However, this was only part of a larger plan orchestrated by a consortium of oil industrialists (including Max, Alexander Trepkos, and Peter Kingsley), who had their mole in the black ops unit kill all the members of the team, thus ensuring the detonation of the bomb. The conspirators also forged evidence that implicated three Middle Eastern countries (including Afghanistan) in the attack. This would prompt a US military retaliation, which in turn would quadruple the value of the consortium's oil holdings in the Caspian Sea.