"William W Johnstone - Ashes 33 - Enemy in the Ashes (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Johnstone William W)

holster under his coat, and motioned for him to join Claire on the bed.
Once Herb was sitting next to her, Atwa sat on a chair across the room
and leaned back, crossing his legs with the pistol resting on his knee,
the barrel pointed at them.

"I represent an organization called Al Qa'eda, based in Afghanistan."

"Al-Qa'eda?" Claire asked, her brow furrowed. "I thought we got rid of
them back in the early part of the century."

Atwa smiled again, though without the slightest bit of

11

11

humor in his eyes. "Yes, that is what you thought. You did manage to
kill our leader, Osama bin Laden, but we had others ready to take his
place."

"And what proposition does Al Qa'eda have for the United States?" Claire
asked.

"A friend of our organization, Abdullah El Farrar, has come to us with a
plan to bring the world to its knees."

"El Farrar?" Herb asked. "Wasn't he the crazy bastard who led the
terrorist attack against us this year?"

Atwa shrugged. "A misguided effort, as it turned out. He had neither the
troops nor the materiel to complete his mission, though I think he would
have succeeded had it not been for Ben Raines and the SUSA's intervention."

"I doubt it," Claire said. "We would have beaten him even without Raines
and his troops. It would just have taken a little longer."

Atwa smiled again, showing he didn't believe her. "At any rate, the SUSA
and the UN. have frozen all of El Farrar's family's assets, and he is
angry. He has come up with a very intriguing scheme to make them pay for
what they did to him."

"Yeah? And just what does he have in mind?" Claire asked.

"To take control of the world's oil supply," Atwa answered simply.

"Oh, is that all?" Herb asked scornfully.
"Let me explain," Atwa said, moving the pistol so it no longer pointed
at them. "As you know, almost all of the working oil fields are in Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait since your country destroyed most of the others in
Iran and Iraq during your hunt for Osama bin Laden years ago."