The Scorpion's Gate (11 page)
Buford could hear small-arms fire now. He imagined some terrorist leader inside the ship lighting charges that would explode the five gigantic gas-carrying spheres. Even from here the explosion would create a blast wave and fireball that would kill hundreds at the ASU. Any moment now...
Above it all, Buford heard a siren. Turning, he saw the Bahraini patrol craft charging at full speed up the channel, all lit up and with a blue bubble-gum light blinking on its tower like a highway patrol car. Then he heard someone on the headset saying, “Hovering above the debris of the Defender...No joy...No joy.” They weren’t seeing survivors of the Coast Guard boat.
Machine guns on the Zodiacs and the Black Hawks were now ripping at parts of the deck area of the
Jamal
where someone might try to shoot at the SEALs as they climbed up the sides or at the Marines, who were about to rappel down ropes onto the ship. “Keep your fire way from the spheres,” Buford heard someone say on his headset.
Jamal
where someone might try to shoot at the SEALs as they climbed up the sides or at the Marines, who were about to rappel down ropes onto the ship. “Keep your fire way from the spheres,” Buford heard someone say on his headset.
Then, as the SEALs neared the deck, he heard, “Cease fire, cease fire, only targeted fire on hostiles.” Finally, he was on the deck. The muscles in his forearms burned, his biceps and back throbbed. He had designated the four SEAL assault units of four men each red, blue, green, and gold. He and the three other SEALs from his Zodiac were gold. “This is Gold One. We are on deck,” Buford said, swinging his assault weapon from his back to his right hand. The other SEAL squads soon confirmed that they, too, had made it on deck. Sixteen SEALs were aboard the
Jamal.
None had been lost in the perilous climb up the side of the ship.
Jamal.
None had been lost in the perilous climb up the side of the ship.
The SEALs assumed positions behind objects on deck to provide covering fire as the FAST Marines now fell onto the deck on the port and starboard sides. Another FAST squad was, Buford knew, hitting the bow. Buford was on the stern deck. His view of the bow was obscured by the smoke from the smoldering conning tower of the tanker. The Javelins had done a good job.
“Blue squad, join up with Gold. We’ll go below to find the auxiliary controls in the engine room,” he yelled into his headset. “Green, Red, join up with the FAST and go down amidships, look for booby traps and timers, any sign that someone is trying to blow up the ship.” Then he transferred all tactical control to the FAST team leader, a Marine captain. Once he went below, there was little probability that his radio would be able to transmit more than a few feet.
He pulled open a hatch and realized that the lights were out inside the ship. He pulled down his nightscope, and using hand signs, Buford and his squad entered the ship. He tried to remember the deck plans from his laptop. The two squads moved below down a darkened companionway. They descended three decks, providing cover for one another as they moved, just as they had drilled so many times.
He opened the hatch into the corridor. If he remembered correctly, the second door on the left would be the auxiliary helm control room, and from there the ship could be steered. According to the data he had read on the laptop as the Zodiac bounced out to the
Jamal,
this ship also had two emergency mini-propellers amidships. He wanted to deploy them and throw them to full throttle in reverse.
Jamal,
this ship also had two emergency mini-propellers amidships. He wanted to deploy them and throw them to full throttle in reverse.
Buford and the rest of Gold squad found the door and assumed their positions to go through it together, high and low, covering one another. He pulled down the latch handle, and in a second they were in. “No shoot, no shoot,” an Asian man in a T-shirt screamed. Buford saw no one else in the room through his night-vision goggles.
“Are you from the
Jamal
’s crew?” Buford yelled as he placed his weapon to the Asian’s chest. The terrified man nodded affirmatively. “Where are the midship props and rudder controls?” Buford barked.
Jamal
’s crew?” Buford yelled as he placed his weapon to the Asian’s chest. The terrified man nodded affirmatively. “Where are the midship props and rudder controls?” Buford barked.
