?”
“I don’t want that to happen either, but I have to finish it this time.”
“Finish what?” she sobbed. “They’ll just keep coming out of the woodwork, pulling the triggers, blowing themselves up, and killing anyone nearby. We’re not safe anywhere. Not in an airplane, or on a bus or train. Even sitting in a restaurant.” She was searching his eyes for some hint that she was getting through to him. “You and Elizabeth were almost killed when the bomb in front of the restaurant in Georgetown went off. That was just a few years ago. Or have you forgotten already?”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“What about me?” she demanded. “What about us? When is it our turn?”
“I’m going to kill him,” McGarvey said softly. “It’s the only way we can think of to put an end to the attacks.”
“You don’t know where he is,” Katy pleaded. “Please don’t do this, my darling. Please walk away from it. Let’s drive down to Florida right now. You stopped them at the canal. It’s enough!”
“I’m sorry—” McGarvey said, and Kathleen pulled away from him. She gave him a bleak look, then turned and stormed out of the kitchen. He heard her stomp up the stairs and then slam the bedroom door.
His cell phone rang. It was his daughter Elizabeth. “Hi, Daddy, are you at the safe house?” she asked.
“I just got here,” McGarvey said. “And yes, your mother saw the canal story on TV, and no, she’s not taking it very well.”
“I have someone on the way, should be there within the next few minutes,” Elizabeth promised. “I assume you’re not finished.”
“Something like that, sweetheart. I want you and Todd to keep a close watch on her. I don’t want the same thing happening as last year.”
“Not a chance,” Elizabeth said. Her mother had been kidnapped, held, and beaten badly before McGarvey could get to her. “Todd’s mother is taking care of Audrey until this business is finished.”
McGarvey’s heart warmed. “How is she?” Audrey had just turned seven months last week.
“Noisy,” Elizabeth said. “And fat, and happy, and wonderful.”
McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment. It was for Audrey and untold
millions of others just like her, the innocents of the world, that he was doing what had to be done.
“Daddy?” Elizabeth prompted.
“We’ll get him this time,” McGarvey said.
“Mom will be fine,” Elizabeth said softly. “Promise.”
“Okay.”
“Will we see you before you leave again?” she asked.
“That depends on what we come up with over the next day or two,” McGarvey said. “But I expect I’ll be in town until then.”
“Dinner tonight?”
McGarvey glanced up the stairs at the closed bedroom door. “Give it a couple hours, then call your mother.”
“Will do.”
McGarvey knocked the drink back, then girded himself to go upstairs and face Katy again. He had to change into a dark suit, and pick up Gloria. He wanted to get to Arlington at least a half hour before the service to personally check security. But Katy had been right about one thing; just about every bad guy on the planet knew that the former DCI had not stayed retired.
 
 
EN ROUTE TO BETHESDA
McGarvey took Highway 355, which in D.C. was Wisconsin Avenue, up to Bethesda. It was a pretty afternoon and traffic was fairly light. He got on his cell phone and called Rencke.
“NRO’s about halfway through the fleet with no hits yet. At least nothing missing. Louise figures we should bag all but a half-dozen by tonight.”
“What about those?” McGarvey asked.
“That’s anybody’s guess, Mac. But they’ll be Graham’s most likely targets. I’ve got some Jupiter satellite time reserved, and an Aurora is standing by at Andrews.” The Aurora was the supersecret high-flying stealth spy plane that replaced the U2 and the SR-71 Blackbird. “We’ll have to take them one at a time. But it would be my guess we’ll need some on-ground resources at some point.”
“How about weapons?” McGarvey asked. At one time the countryside out here between the city and the Beltway was mostly open rolling hills,
woods, fields, even a couple of farms. But now there were houses, businesses, and even strip malls. In Bethesda itself were a few high-rises and a Hilton Hotel. Americans were devouring their green spaces.
“If you’re talking nukes, it’s gotta be Russia, or some of the breakaway republics. Tajikistan comes to mind right off the top of my head. Hold on a sec.”
McGarvey could hear Otto’s fingers on a computer keyboard. He came back a few moments later.
“We might have something. Pavlosk Bay, east of Vladivostok. Used to be headquarters for the Pacific Fleet’s Twenty-sixth Submarine Division. But it was disbanded six or seven years ago. Since then it’s been a dumping ground for decommissioned subs as well as the fleet’s service ships, and weapons stores. It’s near the city of Dunay, right on the Sea of Japan. Unless we were looking, they could grab a sub and a weapon and break out of there before we could do a thing about it.”
“Are there any Kilo boats there?”
“Unknown, but I’ll check it out.”
“Good,” McGarvey said. If anyone could crack a database to find something, it was Otto. “But we need the last leg of the triangle. The target.”
“The big ditch?” Rencke offered. “They might not figure we’d expect them back so soon. Anyway it would give us a better idea of their timetable.”
“How do you see that?” McGarvey asked, puzzled.
“Graham is a sub driver, right? So why was he sent to hit the canal with an oil tanker? It was partly because all Venezuelan oil ships are run on a contract from Vensport to the transport firm GAC. Care to guess where GAC’s headquarters are located?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dubai. The United Arab Emirates.”
“How about that,” McGarvey said, not really all that surprised. It had become a small world.
“But they sent a sub driver ’cause they were being pressured to hit us, but they didn’t have a sub.”
“Yet,” McGarvey finished the thought.
“Yet,” Rencke said. “Are you coming in?”
Something was tickling the back of McGarvey’s consciousness. Something that he was forgetting. Something important. “No. I’m going with Gloria to Bob Talarico’s funeral. It’s at four.”
“Oh, gosh,” Rencke said, subdued. “I spaced it. Should I come over?”
“Did you know him?”
“Not very well,” Rencke admitted.
“Stay there and find that sub for me,” McGarvey said. “Quickly.”
“Will do,” Rencke said. “Oh, I almost forgot. Gloria’s buddy down at Gitmo is almost certainly dirty, unless he’s got a rich uncle we don’t know about. He lives in a two-million-dollar house out in Kettering, he drives a new Jag, and his uniforms are all custom-tailored. Two years ago he started spending more money than he was earning. Last year alone, three-quarters of a mil.”
“I thought so,” McGarvey said. He decided that it was going to give him a great deal of pleasure to bust the man. “Run the money trail, and inform someone over at the ONI. I want this guy isolated, without making it obvious to him. He could be a source back to bin Laden. Or at least lead us in the right direction.”

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