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

454 V-8 that made it go like a rocket. This was to be the Ripley/Allen ride, and it had special “hides” for weapons and other stuff that needed to be kept private. Into these went four Smith & Wesson 10mm automatic pistols and 10 boxes of ammunition, 500 rounds in all. On the other side in a larger compartment there were two Heckler & Koch MP-5/9 submachine guns, each with a silencer and night vision sights. Allen had beamed at these, mouthing “we own the night” as he tucked the last of the ammo into the compartment and closed the cover. A final smaller compartment contained four sets of tactical radios and spare batteries, Special Ops equipment with earbuds and boom mikes that allowed communication while keeping the hands free for weapons employment. Two sets of night vision goggles. Ripley was very pleased, Allen looked like a kid at Christmas. Cameron remembered thinking that they’d be running a modern remake of the John Wayne film “War Wagon” if anyone tried to make trouble.

At precisely nine-forty-eight three black Suburbans roared out of the US embassy in Amman in close trail, and began a serpentine dance around town. They immediately grew a tail, which was quickly identified as French by alert watchers posted on the Embassy roof. Five minutes after this departure three other Suburbans, two black and one silver, left the Embassy grounds and turned in the opposite direction, also making a twisting, turning pathway along the surface streets of Amman, finally joining the main motorway heading East out of the city. And so, here, nearly 290 kilometers East, they sat waiting for the Saudis to pray along the side of the road, the Americans drinking chilled bottled water, taking turns looking West for any signs of pursuit.

Ripley pulled his wide-brimmed safari hat down over his brow, and turned to face Cameron. “Colonel,” he said, “have you been this way before?”

“Nope, can’t say that I have, Patrick. But I know the general route, not many choices out here after all. It’s about 600 miles by road from here to where we’re going, the town of al-Ha’il in northern Saudi Arabia. We cross into Saudi in about another thirty minutes, I think, at a place called Kaf. Not much out there. From there, we go a short way, then make a left turn to reach al-Turayf, where we pick up the Tapline road. That stands for Trans-Arabia pipeline, Patrick—the road parallels the pipeline that used to take Saudi oil across Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea somewhere on the Lebanese coast. Not since the 1973 war, though—Israelis shut it down. Anyway, the Tapline runs all the way along the Saudi border, parallel to the Iraqi border and then the Kuwait border but about 30 miles south, before it heads south toward Dhahran and al-Jubail on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. . .”

“Where the hell is that, Colonel? I’m not a big geography guy, and this isn’t my part of the world, but isn’t it the Persian Gulf?”

“Depends on whether you’re an Arab or a Persian, doesn’t it?” Cameron smiled. “Anyway, you’re interrupting. We don’t go that far. We go to a small town called Rafha, where we’ll stop for the night, probably have to camp, I’ve never been there but am sure there isn’t going to be a Holiday Inn Express. That’ll be about 450 miles out of our total of 600, done today. We get gas all around. Tomorrow we try to make the rest of the distance, but it’ll be slow going. Last map I remember shows only a desert track for a road between the Tapline and a little town called Baq’ah, about 120 miles at a speed I figure will never top 30 mph. The last 30 miles should be paved road into al-Ha’il, but it’ll have been a long, hard day by the time we get there tomorrow night.”

“You think we’ve got the right equipment for that?” Ripley asked, looking at the Suburbans with a critical eye?

“Yep, all set,” Allen said matter-of-factly as he rounded the corner of the silver vehicle. “The Arab guys have done a good job—their vehicles have tons of bottled water, they have some portable food, but that’s not going to be a problem, either. We camp tonight at someplace called Rafha, another 300 miles East of here along the Tapline, but more of the General’s people meet us there with camp equipment, food, the works.”

Astonished, Ripley looked from Allen to Cameron, and back, then shook his head. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Asked ‘em” Allen said, shrugging. “Even professional killers should speak Arabic, Ripley.”

“Yeah, but how come the Colonel here knew the route without asking?” Ripley looked accusingly at Cameron, and Allen followed suit.

“What?” Cameron asked. “So I got a thing for maps. You don’t get to be an old fighter pilot being stupid, my laddies, nor careless, either, and don’t you youngsters forget it. It’s not that hard, anyway, there’s really only one way to do this in this country. I didn’t know we’d have more company, though. I think we’re in for a treat.”

“How’s that?” the other two said at once.

“Well, it wouldn’t be fun if I spoiled the surprise, now would it?” the Colonel answered with a smile. “Let’s just say for now that camping in the Saudi desert means something completely different from your average Boy Scout or US Army experience, at least as I’ve seen it done. We’ll just have to see for tonight. Now, I’ve got to piss before we hit the road again, and this prayer will be over soon.” He looked around. “That’s my dune over there. Don’t leave without me.”

