Ashes - Enemy In The Ashes Part 6

"Try not to get too much blood on the uniforms," Hazmi whispered over his shoulder.

76.He moved toward the guards, holding out his hand with a sheet of paper in it as if to give them a sh.o.r.e pa.s.s.

When the guard reached for it, Hazmi's men moved quickly. Knives were drawn and held under the guards' chins.

"Step back into the booth," Hazmi said, "and you won't be harmed."

Once the men were inside and out of sight, they were made to strip down to their underwear. "Lie facedown on the floor with your hands behind your backs so we can tie you up," Hazmi commanded.

When they complied, Hazmi nodded at his men, who calmly reached down and grabbed the men by the hair, pulled their heads back, and cut their throats. While the men were still writhing in their death throes, Hazmi's men donned their uniforms, noting the names of the guards that were stenciled on the s.h.i.+rts.

"You have approximately three and a half hours until the s.h.i.+ft changes,"

Hazmi told them, glancing at his watch. "If anyone calls on the telephone, cough and speak with a raspy voice as if you have a cold."

He'd picked these two men to man the guard post because of their command of English, the main language of the UN. troops a.s.signed to protect the ports.

"Thirty minutes before eight o'clock in the morning, leave the post, commandeer a vehicle, and follow the maps you have to the oil fields to join us."

Both men nodded, though they were sweating with the knowledge that the odds of them getting away were slim.

With the guard post taken care of, Hazmi went outside and gave a signal.

The rest of his men came running. He sent them into the city to find suitable transportation for his troops and equipment to the oil fields.

In less than fifteen minutes, they were back with sev-77 eral large trucks. "Make sure they are filled with gasoline," Hazmi warned as the men loaded the trucks with munitions, grenades, a.s.sault rifles, missile launchers, and most importantly, the containers of plutonium Hazmi had brought to put around the oil wells and storage facilities at the fields.

The entire process of landing and taking control of the port had taken less than thirty minutes-fifteen less than Hazmi had figured on.

The Grosse Hund, under command of Abdul Muttmain, had a similarly easy time when they sailed into the port at Bushehr in Iran. Hans, thoroughly cowed by the cold-blooded murder of his captain, talked to the harbormaster on the radio and cleared the way for the s.h.i.+p to be berthed at the tanker docking facilities.

Muttmain followed the same plan as Hazmi had, and his men had no trouble subduing and then killing the few U.N. soldiers standing guard at the port. In less than an hour after docking, Muttmain and his crew, with their weapons and plutonium, were on their way to the oil fields that dotted the countryside of Iran.

The Exxon Marquis, under the command of Dinise Jabagh, wasn't to be so lucky. Jabagh made the mistake of leaving Captain Jason Briggs in the bridge so he could communicate with the port authorities if necessary.

Briggs was an extremely intelligent man, and years of sailing in the Persian Gulf had allowed him to become conversant in most of the languages of the region. Jabagh and his men, when discussing their plans for the takeover of the port at Kuwait City among themselves, spoke in 78 r 78 William W. Johnstone their native tongue, never guessing the infidel standing next to them would be able to understand what they were saying.

Once Briggs became aware of their plan, he knew it was imperative that he stop them, even at the cost of every life on the s.h.i.+p if necessary.

To make his plan work, Briggs knew he must make Jabagh feel that he would be incapable of going against the Arab's wishes. As they moved closer to Kuwait City, Briggs began to sob and moan, shaking and trembling as if in great fear.

Jabagh glanced at him with evident distaste. "What is wrong, Captain?"

he asked, his voice dripping with scorn.

"I'm afraid you are going to kill me once we reach the port," Briggs moaned in a weak, rasping voice.

Jabagh spoke in a low tone to his second in command, Mustafa Harim.

"This infidel dog is going to soil himself unless we let him believe he will survive all this."

He then turned to Captain Briggs. "Don't worry, Captain," he said, unaware Briggs had understood every word of his aside to Harim. "I have told you that if you cooperate fully, nothing will happen to you andyour men."

"Promise?" Briggs groveled.

Jabagh had to fight to keep his disgust with the weakling captain out of his voice. "Yes, Captain, I promise."

As they neared the port, Jabagh tapped Mustafa Harim on the shoulder.

"Keep your eyes on this sniveling dog for a moment. I must use the rest room before our arrival in Kuwait." He grinned. "I am afraid we will be much too busy killing infidels after that to take the time."

Harim grinned back. He patted the automatic pistol on his belt. "Do not worry, Dinise. This coward will give me no trouble."

79.79.After Jabagh left, Briggs wasted no time. He got to his feet, still crying as if in terror.

