And Into the Fire Read online

  Riyadh’s Deera Square is known in the Kingdom as “Chop Chop Square” for its endless beheadings and amputations. Sometimes after a person has his head cut off, the Saudis crucify the body, placing the head in a plastic bag and hoisting it over the body where it appears to float, almost preternaturally abeyant. They display these crucified headless corpses in public for as long as four days. Recently, the Saudi secret police arrested Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the nephew of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a renowned Shiite cleric, whom the Saudi authorities had recently killed. After torturing and beheading him, his body was crucified and publicly displayed. His crime was attending a peaceful prodemocracy rally.

  During one New Year’s celebration the Saudi monarchy decapitated forty-seven people in thirteen cities in a single day. After those horrific executions the Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud made the inevitable connection, calling Saudi Arabia “an ISIS that has made it.”

  Yet the U.S. media was and still is embarrassingly silent about this incessant procession of atrocities that Saudis call a judicial system.

  The current administration has also turned a blind eye to these horrors. Treating the Saudis as allies, all but drowning them in oil money, Pentagon’s central goal is to maximize high-tech arms sales to the Kingdom. The standard rationalization has always been that since they have vast oil deposits, the U.S. has to curry favor with them regardless of their support of terrorism; hence, we arm them to the teeth. Saddam Hussein, however, also had prodigious oil reserves, and we executed him. The more direct explanation is that the Saudis know how to play the United States. They understand that the weakness of America’s Power Elite is money and that they have always had a small, fanatical army of Saudi billionaires eager to invest in firms friendly to U.S. politicians and in the campaigns of the politicians themselves—often secretly via partisan think tanks and unregulated trade organizations.

  Nor was the Obama administration immune to Saudi influence and entreaties. He and his people attempted to sell the Saudis nuclear power plants, which would have been a never-ending nightmare of apocalyptic proportions.

  Meanwhile, the Saudis continue to bankroll those terrorist groups seeking an apocalyptic war with the West, most notably with the United States, a nuclear Armageddon in which they dementedly believe they shall prevail.

  “Isn’t there any way to shut her up?” the president asked.

  “Of course there are ways,” Conrad said, “but you’ve ruled them out.”

  “We may have to revisit those options.”

  “There was a time,” Conrad said, “that had she pulled shit like this, the Agency would have had her hit.”

  “Too bad we can’t order drone strikes in the U.S.,” the president said with a mirthless laugh.

  “Next time she’s in the Mideast,” Conrad said, “we’ll consider it.”

  “If she interviews a terrorist,” the president said, “we can call one in.”

  “We’ll say she was collateral damage.”

  “The price she paid for hanging out with our enemies.”

  Conrad leaned back and let out a long, slow sigh. “We can always dream.”

  3

  “I’m sure the electric cattle prod had nothing to do with it.”

  —Hamzi Udeen

  Hasad ibn Ghazi stared down from the hill at the sprawling nuclear complex below. His face was darkened with synthetic, nonflammable skin-paint, and he wore a black watch cap along with matching fatigues and boots. The full moon and the surrounding desert sands were so luminous he could study the nuclear site with 8×30 Steiner military binoculars. He did not need infrared field glasses.

  “You sure you’ll be able to find the central storage site?” Hamzi Udeen asked. Hamzi was wearing the same apparel, his face also darkened. “There must be at least fifty buildings down there.”

  The light-green, steel-reinforced concrete buildings were remarkably similar in appearance.

  “I’ve been through the satellite photos, base map, and photos of the facility so many times I could find the locations we need underwater, on Sodium Pentothal, in my sleep,” Hasad said.

  Hamzi looked at him skeptically. “So walk me through the plan again?”

  “After going through the main gate,” Hasad recited tonelessly, still staring through the binoculars, “the first building on the right is the Visitors Center. We go there for ID tags. Then we drive past the High-Flux Isotope Reactor Building, then the Electron Linear Accelerator Site, followed by the particle accelerators, the various bomb-assembling buildings—trigger assemblies, lenses, tampers, casings complexes.”

