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A needed to be in place for a safe and successful hajj, which was due to start on January 10
There was less than teeks to accomplish all the necessary preparations
SAUD AL-SHEIK STUDIED a stack of documents on his clipboard There were still a thousand and one details, and the ti near His latest probles he had ordered froland They were not finished yet and the ed hands
That, coland was
not exactly held in esteem by his people because of the UK’s support of the United States in the occupation of Iraq, was creating a hassle Al-Sheik wondered if a bribe to the mill was in order He’d pay theh a broker in Paris to disguise their country of origin
That would take care of both problems at once
Pleased with his idea, he took a sip of tea and reached for his cell phone to place the call
AT THAT MOMENT, the Greek cargo ship Larissa lilish Channel The captain stared at his charts He had been ordered to dock at the Isle of Sheppey, and he had never made port there before His usual ports were Dover, Ports was that the British authorities had recently installed radiation detectors in his usual ports By contrast, the Isle of Sheppey was as wide open as the Grand Canyon And the people that had hired him knew this
The captain studied his chart, then made his course correction Then he scratched the scab on his ar diesel engine venting out the single stack She was a dying ship carrying a deadly cargo
25
DWYER GLANCED DOWN at the dry desert ground as the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter flew above northern Arizona Miles away to his left, he could see a snowcapped range of peaks The view of the snow-covered mountains surprised him Like most people who had never visited the state, Dwyer had been under the impression that the land would be an endless stretch of sand and cacti Arizona, it now appeared, had a little of everything
“How often does it snow here?” he asked the pilot through the headset
“Those peaks are over near Flagstaff,” the pilot said “They receive enough to support a ski area The tallest peak is Humphries—it’s over twelve thousand feet”
“This was not what I expected,” Dwyer admitted
“Most people,” the pilot said, “say the sa”