“Like the strong man,” said Tariq, still wondering who “they” were. “A bomb. And you have it?”
Abdul nodded. “It is hidden. We are waiting for the right moment.”
“Samson,” said Tariq. Was this just a rant? Some unhinged revenge fantasy? It was the faraway look of steadfast determination that convinced Tariq that his new friend, Abdul, was telling the truth. He did have something. But what?
“Tell me more,” said Tariq.
Abdul blinked and shuddered as if coming to his senses. He placed his hand on Tariq’s arm and fixed him with a stare. “You can be trusted?”
“I am an Al-Sabah,” said Tariq.
After a moment’s contemplation, Abdul drew him aside. Over several cups of Turkish coffee—and yes, to be honest, some Turkish raki as well—he told him the story of how an Israeli nuclear weapon had been captured about ten years earlier. An ISIS militia had overrun a team of Israeli soldiers sent to remove a secret arsenal of battlefield nuclear weapons on the Golan Heights. The weapon—they learned from sources later that it was called “Samson”—was taken to a rebel base in Aleppo, but no one there knew exactly what they had gotten their hands on. The device was too sophisticated, far beyond their ken. Frankly, it scared them. As usual, ISIS needed money. A decision was made to sell it.
Here, TNT interrupted Abdul. “You say it is a ‘battlefield nuclear weapon.’ What does that mean?”
“One kiloton, so we believe,” said Abdul. “Very small. Three inches wide. Seventeen inches long.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Tariq. “How can it be?”
Abdul said that he, too, was surprised to learn a weapon such as this—a nuke—could be so small. “The problem is not the fissile material, the uranium or plutonium, my friend. It is the explosives needed to detonate the material. In 1945, the first bomb was the size of a car. By 1955—when the first battlefield nukes were manufactured—it could fit into a backpack. By 1970, it could fit in a suitcase. Always smaller. That was fifty years ago. A half century. Think of all the advancements since. Between you and me, I would not be surprised if today a bomb can be made the size of a deck of playing cards.”
The device had traveled to Damascus, Abdul continued, where it was shown to members of the Syrian Ministry of Defense. A nephew of al-Assad, an engineer—everyone was a doctor in that family—paid $100,000 for it. And there in Damascus Samson stayed for years. The Syrians knew exactly what they had, but they couldn’t do anything with it either. They had no nuclear program. The engineer summoned a team of Pakistani nuclear physicists, formerly part of AQ Khan’s team. It was they who discovered that the device required two six-digit codes to be detonated. The first deactivated the safety. The second detonated the device. However, neither they nor anyone in the Syrian government possessed the technology or know-how to solve the problem. They were friendly with only one country that did: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But Iran didn’t want Samson either. The only nukes it was interested in measured in the hundreds of kilotons or more. Samson was a toy. One kiloton. A tactical nuke. It could make a big hole in the ground and foul up the air for a few months, but that was all. It was more trouble than it was worth.
Years went by. Rumors about Samson’s existence circulated.
Until Hamas decided it wanted it ... even if it could not be detonated. Hamas viewed it as an investment—something to be bargained with, sold, or God willing, used in the future. Ironically, it purchased it with money given by the Israeli government for the day-to-day management of Gaza. One hundred million dollars gone from thebudget. But that was Hamas all over again. Money earmarked for the betterment of its people—for schools, for hospitals, for infrastructure, for food—was put to other use. War. Conflict. Confrontation. For without the prospect of one day bringing Allah’s will to fruition and causing the removal of the Jewish people from land promised them—the Palestinians—by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be unto him, who were they?
Personally, TNT was agnostic on the question of Israeli statehood. He was a realist. The chances of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or anywhere else pushing Israel into the sea were nil. Less than nil, really, as it was the Palestinians themselves who were threatened with annihilation and seemed to be doing everything within their means to bring it upon themselves. TNT wasn’t against Israel so much as for Qatar, and for TNT. He was a mercenary fighting for the worthiest cause he knew: the greater good and elevation of Tariq bin Nayan bin Tariq al-Sabah.
And so it was that there, on the veranda of the restaurant Nobu, listening to the sea lap against the shore wall, while digesting a feast of the finest fresh fish known to man, he proposed to purchase Samson.
The price, said Abdul, was $500 million.
Tariq said yes.
It was not a rash decision. He did not buy it on a whim like he might buy a sports car or a jet or a motor yacht. The family might be worth $500 billion, but Tariq couldn’t just write a check for a half a billion without an explanation. He knew better than to tell his father, or any of the financial masterminds who oversaw the fortune, why he needed the money. Instead, he couched the request as a plea for their Arab brothers. Hamas needed $500 million. The money was to be a down payment on rebuilding its subterranean tunnel system, the vaunted “Gaza underground,” and thus the first step back on the road to defeating Israel. Did not Qatar want the same thing?
That was eight months ago.
Keeping an eye on the mechanics, Tariq consulted his contact list and placed a call.
“You have it?” asked an accented Israeli voice.
“In my hands,” said TNT. “Do you have the codes?”
“In my head,” said Yehudi Rosenfeld.
“I hope your memory is good.”
“Impeccable,” said Rosenfeld.
“Have they set a time?” asked TNT.
“Tomorrow. Ten a.m.,” said Rosenfeld. “I’ll give you the codes as soon as Samson is in place.”
“It would be better to have them before,” said Tariq.
