Malenkov nodded. “I checked the forecast. The target area will be clear, but the haboobs here are forecast to be strong in the morning.”
It had been a concern all week. Haboobs were massive storms endemic to arid regions across the world. Rolling storm fronts, sometimes miles high, swept across the desert. They generated little rain, but the wind at the frontal boundary could be extreme, sometimes reaching hurricane force. Visibility degraded to mere feet, turning day into night. All of which was disastrous for operating heavily laden drones. On three mornings in the last week, haboobs had swept across Al-Jaghbub, rattling the hangar walls and pumping dust through every gap. Gamling had been forced to cover his equipment, including the drones, with tarps and bedsheets to keep the circuitry from becoming contaminated.
“The aircraft are ready?” Malenkov asked.
“Of course. As I told you, most have been ready for a week. But if the flight from Novy Urengoy doesn’t arrive until midday…that might prove difficult for Qasim.”
“Difficult or not, he will have to find a way.”
Gamling replied in a mocking tone, “If it is the will of Allah, I’m sure he will.”
Malenkov ignored Gamling’s lame attempt at humor. As a former postal worker, with little formal education, his grasp of world religions was hopeless; he was conflating the Druze religion with Islam. Malenkov had a working knowledge of all the major faiths, a necessity for a man who fomented tribal war for profit. He himself ascribed to none of them. He wasn’t going to waste time in this life worrying about the next one.
He strode to the far side of the hangar where his security chief, Bojan, was going over a roster. Malenkov delivered the bad news.
The Serb checked his big watch, and said, “The delays are adding up. It will be tight.”
“Tight, yes. But we can still make the deadline.”
“I have always wondered about that…the timeline you set on the launch. Why so strict? Our target is going nowhere. The weather has been trouble lately, and if it turns bad could we not wait another day?”
“The schedule stands! I talked to Gamling, and he says we can launch as late as one in the morning and still arrive on target by dawn.”
“At dawn there will be some light. We were planning a night strike.”
“Plans are nothing more. Most of the flight will be under cover of darkness.”
“But—”
“Enough!” Malenkov snapped. “Go find Qasim and tell him the new schedule.”
The hulking Serb nodded and walked off.
An agitated Malenkov went outside. It felt like he’d opened an oven door. He looked to the southwest, but saw no sign of the storms. Not today. The haboobs were cyclical, taking days tobrew and work into their monsoonal rhythm. The season was nearing its end, but the pattern was unusually strong this year. He squinted against the bright early sun.
His true reason for demanding a strike tonight was not known to anyone at Al-Jaghbub. Nor, he hoped, anyone in Moscow. To the best of his knowledge, only one other person could understand the reason for the deadline…shipment delays and haboobs be damned. Gunther Klaus had drawn up the contracts. Placed the electronic bets. It was that knowledge, Malenkov surmised, that had driven his attempted defection to the West. The drop-dead date would have fueled his fear.
For a banker, the man had unusually well-developed survival instincts. Malenkov supposed it was a product of having funneled Russia’s dirty money for so long—too long, as it turned out. Just as the man was about to be tossed into the deep end of the GRU’s abyssal pool, he’d sensed the danger and tried to break away. When Malenkov learned of his intention to defect on the diplomatic flight, there had been only one solution.
Yet somehow, incredibly, the banker had escaped.
But how clever was he? Had he made a connection between Malenkov’s personal financial moves and the resurrection of the derelict airfield in the Maghreb? Malenkov’s personal wager was nothing more than an add-on, a bit of opportunism that the patron who’d commissioned this strike knew nothing about.
The former head of SSD realized he’d boxed himself into a corner. He could still make everything work. As long as the flight from Siberia wasn’t delayed any longer. As long as Klaus could be kept silent. In less than twenty-four hours, an attack would rattle the world. And later that day, his own aims would be realized. There would be ample time for the markets to react.
15:00 in London.
23:00 in Singapore.
10:00 in New York.
By close of business tomorrow, Andrei Malenkov’s intelligence career would come to an end. And he would be a spectacularly wealthy man.
45
Safe House
The Medina
