Allah's Scorpion (12 page)
Authors: David Hagberg
The rest of the crew, fifteen of them men, most from the Philippines, plus the two women from Cairo, would remain out of sight until the
boarding ladder was safely secured to the tanker, and they were given the all clear.
boarding ladder was safely secured to the tanker, and they were given the all clear.
Everything at this point was being done by hand signals. Although they’d detected no other ships out to fifty miles, well beyond the range of a walkie-talkie, Graham wanted to take no chances.
He waved back.
Ramati opened a large locker, took out a coiled, one-quarter-inch messenger line, and tossed it up to Graham, who caught it as it came over the rail.
The line was attached to a boarding ladder, which came up out of the locker as Graham hauled it in hand-over-hand. In five minutes he had the ladder attached to a pair of big deck cleats, and Ramati begin sending up the crew.
As soon as they were all aboard, the
Nueva Cruz
would immediately head toward Costa Rica a little more than four hundred miles to the southwest, where the four supposedly wealthy French-Muslim businessmen who had chartered the yacht would fish for blue marlin. They would be directly off the Panama Canal tomorrow evening.
Nueva Cruz
would immediately head toward Costa Rica a little more than four hundred miles to the southwest, where the four supposedly wealthy French-Muslim businessmen who had chartered the yacht would fish for blue marlin. They would be directly off the Panama Canal tomorrow evening.
First aboard was Mohammed Hijazi, one of their Syrian-trained explosives experts. He had dark eyes, a serious five o’clock shadow, thick shoulders and arms, but the delicate fingers of a piano player. As he came over the rail he smiled.
“Ahlan wa sahlan,”
he said formally.
Hello.
He was from Nablus, but for the past half-dozen years he’d operated out of the Damascus al-Quaida organization. He had fought in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, with a lot of bridges, police stations, schools, and hospitals to his credit.
he said formally.
Hello.
He was from Nablus, but for the past half-dozen years he’d operated out of the Damascus al-Quaida organization. He had fought in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, with a lot of bridges, police stations, schools, and hospitals to his credit.
“As soon as everyone is aboard, get them started in the engine room, but watch out for the blood, I don’t want it tracked through the ship,” Graham told him.
Hijazi glanced up at the aft superstructure. “They’re all dead?”
“Yes,” Graham said impatiently. He didn’t have time for twenty questions. “I want to be back to cruising speed within the hour, and I want this ship cleaned up before sunrise.” There was a possibility, however remote, that one of the satellites GAC regularly bought time on to watch out for its interests, had taken notice that the
Apurto Devlán
had stopped in the mid-Caribbean for some reason and the company would call to find out why.
Apurto Devlán
had stopped in the mid-Caribbean for some reason and the company would call to find out why.
A second crewman came over the rail, with three behind him on the ladder.
“As soon as Ali is aboard send him up to me on the bridge.”
“Aywa,”
Hijazi said.
Yes.
Hijazi said.
Yes.
“English,” Graham barked and headed aft.
He had a plausible story about a propeller shaft vibration, but someone had to be on the bridge in case a call from Dubai came.
MARACAIBO
Gallegos wasn’t at the restaurant in the Hotel El Paseo when McGarvey showed up, nor was the maître d’ inclined to help out even when McGarvey flashed a one-hundred-dollar bill in front of him. There was nothing left for him but to return to the del Lago, and see if Gallegos had come back yet.
He stopped at the noisy lobby bar, got a couple bottles of Red Stripe beer, and brought them upstairs in his own room. He took off his jacket, laid his pistol on the desk, opened one of the beers, and telephoned Gallegos, but there was no answer. Next, he telephoned Otto Rencke on the secure satellite phone.
“Oh wow, Mac,” Otto answered on the first ring. He’d been expecting McGarvey’s call. “Have you come up with anything?”
“He’s here all right, or at least he was as of two days ago.”
It was coming up on ten in the evening, and a deep-throated ship’s whistle sounded somewhere out on the lake, but very close. It reminded McGarvey of how much he didn’t know about Graham, and the situation here and over in Cabimas, and the fact that Graham had a two-day head start.
