Ark Storm (18 page)

“Ah, the drones. I do love the drones. Buy them immediately. Buy as many as you need. Ionizers too.”

“We’ve got plenty of space in our hangar.”

“Then fill it. Build in redundancy,” intoned the Sheikh. His smile faded. He rested his forearms on his knees.

“It is fitting, as well as amusing, do you not think, that we shall be using drones to bring death to the Americans, after they have dispatched so many of my brothers with their drones and their Hellfire missiles?” His eyes went distant, perhaps, thought the man, seeing in the desolation of the desert the streak of white, the explosion and the fireball, the immolation.

“Like Anwar al-Awlaki,” the Sheikh added softly, almost to himself, “whom I met so many years ago here in San Diego.” He turned his eyes, narrowed, almost black, back on the man, who, despite himself, shuddered.

“It does have a certain symmetry,” the man managed to admit. “I’ll get onto it.”

“It reminds me of one of the things that Bin Laden used to say,” mused the Sheikh, fingers toying with his close-shaven beard. “He might have been Sunni, but his insight was unparalleled:

‘We love death. The US loves life. That is the difference between us.’”

41

THE SUPER-YACHT,
ZEPHYR
, MOORED OFF SAN DIEGO, MONDAY EVENING

Sheikh Ali watched the man leave, then he strode from the stateroom to the small office that abutted his bedroom. His kandoora, fiercely starched, made a crisp thwacking sound like a flag snapping in a stiff breeze.

Using his BlackBerry, he dialed a number from memory. Again, this call was protected, this time by a software-installed encryption system, Cellcrypt. This was not as secure as the hardware systems he preferred, but the man he was calling did not have those systems. And Cellcrypt was good enough. Of that the Sheikh was confident. The man might be an ayatollah, in theory a man of God, but he was also the head of Iran’s state-funded terrorist organization—a rogue breakout from their intelligence division, VEVAK—a cunning opportunist who would forgive no mistakes.

The Sheikh listened to the dial tone, smiling. He was looking forward to the call, to the advantage it would give him. He did not much like the ayatollah. He knew that the Iranian, as did many of his countrymen, regarded the Gulf Arabs as little more than camel drivers, peasants compared to the scions of the ancient civilization of Persia. He knew that the Iranian bitterly envied the Saudis their oil-based and US-endorsed ascendancy. Iran had its own oil wealth—just under three million barrels a day—but channeled much of these revenues toward weaponry and nuclear programs, toward maintaining the Revolutionary Guard and with it their hold on their own volatile country, and toward funding terrorism—Hamas, Hezbollah to name but a few.

And it was here, reflected Sheikh Ali, listening to the clumsy connection go through, that their interests coincided: to wage jihad against the Western secular materialists who threatened their religion and its place in the Middle East and in the world; to elevate the status and reach of their Shia brethren, particularly in Saudi and Bahrain; and, in the ayatollah’s case, there was a third agenda; to raise Iran back to the status it had enjoyed for centuries as the hegemon in the Middle East.

The ayatollah picked up with a curt “Yes?”

“
Asalaam Aleikum.
” Peace be upon you.

“
Wa Aleikum Salaam. Wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu
.” And upon you the mercy of Allah and his blessings.

“My brother, I have something for you,” intoned the Sheikh.

“Tell me.”

“The rain of Allah is a much-blessed thing, is it not?”

“You rang me to discuss the weather?” asked the ayatollah, voice dripping the disdain of the righteous.

“No. To discuss jihad,” the Sheikh replied.

“I am listening.”

“What if one man could control the weather?”

“Only Allah can control the weather.”

“Not true.”

The ayatollah snorted.

“You think you have the power of Allah, now? You think your billions of dollars make you God? This is heresy.”

“Not heresy. Technology. I can make it rain. I can stop the rain. I can harness the power of the storm and I can magnify it. I can bring the Flood. I can wash away hillsides, destroy homes, I can take a swath of some of the most expensive real estate in the United States and I can rain down upon it the wrath of Allah at the infidel.”

“You would wage jihad by weather?”

