their common objective. Death to the merchant of death.
The training began the next morning beyond the shoals of Al Ashkarah in the Arabian Sea.
Death to the merchant of death.
Adrienne Khalehla Rashad walked into Ahmat's office cradling the infant named Khalehla in her arms. Beside her was the child's mother, Roberta Yamenni, from New Bedford, Massachusetts, among the elite of Oman known as Bobbie. 'She's so beautiful!' exclaimed the agent from Cairo.
'She had to be,' said the father behind the desk, Evan Kendrick in a chair beside him. 'She has a name to live up to.'
'Oh, nonsense.'
'Not from where I'm sitting,' said the American congressman.
'You're an oversexed bear.'
'I'm also leaving tonight.'
'And so am I,' added the sultan of Oman.
'You can't—’
'You can't!' The high female voices were in concert. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' yelled the sultan's wife.
'What I wish to do,' replied Ahmat calmly. 'In these areas of royal prerogative, I don't have to consult anyone.'
'That's bullshit!' cried the wife and mother.
'I know, but it works.'
The training was over in seven days, and on the eighth day twenty-two passengers climbed into a trawler off the coast of Ra's al Hadd, their equipment stowed below the gunwales. On the ninth day, at sundown in the Arabian Sea, the cargo ship from Bahrain was picked up on the radar. When darkness came the trawler headed south to the intercept-co-ordinates. Death to the merchant of death.
The Icarus Agenda
Chapter 46
The cargo ship was a bobbing hulk on the swells of the dark sea, its bow rising and falling like an angry predator intent on feeding. The trawler from Ra's al Hadd stopped in the water half a mile to starboard of the approaching vessel. Two large PVC lifeboats were lowered over the side, the first holding twelve men, the other ten and one woman. Khalehla Rashad was between Evan Kendrick and the young sultan of Oman.
All were encased in tank suits, their darkened faces barely visible within the folds of the form-fitting black rubber. In addition to canvas knapsacks across their backs and the bound, waterproofed weapons clipped to their belts, each wore large, circular suction cups strapped to their knees and forearms. The two boats pitched and rolled beside each other in the dark sea as the cargo ship ploughed forward. Then, as the great black wall of the vessel rose above them, the lifeboats pulled alongside, their quiet motors drowned out by the slapping waves. One by one the 'pirates' clamped their cups on to the hull, each checking his companion on the left to make certain he was secure. All were.
Slowly, like a cluster of ants crawling up a filthy garbage can, the force from Oman made its way to the top of the hull, to the gunwales, where the suction cups were released and dropped back into the sea.
'Are you all right?' whispered Khalehla beside Evan.
'All right?’ protested Kendrick. 'My arms are killing me, and I think my legs are somewhere in the water down there, which I don't intend to look at!'
'Good, you're all right.'
'You do things like this for a living?'
'Not very often,' said the agent from Cairo. 'On the other hand, I've done worse.'
'You're all maniacs.'
‘I didn't go into a compound filled with terrorists. I mean, that's crazy!'
'Shhh!' ordered Ahmat Yamenni, sultan of Oman,