“All the normal al-Quaida Web sites have gone real quiet in the past twenty-four hours,” Otto said. “Just the usual CDLR shit out of London, and the IALHP in Prague. But it’s just background noise.” The CDLR or
Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, and the IALHP or the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places, had stepped up their fundraising activities ever since 9/11 had galvanized the Muslim world. Even the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq hadn’t stopped the influx of money to bin Laden—much of it from Saudi Arabia, but incredibly a lot of it from the United States.
Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, and the IALHP or the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places, had stepped up their fundraising activities ever since 9/11 had galvanized the Muslim world. Even the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq hadn’t stopped the influx of money to bin Laden—much of it from Saudi Arabia, but incredibly a lot of it from the United States.
“How about Louise?” Louise Horn was Otto’s wife. She ran the National Security Agency’s Satellite Photo Interpretation shop over at Fort Meade.
“Nada, kimo sabe,” Otto said. He sounded tired and a little depressed. “If they’re not talking on their Web sites or by phone, they have to be communicating via courier, but our Jupiter constellation is picking up almost nothing in infrared.”
The National Reconnaissance Office’s Jupiter satellite system had originally been put up to watch the India-Pakistan nuclear situation. But since 9/ 11 it had been pressed into service to also watch the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan where bin Laden was supposed to be hiding.
“Maybe they don’t need to talk to each other,” McGarvey said. “The mission has started and they’re keeping their heads down until it happens.”
“That’s the conclusion we came to,” Otto said. “But what have you come up with? Has Graham been trying to recruit a crew?”
“Apparently not,” McGarvey said. “Or at least not here in Maracaibo. But he made a big impression on one of the whores. When I showed her Graham’s picture she went ballistic. Claims he told her that he’d come down here to pick up a ship in Cabimas.”
“Shit,” Otto said. “What is Juan saying?”
“He’s at a meeting with the local chief of police. He promised to try for an APB, but the mood down here isn’t very good. In fact, if Graham did come down here to recruit a crew the government would probably help him. But Gallegos doesn’t think hijacking a ship is possible. He told me that Vensport security is tight.”
“Yeah, right,” Otto said. “And I’ve got some water-view property three hundred miles east of here I want to sell you. But he didn’t fly to Venezuela for his health. If he’s not recruiting a crew then he has to be hijacking a ship, no matter what Juan thinks.”
“That’s what I figured. I’m going to try to get to Cabimas tonight, but in the meantime I want you to find out what ships have sailed in the past forty-eight hours and their destinations.”
“I’ll get on it right away, Mac,” Otto said. “But why would a guy like Graham blab his guts out to a whore? Seems kinda sloppy to me.”
“He might have figured that someone was right behind him and he threw up a smokescreen. Make us think he was going to Cabimas when in fact he was staying right here. Or maybe he’s arrogant, and thinks he’s bulletproof.”
“Or maybe he’s nuts,” Otto said. “He was kicked out of the navy for some reason. Could be anything.”
“Do you have anything new on him?”
“Nothing other than the Interpol package that you’ve seen. But a friend at MI6 has promised to send over his Royal Navy personnel file. I should have it by morning. If I don’t, I’ll hack their mainframe and get it.”
There was no computer security system in the world that Rencke couldn’t break if he put his considerable talents to the job. But for him hacking wasn’t just getting into a system and raiding its files. It was getting in and out without being detected.
Three years ago, when McGarvey was still the DCI, he’d invited the top computer experts from all fifteen U.S. intelligence services, plus the top U.S. law enforcement agencies and a dozen key U.S. corporations such as Boeing that did considerable classified business with the government, to a one-day seminar at CIA headquarters. Rencke had come up with a foolproof way of hacking into the latest Quantum effects encryption algorithms, and McGarvey felt that the CIA ought to issue a warning.
One hundred and fifteen enthused computer division supervisors had entered the first-floor briefing auditorium at nine in the morning, and by four that afternoon only a handful of them went away with any understanding of what Otto had told them. The rest of what Otto called the geek squad left Langley wondering if perhaps they should change professions.
“For the moment at least I’ve got to go with the Cabimas lead, it’s the only thing I have, unless you come up with something new from his navy file,” McGarvey said.
“He had a four-day head start,” Otto said. “Why’d he blow two days of it staying there in Maracaibo to piss off a whore?”
