INDONESIA
JUBA WATCHED THE TELEVISION news on the 42-inch flat plasma screen, mentally keeping track of the score. The bodies were piling up and he was winning easily. The House of Saud had been decapitated, the country was temporarily leaderless and that sanctimonious weird preacher, Mohammed Ebara, was busily stirring the religious pot. Everything going as planned.
Using the remote control, he replaced the chattering news people with the Web site of a private Swiss financial institution that served only very wealthy customers. The money was piling up in his private account, and more than enough was available to pay the people he had hired to continue the pressure. Slowly, slowly, he would stoke the fire with unexpected strikes throughout Saudi Arabia. The fighters were already in place, just waiting for him to release them. It was a tight schedule that eventually would build to a crescendo of violence.
The complicated scheme did not provide him with the same instant thrill as in the old days, when he pulled the trigger on his sniper rifle and could watch a bullet strike home and a target die in his scope, but he had moved beyond such things as routine assassinations. The stakes today were so much higher, and the overall effects of his work were so much more important!
The achievements so far called for a bit of private celebration and he opened the seals of red wax on a new square bottle of Jewel of Russia vodka, a new brand distilled from wheat and rye. He poured and raised the glass in an imaginary toast to the old philosopher-scientist Isaac Newton, who had figured it all out many years ago with his first law of motion: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
The royal family of Saudi Arabia had been paddling comfortably on their underground sea of oil. Juba pictured himself as the external force needed to change that.
He had done a lot of homework before putting the final plan together. In the tumultuous inner circles of the Saudi royal family, there had always been plots and counterplots about which prince of the House of Saud should be the actual ruler. In 1975, the sitting monarch was shot to death by his nephew. For Juba, a simple assassination would not have been good enough. He wanted something spectacular, a showy attack that would paralyze the confidence of the people and open the door for a government takeover by Muslim extremists. By the time he was through, the whole country would be moving backward in time. The vodka was tracing a pleasant burn down to his stomach when a maidservant softly announced, “Your guest has arrived, sir.”
An Indonesian man stepped through the wide entranceway to the mountain mansion. He was of middle age, with black hair retreating on the high forehead and a belly that pushed hard against the buttons of his shirt. With narrow shoulders, Muhammed Bambang Sukarnoputri was shaped like a pear.
“Governor. It is good to see you again.” Juba shook hands with the smaller man and led him to a comfortable area with overstuffed chairs. They made small talk until the maid returned with a tray of fruit and juice for the pious provincial governor, who did not drink alcohol. Juba had only a glass of chilled water.
Officially, the Indonesian government kept religion out of its politics, although the country was 88 percent Muslim and Juba had found it simple to cultivate powerful allies. On the far side of the mountain on which he lived was a government weather research facility that secretly fed him all of the electrical power and telecommunications and scientific support that he could possibly use. With his own computer network feeding from those secure grids, Juba was guiding the upheaval in Saudi Arabia, half a world away, and the TV reports were flashing across the big screen.
“This television coverage reminds me of the make-believe carnage in American movies about the end of the world,” said Sukarnoputri. “Your work has been astounding.”
Juba gave a small nod. “International reporters are surging into Saudi Arabia in invasion-level numbers, and with the death of the king and the crown prince, the street demonstrations will grow more violent. The military will have to respond with force, and that will only create more demonstrators.” Juba handed the provincial governor several computer printouts held together at the left-hand corner by a spring clip.
“Some army units already are hesitating to perform their duties if it means killing civilians. When the cameras show children and old people being bloodied and killed, it will appear that a popular uprising is trying to overthrow a ruthless and immoral royal family.”
“Very good. However, I bring a private and important message from our mutual friend,” the governor said. “Is there somewhere we can speak that is beyond the hearing of any servants?”
“Certainly,” Juba said. This was curious. There was a hint of strain in the voice, a touch of alarm. Sukarnoputri was not the jittery sort. Not only was he the governor of the local province, he was also the brother of the powerful Mobile Brigade of the Indonesian National Police Force. Since both had political and military protection and government-protected communications security, he frequently acted as a cutout between Juba and Dieter Nesch.
They walked outside into the cool and gentle wind and along a stone path that led through a garden ablaze with flowers. A rugged rock wall, about waist high, bordered the edge of the outcropping, beyond which was a sharp slope all the way down to the sea. From this vantage point, they could see for miles.
“I am afraid that something has arisen that will require some changes in your plans, my friend,” said the governor.
Juba fixed the man with an unsettling one-eyed stare. With so much at stake, with the game successfully underway, a late operational change was wanted? Nesch knew better than that. “Go on.”
“This will sound quite unbelievable, but our mutual acquaintance has sent word that Mohammed Abu Ebara has somehow come into possession of five nuclear missiles, including their launch codes. I was instructed to tell you that Ebara demands your presence on the ground in Saudi Arabia, as quickly as possible, to handle them.”
Juba leaned on the stone wall and listened to the sea while he thought. Leave here? He “demands” that I spend many hours in an airplane and run all the way to the Middle East at his command? He took a deep breath. “That was not part of our original arrangement,” he said. “It does not matter whether he has found some nuclear weapons or slingshots in the sand, we cannot stop the current operation in its tracks.”
“I know that and so does Dieter. But Ebara is adamant. He apparently is having visions from paradise, voices that are guiding him.”
“Damn. What does the Russian want?”
“Apparently, our friend in Moscow is letting Ebara have his way.”
“So I am supposed to just close down shop, abandon months of careful planning and the spending of millions of dollars to get things ready, just to go hold the hand of Ebara?” Juba walked slowly around the area, tasting the breeze. “Without me here to control things, the overthrow of the government may not work. Everything depends on the timing of the coming attacks. This is a huge risk.”
Governor Sukarnoputri spread his palms in a helpless gesture. What can we do?
Juba’s thoughts were reeling, trying to find some way to make it all work. The coup had been his primary goal. What could be gained with nuclear weapons? They could not be used within Saudi Arabia during this uprising.
Perhaps afterward? A potential new reward began to surface in his mind. Consider them as a separate matter and not part of the current strife. With nuclear weapons in his possession, he could be recorded in history as one of the most dangerous men who had ever lived! He could destroy Israel! Europe might be within reach. England? His thoughts began to race. Would it be possible to smuggle one to the U.S.? A smile twisted on his deformed lips. A few hours of discomfort in an airplane in exchange for an eternity of notorious fame.
“It will cost more.”
The governor said that he had already taken care of the renegotiation, and Dieter Nesch was promising another million euros for Juba just to make the trip, assess the possibilities, and soothe the growing mania of Ebara. The governor and his brother would both rake off a commission.
“Go back and contact Dieter again. Tell him to make it five million euros. If they agree, I can be on my way tomorrow.” Juba considered his fledgling plan. He could force Ebara to turn the weapons over to him so that he could blackmail other governments. That would work to the benefit of Ebara, the Russian, and everyone on the money train.
The governor smiled. A bigger commission. “My brother will arrange your transport. A helicopter can ferry you from here to the airport in Jakarta. From there, a private jet will fly you to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.”
They bowed to each other and the governor left. Juba remained in the garden and a slight shudder ran through his body. The trip would be extremely difficult. But for five nuclear weapons, he would do it. Juba thought that he might change the face of the world with those things. Yes, that would make it worthwhile.