98

 

THE SUPER-YACHT, ZEPHYR, TWELVE MILES OFF SAN LUIS OBISPO, TUESDAY NIGHT, 7:00 P.M.

The yacht Zephyr rode the rising waves. Sheikh Ali paced his stateroom. A wind had kicked up in the last two hours and Zephyr was rocking softly, well able to deal with the waves, but registering their presence. Outside, the wind had built to a roar. Even through the reinforced glass, Sheikh Ali could hear it as he paced. His starched kandoora snapped against his legs.

He turned to the man before him. The man who had adopted the name Hassan, even if able to use it only highly selectively.

The Sheikh veiled his distaste. Hassan was a tool. You didn’t have to like your tools, just know that they did their job efficiently and effectively. Hassan did both. He would be off the yacht soon enough, up in the helicopter, homeward bound.

“Update me. Please,” he added, a sop to Hassan’s ego. These Westerners with their sensibilities, their innocent inability to grasp the realpolitik of power … they could be tiresome. Decades of living in a feudal theocracy had schooled him well in the subtleties of power. Those reared in a democracy thought they had recourse to a larger power. A larger power that was not even God. But he knew that power came with a family name or with money or with a weapon or with the name of God as worshiped by the right sect, he thought bitterly.

“The drones are all ready,” replied Hassan with a quick smile. “I ordered twenty extras too, so we’re all set up.”

“Good,” the Sheikh smiled back. “I do like the drones. They are almost poetical to me.”

Hassan ignored this comment. He never knew what to do with the Sheikh’s odd bursts of whimsy. He stuck to the details.

“I’ve got two takeoff strips ready so we can get as many drones airborne as quickly as possible.”

“Good thinking.”

“And I reckon the model’s all ready too. As good as it’s ever going to get.”

The Sheikh sat down, took a sip of his cardamom-flavored coffee.

“All we need now is the right storm,” he murmured, glancing out of the windows.

Hassan followed his glance. “A good one’s powering toward us right now.” He stuck out his arms, allowed the yacht to pitch him gently from side to side. He dropped his arms to his sides, took out his iPad, scrolled through until he came to the National Weather Service site.

“They’ve issued a warning, the NWS. Not a high alert, but a storm warning nonetheless. The ARk Storm people are quiet. Nothing from USGS or FEMA or CalEMA.”

The Sheikh held up his hand, scowling.

“Who the hell are that lot? I know USGS, but FEMA and CalEMA?”

“Federal Emergency Management Agency and California Emergency Management Agency. If they thought an ARk Storm was on its way, they’d be bleating to all hell.”

“But their silence isn’t definitive, is it? They wouldn’t want to be accused of crying wolf, warning prematurely, reducing their credibility.…”

“Exactly!” agreed Hassan enthusiastically. “Who knows,” he added with a big smile. “It could be the big one. We’ve just got to be ready.”

“And are we?”

“If we think this is it, we need the model here on board.”

“You haven’t got it with you?”

“Falcon rules. We keep it under lockdown. It’s not easy to take it out discreetly.”

The Sheikh got up, walked back to the window, looked out.

“I think maybe you should come back tomorrow with the model, don’t you?”

“Whatever you say. If you want to go live.…”

“I want to be ready,” intoned the Sheikh. “Choice is, after all, the greatest luxury of all.”