The Asian’s hand went out to a switch. “No!” Buford screamed, and knocked him away. The SEAL wanted to see the controls for himself. It looked fairly user-friendly and intuitive. Everything was marked in Japanese and English.
“This should do it,” he said to the rest of his squad as he hit a button that deployed the mini-props. Then he dialed in full reverse. “It will at least stop what’s left of the forward motion and in a few minutes it’ll start slipping her backwards. Now let’s start looking for explosives.”
The young SEAL lieutenant grabbed the quivering Asian ship’s crewman by the T-shirt and threw him back into the chair in front of the console, exactly where he had been sitting when the SEALs burst in. “Where are they? Where are the terrorists?” Buford screamed at the frightened sailor. “Tell me now!”
Almost in answer, a shape moved in the dark. From behind a file cabinet the sound of gunfire exploded in the little control room. Above it, Buford heard a shout:
“Allah ahkbar!”
He swung to his right, beginning to raise his weapon as he took three rounds into his body armor, one above the other. Then one pierced the skin at the top of his nose and his head exploded as his body fell backward onto the control panel.
“Allah ahkbar!”
He swung to his right, beginning to raise his weapon as he took three rounds into his body armor, one above the other. Then one pierced the skin at the top of his nose and his head exploded as his body fell backward onto the control panel.
Fire from two SEALs in the control room cut the gunman in two. With the sound of the weapons exchange causing his ears to ring and his nostrils to fill with acrid smoke, a SEAL hit the transmit button on his chin microphone. “Gold One is down. KIA, repeat Gold One KIA.” No one on deck could hear the signal through the steel of the hull.
...
Still hogging the bartender’s binoculars and juggling them with her cell phone, pressed against the window glass at the Top of the Corniche, Kate Delmarco was dictating to a CNN news anchor in Atlanta. She had been at it for half an hour, her reports also turning into bulletins that the Associated Press was running on its global network.
“The helicopters are still hovering above the deck and are scanning below with really bright spotlights. The troops from the helicopters have been on the deck now for almost ten minutes, but I can’t make them out. The fire seems to have gone out in the tower thing.” She squinted. “And I’d say the ship is definitely dead in the water. A lot of little ships are now around it and I can see the lights of more on the way. One has a blue, like a police light, spinning.... The fighter planes are still circling higher up. I can’t confirm the report that the American base was evacuated, but this huge liquid natural gas tanker definitely was headed that way, and had it been exploded by terrorists, thousands would have died, Americans and Bahrainis. I must stress that we do not know the identity of the terrorist group yet, despite rumors that may have appeared.”
The bartender, who had never before had such a high tipper as this American woman, hung up his telephone behind the bar and wrote a note on a napkin. He walked around the bar to the window and placed the napkin in front of Delmarco. It read, “Man from hospital call you. He say
shokran jazeelan.
Just tell you
shokran.
”
shokran jazeelan.
Just tell you
shokran.
”
No, Kate thought, as tears welled up in her eyes. Thank you very much, Doctor, thank you.
...
Across town, in a small office on the intensive care ward at the Salmaniyah Medical Center, Dr. Rashid was composing an encrypted e-mail to his brother, Abdullah, in Riyadh.
. . . although the Iranians may try to manufacture evidence. Those the Americans captured on the tanker are Iraqi Shiites, who should lead them to the Iranian Qods Force involvement.
The American newspaper reporter I met at Nakeel’s suggestion, she was how I told the Americans about the attack in time for them to stop it. She will say Islamyah was not involved in the attack, in fact helped to stop it.
I think they will believe her. Nakeel said she has good sources in the military and intelligence. I must ask Nakeel how he knows her. Sometimes, Abdullah, I wonder about our friend Nakeel and how he knows so much if he just develops real estate. For now, at least, we have stopped Tehran from staging a major massacre of Americans and blaming it on us. But, I am sure, they will not stop. There will be more. In your service, Ahmed.
