Strike Force Delta (10 page)

The soldiers then picked him up and carried him out into the hall. The water was nearly two feet deep out here, and in it Jackson could see the bodies of his torturers, some shot and bloody, some clearly drowned. What had been a waterfall in his cell had turned into a tsunami out here. Surprised by both the deluge and the assault troops, the mooks had paid the price.

His rescuers carried him down the hall, sloshing through the still-rising water, kicking bodies aside. Many had been shot in the head; others had been skewered by bayonets, as well as drowned. Releasing the water had served two purposes: It had dampened the tons of explosives inside the prison and, by sheer surprise, had killed as many of the terrorists as the strike team had with their weapons. Even in his battered condition, Jackson had to admire the ingenuity of it all.

Just before they reached the end of the flooded hallway, the two soldiers stopped, pressed him against the wall, and covered his body with their own. A second after that, the northwest corner of the prison was blown to pieces.

Next thing he knew, Jackson was looking out onto the street that bordered the prison. Townspeople were running by, fleeing from the commotion around them. A rush of water was following them down the street, emptying into the harbor beyond.

In front of him was a helicopter—big, fat, and bristling with weapons. Sitting in this copter surrounded by more soldiers in outrageous combat suits were Jackson's men, the rest of Thunder. All of them were wounded and bloody, but they were still alive and breathing. They'd been carried out by the mystery soldiers, too.

That's when Johnson's rescuers picked him up again and carried him to the helicopter. More gunfire could be heard. A jet fighter roared overhead. The castle seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

Above the chaos, one soldier yelled to Jackson: “Time to go home. . . .”

The casino was built in the shape of a Bedouin tent. It was a grand, futuristic facade, polished white, with red flags billowing from its top. It had two main floors. The first level, expansive and square, held a huge overly ornate casino, baccarat and roulette being the featured games. Women in short tunics, plunging necklines, and high heels flitted through the crowd dispensing Egyptian beer and cheap Russian vodka. Many other women were drifting through the casino as well. Young, well-dressed, and Eastern European mostly, they were prostitutes, plying their wares.

There were many private rooms located around the periphery of the casino floor. Originally built for private games of chance, this was where the more connected clientele went to consume drugs in private. Amphetamines and barbiturates, occasionally cocaine, and sometimes even pure opium would make an appearance here.

Women, gambling, liquor, and drugs. . . this was not the French Riviera. The casino was in Bahrain, a deeply
Muslim country that nevertheless offered the sins of Gomorrah to the right people for the right price. The “right people” meant the members of the Saudi Royal Family, whose homeland was just a short plane ride across the Gulf.

The casino was located in an isolated part of the island nation. There was a private airstrip here, and that's how most of the Saudi princes arrived at this place. The runway had been built long enough to accommodate not only private planes but also fighter jets, such as the American-built F-15, a model flown extensively by the Royal Saudi Air Force. Why would jet fighters ever land here? Because the royal princes who flew over here from Saudi Arabia many times requested armed fighter escorts for their short hop across the water. A matter of prestige more than security, many times these supersonic escorts would be told to wait—either in the air or with their engines running parked on the taxiway—until the escorted Prince was ready to go back home. On busy nights, toward the end of the week, there might be up to two dozen F-15s either flying around above Bahrain, making for a very crowded sky, or jammed up on the tarmac below.

Tonight was a busy night.

The man named Al-Jabazz Saud Ben-Wabi, aka the Diamond Prince, landed at the airstrip just after nine in the evening. His new Gulfstream jet set down just ahead of its two-ship Royal Saudi F-15 escort. The DP was known to get so drunk at the casino, it would take him hours to get his feet back under him. Like a limo driver on call for a drugged-out rock star, the F-15 pilots would have to wait it out until the megarich Prince decided it
was time to leave. Either airborne or parked, they were in for a long night.

