The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3 Read online

  1

  Ethan fingered the Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. The rifle was a PK-10, an AK-47/AKM clone manufactured by the cottage gunsmiths of the region. Not as good as a factory-produced rifle but it served its purpose.

  Roughly two of every ten male passersby carried a gun. PK-10s. Chinese machine guns. Austrian Glock pistols. There was one weapon, however, that almost every man wore without fail, and that was a jambiyah: a large, curved ceremonial dagger tucked into the belt in front of the navel. The hilt was a sign of status. The more expensive hilts were made of ibex or rhino ivory, and depending on craftsmanship, could cost upwards of ten thousand US dollars. Most of the hilts Ethan saw today were of cheap plastic or cow horn.

  The men sported white shirts and wraparound sarongs, with black Western-style blazers on top to complete the look. They wore shawls around their heads or shoulders, wrapped and colored in a manner that varied by tribe. Mustaches were prevalent, though the more devout wore beards styled in the mustachless Abe Lincoln fashion.

  Men who traveled together frequently held hands in friendship. Almost everyone had golf-ball sized lumps of qat in their cheeks—it was past 3 PM, the end of the workday for many Yemenis, and time to start chewing the amphetamine-rich leaf.

  The women wore full veils, with a small slit for the eyes. That, combined with the long black robes draping them from head to foot made them seem like shadowy, roaming ghosts. Some of the older women draped colorful sheets around their existing clothing so that they appeared as strange parodies of the ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings.

  Ethan sported a light-green thawb—an ankle-length robe favored by the devout—and wrapped his shawl in the southern fashion. He fit right in with his tanned olive skin and Abe Lincoln beard: for all intents and purposes he was simply another villager who had moved to Sana'a to make a living. He drew the line at qat, however. Ethan had dipped tobacco back in the day, but that was a far more benign habit in his view, considering the dependency effects induced by cathinone, the amphetamine-like compound in qat. Ethan had quit dip cold turkey, and he wasn't about to get himself addicted to something nastier. He padded the inside of his cheek with a substitute made from paper instead.

  Even though the city of Sana'a was cloistered in a mountainous valley at an altitude of twenty-two hundred meters, the temperature proved a dry, scorching hundred degrees. Ethan kept to the shade, using the dilapidated stone wall of the Old City as a sunshade. Hawkers who sold wares beneath canopied booths accosted him in harsh, guttural Arabic.

  A grubby beggar sat against the wall near a pile of trash and held out a beseeching palm. Ethan placed a crisp pink and green banknote in the man's hand. It was a one thousand rials bill, worth five bucks.

  While the beggar thanked him profusely, Ethan pivoted slightly to look back the way he had come. Satisfied that no one was following, he moved on.

  He traveled beneath the thousand year old Yemen Gate. Only one vehicle at a time could fit the close-quartered streets, though most of the traffic was pedestrian. The blocky buildings rose as high as nine stories, with outer facades decorated in geometric patterns via strategically placed fired bricks; white gypsum outlined the arched doorways and windows. The upper windows had decorative wooden shutters that allowed unveiled women to look down upon the street without passersby seeing them. Minarets poked up beyond the rooftops, overlapping the yellow-brown mountains that provided backdrop.

  Political graffiti was scribbled in Arabic on a few buildings, with such cheerful slogans as "America is the mother of all terrorists" and "Death to Israel," alongside sketches of the Statue of Liberty with a fleet of—presumably hijacked—jumbo jetliners pointed at it.

  Ah Sana'a. A place where old and new abutted. Where one could find a bazaar with canopied booths and stalls standing incongruously beside a modern supermarket. Or pass street vendors selling goat kabobs a few doors down from the KFC.

  On cue, the call to afternoon prayer filled the air.

  "Allahhhhhahhhhhhhahhhhhhhhhoo akbar." The haunting voice of a muezzin drifted through the streets. "Allahu akbar."

  There were more than a hundred mosques in the Old City, and they all announced at the same time, using loudspeakers in their minarets to compete for attention, giving the call a strange echo.

