Dwight said, “Very good, men! Anybody who runs a Geiger counter over this box will definitely find some radiation. If they open it, they’ll have to go through three layers of probes before gettin’ to the RV. That’s not likely to happen. Let’s get that crate loaded onto the Flash as soon as you can. Got to make a run to Galveston at seven o’clock in the morning.”
The crate was quickly loaded onto the Flash, a crew boat that carried oil rig crews and supplies back and forth to the rigs in the Gulf. The Flash set off for Galveston harbor at precisely 0700 hours. They were timing the arrival of the crew boat in port to coincide with the departure of several large cruise ships, thus ensuring that the port authorities would be busy.
GenCon’s pier was just up the shipping channel from where the cruise ships docked. GenCon traffic between the airport and the GenCon dock was constant, so one more delivery truck bringing a crate of downhole logging tools for shipment to one of the GenCon oil rigs somewhere in the world was not going to garner any special interest. The crate was scheduled to be air freighted out on an Al Arabiyah Boeing 747 the next morning. The shipment was routed across the Atlantic to Durban, South Africa, and then to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a city of one and a half million people. This, however, was the time of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the Ka‘abah, when the population of Mecca swelled to over three million.
Dwight watched the Flash leave Platform Alpha. Hopefully, everything would go as he and George had planned. This was going to be one big surprise for some people who were used to doing the surprising!
Ahmed Farouk, the maintenance supervisor on the twelve GenCon jack-up rigs located in the Red Sea, waited for the arrival of Flight 2003 from Durban. He and two other men were in a parking lot in the freight receiving area of the King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The airport was strategically located where it could serve both the city of Mecca and the freight needs for the oil companies working the many rigs in the Red Sea. Not far from the airport, the Jeddah Islamic port facility was the main base for all the crew boats that worked and serviced the offshore rigs. Ahmed watched as the Al Arabiyah cargo plane landed and taxied to the international cargo terminal.
Angel Piro and Juan Salamanca, both originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, were standing near Ahmed. All three men, unsmiling and serious, worked for Dwight, not just GenCon, and they were all dark skinned with bushy beards. Frequently, Saudi natives mistook the Puerto Ricans for Arabs.
Ahmed Farouk was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia, not far from Jeddah and had emigrated with his parents to Houston, Texas when he was twelve. The Farouks were Christians and as such had been persecuted in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and their hired thugs, the Mukhabarat, had repeatedly threatened the family before Ahmed’s father, a well-educated man, had moved the family to the U.S. to stop the Saudi harassment.
Angel and Juan had moved from San Juan to New York City before the age of ten. Although they had not known each other while growing up in New York, they both left the city about the same time and ended up working for GenCon in Galveston. Both Puerto Ricans lost family members in the attacks of 9/11.
The big 747 shut down its engines, and a contingent of Saudi customs agents converged on the aircraft to begin inspecting Flight 2003’s cargo as it was offloaded to a customs inspection warehouse. Ahmed drove the van to the freight loading docks to wait for the customs clearance. As the three men stood beside the van, they watched the customs inspectors going through the cargo. The inspectors methodically checked each item against the flight’s cargo manifest. Some of the crates were merely checked off on the manifest without further inspection while some were opened and the contents were verified.
GenCon had been shipping freight into Saudi Arabia for years, and most days, their crates were merely counted and checked off on the manifest. Today was not one of those days.
When the customs inspectors reached the GenCon “probe” crate, they studied the manifest and the crate. One of the inspectors appeared to check off the shipment. Then, the supervising inspector said, “Stop. We’ll open this one.” The junior inspector shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the crate while talking with the warehouse worker who was opening and closing the crates for the inspection team. The supervisor turned around and strolled over to the GenCon crew.
“Salaam Alakum, Ahmed.”
Ahmed returned the greeting “Alakum Salaam, Faizal. I am curious, why are you opening our cargo this time? I know you are doing your job, but we must get the equipment to the maintenance boats, and I have to go into Mecca, all before dark.” Ahmed noted Faizal was not smiling as he usually did. And he seemed to be tense.
“Ahmed, you know the trouble that is caused by the missing American submarine. You also know the rumor this submarine is on a mission to destroy the Muslim world. I don’t have a problem, but the Mukhabarat were here this morning, and we were told to make sure there are no nuclear weapons smuggled into our country.”
“Faizal, we are interested in producing oil not blowing up the world. Besides, even if we tried, we couldn’t smuggle in one of those missiles — they must be forty feet long!”
“Nevertheless, I have my instructions, and your freight has radioactive devices. I would be remiss in my duties if I ignored the possibility.” Faizal seemed to be staring a hole in Ahmed. His gaze didn’t flinch.
“Inspector Faizal!” shouted the junior inspector opening the crate.
“I will be back,” he said as he quickly moved toward the crate.
Ahmed looked at Angel and Juan. Beads of perspiration stood out on their foreheads as they tried to contain their emotions and appear nonchalant. Inspector Faizal said a few words to the junior inspector, then turned around, paused, and walked back to the GenCon team.
“He is new. The Geiger counter picked up the radiation. He doesn’t read English, so he didn’t know the probes were radioactive. I have explained to him the purpose for the probes, and he will open the crate so we can finish this. Okay?”
“Yes, that’s good.”
Ahmed tensely watched as the inspector and the warehouse man removed the top of the wooden crate. Since the inspector was new, it was likely he would do a thorough inspection to impress Inspector Faizal. This was not good. Definitely not.
The inspector and the warehouse man removed a top layer of rigid foam, exposing six probes nestled side by side across the width of the crate. They lifted the probes out, one by one, and carefully laid them in a row on the concrete floor of the warehouse. They then removed the next layer of foam, exposing six more probes. Once again, they lifted the probes out, one by one, and carefully laid them next to the others on the concrete floor.
Ahmed exchanged glances with Angel and Juan. Only one more layer of probes lay between the inspector and the hidden RV. If it was discovered, there would be no way for Ahmed to explain it. They would be taken into custody and interrogated in ways known only to the Mukhabarat. Their techniques would never find their way to the headlines of any Saudi newspaper. The editors knew too well what would happen to them, and their families, if such a story were ever published.
The inspector and the warehouse man removed the next layer of rigid foam. The last six probes lay before them in the crate, with supposedly three more layers under them. The inspector and the warehouse man got on each end of the first probe and slowly lifted it out of the crate. They carried it to the line of probes on the concrete floor and carefully laid it alongside number twelve. As they returned to the crate, Ahmed ostensibly looked at his watch and sighed loud enough for Inspector Faizal to hear.