  “And then we come to the uranium processing facility?” Hamzi asked.

  “You have been paying attention,” Hasad said.

  “Inshallah. But with only satellite photos of the buildings’ roofs, how will we recognize those buildings in the truck at ground level?”

  “I only have to recognize one,” Hasad said.

  “I have no sense of direction,” Hamzi said, shaking his head. “I could get lost in my coffin.”

  “Fuck this one up, and you will be getting lost in your coffin.”

  “And Mahmud al-Tabari will escort us inside?”

  “The PAEC deputy director will arrive at any moment,” Hasad said.

  “I still can’t figure out how you talked him into helping us.”

  “I reminded him he’s a dedicated Muslim,” Hasad said.

  Hamzi stared at him a long hard minute. “I’m sure the electric cattle prod had nothing to do with it.”

  “He did need reminding that he’s a dedicated family man.”

  “So you threatened to kill his wife and children if he didn’t help us?”

  “No, I just showed him pictures of his wife, siblings, parents, grandparents, and children. I already had him on an exorbitant retainer, and, yes, he stands to be richer than America, the Vatican, and Vladimir Putin put together.”

  “Inshallah.”

  They began their walk down the far side of the hill toward the personnel carrier.

  “The men going in with us,” Hasad asked. “Your honest opinion?”

  “They are devout, committed young men.”

  Hasad stopped and stared at him.“What have I always told you?” Hasad said. “We don’t want devotion and commitment. We want calm, disciplined professionals.”

  “I’ve stressed that to them. Also you had a good look at them.”

  “But I didn’t recruit them. I didn’t train them for the last six months. You did. I’m trusting you.”

  “I’ve told them repeatedly: We get in, get the fissile bomb-fuel, and get out.”

  “Nothing stupid. No martyrs.”

  Hasad saw a flash of anger in Hamzi’s eyes.

  “This isn’t some suicidal hit-and-run,” Hasad said. “This isn’t a knapsack filled with Semtex and nails in a crowded marketplace. No suicide bombings. No death for death’s sake. Have any of them done an operation like this before?”

  “They will do their job.”

  “I take that as a no. They aren’t pros.”

  Hamzi glared at him, incensed.

  “And you guarantee no jihadist bullshit?” Hasad asked, now getting incensed himself.

  Again, Hasad saw the flash of anger in Hamzi’s eyes. “I will not allow you to disparage the holy jihad.”

  “Just understand, Hamzi, there is no jihad today. We’re under orders. We’re fucking thieves. Understood?”

  Silence.

  “Understood?”

  A terse nod.

  “La ilaha illa Allah,” Hasad whispered. There is no God but Allah.

  “Mohammadun Rasulu Allah,” Hamzi said. And Mohammed is his messenger.

  “Rahimakallah,” Hasad said. May Allah bless you.

  The two men continued down the hill toward the personnel carrier below.

  Hasad’s team was standing beside the van, waiting for them.

  The mission was about to begin.

  4

  “As long as I d
on’t have to talk to them.”

  —Jules Meredith

  Julie (“Jules”) Meredith—Middle East correspondent for The New York Journal-World—entered the revolving doors of the Imperial Hotel. Strolling through the lobby toward the Empire Ballroom with long purposeful strides, she caught a glimpse of herself in a large wall mirror: her tight, black silk gown, cut three inches above her knees; her matching sling-back pumps with six-inch heels; her thick waist-length mane of dark hair contrasting her surprisingly pale skin; the hawkish glint in her wide-set eyes—raptor’s eyes, as her old friend, Elena Moreno, had called them. No wonder most people were wary of her.

  A luxurious New York hostelry, the Imperial Hotel was famous for its immaculate white marble façade; its opulent lobby with its alabaster walls lavishly festooned with oil paintings portraying illustrious personages from America’s past—Washington, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, and RFK—its swank red velvet couches and chairs; its stained-glass windows, illuminating more famous figures from American history; the Big Apple Bar, a great old-school, dark-wood watering hole, boasting a celebrity clientele, nonpareil and par excellence, a Who’s Who that tonight was in evidence everywhere; and, of course, the legendary Empire Ballroom.