The Saudis remained at prayer for another fifteen minutes, a little longer than expected, but then the Al Auda were a devout clan and well known for it all the way back to the time when Auda bin Abu-Tayyii had made war alongside T.E. Lawrence in the First World War. It took another ten minutes to put the carpets back into the vehicles, to distribute snacks and water to everyone, and to get the people loaded back and the caravan moving again.

But once moving, they really moved. The three Suburbans ran right up to one hundred –sixty kilometers per hour and cruised there, about one hundred miles per hour. At that speed it took just a little under twenty minutes to reach the border station to cross into Saudi Arabia.

Cameron was now sitting beside General Fahd in the back seat of the lead vehicle, one of the Saudis had taken his place in the last truck with Ripley and Allen. Looking ahead General Fahd said, “Paul, here we go. This should not be hard, as most of these people are probably relatives, but one never knows these days. We should not have any trouble with the crossing—your papers are all in order—but let me handle it.” He winked, with a smile to punctuate it all.

“No problem, amid,” he replied as they coasted to a stop just in front of the barricade across the road. There were no other vehicles waiting to cross.

On either side of the highway there were small buildings built of concrete blocks, rather shabby and unkempt looking with window air conditioner units droning in the still air. Beyond the building on the right side of the road Cameron saw there was a dusty parking lot containing two 4x4 vehicles, Land Cruisers they looked like, but old and hard-used, painted the same dun color as the surrounding desert, the palm and crossed-swords insignia of the Royal House of Saud stenciled in black on the front doors. Beyond the parking lot was a tall steel tower with antennae on the top. Other than these things, there was not any sign of life or civilization as far as the eye could see, only the faint shimmer of the heat above the vast emptiness of the desert, rocky, sand-strewn, with little vegetation or feature to break it up at all.

They sat there with the motors idling for what seemed like several minutes before the door on the building to their right opened and two men came swaggering out. They were chatting nonchalantly in Arabic too fast for Cameron to understand, but they were also trying to tidy up their wrinkled khaki uniforms as un-obtrusively as they could manage. Cameron thought the eyes of both men looked sleepy under the bushy black brows and the black berets that crowned their heads, the latter also appearing hastily applied.

The two walked together between the lead and number two vehicles in the little caravan, and then both appeared at the driver’s window which Faisal, who was driving, let down with an electric whir to admit a stifling blast of hot air into the cool comfort of the truck’s interior. A rapid flow of Arabic passed back and forth, of which Cameron caught only a few words, before Fahd said “Papers” and Cameron produced the passport in the name of Michael Callan, handing it forward.

The policeman scrunched up his brows and stared at the US passport, then peered into the dark of the truck to look at Cameron. The photo matched, of course. Cameron realized with some mirth that the man probably couldn’t read anything in the little book besides the Saudi visa, which was partly in Arabic. He affected a tiny smile and waited. After what he must’ve thought was a decent and intelligent-looking interval, the man handed all the passports back into the car, said “daghiga, daghiga, min fadlak,” which is “one minute, please,” and passed toward the rear to check the third vehicle while his partner stopped at the second. It took another five minutes of polite Arabic and polite waiting while the papers were given their required hard looks, and then the bigger man returned. “Marhabteen, ya amid” he said, “many welcomes, brigadier”. He then saluted as best he could and turned for the guard house to raise the barrier and let them pass.

The bar went up, the three big vehicles rumbled to life and crossed into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, leaving a thin swirl of fine, dusty sand in their wakes. The two guards watched for a moment in silence, both knowing these were the only vehicles they were likely to see at this lonely crossing today: not much of a break in the long, slow routine. They turned in unison to head back to the air-conditioned office to listen to music or watch Bollywood movies on the Star Network. On the way back, the thinner one veered right, mumbled “hammam”, and headed for the latrine building. The other waived him off with a grin.

The latrine was not air conditioned, but hot, dry, and rancid. Khalil was used to this, however, and without so much as a wrinkle of his nose he produced his cell phone and dialed a number in Dhahran, a land line with the prefix “03.” He waited while the phone rang, three, four, five times, and after the sixth there was a simple beep. He took the phone away from his ear and looked at it, then put it back and spoke quickly. “An Air Force Brigadier just crossed into the Kingdom at al-Kaf. He travels with his family: two women, a teenager, and a small boy, four Saudi men, and three Americans. They’re moving in three GMC Suburban vehicles. The time is ten-thirty.” He hung up the phone and left, and was seated in front of the TV a minute later.

*****

In Riyadh, at the central telephone exchange, a computer noticed the call because of the key words “Brigadier,” “Americans,” and “border”. The brief message was recorded digitally, along with the 03-number in Dhahran, the number of the cell phone that dialed it, and the location and identifier of the antenna transponder that originated the call at al-Kaf on the Jordanian border. The entire packet then went into the cue for “special interest” attention of the Ministry of the