Cabrillo turned to leave.
Whatever nefarious plan Hickman had in store would start here—and it was up to Cabrillo and the Corporation to stop him in his tracks. He climbed up the stone steps and reentered the courtyard area. A dry wind brushed across him. He walked for the gate.
AT AN AIRFIELD near Port Said, Egypt, Pieter Vanderwald taxied to a stop in an ancient Douglas DC-3. The plane had served a long and useful life hauling cargo throughout the African continent. The twin-engine DC-3 is a legendary aircraft; thousands were built over the years, starting in 1935, and hundreds are still in service. The military version of the plane, the C-47, was used extensively in World War II, Korea, and even Vietnam, where they were outfitted as gunships. Also known as the Dakota, the Skytrain, Skytrooper, and Doug, it was most often referred to as Gooney Bird.
The Gooney Bird Vanderwald was piloting had one foot in the aviation graveyard.
Destined for the scrap yard in South Africa and lacking an air worthiness certificate, Vanderwald had purchased her for a song. Quite frankly, he was surprised she had made the trip north, but she had. Now, if the old plane had but one more flight in her bones, she could die a noble death.
The DC-3 is a tail dragger. The cockpit sits high to the front with the cargo compartment stretching back in an angle toward the runway. Her length is sixty-four and a half feet, her wingspan ninety-five.
Powered by a pair of 1,000-horsepower radial engines, she has a range of fifteen hundred miles and a cruising speed of between 155 and 190 miles per hour. With flaps extended, she can slow to almost a crawl before landing.
In an age when planes are as sleek and smooth as a knife, the DC-3 is an anvil. Solid, unyielding, and always ready, the plane asks little and goes about her job with little fanfare. She is a pickup truck in a parking lot full of Corvettes.
Vanderwald shut off the engines and slid back the cockpit window.
“Chock the wheels, fill her up,” he shouted to the Egyptian attendant who had guided him to the spot on the runway. “And top off the oil. Someone will be here to pick her up soon for the next leg.”
Then Vanderwald walked down the slanted cockpit area, unfolded the stair, and stepped onto the runway. Two hours later, he was in Cairo waiting for a flight back to Johannesburg. As soon as the funds were wired to his account, his part would be over.
CABRILLO ANSWERED HIS phone just as he was reaching the rental car.
“The Hawker just crossed over the edge of the Mediterranean,” Hanley said. “It looks like she is bound for Rome.”
“Call Overholt and have the plane impounded when it lands in Rome,” Cabrillo ordered. “Maybe Hickman has decided to pull out.”
“I doubt it,” Hanley said.
“Me, too,” Cabrillo said. “In fact, I’ll bet that’s not the case.”
“Then how is he planning to make his escape?”
Cabrillo paused. “I don’t think he is—I think he’s planning a suicide mission.”
The line was silent. “We’ll factor that in,” Hanley said at last.
“I have to go meet with the Mossad,” Cabrillo said. “I’ll call you after.”
THE SUN WAS setting as the old pearling ship carrying Hickman entered the Khalij as-Suways at the northern end of the Red Sea. The five-hundred-mile trip from Rabigh had been slow but steady, and the ship would be entering the Suez Canal this evening as planned. The ship was cramped and Hickman had spent his time alternating between the small cockpit where the helmsman steered and the rear deck where the air was not polluted with the thin cigars the pilot chain-smoked.
Abraham’s Stone was wrapped in a tarp on the deck next to Hickman’s single bag, which contained a change of clothes, some basic toiletries, and a three-ring folder that he had been studying off and on the entire voyage.
“HERE’S WHAT I have,” Huxley said as she walked into the control room. “I took the photographs Halpert and the others shot at Maidenhead, then erased the gas mask and used the biometric computer program to create a composite.”
Hanley took the disc and walked over to Stone, who inserted it into the drive on the main computer. An image popped up on the monitor.
“Hell,” Hanley said, “he doesn’t look anything like the rumors.”
“It’s weird,” Huxley agreed, “but it makes sense. If I was a recluse like Hickman, I would want to foster the most normal appearance I could have—that way I could blend in wherever I went.”
“I guess the Howard Hughes rumors were just that,” Stone said, “rumors.”
“Click forward, Stoney,” Huxley said.
Stone entered the commands. A 3-D image of the outline of a man appeared.
“This is a re-creation of his movements,” Huxley said. “Each individual has unique mannerisms. Do you know what the security teams at casinos use to identify cheaters?”
“What?” Stone asked.
“Their walk,” Huxley said. “A person can use disguises, alter his appearance, even some personal mannerisms—but no one ever thinks to change the way they walk or carry themselves.”
Stone played with the computer and the image walked, turned and moved his arms.
“Let’s make a copy and send it to Overholt,” Hanley ordered. “He can distribute it to the Israeli officials.”
“I can overlay this with the live cameras from the Suez,” Stone offered.
“Do it,” Hanley said.
AT THE SAME time Hanley was staring at the pictures of Hickman, eight men exited a commercial flight from Qatar to Riyadh and walked through customs without a hitch. Meeting outside the baggage claim area, they climbed into a white Chevrolet Suburban that the State Department had borrowed from an oil company official.
Then they made their way to a safe house to wait for nightfall.
“WE CAN DO what you need this evening,” the head of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, said, “but we can’t use dogs—we’ll have to do it with agents carrying chemical sniffers. Dogs in a mosque are a no-no.”
“Will there be any problems?” Cabrillo asked.
“A few years ago when the Israeli prime minister went to the Dome of the Rock there was rioting for weeks afterward,” he said. “We’ll need to do it swiftly and quietly.”
“Can your people completely cover the entire area?”
“Mr. Cabrillo,” the man said, “Israel is faced with terrorist bombings on a weekly basis. If there are any explosives inside Haram al-Sharif, you’ll know about it by sunrise tomorrow.”
“And you will defuse anything you find?” Cabrillo asked.
“Defuse or remove,” he said, “whatever is safer.”
“MEN, PLEASE TAKE your seats,” Kasim said.
The twenty-eight remaining men sat down. Skutter stood alongside Kasim at the blackboard. “Who here has never ridden a motorcycle?” Kasim asked.
Ten of the men raised their hands.
“This is going to be tough for you,” Kasim said, “but we’ve assembled some instructors for a crash course. After we finish here, you ten will need to go outside and start practicing. In four hours’ time you should all have a basic knowledge of the fundamentals.”
The ten men nodded.
“Here’s the situation,” Kasim continued. “We cannot enter Saudi Arabia using a commercial flight. The risk of interception is simply too great. From here in Qatar to Mecca is over eight hundred miles, and that route is across bad desert with no fuel supplies, so what we came up with is this: the emir has arranged a cargo flight that will take us to Al-Hidayah in Yemen, and from there it is less than five hundred miles to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, along a paved road that runs along the Red Sea. The emir paid off the Yemeni authorities and cleaned out a motorcycle distribution warehouse here in Qatar for our transportation. The motorcycles have a couple of advantages—the first is that we can cross the border above the checkpoint to avoid detection by driving across a stretch of desert then back to the road once we’re inside Saudi Arabia. The second is the gas mileage—there are several cities along the road for fueling but they are far apart—the motorcycles can make it from city to city. The third is the most important. Each of us will be alone on our bikes—if the authorities stop one person, the entire mission is not compromised.”