Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus
Akram ‘Pock-Mark’ Rayyan had obtained his nick name like most who had suffered from severe acne as a teenager. However, not many dared mention it in front of him, particularly since he had become Deputy Commander and one of the most ruthless members of the Al Qassam Brigade. Akram stared across at the Cypriot coastline, the nearest he had been to his homeland for some time. The warmth of the air was a blessing from Allah after his last few weeks on the Northern coast of Russia. Severodvinsk was, even in the summer, cold and wet. Pock-Mark was not a sailor. He loved land and particularly his people’s land. Palestine. Pock-Mark had been honored by their leader, Mohammed Deif, with the task of delivering the momentous blow to the American infidels. He looked again at his hand-picked team, twelve young men in their prime who would sacrifice themselves for the cause, ten sailors and two young men trained to deliver the weapon, although only one would have the honor of taking the weapon into the heart of America. It was going to be one of the hardest choices he would have to make on the mission: to whom to bestow the honor. He genuinely did not know who should go. Both men were worthy so it may even be decided by a toss of the coin. Perfect, he thought, that was the solution. Allah would choose, as only Allah would make the coin fall the right way to ensure success.
For a man who loved land, he had been at sea for what felt like months, although it really had been only 15 days. However, the work on the cargo vessel had taken some time and thanks to Deif’s paranoia, Pock-Mark had had to stay on the ship throughout the work, as had the engineers who were being paid handsomely for their efforts. Unfortunately for them, it was not handsomely enough. Pock-Mark’s instructions were clear. The men had been lured to a job in St Petersburg and had then been taken by private jet to Severodvinsk in darkness. For the three weeks, they were on board a ship in a closed dry dock and had no idea where they were. After the works were completed, a celebratory drink to mark the end of the job turned into a slaughter that saw the four engineers stowed in a meat freezer. After a couple of days at sea, they were tossed overboard to feed the fish.
Pock-Mark spotted a small fishing trawler. Using his binoculars, he checked the name. It was their contact and he was exactly on time. Not that he thought that he wouldn’t be. So far, everything had gone exactly as planned by Deif. The equipment required to convert the cargo vessel into one of the most lethal ships on the seas had been exactly where Deif had said it would be. The Soviet military power-base had resulted in bureaucratic disaster at the end of the cold war. The port of Archangelsk was the country’s oldest seaport and had been a key military installation throughout the country’s history. Deif had reckoned on a fifty fifty chance that the equipment would have survived the collapse of the old Soviet Union, mainly because no one would know what the hell it was. His only concern was scrap value but even then that would probably have been worth less than the shipping costs of transporting it from what was effectively the middle of nowhere. Pock-Mark had been sent to the warehouse on his arrival and a rather bewildered owner accepted the offer for the ‘junk’ that had been there as long as he could remember. The world’s largest shipyard lay just 30 miles away. Having been built during World War II, it provided the ideal location for the conversion. The old Russian freighter had been a steal. Its owners were glad to be rid of it as it cost more to keep than it was worth thanks to the recession. Although it had seen better days, it had two major plusses. It was the perfect size, at around 8,000 tons, and it flew under a Russian flag. Despite being the only super power, the United States did not lock horns with the Russians readily.
Pock-Mark smiled again at what they were planning to do. It was ingenious and was going to surprise the hell out of the Americans. Even if they were aware of the impending attack, they’d be defenseless. And all thanks to an old British cartoon book.
The trawler pulled alongside and transferred the weapon which had been sneaked out of Haifa under the eyes of the Israelis. The false bottom of the containers that held the weapons had been another ingenious plan by Mohammed Deif. Deif trusted no one, not even the Sheikh. From the moment the Sheikh had offered the weapons, Deif’s deception plan had begun. The storage locations for each of the weapons were carefully selected and long before they were delivered, tunnels and false floors had been prepared. When delivered, the containers were carefully placed over the secret trap doors and Deif waited. His watchers did not watch for containers, they watched for people watching the containers. It hadn’t taken the Israelis long to track the weapons, their spy satellites could search for such things with ease, something Deif knew very well. However, he was also confident that once they found the weapons, they’d stop looking any further.
As the Israeli watchers got comfortable, Deif’s men used their tunnels and removed the weapons from under their eyes. Pock-Mark couldn’t help but smile as he thought of Deif’s master plan. All five weapons were now secured in new locations, one of which was with him. As for the other four weapons, only Deif knew where they were. He believed in compartmentalization, as Deif called it. Deif read a lot of western spy thrillers. He believed it gave him an edge. Pock-Mark had tried but reading books that were fundamentally anti Muslim just didn’t seem right.
Just as they had fooled the Israelis, Deif’s plan would fool the Americans too. If they looked for the weapons, they’d never suspect a cargo ship. Its destination was Nuuk, Greenland and then Sao Luis, Brazil. At no point would they be within 500 miles of US soil. They would be pretty much the last ship expected of being involved in an attack.
Pock-Mark went aboard the trawler to personally thank the captain of the boat. It was a magnificent day for the cause, he reiterated, before drawing his pistol and executing him and every member of the trawler’s crew. Deif’s plan was to be followed to the letter. Nobody who saw the boat was to live to describe her. The plan was bigger than any individual Palestinian and any who did die would die a martyr’s death. A small charge in the bows ensured the trawler sank quickly. As he re-boarded the freighter, he heard a chirp from his mobile phone. Purchased on a pay as you go contract in Cyprus, it had never been used for voice calls and never would be. The chirp simply alerted him to a new tweet that had been delivered to his account. An account that only one other person knew existed, Deif. Twitter had proved invaluable to the terrorist community. They no longer needed to send emails, SMS texts or make calls. Messages could be sent to twitter and deposited on any account that followed it. The messages were tiny and created no trail as the recipient read them through a message server. It seemed there was one method of communication from the 21st century that was untrackable.
Pock-Mark read the innocuous note about the weather in Prague. However, the true meaning was more relevant. The Israeli’s knew the devices had been moved. He had one more stop to make before heading to America. Akram walked to the bridge and gave the navigator their destination. They had a couple of very important containers to pick up.