Another possibility suddenly came to McGarvey. On the way in from the airport Gallegos had given him some background on Maracaibo. It was Venezuela’s second-largest city with a metro-area population of more than one million. “What’s the population of Cabimas?”
“Just a sec,” Otto said. A moment later he came back. “A hundred twenty thou.”
“Anonymity,” McGarvey said. “Maracaibo is ten times the size of Cabimas. He got down here too early, and it’s easier to hide out in a big city than in a small town.”
“He was waiting for something,” Otto said. “A ship.”
“A specific ship,” McGarvey said.
“I’m on it,” Otto said. “Give me an hour and I’ll have the name and crew complements of every ship out of Cabimas in the past forty-eight hours.”
“They’ll have a specific target, and whatever it is, it will be big.”
“He’s most likely after an oil tanker, which would probably head for the California refineries. If they blew it up at the unloading dock, it could hurt us pretty badly. The gas shortages would all but cripple us until a new refinery came on line. And that could be years.”
“You’d better give the Bureau a heads-up.”
“We’re supposed to go through Don Hamel’s office—” Otto said, but McGarvey cut him off.
“Say hello to Fred Rudolph for me,” McGarvey said. Rudolph had risen to head the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Division. He was the one man over at the J. Edgar Hoover Building for whom McGarvey had total trust and respect.
“Will do,” Otto said. “I’ll get back to you within the hour.”
“Do that,” McGarvey said. He telephoned the front desk and asked that Gallegos call as soon as he arrived.
“Señor Gallegos has just walked in the door,” the front desk clerk said.
“Un momento.”
“Un momento.”
Gallegos came on a house phone in the lobby. “He refused, and I can’t blame him. Graham has broken no Venezuelan laws.”
“Never mind that,” McGarvey said. “How far is it to Cabimas?”
“Forty-five minutes,” Gallegos said. “Is that where he went?”
“I think so. I’ll meet you out front, we’ll drive down there now.”
“What have you learned?” the intelligence officer asked, his tone guarded.
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
“First thing in the morning,” Gallegos said. “We won’t do any good down there this time of night.”
McGarvey figured the man was right, but it was frustrating to spend the night doing nothing. “I think he’s here to hijack one of your ships.”
“Impossible,” Gallegos said. “I’ve already told you that Vensport security is airtight.”
“There’s no such thing,” McGarvey said. “But I’ll have the names of some possibilities for you within the hour. You can at least alert security down there to be on the lookout.”
“Look, Señor McGarvey, this is Venezuela. My service has agreed to offer you whatever help it can. But believe me when I tell you that our shipping security is the best in the world. It has to be, because oil is our lifeblood. If anything were to happen to that industry we would be in more trouble than you can imagine. Do you understand this?”
“If Graham’s not after a crew, he came to hijack a ship.”
“
Sí,
you’ve already said that.”
Sí,
you’ve already said that.”
“He evidently figured out a way to do it, otherwise he would not have wasted his time coming here.”
“Then he’s in for a surprise, because his picture has been sent to Vensport Security.”
“When?”
“This morning,” Gallegos said. “Get some sleep. We will drive to Cabimas after breakfast, and you will see.”
The call from Otto came a few minutes after eleven. In the past forty-eight hours, twenty-seven ships had departed the various oil-loading facilities along the lake, bound for ports from Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and Montevideo in the south, to St. Croix and New York in the north, and seven transiting the Panama Canal for ports in the Pacific, three of which were in California. Another eleven ships were due to head out over the next twenty-four hours, six of which were bound for U.S. ports.
“There’s been no trouble reported from any of the ships already at sea,” Otto said. “And the Vensport Lake Terminal Security net has been quiet. If Graham went to Cabimas he’s kept his head down.”
“Fax the list to the hotel,” McGarvey said.
“No need, Mac. While we were talking I downloaded the entire list to your sat phone. Just key your address book.”
“Good,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime give Homeland Security the heads-up on all the U.S. ports on the list. My bet would be the California refineries.”
“Me too, I think,” Otto said, somewhat distantly. “But we’ve got a little time. The
Apurto Devlán,
which is the first ship on the list, isn’t due at Long Beach for another ten days.”
Apurto Devlán,
which is the first ship on the list, isn’t due at Long Beach for another ten days.”
“Keep me informed, Otto,” McGarvey said.
“Will do.”
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