Cabrillo nodded. Slowly, as the helicopter droned south, he fell into a sleep.
THE TIME WAS just after 4 P.M. when Hanley on the Oregon made the satellite call to Skutter. With no clear direction yet on how to proceed, Skutter and his team had been milling around the bus terminal waiting for a contact.
“My name is Max Hanley, I’m Mr. Kasim’s superior.”
“What do you want us to do?” Skutter asked quickly.
Several people had approached his team already and only one of the men with him could speak even a smattering of Arabic. If they stayed here any longer they might be detected.
“To your left,” Hanley said, “is a beggar with an old tin plate who looks like he’s sleeping. Do you see him
?”
“Yes,” Skutter said.
In between bouts of what looked like napping, the man had been staring at his team for the last twenty minutes.
“Go over to him and place a coin in his plate,” Hanley said.
“We don’t have any coins,” Skutter whispered. “We were only issued bills.”
“Then use the smallest bill you have,” Hanley said. “He will hand you what looks like a religious pamphlet. Take the pamphlet, walk a safe distance away from the terminal to a side street, then find somewhere you can read it without being observed.”
“Then what?”
“Your instructions are inside.”
“Is that all?” Skutter asked.
“For now,” Hanley said, “and good luck.”
SKUTTER DISCONNECTED THEN whispered to one of his men. Then he walked over to the beggar, removed a bill from a stack in his pocket, bent over, and slipped it on the plate.
“Allah will reward you,” the beggar said in Arabic, handing him the pamphlet.
Skutter was bending back to an upright position when the briefest of winks flickered across the beggar’s left eye. Suddenly Skutter was feeling a renewed hope. Making his way away from the bus station followed by the other men, he found a deserted area and read the instructions. It was only a few blocks to his destination and he ate the entire pamphlet as he walked.
“DO NOT GO outside,” the CIA contact said to Kasim and his team at the safe house in Mecca, “do not do anything to draw attention to yourself. There is food, water, and soft drinks in the kitchen.”
“How do we reach you if we need to?” Kasim asked.
“You don’t,” the contact said. “You wait for your people to give you any further instructions. I was told to stock the house, meet you at the terminal and bring you here. That ends my involvement. I wish you luck and Godspeed.”
The CIA man made his way to the door and exited.
“THAT SEEMS ODD,” an army private in Kasim’s team offered.
“Everything is compartmentalized,” Kasim said. “Each piece of this operation will remain separate until it is time to bring it together. Now we all need to get some rest and take turns getting cleaned up. I want everyone to eat a good meal and try to relax. Soon we will be called, and when we are, it’ll be go time.”
The team nodded.
THE SUN WAS setting as Adams approached the Akbar from the Red Sea. Passing over the yacht once to alert the crew, he lined up over the stern and dropped slowly down. Al-Khalifa’s Kawasaki helicopter was still on the heliport, so he hovered a few feet above the yacht, just above a clear spot on the stern. The CIA agent dropped Abraham’s Stone safely packed in a box with padding to the deck, then leapt off.
“Overholt’s men are waiting for you back at Ras Abu Shagara,” Cabrillo said. “Will you be okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Adams said.
The CIA agent was carrying the box toward the rear door of the Akbar. Cabrillo stepped off and crab-walked out from under the rotor blade. Adams lifted off again.