Choke Point

THIRTY-NINE

Soon Port Sudan and its environs rose out of the ancient sands of the coastline desert, and Ross had never seen so many cargo ships gathered in one place, with forty-foot-long intermodal containers stacked like colorful pieces of Lego across their decks. The deep, coral-free harbor allowed those vessels to arrive with imports of machinery, cars, fuel oil and construction materials, while cotton, gum arabic, oilseeds, hides and skins and senna were shipped out. Behind the port lay the oil refinery receiving petroleum from onshore wells and piping more oil down to Khartoum.

They followed the GSIC tractor-trailer to the south side of the harbor, where the truck vanished down a road leading through a vast shipyard of cargo containers stacked in a labyrinth of rows and avenues. Diaz suggested they hold back there.

Within minutes the truck passed under a network of blue scaffolding as large as any major bridge Ross had seen, but that framework was actually part of the elaborate container crane system that traversed the quay and was equipped with a moving platform or spreader. The spreader lowered down on the container, fitting into the container’s four corner castings, then twistlocked into place.

Ross watched as the spreader descended now toward a container positioned at the edge of the yard. He tugged out a pair of binoculars, rolled down his window, and turned his attention toward the cargo container ship being loaded. She belonged to the Maersk Line out of Liberia, the word ‘MAERSK’ prominently displayed on her hull. Diaz was pulling up data on the ship since the tractor-trailer was now parked, the pallets being offloaded into a container whose number — 11132001 — Ross forwarded back to Fort Bragg.

‘Okay, I’ve got it,’ Diaz said. ‘That ship’s the Ocean Cavalier, Liberian registry.’

‘Bound for —’ Ross began.

‘Bound for a number of ports, any one of which could be our transfer point. Her first stop is Massawa in Eritrea, followed by the Port of Aden in Yemen.’

The latter struck a nerve with Ross.

The very first attack ever carried out by al Qaeda occurred in Aden back in late December ’92. A bomb had been detonated at the Gold Mohur Hotel, where US troops were staying while en route to Somalia. Thankfully, the troops had already left before the explosion, but years later other American servicemen were not so lucky:

On 12 October 2000, the USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke — class destroyer, was moored and refueling at the port when she was attacked. The bastards came up alongside the destroyer in a small craft carrying four hundred to seven hundred pounds of explosives molded into a shaped charge. At 11:18 a.m. the bomb went off, blowing a gaping, forty-by-forty-foot hole in the Cole’s port side. Seventeen crew members were killed with another thirty-nine injured. The current rules of engagement at the time had prevented the Cole’s guards from firing upon the small boat as it approached, and even after the explosion, as a second boat neared, guards had been ordered to stand down.

Never again, Ross thought, gritting his teeth in anger. ‘So Aden’s on their list,’ he said. ‘But what if the SAMs never get there? What if they’re transferred at sea?’

‘No way,’ said Diaz. ‘Certainly not without us knowing about it.’

‘Can we get on that ship?’ Ross asked.

‘I’d advise against it. I’ll see if we can put up a long-range drone to shadow her.’

‘The beacon’s still good,’ said Ross. ‘But for how long? And good luck getting a drone up in this airspace.’

‘Sir, may I interrupt?’ asked Kozak from the front seat. ‘The tracker’s signal is clean, and for now the ship’s not out on the ocean, so it’s pretty doubtful we’ll lose contact. Maziq and the ISA are still tracking as well. Let’s just fly ahead of her. Get down to Massawa and wait. No chance of being spotted in a boat while trying to tail her. We know where she’s going, so we should have the advantage.’

‘I can get you a flight down there,’ said Diaz.

‘Let me clear it with Mitchell,’ said Ross, trying to ward off his skepticism.

Diaz booked them passage to Massawa via one of the Agency’s Gulf Stream jets. She told them not to bitch, as they were flying first class, and the jet was, in a word, sweet. There in Massawa, holed up in a hotel near the airport, they continued to track the Ocean Cavalier, and when she came into port the next day, they waited with bated breath while she unloaded.

The missile container was not moved.

