58

 

Aqaba, Jordan

“Are you absolutely certain, Vice Admiral?” the captain asked.

“I am,” Truxton said. “Cypress can take care of itself. That’s a babysitting service. I don’t have any interest in keeping track of oil and commerce in the Mediterranean. The action is here, in either the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aqaba. Every single piece of intelligence we have is screaming at us.”

“But they’re opening the terminus at both Ceyhan and Haifa even as we speak,” the captain asked. “You really don’t want to be there to make sure no one disrupts it?”

“And what could we possibly do there in the Mediterranean?” Truxton asked, annoyed. “That’s about oil and gas. They’re going to start shipping it north and south to Europe and the Far East. They’ll twist a few knobs and turn on the spigots. No one would dare pursue anything militarily in that part of the world. It’s the Mediterranean Sea, for crying out loud. People vacation on cruise ships there. It’s not like this part of the world, where pirates kidnap entire ships at will.”

The vice admiral, as he had during the recent Persian Gulf conflict with Iran, had left his desk post and was on a carrier heading toward uncertain conflict. Truxton liked to be near the fighting. It gave him a much better view of the threats. It was an intuitive thing, not easily explained.

And right now, he was on a small convoy of ships headed north up the Gulf of Aqaba, past Sheikh al Sharma, toward the southernmost ports of both Israel and Jordan.

Truxton was making a difficult decision. They had intelligence of threats in so many places that it was difficult to assess what was either imminent or even most important. But the one report that had struck him above all others was word that al Qaeda factions had appeared in Aqaba in the past two days.

The joint chiefs assumed they were there to shadow the retired White Army general, Fahd, who’d been broadcasting to stir up opposition forces in advance of the coming Day of Anger in Saudi cities. Truxton wasn’t so sure. There was no need for any sort of al Qaeda escort or shadow in Aqaba. No, they were there for another reason.

Truxton’s plan was to travel quickly to the substantially upgraded port at Eilat and then link up with American forces on the ground in southern Israel. The American military was already on heightened alert in southern Israel, protecting the oil pipeline that terminated in Eilat.

The Pentagon’s leadership had made it very clear they did not want a repeat of what had happened in southern Iraq, when forces had managed to do severe damage to the West Qurna oil fields. The American forces in the region had orders to protect the oil pipeline and terminus at Eilat, regardless.

All of it seemed surreal to Truxton. He had a difficult time wrapping his mind around the fact that Israel was on the cusp of becoming an oil superpower. But things changed—sometimes when you least expected it.

His one nagging thought was the empty cargo ship that Captain Bingham’s sailors had found near Jeddah. He’d notified the Saudis’ White Army leadership, who’d said they would inform Prince Natal. They’d gladly accepted the information but had said little about it or what it might mean.

But Truxton knew the American forces could only do so much there regardless. It was probably just as well that Bingham’s men had not come across the forces making their way inland. The Saudi National Guard would need to deal with the Day of Anger protests, and whatever was about to transpire in concert with them the following morning.

The sun was beginning to set as they approached the end of the Red Sea. Truxton marveled at how much everything had changed. Aqaba, on Jordan’s side, hadn’t changed much. But Eilat, a scant two miles to the east on Israel’s side, had changed considerably in the past year or so. Massive new structures were in place as far as the eye could see.

Very large oil cargo ships could now be accommodated at Eilat. Israeli naval vessels regularly patrolled the Red Sea. The days that pirates could capture ships at will in the Red Sea were long gone, thanks to the diligent efforts of the Israeli navy forces.

In fact, one of the Israeli ships was heading southward out to sea. Truxton waved at the captain from the deck, then turned his sights back toward shore as they began to pull in to Eilat.

The port of Aqaba was just beginning to disappear from view when an enormous explosion erupted from that direction. The blast was so loud that Truxton could feel the effects on board. There was a second, third, and then a fourth explosion immediately following the first blast.

The reports came in to the operations center quickly. They’d been so close to Aqaba that some of the sailors on the upper decks had been able to see at least one of the explosions. For whatever reason, someone had chosen to destroy much of the tiny, sleepy port of Aqaba just as the American convoy was arriving.

Even from here, they could see that part of Aqaba was in ruins.