Sacred Stone (Oregon Files 2)

“Captain Skutter will be dividing you into teams according to your various service ranks in the next few hours,” Kasim said. “Right now I want to explain why each of you was selected to appear here today. First and foremost, all of you are United States military personnel; secondary and very important to this mission, each of you listed Islam as your religion on your military records. Is there anyone here who is now not a Muslim? If there is, please step forward.”

No one moved.

“Very good, gentlemen,” Kasim said, “we have a special operation we need you for. If you could follow me into the hangar, we have assembled chairs and a briefing area. Once you are all seated I will begin to explain.”

Kasim, followed by Skutter, walked toward the hangar.

The men filed behind. There was a series of blackboards surrounding a podium, several long folding tables with various weapons and devices displayed, a water cooler and several rows of black plastic folding chairs.

The men filed into their seats as Kasim and Skutter walked to the front.

49

EVEN IN A country as steeped in tradition as Saudi Arabia, the modern world has a way of intruding upon the past. The Prophet’s Mosque in Medina was one such example. A massive construction project initiated in 1985 and completed in 1992 expanded and updated the facilities. The area was enlarged fifteenfold to cover an area of nearly 1.8 million square feet. The additional space allows almost three-quarters of a million visitors to be in the site at the same time. Three new buildings were added, along with a massive courtyard built from marble and inlaid with geometric designs. Twenty-seven additional courtyards topped with intricate retractable domes now graced the skyline, along with two more large areas that are topped with six large mechanical umbrellas that could be opened or closed depending on the weather.

Six minarets, soaring 360 feet in the air, were constructed around the perimeter—each topped with giant brass crescents weighing nearly five tons. Ornate tiled and gold gilding were added to various areas, and spotlights and beacons illuminated the various architectural details.

The physical plants were completely reworked. Escalators were installed to move the pilgrims to the upper levels, and a gigantic air-conditioning system was built. The cooling system, one of the largest ever constructed, pumps seventeen thousand gallons per minute of chilled water through pipes that were tunneled in under the lower level.

The entire system is managed from a control center a little over four miles from the mosque.

The rebuilding of the Prophet’s Mosque and the additional construction around the Kaaba in Mecca were estimated to cost the Saudi Arabian government nearly $20 billion. The primary contractor for the massive construction project at the Prophet’s Mosque was a company owned by the family of Osama bin Ladin.

THE LEADER OF the Indian mercenaries stared at the diagrams again. Before he boarded the ship in Rabigh, Hickman had made it clear he wanted the tomb of Muhammad at the Prophet’s Mosque destroyed. The fact that bin Ladin had profited from the rebuilding galled him—Hickman wanted to erase the work from the planet.

A bonus of ten times their agreed-upon fee awaited the Hindus if they were successful.

They had been paid one million in gold so far—a king’s ransom in their own country. Even split up among twelve men it was enough for each of them to live out the rest of their days in comfort. The additional ten million they had been promised would make them utterly rich.

All they needed to do was make it to Medina and sneak into the underground tunnels where the chilled water pipes ran under the mosque, lay the charges where the diagram directed them, and make their way back to Rabigh, where Hickman had another ship waiting to transport them across the Red Sea to Port Sudan, Egypt.

There a jet would be waiting with the gold and several guards. They would pass the next three days in Port Sudan. Once the Prophet’s Mosque was destroyed on the morning of the tenth, the start of the hajj, the jet would fly them back to India with their gold. Performance before final payment was a lesson Hickman had learned decades before.

IF THERE IS one single key to a successful operation, that key is to never rely on a single system. The Desert One affair during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980 had proved that doctrine. The president wanted to go in with the minimum number of helicopters, and once the first aircraft began to fail, the entire mission unraveled.

When faced with a question of having one weapon or one thousand, you should always go for the largest possible number. Systems fail, bombs can be duds, and weapons jam.

Both Kasim and Skutter were aware of this fact.

“Sir, the primary threat right now is the shipping containers in Riyadh,” Skutter said. “You have already verified that they were delivered. And as soon as they are opened—which has to be sometime before the start of the hajj, which we believe everything else keys off—this entire operation could fall apart.”

“The first case of viral poisoning and Saudi Arabia will clamp down on everything,” Kasim agreed.

The two men were standing in front of a map tacked to a bulletin board in the hangar. On a table nearby were stacks of Qatari passports and pilgrim documents for Kasim and each of the thirty-seven team members. The emir’s government officials had been working on them all night. Because they were real and not forgeries, they would withstand any inspection by Saudi authorities. Since Saudi visas were usually given to Qatari nationals without question, the men now had a way to gain access to the kingdom.

“Then we send in two teams of four men each,” Kasim continued. “That leaves us with thirty men to enter Mecca.”

Skutter pointed to an aerial map that the NSA had faxed to Kasim in Qatar. The photograph showed the containment pen at the Riyadh Airport Cargo Facility. “Using the tracking numbers your people recovered from the shipment in England, we can place the containers here.”

Skutter circled the three containers with a highlighter.

“Damn good thing,” Kasim said, “they paint stencil identification numbers on the roofs of all the containers so the crane operators can see them. Otherwise we’d waste a lot of time searching through that mass of supplies.”

“Once we have the two teams there,” Skutter asked, “how do you want to handle it?”

“Secure and remove,” Kasim said. “Once we establish that they are still sealed, we need to load them onto trucks and take them out into the desert until we determine what to do with them—either destroy them at that site or move them to a safe location.”