(Wrath-02)-Darkness of This World (2012) Read online

  DARKNESS OF THIS WORLD

  WRATH & RIGHTEOUSNESS

  [Episode Two]

  CHRIS STEWART

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used factiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locals or persona, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN: 978-0-9854619-1-1 (eBook)

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  CONTENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Coming in Episode Three…

  “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

  but against principalities, against powers,

  against the rulers of the darkness of this world…”

  Ephesians 6:12

  ONE

  Karachi, Pakistan

  The Palestinian moved through the crowd easily for he was comfortable here. Although he was not among his own people, the sounds and scents were the same. He felt the constant press of flesh against him, the movement of the crowd, the chatty voices of women and the terse growls of men, too busy, too arrogant, too grand to respond to their wives. He smelled the tang of old bodies and felt the gritty dirt on his feet. He felt the uneven pavement beneath him and the white hot, oppressive glare of the sun, wringing great drops of sweat from under his arms and around the small of his back. Everyone sweats in Karachi; they sweat to keep cool, and they sweat to survive. No one was clean in Karachi. It was just the way it was.

  The Palestinian moved around a brown and rusted cement hole in the sidewalk, one of the public toilets that was built without the benefit of even a curtain for privacy. He moved through the crowd, working his way toward a small open-air market half a mile down the street. In the distance, he heard a series of gunfire and a replying series of gunfire, but he paid no attention for it was almost a full block away, and gunfire in Karachi could be heard daily. In any given day, six people lost their lives to petty thieves, gang wars, drug runners, hate or revenge. The slave trade that flourished on the outskirts of the city fed the dangerously high murder rate, but also a significant contributor to the local economic machine. Teenage Afghan, Chinese, India and Pakistani captives were harbored in Karachi before being shipped off to brothels throughout the Pacific Rim. Even as he walked, the Palestinian passed a group of three teenage girls bound together. For thirty dinre he could have bought any one of them.

  Stopping on the corner, the Palestinian waited for the traffic. He glanced quickly around him, turning his back on the street to look in the direction from which he had come. To his side, a roughly mortared brick wall sported an old movie poster. Tom Cruise smiled at him, his long black hair drooping over his eye. The Palestinian frowned, and turned around. A break came in the traffic and he crossed the street.

  Ten minutes later, he sat down at a wooden table at an outdoor café. The owner moved toward him, then recognized his face and instead turned for the kitchen. Seconds later, he emerged with a mug of hot cheka tea in hand.

  “Amid,” the owner said as he placed the small cup on the table. “God be blessed, you are safe. It is good to see you again.”

  The Palestinian, a tall man with dark eyes and enormous ears, nodded to the restaurateur. “How is your fish?”

  “Very fresh, Sayid,” the owner lied.

  The Palestinian grunted and pointed to his plate. The restaurateur nodded and moved through an open door and into his kitchen.

  Minutes later, the Palestinian was eating his meal: a charcoaled slab of sea trout, with its head and bones still intact, and a bowl of white rice with hot mustard sauce. The crowd thronged around him, moving up and down the street. An occasional automobile passed by, forcing pedestrians onto the narrow sidewalk and around the small tables of the outdoor café. A group of children played in the street, gleefully chasing each other. A mule pulled a decrepit wagon with one wheel on the sidewalk and the other on the street.

  Halfway through the Palestinian’s meal, a Pakistani man emerged from the crowd, approached and sat down without saying a word. In contrast to the Palestinian, who was dressed in a traditional flowing dakish, the Pakistani was dressed in black slacks and an open white shirt. Neither of the men was distinguishable in the crowd.

  As the Pakistani sat down, Amid looked up and held his fork to his mouth.

  The Pakistani lit up a cigarette. “Amid Safi Mohammad, how is your meal?” he asked.

  Amid Mohammad didn’t answer, but pushed in another forkful of fish. The Pakistani watched him chew, then leaned forward in his chair. Mohammad pulled away as he caught the whiff of cologne. He studied the Pakistani, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Brother, I have to disagree with you on this meeting place,” he said in a heavy voice. “I don’t believe it is wise.” The Palestinian paused and glanced to the sky, almost as if he expected to see an American satellite hovering there. His eyes darted down the street. “The rats have eyes, eyes like spiders, they can see everything.”

  The Pakistani nodded. He appreciated his fellow warrior’s fear. But they were in his territory now, and he was not concerned. This was his city, his territory, his tribe controlled everything and he knew every movement of the American spies. His crew had identified every one of them and kept each under a close watch, and yes, the Americans got around, but he also had evidence that they were not watching today.

