“If the United Nations is checking the containers going on the Atlas what are we looking for on the Galaxus?” Killer asked again.
“Radioactivity.”
“It’s a shell game.”
“Right — we’re taking a swim in shark infested waters just to make sure the Iranians are sending a bunch of sand to Soekarno for his zoo exhibit,” Slade replied. He tried to look unconcerned. “These two things might be unrelated — who knows — maybe the Iranians are shooting straight.”
“That’s about the only thing we know isn’t true!” Killer said sharply.
“Agreed,” Slade said, putting on his deepest, darkest scowl. “However, let’s just say for the sake of argument that Soekarno’s shipment is harmless desert sand and the Iranians enriched Uranium is transported to Abu Dhabi. Where does that leave us?”
“We’re back at square one,” Killer sighed. “We have no airplane, we have no cargo for that missing airplane, and we’re no closer to discovering what the Iranians, Al-Qaeda and ISIS were meeting about in Iraq.”
“Let’s hope we don’t come up empty,” Slade said firmly.
Killer shrugged and shook his head, saying, “One thing at a time. We drop in fifteen hours. Come on, get some sleep. We’re all packed up and ready to go.”
CHAPTER 24: Fatwa
Freddy looked furtively at the only exits of the restaurant. There were swarthy bearded men seemingly everywhere. Their dark eyes bored holes in his sallow flesh. “We can’t get out,” he said, his voice trembling.
Looking just as nervous, Alfie tried his cell phone to no avail. “We’re in the basement. There’s no coverage. What do we do?”
“The only line out is the house phone.”
“And there’s two of them sitting at the bar; we’re screwed.”
Freddy stood up and took his jacket off. “Get your clothes off.” He threw the jacket on the floor and started unbuttoning his shirt. People looked his way, murmuring about what he was doing as Freddy began to pull his shirt off.
“What?”
“Strip now! Do it!”
Alfie stood up and did as he was told. “What are we doing?”
“We’re trying to get them to call the police!” Freddy told him.
The bartender looked at them with surprise, yelling over to them, “What are you doing? Put your clothes back on! Crazy Americans!”
“Make me!” Freddy yelled back. “I’m an American. We saved your ass twice last century! I can eat naked anywhere in the world I want to!” Freddy stripped off his underwear, showing off his hairy, scraggly, uncircumcised privates.
The patrons of the restaurant gasped, shielding their children’s eyes. The Arabs looked around in consternation, at a loss for what to do.
The bartender still hadn’t reached for the phone. Freddy stepped up to Alfie, who was naked now as well, and put his hands on his shoulders. “He’s not making the call. Get on your knees and blow me!”
“What? I’m not going to blow you Alfie!”
“You want your head sawed off by these animals?”
Alfie reluctantly got on his knees. Freddy grabbed his frizzy hair and shoved Alfie’s face in his crotch.
“Oh God!” cried Alfie.
“Mon Dieu!” came from across the room.
The bartender grabbed the phone. “Crazy Americans! Crazy Americans!” he shouted to the gendarmes. A moment later the sound of sirens wailing came down through the stairwell.
The Arabs left scowling.
“Thank God they’re gone; we’re all right!” Freddy sighed, collapsing into his chair.
“Speak for yourself!” Alfie groaned, retching onto the restaurant floor.
A moment later the gendarmes arrived along with four plain clothes detectives. One of them, a ginger haired, mustachioed man smoking a cigarette stepped up to Freddy and Alfie.
“I sure could use one of those,” Freddy said.
“I’d like one a bit stronger,” Alfie commented. “Thanks all the same. Those jihadists were going to behead us right in this bar!”
“Were they?” the man smiled, blowing smoke at the, “I am Agent Brueget of INTERPOL. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Such as what?” Freddy asked, irritated.
“Such as why you have consorted with known terrorists like Colonel Nikahd? Why you have photographs of NATO military personnel on your computer — the same photos we found in the jihadist’s possession — photos of personnel targeted for assassination. Yes, Mr. Waters and Mr. Alford, we have much to talk about.”
The gendarmes cuffed both Freddy and Alfie, not very politely, and not without protest. Then they were hustled away to an undisclosed location. When the INTERPOL agent working for Brueget asked what he wanted done, he smiled, and said, “International terrorists like this can’t wait to talk and tell stories. Let them sit in solitary — say, for a month. Then we will talk.”
“They’re claiming to work for the American president. What if the embassy calls requesting to see them?”
“You’re due for vacation aren’t you Gerard?”
“Why, yes, but I’m too junior to take vacation at this time of year.”
“I will swap with you,” Brueget said, slapping him on the back. “Margareta wants to be in Paris during opera season anyway. Process these terrorists into some hole and put the paperwork in your desk. Go to the Riviera and report back to me in a month!”
“Oui monsieur, with pleasure!”
CHAPTER 25: Introducing the World to Taqiyya
Under the bright lights of the Bandar Abbas dockyard three military trucks drove down the docks. They were under escort by a dozen troop trucks loaded with soldiers as well as half a dozen armored personnel carriers. Following the ochre vehicles were the horribly flippant ‘baby blue’ of the self-obsessed and impotent United Nations. The convoy stopped next to an open hulled ship.
The ship’s silhouette was that of a small albeit normal looking freighter, but instead of a deck and cargo hatches the hull was open to the keel and creased along the bottom. The bottom of the hull was actually a huge clamshell door. In practice, rocks would be loaded into the hull and then dropped with great precision on the sea bottom, creating an artificial reef or harbor breakwater, whatever the client desired.
Tonight the ship would transport only one hundredth its normal cargo, but it was a very precious and dangerous cargo.
Under the blaze of the dockyard lights three large containers were uncovered. Inspectors from the United Nations followed Iranian scientists up to the pallets and they examined the containers. Geiger counters were inserted in special breeches to measure the radiation levels of the materials within the containers. The weight of the trucks themselves was taken before the cargo was removed.
The examination was a careful and lengthy process. After an hour the cranes lifted the containers one at a time from the trucks. The inspectors noted the weight of the containers and made their calculations. The radiation levels on the inside of the containers had to match the expected levels of a ton of enriched Uranium 235. The weight of the containers had to match the weight of the Uranium plus the weight of the shielded container. The final calculation was a measure of external radiation levels — some of it always escaped — the Geiger count had to be consistent with a ton of enriched Uranium 235 secured inside that particular container. Everything matched.
The holier than thou UN inspectors nodded gravely, allowing the press to interview them, ensuring the reporters knew just how important they were, how important their job was and how essential it was that the UN carry out these kinds of inspections in Iran. Inevitably they added that no one, no one, should be outside the purview of the United Nations. It would be to the betterment of the world that they conduct these same inspections in Israel and the United States, so they said, taking a swipe at the two ‘colonial powers’ of their flawed world.