Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [72]
“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” said the admiral. “You have done an outstanding job of keeping us apprised of the situation. I’m afraid we don’t have any new information on who is behind it, though we have our suspicions. The NSC will be meeting shortly at 1500 hours your time, and we’ll keep you posted.”
Mossad Headquarters, Israel
27 September 2017
Only a few hundred miles northwest of Riyadh, Meir Kahib, head of the Mossad, Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, was brooding over the disturbing new intelligence reports he had received.
The Israeli Army high command was monitoring the Saudi situation closely; the Knesset would be meeting in a special session later that afternoon. If Kahib had it right—if it was a takeover by Monotheistic-led insurrectionists—Israel would soon be in a state of war. And Israel would not lie back like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. The Holocaust would never happen again. The plan was simple, as it always had been: launch a devastating preemptive strike against their enemies. Meir Kahib was seldom wrong about such things, and he doubted this situation would be an exception to the rule. War was imminent.
27
Royal Palace, Riyadh
28 September 2017
The bone-tired coup leaders were in a festive mood as they awaited the arrival of their victorious leader, Prince Mustafa ibn Abdul-Aziz—now King Mustafa. The acrid smell of spent explosives, burned-out rooms, and mutilated bodies blanketing the royal palace heightened their sense of destiny. They had survived the carnage, and their meeting in the royal palace was designed to legitimize and demonstrate a sense of continuity in the new regime.
King Mustafa was grateful for the exultant shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” when he entered the conference room.
“Yes, my brothers, Allah is greater, praise Allah!” replied the smiling king with equal euphoria. “We have been watched over throughout our long struggle,” he continued in a voice brimming with emotion, “and we have exceeded our expectations. Fighting is limited mainly to the cleansing operation now underway. I would now like your progress reports and assessments of what needs to be done. Allow me to start with a report on Unit 22.
“Unit 22 was successful beyond all expectation. The hit teams suffered casualty rates in excess of seventy percent, but this worked in our favor as their implied connection to the Zionists and CIA fostered the notion they were part of an overthrow attempt by foreigners. They were successful in taking out key leaders and commanders, and we anticipate the virtual elimination of all potential opposition leaders within a day. The Unit 22 teams assigned to plant the dirty bombs were successful. There was opposition on one of the Ghawar Field sites, but it was snuffed out on the spot. The dirty bombs are now in place.”
The room erupted in cheers, but Mustafa quickly got back to business. “Prince Hahad,” he asked, “please report on your activities.”
“Thank you, King Mustafa,” responded Hahad ibn Saud, the new commander of the Royal Guards. “We were able to take out the top ranks of the Royal Saudi Guard leadership with relative ease; getting to the king was quite another matter. As you can see from the damage done to the palace, the Royal Guards were not about to change sides. The firefight lasted over an hour. Once word got out that this was a foreign-led coup attempt, however, it was easier to convince Royal Guard units outside the royal palace that we were fighting together against a foreign-led insurrection. They were, in fact, quite helpful in rounding up the ‘suspects’ we had identified—although many of them were prominent members of the house of Saud—and in executing those identified as traitors. The Royal Guards are now positioned outside the palace with orders to shoot anyone attempting to force