The Saudi Strategy Ethan Jones

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Westfield Sydney Shopping Center, Sydney, Australia

September 10, 11:40 a.m.

Justin Hall lifted his aviator shades for a better look at the crowd in front of him. Inside the first floor of the Westfield Sydney Shopping Center, the foot traffic was getting heavier with the approach of the lunch hour. It was mostly women and children and a few old men, lining up in front of the Oporto for their burger or chicken, at the Burger Edge across from his location, or entering Chellini's Café to his right for a more sophisticated meal. But no one fit the profile of the man Justin was supposed to meet and conclude the deal with.

He drew in a deep breath and cast a sweeping gaze first to his left and then to his right. He was positioned at the exact location the man had requested as their meeting place. With his back against the wall, Justin studied the entire ever-changing situation in front of him. He looked at the people on the escalators, drawing money from the ATM machines, or entering and exiting the washrooms to the right of the café.

A circle of cream-colored couches was a few feet away to Justin's left. Two moms and three toddlers occupied half of the couches, chatting and enjoying ice cream cones. On another couch, an old man wearing a brown overcoat and a matching cap was reading the paper. Justin had used his phone to take a picture of the man and had sent it to his partner in this operation, Megan Warner, who was covering the opposite side of the hall. She had forwarded the picture to her unit in the Tactical Assault Division of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, but it had registered no hits in their databases. As far as the ASIO was concerned, the man was clean.

The area was getting crowded, with too many people for Justin's liking, especially if things went sideways. He had suggested to the man to meet in a coffeehouse or a restaurant, where Justin could easily contain any crisis. His suggestion had spooked the man, who had almost cancelled the deal. Reluctantly, he had agreed, but only if the meeting went down according to his terms. Left without any options, Justin had agreed.

He resisted the impulse to check on the SIG P228 9mm pistol resting in the waistband holster, as he did not want to draw unnecessary attention to it or to himself. Justin had seen two security guards patrolling the area about five minutes ago. They were very attentive and did a double take as they walked past him, but did not approach to ask questions.

He sighed and glanced at his wristwatch. The man had insisted they meet at half past eleven. He was ten minutes late. Justin and Megan and the other two members of her team had arrived at the mall at a quarter after eleven. No one matching the man's description had passed by the others' positions on the second floor, right over Justin's and Megan's locations.

A frown creased Justin's forehead as he considered the scenario if the man did not show up to their meeting. Justin would have to start from scratch. The man was using a prepaid cellphone and had used a fake ID to purchase and activate his mobile. But Justin was confident the man would show up. The promise of easy money lured even the most suspicious men. And one hundred thousand dollars for stolen and smuggled Aramaic scrolls and coins was an excellent payday.

Justin swung his briefcase filled with cash from one hand to the other and shifted his body weight from his left foot to his right. Then he thought about how he had gotten to this place, so close to nabbing two of the Saudi Arabian militants suspected of supporting the terrorist attack against Canada the previous month. It had all started with a tweet from a jihadi account, which one of the CIS cyber analysts had tracked and forwarded to James McClain, Justin's chief. The tweet praised the looting of a cache of priceless ancient artifacts from a museum in Mosul, Iraq. Other CIS analysts were able to link the Twitter account to Facebook pages, where middlemen were touting ancient relics, ranging from statues to scrolls. The relics had been plundered from Syria and Iraq after ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, took control of large areas in both countries. Some estimates put the number of looted treasures from Syria's and Iraq's museums and heritage sites in Hatra, Mosul, Khorsabad, and Nimrud at over three thousand artifacts, with some as old as four thousand years.