  Whenever Jules entered the Empire, she was in awe: Sixty feet wide and twice as long, its gold walls gleamed, as if they were twenty-four karat, and its oak floors were burnished to a mirror gloss. Overhead, the forty-foot-high hemispheric ceiling boasted a dozen spherical chandeliers, each ten feet in diameter, festooned with what seemed to be thousands of crystal prisms, each of which reflected and refracted any and all light, illuminating the spectacle below.

  As she strolled across the floor, Jules noted the circular ceiling murals strategically placed between the chandeliers—eight painted panels depicting New York City’s history:

  • Henry Hudson, cruising down his eponymous Hudson River, at the helm of the Halve Maen (Half Moon), his sails swollen with the wind. Entering New York Harbor in 1609, Hudson on the foredeck—with slate-gray hair, beard, and mustache. Dressed in a long black coat, he was pointing at Lower Manhattan, claiming it for his employer—the Dutch East India Company—as well as the country that owned it, the Netherlands.

  • Peter Minuit in a long brown heavy coat with matching pants and boots, a wide white collar spread over the top of his coat, and a black hat with a broad brim. Meeting with a half dozen feathered, hair-braided, blanket-draped Indians, he was putatively purchasing the Island of Manhattan for twenty-six dollars’ worth of beads and wampum.

  • The Battle of Long Island—which was actually fought in Brooklyn—with flags flapping, banners flying, bayonets bloodied, muskets smoking, and flintlocks blazing.

  • The New York City slave revolts replete with their gallows hangings, firing squads, violent insurrection, and mass graves.

  • The Civil War waterfront draft riots with mobs of angry resisters, thronging the streets of lower Manhattan, brandishing torches and axe handles.

  • The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory inferno with its women employees leaning out the upper-story windows, screaming, sobbing, their hair on fire and clothes smoldering.

  • Then up to Harlem: black singers, dancers, and musicians, in tuxes and evening clothes, entertaining the Cotton Club’s handsomely dressed, elegantly turned-out, exorbitantly wealthy white patrons.

  • Inebriated GIs mobbing Times Square—celebrating the end of WWII—including white uniformed sailors, who hug, dip, and smooch pretty young women.

  • And, of course, no self-respecting New York mural would be complete without those two infamous airliners smashing into the flame-shooting and smoke-shrouded World Trade Centers.

  Jules searched the room for a bar. Thankfully, her drinker’s divination—her own instinctive dowser’s wand—quickly guided her to one. She tried to savor—not shoot—her first double shot of eighteen-year-old Macallan single-malt but was only half-successful. A second double in hand, she was ready to work the room. This was The New York Journal-World’s annual advertisers’ ball, and the event teemed with ad execs and the corporate heads these people shilled for. Her employers wanted her to mingle, chat them up and be friendly. As the paper’s chief investigative reporter in the Mideast and a highly regarded presence on the TV news shows, as well as radio and in print, she was much in demand. The paper wanted her here to glad hand the rich, impress the mighty, and show the flag to one and all.

  Hank Prewitt, their tall, brown-headed, freckle-faced fashion editor, bumped into her first. He, too, had a large glass of straight whiskey.

  “Why are all these tuxedos so tedious?” he asked. “Everything’s black, black, black. Black coats, black socks, black shoes, black ties contrasted by those maddeningly moronic white shirts.” The paper’s resident fashionista, Hank wore a purple satin tux, purple suede shoes, a purple ruffled shirt, and a light purple bow tie. He gestured to the room with a long contemptuous flourish of his whiskey glass.

  “Almost as boring as the people wearing them,” Jules said to him under her breath.

  “Another whiskey’ll help,” Prewitt said, tossing back the rest of his glass.

  Jules nodded. “Maybe if we get the blind staggers, people will leave us alone.”

