Waves of smoke and gray sky rolled above him. He was finished, he thought. The ship and its secret cargo would soon fall into enemy hands.
Pickett cursed himself for not scuttling the ship. He hoped it would somehow go down on its own before it could be boarded.
As his eyesight began to fail, the sound of more dive-bombers caught his ear. The roar grew louder, the banshee scream from their wings calling out and announcing the terrible inevitability of the end.
And then the sky above darkened. The air turned cold and wet, and the S.S. John Bury disappeared into the storm, swallowed up by a wall of mist and rain.
She was last reported by a Japanese pilot as burning but sailing under full power. She was never seen or heard from again.
CHAPTER 1
NORTHERN YEMEN, NEAR THE SAUDI BORDER AUGUST 1967
TARIQ AL-KHALIF HID HIS FACE BEHIND A CLOTH OF SOFT white cotton. The kaffiyeh covered his head and wrapped around his mouth and nose. It kept the sun, wind and sand from his weather-beaten features as it hid him from the world.
Only Khalif’s eyes showed, hard and sharp from sixty years in the desert. They did not blink or turn away as he stared at the dead bodies in the sand before him.
Eight bodies in all. Two men, three women, three children; stripped naked, all clothes and belongings gone. Most had been shot, a few had been stabbed.
As the camel train at Khalif’s back waited, a rider moved slowly up toward him. Khalif recognized the strong, young figure in the saddle. A man named Sabah, his most trusted lieutenant. A Russian-made AK-47 lay slung over his shoulder.
“Bandits for certain,” Sabah said. “No sign of them now.”
Khalif studied the rough sand at his feet. He noticed the tracks disappearing to the west, headed directly toward the only source of water for a hundred miles, an oasis called Abi Quzza—the “silken water.”
“No, my friend,” he said. “These men are not waiting around to be discovered. They hide their numbers by sticking to the hard ground, where no tracks are left, or they walk on the softest sand, where the marks soon fade. But here I can see the truth, they’re heading toward our home.”
Abi Quzza had belonged to Khalif’s family for generations. It provided life-giving water and a modicum of wealth. Date palms grew in abundance around its fertile springs, along with grass for the sheep and camels.
With the growing number of trucks and other forms of modern transportation, the caravans that paid for its gifts had begun to dwindle, and the role of camel-raising Bedouins like Khalif and his family were fading along with them, but they were not yet gone. For the clan to have any prospects at all, Khalif knew the oasis must be protected.
“Your sons will defend it,” Sabah said.
The oasis lay twenty miles to the west. Khalif’s sons, two nephews and their families waited there. A half dozen tents, ten men with rifles. It would not be an easy place to attack. And yet Khalif felt a terrible unease.
“We must hurry,” he said, climbing back onto his camel.
Sabah nodded. He slid the AK-47 forward to a more aggressive position and nudged his camel forward.
Three hours later they approached the oasis. From a distance they could see nothing but small fires. There were no signs of struggle, no ripped tents or stray animals, no bodies lying in the sand.
Khalif ordered the camel train to a halt and dismounted. He took Sabah and two others, moving forward on foot.
The silence around them was so complete, they could hear the crackle of wood in the fires and their own feet scuffling in the sand. Somewhere in the distance, a jackal began to yelp. It was a long way off, but the noise carried in the desert.
Khalif halted, waiting for the jackal’s call to fade. When it died away, a more pleasant sound followed: a small voice singing a traditional Bedouin melody. It came from the main tent and flowed quietly.
Khalif began to relax. It was the voice of his youngest son, Jinn.
“Bring the caravan,” Khalif said. “All is well.”
As Sabah and the others went back to the camels, Khalif walked forward. He reached his tent, threw open the flap, and froze.
A bandit dressed in rags stood there, holding a curved blade to his son’s throat. Another bandit sat beside him, clutching an old rifle.
“One move and I slice his neck,” the bandit said.
“Who are you?”
“I am Masiq,” the bandit said.
“What do you want?” Khalif asked.
Masiq shrugged. “What don’t we want?”
“The camels have value,” Khalif said, guessing what they were after. “I will give them to you. Just spare my family.”
“Your offer is meaningless to me,” Masiq replied, his face twisting into a snarl of contempt. “Because I can take what I want, and because …”—he gripped the boy tightly—“except for this one, your family is already dead.”
Khalif’s heart tightened. Inside his tunic was a Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver. The self-cocking revolver was a sturdy weapon with deadly accuracy. It wouldn’t jam even after months in the desert sand. He tried to think of a way to reach it.
“Then I’ll give you everything,” he said, “just for him. And you can go free.”
“You have gold hidden here,” Masiq said as if it were a known fact. “Tell us where it is.”
Khalif shook his head. “I have no gold.”
“Lies,” the second bandit said.
Masiq began to laugh, his crooked teeth and decay-filled mouth making a horrific sound. Gripping the boy tightly with one arm, he raised the other as if to slice the boy’s neck. But the child slipped loose, lunged for Masiq’s fingers with his mouth and bit down hard.
Masiq cursed in pain. His hand snapped back as if he’d been burned.
Khalif’s own hand found the revolver and he blasted two shots right through his tunic. The would-be murderer fell backward, two smoking holes in his chest.
The second bandit fired, grazing Khalif’s leg, but Khalif’s shot hit him square in the face. The man fell without a word, but the battle had only just begun.
Outside the tent, gunfire began to echo through the night. Shots were being traded, volleys flying back and forth. Khalif recognized the sound of heavy bolt-action rifles, like the one in the dead thug’s hand, they were answered by the rattling sound of Sabah and his automatic rifle.
Khalif grabbed his son, placing the pistol in the young boy’s hand. He picked up the old rifle from beside one of the dead bandits. He plucked the curved knife from the ground as well and moved deeper into the tent.
His older sons lay there as if resting side by side. Their clothes were soaked with dark blood and riddled with holes.
A wave of pain swept over Khalif; pain and bitterness and anger.
With the gunfire raging outside, he stuck the knife into the side of the tent and cut a small hole. Peering through it, he saw the battle.
Sabah and three of the men were firing from behind a shield of dead camels. A group of thugs dressed like the bandits he’d just killed were out in the oasis itself, hiding behind date palms in knee-high water.
There did not seem to be enough of them to have taken the camp by force.
He turned to Jinn. “How did these men get here?”
“They asked to stay,” the boy said. “We watered their camels.”
That they’d played on the tradition of Bedouin generosity and the kindness of Khalif’s sons before killing them enraged Khalif further. He went to the other side of the tent. This time he plunged the knife into the fabric and drew it sharply downward.
“Stay here,” he ordered Jinn.
Khalif snuck through the opening and worked his way into the darkness. Moving in a wide arc, he curled in behind his enemies and slipped into the oasis.