The Phoenix Affair - Dave Moyer (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

were clustered. Once he was moving he thumbed the speed dial on his phone, and waited for the reply.

“Nam?” came the answer of Mohammed’s voice from the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.

“Marhaba, ya Muhammed, hello Mohammed,” Khalid replied. “It’s Khalid your friend. And how is your weekend coming along?”

For his part Mohammed was less than pleased to hear from his friend again so soon. His cell phone was starting to make him nervous; he, too had been surfing the internet today and had noted the alarming silence from London. But his duty to the Brothers was his duty, and he replied, “Khalid, how good to hear from you again so soon. Where are you today, my friend?”

“Never mind that, Mohammed. Listen, I think my brother, by the grace of God, should have a birthday party after all, you know the one we planned for several days ago? But he and his family are at their compound in the North, as we discussed yesterday. I would like you to go and make my respects, and I’ll send gifts for you to present.”

Mohammed thought about this and didn’t like it. He still had the five other men, including the twins, but he had never seen the al-Auda family compound. He knew of their wealth, however, from general talk throughout his youth. The compound would almost certainly be relatively large, there might be many people there, and they would resist any attempt to take the nephew. He said, “Khalid, what kinds of gifts will you send? It will be a, uhm, rich party with many people attending. We will need a suitably large group to greet them properly.”

“Yes, I have thought of that Mohammed, that is exactly what I have in mind. I have thought to have some people meet you at al-Buraydah with the gifts. I think perhaps something like twenty-five would do. What do you think?”

Mohammed whistled almost aloud. “Khalid, I should think that would do, if God wills it. Are their gifts to be, err, so heavy?” He was trying to ask about weapons, but could not be explicit over this cursed phone.

But Khalid was nothing if not astute. “Yes, Mohammed, the gifts are very heavy, but also I want my brother to be impressed by my respect for him. Now, when do you think would be a good time, so that we may set the meeting at Buraydah and from there you can lead the party onward? For my part, I will need two or three days for organization, inshallah.”

“As God wills, Khalid, in two or three days I could be there, and I will come with a few friends also.”

“Good, very good Mohammed. Let us say then that you will meet, as God wills, at Buraydah on the afternoon of al-Ahad, Sunday. I will telephone my brother and tell him that you will call for the surprise party that evening. Is it agreed?”

“Yes, Khalid, bismallah, in the Name of God, it is agreed. And I will lead the party myself, for the respect of your esteemed brother.”

“Excellent, then, so be it. Peace be with you, my friend,” and without waiting for a reply, Khalid hung up. In five more minutes he parked the car and walked two blocks to an internet café he had not used on this trip, ordered tea, and began to work his computer. He had people to notify, pieces to move on the game board, weapons and equipment to organize. He worked steadily until the tenor voice summoned him to prayer two hours later. Before he logged off and paid his bill, he made a new reservation for his flight to Khartoum, but for Monday morning instead of Tuesday.

*****

History has washed over and around Amman and the little kingdom that is now Jordan since at least 4000 years before the “Common Era”. In around 1300 B.C.E, the Ammonites had their kingdom, until about 600 B.C.E., with the city of Rabbath Ammon as their capital. They were a Semitic people, who had much commerce of one kind or another with the early Hebrew Kingdom. One of the sons of King Solomon is said to have had an Ammonite mother, which is the more pleasant kind of commerce; but the two kingdoms also often fought. By about 270 B.C.E. the area was conquered by the Ptolemy’s and the city was renamed Philadelphia. Around a century and a half later it fell into Roman hands, and by 324 of the Common Era , Philadelphia was the seat of a Christian Bishopric of the Byzantine Empire. In 635 C.E. the rapidly advancing Arab Muslim armies conquered the area, but by about 1300 C.E. there was no need for a large city at the site, so close to Damascus, Baghdad, and Jerusalem, and the place became all but deserted. The Ottoman Turks settled some Circassians there in 1878, but this was only a small village. Not until the modern Kingdom of Trans-Jordan was established from the spoils of WWI did Amman really come back into vibrant growth. That vibrancy has of course not erased nearly six thousand years of history: in Amman one finds the remains of a Roman amphitheater and those of Greek temples and ruined palaces of many ancient civilizations alongside the bustling modernity of a major national capital.

Queen Alia International Airport is one modern jewel located about twenty-five kilometers south of downtown Amman. Over forty airlines transship more than five million passengers a year, a multi-variate stew of peoples from all over the world making the eons-old trek across the route that has served trade with the Far East for as long as history remembers.

