Secret of the Oil: Prequel to the Donavan Chronicles (22 page)

MADJID

11:49 A.M. – NAJIB BUILDING IN RAS TANURA, SAUDI ARABIA

Madjid, al-Hanbali’s second-in-command, got out of the vehicle and crossed the street, followed by the other three. They had a large black container with them. The four proceeded directly into the building near where they had parked. Two of them gave the appearance of limping or walking with stiff legs. They entered the front of the building through the sliding glass doors. Just inside, a stream of cool air blew down on them. This provided a barrier to keep the oppressive heat on the outside.

Madjid proceeded in a straight line toward the two elevators that occupied the far wall. Arriving there, he moved between the two and pushed the up button. In a few seconds, the elevator door on his right opened. The four men and their cargo entered the lift. One pushed the button for the top floor, and the elevator started its ascent. While on the way up, the three pulled out the weapons they had concealed in their pants where they had strapped them to their legs.

As the elevator approached the top floor, Madjid said, “Get ready, kill anyone who opposes you, and get the rest to one location in the office. After that, you”—he pointed to one—“guard the elevator, no one gets off the other one and keep this one open for our exit.”

BING.
The elevator arrived. The door opened.

Directly in front of the doors a security guard sat behind a desk. He was reading the newspaper and took a few seconds to finish the paragraph. He started to lower the paper, to view these new arrivals to the company’s private floor.

Mr. Yasir controlled the trading company where the guard sat. The owner bought, traded, and sold rare pieces of antiquity, jewelry, and sometimes, art. The company had only three employees. The guard sat at the desk due to Mr. Yasir being a cousin who was repaying a favor because the guard occasionally gave Mr. Yasir a tip on where he might look for certain things. The guard’s father had a job at the Ministry of Antiquities and that sometimes paid off. At the present time, there were no valuables in the office, even though on occasion priceless pieces passed through the office.

As the guard looked up at the men getting off the elevator, he placed the newspaper on the desk and prepared to greet the expected visitors. Looking at them, he stared with wide-eyed amazement at the three men pointing guns at his face and froze, seeming baffled. He started to react, slowly inching his right hand down for his gun. His arm had not moved more than two inches toward the holstered weapon when Madjid put the first bullet in his head from the silenced 9 mm. He put the second one into the man’s heart. He had learned to do this from his now departed friend Abdul, of blessed memory, who had died in the American bombing of a house in Baghdad.

They rushed past the guard’s desk and into the main office area, which was cut off from viewing the elevator doors by a head-high partition. The first person on the other side of the flimsy barrier looked up in surprise, which turned to fear as soon as he saw the weapons.

Madjid signaled for the secretary to raise his hands. The man complied. The other attacker went and rounded up two more hostages.

“Bind them,” Madjid ordered one of his men. “You guard these.” He said to the other, “If any opens his mouth…”

While one acted as a guard, the other two started to bind the hostages, while Madjid grabbed the container and entered the main office on the floor alone. As he opened the door, his eyes went immediately to the panoramic view of the city and of the harbor, displayed behind the man sitting at the desk. It was a magnificent view, highlighting the beauty of the city and the majesty of the ocean in the background. Large oil tankers dotted the placid water out to the limit of his vision.

The man behind the desk looked up. He wore a blue Western-style business suit and didn’t show any surprise, but displayed a blank face. He did not make any move; he could see the weapon in the hand of the man stepping toward his desk. Al-Hanbali had called ahead to Mr. Yasir and told him to expect a visit from the son of his old friend, Ibrahim al-Hanbali. This man in front of him now was not Tewfik.

“May I help you?” Mr. Yasir said.

“Shut up and don’t move,” Madjid ordered.

He put the gun away, picked up the container and moved further into the room. The case made a thud as he placed it onto the desktop.

“This is the present from Mr. Al-Hanbali.” He again withdrew his weapon and signaled for the man to get up and to proceed before him out of the office. Madjid followed, keeping his weapon pointed at the center of Yasir’s back.

Now, the terrorists had all the hostages on the floor in one place. They finished binding them, with duct tape holding both hands behind their backs and securing their ankles. Madjid looked around the partition to check on his guard. He was standing in front of the elevators with his weapon pointed at its doors and he had blocked open the door on the elevator they had used. Turning back, he surveyed the room with the hostages and deemed all in order. He reentered the main office.

His watch indicated 11:56 a.m.

BRAVO TEAM

11:35 A.M. – OUTSIDE RAS TANURA

Lieutenant Commander Glenwood McDonald paced, stomped, and shouted curses at the phone. He could not get through to the general. All the information he could get from center was that she somehow got through to Matt. Finally, he gave up and closed the phone.

