Divide and Conquer

TWENTY-FOUR

Maurice Charles did not like to repeat himself.

If he arrived someplace by car, he liked to leave by bus or rail. If he went west by air, he liked to go east by car or bus. If he wore a hat in the morning, he took it off in the afternoon. Or else he wore a different one or dyed his hair. If he destroyed a car with a pipe bomb, he attacked the next target with C-4. If he had done surveillance along a coastline, he retreated inland for a short time. Repetition was the means by which entrepreneurs in any field were undone. Patterns enabled lesser thinkers to anticipate you. The only exceptions were densely populated cities where he might be seen. If he found a relatively obscure route through a place like that, he would use it more than once. The risk of being spotted and identified was greater than the risk of reusing an out-of-the-way road or tunnel.

Because Charles had surveyed the Caspian oil drilling site by plane, he decided to return to it by boat. The American and possibly Russian satellites would be looking for an aircraft by now. He and his team would take the motor yacht, which would have a different name on its side than it had the day before. One of the team members had made those arrangements in Baku. It would be waiting for them in Khachmas, a coastal town some fifty miles north of Baku. A freelance crew had been hired in Baku and sailed up with one of Charles’s Iranian sailors. Not only was Khachmas closer to their target, it was unlikely that anyone would recognize them or the vessel.

After a short sleep, which was all he needed, Charles and his comrades had climbed into a van that was parked behind the shack. Their gear was already on board, and they drove from Gobustan back toward Baku. They traveled along roads that were utterly deserted at this time of night. Though Charles did not drive, he did not sleep. He sat in the backseat with a.45 in his lap. If anyone approached the van for any reason, he wanted to be awake.

The van arrived in sleepy Khachmas shortly before 4:30. They had driven the seventy miles nonstop. No one had approached them.

The Rachel—now the Saint Elmo—was waiting in a slip at a ramshackle marina. The berth was close to shore. The hired crew had been dismissed. They had departed in their own boat, a fishing vessel, which had accompanied the motor yacht north.

Wearing night-vision goggles, Charles stood watch while the equipment was transferred from the van to the Saint Elmo. When all the gear was on board, one of the team members drove off in the van. The vehicle would be painted locally and driven to another city. Finally, the motor yacht set off.

The trip to the target would take fifty minutes. The sun would just be coming up when they arrived. That was important. Working at sea, Charles did not like to use artificial lights. They were too easy to spot in the dark and reflected on the water. He also didn’t like to work during bright daylight when the wet suits glistened. Early dawn was best. There would be just enough time to get the job done and depart without being seen.

Then he would leave Azerbaijan and do nothing but enjoy life for a month or two. Savor the international ramifications of what he had accomplished. Cherish the fact, as he always did, that no world leader, no army, no business, had a greater impact on international events than he did.