WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller (21 page)

3

Abd al-Aziz Quraishi looked at the man across the table from him, trying to hide his distaste.

He had first met Jeb Richards at West Point back when they were both young men. He
hadn’t known then, of course, that the American would rise to such prominence in his government, but had identified him early on as someone who could potentially be used in the future.

It wasn’t that Quraishi
had expected Richards to ideologically support his cause; far from it in fact, as Richards was a patriot first and foremost. He had left West Point and gone on to serve with distinction in the US Army’s 37
th
Armor Regiment before pursuing a career in politics. But underneath the public persona of typical southern bluster, Quraishi had perceived something else; a ruthless streak that meant he could easily be manipulated into compromising his principled façade if it furthered his own agenda in some way.

And so Richards was just one of the people he had met during his time in the United States with whom he had developed long-term friendships, and he had been surprised yet delighted when Richards’ political career took off in later years. In fact, the man’s position as Secretary of Homeland Security dovetailed beautifully with Quraishi’s own role with
in the Ministry of Interior.

Quraishi’s distaste for the man stemmed in part from his physical appearance; he was slovenly and quite overweight, indications of poor self-discipline, and qualities which Quraishi simply could not abide.
It offended his religious ideals of physical restraint and the resistance of the temptations of gluttony and laziness.

But he also disliked the man due to what he was prepared to do, even though it served Quraishi’s own interests. Quraishi simply couldn’t understand a man who was willing to betray his own people.

But then again, Quraishi told himself, he hadn’t been entirely honest about what was happening and – to be fair – Richards really
did
believe that what he was doing would ultimately benefit America’s homeland security and make his country a safer place.

Unable to help himself, Quraishi smiled at how wrong the man was.

Quraishi was inordinately pleased with how his plans were progressing; the martyrs had been prepared, and his beloved al-Hazmi was getting ready to escort them to the correct airlines for their specially selected flights. His scientific staff had been continually monitoring wind patterns and had made complex and – they assured him – quite accurate dispersal projections. The locations chosen for his team of martyrs had been decided upon after long consideration of a multitude of factors – total population, transport links and ease of egress to other areas, climate patterns, air density and barometric pressure, availability of emergency services and the ability of local hospital systems to cope with sudden demands, casualty estimates, number of expected fatalities, and a hundred other topics of interest. But now all decisions were made, and everything was in place, ready for the actual operation itself; and Quraishi would soon know if their projections were correct.

According to Richards, the US government had no idea whatsoever what was really going on. Apparently, there was some suspicion that a weapon developed in North Korea was on the loose somewhere, but nobody yet knew what it was,
or who had it, or where it was headed.

Richards claimed that there was a rumor of Jemaah Islamiyah’s involvement, but – due to hi
s own efforts, and those of Clark Mason, the Secretary of State – these leads were not being pursued as rigorously as some members of the National Security Council would like.

In a way, Quraishi pitied Richards; the man thought he was doing t
he right thing, thought that he was helping his nation. He knew that people would die, that sacrifices would have to be made, but that it was for the greater good of the American people.

He was going to be upset when he realized the truth, Quraishi thought as he sipped at his tea; very upset indeed.

Richards
was nursing a sore head, a result of a too much alcohol the night before. Sure, Riyadh was as tee-total as the rest of the country, but a guy at his hotel had managed to find the wild side of the city, and Richards had tagged along. It turned out if you had enough money, people here could be quite reasonable.

Richards looked at the man sat across from him, wishing that he had some painkillers; his head really did hurt like a son of a bitch.

He had to admit that he didn’t much like the man he was here to see; but at the same time, Richards knew that he held the key to America’s future security.

Quraishi was the leader of Arabian Islamic Jihad, a group which was about to launch a serious attack on American soil; an attack which Richards was going to allow to go ahead.

The problem, as he saw it, was that the US government was drastically underfunding its homeland security program. In the aftermath of 9/11, money for national defense had been inexhaustible; at last what the country actually needed, in Richards’ opinion. He had been a Captain in the 39
th
Armor Regiment at the time, and the ensuing years had been good ones for the military, which saw its first real investment since the heady heights of the Cold War.

But al
-Qaeda’s horrific attack, which had left nearly three thousand dead, had happened nearly twenty years ago now, and two decades had slowed the American defense machinery to a snail’s crawl. Budgets were being slashed, weapons systems culled, regiments disbanded. But, Richards knew, the threat was still there. It was
always
there.

What was needed, Richards knew, was a fresh attack on US soil; so long as the American people felt safe, there would be no pressure on the politicians to increase budgets to the correct levels. Government finance was never proactive, always reactive. Money would never be spent on preventing a crisis; the norm was for a crisis to occur, and then for the money to be spent. Completely backwards thinking in Richards’ opinion, but that was Washington for you.