“Damn, I have to get to the city and intercept them. I’m not going to let those bastards slip through my fingers. I’m closing in and I’ll be in command of this operation on the ground. This is a once in a lifetime chance,” he was mumbling this.

His gunnery sergeant approached and interrupted his train of thoughts. “Sir, the helicopter is returning early. They should be here in ten minutes.”

“Thanks, gunny. Get the men ready to go.”

McDonald again dialed the number for the center. He finally got through to the general. She gave him the latest information she had on Matt’s team.

“I want you to proceed to join up with Matt as soon as he gets to a location. He’ll send you the information. There’s no use in trying to go while he’s traveling on the highway. As soon as he stops, he’ll call you with his location.”

“In the meantime, I’ll get my men on the chopper and get airborne. We’ll get there quicker if we’re heading in the general direction rather than sitting here on a deserted hill. I’ll try to contact him before we lift off,” McDonald said.

“Okay. Call me when you’re airborne.”

Mary Jean picked up the satellite phone and dialed Matt. He answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?”

Matt gave her the GPS coordinates of his position. “General, I’m on the move right now, following the car that I believe the leader is using. I’ve no idea at present where we’re going. I’ll let you know when he stops.”

Mary Jean called McDonald and warned him that Matt and the terrorists were on the move. She gave him a location and warned that was not Matt’s final position, but the position he had given her a few minutes ago while he was on the move.

Glenwood decided to head for the area Matt had given and at least that way he would be in a position to reach Matt’s final position in less time than if he remained in his current location. He wondered if Matt was reporting accurately or just being devious enough to ensure that he kept sole command of the operation.

* * * *

At that exact moment, the car in front of Matt pulled to a stop beside an old abandoned derrick. Matt stopped his car and looked around. Then he backed up off the path, to take advantage of a rise in the sand dune on the left side of the road. This hid his car from view if the terrorists looked back.

Grabbing his binoculars, Matt started to ascend the small hill to get a better look. He took his pistol, radio gear, and satellite phone, plus a canteen of water. At the top of the rise, he made sure that he did not break the skyline. He crawled the last few feet to the top and looked over.

The two targets were taking a container out of their car and unpacking it near the old derrick. To be able to see it better, Matt decided to move closer. He knew that it would take a few minutes. He radioed Bridget.

“What is your position?”

“I followed the other vehicle. They’re now slowing down and turning off the road into a fueling station about two miles from where you turned off. There are a lot of people at this gas station. They are parking away from the building and appear to be getting ready to wait. I can’t see anything with all these people around.”

“Okay. I think the action is going to be here. Get back here. I’m going to move in closer on these guys and see what they are doing. Maybe I can take them out.”

“Wait for me if you can. ETA five,” concluded Bridget looking at the watch and seeing 11:52 a.m. She would be with him in five minutes or less. She had to be there to help him if he needed it. Perhaps she needed to be there for other reasons.

Stop it, she told herself.

Matt checked his weapon and then moved forward to observe the activity at a closer range. He did not have a sniper rifle with him. He would have to low crawl to the top of the dune and that meant he would have to get close enough to use his pistol. He wanted to see them up close and personal after all this time.

He crawled carefully to within about fifty meters of the abandoned derrick. There was only one more dune between him and the two terrorists. He decided that if he could get over this hill he could get on their blind spot, providing him with an unobstructed view of what they were doing. He used binoculars for a few moments to observe the activity at the old well. One man was lowering cables into the derrick’s cavity. Matt assumed the load on the end of the cable was the atomic weapon. The other man was leading wires back from the hole to a small shed next to their parked vehicle.

Matt put his binoculars down and started to crawl over the crest of the hill. As he was doing this, he failed to see the one who had finished lowering the cables, had turned around and at that moment had picked up a reflection from his binoculars. As he rolled over the top of the hill, he heard the crack of a weapon. A bullet hit him on his right side. The bullet threw him back, and he rolled to the bottom of the hill. Damn, he didn’t know they could shoot that good.

The pain raced through his chest. The bullet had knocked the wind out of his lungs, and he was lying still, facedown. He heard someone approaching; his brain was racing to make a decision on what to do, but his body told him not to move. He was trapped. The pain abated and his breath started to return. Careful not to move his head, he rotated his eyes.

Footsteps approached. The man was trotting fast across the sand. He could certainly see Matt lying on the ground with his legs spread out and facedown. The shooter approached to within three feet of his prone body. It was 11:57 a.m. Three minutes until Tewfik al-Hanbali planned to detonate two atomic weapons.

The terrorists raised the pistol and pointed it directly at Matt’s head.

