Secret of the Oil: Prequel to the Donavan Chronicles (16 page)

AFTER THE ATTACK ON AL-HANBALI’S COMPOUND

12:52 A.M. – 28 OCTOBER

“Gary and Lucien, take the bodies out to the shed. Peter, start a search of the outbuilding for anything they might have left. Bridget, you check the main house,” Matt ordered.

“Hey, Captain, here’s a CD I found,” Peter said.

“Give it to our geeks and let them look at it after they clear this place,” Matt said.

The men gathered the weapons captured from the terrorists and piled them into a small room in the house. They carried the bodies by feet and shoulders out of the house to the shed. Then Gary and Lucien returned to the main house to set up communications with the Center.

Lucien had his computer up and running and a remote dish set up outside within ten minutes. He decided to put the CD in while waiting on the center to come on line. The music started up and it had a great beat. Lucien started to move with the beat of the music.

Matt walked into the room, asked Lucien to get a secure hook up with Lieutenant Commander McDonald at the center and started to listen to the music. He could tell it was some form of modern jazz.

“Gary, have you checked out that CD for anything besides the music?” Matt asked.

“No, sir. But let me take a look at it while you are on the line with the center. They are up now and you have Commander McDonald on the line.”

After exchanging greetings, Matt described the actions he took at the main house and their current situation.

“If that airplane had been on time, we would have them now. Damn it, we were so close this time,” Matt concluded in a raised voice.

“It was bad timing,” Glenwood said, trying to sound sympathetic. “We have a plan on what you need to do next. I need to discuss it with you for support. It’s not foolproof, but we believe it is the best course of action. I want you to get the team rested there for twenty-four hours. A USAF helicopter will move you to a location along the road from where we have a general position on al-Hanbali’s group and where he is headed in two days.” Glenwood paused here to wait for any reaction by Matt. Matt gave no reaction.

“You’ll have contact with the AWACS aircraft as it monitors the roads and alerts you to the arrival of the vehicles transporting the bomb. I’ll forward the photos of the area we selected to insert your team. Get back to us with your plan after reviewing the ground situation.”

Lucien interrupted Matt with a waving arm. He held up the CD.

“Captain, there’s something on this disc and it ain’t music. It’s an encrypted file. Someone took a lot of effort to do this, because it uses a sophisticated matrix encryption. I can send it to the center if they can get the boys over at Ft. Meade to look at it.” Lucien waited for Matt to reply.

“We have just uncovered a disc that was left behind in the building they were using for the bomb. My man says there is something encrypted on a music CD.”

“Okay, Matt, see if you can get him to make an image of the file and transmit it here. I’ll get the boys at NSA to see if they can help. Anything else?”

“That’ll do it for now. Will check back in a few hours,” Matt concluded. Then he turned to Lucien and instructed him to send the completed disc information to the center.

* * * *

The image arrived at the DIA and was passed to the NSA at eleven in the morning. The crypto analyst on duty put it into the largest deciphering system in the world. After only ten minutes, the software decrypted the code. It was in the Cyrillic alphabet. A technician reentered the decrypted code into the computer. The mega-computer went to work to crack the deciphered letters in order to read whatever was contained in the file. This was an easy procedure but time consuming. Twenty-three minutes later they had cracked it and the file was exposed.

The NSA had language experts from all major language groups spoken today. These people monitored the audible transmissions from all over the world. They reported on any situation that met certain criteria. Most of the criteria had certain phrases or words that keyed the analyst to concentrate on the intercepted transmission. The words
nuclear, atomic
, and
bombs
were just some of the trip words used.

The computer tried to read the file contained on the disc, but was not able to translate the language. The analyst, who was a Russian linguist, was confused. The code that protected the file was in the Cyrillic alphabet and the Russian software program translated the code information. With that task completed, however, the material inside the file was not in the Russian language. He called in his supervisor for assistance.

“Try Old Church Slavonic,” said the supervisor.

“Don’t think so, I’ve seen that in my studies of the language at school. Your idea of church might be a clue. I know it is not in the old Greek, but it might be in …no …no, it’s not an old form of Hebrew. One of our guys is a Christian Turk. He comes on duty in an hour. Should I check with him?”

“Do it and get to me as quick as you can, as this is an operational matter and I understand we have people out there who might need whatever this contains.”

Ninety minutes later, the three men met in the supervisor’s office. The anxiety in the Turk’s voice was evident as soon as he spoke.