“Does it not say in the holy Quran,
we helped him against those who rejected him. They were surely a wicked people, so we drowned them all
. Is it not a beautiful idea?”

“When will you do it?”

“Within the next six months. When the right storm comes, I shall magnify it. I shall give California the ARk Storm of their nightmares.”

42

THE SUPER-YACHT,
ZEPHYR
, MOORED OFF SAN DIEGO, MONDAY EVENING

Sheikh Ali hung up, then he took a key from his pocket, unlocked his desk drawer, selected one of his stock of prepaid, disposable phones, charged and ready for one sole use.

He smiled to himself. Jihad, then money. Time to put in a call to his broker. He did a quick calculation. It would be the next day in Singapore, lunchtime, not that it really mattered. The broker would take his calls any time, day or night, and did.

Marcel Caravaggio was fifty-nine, a nomad. Swiss German by birth, Swiss Italian by blood, American by education, French by MBA, citizen of the globe by financial reach. He was of middle height, dark, a
bon viveur
waging war with his waistline—winning, for the most part. He played tennis five times a week to a surprisingly high standard. The excellence of his shots meant he had to run less than weaker opponents, and his cunning meant he normally beat his peers too. Marcel had an expensive young Singaporean wife, second version, and an expensive divorce behind him to the first version, so when his cell phone chimed just as he was walking onto Court One at the Tanglin Club for a prelunch game, he took the call, even though he didn’t recognize the number.

He set down his tennis racket when he heard the Middle Eastern voice, signaled to his partner to give him five. He dropped his gym bag, fumbled for pen and paper.

“I would like you to put on a trade for me,” intoned the Sheikh. “Please take out six-month put options on Californian Real Estate Casualty Insurers, or on any insurers heavily exposed to California.”

“How big?” asked the broker, jamming the phone between his ear and collarbone, pen poised.

“How much cash do I have in my accounts with you?”

The broker answered from memory. “Two hundred and ten million dollars in cash, another nine hundred million in liquid investments. But that’ll kill the market.”

“Then put on as many trades as the market will bear. With the utmost discretion,” added the Sheikh, in the soft voice that the broker recognized as his own code red on the threat level.

“Got it. You want me to do it now?”

“I want you to do it now.”

“Can I spread it over the next three-four weeks? Big puts all taken out right now might attract attention.”

Silence for a few beats. “Yes,” murmured the Sheikh, “and we would not want that. Fine. Spread them, but within the month.”

“How about I sell some tailored shorts too, with a view to closing them off in six months? Mix it up a bit.”

“Do it.”

“Consider it done.”

A brief grunt of response, and the line was cut.

Caravaggio, well rewarded, knew better than to ask the underlying reason for the trade. Better not to know. He played his match. He won, ate lunch at the club, wagyu steak, medium rare, fries; no Chambertin, Napoleon’s favorite wine, to his own, self-imposed chagrin. He needed his mind as clear as it got. Then his driver took him back to his office just off Clarke Quay. There he drank the espresso his secretary made him, lit up a Cohiba IV, and started his research. Clouds of aromatic smoke suffused his office. From time to time he would circle his cigar through the air to see the contrail it made, studying it thoughtfully like an ancient alchemist conjuring spells from smoke. He
was
conjuring, seeking the best way to extract money from the uninitiated.

One hour later, he had identified the companies with the most exposure, and he began with his customary delicacy to put on trade after trade after trade.

This was a multitiered process which involved considerable skill and investment. One of his best investments was his spectacularly curvaceous mistress, Jeannette, a rising star at CFLT private banking in Hong Kong. Jeanette’s creativity in hiding trades was unmatched. She inherited the larceny from her Chinese Father, a legendary loan shark, and her curves from her Colombian mother. Marcel had proved an able student.

