Almost Showtime
Chapter 31
Vlad was pleased with the way things concluded at the mosque. It was a strong signal to his adversaries that they were messing with the wrong person. He understood how the game was played and had so far anticipated their every move against him. He considered himself to be the consummate professional when it came to murder and mayhem.
Vasily’s tip-off to him regarding a possible trap would go unnoticed by the SVR or so he strongly believed. They’d likely conclude Vlad had simply taken precautions for his safety out of an abundance of paranoia and nothing more sinister. His son was still safe, but not home free. He was facing many years of hard labor in one of the gulags for helping his father. Vlad vowed to free him, but that would come later. He now had other matters on his mind that needed his attention.
But Vlad was mistaken about the SVR’s interpretation of the killing at the mosque and his son’s fate. They believed Vasily had alerted his father in one of the messages he was told to send and had betrayed the gentleman’s agreement he’d signed in his holding cell in the Lubyanka. He was now considered a dead man walking by his Russian captors.
An hour of friendly persuasion convinced Vasily to tell the truth. A pair of pliers and shoddy dental work was more than sufficient to pull a couple teeth and a confession from his lying mouth. He admitted he’d warned his father that his message was sent under coercion. Moreover, he knew Vlad’s target in Saudi Arabia and gave it up. It was none other than Ras Tanura!
Vasily was forced to write a couple of more messages to his father. And his father responded to one of them. The messages were meaningless to the SVR and it wasn’t concerned that Vasily might include indicators they were written under duress. That wasn’t the point of the exercise. With the messaging, the SVR pinpointed Vlad’s location using geo-triangulation technology and now had a precise fix as to his current whereabouts. He was in Jubail, Saudi Arabia and, not too coincidently, less than 18 miles from the massive oil complex that was his target. Major Petrov was immediately informed of the new information.
***
Vlad knew the story well and it was to be the centerpiece of his operation against Ras Tanura. He’d memorized the article after having read it over and over again during the past few months. He recited it to himself once again since he relished the destruction and incredible magnitude of the incident:
A giant explosion had occurred during the loading of fertilizer onto the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas in 1947. Nearly 600 people lost their lives and thousands were injured when the ship was literally blown to bits.
Ammonium nitrate was used as an explosive by the U.S. Army in World War II and, after the war ended, production of the chemical continued as its use as a fertilizer became accepted. However, the precautions used in its transport became far more lax in the postwar years.
On April 16, the Grandcamp was being loaded with ammonium nitrate as well as tobacco and government-owned ammunition. Cigarette smoking, although officially banned, was a common practice by longshoremen on the docks. Just two days prior to the explosion, a cigarette had caused a fire on the docks. On the morning of April 16, smoke was spotted deep within one of the Grandcamp‘s holds.
Some water and an extinguisher were used to fight the fire, but hoses were not employed for fear of ruining the cargo; there were already 2,300 tons loaded on the ship. While the ammunition was removed from the ship, the crew attempted to restrict oxygen to the hold in hopes of putting out the fire. Apparently they did not realize that because of ammonium nitrate’s chemical composition, it didn’t require oxygen in order to burn.
By 9 a.m., flames had erupted from the hold and within minutes it exploded. The blast was heard 150 miles away and was so powerful that the ship’s 1.5- ton anchor was found two miles away. The force of the explosion lifted another ship right out of the water. People working at the docks were killed instantly.
Pieces of flaming debris damaged the oil refineries in the area. A nearby Monsanto chemical storage facility also exploded, killing 234 of the 574 workers there. Nearly all of the survivors were seriously injured. A residential area of 500 homes was also leveled by the blast. Another ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying similar cargo, was pushed completely across the harbor. The crew fled when it came to rest, failing to notice that a fire had started and the next day their ship also exploded. Two people died.
In all, 581 people died and 3,500 were injured. The explosion caused $100 million in damages. A long-disputed court case over the cause of the blast was resolved when Congress granted compensation to 1,394 victims. They received a total of $17 million in 1955. The port was rebuilt to handle oil products only.
The event was called the worst industrial accident in U.S. history. However, what Vlad had in mind would be no accident. Not by a long shot. But the ammonium nitrate was only one ingredient in an explosive stew that would level Ras Tanura. The second component sitting close by would ignite the fertilizer to create a massive explosion and the resulting inferno would engulf the entire area. It would be something the world had never witnessed since the volcanic eruption on Krakatoa. It was a brilliant plan and Vladimir Booskowsky was its architect.
Nothing would be left standing within a radius of 14 miles by Vlad’s estimation. The berthed tankers, the oil refineries, the enormous tank farms, drilling rigs, warehouses, piers and jetties would be wiped out in less than a minute. So would the residential compound two miles distant. It would be a glorious event that would go down in the history books as the worst terrorist event ever, even surpassing the twin towers bombing. Vlad would gloat and revel in his handiwork when it was over.