The Libya Connection Read Online Free PDF

be careful. And cautious.
    This was a treacherous game he played. Especially now.
    Shahkhia fully understood that success, at this point, rested solely on his maintaining a confident facade to all involved in the unfolding drama.
    The rider spurred his mount into a sideways canter along the face of the sloping dune.
    Shahkhia wondered why the Russian had contacted him for a meeting. This was not a time that Colonal Shahkhia wished to be seen making contact with anyone who might cast the slightest hint of suspicion on him, most notably the Russians. Most notably on this day of days.
    Nothing would stop Colonel Shahkhia from keeping his rendezvous this evening with Leonard Jericho.
    Nothing!
    Shahkhia realized once again exactly how dangerous was this game he played with Pornov, the KGB agent from Moscow.
    Be very cautious, the rider reminded himself again as Pornov's tent grew closer. Do not make the same mistakes in dealing with these people who are about to bring down Moammar.
    Brother Colonel Khaddafi was one year older than Ahmad Shahkhia's own thirty-seven years. They were of the same tribe, and it seemed to Shahkhia that he had always been forced, by circumstance, to live in Moammar's shadow.
    Shahkhia had been aware of this from their very earliest days together. And he had
always
resented it. And always waited for the day when he, Ahmad Shahkhia, could step from the Khadaffi shadow and claim the ruling power of Libya as his own. It was his destiny, he would tell himself. His fate. He deserved no less. And now... yes, now the time had come. Shahkhia's visions of a lifetime were about to become reality.
    Ahmad Shahkhia knew that he would not make the same mistakes as Khaddafi.
    While in Moammar's shadow, Ahmad had observed and studied very closely, and he felt that he had learned his lessons well.
    He had even been with Khaddafi when the two men attended Britain's Sandhurst military college together, the only time in his life when Ahmad had ever been away from his beloved desert. The young men had walked about London in their traditional Bedouin robes, causing all manner of sensation at a time when such an act was considered an Arab defiance of the West. And, indeed, it was
exactly
that!
    Ahmad Shahkhia and Moammar Khaddafi had been lowly captains together in the Libyan army when Khaddafi commanded his efficient bloodless military coup against Libya's Western-backed monarch, King Idris, while the eighty-year-old monarch was out of the country in 1969.
    The country belonged to Moammar then.
    Khaddafi became, now and forever, Brother Colonel, the all powerful leader of his people; the invincible agent of Allah's will on earth.
    And jealousy ate at Ahmad's guts like a spreading cancer.
    Precious oil beneath the Sahara sand became the key to a power far greater than anything imagined by either Shahkhia or Khaddafi.
    The Soviet Union needed oil for survival as much as the West did. And Moscow was willing to offer far more than the petrodollars of the capitalists.
    Russia rapidly became Libya's principal arms supplier.
    Oil deals with the USSR had allowed Khaddafi's military to acquire more than $10 billion worth of highly sophisticated Soviet weaponry.
    But always, with the weapons... came conditions.
    Khaddafi — and Shahkhia — knew that Libya was expected by the Kremlin to supply the fist behind Soviet expansion in Africa.
    Still, such a role could only lead to more power.
    Khaddafi was happy to oblige.
    Colonel Ahmad Shahkhia shared in the power. But always — always! — awaiting his chance to step out from Khaddafi's shadow.
    Ahmad was careful to mask his ambition. He bided his time.
    Two months ago, his waiting paid off.
    He had been discreetly approached by General Pornov, of the Russian Embassy in Tripoli.
    For some time now, it was explained by General Pornov, Brother Colonel Khaddafi had become increasingly too "ambitious." For ambitious, read crazy.
    Pornov had not elaborated, but implied that the Kremlin was