Mercer cocked an eyebrow at the brawny petroleum geologist.
“The Crown Prince wants to add to his stables, and knowing me to be a fine judge of horseflesh, he’s sending me on a buying spree through Europe and the States. Told me that if I happen to find a few fillies that catch my eye, not to be shy about buyin’ them for myself. The check he gave me has more zeros than a high school chess club.” Gibson tipped his hat. “Miss Siri, Colonel. Mercer, hate to cut this short, but I’ve got a plane to catch.”
No sooner had Gibson left than the door leading to Minister Khalid al-Khuddari’s chamber opened. The minister wore casual clothing, American-style jeans and an open-necked shirt. Supported by two canes, his movement into the reception area was slow but steady, his arms taking much of the strain as he crabbed forward. Mercer stole a quick glance at Siri Patal and was envious of the look she gave Khuddari. An image of Aggie Johnston flashed painfully in his mind. They hadn’t spoken since Alaska. They probably never would.
“Dr. Mercer, it is both a pleasure and a privilege to meet you,” Khuddari said, coming close. He looked at Mercer critically, and when he made some sort of personal judgment, smiled. “I’m willing to bet your injuries are a lot worse than they appear.”
“Only if I appear dead.” Mercer made no move to shake Khuddari’s hand because he could only use his left comfortably. He knew that touching an Arab with that hand, which they considered unclean, was a sign of disrespect.
“We’ve both suffered for this,” Khuddari said so quietly that only Mercer could hear. Mercer nodded a silent agreement, recognizing the seriousness of those words and the meaning behind them. Just as quickly as it appeared, Khuddari’s serious edge disappeared, and he was again the charming host. “Come into my office. We have a great deal to discuss, a great many war stories to swap. I think even Colonel Bigelow may be impressed by us. What do you think?”
Mercer laughed, “Unless you and I single-handedly defeated Rommel, I don’t think much would impress your Colonel.”
Khuddari was delighted by the accurate description of his friend and mentor, grinning at Bigelow’s scowl.
He led them into his office and took a seat behind his desk, propping his legs on an ottoman and leaning the canes against the wall like dueling sabers. Bigelow and Mercer sat opposite the desk. Because Mercer’s internal clock was so messed up by jet lag and exhaustion, he didn’t refuse Bigelow’s offer of whiskey from the gold-capped flask he pulled from the pocket of his khaki tunic.
“To begin with, my closest friends call me Khalid. I would like to count you among them. May I dispense with your formal title and call you Philip?”
“My friends call me Mercer. Actually, so do my enemies, but that doesn’t really matter.”
“Then let me say officially, Mercer, the people of the United Arab Emirates and everyone else living in the Gulf owe you a great deal. I’m afraid that without your involvement, what we saw as an internal problem would have mushroomed until it encompassed the entire region. Your timely warning prevented not only a revolution here, but the destabilization of the whole Middle East.”
Mercer tried to demure, but Khuddari pressed on. “We had known for some time of a revolutionary element here in the UAE, a man by the name of Hasaan bin-Rufti, but we did not know how deep was his involvement with other — how shall we say — less friendly nations. Later, I learned of Rufti’s connections with the Iraqis and Iranians when I was in London, but I was too incapacitated to make that knowledge useful here at home.
“Fortunately, as soon as Colonel Bigelow learned that I was delayed in London by a terrorist attack at Heathrow, he rightly deduced that the assault was intended to kill me. On his own initiative, he arrested Hasaan Rufti upon his return from the OPEC meeting. Though we had Rufti, we still didn’t know where he had secreted his troops. That’s where you came in.
“By linking the attacks in Alaska to Petromax Oil and Southern Coasting and Lightering, you gave us the clue to the location of those troops. In the limbo period during the sale of Petromax’s fleet to SC&L, their ship the Petromax Arabia had become the Southern Accent, a vessel no one had any record of that had sat ignored in our harbor for weeks. We never would have known the tanker’s involvement without you. I mean that. The men Rufti had aboard the ship could have stormed ashore and taken over this country faster than Saddam took Kuwait in 1990.”
“Am I correct in guessing that the attacks on the Alaska Pipeline and the sinking of the Petromax Arctica were the triggers for this Rufti’s revolution here in the UAE?”
“As far as we can tell, yes,” Khalid said.
“The mastermind behind this whole plot was a former KGB agent named Ivan Kerikov—”
“We know all about Kerikov,” Bigelow interrupted. “He was seen in Istanbul last year, meeting with Hasaan Rufti. It was then that they hatched this scheme.”
“Not hatched, Colonel, stole,” Mercer replied. “We found out from a computer expert Kerikov hired that the program he activated had been in place since the Cold War, planted by a KGB sleeper agent. Years ago, Kerikov came upon the plan and the codes needed to override Alyeska’s computers. He’d been waiting for someone like Rufti to come along, someone who would be willing to pay to have the Trans-Alaska Pipeline permanently shut down.”
“But why? And why now?”
“By destroying the pipeline and then sinking a tanker carrying North Slope crude, Kerikov and Rufti could guarantee that the United States would abandon its plan to cut off foreign oil suppliers by relying on domestic production and alternative fuels. The President’s energy policy, which many Washington insiders and the New York financiers detest, would be scrapped before it was ever implemented.”
“So Rufti would use the attacks in America as both a trigger and a diversion while he and his new Iranian and Iraqi allies took over the Middle East.” Khalid spoke with a new understanding of how deeply the plot to take over his country truly ran. “By using tactical lessons from the Gulf War and striking when America was occupied by the domestic feuds following the twin oil-related disasters, Rufti could have seized the Emirates in days and the rest of the region in a matter of weeks. Unbelievable! But where did the money come from? It was something the Crown Prince mentioned prior to my going to London. Despite what the rest of the world thinks, not everyone living in an OPEC country is filthy rich. Rufti is a millionaire, certainly, but not nearly wealthy enough to finance an operation as elaborate as this.”
“That’s where Max Johnston came in, I’m afraid,” replied Mercer. “In a way, he paid for the entire thing. At first, it was a simple business decision, but one he later discovered had a much darker side. Because of the President’s energy policy, oil companies were scrambling to make as much money as possible in the ten years remaining before the deadline. Johnston was approached by Rufti, and later by Iranians and Iraqis, who promised him that in exchange for some up-front money, Petromax would be given exclusive rights for all future oil explorations in Iran, Iraq, and the UAE. From Johnston’s point of view, the 150 million dollars they’d asked for was merely a kickback to the three oil ministers to gain market domination.
“The deal would have stayed in effect even after the U.S. cut off imports, giving Petromax a near monopoly on Middle East crude imported by Europe and Japan. Even if the rest of the world followed our lead on restricting oil consumption, we’re still talking about billions of dollars over the next quarter century.”
“It’s nice that Rufti was negotiating as our Petroleum Minister,” Khalid said sarcastically.
“Johnston must have known you were to be assassinated as an obstacle to Rufti’s plan, but I don’t believe he was aware that Iran, Iraq, and Rufti intended to establish themselves as the dominant power in the Gulf. He believed the deal was with three separate nations, not a triumvirate. Johnston couldn’t raise the 150 million without selling some of his assets. Enter Southern Coasting and Lightering. He sold them his fleet of tankers, using the promissory notes of sale and hauling contacts to raise the cash in some sort of financial derivatives fund. I’m not certain how it was all to work out, but in essence he financed his own downfall.”