Blowback

SIXTY-ONE

Chip Reynolds loved the hypocrisy of it all. After spending hours in their mosque listening to a radical imam spew anti-American hate speech, the first thing the three young fundamentalists did was head to a downtown Starbucks for iced Frappuccinos. America might be the great Satan, but their coffee concoctions were nothing short of a divine paradise right here on earth. You can keep your seventy-two dark-eyed virgins, Allah, just make sure the house blend keeps flowing.

Reynolds would have laughed if it wasn’t so despicably sad. Radical Islam blamed America and the West for everything that was wrong with their fucked-up countries. He had had his fill of all of it. He couldn’t wait to get out. He hadn’t been back to his cabin in Montana since his wife had died and didn’t think he’d ever return, but he knew at some point he was going to have to try to put his life back together. One more year and he’d have enough to retire very comfortably, and no matter what his situation, he’d made a promise to himself that he would try. And once he left, he never wanted to set foot in the Mideast or deal with security or intelligence work ever again.

For the time being, though, he had a job to do. He’d been tailing the three young radicals for the past two days, but in that time there’d been no sign of their buddy, Khalid Alomari. This despite the fact that someone in Saudi intelligence was still filing nostalgic remembrances of surveillance days past, claiming that the four youths had been together almost every day over the last three. Something was definitely up, and the sooner Chip Reynolds got to the bottom of it, the better he’d be able to sleep at night.

After finishing their coffees, the young men were preparing to leave when one of them received a phone call. It was times like these when Reynolds wished he still had access to the CIA’s incredible trove of listening devices. Sitting in his Toyota Land Cruiser across the street from the Starbucks with a parabolic microphone balanced on the windowsill, he wasn’t getting anything. What’s more, even with the air conditioning going full blast, the summer heat pouring through the open window was roasting him alive. It was all putting him in a very bad mood.

Whatever the phone call had been, it must have been important, because Mo(hammad), Larry, and Curly had an intense, albeit brief conversation, and then immediately hurried outside to their car.

The late afternoon Riyadh traffic made it difficult to keep up with the three men. In fact, on two separate occasions, Reynolds thought he had lost them, only to recover their car a couple of blocks later. They certainly were being cautious, but none of them had the experience to outmaneuver a seasoned espionage veteran like Reynolds.

An hour later, the men turned onto a dusty access road leading to a seldom-used military airfield south of the city. What the hell were they up to? he wondered.

As the road twisted and turned, Reynolds often lost sight of his quarry for thirty or forty seconds at a time. He had to be very careful not only not to lose them for good but also to make sure that he wasn’t following so closely that they knew someone was behind them. Blending in was one thing in downtown Riyadh or along one of the country’s busy motorways. It was another thing entirely out here in the middle of nowhere.

Coming around yet another curve, Reynolds had just enough time to slam on the brakes and skid to a stop. He managed to back his car up out of sight while he watched the young fundamentalists pick up speed as they hit the final straightaway. Five hundred yards away was the airfield’s not so deserted and very much armed checkpoint. Was that what this was all about? A suicide bombing? It didn’t make any sense. Why waste three men on a job one could have done alone? And why hit such a low-value target? Something like this wouldn’t even make the news, much less the watered-down intelligence briefing Reynolds skimmed each morning.

Reynolds prepared himself for the worst. As the car closed on the checkpoint, he thought he saw their brake lights, but quickly realized it wasn’t brake lights he saw flashing, it was something else. These guys were signaling the soldiers with their headlights! Even odder, the soldiers seemed to be responding.

He watched as two men in uniform rushed down from the guard tower and hurriedly opened the gates. Five seconds later, the car with his three suspects sped through and the gates were closed behind them. They never even slowed down. There was no ID check, nothing. Obviously, they had been expected. Reynolds couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The phrase “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” came to mind, but this was like the Southern Black Baptist Conference inviting the KKK in for punch and cookies.

As much as he didn’t want to, Reynolds knew he was going to have to get a closer look. He watched as the car headed toward a pair of dilapidated hangars on the far side of the airfield. He pulled off the access road and headed his SUV into the desert. He would have to cut a pretty wide arc to come up on the rear of the airfield without being seen, but it was his only choice.

