The guard waved Admiral Morgan and his wife through and they wandered companionably up to the very edge of the crater, staring down into the abyss. Up ahead of them, they could see another group of four people, all men, taking photographs of the area, and obviously heading north, along the tourist paths, up the great ridge of the mountains. Two large golf carts were parked nearby.
“Can we get a couple of those?” asked the Admiral.
“Lemme check with the guard,” said Harry, who returned three minutes later with the good news that one big cart, a four-seater, was on its way up from the Visitors’ Center.
“Beautiful,” said Arnold. “That way we can ride right up to Cumbre Vieja and then I’d like to take the car down to the coast road to see the cliffs above the ocean.”
The excursion in the cart revealed spectacular scenery. All along the lava fields, the Ruta de Los Volcanes, across the rugged range of mountains sometimes redolent with thick light green Canary pines, sometimes just a stone wilderness, the golf cart bumped and lurched across terrain that had been molten rock less than forty years ago. In many places on top of the ridge it was possible to see the Atlantic both to the east and to the west. But they were not sure the battery on the electric-powered golf cart would make it all the way down to the west coast, and they elected to turn back, pick up the car, and drive on down in comfort. Ninety minutes later they found themselves parked at the top of a gigantic cliff of black basalt rock, towering over a strange black sandy beach hundreds of feet below, beaten by the seemingly endless breakers of the Atlantic.
They were parked in a rough, flat clearing and there was only one other car, another black Mercedes, just beyond them. Photographing the cliff were the same four people they had seen on the rim of Volcan San Antonio. They were all swarthy in appearance, with short, curly black hair, but somehow not Spanish. And despite their phalanx of cameras draped around their necks, they were not Japanese either. Arabian, from the looks of them.
“What the hell?” muttered Arnold. “What are they doing up here photographing the landscape and getting in our way?”
“I can’t really help you there, my darling,” said Kathy. “They never even bothered to leave a copy of their tour plan in the car—”
“Goddamned towelh—” growled the Admiral, but in a gesture of deference to his wife, he checked himself, swallowing the rest of his exclamation.
Two minutes later, the other Mercedes took off, driving swiftly south. And when Pedro finally began to head back south himself, they spotted the other Mercedes up ahead, parked again, its occupants still photographing fiercely, both with cinecameras and stills.
“Pull over, Pedro,” said the Admiral. “Let’s take another look at the view. Park as close to the other car as you can without crowding ’em.”
Sure enough, the photographers had found another prime spot. There was a slight crescent shape to the bay, winding away towards the north, and it offered a spectacular vista from one of the highest points on the western coast.
Arnold didn’t really think much of it. It was simply that his job was so deeply engrained in his personality and mind. By sea, the Admiral was paranoid about submarines and on land, since 9/11, he was unable to look at an Arab without thinking, Goddamned terrorist. Of course many other operatives in U.S. Intelligence thought much the same, but being Arnold, he had to act upon it in some fashion.
As soon as the car came to a halt Arnold Morgan was out, walking back to Harry and the other agent. His instructions were terse. Get ahold of the camera in the backseat of my car, and then start taking pictures of Kathy and me. Use the telephoto lens, get the guys nice and close.”
“Yes, sir.”
There were probably 30 yards between the two groups, and Harry did his job admirably. The Arabs seemed to notice that the other visitors’ camera was aimed their way, because they quickly looked away. But not quickly enough. Harry had them all clearly, except for one whom he only managed to catch from the side and back. But in one way or the other, all four of them were now sharply recorded in Kathy’s digital.
“Could you by any chance tell me what all that was about?” asked Kathy as they began the drive back around the southern headland and on to the airport.
“Well, I don’t think those people were really tourists,” replied the Admiral. “No wives, no girlfriends. Very serious. Kinda got the impression they had a purpose. You know, stopping and taking a lot of pictures of the cliff.”
“Well, they could have been compiling a book. Great Atlantic coastlines,” said Kathy. “Or scouting out a location for a movie. Or working for the Canary Islands tourist board, preparing a new brochure. Or working for a hotel or development corporation, looking at new sights with amazing ocean views, anything. After all, we were standing right on the top of one of the great volcano ranges in the world…”
“Yeah. I know,” he replied. “And I don’t think anyone’s thinking of building much up there, not with the Cumbre Vieja rumbling away beneath our feet. Fast way to lose your hotel, right?
“I don’t know,” he mused, slowly. “I just had a feeling about those guys…how they kept showing up. And now I got a little record of ’em. And I just might ask young Ramshawe to have a shot at identifying ’em.”
“Can he do that?”
“Not if they are entirely obscure. But you never know…”
“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” said Kathy. “If that whole western side of the ridge suddenly collapsed into the ocean, that sure would make a major splash.”
“Wouldn’t it?” answered the Admiral. “The mother of all splashes.”
2
They were just north of the seaport city of Wonsan, and the Chinese-built off-road military juggernaut was rumbling up the strangely deserted road. To the right stretched a long expanse of jagged coastline guarded from the great rollers off the Sea of Japan only by a few tiny islands that could be seen in the distance.
This was rugged country, the “highway” cleaving its way north for 200 miles, into the extreme northeast where China, North Korea, and Russia converge, some 80 miles south of Vladivostok.
The Hamas General in the front passenger seat was accompanied by his personal bodyguard, brother-in-law, and veteran Hamas major, Ahmed Sabah, who sat quietly in the rear seat cradling a fully primed AK-47. The General stared through the windshield without speaking. The language was just too damned strange, the people too odd, the country too foreign for any attempt at social chat with the Korean Army driver.
Ravi Rashood was numb with boredom. Here in what might be the world’s most secretive country, a police-state throwback to the dark ages of communism, he felt so out of place, so utterly estranged from anything he had ever known, that he was at a loss for perspective. He looked over at the driver, whose uniform was without military insignia save for a small metal badge showing a portrait of the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, presumed insane by most of the Western world, but a God-like presence to the residents of North Korea. A red rim surrounded the driver’s badge, signifying his military rank.
His father, the late Kim il-Sung, was believed to be the Greatest Leader Ever in the history of the world, including the likes of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Washington, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Mao, Gandhi, and Churchill. North Korean children had to learn a hymn to Kim, and sing it daily, “The Greatest Genius the World Has Ever Known.” Huge portraits of him littered cities, towns, villages, and parks. His words were still regarded as the Will of Heaven.