The DP had 3 bodyguards with him—reduced from the usual 12 or more he carried when he was abroad. He was wearing so many diamonds—on his fingers, in his ears, around his neck—that one guard was on hand simply to protect the jewelry. They didn't call Ben-Wabi the Diamond Prince for nothing. Two somewhat distant cousins were also with him. Middle-aged identical twins, both were named Gebeeb. Bringing the cousins to the casino was a request from their mother, a less well off aunt of the DP. Though he had made a vague promise to them to hook up later on, he was planning to rid himself of them as soon as he reached the casino.

He would leave them on the first floor of the club—this was where the less beautiful of the Beautiful People spent their evenings. Only the top of the pops got up to the secretive second level. This floor was, of course, where the DP would always go. He would never think of trafficking with the unwashed people below.

Like any other night of the DP's choosing, tonight would be filled with food, drink, and then rough sex. Just who would be the recipient of this last activity was yet to be determined, but the DP rarely had trouble finding a victim or two over here in racy Bahrain. Any age, either sex, any hair color, shape, or body he wanted would be made available to him by the casino owner, a kind of favorite-guest service. For the DP, after that it was just a question of letting the games begin.

A limo was waiting for the DP's entourage as they deplaned from the Gulfstream. It carried them the stone's throw distance to the casino, this as the DP's F-15 escorts took their places along the already crowded
aircraft ready area. The whine of nearly a dozen waiting F-15s would provide the background music for what was about to happen here tonight.

The limo arrived and, as planned, the two Gebeebs were shuffled off to the tables of the first level, this as the DP's bodyguards took up positions outside the front door. The DP himself was escorted to the second floor, and here a virtual paradise awaited him. Or at least what someone of his DNA would consider paradise. The second level consisted of an immense ballroom. Ninety percent of its floor was covered with fur rugs and silk pillows. The lights, hanging low from the gold-leafed ceiling, looked like lanterns from a Chinese junk. There were gently gurgling fountains and lots of ferns and vines, and ice tubs containing the best champagne, the best wines. Equal parts lavish and tasteless, it was right out of
Aladdin
—the cartoon version.

A trio of managers appeared as soon as the DP walked in; they commenced bowing and scraping right away. Was his guest here? he asked them. They replied yes, a thousand times yes. He was waiting deeper inside.

And the girls, were they here? Again the answer was yes. Twenty-two of them, in fact.

And what of the local police? The managers assured him that two patrol cars were parked out back as usual and that their officers had been “bonused.” Translation: They had been paid off and would not be a factor tonight.

Only then did the DP smile, twisting the largest diamond ring on his left hand. “My two cousins, downstairs,” he told the managers, “make sure they win at the tables.”

Then the DP indicated the conversation was over and
the managers disappeared. He walked deeper into the low-lit, gaudy romper room.

He found his guest soon enough. He was Jabal Ben-Wabi, his older, uglier brother. Just slightly less rich than the DP, Jabal was a lot less glamorous and very unrefined. Due to a childhood illness, he was missing his left eye. Because he wore a covering over this empty socket, his nickname was
Qacba
, Arabic for “Patch.”

He was as grubby and gnarled as the DP was polished and clean. While he was in the favor of the Saudi Royal Court, Jabal was not as well liked as the DP. Jabal was worth about $1 billion, the DP ten times that. And where the DP was usually dressed in white robes or Western-style clothes, Jabal wore the attire of a peasant, robes of reds, blues, black. There were 32 brothers and sisters in their family; Jabal and the DP were actually more unalike than having much in common. The DP thought of himself as being much more cosmopolitan.

They did share one bond, though: Both were thick in the underground world of Islamic terrorism. The DP was a financier and dreamed of starting his own empire in West Africa; Jabal was frontline hard-core Al Qaeda.

Just like the DP, Jabal had had a hand in the attacks of 9/11. He'd worked with bin Laden himself on the overall plan and was the middleman in arranging for passports for more than half the 19 hijackers and their handlers. Without him, many would have never been able to get into the United States in the first place.

When the United States invaded Afghanistan a month later and crushed the Taliban, Jabal escaped to Iran, as did many of the Al Qaeda bigwigs. Since then, he'd been moving back and forth over the border between
Afghanistan and Iran, directing many of the terrorist operations in Pakistan and Kashmir and recruiting new members to fight in Iraq. More chilling, though, he was also known as one of bin Laden's chief executioners.