  He dramatically crushed out his cigarette. “Mohammad, you have to trust me,” he answered knowingly while nodding almost imperceptibly to the roof of a squat cement building on the other side of the street. “The Great Satan has many eyes, but this is my lair. We are safe here, I assure you, my people are near. That is, of course, unless you allowed yourself to be followed . . . ,” the Pakistani’s voice trailed off. The accusation was clear.

  “No, no,” Amid Safi Mohammad quickly replied. “I was careful. I followed your instructions to the letter.”

  “All right then.” The Pakistani sat back and picked at his teeth. “Now, let’s get it done.”

  Amid Mohammad pushed his dirty plate aside. “This will be our last meeting. Our work is almost complete.”

  “Good. I agree. It has been a dreadfully long year.”

  “You have done very well, doctor. My people are pleased.”

  The Pakistani only nodded. If Mohammad only knew! If he had any idea what the Pakistani had gone through! Fo
r more than eighteen years, he had lived on a knife’s edge, a simple breath away from being discovered. He wanted this over. It was time to relax and enjoy his money. He took a deep breath and forced a thin smile. “The arrangements for the final delivery have been made,” he said. “All we have left to do is to transfer the money.”

  The Palestinian nodded. “How is your memory?” he asked.

  The Pakistani frowned. “Not good, as you know.”

  “Then get a pencil.”

  The Pakistani reached quickly into his pocket and pulled out a small pencil. He grabbed a napkin as the Palestinian started to speak.

  “The payment will be deposited into an account drawn on the Soloman Bank of Malaysia. The account number will be forwarded to you by private messenger later tonight. The withdrawal instructions and authentication codes are authenticate zulu, one, four, whiskey seventy-nine—that’s seventy-nine, not seven nine—then today’s date and my birthday.”

  The Pakistani scribbled furiously.

  “The money will only remain in the account for three minutes,” the Palestinian continued. “That’s three minutes, Dr. Atta, not one second more. If you haven’t transferred the money out of the account within the three-minute window, we will repossess it and move it ourselves, and if that happens, it is over. Our business is done. We will have the hardware and you won’t have anything.”

  The Pakistani looked up and frowned. “That will not be necessary,” he answered defiantly. “I will make the transfer, don’t you worry about that.”

  The Palestinian glanced down the street. “I’m not worried, Doctor Atta, but the instructions from my client are clear.”

  The Pakistani nodded. Amid went on. “Our people at the bank will be monitoring every transfer. Once the money has been deposited into this first account, you will immediately move the money into another account at the same bank. A second messenger will provide you with the specifics pertaining to this account. Once again, the money will remain there three minutes. Three minutes to make your transfer or we take possession again. From there, you will move the money into twelve separate accounts drawn on various banks in the Philippines. After that, you are on your own. We wash our hands of the paper trail.”

  The Pakistani looked up from his paper. “And the messengers?” he asked.

  “Same men as before. You will recognize them both.”

  The Pakistani sat back and pulled out another cigarette. “Fifty million?” he confirmed.

  “As we agreed.”

  “And the final installment?”

  “Upon delivery of the last nuclear warhead,” the Palestinian wet his cracked lips.

  The Pakistani tightened his fingers around the butt of his brown cigarette. Suddenly, without reason, he began to sweat like a pig. He pressed his lips together and folded the paper napkin into a small square. He studied his client. “So that is it?” he concluded.

  The Palestinian nodded. “I believe that it is.”

  “We will not meet again.”

  “There is no reason.”

  “So tell me, before we separate, I would dearly like to know. Where did you get your money? One hundred million U.S. dollars is not a small sum. Who is your financer, I’m dying to know.”

  “A poor choice of words, Dr. Atta. Be careful what you ask for or you might get your wish.”

  The Pakistani scowled. “I have provided you with nuclear warheads, not an easy thing to do. I am taking an enormous risk, more than you could ever know. I control many generals, but I do not control every one. I have put my neck in a noose here. Don’t I deserve to know who is financing this operation?”

  The Palestinian pushed himself away from the table. “Too many questions is not a good thing. The money will be delivered. That is all you need to know. We want the last warhead by Friday. Now our business is done.”

  The Palestinian dropped a couple dirty dinres on the table and moved for the street.

  • • •

  Two days later, a rusted container ship loaded with barrels of refined kerosene, lubricants, and refurbished electrical generators, left the port at Karachi bound for the Straits of Hormuz. It only took three days to reach the port of Ad Dammam, the huge Saudi port on the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf.

  On the burning pavement of the seaside dock, three large but non-descript crates were loaded onto the back of a two-ton army truck. The truck pulled away from the warehouse and turned to drive south. Overhead, two helicopters followed its path.

  That night, the third, fourth and fifth nuclear warheads were placed in an underground storage facility on the Saudi air force base of Al Hufuf.

