“Colonel, I would like my friend and colleague here to be convinced, as I am, of the feasibility of your concept. I respect his judgment and would like him to be involved with us.”
Scanlon appreciated the compliment. Easterhouse spotted that it was a lie. Miller did not respect Scanlon’s judgment, but they would both need Scanlon’s ships, covertly used to import the needed weaponry for the coup d’état.
“You read my report, sir?” Easterhouse asked Scanlon.
“That bit about the Hez-Boll-Ah guys, yes. Heavy stuff, lot of funny names. How do you think you can use them to bring down the monarchy? And more important, deliver the Hasa oil fields to America?”
“Mr. Scanlon, you cannot control the Hasa oil fields and direct their product to America unless you first control the government in Riyadh, hundreds of miles away. That government must be changed into a puppet regime, wholly, ruled by its American advisers. America cannot topple the House of Sa’ud openly-Arab reaction would be impossible. My plan is to provoke a small group of Shi’ah Fundamentalists, dedicated to Holy Terror, to carry out the act. The idea that Khomeinists have come to control the Saudi peninsula would send waves of panic throughout the entire Arab world. From Oman in the south, up through the Emirates to Kuwait, from Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Israel would come immediately overt or covert pleas to America to intervene to save them all from Holy Terror.
“Because I have been setting up a computerized Saudi internal security system for two years, I am aware that such a group of Holy Terror fanatics exists, headed by an Imam who regards the King, his group of brothers-the inner Mafia known as the Al-Fahd-and the entire family of three thousand princelings who make up the dynasty, with pathological loathing. The Imam has publicly denounced them all as the Whores of Islam, Defilers of the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina. He has had to go into hiding, but I can keep him safe until we need him by erasing all news of his whereabouts from the central computer. Also, I have a contact with him-a disenchanted member of the Mutawain, the ubiquitous and hated Religious Police.”
“But what’s the point in handing over Saudi Arabia to these yo-yos?” demanded Scanlon. “With Saudi’s pending income of three hundred million U.S. dollars a day-hell, they’d wreak absolute havoc.”
“Precisely. Which the Arab world itself could not tolerate. Every state in the area excepting Iran would appeal to America to intervene. Washington would be under massive pressure to fly the Rapid Deployment Force into its prepared base in Oman, on the Musandam Peninsula, and thence into Riyadh, the capital, and Dhahran and Bahrein, to secure the oil fields before they could be destroyed forever. Then we’d have to stay to prevent its ever happening again.”
“And this Imam guy,” asked Scanlon. “What happens to him?”
“He dies,” said Easterhouse calmly, “to be replaced by the one princeling of the House who was not present at the massacre, because he was abducted to my house in time to avoid it. I know him well-he’s Western educated, pro-American, weak, vacillating, and a drunk. But he will legitimize the other Arab appeals by one of his own, by radio from our embassy in Riyadh. As the sole surviving member of the dynasty, he can appeal for America to intervene to restore legitimacy. Then he’ll be our man forever.”
Scanlon thought it over. He reverted to type.
“What’s in it for us? I don’t mean the U.S.A. I mean us!”
Miller intervened. He knew Scanlon and how he would react.
“Mel, if this prince rules in Riyadh and is advised every waking moment of the day by the colonel here, we are looking at the breaking of the Aramco monopoly. We are looking at new contracts, shipping, importing, refining. And guess who’s at the head of the line?”
Scanlon nodded his assent. “When do you plan to schedule this… event?”
“You may know that the storming of the Musmak Fortress was in January 1902; the declaration of the new kingdom was in 1932,” said Easterhouse. “Fifteen months from now, in the spring of 1992, the King and his court will celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of the first and the diamond jubilee of the kingdom. They are planning a vast billion-dollar jamboree before a world audience. The new covered stadium is being built. I am in charge of all its computer-governed security systems-gates, doors, windows, air conditioning. A week before the great night there will be a full dress rehearsal attended by the leading six hundred members of the House of Sa’ud, drawn from every corner of the world. That is when I will arrange for the Holy Terrorists to strike. The doors will be computer-locked with them inside; the five hundred soldiers of the Royal Guard will be issued defective ammunition, imported, along with the submachine carbines needed by the Hezb’Allah to do the job, in your ships.”
“And when it’s over?” asked Scanlon.
“When it’s over, Mr. Scanlon, there will be no House of Sa’ud left. Nor of the terrorists. The stadium will catch fire and the cameras will continue rolling until meltdown. Then the new ayatollah, the self-styled Living Imam, inheritor of the spirit and soul of Khomeini, will go on television and announce his plans to the world, which has just seen what happened in the stadium. That, I’m certain, will start the appeals to Washington.”
“Colonel,” said Cyrus Miller, “how much funding will you need?”
“To begin advance planning immediately, one million dollars. Later, two million for foreign purchases and hard-currency bribes. Inside Saudi Arabia -nothing. I can obtain a fund of local riyals amounting to several billion to cover all internal purchasing and palm-greasing.”
Miller nodded. The strange visionary was asking peanuts for what he intended to do.
“I will see that you get it, Colonel. Now, would you mind waiting outside for a little while? I’d like you to come and have dinner at my house when I’m done.”
As Colonel Easterhouse turned to go he paused in the doorway.
“There is, or might be, one problem. The only ungovernable factor I can perceive. President Cormack seems to be a man dedicated to peace and, from what I observed at Nantucket, now dedicated to a new treaty with the Kremlin. That treaty would probably not survive our takeover of the Saudi peninsula. Such a man might even refuse to send in the Rapid Deployment Force.”
When he had gone, Scanlon swore, drawing a frown from Miller.
“He could be right, you know, Cy. God, if only Odell were in the White House.”
Although personally chosen by Cormack as his running mate, Vice President Michael Odell was also a Texan, a businessman, a self-made millionaire, and much farther to the right than Cormack. Miller, possessed by unusual passion, turned and gripped Scanlon by the shoulders.
“Mel, I have prayed to the Lord over that man-many, many times. And I asked for a sign. And with this colonel and what he just said, He has given me that sign. Cormack has got to go.”
Just north of the gambling capital of Las Vegas in Nevada lies the huge sprawl of Nellis Air Force Range, where gambling is definitely not on the agenda. For the 11,274-acre base broods over the United States’ most secret weapons-testing range, the Tonopah Test Range, where any stray private aircraft penetrating its 3,012,770 acres of test-ground during a test is likely to be given one warning and then shot down.
It was here, on a bright crisp morning in December 1990, that two groups of men disembarked from a convoy of limousines to witness the first testing and demonstration of a revolutionary new weapon. The first group comprised the manufacturers of the multi-launch rocket vehicle, which was the base of the system, and they were accompanied by men from the two associated corporations who had built the rockets and the electronics/avionics programs incorporated in the weapon. Like most modern hardware, Despot, the ultimate tank-destroyer, was not a simple device but involved a net of complex systems that in this case had come from three separate corporations.