  The dome of a white mosque, two streets away, poked above the sand-colored buildings. His destination. It was one of the more radical mosques in Sana'a, and its Friday sermons were legendary for their anti-Western rhetoric. Thankfully it wasn't Friday: he wasn't in the mood.

  Ethan reached the mosque. Several shoes formed a neat row outside the entrance, with the occasional rifle leaning against the marble wall beside the owner's footwear.

  Ethan removed his sandals and set his PK-10 against the wall. There was a tall vase near the entrance, where visitors spat their discarded qat. Ethan scooped the bolus of paper from his mouth with a curved finger and tossed it into the chewed detritus.

  He entered, taking his place among the rows of men in the carpeted prayer hall. Women prayed in a separate balcony—they were mildly encouraged to stay home.

  When prayers were done, Ethan retrieved his shoes and rifle, and then loitered outside as groups of men gathered for quick chats. He recognized some of the regulars.

  A black Land Cruiser abruptly pulled up and three masked gunmen rushed out. They closed on Ethan.

  "The rifle!" one of them shouted. "Give it to me!"

  Ethan complied.

  The others rudely shoved him into the SUV. Someone slid a black hood over his head.

  He was jerked back in his seat as the vehicle sped away, tires squealing.

  2

  The unseen man beside Ethan patted him down and discovered the smartphone. The window opened and closed. Ethan guessed the man had tossed out the device.

  A short while later the vehicle slowed and Ethan felt the barrel of a nine-millimeter press into his ribcage.

  "Say nothing," the gunman said.

  The hood was lifted and Ethan blinked several times while his eyes adjusted. The kidnappers had removed their balaclavas and hidden their weapons. They were tribal men. Tanned, weathered features. Abe Lincoln beards. Mid-twenties.

  The Land Cruiser was queued behind several other vehicles at a military checkpoint. The SUV reached the front. Two Yemeni soldiers stood on either side of the Cruiser, while a third kept watch from beside an old-style Soviet BTR-50 armored personnel carrier that blocked the other lane.

  "Visiting relatives," the driver told the guard.

  M60 machine gun looped over one shoulder, the soldier glanced in the backseat at Ethan and the others, then waved the vehicle forward. When the Land Cruiser was on its way, the kidnappers replaced Ethan's hood.

  Half an hour and two checkpoints later the SUV came to a final stop and Ethan was forcibly hauled from the vehicle. As the men escorted him up unseen steps, Ethan couldn't get the image of the recent journalist beheadings from his mind, and he wondered if a similar fate awaited him. He tripped, but the kidnappers caught him and led him onward.

  The stairs leveled out and his footsteps soon became muffled—he had passed indoors. The hood was removed.

  He stood in a large foyer, relatively austere for its size. Shelves lined the walls, overflowing with Islamic texts. There was a white, immaculate leather sofa near the door.

  The kidnappers brought Ethan to a spartan reception room. At the center, twelve young militants, most seeming no older than twenty-five, were gathered on the wooden floor around two individuals in their forties: one of the men was rather portly, while the other was gaunt, his face all bony angles. Seated cross-legged, both of them dressed nearly identically in long white thawbs and headgear, with devout beards. The hilt of the heavier man's jambiyah was crafted from ibex horn, while the lean one had a dagger with an intricate grip of black rhino ivory. Ethan recognized the latter man as Sheik Jasir Al-Khayr, though the big one was unknown to him—likely the owner of the house.

  In front of t
he sheik was a large bowl filled with chicken and saffron rice; a wide plastic sheet protected the floor underneath.

  Al-Khayr raised a hand, beckoning him forward.

  Ethan complied, passing several AK-47s and PK-10s placed in an orderly line against the wall. He did his best to portray a confidence he didn't feel. Most of the young men regarded him with suspicion, a few, outright contempt.

  "As salaamu alaykum." The sheik spoke the traditional welcome in the dialect of the Hadhrami, an eastern tribe. Despite his slight build, his eyes were crafty, intense.

  "Wa alaykuma salaam," Ethan answered. The uvular fricative in the word "alaykuma" came easily to him these days, though when he was first learning to speak the glottal sounds he often pretended to gargle water in the back of his throat.

  Al-Khayr gestured toward the rice bowl. "Partake, please. We eat early today."

