was not, however, until after 5 A.M. that Riyadh learned of the full catastrophe in Abqaiq, which quite literally ended all activity in the oil industry west of the Aramah Mountains, and most of the activity on the east coast.
Nearly all of the great loading jetties in the country were smashed beyond repair, the pumping system was history, and the Qatif manifold would take at least a year to repair. The Saudis had always known their oil industry was vulnerable, but this was too much to comprehend.
They had a lot of security in all of the complexes, and yet some kind of a marauding force appeared to have breached every last line of defense, and laid waste to the golden goose that had turned this arid desert kingdom into a modern-day nirvana for one of the richest ruling families on earth. All 35,000 of them.
If the goose was still laying, anywhere out in the desert, she was laying fried eggs. Many of the oil fires would not be extinguished for a week.
And in separate oceans, a thousand miles apart, two undetected submarines of the French Navy were making their way quietly home. Indeed, on board the
Prince Nasir heard the news before most people, mainly because he had observers placed in all the selected sites, each of them under instructions to call him immediately anything happened. This made him an extremely busy prince between 0400 and 0420.
And now he sat in his study with Colonel Jacques Gamoudi, sipping coffee and watching the Arab-language television stations to see how the disastrous news was playing out. Most commentators had put together a conspiracy theory that the oil industry had indeed been destroyed by persons unknown.
Of course al-Qaeda was an immediate suspect, but al-Qaeda was a shadowy organization without a titular head, without a headquarters, without known leadership. It was a seething internal mob, angry, determined, stateless, and malevolent to the rulers of the kingdom. And since it was funded as an organization mostly by Saudi Arabia, or at least Saudi Arabians, it was difficult to see why on earth al-Qaeda should have wanted to cut off the hand that fed it. Certainly the activities of the assault forces of the night had in half an hour brought the Saudi economy to its knees. The question was, who were the assault forces of the night? And why had they committed this apparently motiveless act of flagrant criminal aggression? Not to mention, what military genius had masterminded the assaults so brilliantly that they had treated the security forces as if they did not exist?
Prince Nasir and Colonel Gamoudi cheerfully watched the tortuous writhing of the commentators trying to find answers to questions that seemed unanswerable. Prince Nasir considered it a brilliant night’s work. And already, on television, there were constant calls to the King to speak to his people, to give them assurances, to point the way forward, to rally the Saudi nation. But right now the King was in shock. As were his principal ministers, and his Generals.
And on some of the English-language channels, political journalists were forecasting the end of the rule of the al-Sauds. Indeed they were forecasting the end of the Saudi economy, the total collapse of the currency, and the complete inability of the government to finance anything, now that the oil had apparently stopped flowing.
There was no word from the King, which may have been shortsighted on his part, since the nation was in the process of going bust. In fact there was no official word from anyone, until 1 P.M., when the Channel 2 newscaster handed over to a spokesman for the Government, who spoke rather angrily, informing the populace that there had been an attack on the oil fields and loading docks. But he said no details were available. Channel 3, run by Aramco, was understandably circumspect, revealing very little.
By far the best source of information was from the English-language stations in Bahrain and Qatar, which spent the morning interviewing anyone they could contact from Aramco. Slowly they pieced together the shocking truth that someone had launched a spectacular assault on the Saudi oil industry, coordinating stupendous bomb attacks, all apparently to explode within ten minutes of each other.
These stations were in constant communication with the London media, and by 11 A.M. they had camera crews heading by helicopter to the fires still raging on Sea Island and, to the north, the LPG terminal blowtorch. By 1 P.M. there were pictures of various Saudi oil infernos on their way around the world.
At 2 P.M. the first riots began in the capital city of Riyadh.
Lt. Cdr. Jimmy Ramshawe was very soundly asleep in his parents’ luxurious apartment in the Watergate complex, which he used as his home base. He and his fiancee, Jane Peacock, had been out late with friends and he had dropped her off at the Australian embassy at 2 A.M.
He was due in his office at the National Security Agency at 7 A.M., which did not leave much time for the amount of sleep he most definitely required. In Ramshawe’s opinion, midday would have been a better start time.
And when the phone rang at 5:01 A.M. he nearly jumped out of his pajamas. He jolted himself awake, instantly, like all naval officers, accustomed to the lunatic hours of the watch, and muttered, “Jesus, this better be bloody critical.”
The duty officer at the NSA chuckled and said, “Morning, Lieutenant Commander. There’s something come up I think you ought to know about right away.”
“Shoot,” said Ramshawe, copying the standard greeting of his great hero, the now retired Adm. Arnold Morgan.
“Sir, it appears that someone just blew up the entire Saudi Arabian oil industry.”
“Sir, I expect you’ll want to come in right away. I suggest you turn on the television right now and take a look at CNN. They seem to be on the case pretty sharply.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. I’m on my way. Try to contact Admiral Morris, will you? I know he’s on the West Coast, but he’ll want to know.”
“Right, sir. And by the way, it’s the biggest goddamn fire I’ve ever seen.”
Ramshawe hit the power button. The television was already on CNN, and on the screen he could see the blowtorch from hell, blasting into the sky above the top masts of an enormous tanker that was sunk amid the shattered remnants of a loading jetty.
“Jesus Christ,” said Ramshawe.
But then the picture changed to an area where the sea was on fire. Then it changed again, to the huge Red Sea refineries, all of them ablaze, still exploding, and showing no signs, yet, of dying down. The biggest fires of all, at the Abqaiq complex, apparently had not been photographed so far.
Jimmy Ramshawe sat up in bed in total astonishment, thoughts cascading through his mind, as he tried to pay attention to what the CNN commentator was saying. So far as he could tell, bombs had gone off in almost all of the principal operational areas of the largest business on earth. Whoever had done it, had coordinated a truly sensational attack. The guy on CNN was surmising that everything had exploded shortly after 4 A.M. Saudi time. And so far as anyone could tell, it was an internal matter, a “purely Arab thing.”
Jimmy Ramshawe knew of course, like everyone else, of the growing unrest in the kingdom, as currency reserves plummeted and each citizen’s share of the wealth beneath the desert floor dwindled by the year. He’d often been told by CIA guys that the Saudis were about two jumps from having the mob at the gates.
He turned the television up full volume and tried to listen while he took a quick shower. And the only copper- bottomed truth to emerge, at least in the terms required by a high-ranking intelligence officer, was that no one had the slightest idea who was responsible, nor why they had done it, and certainly not how they had done it.
The CNN commentator was concentrating on the consequences rather than the causes: the minor consideration of what happened now, when someone had knocked 25 percent of the world’s oil supply off the global market.
Ramshawe was not, at this stage, interested in the market. That, he thought, would ultimately come under the heading of “inevitable.” What exercised him was, who had done this and why?
He dressed rapidly, grabbed his briefcase, switched off the television, and headed for the underground car garage. When he reached the basement he made for the only item on this earth he actually loved as much as he loved Jane Peacock.