  “Never happen,” Helen Myer, the paper’s publisher, said, joining them. Dressed in a long, flowing red gown, her long blond hair was artfully colored and painstakingly fluffed. Even at the age of sixty-nine, she kept her figure, and her skin was remarkably wrinkle-free. Her lipstick, as always, was a scintillating scarlet, her blue eyes possessed by a perpetually wicked glint.

  She took Jules by the arm. “Come, my dear, we have captains of industry here with money pits for pockets. Before the night’s over, I want every man-jack of them bent over the bar, belly down, their emptied-out pockets ripped from their pants, their wallets, shoes, and money belts turned inside out and upside down, their credit cards maxed from here to Alpha Centauri. Get out your blackjack. We must knock them out and pump them dry.”

  “As long as I don’t have to talk to them,” Jules said.

  “But they are just dying to talk to you,” John Jennings—The New York Journal-World’s managing editor and Jules’s immediate boss—said, interrupting them.

  John was five five, gray thinning hair and gray eyes, sharp features and a sharper tongue. Like Jules, he disdained glad-handing parties and formal events. His nickname was the Pit Bull—the Pit for short—though no one called him that to his face. Almost everyone on the paper feared him, except Jules, who actually liked him.

  She had reason to. Once at a corporate meeting, when the CFO complained that Jules—while filing her stories and her expense accounts—had violated proper procedures and corporate protocol, the Pit Bull stood up and shouted:

  “That little girl risks her fucking ass for those goddamn stories, pays your salaries and half this paper’s bills and has more balls than all the men sitting in this room put together. Protocol doesn’t apply to Jules Meredith. You don’t like it, fine. But if anyone here wants to mess with her, you’re gonna have to come through me.”

  Jennings had never found a taker.

  “They want to talk to Jules about—” Helen said.

  “The Mideast,” Prewitt said happily.

  As if on cue, the CEO of Raven Enterprises International, the biggest oil-gas construction firm in the world—particularly in the Mideast—was standing beside Jules. He had augmented his black tux with a matching Plainsman hat, hand-tooled cowboy boots (which added another two inches onto his already imposing six feet, four inches of height), and a national championship bull-riding belt buckle. He had a desert tan, gray eyes, and a gunmetal-gray ponytail held in place with a silver and turquoise leather band. He gave Jules a wide ingratiating grin.

  “Ain’t you the little lady wrote that op-ed piece about oil men like me underwriting all them Mideast ISIS killers?”

  “The same,” Helen said, grinning.

  “In the fl
esh,” Prewitt said, beaming.

  And so it begins, Jules muttered silently to herself.

  5

  “It’ll be years before anyone realizes the HEU bomb-fuel rings are gone.”

  —Dr. Mahmud al-Tabari, Deputy Director of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

  A black van with tinted windows headed downhill toward the Munir Ahmad Khan (MAK) highly enriched uranium (HEU) plant. Named after the first chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), the MAK was the crowning diadem in Pakistan’s nuclear program. It housed the high-speed centrifuges that purified the HEU to 93 percent uranium, thus producing the most dangerous substance on earth. Its fissile bomb-fuel was so explosive that if one grapefruit-sized chunk of this HEU were dropped onto a comparable chunk from a height of six feet and hit it square, the collision could produce 50 percent of the Hiroshima yield. If the fissile HEU were placed in a piece of old cannon barrel—an old American Civil War cannon barrel would do—with the ends tamped off, and one chunk, backed with extra-high explosive, was blasted into the second chunk of HEU at the other end of the barrel, the bomb might produce the Hiroshima yield.

  Inside the van Hasad and his team sat in silence, while Hasad studied the complex. Spread out over a dozen acres, it consisted of four dozen concrete-block warehouse-looking buildings. Each one was over half the size of a football field but a dozen stories high, all of them painted light industrial green.

  Once more he was amazed at how many buildings and how much equipment it took to manufacture just a few hundred rings of bomb-grade HEU.

  Nor was the irony lost on Hasad that Pakistan—one of the unhealthiest, most illiterate, and most impoverished nations on earth, a country with 60 percent of its population earning less than two dollars per day—now had the world’s fifth most powerful nuclear weapons program.