  The young militants made room for Ethan. He joined them, grabbing a plate and shoveling rice and chicken into the dish with a cupped palm. Then he sat down and began to eat.

  There was a certain way to consume rice with the fingers in polite company. The right hand was used. Since the rice was cooked to a sticky consistency, one could readily grab clumps of it with the fingers. After doing so, one simply raised the hand and used the thumb to slide the grains into the mouth.

  "That is an interesting dagger," the sheik said, nodding at the weapon attached to Ethan's belt. "Where did you get it?"

  "My father gave it to me," Ethan said between bites.

  "May I see it?"

  The man was trying to get a feel for him, Ethan knew. Giving the dagger to Al-Khayr would be a tremendous show of trust, as most men never let anyone save immediate family members handle their jambiyah.

  Ethan thoroughly wiped his fingers on the provided paper towel and unsheathed the blade, handing it over.

  The sheik held the weapon up to the light and reverently studied the pure white ivory handle, which was hewn into the shape of a kneeling man at prayer. The blade scintillated in the light, obviously of high quality, too.

  "I will give you four million rials for it." That was roughly equivalent to twenty thousand US dollars.

  Ethan smiled inwardly. So Sam had been correct about his zeal for the daggers. Too bad the plan had changed.

  "It is not for sale."

  Al-Khayr regarded Ethan uncertainly. "Everything is for sale." Obviously he was a man who was used to getting what he wanted.

  "Not everything," Ethan said.

  The tension in the room increased a notch.

  Abruptly Al-Khayr broke into a smile.

  "You are right," the sheik agreed. "Some things cannot be bought. Loyalty, for example."

  Al-Khayr handed back the dagger and the tension dissipated. That he had returned the blade showed he trusted Ethan to a degree, especially since he must have realized the weapon was slightly more than ceremonial, with a blade like that.

  When they finished eating, the group members lounged Yemeni-style on their sides, elbows propped on cushions. They took care not to point the soles of their feet at anyone else.

  The sheik placed some bukhoor—incense made from woodchips soaked in scented oil—inside a vase-shaped burner. As the hot stone heated the woodchips, the fumes filled the air with the sweet, smoky smell of frankincense.

  "What do you think of what we do here?" Al-Khayr said into the silence.

  Every eye in the room turned toward Ethan.

  "Death to the Americans," he said.

  "Death to the Americans," the sheik agreed. He paused, then added: "Usama here tells me you have a way to defeat their drones." He nodded toward the young man Ethan had met at the mosque the Friday before.

  "I know a way, yes," Ethan said warily. He had expected more pleasantries.

  "Please tell us how you came by this knowledge."

  Ethan had rehearsed his story several times. If he made a mistake, and the sheik didn't believe him, he was dead. "I studied electronics in Britain. I built quadcopters and fixed-wings as a hobbyist, and also during an internship at a commercial drone company in London. I know precisely how they work."

  "Commercial drones are far different than military drones," the sheik said.

  "Not so different. The concepts are the same."

  Al-Khayr switched to English. "You say you studied in Britain? Which school?" His accent was distinctly British.

  "Sheffield." Ethan answered in English, himself laying on the British accent thickly.

  "Ah. I know of this university. It is famous. Though this begs the question: How could the family of a Taiz tribesman afford the fee?"

  "There was an academic scholarship: The Science International. I applied. I won. Barmy, isn't it?" Ethan purposely used the British slang for crazy.

  The sheik stroked his beard. "Interesting." He switched back to Arabic. "I would love to dissect your entire academic background someday, but for now, tell me, how do we defeat the drones? The short, layman version, please."

  Ethan glanced at those young faces. Some were still suspicious, but most seemed eager. Of course they would be. American drones were the biggest threat to their existence.

  "It's all about GPS," Ethan said. "When you jam the communications frequency of the drone by introducing signal noise, you cut it off from its remote operations center, activating its 'return to home' feature, which relies on GPS satellites to automatically fly the drone back to its home point. Military drones use an encrypted GPS receiver, so you have to jam that too, forcing it to use the unencrypted civilian signals. Now here's where things gets interesting. GPS is spoofable. The signals from the satellites are weak, and can easily be outpunched by transmissions from a television tower, or even a laptop, MP3 player or phone with the right equipment. So when the drone switches over to the unencrypted band, you outpunch the satellites, perfectly replicating and aligning their signals, then you send false data: report the drone's true position to start with, and gradually walk it to the location you desire."