With impatience clinging to them like napalm and igniting their tempers, the team got back on another jet, this one a Yakovlev Yak-40 three-engine airliner provided by Mitchell’s contacts with the Yemeni Air Force. They flew to the Port of Aden, landing approximately eighteen hours before the ship was due to arrive.

On the tarmac they got a better look at the ancient city that lay in the caldera of an extinct volcano. Behind them rose the Shamsan Mountains, and farther off towered the lattice-work of cranes at the Aden Container Terminal on the north shore of the Inner Harbor.

They were met at their jet by a man pushing seventy who looked more like a sorcerer than a van operator. He ambled up to Ross and grunted in Arabic, ‘Are you trying to find your luggage?’ He stroked his wispy beard as though it helped him to think, and when he smiled, his picket fence of broken teeth made it difficult for Ross to return the same.

‘Are you trying to find your luggage?’

That was the challenge question the major had given to Ross, and this old man knew it.

‘Yes, we’re looking for our luggage,’ Ross told him.

The driver nodded and said, ‘Then come with me, lads.’

He spoke perfect English with a British accent.

They climbed into the van — a Mercedes whose seats were worn to the springs and whose engine gurgled as though it were running on mouthwash. The driver handed out small branches with dark green leaves.

Pepper and 30K had tentative looks on their faces, and Ross gave them a nod of reassurance. Kozak leaned over and whispered, ‘Some kind of gift?’

‘They call it khat,’ Ross explained. ‘You pluck off the leaves and chew them. Numbs your mouth a little. Tastes good.’

Kozak was about to pluck a leaf when Ross stopped him. ‘Gets you high, too.’

‘Okay, boss,’ Kozak said, then tucked the branch into his pocket. He winked. ‘I’ll save it for later.’

‘You’ll throw it away, thanks,’ snapped Ross.

‘Uh, okay. No getting high while on the clock. I see how it is now …’

Ross grinned and thumbed on his tablet computer. He checked the map, along with their current GPS coordinates and accompanying landmark photographs.

Aden was shaped like a ladle whose handle was an isthmus connecting it to the mainland. The region was divided into a number of subcenters, with the original port city appropriately called Crater and comprised of tiny homes and apartments jammed along narrow streets leading to a central marketplace. The area had once been part of the British Commonwealth, clearly evidenced by the clock tower known as the ‘Big Ben of the Arabs.’ The tower, whose bell rang every hour, had been constructed of black brick and stood some twenty-two meters, with a brilliant redbrick roof that dominated the harbor’s skyline.

The driver navigated through the warren of both dirt and asphalt roads, taking them into the heart of the city, to a six-story apartment building abutting the steep walls of the caldera. The building’s perfectly square balconies formed a patchwork of chipped plaster railings festooned with multicolored laundry lines and dotted by portable air conditioners dripping with sweat. More residences had been built within the caves of the craterside above, and Ross imagined that if the volcano ever became active, Aden would become a modern-day Pompeii, leveled by a lake of lava.

The van pulled up outside the apartments, and standing in the shadows of an alcove before a pair of warped wooden doors was a bony man with a square jaw and narrow mustache. If this weren’t Yemen, Ross might mistake this man for a carny working the Ferris wheel at Saint Matthew’s annual picnic back in Virginia Beach. He raked a hand through greasy hair and wiped sweat from his brow. He was probably Ross’s age, his temples as gray as hot briquettes. Although he was dressed in civilian clothes, Ross recognized him from the intel photo Mitchell had provided. This was Naseem, a colonel with the Yemeni Republican Guard and a paid informant working for the CIA. His gaze lifted to the street beyond them, checking with an almost mechanical precision for observers before he left the alcove and hustled down to the van, opening the sliding door.

Ross greeted him while the others went to fetch the rectangular, heavy canvas load out bags containing their tactical gear.

‘They didn’t tell me your names,’ said Naseem, his voice thin and barely rising above the van’s sputtering engine.

‘Operational security,’ Ross said. ‘You can just call me Captain.’ He proffered his hand, and Naseem was about to accept it when a police car rolled up beside another car parked about twenty meters down the street.

They both turned in that direction.

Just as one of the cops was getting out –

And the parked car exploded in a deafening thunderclap that shattered windows and sent a fireball swelling into the sky.