“Excuse me,” Bigelow said, “but this doesn’t make sense. He sells his tankers to raise money to become sole importer of oil from any new Middle Eastern fields.”
“He had just made a deal for drilling rights to half the world’s oil supply. I doubt he was concerned with the few million dollars a year he makes on his tankers. But this is where the story gets truly Machiavellian.”
“You mean more so,” Khalid said mildly.
“I have a friend in Miami who is a leading maritime attorney. He found all the details of what transpired. Up until a year ago, Southern Coasting had been a small outfit in Louisiana, owning a couple of 100,000-ton product tankers that ran between Galveston and Venezuela. Then they were bought, and suddenly Southern Coasting had the money to go buy three VLCCs, a huge step for a company that showed only modest profits last year.”
“Who bought the company?”
“Remember the Oil for Food deal the United Nations gave to the Iraqis a few years ago as a way of maintaining international sanctions yet allowing some humanitarian aid into the country? Part of the proceeds of those oil sales went into Southern Coasting. The company was owned by Iraq and Hasaan bin-Rufti, a fact that Max Johnston was unaware of. He thought he had made the deal of a lifetime. Instead he put his neck in a noose that was about to be pulled.”
“You mean Iraq paid for this whole thing? Why bother bringing in Max Johnston if they were going to finance the operation themselves?” Minister Khuddari was quick to point out.
“Two reasons. One, the Iraqis needed to launder the money internationally in a legitimate business deal. During the Oil for Food program, the United Nations was keeping a tight watch on Iraq’s money to ensure that they weren’t buying weapons. Once my friend Dave Saulman started pulling the thread of SC&L’s ownership, the whole tapestry unraveled. What started out as a 150-million-dollar deal for soy and other foodstuffs turned into a tanker fleet with just a few falsified documents and a little bribery. Southern Coasting paid Johnston for his ships, and he turned the money right back over to Iraq, and they now found themselves with a tremendous fortune in their war chest. Some of this money went to Kerikov to set up the destruction of the pipeline and the Arctica. For this, he hired commandos and heavily bankrolled PEAL to become his unwitting pawns.
“The second reason was the need to use some of Johnston’s equipment, namely his tankers, to carry the huge quantities of liquid nitrogen to Alaska and to act as Rufti’s troop base here in the Emirates. Johnston would also be their scapegoat when the operation was over.
“What Max didn’t know is that Kerikov and Rufti planned to cancel the deal all along and leave him with the mess following the destruction of the Petromax Arctica. Max had already fulfilled his part of the bargain, letting them use his ships and washing their money, so they were going to doublecross him. To ensure he never revealed what he’d done, Kerikov and Rufti’s assistant, a man named Abu Alam—”
“Oh, we know Alam,” Bigelow said. “The man’s a bloody psychotic.”
“Right now he’s just blood. Maybe a little tissue, but I doubt it. Anyway, Alam and Kerikov kidnapped Johnston’s daughter, Aggie. By holding her, Kerikov could threaten Max with her death if their deal were ever made public. Johnston’s hands were tied.”
“So Max Johnston didn’t know that the money he laundered from Rufti would eventually be used to destroy him?” Khalid asked.
“He had no idea. Kerikov and Rufti played off his greed for their own benefit while planning to betray him. It’s almost like a Shakespearean tragedy in its scope. It hasn’t been reported yet, but the FBI raided Max’s home yesterday. I was told by Dick Henna that Johnston had shot himself. I doubt he knew that Kerikov was no longer holding his daughter, so he must have traded the silence of his death for her life.”
“And avoided a long stint in gaol,” Bigelow said.
“I’ve known Max for a number of years. He would have gone to prison to make things right. I believe he saw his suicide as a way of rescuing his daughter, not to avoid his responsibilities.”
“Did Johnston know that Kerikov was using that oil rig you escaped from?”
“Yes, he did know that. Actually, Kerikov took it over and then told Max about it. But it was too late for him to do anything. He was in too deep.”
“And you managed to stop it all before it really even began?”
“Well, it did begin in the United States, but yes, it’s over. The twin spills in Alaska and Puget Sound were not nearly as bad as they could have been. Cleanup will still run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but since this was a terrorist act, the federal government will be picking up a good share of the cost. But here in the Gulf, Kerikov and Rufti’s operation never really got off the ground. Colonel Bigelow told me a little about the action this morning. That was where everything finally stopped, Kerikov’s plan, Rufti’s coup, and the Iran-Iraq pact to dominate the Middle East.”
Khalid smiled for the first time since their conversation began. “At dawn this morning, a squadron of American F-18 Hornets from the carrier Carl Vinson made a series of subsonic passes over the tanker sitting off the coast, Petromax Arabia or Southern Accent, whatever you prefer to call it. Your Admiral Morrison phoned me himself to lend U.S. air support to our seaborne counterstrike.”
Bigelow continued for Khalid, adding the color that he felt the story needed. “While the fighters were strafing the port side of the tanker with Gatling gunfire and barrages of unguided rockets, UAE special forces boarded the tanker from the starboard, capturing the ship without ever needing to fire a shot. All of Hasaan Rufti’s troops were more than happy to surrender after the aerial bombardment.”
“Preliminary reports from our intelligence people indicate that they had lists of those to be executed and those who would be loyal to the new regime, as well as timetables for linking up with forces sweeping through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,” Khalid concluded.
“Why didn’t your CIA catch on to the troop movements already under way in Iran and Iraq?” Bigelow directed the question to Mercer as if he were responsible for America’s lack of hard data.
“You can move troops in school buses and artillery pieces in tractor trailers, and tanks can be deployed like mobile homes. If the effort is coordinated, it’s impossible to detect,” Mercer lied. He believed it was more plausible that American Intelligence had been caught unaware again, as it had when Saddam Hussein first took Kuwait. Changing the touchy subject, Mercer asked, “So where does this leave us? Is everything settled?”
“Mostly,” Khalid said. “The troops we captured this morning, and the division Rufti had poised in Ajman, will be tried for treason and executed some time next month. Those who are not Emirate residents — mercenaries and the Iranian and Iraqi instructors — will be deported within the week, probably to face heroes’ welcomes, but that’s the price we pay for diplomacy.”
“What about Rufti?” Mercer asked.
“We have something very special planned for him. Perhaps you would like to watch. It won’t be pleasant, but I can assure you it will be satisfying.” Khalid checked his watch. “It’s time for lunch. Afterward, we’ll go see the esteemed Hasaan bin-Rufti.”