Sacred Seas, a yacht
Off the Somali coast
Some eight hundred miles away from Walks Many Miles, a Eurocopter EC175 approached the top deck of the ninety-foot luxury yacht Sacred Seas in the Gulf of Aden. No other private boat would have dared anchor so close to the Somali shoreline. But billionaire Umoja Owiti wasn’t concerned. Al-Shabaab had warned pirates not to approach his yacht, and piracy was much better organized and controlled in Somalia than was often believed in the West. No Somali pirates acted without permission of their financiers—warlords or corrupt business owners and government officials. The pirates relied on Al-Shabaab to guard ports in Somalia’s most southern tip where captured vessels were docked while awaiting ransom payments. If some renegade Somalia pirate had taken it upon himself to attack the Owiti’s boat, he would have been greeted by a battery of sophisticated weaponry and a security force eager to draw first blood.
The helicopter landed on an upper deck where Umoja Owiti’s chief butler was waiting with warm hand towels to greet the Falcon and his bodyguards.
“Welcome to Mr. Owiti’s pleasure craft,” the butler said in his formal English accent. “May I say it’s good to see you again, sir?”
“No diamond-encrusted floors to walk upon barefoot?” the Falcon asked, glancing at the polished teak decking that edged the helipad.
“No, sir, but the parlor where Mr. Owiti is waiting does have a fourteen-carat gold-covered ceiling and walls decorated with hand-painted porcelain tiles. I’m certain you will feel quite comfortable there.”
Owiti was speaking on a satellite phone when the Falcon joined him. Owiti nodded and held up a finger, indicating that he was almost finished talking, as his butler offered the Falcon tea and cookies, which he declined, preferring to keep his face covered except for his dark eyes. He sat on a white leather sofa monogrammed with Owiti’s initials, which also had been painted on the porcelain tiles on the cabin’s walls as well as inlaid into its marble floor.
Ending his call, Owiti greeted his guest. “Welcome, my friend. I have just learned that your four-vehicle caravan was attacked and destroyed by American helicopters near the border less than an hour ago. You sent six of your men to their deaths.”
“I sent them to paradise. They answered the call of Allah.”
“His call or yours?”
“I am His humble servant, as are you.”
“Everything happened just as your American spy warned us it would,” Owiti replied. “Your decoy fooled them. As you assured me, this source of yours in Washington is highly placed.”
“You asked me to demonstrate what I am capable of and I have shown you, beginning with the attack at the Mandera college. Are you satisfied now—enough that we can move forward?”
“How close is this serpent of yours to the American president?” Owiti asked, dodging the Falcon’s question.
“If I gave the order, she would be dead tomorrow. His breath is warm on her neck.”
“Then why not strike? Why bother killing students in Africa or abducting girls from privileged schools. Kill President Allworth.”
“Killing a president only gets us a new one. What I need from you will enable me to cripple their entire nation.”
“That is a very ambitious goal, my friend.” Owiti chuckled, taking a cup of tea and raising a cookie to his lips. He was now sitting across from the Falcon on a matching white sofa. “With my money, you hope to buy something exotic. Perhaps the recipe for a deadly virus with no known cure. A poison to dump into an American city’s water supply.”
“That is a plot of a bad American movie.”
“A bomb, then. A nuclear bomb, perhaps?”
“It is also a movie plot, but one that can actually be put into action,” the Falcon replied. “It can be done.”
“Oh, my friend, you do have big ambitions. Others have tried to buy nuclear devices from Russia or even Pakistan or India, but the Americans have always caught them. What makes you believe you can do what others can’t?”
“The Americans keep track of known nuclear weapons and the raw materials needed to make a bomb. They follow the money everywhere in the world. But Allah, bless His holy name, has shown me a way to make them blind and avoid detection.”
“I’m listening,” Owiti said, finishing another cookie.
“I will go to where the Americans cannot see, to the only country where the Americans have no eyes, and I will buy my bomb with currency the Americans cannot track.”
Owiti wiped his lips with a linen napkin and leaned forward. “And where is this place where the Great Satan is blind?”
“It is not Russia, which is always suspect. It is North Korea. For the right price, anything is possible when dealing with the eternal president and supreme ruler of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
“And what is the right price?”