"What are you doing?" Harim asked harshly, his hand moving to the b.u.t.t of his pistol.

"I need to get a handkerchief out of the drawer to wipe my eyes," Briggs moaned.

Harim spat on the floor. "Go ahead," he said, turning his eyes back to the course of the s.h.i.+p.

Briggs opened a drawer in front of the padded captain's chair he usually occupied, and wrapped his fingers around a silver ballpoint pen that had been a gift from his wife.

He looked up, his eyes wide with feigned terror, and pointed out the side window. "Look!" he yelled in alarm.

Harim turned his head to see what had scared the captain, and then he gasped as Briggs drove the point of the pen into his carotid artery.

Harim tried to scream, but his vocal cords were ruined and his blood was spurting in a steady stream all over the cabin. He jumped out of the captain's chair and took two steps, his hands outreached in claws toward Briggs, before he collapsed to the floor dead.

Briggs bent and pulled the pistol from Harim's holster, locked the bridge doors, and turned on the radio.

When the harbormaster at Kuwait City answered, Briggs quickly told him his s.h.i.+p had been taken over by terrorists and was out of his control.

"We will alert the U.N. forces in the city," the harbormaster said.

"What are you going to do?"

Briggs grinned as he sleeved Harim's blood off his face. "I'm going to send the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to meet Allah," he growled, and then he smashed the radio beyond repair.

He turned the wheel of the s.h.i.+p all the way to the left, locked it inplace, and then bent and reached under the 80.counter in front of the wheel. He pulled all of the wires loose so the wheel couldn't be repositioned, just in case he failed in his mission.

In that event, the tanker would move in a continuous circle and go nowhere.

Once that was accomplished, Briggs slipped out of the bridge and moved down side corridors toward the rear hold, where Jabagh had stored the munitions until they could be off-loaded at Kuwait City.

Luckily, there was no moon tonight, and the pa.s.sageways were clothed in darkness. At the entrance to the hold, there were two men standing guard, but their attention was not on the task at hand. They were drinking what smelled like very strong coffee to Briggs, and chatting about how beautiful the women of Kuwait were supposed to be.

Briggs eased the safety off on the pistol, took careful aim, and fired twice in quick succession. The pistol, equipped with a silencer, as were all of the terrorists' handguns, coughed and the two men went down without a sound.

Briggs jumped over their bodies and hurried down the ladder into the hold. His eyes widened at the amount of munitions in the place. He'd never seen so many guns and rifles and missiles and grenades in one place since his days in the British Army as a teenager.

He put the pistol in his belt, picked up an Uzi and as many magazines as he could stuff into his pockets, and two fragmentation grenades, which he clipped to his belt.

As he climbed back up the ladder, he heard the s.h.i.+p's horn blaring.

Evidently Jabagh had found Harim in the bridge.

Briggs took a deep breath. It was now or never. He took the hand grenades off his belt, pulled the pins, and then tossed them down into the hold.

81.81.Spinning around, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward the forward hold. He was going to rescue his men if at all possible, or die trying.

He never heard the shot that killed him. One of Jabagh's men, seeing him running along the corridor, let go with a burst from his Uzi. The first bullet fired hit Briggs in the back of his neck, killing him instantly.

Jabagh, hearing the shots, leaned over the rail that ran around the bridge, and saw Briggs fall.

"Good shot!" he yelled to the soldier, who was holding up his Uzi with a wide grin on his face.

When the grenades exploded in the rear hold, they set off over two tons of high explosives. The resulting fireball blew the back half of the s.h.i.+p off and sent a shock wave that knocked Jabagh over the rail he wasleaning on. He screamed all the way down to the deck thirty feet below.

The Exxon Marquis took less than three minutes to disappear beneath the rolling swells of the Persian Gulf.

Thus, there was no one to hear when the harbormaster at Kuwait City radioed ten minutes later. "Captain Briggs . . . Captain Briggs on the Exxon Marquis. Can you read me?"

When his only answer was silence, the harbormaster turned to his a.s.sistant. "Get me the head of the U.N. security forces on the telephone. Now! This is an emergency!"

82 TWELVE.

When Buddy's team a.s.sembled in Ben's office, they found Ben and Mike Post already meeting with the SAS soldier, Bartholomew Wiley-Smeyth.

Since they'd come directly from the landing field after their flight home on the C-130, Ben arranged for his secretary to have the cooks at the mess hall bring them some food.

While they feasted on sandwiches, tea, and coffee, Ben filled them in on the reason for Bart's visit.

"Bart has come over to share with us some recent intel his security forces have come up with," Ben said, inclining his head toward Bart.

