“Not without a laboratory and a couple weeks. It could have been anything from a Luger to an Uzi.” Bigelow slipped the spent cartridge into the breast pocket of his fatigues. “I can tell you it was fired at least a few weeks ago; there’s no trace of a cordite smell to it at all. Christ, the bloody thing could have been here since World War Two.”
“I wish.” Khuddari turned away and started back for the helicopter, Bigelow closing on his heels quickly. “Tell your men to head home. We’ve been here long enough. I don’t think we’ll learn anything else.”
Bigelow whistled shrilly, and immediately his Sergeant Major acknowledged the order to pull out by calling to his men. The troops started for the two desert vehicles, weapons at the ready, a beautifully executed tactical withdrawal. Bigelow’s men were well drilled and disciplined, like the man who’d trained them.
The Gazelle’s rotor was already turning lazily as they approached, the turbine just beginning to build up to an earsplitting whine. The two men vaulted into the cabin and buckled their seat belts. After a few moments’ pause, the French-built helicopter lifted into the air. The rotor’s down force threw up a cloud of dust that obliterated any sign that it had landed. Khuddari and Bigelow were quiet during the flight home, each respecting the contemplative silence of the other. Only after they were safely back in Abu Dhabi airspace did the younger man speak.
“Rufti left for London this morning to act as an observer at the OPEC meetings that start in two days. His men are obviously finished training for whatever they are planning, so I’m sure they’ll strike soon. Rufti’s gutless enough not to be around when the bullets start to fly.”
“You’re convinced that they’re planning some sort of assault?”
“It’s obvious. We just don’t know the target. I have an audience with the Crown Prince this afternoon, and I’m going to tell him everything we’ve found. I’m also going to tell him that I’m not going to the meeting in England.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? Your not attending won’t look good to the rest of the family. This is the first Cartel meeting since you became Petroleum Minister.”
“I don’t give a damn about that,” Khuddari snapped. “This is more important than my career. I can’t afford to be in some boardroom when Rufti strikes. I should have killed the fat Lootee when I had the chance.”
“We’ll get the buggerer, mark my words.”
Abu Dhabi City spread below them as the chopper flew. Only a handful of buildings were older than twenty-five years; prestressed concrete and smoked glass had replaced traditional stone architecture as the nation struggled into the twenty-first century. Not long ago men here would have fought to the death over the theft of a goat or an insult to a family member, and that ruthlessness still molded the people of the Gulf. But now, with petrodollars pushing the stakes to the highest levels, a rivalry would end not with just a single death but hundreds or possibly thousands. Rufti was working to destabilize the confederation of the UAE, one that was shaky at best. He had put a lot of money and effort into his plan, and whatever his target, Khuddari knew it could mean the end of the Emirates as a single country.
Oil had been the salvation of the nation, but perhaps the ceaseless sawing of the horse-head wells spread throughout the land were pounding out her death knell, too. The money that the elite of the UAE possessed had not tempered their unyielding nature and, in fact, had fueled their ability to exercise it. Rufti’s greed might very well sever the vital artery of oil that allowed him to exist.
Khuddari had to admit that if Rufti was planning a coup, he couldn’t have selected a better time. The Crown Prince was at odds with most of the Supreme Federal Council, composed of the six rulers of the other Emirates, and with the Council of Ministers, the legislative arm of the nation. The schisms stemmed from the Americans’ announcement to phase out all oil imports within ten years. That act could cripple the money-based power structure of the Emirates, weakening the Prince’s position so that a coup might be seen as a beneficial act rather than one of naked aggression. The political climate was ripe for a change to face this new, uncertain future, and Rufti could be in the perfect place to exploit it. Khalid hoped that his thin evidence was enough to convince the Crown Prince that he and the nation were in danger, but no matter how credible Khuddari was in the Sovereign’s eyes, a lone shell casing and a deep suspicion weren’t much. He feared that his pleas would fall on deaf ears.
He craned his head as he looked out the window at the city below. This close to shore, the water of the Gulf was an iridescent aquamarine, a dazzling shade more suited for neon signs than nature. Because the water was only ten fathoms deep and nearly one hundred degrees, there was little life to cloud the sea. An empty supertanker rode high just where the Gulf turned darker and deeper, her upper deck painted a dull oxide red that matched the twenty feet of her underbelly that showed below her Plimsoll line. At this distance, Khalid couldn’t read the name on her stern, but the activity of the small boats cruising around the monstrous ship indicated that she was hove to for repairs.
He turned away, absently wondering why the vessel wasn’t at the huge new shipyard at Port Rashid near Dubai City. The Gazelle was coming in for her landing, and he didn’t give the tanker another thought.
The Richardson Highway North of Valdez, Alaska
The Richardson Highway, arguably one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world, parallels the Tiekel River as it gouges its way through a rocky canyon. The road boasts no fewer than twenty-five scenic overviews within the first forty miles north of Valdez. At points, the valley was barely wide enough to allow the river and two lanes of traffic; other times it opened dramatically into alpine meadows and side valleys with spectacular views of the Chugach Mountains and the Worthington Glacier. The highway also traversed Thompson Pass, an area fabled for holding all three national records for snowfall — seasonally, monthly, and for a twenty-four-hour period. On a single day in 1955, more than five feet of snow had covered the top of the twenty-six-hundred-foot pass. But there would be no records tonight. A storm was dropping snow, but rain fell with it, creating a frigid slurry that squirted from under the heavy lugged tires of a fuel tanker truck as it sped north.
The beauty of the ride was lost on the driver of the eighteen-wheeled tractor trailer; the truck’s powerful headlamps couldn’t penetrate deep enough into the storm to reveal the towering cliffs over his head or the vistas to the left and right. Occasionally, one of the many waterfalls not yet frozen by the unusually frigid weather flashed by like a white smear against the black night, but he had eyes only for the dark ribbon spread before his truck.
Brock Holt was not a happy man despite the country music blaring from the cab’s eight speakers. The conditions of the road didn’t bother him too much. To a native of Prince William Sound, a storm like this was nothing but a mild nuisance. What bothered him was the full load of Petromax gasoline, nearly eight thousand gallons, in the tanker behind him. He hadn’t been scheduled to make the run from the Anchorage depot for another two days, but the influx of media had supposedly emptied the service stations around Valdez. His dispatcher had assured him the early run was necessary, yet when he arrived at the Petromax stations, he found that they hadn’t called for him. In fact, they probably wouldn’t need the gas from his regular delivery either.
The stations’ owners complained that an environmental group had targeted them for a series of protests and boycotts. While the other stations in town were doing a brisk business, collectively Petromax hadn’t sold more than fifty gallons all week. The dispatcher must have assumed that since the other stations were pumping, so was Petromax. “Snafu,” Holt cursed as he began the long haul back north, anxious to chew out his dispatcher, Hank Kelso.