Richards knew that what he needed was a new attack on America, from a new group which could be as feared as al-Qaeda had once been. And he believed that Quraishi and Arabian Islamic Jihad could well be that group, and the Lion’s planned attack could be the catalyst to get back his funding.

Richards wasn’t psychotic; he didn’t want the deaths of American citizens on his hands. But better the devil you know, he’d thought when he’d first entered discussions with his old friend Quraishi. If an unknown group launched an attack, he would simply never know what damage could be inflicted. But with Quraishi in charge, he was assured that fatalities would be limited to just a few thousand. It was a terrible thing to be burdened with, but Richards accepted the fact that America had lived through such an attack before, and had emerged even stronger; it was a number that could be tolerated, if it meant that her security would be improved immeasurably as a result.

He didn’t know exactly what was in the North Korean crate, only that it was a dirty bomb of some kind, a combination of radioactive material and conventional explosives. Such a device was nowhere near as devastating as a nuclear explosion, and indeed such dirty bombs were not even considered weapons of mass destruction in most circles, but as weapons of mass
disruption
; it wasn’t the number of fatalities which would be the key factor, but the psychological impact of nuclear fallout and the spread of radiation. There would be mass panic and terror, and the clean-up would require considerable expense and cause untold economic damage, but the number of actual deaths would be relatively negligible. And this was the beauty of the plan Quraishi had described to him; the terror and fear that would result from the attack would be enough to force politicians to raise budgets massively in order to appease the terrified population; so when a
real
attack came, they would be ready for it.

Could he live with the deaths of a couple of thousand Americans?

Yes he could, and he had decided this a long time ago. You couldn’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and that was really all that was happening here. And after all, it wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before; elements of the US and British governments had prior knowledge about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but had allowed it to go ahead in order to force America into World War II; Kennedy had been seriously considering a Defense Department plan to shoot down an American airliner so that it could be blamed on Cuba and thus justify an invasion; and American intelligence was warned about the 9/11 attacks in advance. That was just how things worked, Richards knew.

And so Richards had supplied Quraishi with information,
and tried to protect his organization from discovery, also helping to muddy the waters of the current investigation. He just hoped that the outcome would be worth the risk.

‘You have been most helpful,’ Quraishi said gratefully. ‘And I think we will both find benefits from the events to come.’ There was a pause as he sipped his jasmine tea, then he looked back across the desk at his American colleague. ‘Is there anything else?’

Richards paused; there
was
something. But was it worth bothering Quraishi with at this late stage? Finally though, he nodded his head.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is perhaps something – or, at least,
some
one
– you should know about.’

4

Cole walked through the fourth-floor corridors of the Ministry of Interior, escorted by a stern-faced official who didn’t like to talk.

Cole had been surprised by the look of the building; it was like something that had been built by aliens and then dumped in the middle of
the city, quite unlike anything else that surrounded it. The interior was rather more conventional however, and was like government buildings the world over; cold, clinical and utilitarian.

But soon he was outside the
office of Abd al-Aziz Quraishi – Assistant Minister for Security Affairs for the government of Saudi Arabia and, if al-Zayani was to be believed, the Lion himself, the head of Arabian Islamic Jihad.

Before leaving Dhahran, Cole had called Ike Treyborne via his secure sat phone to give his old friend an update. He
had explained what he’d done to al-Zayani and his boat, and asked Treyborne to run interference in case there was any comeback; he needed the meeting to go smoothly, and didn’t want to have to worry about things back in Dhahran.

He’d also shared the information he’d managed to get from al-Zayani, including how Arabian Islamic Jihad had been financed, and the fact that Quraishi seemed to be behind the whole thing. It was far too early to start alerting the Saudi government – as yet there was no real proof tying Quraishi to anything – but Cole asked Treyborne to find out everything he could about the man, and recommended giving the name to Bud Shaw at the NSA to activate surveillance on his calls and emails.

Treyborne had promised to try, but Cole understood he had to be circumspect in how he went about asking; after all, Treyborne wasn’t supposed to have any leads, as he wasn’t supposed to be investigating anything. But Cole was sure Treyborne would find a way to put the intelligence services on Quraishi’s scent; he was a born improviser.

By the time Cole arrived in Riyadh and had found hi
s luxurious suite in the Ritz Carlton hotel – courtesy of Abdullah al-Zayani and Saudi National Oil – Treyborne had already sent him the CIA file on Abd al-Aziz Quraishi.

