Sacred Stone

“Slick as a baby’s behind,” Seng agreed.

“Make sure you time the two caravans to arrive a few minutes apart,” Hanley said, “and go in through the back doors.”

“You got it,” Seng said before disconnecting.

“YOU HAVE ALL the arrangements made?” Hanley asked Medical Officer Julia Huxley as she walked into the control room.

“The detox facility is in Estes Park, Colorado,” Huxley said. “I hired an Icelandic nurse who speaks excellent English to accompany him on the flight to New York and then on to Denver. A van from the facility will pick him up in Denver. All he has to do is make the flight from Kulusuk to Reykjavik alone. I’ve alerted the pilot and had a few Librium pills dropped at the airport for the pilot to hand-carry to him. That should calm him and help fight convulsions until the nurse here can take over.”

“Good job,” Hanley said. “We’ll go ahead as soon as the chairman gives the okay.”

“On the second matter,” she said, “the boss needs to be concerned about radiation exposure when he retrieves the meteorite. I have some potassium iodine on board that we can give him when we meet up again, but the farther away he keeps the object, the better.”

“His plan is to wrap it in plastic and an old blanket and carry it to the rear of the snowcat inside a metal toolbox.”

“That should be fine,” Huxley said. “It’s the possibility of inhaled dust that should concern him the most.”

“We estimate there will be no dust—in the photograph it looks like a giant ball bearing. Any dust should have burned off on reentry. So unless Cabrillo has prolonged, close contact with the orb, exposing him to the radiation, he should be okay.”

“That’s the score,” Huxley agreed.

Huxley turned to leave but then stopped at the door. “Chief?” she said to Hanley.

“Yes, Julia?”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen radiation exposure cases,” she said quietly. “They aren’t pretty. Tell the boss to keep the meteorite as far away from himself as possible.”

“I’ll relay the message,” Hanley said.

13

ALEIMEIN AL-KHALIFA READ the fax once more then slipped the sheets of paper into a plastic sleeve to protect the image. The cost to the Hammadi Group for this information had been the equivalent of one million British pounds in gold. The greed and avarice shown by Man continued to amaze Al-Khalifa—for the right price most men would sell out their country, their future livelihood, even their God. The insider at Echelon had been no different. A host of gambling debts and poor financial stewardship had placed him in a position to be exploited. A slow seduction and increasingly larger payments for his treason had put him firmly within the Hammadi Group’s control.

And now, after two years, the man had come through with a jackpot.

The problem was that Al-Khalifa had his plate rather full right now. Turning to the other man in the cabin of the yacht, he spoke.

“Allah blesses all that believe.”

Salmain Esky smiled and nodded. “It seems to be an answered prayer,” he agreed, “though it comes at an already bountiful time.”

Al-Khalifa stared at him. Esky was small, a shade over five feet in height and as thin as a willow. A native of Yemen, he had dark, dusty skin, a receding chin line, and a mouthful of tiny pointed teeth stained yellow and brown. Esky was a follower, not particularly smart, but extremely loyal to the cause. All movements needed men like him. They were the pawns to be played. The fodder for the cannon.

By contrast, Al-Khalifa was tall, handsome, and moved with a grace that generations of leadership had instilled in his soul. For hundreds of years his ancestors had ruled as tribal leaders on the dusty Arabian Peninsula. It had only been in the last twenty years, since Al-Khalifa’s father had fallen from grace with the Qatari royal family, that his bloodline had been reduced to ordinary status. Al-Khalifa was planning to rectify that situation soon.

Then he would follow through with his planned strike for Islam.

“Allah has blessed us with the funds to do both,” Al-Khalifa said, “and we shall.”

“So you want the captain to plot a course northeast to the site?” Esky asked.

“Yes,” Al-Khalifa said quietly. “I’ll bring the passenger aboard later.”

FLAGGED IN BAHRAIN and registered as being owned by the Arab Investment and Trading Consortium, the three-hundred-and- three-foot-long Akbar was one of the largest privately owned yachts in the world. Few outsiders had ever been aboard the yacht, but those few had spoken of the plush salon, the large hot tubs on the rear deck, and the host of smaller boats, personal watercrafts, and helicopter that she carried.

From the outside, the Akbar appeared to be a floating palace owned by someone ultrarich. Almost no one would guess that she housed a terrorist cell. Along with the leader, Al-Khalifa, and the follower, Esky—both now on shore—were six more men. Two were Kuwaitis, two were Saudis, and there was one Libyan and one Egyptian. All of the men were infused with fundamentalist Muslim rhetoric. And all were ready to die for their cause.

“We’re cleared to leave port,” the captain said into a handheld radio.

“Once you’re free of the outer harbor, begin steaming at full speed,” Al-Khalifa ordered from shore. “I’ll rendezvous with you in an hour and a half.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain answered.

Al-Khalifa slid the small telephone back into his front pocket and then stared at the electrical panel in the basement of the hotel again. “Place the charges there,” he said to Esky, pointing to the main trunk line. “After the alarm sounds and it goes dark, meet me at the lower stairwell as we planned.”