  "You can make these jammers and GPS spoofers for us?" Al-Khayr said.

  Ethan nodded. "With the proper equipment, yes."

  The sheik pursed his lips. He glanced at the owner of the house, who shrugged noncommittally.

  "Welcome to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," Al-Khayr said. Smiling widely, he clambered to his feet and embraced Ethan.

  It seemed too easy. Though outwardly the man appeared pleased, Ethan had a feeling the sheik didn't entirely buy his story.

  What Al-Khayr said after sitting down only confirmed Ethan's suspicion.

  "We are planning a martyrdom operation tomorrow in Tahrir Square, during the Houthi rally. I would like you to be involved."

  Ethan didn't know what to say. He had come to the man offering a way to defeat the US drones, and now he wanted Ethan to be a suicide bomber?

  Sensing his shock, the sheik grinned derisively. "You will drive the martyr to the square and remotely detonate his vest. You will escape unharmed. Think of it as a rite of passage."

  Ethan shifted uneasily.

  "You oppose this attack?" Al-Khayr said. The others were passing around a bowl of qat, and it reached the sheik in that moment. He grabbed a small branch, breaking off several leaves and stuffing them into his mouth, and then handed the bowl to Ethan.

  "Not at all." Ethan stared at the leaves uncertainly, well aware that everyone was watching him. A true Yemeni would never refuse qat.

  Not Qat. Anything but Qat.

  Hell with it. He separated a couple of leaves and shoved them between his lips.

  "The attack is good," Ethan said. It was difficult not to grimace as the leafy, tannin flavor permeated his tongue. "Many Houthi will die." Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula particularly hated the Houthi, who were Shia.

  "If you are not comfortable with martyrdom operations, and the death of civilians, you should not have come."

  "I'm comfortable," Ethan said, but he was distracted, and not because of the qat or any qualms he might ha
ve had about the attack.

  The red dot of a laser sight had appeared on the sheik's reclining chest.

  3

  "Sheik!" Ethan hurled himself forward, pummeling the man. He used his momentum to drag Al-Khayr to the floor.

  A glass window shattered behind Ethan, and one of the young men who had been seated beside the sheik collapsed. Blood oozed from a quarter-sized hole in the youth's temple. The back of his head had exploded, and loose brain matter splattered the floor in clumps.

  Ethan spat out the bolus of qat. "We have to get out of here!" He told the sheik.

  Al-Khayr was apparently no stranger to violence—he quickly recovered his wits and rose easily in Ethan's arms.

  Usama hurried forward to screen the sheik from the shattered window, while another youth did the same for the homeowner beside them. The remainder of the group mobilized, grabbing the weapons leaning against the wall and racing toward the front of the house, where the intermittent, firecracker-like sound of gunfire echoed from outside.

  Ethan scooped up an AK-47, as did Usama and the sheik. The three of them started toward the back hall, but Al-Khayr paused when he realized the homeowner wasn't coming.

  "Muhammad, what are you doing?" the sheik said.

  The plump man shook his head. "I will not be forced from my home. Nor will I allow an esteemed guest to be taken captive or killed. It is an insult beyond comprehension. Go. May Allah protect you."

  Al-Khayr nodded sadly. "May Allah protect you as well my friend."

  Usama led the way toward the back hall, followed by the sheik, while Ethan brought up the rear.

  The trio reached a kitchen. There was a door on the far side that apparently led outside. Wide windows flanked the walls.

  Usama advanced at a crouch. Ethan and the sheik followed, warily making their way across the room.

  The far door slammed open. Two men wearing helmets and combat fatigues burst inside. They carried ballistic shields; from the notch in the upper left of each shield protruded the barrel of a Heckler and Koch G36C assault rifle. They looked like Yemeni soldiers with their tanned faces and scraggy beards.