FEBRUARY 5
Vauxhall Cross, London
Headquarters,
Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
“
I
t gives me the willies just to be in this place, Pammy,” Brian Douglas confided to Pamela Braithwaite, executive assistant to the Director of SIS. “I’d be afraid to work in a glass palace like this, it’s just too vulnerable.”
I
t gives me the willies just to be in this place, Pammy,” Brian Douglas confided to Pamela Braithwaite, executive assistant to the Director of SIS. “I’d be afraid to work in a glass palace like this, it’s just too vulnerable.”
“Yes, well, you’ll recall, or maybe you won’t, Brian, you were in the Dhofar with the Omanis, I do believe, running ops into the Yemen looking for al Qaeda back in 2000 when it happened”—Pamela shut her eyes to remember the scene—“when a Russian antitank missile came crashing into the eighth floor here. The Irish. Made a terrible mess, we moved everyone off the floor for three months. Now, of course, we have surveillance cameras throughout the neighborhood and police boats on the Thames....”
Barbara Currier, Director of SIS, strode in carrying a stack of papers, followed by Middle East Division Chief Roddy Touraine.
“Well, Brian, you leave Bahrain for a day and the place goes to hell in a handbasket,” she said, thrusting out her hand to Douglas.
“I was surprised by the timing of it, Director, but we
had
just told the Americans it was coming relatively soon,” Brian said defensively.
had
just told the Americans it was coming relatively soon,” Brian said defensively.
“Sit, sit,” the Director urged. “Yes, I made a point of that to their Director of National Intelligence this morning on the vid link. And he acknowledged it, more’s the wonder.”
“My station staff have done great work in the last twenty-four hours finding out more about the details, if you’d like to hear them, Director,” Brian offered, pulling out his notes. Currier nodded enthusiastically while pouring herself a cup of Earl Grey.
“Those the Americans found on board were Iraqis, maybe Sunni, maybe Shi’a. Don’t know yet. Most of them got killed by the Marines in the firefight, but the SEALs captured one alive who said they were ordered not to detonate the ship until they had rammed a U.S. destroyer or run aground on the base. They had rigged two of the five natural gas spheres with enough RDX to set off a firestorm that would have lashed out almost three kilometers.
“Our traces as to how they got into Bahrain, where they stayed, et cetera, indicate that they were facilitated by a front company called Medkefdar Trading, which we link back through Hezbollah to the Iranian Qods Force.
“The Americans were alerted just before the attack by an American newspaper reporter, who in turn claims to have been warned by what she describes as an Islamyah source; we’re checking on who that may be. I can find out. This does, however, confirm my earlier reporting that the terrorism in Bahrain is from Iran and not from Islamyah,” he said, folding the notes back up.
“Not what I’m hearing from across the pond,” Roddy Touraine piped up. “A ruse, they say. The Yanks are still keen that it’s the al Qaeda regime in Riyadh.” Roddy Touraine had once used the commercial cover of an accountant, and he looked the part.
“It’s not an al Qaeda regime, although there may be some ex–alQaeda in it,” Douglas shot back.
“
Ex
–al Qaeda? Can one be
ex
–al Qaeda, Director?” Roddy Touraine asked rhetorically to Barbara Currier. “I would have thought once one, always one. Can a camel change its spots?”
Ex
–al Qaeda? Can one be
ex
–al Qaeda, Director?” Roddy Touraine asked rhetorically to Barbara Currier. “I would have thought once one, always one. Can a camel change its spots?”
“You mean like once a Pentagon liaison always a Pentagon toady?”
Brian flashed.
“Children, children, enough,” the Director asserted, chopping the air with her hand. “What’s next, that’s what I want to know.
How do we stop these attacks? How do we prove—
prove
—whose hand is behind them?”
prove
—whose hand is behind them?”
“Director, if I may,” Brian began. “As you know, I ran a small but highly effective network in Tehran several years back. I met them
outside of the country, but from time to time I went in under commercial cover. My successor shut down the network because one of
the group was caught and killed by VEVAK in Baku. Rather than risk the rest, we put the net into hibernation.