The file revealed two interesting things to Cole – one, that Quraishi had spent considerable time in the United States; and two, that he was under no suspicion whatsoever by US intelligence. He was as clean as a whistle in every respect.

Quraishi had been born in 1972, his father a very distant cousin of King Faisal, who had ruled Saudi Arabia until his nephew assassinated him in 1975. The family was therefore tied to the royal family, and yet was never a part of the true upper echelon. But it did mean that the male members of the Quraishi family could serve in the Saudi government, and Abd al-Aziz Quraishi did just that, joining the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment at the tender age of seventeen. From there he was selected – apparently due to his high intellect and potential for future leadership – for an exchange program with the American military, and was sent to West Point to undergo officer training in the US Army.

He graduated near the top of his class, and reportedly didn’t restrict himself purely to military life during his four
years in America; contemporary reports indicated that he travelled far and wide, and used his royal connections to establish links with many political and business figures.

Cole thought this strange – if not downright suspicious – but the CIA and FBI hadn’t been concerned, as this was common practice for foreign cadets; the whole exchange program was to help foster closer ties between nations on an unofficial level.

Quraishi had gone on to serve with distinction in the Royal Guards, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before joining the Ministry of Interior as head of the feared Mabahith. Again, he seemed to have made a positive impression on everyone, for he had steadily worked his way up to his current position as Assistant Minister for Security Affairs, about as high as a minor relative of the House of Saud could ever hope to rise.

Cole had searched the file for any information which might shed light on why Quraishi was – according to al-Zayani, at least – so
rabidly anti-monarchy and anti-Western. On the face of it, it just didn’t make sense; Quraishi held a high position in a society which favored the royal family, of which he was a part. When did the religious zeal enter his life? At what point was the man turned?

It wasn’t in the report, that was for sure, and Cole wondered if he would be able to learn more from the man himself.

The door opened at the same time he arrived outside, and he was surprised to see an American face framed in the doorway.

‘Oh, excuse me,’ the man said, extending a hand. Cole took it and shook firmly. ‘You must be Dan Chadwick, right?
Texas Mainline Oil?’

Cole nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘I’m Jeb Richards, a fellow Texan,’ he said with a smile. ‘Just leaving as a matter of fact, though unfortunately I’ve got to go back to Washington and not Texas.’ He sighed. ‘Still, I might get back there one day. Be sure to pass on my regards to Ezzard,’ he continued as he moved past Cole into the corridor beyond, ‘not seen him for years but we used to enjoy a game of tennis together.’

‘I’ll be sure to do that,’ Cole said after the man, who was now half-way down the corridor, Cole’s mute escort accompanying him. ‘Have a safe flight.’

‘Will do, my friend,’ Richards shouted back over his shoulder.

Cole concealed his concern as he turned back to the open doorway, watching as Quraishi came towards him across the office. What the hell had Jeb Richards, the Secretary of Homeland Security, been doing here?

What was of more concern to Cole was whether Richards recognized him or not; with an arrest warrant out on him, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that Richards – as a member of the National Security Council – might well have seen a picture of him.

But, Cole reflected, such a picture would hardly be up-to-date; whatever there was on file for the Caribbean diving instructor named Mark Cole would no longer tally with the man waiting outside Quraishi’s office. The fireball which had engulfed the house in Kreith had left Cole with extensive scarring which – although surgically corrected – had altered his appearance quite considerably. Added to which was the fact that Cole had
partially disguised himself for the role of Dan Chadwick anyway.

But if Rich
ards knew Ezzard Kaplan, might he also know the
real
Dan Chadwick? But he’d said that he hadn’t seen Ezzard for a long time, and Chadwick was new at Texas Mainline, one of the reasons for Cole choosing him in the first place.

In the end, Cole decided that he had no
thing to be concerned about; his identity was secure. But he
did
still wonder about Richards’ purpose here in Riyadh.

But he could worry about that later; right now he had more pressing concerns, and he offered his hand to the man who floated gracefully towards him over his tiled floor, bedecked in
the traditional Saudi white dress known as a
thobe
, with a red and white checked headdress to complete the image.

Quraishi smiled beneficently at his guest and took his hand. ‘Two Texans in my office in the same day,’ he said amicably. ‘It must be providence, no?’

Cole returned the smile. ‘It must be. I guess it
is
a small world, after all.’

Quraishi gestured for Cole to sit, and then swept elegantly around the other side of the desk and took his own seat across from him. ‘Water?’ he asked, gesturing with his hand to the water jug and glasses to one side of the large desk.

‘Thank you,’ Cole said, reaching forward to help himself.

‘And now,’ Quraishi began in his perfect English, his lilting voice pleasantly melodious, ‘how may I help you?’