“A billion dollars.”
Owiti chuckled. “You are ambitious, my friend, but that is a large sum of money even for me.”
“You are a businessman with companies and investments in many nations. We’ve already discussed the advantage of knowing a cataclysmic event is about to strike the United States economy.”
Owiti thought for a moment and said, “Yes, there would be ways for me to earn a profit knowing an American city is about to be destroyed.”
“Not one city. Many American cities, all simultaneously, and not some insignificant ones. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., gone forever.”
“I’m sorry, my friend, but I do not believe that even with the help of the North Koreans, you will be able to obtain multiple nuclear devices and transport them into the United States. It is improbable and, quite frankly, impossible.”
“Not many. Only one.”
“With only one nuclear device,” Owiti said in a clearly skeptical voice, “you are going to destroy major U.S. cities, including New York and Washington? How is that possible?”
“I will explain after you agree to give me one billion, but I can promise you, it is not only possible—with Allah’s help, it will happen.”
“Let’s assume, for the moment, this scheme is achievable—that you have found a way to destroy cities with one bomb. Let’s say I give you a billion dollars. You just said that the Americans follow the money. How am I supposed to deliver one billion dollars to you without being arrested or worse?”
“You own the largest oil producing companies in Africa,” the Falcon said. “One of your ultra-large crude tankers can transport three-point-seven million barrels of oil in one delivery. As you are keenly aware, the price of oil is currently hovering around a hundred dollars per barrel, after recovering from years of being much cheaper. A tanker at that price is carrying the equivalent of roughly three hundred and seventy million U.S. dollars.”
“You would use my tankers of oil to pay the North Koreans?” Owiti asked.
“Three of your tankers leave from African ports,” the Falcon said. “Why would the Americans care about that crude oil? In their entire country there is only one port in Louisiana that can accommodate one of your ultra-large tankers so they pay little attention to those vessels. It is a big ocean. Big enough for a supertanker to deliver oil without being noticed.”
“As you say, it is unlikely they will track my tankers. However, there is a fatal flaw in your plan. North Korea doesn’t have a port large enough for an ultra-tanker to dock and unload its cargo,” Owiti said.
“This is what the world has been told,” the Falcon replied. “But you and I know the world is wrong. Don’t we?”
Owiti sat silent for a moment and then said, “How did you find out this information? Was it your precious Viper in Washington who told you?”
“Allah sees everything.”
“Let’s not play games, my friend. Tell me what you know.”
“I know that one of your construction companies is finishing work on enlarging the port in Rason, which is perhaps the most important seaport in North Korea because it remains ice-free in the winter. I know that North Korea is thirsty for oil. And I know something more.”
“More?”
“I know that you have access to North Korean officials, and if you speak to them about my plan, they will agree to it. You can arrange this for us and, in return, your wealth will be greatly increased.”
“I am impressed, my friend. You have done your research,” Owiti said. “You have tied all of the pieces together. You have found a way to avoid the prying eyes of western money trackers by using my oil tankers rather than U.S. currency to pay for a nuclear device. You have learned that one of my subsidiaries is finishing work expanding the port capabilities in the city of Rason. Very clever of you, my friend, very clever indeed.”
The Falcon nodded.
“But even if you obtain a single nuclear device, you must still get it into the United States undetected, and no one has been able to accomplish that. How will you perform this miracle?”
“I have said enough tonight. There is a way to avoid detection, a weakness the Great Satan has not seen. Be patient. Tomorrow I will share this final secret with you.”
Owiti threw up his hands in mock resignation. “Ah, you will keep me waiting, then. Perhaps that is best. Anticipation is exciting, is it not? I have a woman waiting for me right now. I have kept her naked in my bed anticipating my arrival long enough. Would you like a woman tonight, my friend, or does your infamous piety keep you from the pleasures found between a woman’s legs?”
“While I am grateful for your offer, I would rather have three tankers of your oil.”
Owiti laughed loudly. “Always jihad with you, my friend. Tomorrow, you will tell me the remainder of your plan, and if you convince me that it can inflict as much damage on the United States, as you claim, then we will discuss my three tankers of my oil.”