The concealment began with the third layer, the trash layer. This comprised four different Hong Kong–based but mainland China-financed private banks. Marcel had visited them, hand-selected them, satisfied himself of their discretion—reinforced by four separate pieces of information about the broker in charge at each, which would ensure a level of loyalty above and beyond the normal corporate requirements. Next layer up sanitized the trash so that it had only the faintest potential whiff of financial skulduggery about it. The four trash banks would issue the trading instructions to the Hong Kong branches of a selection of international banks. Those perfectly respectable financial names would then use their own nominee accounts to instruct the final layer. This layer completed the sanitization process, gave the trades the patina of respectability that would help to veil them and to stall any investigators in the unlikely event it ever came to that. The broker liked state-owned banks for this. The final tier of trades would be funneled through another selection of respectable, unwitting banks in New York. By the time the actual trades were put on, there would be a trail of over fifty nominee companies concealing the originator.

Marcel had set up encrypted contact with four chief brokers at his trash banks using CryptoPhone, a German system that offered mid-level encryption. It was quite commonly used commercially, so would not attract undue attention to itself. He dialed the first one. When Xu Ling answered, three letters appeared at top left of screen and a box that said
RESPOND
. Marcel typed in the letters, hit
SEND
. Xu Ling did the same in reverse, then the two men spoke. Marcel described the trades, adding “
ultra high discreet”
at the end of his instructions. Xu Ling knew the protocol. It had all been well worked out in advance.

Twenty minutes later, Marcel had spoken to all four trash bankers. He had given all four specific instructions re the trades and the necessary secrecy, but slightly different timelines to enter the market. He sat back, lit up another Cohiba, and began to add a few personal trades of his own. For this, he started off with three different Singapore nominee companies, confident of his security since Singapore had possibly the best banking secrecy laws in the world, unlike his birth home of Switzerland, whose banking secrecy now resembled a mouse-addled cheese.

He recognized the whiff of insider trading in his client’s instructions, could not resist its lure.

43

THE SUPER-YACHT,
ZEPHYR
, MOORED OFF SAN DIEGO, MONDAY EVENING

The Sheikh’s family cell rang. Another phone, also encrypted. Cryptophone, as favored by his broker and by many VIP families. Combined with clever use of veiled speech, it was a very effective tool.

He checked the number; his brother, Nasr.

They each set up the encryption, exchanged greetings, spoke for a while about family, and about the riots that had recently taken place in the Eastern Province; Saudi’s Shia Arab Spring, brutally suppressed by the Al Saud family so successfully that it didn’t even make the world’s media.

The Sheikh wondered whether a warning was premature, decided it was better than too late.

“Tell me, brother, is your eldest son still studying in California?”

“He is. Los Angeles.”

“A dangerous place for the infidels and the holy alike. It’s a shame you can’t lure him back.”

“He’s nineteen. He does what he wants.”

“Their corrupt ways don’t bother you?”

“Of course they do. But he’ll come back, in all senses. We both went through the same phase, if I remember. And you still like San Diego. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I do. But I think I shall avoid it.”

“Why?”

“Because of the corrupt ones. Because, as the sun rises each morning, be sure that the wrath of Allah will rain down upon them.”

The brother was silent for a moment. “When should I invite him home for a visit?”

“Oh, anytime over the next two months would be good, but be sure to get him home for Hussein’s birthday. The celebrations will be extra special this year. His grandfather’s too.”

“Then that is what I shall do. Thank you for the advice.”

“
Habat hoboob al jenna.
The winds of paradise are blowing my brother … what better place to be than home.”

44

NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, TYSON’S CORNER, VIRGINIA, TUESDAY EVENING

At Tyson’s Corner, a fifteen-minute drive from Washington off Route 66, lay an urban sprawl of anonymous-looking concrete and glass buildings. They looked from the outside like commercial offices. But behind the concrete walls, heavily fortified to prevent electronic eavesdropping, they contained highly restricted classified spaces. Entry was gained via retinal scanners, electromagnetic key fobs, and backed up with personal PIN numbers.

The complex looked like a wasteland in some ways. Cars busied back and forth—black Escalades with tinted windows seemed to be the car of choice—before disappearing into underground car parks. No pedestrians attempted to cross the roads, or were seen anywhere. Employees drove the ramps to the basements, swiped their fobs, entered their PIN numbers at the security check, and gained admittance to one of the myriad buildings in the burgeoning secret world of US counterterrorism.