directly at his master only a handful of times. “Anything else, Your Highness?”
“No. Go on.” Hamoud left. “Was your flight smooth?” Mansour had flown in this morning from Riyadh, the capital, five hundred miles east.
“Yes, Your Highness,
“Good. Tell me you’ve found these devils.”
Mansour shook his head.
“Tell me you’ve found them, Mansour.”
“We will find them. In the meantime, may I report what we have discovered so far?” He didn’t wait for an answer but pushed ahead. “We’ve discovered the identities of eight of the bombers. I regret to tell you that they are all Saudi. The four who attacked the drinking establishment in Bahrain, they were from the Najd”—the high Saudi desert in the center of the Arabian Peninsula. “They disappeared a few months ago. We’re speaking with their fathers to determine where they might have trained. So far, all the fathers insist that they had no idea what the boys were planning. The local clerics say the same. It’s disappointing that they aren’t being more honest. If we must, we’ll bring them in for interviews in Riyadh”—a reference to the
“And the other four?”
“All from Taif”—a town in western Saudi Arabia, not far from Jeddah. “The same situation. None on our watch lists.”
“You have found nothing.”
“Whoever’s training these men is canny. These attacks were months in the making. Years. It will take time to unravel this.”
“Why do you waste my time if you have found nothing?”
“You asked me to come here from Riyadh, Your Highness.” A hint of ice crept into Mansour’s voice. “I assure you that all of us are frustrated. We won’t let these criminals attack your name. You are the state, Abdullah. We live and die with you—”
“Spare me this recital.” Abdullah was fully awake now, his anger quickening him. “If you live and die with me, you won’t live much longer—”
“Then let me say. We all want these terrorists caught.”
“I wish I were certain of that.”
“What are you implying, Abdullah?”
“I am your king, Mansour.” Abdullah knew he needed to control himself, hide his anger and distrust from his nephew. But he couldn’t. His weakness rubbed him raw. He upended the silver coffeepot, sent a gusher of black liquid onto the antique Persian rug that stretched across the study. “Never again shall you take that tone with me.”
Mansour looked sidelong at Miteb and shook his head. Abdullah pushed on, compounding his mistake.
“I am your king. Say it.”
“You are my king.”
“Go back to Riyadh, then, and find these men. Whoever they are. Foreign or Saudi. We will cut off their heads and let the world know that we don’t stand for this. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
MITEB LEFT WITH MANSOUR but promised to return in a few minutes. In the meantime, Abdullah’s steward cleared away the coffeepot and wiped up the stain. Abdullah ignored him until he finished.
“Shall I bring another pot, Your Highness?”
“No.”
“Something else?”
“Leave me, Hamoud. Now.” Hamoud left. Abdullah sat alone in his study. He wanted to call Saeed, Mansour’s father, and scream at him about his son. But he knew losing his temper again would further weaken his position. He would have to go back to Riyadh. He couldn’t stay here. He needed to talk to the other senior princes. The conversations would be unpleasant. They’d burn a hole in his stomach. He shouldn’t need to beg for support.
But in his heart he knew he’d brought this disaster on himself.
The door opened. Miteb returned. “You mustn’t do that, Abdullah,” he said without preamble.
“These jihadis, they call us apostates, brother. The world is upside down when these men say they speak for our religion. They won’t frighten me. Not in this world or the next. They think the Prophet, peace be upon Him, wants them to attack their own people? I’ll pluck out their eyes and pour salt down their throats—”
“My brother. Everything you say, it’s true. But we have something else to talk about.”
“Don’t bother me with this.”
“These matters can’t wait anymore.”
“
“Abdullah. Listen now. Yes, you to me. You can’t treat your nephew this way. He was furious. He told me, ‘I am forty-eight years old. I have my own sons and grandsons, and that man insults me like a child. No more, Miteb.’ He wouldn’t even use your name, Abdullah. ‘That man’ was all he’d say. And do you know that I was actually glad to hear his anger? Because if he’s still willing to complain, it means that he may still be loyal. If he held his tongue to me, it would mean he’d given up on you and was nursing his anger in private.”
“You think Mansour is loyal? You’re a fool. It’s exactly the opposite. He speaks that way only because he knows that if he didn’t complain, you’d suspect him.”
“If you don’t think he’s loyal, why do you bring him here?”
“I bring him here because he expects it of me. Just as I know he’ll lie to me.”
“And I suppose losing your temper is part of your act, too. Come on, my brother. I saw your face when he told you that they hadn’t found anything. It wasn’t an act.”
“Let Mansour complain. Mansour is nothing.”
“Mansour is something. And Saeed is more than something.”
“I treat Mansour like a child because he is a child. He thinks I don’t see that he’s mocking me. I should have rid myself of him years ago.”
Miteb reached out and squeezed the king’s hand. “Abdullah — you can no more rid yourself of Mansour than of these walls.”
“They wait for me to die. My brothers and my nephews. So be it. When Allah calls me, put my corpse on the pyre and light the flames and let my ashes join the desert. It makes no difference. Mansour, Saeed, they can say whatever they like. Khalid”—Abdullah’s eldest son—“will be king.”
“He is your son, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be king.”
“He will be king.”
“Say it as many times as you like, but words alone won’t make it so. You’ve stirred the scorpions with this. You know our brothers don’t agree. They say the system has worked and why change it?”
THE FULL NAME OF the first Saudi king was Abdul-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Faisal al-Saud. Abdul-Aziz, son of Abd, son of Rahman, son of Faisal, son of Saud. In its length, the name highlighted the importance that Arabs placed on their lineage. Abdul-Aziz had died in 1953, twenty-one years after uniting the Arabian peninsula. He had named the new nation after his own family: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Today, Saudi Arabia was the only nation still named after a single family. Its Basic Law decreed that “the rulers of the country shall be from among the sons of the founder, King Abdul-Aziz… and their descendants.” For almost sixty years, Abdul-Aziz’s own sons had been the only rulers the Kingdom had known. Under the system, which had been formalized after Abdul-Aziz’s death, the crown passed from half-brother to half-brother, usually following birth order. Because Abdul-Aziz had sired at least forty-three boys by more than a dozen wives between 1900 and 1947, the Kingdom had no shortage of potential rulers. As head of the Defense Ministry, Saeed was generally considered the most likely candidate to succeed Abdullah.
But a year before, Abdullah had secretly told his brothers that after his death, he expected his own son Khalid to be named the next king. So far, the brothers had resisted that demand. For now, Abdullah’s successor