Jabal had come here at the invitation of the DP, who had yet to hear about the attack on the prison at Loki Soto and needed some more warm bodies for his grand designs in West Africa. Jabal was in the business of providing warm bodies. The DP was hoping they could make a deal, but only after a night of entertainment.

They greeted each other warmly. They hadn't seen each other in months. The DP bid Jabal to join him atop a particular high pile of pillows. Two bowls of yogurt and warm lamb guts were waiting for them. The Patch settled in beside his brother, and by custom they shared a date palm. Then a servant poured a glass of champagne for each of them. Their night had officially begun.

Jabal had one thing worrying him, though. He'd only been to this casino a few times before; by contrast, the DP usually flew out here twice a week if he was in town. Jabal had heard this place had recently gained a reputation for bad luck after an incident involving their close cousin Prince Ali Muhammad. He'd killed a girl here during rough sex about a half-year before. The murder wasn't what was bothering Jabal; that sort of thing went on here all the time. It was that shortly after the incident their cousin Ali had met a very gruesome, if mysterious, end himself. His chartered jet somehow went off-course and slammed into a place called the Pan Arabic Oil Exchange, a business he owned. The word in the casbah was that their cousin's untimely death had something to do with the incident that had happened in this very place just days before.

The DP knew of his brother's fears and quickly sought to put them to rest.

“It had
nothing
to do with that,” the DP told him, again nervously twisting the huge diamond ring on his left hand. “What was bad luck about it? Did our cousin get found out? Did the police charge him? Did the employees here inform on him? No, none of these things happened—because it was just status quo here. His death was unrelated.”

But Jabal was not yet at ease. “We have all heard the Crazy Americans were behind his death, as revenge for this murder thing,” he said.

Again the DP just waved his concerns away. “They are
not
related,” he said a bit sternly. “He had many issues with the Crazy Americans. The death of the girl he'd taken here was a very minor incident in comparison.”

Jabal listened and sipped his drink, but with a little less gusto.

Truth was, Jabal was terrified of the Crazy Americans. Terrified that his name was on their hit list and when they reached it his days would be numbered. Just like cousin Ali Muhammad. Just like so many of top jihadists over the past year. These American Ghosts didn't just kill you—they made you feel it before you died. Long, slow, and sacrilegious. Despite what his brother was saying, Jabal believed that once the Crazy Americans got under your skin, there was no way you could ever get them out. You drove yourself crazy with worry—until they caught you and tortured you and then buried you alive in a shallow grave along with a pig whose throat had been cut. Jabal could not bear the thought of dying that way.

The DP saw the wheels turning in his brother's head.
He poured him another glass of champagne. “Please, my brother, put these things out of your mind,” the DP told him. “Just for tonight. Be like me. I do not share your fear of these Crazy Americans. I think they are a myth. Propaganda, rustled up in desperation by their intelligence people. Besides, we are safe here. My bodyguards are stationed at the front door. The police are in our pay and they watch this place like hawks. No one can reach us here. Be logical about it, and believe me your fears will disappear.”

Jabal thought about all this for a moment. He didn't feel completely at ease but then drained his champagne and finally smiled. He had terrible teeth.

“All right then, let us revel,” he said. “And let Allah sort everything else out.”

The evening began in earnest with their favorite food being served atop the pillows. Brought in on one huge silver platter covered and steaming, it was essentially a pile of grilled-cheese sandwiches and a couple quarts of Chinese takeout. This was followed by German ice cream and cookies. The brothers consumed a bottle of champagne each and had made two toasts with
sake
in memory of their dearly departed cousin, Ali. His problem, they decided over dinner, was that he got caught. He'd left a trail in his
jihad
activities—he was running money to Al Qaeda cells right out of his office building. Hundreds of people were involved, and they all died along with him that day his plane crashed into his own building. A half-blind man could have found out Ali.