The border town at the tip of Saudi Arabia was a neutral zone shared by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and foreigners were plentiful, for the worldwide oil business created its own polyglot culture wherever it drilled, built, and manned the rigs and support facilities.
Behind Kyle was a talkative Belgian engineer whose gabbing about his work on the offshore control system modifications filled the otherwise peaceful cabin. He was a geyser of meaningless statistics and acronyms and discussed at boring length how his company’s numeric instruments would work so much better in linking the digital measurements with onshore equipment so they could phase out the old tie-worm system. It was good cover. Swanson didn’t want to at talk all.
Kyle tuned him out and took in the passing panorama, trying to remember the background briefing about Khobz that had been sent to him a few hours earlier by the Lizard, Trident’s brainy intel officer back in Washington.
The city did not exist until a few decades ago. Back in those rough days, there was only a collection of a few huts near the beach, where traders did business with roving Bedouin tribes. Then the British discovered a huge reservoir of oil just offshore and money roared in. “Khobz” was the Arabic word for “bread” and was an appropriate name for the new settlement that had been created to farm the oil, which was on its own a guarantee of life-giving sustenance. Glittering new construction replaced the trader huts and the place grew daily. About two hundred thousand people now lived and worked there, with most of the foreigners residing in a special compound that was separated from the Arabs by a big fence, armed guards, and strict religious and cultural differences with their Saudi hosts.
He liked what he saw, for cities were his sanctuary. Since he was a child roaming the narrow streets of South Boston, Kyle Swanson had been accustomed to the deep, subtle rhythms of metropolitan areas, learning the advantages and dangers of shadows and corners, rooftops and doorways. Nothing focused the attention on the streets like being a short six-year-old Irish kid running one step ahead of a gang of older Italian boys. The Marines and special ops training and experience had intensified that knowledge. Although the names, languages, and skin colors of the people might change, all cities shared things in common and those things were etched in his memory.
Out in the open desert, a solitary man stands out in a landscape of nothing. Here, he could blend into the population as just another person. Swanson knew how to work cities and considered al-Khobz to be just another stop on the sniper bus, a new place in which he could be an urban predator. Something was going to happen here. He could smell it.
THE PLANE WAS OPERATED by the Boykin Group, one of the many small foreign contract companies that supported the oil operations, and it routinely made the hops between Khobz and Kuwait City, Qatar, Dubai, Bahrain, and the other nearby countries. It carried six passengers today: Kyle, the talkative Belgian, a Kenyan engineer working on the submarine fuel pipeline from a gas lift platform, two Malaysian rig rats, and a pleasant Chinese accountant from Hong Kong who was heading down for an audit.
Kyle had mentally examined them all and decided it would be worthwhile to exchange greetings with the Chinese guy seated directly across the narrow aisle. The man introduced himself as Henry Tsang, immediately producing a pale business card with dark embossed Chinese symbols on one side and the English translation on the other: Henry Tsang, an accountant from a Shanghai auditing company. He wore blue jeans, a maroon golf shirt, and a blue baseball cap with a faded Beijing 2008 Olympics logo. The English was fluent, with a British accent that indicated an education in Hong Kong, and his handshake was strong. The skin had been hardened by exposure to the weather and a thin scar ran just above his right eyebrow, like a healed wound. Accountant, hell. This guy was no pencil pusher. The Chinese were sniffing around the oil patch. “Call me sometime. Perhaps we could have a lunch or dinner together,” Tsang said. “Do you have a card?”
“Nope, but I do have a number.” Kyle scrawled his name and an 800 number on a slip of paper torn from the edge of a magazine and handed it over. They had opened a back channeclass="underline" Muscle to muscle, spook to spook.
Everyone on board wore a necklace of plastic credentials. They were just men coming to work, part of the ongoing, ever-changing force required to keep the wells pumping out three hundred thousand barrels of oil every day. Routine jobs, routine flight, routine day. The twin-engine aircraft slowed, lowered its wheels and joined the landing pattern that came in straight over the bustling city.
A BULLET SMACKED INTO the right engine with a loud, tearing thud and the Belgian screamed, “They are shooting at us!” The King Air plane jolted sharply to its right as the engine began to smoke and a spinning prop stuttered. Several more rounds popped through the right wing, boring holes in the thin metal but not striking any fuel or electrical circuits. The window beside the Chinese accountant sang as a bullet glanced off of it with a loud smack, webbing the thick Plexiglas with fracture lines. Henry Tsang did not flinch.
The pilot fought the aircraft under control and brought it level as a fire suppressant sprayed the smoking engine. Less than a minute after the shots were fired, the plane touched down on the long runway and began its roll to the terminal. The copilot leaned out of his seat and looked back down the aisle. “Emergency over. Anybody hurt back there?” he called.
The pilot shut down the steaming engine and steered off the main runway toward the fire engines racing out to meet them.
“You okay?” Swanson asked the Chinese man, who had seemed quite unperturbed that a bullet had just missed him.
“Yes,” he replied. “That was exciting. Now I have a story to tell my children back home. Accountants like me don’t have many exciting stories.”
Swanson just smiled. A normal accountant would have been pissing his pants.
The small door opened and a man with a tanned, sweaty face stuck his head in. Obviously American. “End of the line, folks. Everybody out. Right now, and follow me to the minivan.” The six passengers hurried toward the hatch. Outside, fire crews had doused the wrecked engine with foam and a mechanic was opening panels to review the damage.
The minivan had the same color scheme as the plane and magnetic signs stuck to the sides identified it as another vehicle of the Boykin Group. When everyone was aboard, the man who had met the plane slid into the front passenger seat. He had an old-style crew-cut with flecks of gray, was of middle age but still muscular, and wore wrinkled khaki trousers and a red-and-white plaid shirt with short sleeves. He adjusted his big body so that he could partially face the passengers. As the minivan moved toward the terminal, he dealt business cards to everyone and spoke with a pleasant voice that reflected Oklahoma roots.
“I’m Homer Boykin, the head honcho of the Boykin Group, which is made up of me and my driver here, Jamal Muheisen. You might call us fixers. We arrange things. Any of y’all need anything while you are in Khobz, just give us a call.”
Swanson pegged him as an old-time oil roughneck who had worked his way off the platforms and into an office job.
“You’re the third flight today that has been hit by random fire from the rooftops,” Boykin continued. “Only one person has been slightly wounded, but bet your asses that the landing patterns are going to change so we can circle in from the water. The powers that be don’t like air traffic other than helicopters flying over the rigs. Well, fuck them. We don’t like being slow targets.” The voice was steady and matter-of-fact, as if he was reciting dry data.
The nervous Belgian spoke. He had lost all interest in telling everyone about his important job. “What is happening? The Saudis announced just this morning that everything was calm throughout the kingdom. Are we in danger?”