Chapter 6 / Page 2

During the Gulf War, carrier based aircraft used the same inlet leading to Umm Qasr to navigate towards targets in Kuwait and southern Iraq. The shoreline’s angle points like a dagger towards Al Basra, and the Tigris leads straight to the heart of Baghdad. Even when navigation computers failed in the shot up A-6 Intruders, pilots still found their way home following the inlet back to the waiting carriers. Had an amphibious landing taken place, as many speculated, part of it would have been against Jazirat Bubiyan—the island forming the eastern Kuwait border.

Tonight Al Faw took on a greater significance. A single lorry drove away from the populous riverbanks and into the desert night. A curious mixture of men rode into the darkness this night. Two sailors huddled in the rear of the lorry. Each was bound with heavy police-restraint handcuffs and leg irons. One was the hapless crane operator, who had killed several Chinese sailors the night before. His inattention with the crane and the ensuing panic left several men to the mercy of the sea. The other sailor was the first officer who had made the mistake of reporting the disaster.

Four members of the Special Republic Guard watched them. None of the soldiers spoke. They knew the price men paid for failure under Saddam’s regime. These men had failed on a particularly important mission. They had no need to know the specifics of the mission, and if the truth were known, they had no desire to learn further secrets of their masters. Knowledge could get a person killed. It certainly doomed these sailors. No one doubted the outcome of tonight’s activities.

The last two in the rear of the lorry were dressed in neoprene diving suits. In the dim light, they meticulously checked over their SCUBA gear, and the additional gear required for the salvage operation. An inflatable rubber raft, grappling hooks, lines, and underwater lamps lay in the far corner of the lorry. Each checked their weight belts, survival knife, regulator, and tanks. They would be operating underwater at night—something akin to near total blackness. Should the lamps fail, they might never find their way back to the surface from inside the ship’s hold.

Colonel Taha Duri sat in the passenger side of the lorry. He had no friends. Colonels of the Al Amn al-Khas—Iraq’s Special Security Service—were supposed to be feared, not liked. He understood better than most the shifting tides within Iraq’s security structures. It was like riding a wild horse through the night. He had learned to expect the unexpected. Betrayal and treason were always just beyond the horizon. A sharp knife between the ribs or a bullet in the back of the head often became a remedy for troublesome issues.