Only the previous day, the Port Director had told him that the navy was going to be sending over some help. The next few days were expected to be even busier!
Saul was worried. His wife had been moaning at him for weeks. The stores were empty and food was scarce. Electronics stores were closing due to lack of stock. Israel was struggling but the port was busier than ever. None of it made sense, except for one thing. Israel was preparing for war. With two sons and a daughter in the forces, Saul was very worried. His daughter would be fine, she was the brains and worked with the strategy department but his boys, his two beautiful boys, were both in the mechanized infantry, front line troops. The Port Director had told him not to be so daft but the lack of conviction and the worry etched on his face betrayed his lie. He too was worried. He too had children in the forces.
The phone buzzed on his desk. Another massive cargo ship had docked and needed to be unloaded and reloaded. The ships were stacking up. Capacity was being exceeded but he had to keep things moving. Saul called on his crane operator to get over to Quay Three and instructed the transport manager to get the trucks moving. He hauled himself out of his seat and looked out across the port. Every quay was filled, a sight he had rarely seen up until the previous few months. Not only that, a line of ships waited for their turn to dock. Each of the ships was piled high with containers, just as they all had been for the previous few months. But the shops were empty. It didn’t make sense but then for every container that came ashore, one went onboard. So maybe it did.
Saul watched a truck drive past, its belly low to the ground under the weight of the container it was carrying. Ten minutes later, the same truck came back with a different container on its back. Saul watched as it pulled away from the checker below him. Its engine strained far less than with its previous load. In fact, it was almost as though there was no weight in there at all.
Saul watched the next few trucks and began to notice a pattern. Whatever was leaving Israel was far heavier than what was coming in. His mind started to race again. None of it made sense.
Chapter 44
Huntsville, Alabama
“Zak?”
“Yes. Who is this?” replied the DIA agent.
“I thought you would have recognized my voice, I know it’s been a few years!”
Zak’s stomach had lurched on hearing his name and had just prayed it wasn’t who he feared it was. However, the more the voice spoke, the more Zak knew his worst fears were well founded. It was ‘The Sheikh’.
“I can’t talk just now.”
“Why ever not?” asked the Sheikh.
“I’m in the office, there are other agents around,” he whispered.
The Sheikh did not respond and the line went quiet. Zak visibly relaxed.
A hand on his shoulder made him jump.
“Sorry, I thought that was you,” said the man as Zak turned to face the owner of the hand.
Zak froze as he looked into the face of a man he had never seen before but a voice that chilled him to the core. The Sheikh had obviously followed him. Zak was not in the office but sitting in a booth of a small roadside diner.
Zak tried to explain why he was not the office as he had said but the Sheikh waved his hand as though it were irrelevant.
Zak looked at the man whom he knew adorned governments’ Most Wanted lists around the world. Although, of course, the lists showed a silhouette where a face should be. Nobody had ever even given a description, let alone a photo. Zak had expected a battle hardened, tough, bearded, Osama-like character but The Sheikh was none of these. In fact, the Sheikh would not have looked out of place adorning the front cover of GQ magazine. More Arab Prince than Arab terrorist.
“I need your help.”
“Of course,” replied Zak. It would not cross his mind to do anything but assist a request, particularly as he knew the request was serving his spiritual homeland.
“Come, I will explain as we drive.” The Sheikh looked down at Zak’s plate, his lunch was only half eaten.
Zak quickly threw his napkin across the unfinished meal but it was too late.
“I fear you have spent too much time with the Americans,” said the Sheikh, shaking his head in disappointment. “Bacon?” He looked Zak in the eye and led him towards the car park, his head still shaking.
Zak felt like a five-year-old child chastised by a disappointed parent. As he walked towards the rental car, the Sheikh handed him the keys and climbed in the passenger seat. Zak was driving.
“Where to?”
“The airport, I have a plane waiting.”
“But, my office, they are expecting me back.”
“Well, you’d better tell them not to.”
“When will I be back?”
“You’ll be back when we’re finished.”
“How long will it take?”
“As long as it takes.” The Sheikh smiled. He could keep this up for hours.
Zak got the gist and stopped asking silly questions. He called his office and told them he wouldn’t be back that afternoon. He’d worry about it the next day, when, and if, that came. He was getting a very strong notion that he would never be back.
Chapter 45
Marseille, France.
Mohammed loved Marseille. Although it was France’s second largest city and biggest port, he never felt he was in France. Marseille people saw themselves first and foremost as Marseillais and then perhaps French. Its poor reputation, almost entirely due to the movie with Gene Hackman, ‘The French Connection’, was entirely unjustified. Certainly in the twenty first century, the city was almost indistinguishable from what it had been forty years earlier but the spirit, he knew, remained the same.
Deif sat on his rooftop balcony. He had booked a villa in the 7th Arrondissement, the Bompard, and thanks to its elevated position, he could observe the ships, as they plied their trade in and out of the busy port. He had been waiting two days for the ship to appear and almost cried out as his binoculars picked up the rusty freighter that was making its way between the small islands of Frioul and the Chateau D’If, made famous in Alexander Dumas’ ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, just in front of Marseille. He waited for the name to become visible and yes, that was it, Akram had arrived.
Mohammed made his way downstairs, boarded his scooter and taking his life in his hands, headed towards the port. Marseille drivers were almost as crazy as the roads and after avoiding a number of life threatening crashes, he thankfully dismounted the scooter and awaited his friend’s arrival. The two containers that would complete the weapon lay alongside the Quay with the two men who had spent the previous year assembling, checking and then disassembling the equipment. They had found what they needed in Malta, a relic left to rot after World War II. However, Malta was too small for their highly covert operation, so everything had been moved to France where her relatively unpopulated South offered plenty of privacy.
As the boat pulled in to dock, Akram and Deif greeted each other as brothers. This was the last stop before they made history and as the second container swung aboard, the small crew could be heard cheering. In the Captain’s cabin, Deif and Akram went over the charts with the navigator. Neither really knew what they were