"Why don't you tell them what you told Mike and me a little while ago?"

Bart cleared his throat. "You remember that two of my men were killed while trying to stop a man named Muhammad Atwa from delivering a s.h.i.+pment of plutonium to some unknown destination in the Middle East?"

When Buddy nodded, Bart continued. "Well, after I got back home from my visit here, I put all of our Middle Eastern resources on high alert to see if we could find out what was going on."

"Did you get any results?" Buddy asked around a mouthful of tuna on rye.

Bart nodded. "Yes. My agents reported a high degree of activity near Kandahar in Afghanistan. Rebels and old 83.83.revolutionary troops were pouring across the border with Pakistan and out of the mountains, and they were all headed for Kandahar."

Harley Reno stopped eating to listen. "Any idea who they were going there to meet?"

"The name Abdullah El Farrar came up several times, along with a man named Farid Zamet, who at this point is unknown to our Intel resources."

Harley glanced at Mike Post. "I thought El Farrar was disgraced and out of favor after his failed coup attempt last year in the U.S."

"That is the information we had," Mike said, shrugging. "But as you all know, things can change rather rapidly in the Middle East. Alliances and loyalties can change almost by the hour over there, depending on whopromises the most to the various tribal chieftains and their followers.

Our information was that El Farrar as well as his family were on the verge of bankruptcy after the U.N. managed to freeze all of their banking a.s.sets."

"Evidently not all of the El Farrar family's resources were found and frozen," Bart said. "Some of the Arab banks don't exactly cooperate with the Western nations in matters that affect the Muslim world."

Buddy spoke up. "So what if that megalomaniac wants to come after us again? With our Intel and satellites, we should be able to keep track of what he's up to day by day. If he starts to send troops out of Afghanistan, it should be relatively easy to counter his moves almost before he makes them."

Bart nodded. "That's what we figured and why we weren't particularly concerned, until we got some worrisome information two days ago."

"What did you hear?" Buddy asked just before stuffing the last of his sandwich into his mouth.

84."We got wind of a several freighters setting sail from the port of Karachi in Pakistan last week. When we sent men in to question the dockworkers, they said the s.h.i.+ps were loaded with men and munitions."

Buddy shrugged. "So what? Farrar couldn't put enough men or materiel on a few old freighters to do much of anything."

"You're right, up to a point, Buddy," Bart conceded. "But the thing that worried us most was the dockworkers also mentioned noticing some rather strange metal containers that were guarded closely. They said the troops themselves loaded these metal containers, and wouldn't let any of the stevedores near them."

Buddy's eyes widened. "So, you think these s.h.i.+ps were also carrying the plutonium Atwa delivered?"

"That's our best guess."

"Were you able to track the s.h.i.+ps, either by airplane or satellite?"

Harley asked.

"That's one of the things that has us worried. We thought for sure the s.h.i.+ps would head out into the Arabian Sea toward one of the Western nations, but they didn't. Instead, they just proceeded to cruise around the Persian Gulf, making big circles, as if they were waiting for someone or something."

Harley's eyes became vacant as he stared at the ceiling. "Sounds to me, Bart, like they may be planning to move against one of the countries bordering the Gulf."

Bart sighed. "Our Intel agrees with you, Harley. I even went so far as to call Jean-Francois Chapelle at U.N. headquarters and ask him to put the troops guarding the ports along the Gulf on high alert."

Ben snorted through his nose. "Hah, I can probably tell you what he said."Bart glanced at Ben.

85.85."He probably said he couldn't do that because it would be a provocation to the poor law-abiding countries of the Middle East to accuse them of plotting terrorist attacks without any proof," Ben concluded sarcastically.

Bart laughed. "d.a.m.n if those weren't almost his exact words."

Ben shook his head. "The U.N. is nothing more than a bunch of lily-livered do-gooders who don't have b.a.l.l.s enough to do what they're supposed to be in business to do. They sit around and talk and talk and talk until whatever is going to happen has already happened. They are the personification of that old cliche about locking the barn door after the horses have all gotten out."

"But Ben," Coop said, a puzzled look on his face, "I thought you like Jean-Francois."

Ben smiled a crooked smile. "h.e.l.l, I do like the man; mainly because he pretty much leaves us alone to do what has to be done without trying to interfere. 'Course, that don't mean the U.N. is worth a s.h.i.+t-not when you actually need them to do something."

Bart continued to chuckle. "Ben, it always amazes me when we talk, because you and I feel so much alike about so many things."

"So, what do you think is going to happen out there in the Gulf?" Buddy asked.