eighty miles an hour and nothing on the ocean’s surface could catch him—with the exception of the yacht currently following him, of course.
* * *
FAHIM SHABAZZ WAS also on a suicide mission—and he couldn’t have been more excited about it.
He was a soldier of al Qaeda, by way of the Jihad Brotherhood, and he’d been hoping for just such a mission ever since being sent to Somalia to stir up trouble there. Because of his nautical background, he’d been imbedded with local Somali pirate groups, such as the Shaka, and had gone on several raids with them, all in hopes that a suitable opportunity, like this one, would arise. So, in a way, he was a bit of a pirate himself.
When word came down from the al Qaeda leadership that a powerful weapon needed for a retaliatory operation against the Americans would soon be in place and all that was required was for an activation key to be smuggled into the United States, possibly by boat, Fahim Shabazz jumped at the chance to serve.
So now here he was, piloting what was probably the fastest yacht in the world and making great time. If everything went right and this unusual way to circumvent U.S. security actually worked, Fahim Shabazz hoped to reach his goal in fifty-five hours and start the operation with no problems whatsoever.
Getting to this point had been challenging, however. He’d slipped into Monte Carlo among the deluge of street vendors allowed in to sell their wares during Race Week. He’d made contact with officials from the Pakistani consulate in Monaco. They gave him clothes, funds, weapons and lastly a place to stay, which was probably the most difficult arrangement of all. The Pakistani Intelligence Service, the notorious ISI, secured a seat for him at the Grande Gagnant by paying the ten million dollar buy-in fee up front and then wiring a surety bond for the remaining forty million in his name to the game’s organizers.
Fahim Shabazz had also been led to believe by the ISI that some sort of fix was in for him in the game, but when the late-arriving pair of Americans wound up winning the key, he had to fall back on his al Qaeda training and ruthlessly get by force what he could not win by chance.
He’d been lying in wait for the Americans to come down the Palace Road; that they were subsequently kidnapped and then stopped by their friendly rivals worked in his favor. It set up the massacre on the road—and put the key in his possession.
Had he won the key, he would have just left, as he’d come in, through the airport at Nice and then on to America. But obtaining the key by violence led him to Plan B, which is where his nautical background came into play, which was why he’d been selected for this mission in the first place.
Plan B required he kill the original drivers and support crew of the Smoke-Lar. This was done without a problem. Weighted down, they were thrown overboard as soon as the Smoke-Lar was out of sight of land. And now, with a little last minute insurance aboard, Fahim Shabazz wasn’t expecting any trouble from anybody.
Off in the distance, maybe ten miles behind him, was the second racing yacht, Numero Two. As there would be no radio contact between the two competitors—indeed no radio contact with anyone, barring emergencies, until they were in sight of the U.S. coastline—there would be no way the crew of the Italian boat would know anything was amiss on the Smoke-Lar.
The other member of his crew was Abdul Adbul. Typical of al Qaeda operations, for security reasons, Fahim Shabazz had met Adbul just the day before when they both stole into Monte Carlo pretending to be street vendors.
Like Fahim Shabazz, Abdul was a Saudi. He’d been Fahim Shabazz’s second at the Grande Gagnant, and when they didn’t win the key, he’d helped gun down the group of men on the Palace Road and then assisted in the murders of the Smoke-Lar’s crew and support team.
Abdul Adbul was here for one important reason. He’d worked as an engineer at the vast Ghawar oil field in the Saudi desert. He knew about gas turbines, which meant he knew that if you just left them alone, if you didn’t mess with them, they would run forever on their own.
They hadn’t spoken much since stealing the Smoke-Lar. Abdul knew very little about driving racing yachts, not that he had to.