Sacred Stone (Oregon Files 2)

“Hell,” Hanley said, “he doesn’t look anything like the rumors.”

“It’s weird,” Huxley agreed, “but it makes sense. If I was a recluse like Hickman, I would want to foster the most normal appearance I could have—that way I could blend in wherever I went.”

“I guess the Howard Hughes rumors were just that,” Stone said, “rumors.”

“Click forward, Stoney,” Huxley said.

Stone entered the commands. A 3-D image of the outline of a man appeared.

“This is a re-creation of his movements,” Huxley said. “Each individual has unique mannerisms. Do you know what the security teams at casinos use to identify cheaters?”

“What?” Stone asked.

“Their walk,” Huxley said. “A person can use disguises, alter his appearance, even some personal mannerisms—but no one ever thinks to change the way they walk or carry themselves.”

Stone played with the computer and the image walked, turned and moved his arms.

“Let’s make a copy and send it to Overholt,” Hanley ordered. “He can distribute it to the Israeli officials.”

“I can overlay this with the live cameras from the Suez,” Stone offered.

“Do it,” Hanley said.

AT THE SAME time Hanley was staring at the pictures of Hickman, eight men exited a commercial flight from Qatar to Riyadh and walked through customs without a hitch. Meeting outside the baggage claim area, they climbed into a white Chevrolet Suburban that the State Department had borrowed from an oil company official.

Then they made their way to a safe house to wait for nightfall.

“WE CAN DO what you need this evening,” the head of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, said, “but we can’t use dogs—we’ll have to do it with agents carrying chemical sniffers. Dogs in a mosque are a no-no.”

“Will there be any problems?” Cabrillo asked.

“A few years ago when the Israeli prime minister went to the Dome of the Rock there was rioting for weeks afterward,” he said. “We’ll need to do it swiftly and quietly.”

“Can your people completely cover the entire area?”

“Mr. Cabrillo,” the man said, “Israel is faced with terrorist bombings on a weekly basis. If there are any explosives inside Haram al-Sharif, you’ll know about it by sunrise tomorrow.”

“And you will defuse anything you find?” Cabrillo asked.

“Defuse or remove,” he said, “whatever is safer.”

“MEN, PLEASE TAKE your seats,” Kasim said.

The twenty-eight remaining men sat down. Skutter stood alongside Kasim at the blackboard. “Who here has never ridden a motorcycle?” Kasim asked.

Ten of the men raised their hands.

“This is going to be tough for you,” Kasim said, “but we’ve assembled some instructors for a crash course. After we finish here, you ten will need to go outside and start practicing. In four hours’ time you should all have a basic knowledge of the fundamentals.”

The ten men nodded.

“Here’s the situation,” Kasim continued. “We cannot enter Saudi Arabia using a commercial flight. The risk of interception is simply too great. From here in Qatar to Mecca is over eight hundred miles, and that route is across bad desert with no fuel supplies, so what we came up with is this: the emir has arranged a cargo flight that will take us to Al-Hidayah in Yemen, and from there it is less than five hundred miles to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, along a paved road that runs along the Red Sea. The emir paid off the Yemeni authorities and cleaned out a motorcycle distribution warehouse here in Qatar for our transportation. The motorcycles have a couple of advantages—the first is that we can cross the border above the checkpoint to avoid detection by driving across a stretch of desert then back to the road once we’re inside Saudi Arabia. The second is the gas mileage—there are several cities along the road for fueling but they are far apart—the motorcycles can make it from city to city. The third is the most important. Each of us will be alone on our bikes—if the authorities stop one person, the entire mission is not compromised.”

Kasim stared at the men.

“Does anyone have a problem with this?”

No one spoke.