“As far as we know, the rest of the group were never revealed and are still in positions to know much of what we need now. I’d like to
go back in, activate one of them, and see what we can find out about the Iranian role in Bahrain and what they are up to in general, in
Iraq, with the nuclears, the whole ball of wax.”
The room was quiet for a moment. Brian heard a siren going by on the embankment below.
“Personally? You want to activate them by going in country, personally?” Touraine asked incredulously. “Don’t they know you by
now? Haven’t you been made by VEVAK?”
“If I stayed there any length of time, they would have time to match photographs, but that will take a few days, and that’s all I need,” Douglas insisted. “There is no way to contact this source or the others in the cell remotely, and I am the only one left here that
our network know, will recognize. Yes, there is some danger, but it’smoder ate, and I am prepared to accept it.”
“Danger to you, fine. Accept away,” Touraine shot back, “but it’s a danger to the Director, the Service, and HMG if the Iranians announce to the world that they’ve captured a senior SIS officer traipsing about the whorehouses of Tehran with secret Iranian government documents!”
Now there was only the noise of the heating system. SIS Director Barbara Currier was sketching butterflies on her notepad. “We do need to take risks. We are not the Girl Guides,” she said finally, standing to shake Brian’s hand, indicating that their meeting
was over. “Just don’t get caught, Brian, will you, now?” Pamela Braithwaite walked Brian to the elevators. “There’s being a field man, Brian, and then there’s being a cowboy.” He shot her a glance. “I thought you were a friend.” “I am. Why do you think she approved this little adventure of yours? I told her this morning she could trust you.” Pamela smiled.
“Don’t prove me wrong and Roddy right.”
Brian smiled back. “Thank you. Without you I’m sure Roddy would have torpedoed the whole thing. I just don’t trust that man.
Always running to Grosvenor Square, telling all to Uncle Sam. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to run the operational details about
this mission through that bastard.”
Pamela walked back toward the Director’s suite. “No, I will dothe needful with Ops, get you cover, backup, emergency egress
plans... make sure you’re authorized all the little bits that you will need... TTFN.”
Office of the Intelligence Coordinator and Chairman,
Joint Intelligence Committee
The Cabinet Office
Whitehall, London
“
D
elighted you could come over, Russell. Always willing to return a favor for Sol, work my way a little out of his debt. We’ve been wondering how this new analysis agency has been coming along, hoping we could learn a thing or two from you.” Sir Dennis Penning-Smith was in his late sixties, with a full head of thick white hair, and, in his three-piece suit and wire-rim glasses, looked somehow appropriate in this old government office building on Whitehall. He looked beaked, birdlike; he could have been a senior don at Cambridge, Rusty thought. But he was anything but that.
D
elighted you could come over, Russell. Always willing to return a favor for Sol, work my way a little out of his debt. We’ve been wondering how this new analysis agency has been coming along, hoping we could learn a thing or two from you.” Sir Dennis Penning-Smith was in his late sixties, with a full head of thick white hair, and, in his three-piece suit and wire-rim glasses, looked somehow appropriate in this old government office building on Whitehall. He looked beaked, birdlike; he could have been a senior don at Cambridge, Rusty thought. But he was anything but that.
“Sir Dennis, as Intelligence Coordinator and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, you know far more about analysis than we could aspire to for years. Your track record here at JIC is better than anything Washington’s produced over the last twenty years,” Rusty replied.
“Very kind of you, Russell, very kind. We’ve had our share of mistakes, though. We didn’t get Iraqi WMD right either, although we did call the insurgency and the civil war. And Washington isn’t always off the mark. Occasionally, INR, the State Department’s lit
tle intelligence analysis branch, is spot-on. Little, that’s the common theme. In the analysis business, smaller is better. Fewer people, higher quality.”