“The file is in Aramaic. It describes a bomb. I do know enough to translate the entire file in a short time, and the priest at our Armenian church can help me if there are words I might not be able to translate. You see, Aramaic is the language of our church.”

In three hours, the translation completed by the Armenian Turk revealed an astonishing plan to set off atomic bombs. The author described in minute detail the construction of two bombs and the plan for their use. The supervisor sent the entire file by flash message to the Center with the caveat “Eyes Only, Brigadier Bergermeyer.” A copy also went to his Director at NSA.

The Director’s office at NSA was located on the top floor of the central building in the massive complex located on Fort George Meade, Maryland. The Army had established Fort George Meade as a basic training center in World War I and it was still an active Army base.

Admiral John S. Kidd, current Director of NSA, was surprised when his aide-de-camp, Captain Thomas Mattowski, U.S. Navy, entered the conference room where he was in session with the heads of the various divisions of the agency. Without even a shake of his head, the aide immediately turned and left the room. The admiral excused himself from the meeting.

“Tom, what’s going on?” The admiral bellowed as he exited the room. Everyone knew he was a stickler for not having anyone interrupt him in a meeting. His bushy eyebrows rose, and his eyes looked at Tom over the top of his reading glasses.

“Admiral, sorry to interrupt, but the meeting was scheduled to go on for another hour and I believe you will concur in my action after you read this,” replied the aide. He handed the admiral the file from the analyst.

“Dammit. It had to happen eventually. DIA must have someone on the ground there to get this information. Get me General Bergermeyer on the phone. I want to talk to her before I call the National Security Advisor.”

The admiral marched to his office and waited to talk to Mary Jean Bergermeyer. This was a hot item and had to go up the flagpole to the top. An operation was obviously underway and he needed the information on its status before taking any precipitous action. On the other hand, he had a duty to keep his superiors informed of any major intelligence having a bearing on the security of the U.S.

An atomic bomb in the hands of terrorists fulfilled that criterion.

STRIKE TEAM ONE

28 OCTOBER – 11:34 A.M.

Matt completed his plan to intercept the bomb on the designated road that headquarters had picked, as the most likely route the terrorist would use to get to the target—Ras Tanura. There were two small hills on the west side of the second bridge shown in the photo. Those locations would provide excellent places for covering fire and commanded a view of the approach to the bridge. The first bridge was visible about a half mile away: it had only flat terrain on both sides of the exit end and there was open terrain stretching between the two bridges. He called Glenwood on his secure phone and started to tell him of his concept for executing the ambush.

“Wait just a minute and let me get the Brigadier in on this.” Glenwood connected the general on a three-way call.

“Matt, this is General Bergermeyer. You performed well on the raid of the house. The CD you forwarded has some critical intelligence we need to discuss,” said the Brigadier as she got up and then went over to the window in her office.

“They have an atomic bomb. In fact, they have at least two weapons and they are going to set them off at the same time to destroy the largest Saudi oil exporting facility and the oil underground reserves. One weapon is to take out the city of Ras Tanura and the other will be sent down an oil shaft to detonate below ground and contaminate the entire Saudi oil reserves. You must stop that from happening. We want you to capture the weapons if possible.”

“What about the terrorists? Do you want any captured for interrogation?” Matt asked.

“We have no use for them, as the CD contained all the details we need,” The general responded. “If you do capture one, that would be okay, but not necessary.”

“To be at their reported rendezvous at six o’clock they have to pass the location we picked between four and four thirty local. We’ll move you into position by chopper at two in order to get your ambush set. We can’t just blow them up with an air strike, because of the contamination that might occur from scattered atomic material in another sovereign country. They would blame us and we would have to fess up to the whole operation,” Glenwood added.

“Understood. By the timeline you set, we will be ready to move at noon tomorrow.” Matt had a feeling they were behind again, especially if the terrorists moved early. He could do nothing at this time. He did not know where they were located, and worse, he did not know if they had received reinforcements to replace their losses.

“Okay, gentlemen, keep me informed,” concluded Mary Jean just as the red phone on her desk rang. The admiral came on the line. He was his usual gruff self.

“All right, Mary Jean, what the hell is going on? I can figure you have an operation going on since no one else is on this atomic weapon thing. I need to know it all. I’ll have to inform the National Command Authority. I want to know everything before I call the president’s National Security Advisor. He’ll blow a gasket at this whole thing and have a hemorrhage over the fact that you are conducting a covert operation on Saudi soil.”

