"Actually, we got them from you. They were inside your package."
"What do you mean?" she asked, confused. "I had pictures of the guards?"
Payne told her the simplified version of the SD card, not wanting to overwhelm her with all the details. When he was done, he shifted her focus back to the photographs.
He said, "I know you've been through a lot, and I know the last thing you want to do is stare at the guys who attacked you. But if you could, I'd like you to take a closer look at them. Maybe their faces will jog your memory. Something from the tunnel or something they said. At this point, any information would be helpful. Sometimes the smallest things mean the most."
"Sure," Shari said. "Whatever you need."
She took out the first picture and studied the face of the main guard. She stared at his eyes and mouth, trying to remember anything she could about the man who knocked her unconscious. "He talked on his phone a lot. The first day he arrived he made, like, twenty calls."
"Did you hear anything?" Jones asked.
"To be honest, the guy spooked me from the very beginning, so I stayed away from him as much as I could. I spent half the day avoiding him."
"This was when? On Saturday?"
She nodded. "Omar called them to remove the body."
"What were they driving?" Kia wondered.
Payne looked at her and smiled. It was a good question.
Shari tried to remember. "It was a red van. Kind of new-looking. They backed it all the way to the tunnel entrance so they wouldn't have to carry the body very far."
"That's good. Real good. Try the next picture."
Shari handed the first photo to Kia, who looked at it closer while Shari took the next one out of the stack. "This guy searched the body. He frisked him for his wallet and keys."
"Did he find anything?" Jones asked.
"Keys. He found his keys. After that, he ran off to move the guy's car."
Shari handed the photo to Kia, then moved on to the next one.
"This guy," she said as she stared at his face, "helped move the body. He pulled out a big carpet from the back-"
"Jon," Kia said, interrupting Shari, "where were these pictures taken?"
"What?" he asked.
"These photos. Where were they taken? Were they taken in Jeddah?"
Payne glanced at Jones, perplexed. Al-Jahani had mentioned the city during his video testimony, but neither of them had brought it up during this conversation. "Why do you ask?"
"Because of this photo," Kia said. She pointed over the shoulder of the second guard and tapped the background. "All these crates. They say Jeddah."
Payne leaned forward, hoping to see, but all he saw was a bunch of lines and squiggles.
"You won't be able to read it," Kia stressed. "It's written in Arabic. But I'm telling you it says Jeddah."
Shari took the photo from Kia and held it up to the light. She stared at it for several seconds before her lips curled into a huge grin. "Actually, it says a lot more than Jeddah. It's stamped with the name of a business."
"Which business?" Payne demanded.
Her grin grew wider. "One I know quite well. It's owned byOmarAbdul-Khaliq."
54
Jeddah Seaport, Saudi Arabia
With a population of more than three million people, Jeddah is the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia. According to legend, it was named after the Arabic word jaddah, which means grandmother, because the mythical tomb of Eve, the matriarch of all civilization, was there until 1928, when the Saudi government, fearing the perversion of Islam, had it destroyed.
Nowadays, Jeddah is the commercial center of Saudi Arabia, anchored by a sprawling seaport that sits on the Red Sea and handles the majority of the country's shipping. Barges, tankers, and ships of all sizes filled the blue water, but on this day the U.S. military was more concerned with the buildings that surrounded the harbor.
While flying to Jeddah, Payne and Jones studied satellite images of the terrain, focusing on four warehouses owned and operated by Omar Abdul-Khaliq. An advance team that was already in the city on another mission had located the suspects from the photographs and secured the immediate area while they waited for Payne and Jones to arrive. Their chopper landed on one of the port's helipads, less than a mile from the site, where a young soldier met them and briefed them en route.
"The suspects are in warehouse twenty-nine," he said, pointing to a detailed map. "Multiple points of entry. Minimal security. Right now they're loading cargo into a shipping vault."
"Cargo?" Payne asked, hoping it was the artifact from Mecca.
"Can't tell what it is, sir. It's boxed up in a large crate. Must be important, though."
"Why do you say that?"
"The old guy keeps yelling at them."
"What old guy?"
"Sorry, sir. I should've mentioned him. There are five men in total. Four suspects and some old guy who's bossing them around. We've been calling him the sheik."
"The sheik?"
"Yes, sir. Because he looks like a sheik."
"Creative name," Jones said sarcastically.
"Thank you, sir."
Payne glanced at Jones. "Would Omar would be dumb enough to be here himself?"
Jones shrugged. "According to Shari, the cargo would be invaluable to the Islamic world. So who knows? If Omar wanted to see it or doesn't trust the guards, he might've made the trip."
"Seems kind of stupid to me. Why would he risk it?"
"Hey," Jones said, "the same could be said about us. We're supposed to be retired."