He continued, “Most of the fancy technologically based information, from satellites and whatnot, is American in origin, but thankfully, you share almost all of it with us. We contribute some code-breaking and listening, but mainly our side of the bargain is what the boys and girls over at Vauxhall Cross provide, the good spy work, and we share almost all of that with you. For some reason CIA has just never done very well at the spying bit. When they get one, it’s usually a walk-in, a voluntary, not a recruit.
“But whoever gets it, it all comes here and to you—all the spy reports, the intercepted communications, the satellite pictures, and the publicly available information. That’s the open source. Often the very best material is the open source, but Washington hasn’t liked it, you know, believes it’s disinformation unless they stole it, bought it, or picked it up in the ether.
“We have a small in-house assessments staff who see everything that comes in and then draft our estimates—or analyses, as you call them. We often call on someone from the Foreign Office to do the first draft. Depending upon the topic, we even ask a don or two from Oxbridge—all perfectly vetted, of course. Then it’s a free-forall, with the Defense Ministry, Foreign Office, Home Office, SIS, et cetera, all having their whack at it. Finally, it comes before the JIC, and we polish it off and send it through the wall.
”Rusty frowned at the last part. “Through the wall?”
“Oh, yes, literally.” Sir Dennis stood and walked toward the back of his long, thin office. “I am not high-powered like your Director of National Intelligence, but when I wear the hat of Intelligence Coordinator, my number-one client is the Prime Minister.” He pulled a key from his vest and gave a shove to a bookcase on rollers. Behind it was a door, which he proceeded to unlock and throw open. “Ta da!” Sir Dennis exclaimed. “Number Ten.” He then disappeared through the door and could be heard saying, “Penning-Smith here. Closing back up.” No alarms seemed to have gone off, no electronics appeared to be involved.
When Sir Dennis Penning-Smith reappeared, MacIntyre was still laughing, “You mean you have a secret door that brings you around the corner to Downing Street? What if the Prime Minister is in his silk pajamas?”
“Not to worry,” Sir Dennis assured him while locking the door and easily moving the bookcase back into place. “They live on the upper floors. The point of this little magic trick, however, Russell, is to be seen by the others around town as having direct access to the PM whenever I want it. I have done that act for every member of the JIC, one at a time.” He clapped his hands to shed any dust and sat back down in the Queen Anne–style reading chair.
“I do a little magic myself,” Rusty said, smiling. “But it’s strictly on a more amateur level. I do agree with you about the value of open-source intelligence,” he went on, trying to get the conversation back on track. “In fact, we’ve just given out a major contract for an automated system of collection, web-crawling, and cataloguing. If that works, we’ll be glad to share it with you, of course.”
“Automated crawlers, well...We may have different views of open source, Russell. Tell you a story about our mutual friends, the Israelis. They had a problem once with Libya. Haven’t we all? Seems old Muammar was planning to buy missiles or something from Korea or somewhere, doesn’t matter, and the Israeli Prime Minister wanted to know right away when the bloody things arrived.” Sir Dennis was warming to his own tale.
“So they assemble their Israeli version of the JIC and task each agency to find out. Next week the Air Force reports that it has flown reconnaissance flights over Tripoli harbor and seen nothing new. The Navy intelligence people have stationed a submarine off the coast and have slipped into the port for a peep, and nothing. Mossad suborned Qaddafi’s tailor, some queen from the Via Veneto, and lined one of Muammar’s flashy robe things with a transmitter, but all they heard was Beatles music. The
White Album,
by the by.
White Album,
by the by.
“Finally, Russell, the little man from the Foreign Office intelligence staff, Avi something, says, ‘The ship from Pyongyang arrived last Wednesday, unloaded at Pier Twelve, and set sail Saturday.’ How do you know, they all ask. ‘I called the harbormaster and asked him,’ the little bugger says. That, you see, is open source, no crawly worms involved.” Penning-Smith smiled and sat back.
MacIntyre was chuckling. “You may have a point there, Sir Dennis. So what concerns you now? What are you looking at?”
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