The Smelly Rat Trap
Chapter 28
Vlad smelled a rat, as the Americans would say. He’d read his son’s message very carefully, in fact read it twice to make sure he didn’t miss any nuances or other tells that might be contained in it. No, it was crystal clear and disheartening. Vasily had been coerced into writing it and was now controlled by the SVR and in serious trouble. They’d earlier worked out a unique duress code in the event one of them got caught and forced to write something like this.
The message was simply a bright lure to force him out of hiding and catch him. To be certain, he called Rashid on an untraceable burner phone. Rashid said he had no idea about such a request from the Iranians and laughed when he heard it. He said they’d never share such information or enter into such an absurd proposal in the first place. It was all a myth and a desperate ploy by the Russian-American team trying to track him down to put a bullet through his head.
Vlad pondered his next move. He couldn’t alert the SVR that the message was bogus, fearing for the life of his son. He knew better than others that the Russians would summarily execute him if it learned that Vasily had tipped him off. No, that couldn’t happen.
Vlad finally decided to play their game, but with his rules. He would meet with the purported Iranian representative at a time and place of his choosing. His hunters would be close by and perhaps he could kill two birds of prey with one stone. He thought his plan would work so he drafted a reply to Vasily’s message:
I agree to meet, but on my terms for my safety. If Iran wants to be a player in this drama, so be it. It makes no matter to me. However, it will cost them dearly for my cooperation and services. By the way, tell them I won’t negotiate the terms and conditions of my deal. We will meet on the 15th of this month at noon at the main mosque in Diriyah. It’s an ancient town in Saudi Arabia located on the northwestern outskirts of the capital of Riyadh. Tell the Iranian to come alone. Otherwise, the deal’s off and the Iranians can go pound sand!
He thought the sand part was clever repartee considering where the rag heads hailed from.
Vlad had visited the town a couple of times during his stay in Riyadh as a distraction to fill in the time between operations. Diriyah was the original home of the Saudi royal family and served as the capital of the Emirate of Diriyah under the first Saudi dynasty. It was a popular tourist destination and listed as a World Heritage site. He believed it was a perfect place to meet and would work to his advantage for what he had in mind for his Iranian guest.
The ruins of the old city lay on either side of the narrow valley known as Wadi Hanifa, which continued southwards through Riyadh and beyond. Consisting almost entirely of mud-brick structures, the ruins were divided into three districts set on top of hills overlooking the valley. Throughout the valley were a number of gardens, palm groves, small farms and estates. It was a pretty setting for a killing, Vlad thought. And it wouldn’t be his death. He then went about preparing for the meeting in earnest. Well, actually, it would be in Diriyah instead.
***
The majority of Saudi oil was shipped via supertankers to refineries around the world. Three major ports were used for the shipping. Ras Tanura was by far the world's largest oil processing facility with six million barrels per day capacity. The Ras al-Ju'aymah facility, also on the coast of the Persian Gulf, produced more products for export. The last of the three largest terminals was the Yanbu terminal located on the Red Sea. An enormous sea shipping capacity was vital to Saudi Arabia given the absence of international pipelines.
Vlad had chosen the largest of the three, Ras Tanura, as his target. Why not go for the biggest and best bang for the buck? He argued with Rashid. The strike in Luanda was mere child’s play compared to this operation. The underwater assault would be much the same in terms of execution, but the targets would be quite different and much more destructive. And the end result would set the world on fire in many different ways.
Ras Tanura was a city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia located on a peninsula extending into the Persian Gulf. The name Ras Tanura applied both to a gated Saudi Aramco employee compound and to an industrial area further out on the peninsula that served as a major oil port and oil operations center for the consortium, the largest oil company in the world. The compound had about 3,200 international residents, with a few Americans and British expats serving as technical experts.
Geographically, the Ras Tanura complex was located a distance north of the modern industrial port city of Jubail and across Tarut Bay from the old port city of Al-Dammam. Due to modern oil tankers' need for deeper water, Saudi Aramco had built numerous artificial islands for easier docking. In addition, offshore oil rigs and pipeline facilities had been constructed in the waters nearby.
The Najmah compound was one of four residential compounds built in the 1940s and the only one located on the coast of the Persian Gulf itself. Vlad knew the Ras Tanura refineries were surrounded by a heavily guarded security fence, and international employees and their dependents lived inside the residential compound which was less heavily guarded. But it was the extent of the security measures that convinced Vlad that a frontal ground attack would be futile as well as suicidal. Unlike his terrorist team, he wasn’t ready to go to heaven or wherever just yet.
An underwater approach was the only way to safely get to his intended targets. Ahmed and his Yemini al-Queda brethren had already scored a huge success and this operation would be the crowning touch to Vlad’s role as a master terrorist. He planned to permanently retire from the business after completing the job and looked forward to getting an enormous bonus from his Bhutari employer for his efforts to cause irreparable damage to the largest oil terminal complex on the planet. The megalomania couldn’t get any more grandiose and maniacal, even for Vlad.
Built originally to allow expatriate oil company employees a degree of western comfort and separation from the restrictions of Saudi and Islamic laws, the residential community had shifted somewhat in line with the reduction of western residents into a multiethnic mosaic of Saudis, other Arab nationalities, along with Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis and a token number Americans and British expats. All of whom lived with English as the common language. Vlad found the mix of Arabs and Anglos to be abhorrent. No matter, it was a mongrelized blend of peoples who would likely die in their beds.