On this Friday evening it was no different. For reasons that baffle the Western traveler on every such occasion, several international flights from Europe all seem to be scheduled to arrive at nearly the same time. This introduces a mass confusion of baggage, customs and immigration queues, taxi shortages, and utter mayhem conducted in a mixture of Arabic, English, German, and even French. This is both good and bad. It is of course frustrating for the honest traveler, which is not so good but cannot be helped. It is good, however, if the traveler is not so honest, and better still if he has truly sinister intent. This precise situation had been much too common in Amman since the middle 1990s. As a result, there was always a wide array of watchers at the airport, some working for Jordanian police and intelligence services, and others working on the opposite side of the law. The latter might be there to spot potential targets or to collect fellow Brothers or smugglers of one kind or another bound for Iraq or elsewhere. The hunters and the hunted were nearly always here, in nearly equal numbers. Precisely who was who depended solely on one’s point of view.

And so, several sets of eyes noticed the family that came off British Airways flight 6337 from London just after eight-thirty p.m. local time. The official watchers noted the faces and the time; one of them sidled over to an immigration clerk and whispered instructions to make copies of the obviously Arab passports he suspected would be Saudi. As he stepped away to resume his place he noticed that the man walked like a soldier: back straight, head up, eyes roaming the hall. He was light skinned for a Saudi, but many from the North of the Kingdom would be that way. He decided to keep an eye on this group and follow them at least out to the ground transportation area, just to see if anything happened there. Returning to the crowd mingling near the baggage claim area he noted that most of the passengers looked very British, nothing remarkable about them at all.

Another watcher was already making a phone call from his seat at the small restaurant just outside the security cordon. He had been here all day to cover the ten flights that arrive from London every day, he would have been here all day tomorrow except for this marvelous luck. When the line picked up he spoke just two quick sentences, heard only one in return, and hung up his phone. He resumed drinking his coffee and pretending to read the newspaper.

It happened that several sets of eyes in the throng of passengers were also unusually observant. One, a British SAS man on his way to his embassy for a security consultation, took notice of the uniformed and plainclothes security men, but was unconcerned. He had solid diplomatic cover and had nothing to hide in any case. He was very slightly offended, in the classically understated British way, by what he thought were no less than three and possibly four unofficial watchers lurking beyond the security line. He was mildly curious about two of his fellow passengers as well, one of which he’d lost track of somewhere in the crowd, but none of this was anything to worry about. He made some quiet apologies in Arabic as he shouldered his way toward the baggage carousel to find his bag. He would deal with any problem children if and when the need arose, which he half-hoped would be on his way into town. He was in a bit of a mood after the six-hour flight.

The passenger who’d slipped out of the SAS man’s gaze wore a pair of loose khaki trousers, a light blue button-down shirt, and lightweight suede hiking shoes. A navy blue blazer slung over his left shoulder. He‘d noticed the very observant, obviously British man, but he was much more concerned by what he was sure were two men who did not really belong where they were at present. Through the crowd he was using for cover, he could see the man at the restaurant who’d been staring at the same newspaper page for far too long, unless he was illiterate, which would only make the newspaper thing worse, he thought. He’d also seen what he thought was a look of recognition that preceded the cell phone call, and that was most certainly not good. He took a quick look at the baggage carousel, saw nobody from his flight reaching for a bag yet, so he fished out his own phone and speed-dialed a number. An answer came quickly, and in whispered English he spoke a few short lines, nodded when he heard the reply. Then he ended the call.

The other man that worried him was out of view—he’d wandered across the front of the secured area looking in, but he didn’t fit the other people waiting outside to pick up arriving passengers. He could not place just what didn’t fit, but instinctively he thought the man was not right. The government men did not worry him.

There was yet a third man with whom the man in the blue shirt should probably have been concerned, but he’d missed him. Dark hair, brown eyes, European-looking, he blended in with the crowd but stayed back from the carousel as he waited. He, too, had seen what the others observant men on the flight had seen, but with the exception of what he though was a Brit, nobody had really noticed him. He found the blue button-down shirt curious, but Europeans were not his brief on this trip. What he wanted were the watchers outside.

Bags began to spill onto the rotating carousel and people pushed and shoved their way to its edge to claim their bags. Soon a surging crowd was queuing for the immigration and customs booths, and into this anonymous mass the alert Europeans all blended, losing sight of each other and of the men outside. Once past their checkpoints they blended as much as possible into the milling groups that now filled the transportation lobby waiting for rides into Amman. Except for the blue button-down shirt. He walked into the restaurant and asked for a table near the back. He ordered coffee, sat back into shadow, watched, and waited.

It took ten minutes, but