40

 

THE SUPER-YACHT, ZEPHYR, MOORED OFF SAN DIEGO, MONDAY EVENING

The man stepped from the helicopter, ducked under the blades, straightened up on the spotless deck. He was met by two of the Sheikh’s men, dark skinned, clean-shaven, no doubt so as not to attract undue attention when they went ashore. They would be hajis at the very least, the designation given to those who had done the pilgrimage to Mecca at least three times, and who almost invariably sported the full beard of Islamic men, but they were probably also Jihadis who wished to disguise themselves.

They looked him over with their dead eyes, no smiles, no word of greeting. The men, and the team of others like them, posed as the sailing staff in their white polo shirts emblazoned with ZEPHYR and their silent, soft-soled deck shoes. The yacht swarmed with them, padding about like assassins.

One soft-shoe led him, the other fell in behind. The man paused, gathered himself for just a moment.

He always felt, despite himself, despite who he was, what he had become, that he was somehow diminished alongside the Sheikh. Part of this was the money, the towering billions; part was the entourage, the men with the dead eyes; and part of it was the knowledge that the Sheikh despised his weaknesses as the ascetic loathes the voluptuary. Even though he had made such progress, traveled so far. It never seemed to be far enough.

He was led into the glittering stateroom, rich with the scents of cardamom and coffee, oud and bakhoor. The polished wood gleamed in the low lights, and in the distance, through the huge windows, he could see the lights of San Diego flickering like distant beacons.

And there was the Sheikh, rising from the twenty-seater horseshoe-shaped leather sofa, resplendent in his white kandoora. He wasn’t wearing the ghutra, the headdress, today, just the taqiyah, the white skullcap.

With a nod of his head, the Sheikh beckoned him. He moved forward over the artfully scattered Persian carpets.

“Asalaam aliekum, my brother,” the man intoned warmly.

“Wa aleikum asalaam,” replied the Sheikh, resuming his seat. “What can I do for you?”

The man gasped at the breach. Normally the Sheikh, in the tradition of his region, would have spun out the niceties, offered refreshments, bided his time before they got down to business. Was something wrong? He felt his jaw clenching involuntarily. He blew out a slow, silent breath and took a seat opposite the Sheikh, fifteen feet away, separated by a Persian carpet and low intricately carved wooden tables—made from old Omani doors, the Sheikh had told him during a loquacious moment.

“I have good news for you,” announced the man. “Zeus works! Falcon staged a major trial of the mobile unit this morning, in what had been a cloudless sky, zero chance of rain. And it rained. It rained half an inch.” The man’s eyes glowed. No matter what the Sheikh did with it, Zeus was an astonishing achievement.

“Excellent!”

Approval, radiance. The man basked, felt the glow of reassurance.

“You will be well rewarded. Be sure of that.”

“You are very kind, Sheikh Ali. And there’s more. Another investment is bearing fruit.”

“Tell me.”

“Oracle forecasts the Niño phenomenon. Apparently, the one we are into at the moment will intensify into a mega-Niño.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Floods, landslides, wasted harvests around the world, drought in some places.”

“More little local catastrophes. I am weary of them.”

“And storms, Sheikh Ali. It will bring large storms. Perhaps the storm you have been waiting for, right here in California.”

There was a pause. The Sheikh’s eyes flickered with calculation.

“You think these storms will be big enough for us to use?” he asked. “You think we can crrrreate an ARk Storm from one of them?” The Sheikh was trying, and failing, to keep the excitement from his voice.

“The forecaster used an interesting choice of words. She described the warming water as ammunition, the pole-to-equator temperature differentials as the detonator.…”

The Sheikh laughed. “She is indeed an Oracle! And we shall provide the spark.”

The other man was silent.

“What, my friend, are you developing a conscience?” asked Al Baharna, leaning forward, eyes narrowing.

“I cannot afford one; besides, it’s too late now.” Too late for him to change his mind. Any weakness would be punished by a slow and painful death at the hands of the dead-eyed men hardened by years in Lebanon and Iraq. So he was committed, on a path of his own. The man gazed out of the dark windows, wondering what it would look like, the ARk Storm, the ten-foot walls of water slamming through the air. Forty Mississippis drowning them. He fingered his collar, suddenly feeling short of breath. He would be long gone, he reminded himself, hiding somewhere dry. As the vengeance of the holy rained down upon the infidels, money and the rewards of jihad would rain down on him.

“It is too late, my friend. Much too late. So, when do we light the spark?” asked the Sheikh, dragging him back.

“Forecaster thinks the Niño will develop into a mega-Niño over our winter.”

“Two to five months from now,” mused the Sheikh. “Are we ready?”

“We’re still perfecting our model, trying to get it to produce more rain. The forecaster is being most helpful with this.”

“I should meet this helpful Oracle,” mused the Sheikh.

“It can be arranged.” They’d have to make sure she behaved herself. She was too valuable to risk allowing her to make an enemy of the Sheikh.

“Is there a problem?” asked Al Baharna.

“No problem. I was just thinking it wouldn’t harm to have more drones and more ionizers,” improvised the man.

The Sheikh threw back his head and laughed for a few, seemingly uninhibited moments. The man wondered what on earth he had said that was so funny. The Sheikh leaned forward, eyes still creased in mirth.

“Ah, the drones. I do love the drones. Buy them immediately. Buy as many as you need. Ionizers too.”

“We’ve got plenty of space in our hangar.”

“Then fill it. Build in redundancy,” intoned the Sheikh. His smile faded. He rested his forearms on his knees.

“It is fitting, as well as amusing, do you not think, that we shall be using drones to bring death to the Americans, after they have dispatched so many of my brothers with their drones and their Hellfire missiles?” His eyes went distant, perhaps, thought the man, seeing in the desolation of the desert the streak of white, the explosion and the fireball, the immolation.

“Like Anwar al-Awlaki,” the Sheikh added softly, almost to himself, “whom I met so many years ago here in San Diego.” He turned his eyes, narrowed, almost black, back on the man, who, despite himself, shuddered.

“It does have a certain symmetry,” the man managed to admit. “I’ll get onto it.”

“It reminds me of one of the things that Bin Laden used to say,” mused the Sheikh, fingers toying with his close-shaven beard. “He might have been Sunni, but his insight was unparalleled:

‘We love death. The US loves life. That is the difference between us.’”