He drove as close as he dared with the Land Cruiser and then hiked the rest of the way in on foot. Seventy-five yards later, Reynolds spotted the militants’ car and took cover behind a narrow berm. The car was parked in front of an open hangar. A Saudi Arabian National Guard UH60 Blackhawk helicopter sat idling on the tarmac nearby. Things were getting very interesting.

Reynolds removed a pair of Steiner binoculars and peered into the open hangar. Seated on top of cushions scattered across the floor, Bedouin style, were the three young militants along with several men in Royal Saudi Land Forces as well as Saudi Arabian National Guard uniforms. The Saudi Royal Land Forces were charged with external security, while the Saudi National Guard were charged with protecting the Royal Family from internal rebellion and from any possible coup attempts by the Royal Land Forces. What the hell were these guys all doing here together?

Reynolds had brought his somewhat out-of-date parabolic mike along, but he knew that the engine noise from the UH60 would make it impossible to hear anything. Something big was happening, and he needed to know what was going on. Not having brought the proper equipment to circumvent the electric fence surrounding the base, there was no way he could get in closer. Besides, his running and gunning days were over. If these guys really were up to something that they shouldn’t be, there was no question in Reynolds’s mind that they would kill him if they discovered him lurking around the hangar. As much as he didn’t want to, he knew there was only one person he could call for help. Faruq al-Hafez might not be his biggest fan, but he was completely devoted to the Saudi Royal Family, and a meeting of this magnitude was something he’d want to know and hopefully do something about.

Without taking his eyes from the scene inside the hangar, Reynolds fished his cell phone from his pocket, raised it to his mouth, and said, “Call deputy intel minister, cell.” The voice-activated feature began to dial the preprogrammed number, but just as it was starting to ring, Reynolds saw something that made him immediately disconnect the call. Walking out of the adjacent hangar with two large aluminum briefcases in his hands was Faruq al-Hafez himself.

He placed the briefcases on a folding table set up near the mouth of the hangar, popped the lids, and began setting up three stacks of bills. Reynolds watched as a representative from each group came up and collected their money. One of the militants lifted a stack of American currency and fanned through it with his thumb and then shoved the rest of his pile into a dusty, desert-camouflaged knapsack.

The National Guard and Royal Land Force soldiers were far less dramatic than the Wahhabi radical. After a cursory glance, they each piled their money into one of the aluminum cases and shook hands with Faruq. Whatever was going on, everyone seemed to be satisfied.

The National Guard members headed for their UH60 Blackhawk as the representatives from the Saudi army climbed into a Hummer parked on the far side of the hangar. While the militants headed toward their car, the deputy intelligence minister raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth and gave some sort of command. A fraction of a second later, the doors of hangar number two rolled open revealing a sleek Dessault Falcon 50EX business jet. What the hell is he up to? wondered Reynolds. The only time Faruq used one of the Intelligence Ministry jets was when he traveled out of the country. There was only one way to find out.

Reynolds removed his cell phone and voice-dialed the man again.

“Hello?” Faruq responded in Arabic.

Reynolds could hear the whine of the Falcon’s engines in the background. “It’s Chip Reynolds, Your Excellency.”

“Yes, Mr. Reynolds. What is it? I’m quite busy.”

Reynolds watched as al-Hafez entered the hangar. “I have a security matter I’d like to discuss with you. I’m concerned with some activity we’ve seen around one of the northern pumping stations. I’m going to be near your office later today and was hoping we could meet.”

“That won’t be possible,” replied the deputy minister. “I’m on my way out of the country and will be gone for several days.”

“Vacation?” asked Reynolds.

“Business,” said Faruq as he climbed the Falcon’s retractable stairs and paused before entering the cabin. “Whatever this is, I’m sure it’s nothing. If there’s still a problem when I get back, we can discuss it then.” With that, the deputy intelligence minister punched the end button on his cell and climbed into the plane.

Hiking back to his Land Cruiser, Reynolds downed a liter of water from the cooler on his back seat and then reached for his body armor. He had one last lead to pursue, and something told him that with that much money lying around, Mo(hammad), Larry, and Curly were going to be in a shoot first, ask questions later kind of mood.