DOWNTOWN RAS TANURA

29 OCTOBER – 11:47 A.M.

In the center of the city, the ST-1 members trailed the terrorist vehicle. They had been circling a large grid of city blocks for some time.

“Hey, man,” Lucien said, “you see how the captain and Bridget seem to be getting tight? I mean I’d like to get tight with her.”

“You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell,” Gary said. “I tried to move on her once and she scared the shit out of me. Said something about another guy took advantage of her and she’d kill the next person who tried. I reckon you could get real dead trying her on. I’m not shitting you. She took me on like a wild tiger. I left on the run.” He finished and pointed at the car they were trailing.

The car approached the tallest buildings in the city. It was obviously attempting to park next to one office building. Sergeant Peter O’Leary pulled his vehicle over to a free space at the curb and waited for the targets to make the next move. Peter watched the four terrorists cross the street. They headed for the entrance to the high-rise office building.

“Hey, Sarg, those guys are carrying weapons shoved down their pants. That’s why they are walking with a limp. See,” said Lucien as he pointed.

“He’s right,” Gary said.

“I bet the one guy has the bomb in that container contraption. Let’s go after them. Keep it close and quiet.” Peter opened the door and exited with his pistol tucked behind him under the shirt that was sticking out over his jeans.

Gary and Lucien took the cases that contained the M-4 automatic rifles. The short stock and minimum length of the barrel allowed them to be stored in a diminutive case. The rifles were loaded and ready for action as soon as they came out of the cases.

The three maintained a slow walk across the street and entered the building. The four terrorists were just entering the elevator. The elevator door closed before ST-1 could get to it. The lobby had a few people going in and out to the street and this would not be a good place to engage. Peter remembered the lesson from Beirut. “No firefights in public places. Not a good idea,” he said just loud enough for the others to hear.

Peter observed the floor count on the elevator. It stopped on the top floor. He went over to the sign containing the names of the companies in the building and saw there was only one office on the floor where the elevator had stopped.

“We are going to take the elevator to the forty-first floor and then use the stairs to get to the top floor. No weapons until we get into the stairwell. Let’s go,” ordered Peter. He led them to the elevators and pushed the up button.

On exiting the elevator on the forty-first floor, they saw the entrance to a company office space a few feet in front of the elevator doors. Peter looked right and left and saw the stair sign to his right. With a nod of his head he pointed towards the stairs. They made no noise and no one from the office space even looked up to see who emerged from the open elevator doors. The three quickly crossed the small open lobby, entered the stairwell, and silently closed the door behind them.

They climbed up to the next landing and stopped. The weapons came out from their concealed places and all three rechecked them for immediate use. Once all gave a confirming nod, they climbed the stairs, tiptoed to the door leading into the top floor, and halted. Peter took a quick glance through the small glass pane.

“There is one guard with a rifle in front of the elevator,” Peter said, in a short whispered breath, as he viewed the area in front of the door. “Lucien, you open the door very quietly ensuring he is looking at the elevator doors and away from this entrance and I’ll take him out. Then you two rush in and take out anything with a weapon in its hands. Any questions?”

Negative shakes of the head came from the other two. Lucien moved against the wall, slid over to the door, and peeked out. He used only part of the window to view the corridor. After observing the guard for ten seconds, he raised his hand and placed the other one on the door handle. He moved to one side to be out of the line of fire from Peter’s gun, dropped his hand and opened the door in one coordinated movement.

As the door swung open two taps sounded from Peter’s weapon and the guard started to fall to the floor. Peter rushed toward the falling man, grabbed his weapon, and caught him before he slammed into the marble floor. He lowered the dead body and stood up looking around for any sign of movement. There was none.

They regrouped in front of the partition. Peter put up his left hand and extended three fingers. They would go on three. He moved his arm up and down and on the third time, they rushed through the opening to the secretary’s space.

Success, it was immediately apparent; they had taken their prey by surprise. The terrorists were looking out of the window, enjoying the view over the city and the port. On hearing the noise behind them, knowing it couldn’t be the hostages, they pulled their weapons up and rapidly turned. One started firing before being completely turned around. One swirled to his left, swung his rifle over his head attempting to get a bead on the intruders, and started to take aim.

Gary and Lucien had a clear shot at the targets as they attempted to turn, but already had their weapons in firing position. Both fired on automatic before the targets had completed their turns and their futile attempt to bring their weapons into play. Each took rounds to the head. Peter rushed over to get the weapons away from the bodies on the floor. As they completed this, they heard a clicking noise from the door to the director’s office. Someone had locked the door and knew they were here.

It was 11:59 a.m.