  • • •

  Twenty hours after the last warhead was delivered, Dr. Abu Nidal Atta, deputy director, Pakistan Special Weapons Section, principal advisor on national security to the Pakistani president himself, didn’t wake up after his customary afternoon nap. When his wife couldn’t rouse him, she immediately called for his personal doctor. He arrived within minutes, but it was already too late. The doctor’s heart had ruptured. There was nothing he could do.

  An autopsy was requested by the physician, but the president of Pakistan turned down the request. Following local tradition, the body was cremated before sundown that day.

  • • •

  Prince al-Rahman smiled when he was informed of the news. He waved his advisor out of his office and immediately picked up the phone. “Get my money back,” he commanded. “I want every dime.”

  TWO

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  A little more than four hours after taking off from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, Major General Brighton’s C-20 lined up on final approach at Riyadh’s civilian airport. Upon landing, he met the local staff and immediately went to work, attending endless meetings, conferring with the ambassador and his military staff, the CIA station chief, and six others involved with trying to keep the kingdom from falling off the cliff. He slept four hours that night, then got back to work.

  Late that afternoon, after completing his official assignments within the kingdom, Brighton stood on the balcony of his suite of the grand Al Faisaliah hotel, waiting for his car to pick him up and take him to his appointment with Prince Saud. Standing next to the glass rail that surrounded the balcony, he looked down upon a city that glistened in the brilliant setting sun.

  Riyadh sits in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. It’s an exceptionally modern city, with a stunning architectural mix of glass high-rise buildings and ancient desert mosques. The skyscrapers ascend like something out of a children’s drawing book: sweeping arches, enormous space-saucer shaped coliseum, forked skyscrapers made of steel, glass and glistening chrome. The streets are tree-lined and well-lit, and swept daily to keep the blowing sand at bay. Desert browns, whites, and pastels are the dominant colors, and though the city is considered one of the modern wonders of the world, traditional Arab influence can be seen in the arched doorways, dome-topped mosques and caliph-inspired city center. Enormous highways sweep through the city, the cement having been laid over the trails where Bedouin camels used to trek.

  The capital city of the kingdom, with a population of almost five million people, Riyadh was derived from an Arab word meaning place of garden and trees. Ancient wadis run through the center of the city and the surrounding soil is fertile and rich. Powerful electric motors pump fresh water from deep underground aquifers to keep the manmade oasis green and desirable.

  To the west and south of the city, the terrain rises gradually for four hundred miles until it suddenly juts upward at the rocky Midian Mountains. To the east, the land descends through the Summan, gradually transforming from barren desert to rangelands to the fertile crescent that borders the Persian Gulf. A constant wind blows from the desert and the flies seem to swarm when the night cools down, especially when the date trees are bearing fruit. To the south lies the Rub’el Khal—the Empty Quarter—a land so bleak and brutal few humans have ever trekked across its sands; a land so desolate the Saudis wer
e more than happy to give most of it to Yemen and Oman.

  Overhead, the sky is almost always a deep gray-blue, a huge open saucer sitting over the land; cloudless and so deep in color it seems as if one were looking at the edge of space. The air is clean and clear, and the lights from the city can be seen for hundreds of miles on a clear desert night. Spring storms can bring violent rain, and the sandstorms can be deadly if one is caught in the open, but for three hundred and forty days a year the weather is monotonously predictable. Hot and dry in January, searing hot the rest of the year.

  Like the city, the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a bewildering example of contradictions and extremes.

  Much of the nation is an entirely inhospitable desert, yet the oases that dot the country are lush, wet and brimming with life. The cities are bright, beautiful and more contemporary than any in the world, but beyond their city limits, the Bedouin nomads live much as they have for almost two thousand years. The Royal Family jets around the globe, meeting with Hollywood celebrities and foreign heads of state, headlining cultural conferences and human rights events, while the women in some localities are not even allowed to learn how to read. The Saudi infrastructure is modern in every way, but the Kingdom still denies basic freedoms of expression and many human rights. The Qur’an teaches love and peace, emphasizing the need for discussion and the give-and-take of discourse, yet the royal family allows no opposing political parties; indeed there are no political parties in the kingdom at all, and the royal family was certainly not a party, but a close-knit, manipulative and fortified group of relatives who guard their family secrets above everything else.

  It is as if the government straddles two ice floes that are moving apart; one foot in the West and one foot in the desert, preaching progress and equality while denying the same. Any expression of anti-government activity is unthinkable. Women cannot drive or even appear in public without a male family member as escort. Use of corporal punishment is the rule. In fact, the punishment for various offenses is precisely prescribed in Saudi law—beheadings for rape, murder, sodomy, or sorcery; amputations of the feet or hands for robbery; and public lashings for offenses such as public drunkenness.