The Libyan colonel’s forced smile of yellow-stained teeth set against a heavy smoker’s map of wrinkles pulled an expressionless face leathery tight. Sun damage spots sprinkled a forehead exposed too much to the desert sun.
The low light in the room shielded from view the charismatic leader’s dark eyes — eyes obscured in shadows from abnormally deep recesses and overarching, heavy eyebrows.
“Gather everyone together,” Colonel Alqahiray said.
“Yes, sir. Colonel.” Walid nodded respectfully. He stood, clapped his narrow, almost feminine hands twice, and motioned everyone toward him. The small crowd rose. Soft conversation broke out among them. They walked in twos and threes toward the end of the operations room, past the steel double doors, their eyes on the floor. Not out of respect, but because most had tripped or fallen at least once on the bubbles of the cheap rubber antistatic mats that covered the raised metal floor.
“Come closer!” Colonel Alqahiray commanded when the group seemed to falter as they neared him. He raised his hands and waited for them to face him.
“Today marks the return of Arab greatness. You are the modern warriors on today’s weapons that will take us there. No more will we be unheard. Together we shall follow Allah’s will and restore Barbary to its greatness,” he said, using the nineteenth century term for this region of North Africa.
“Yes, to its greatness!”
From the crowd came a lone chant, drawn out as if in song, of “Allah Alakbar”—“God is great”—joined quickly by others until it rose to a crescendo of respect, bathing Colonel Alqahiray, who spread his arms, basking in the recognition he so richly deserved. After a couple of minutes he lowered his arms and allowed the chanting to fade.
“Go! Prepare your hearts and minds for the battle in the days to come, until Jihad Wahid purges the sea of the Great Satan and we cast them from our shores. For only then will we have returned Islam to its rightful place. Pray to Allah for his love and guidance. Pray to him to give us the wisdom we need to lead his people to greatness. Allah Alakbar!”
With fists pumping the air and praises to Allah echoing through the room, the soldiers surged back to their positions.
Several spread their tattered prayer rugs on the bubbled mat and, facing east, solemnly offered their prayers to a God equally worshipped by the Jews, the Christians, and the Moslems.
Colonel Alqahiray reached into his shirt pocket and grabbed his pack of Old Navy cigarettes. He lit the unfiltered Greek fag, knowing the strong tobacco may one day kill him — that is, if he truly believed everything the Western press printed. As long as Allah smiled upon him he was invincible. He ran his tongue against the gap between his two front teeth — best money he ever spent. Already some were interpreting the gap as a sign of the Prophet.
After a deep inhale on the cigarette, the colonel returned his attention to the console where the package waited. He hit the print button on the keyboard and waited impatiently for the laser printer to spit out the facsimile mask of the complex, and very expensive, “information attack” program.
He pulled the paper from the printer and nodded absentmindedly as he read it. He took a couple of steps to a second console nearby. Seated, Colonel Alqahiray pulled up a formatted message to acknowledge receipt of the merchandise.
Walid, his thin frame nearly invisible in the overpowering presence of Alqahiray, stood quietly to one side.
His nervousness gone, Walid waited for him to reveal what he needed to know.
With one finger Alqahiray typed the coded preamble from the sheet, keyed in the appropriate routing instructions, and with a “save and send” transmitted the receipt.
Internal “information protect” registers misdirected and misled any database management or sniffer programs in the various telecommunications systems to hide the passage as the receipt sped back to Port Sudan.
At Port Sudan the receipt arrived at the personal computer that had transmitted the program, aboard a salt rusted freighter that rocked softly against the pier. The name Iran Bandar Abbas, painted in large black letters across the stern, could be easily read from the nearby public road that encircled the harbor.
The same portly Oriental operator hurriedly poked in the shirttails of his white short-sleeve cotton shirt. He snatched the Libyan acknowledgment before the printer fully coughed it into the tray, ripping the bottom edge off.
Then dashing out the door, he ran up three decks, tripping only once, to the bridge, where the captain jerked it from his hand. The captain smiled, revealing several teeth missing on the left side of his mouth, the result of a harbor bar brawl in Hong Kong many years ago. He read the receipt before grunting and nodding curtly to the messenger.
Success was good in his line of work. Failure, though, could be a life-stopping event.
Mission accomplished. The ship’s holds were full. Everyone was on board. He could leave. The sooner out of Port Sudan, the better. He picked up the bridge-to-bridge.
“Port Sudan Harbor Control, this is merchant vessel Iran Bandar Abbas. We will be departing on time. We would like to take in all lines within the hour so as to be past the outer marker before sunset,” he said in an Oriental accent.
“Iran Bandar Abbas, this is Harbor Control. Permission granted. Please ensure that you have completed departure paperwork, settled accounts, and have customs approval.
You may single up all lines, but contact Harbor Control before casting off.”
“Roger, Harbor Control; this is Iran Bandar Abbas standing by on channel sixteen.”
The captain ordered the purser ashore to settle accounts with good Iranian currency, reminding him to pick up the customs forms and shipping manifest. Other members of the crew hustled to disconnect the phone and utility lines between the ship and shore. Within the hour the ship had all crew back on board, a customs stamp on the manifest, and an approved underway time. By 1700 hours the rusted stern of the freighter, with an oversized Iranian flag flying from the mast, caught the attention of the evening crowd as it eased past the narrow harbor entrance.
A day later the same freighter was detected by a French Air Force Atlantique aircraft flying an afternoon reconnaissance mission over the Gulf of Aden. The freshly painted bright red hull caught the attention of the Atlantique’s pilot, causing him to divert the plane ten kilometers north, where the large-bodied jet circled the freighter twice before returning to normal track. The aircrew returned the waves of the Chinese sailors. The French operator recorded the course and speed in the visual sighting log for the merchant vessel Shanghai along with a notation that it was flying a normal maritime Peoples Republic of China flag.
Colonel Alqahiray stood looking at the operations room. Here, Jihad Wahid would unfold. The entire complex had been built for this. If he snapped his fingers-just like this — he could man every console and keep it manned forever. This was a snapshot in history that he wanted etched into his memory, for Alqahiray was going to be the catalyst and mover who changed the world. He, an orphan, who had fought his way to the top. He smiled as his eyes narrowed, the bushy eyebrows arching to form a sharp V. This day would start the revenge on the cowardly attacks of the American devils in 1986. His lips curled in disgust. Events begun today, he knew, would send the United Nations Security Council scrambling into their useless and pitiful never-ending discussions and debates.