She told him all the details of the events from Beirut up to the raid on the house that netted the CD, which had the information his people had decoded, and then said, “I realize your duty to go up the chain and I have had the same quandary here. I am going over to tell the director in a few minutes. Admiral, you see, I want to make sure the team has a chance to accomplish its mission before too many Washington types get involved.”

“I know what you are asking. I doubt if I can allow any delay in informing the National Security Advisor. He will have to tell the President in a matter of minutes. Then the National Security Council will get involved, hell, you know the ropes on this type of thing.”

“Yes, but the President and his advisor are out of town, on a campaign tour to gin up support in the congressional elections. Could you see your way through to making a phone call to his office to tell him to call you? Since you know he won’t be there, it will be sometime tomorrow before he returns the call. In that way you have covered our collective butts by technically attempting to notify them.”

“Well, Mary Jean, I can see why the director of DIA has such a high opinion of you, and why you have that division. I’ll see what I can do along that line. When is the operation scheduled to go down?”

Mary Jean told the admiral the details of the interception plan. As she hung up the phone, she had a sense the admiral would do as she requested and that he was aware of the quagmire that could result from early disclosure of their plan to conduct this operation on Saudi soil. The State Department would throw up all kinds of objections and insist that the proper method of handling this would be to consult with the government of Saudi Arabia. This would give time for the terrorist to implement the plan to destroy Ras Tanura and contaminate the oil reserves, while “urgent diplomatic discussions” took place.

Her team was in place and ready to execute the take down of the terrorists. More information on all aspects of the terrorists’ activity and movement must materialize to make sure nothing went wrong, but at this moment, that information was not forthcoming. Of course the NSA might intercept something or there might be a break in the overhead satellite imagery. But right now there was no news.

* * * *

Matt Higgins realized he could use more information on the terrorists. His team was just sitting. He hated this waiting and was tired of being late to the action. The terrorists were always ahead of them.

“Bridget, let’s go out and do some recon on our own. We are just killing time here until tomorrow.” Matt signaled her to walk with him toward the garage. “Get changed into civilian clothes and we will each take a vehicle from the ones they left here. They’re the most common type of vehicle in this area and shouldn’t cause any suspicion. You just have to hide your female attributes in order not to draw attention, since women can’t drive in this country.”

“Sounds good to me. At least, we’ll be doing something. Not sitting here on our butts. I’ll get the rest of the team in civvies, and have them get the other vehicle ready to go if we find anything. Do you think we have any chance of finding them?”

“Realistically, no. But, let’s do it. I’m in command and it’s time for us to act. We can hope the center provides us with more detailed information or we can try to get it ourselves. Besides, they will never know if we’re unsuccessful.”

Bridget smiled at this and nodded her agreement. She recognized that she was developing feelings for this man.  He was smart, motivated, and dedicated, all attributes she admired. Not now, she told herself. Concentrate on the mission.

They set off in the most likely direction the terrorists would take, towards Ras Tanura. There were four roads leading in that direction from their present location. They knew the terrorists’ location was far short of the bridges on the single back road they would use for the ambush. Therefore, they had to be positioned within a four-hour drive from their present position. They developed a grid search plan to go along the roads. After checking the communications links and the fuel levels in the Land Rovers, they started out.

After four hours driving the roads, they were tired. Neither Matt nor Bridget reported seeing anything that would give an indication of the terrorist location.

“I’m starting back to our first route. What’s your location?” Matt inquired over their communication link.

“About three miles from where our search routes two and three meet, and I need fuel. This thing eats gas.”

“Okay. I saw fuel pumps at that intersection and a small store. Meet me there.”

“Be about ten minutes,” Bridget said.

They met at the pumps and fueled the vehicles. Matt did all the talking and Bridget stayed by the cars with her cap covering her hair. Then they moved the vehicles off to the side of the road at the edge of the little fueling station and Bridget got into Matt’s vehicle.

“Well, we have seen nothing that could give away where they are hiding,” Matt said, pulling out a map.

“No. But we were at least out here trying, not milling around mill waiting for someone else. I feel good about that,” Bridget said.

“Where the hell could they be? It has to be near the road and there has to be enough room to hide the vehicles and men, as well as whatever they are using to move the atomic material.”

They both sat there in the cabin of the vehicle, reclining back in their seats trying to relax for a few minutes.

“Well, I guess we have had it. Time to start back to join the others,” Matt said.

“Yea, at least we tried,” Bridget said. She was thinking of bending over to kiss him but stopped herself.

Behind them, three vehicles pulled up to the fuel pumps.