The Secret Soldier

IN THE MORNING, THE coffee was strong and black, and the landing was smooth. The jet banked low over the Mediterranean before swinging into the airport at Nice, offering a priceless view of the waves crashing into the Cote d’Azur. Priceless, indeed. In 2008, a villa near here had sold for five hundred million euros, close to one billion dollars. Wells had entered a land of wealth beyond comprehension. He wondered again who had summoned him, and why. As he left the plane, Captain Smith gave him a perfectly correct smile, neither too large nor too small, neither familiar nor dismissive. “Beats coach,” Wells said.

“My pleasure,” the captain said. Wells supposed that the crew never broke character, never acknowledged that they and the passengers they served were members of the same species.

Outside, a breeze whipped off the Mediterranean. A French immigration agent stood on the runway beside a white Renault minivan. Beside him, a second man wore a blue sport coat that flapped open to reveal a shoulder holster. Neither looked happy to see Wells. Their hostility was a relief after the paid-for, painted-on smiles of the plane’s crew.

The agent waved Wells into the Renault, and they sped to the main terminal building. In a windowless office, the agent scanned Wells’s passport. “Are you carrying any weapons, Mr. Wells?” That question again. Wells shook his head. “Raise your arms,” the man in the blue sport coat said. Wells did and was rewarded with a thorough pat- down before the agent handed him back his passport. “Welcome to France, then. Jean will show you to your car.”

Jean, the man in the sport coat, led Wells in silence through the airport’s back halls, windowless corridors lined with banged-up baggage carts. Two men in brown uniforms smoked under a poster that warned, “Defense de fumer.” They reached a door with a simple pushbutton combination lock. Jean keyed in the code, pulled it open, waved Wells through. They were near the front entrance of the arrivals level. A black BMW 760 waited at the curb, two men inside. Wells admired the precision of the handoff. Even if he had known he was being taken to Nice, even if he had somehow arranged for a weapon at the airport, he couldn’t have picked it up. He hadn’t been alone since Kennedy. And whoever was on the other side had plenty of juice with the French government.

Wells slipped into the rear seat of the 760, leaned against the cushioned leather. No point in asking. He’d have answers soon enough.

THEY DROVE ALONG THE A8, the highway called La Provencale, which tracked the coast to the Italian border. The BMW’s driver sliced through the heavy morning traffic as if he were playing a video game in which the only penalty for an accident was the loss of a turn. Wells loved to speed, but this man was at a different level. “You ever race F1?” he said. He didn’t expect an answer.

“He never made F1,” the man in the front passenger seat said. “Only F2.”

“Where are we going?”

No answer. Wells tried to turn on his phone but found the battery had been drained. Nice touch. West of Nice, the sedan swung onto the coast road, two narrow lanes that rose and fell along the hills. They turned back toward Nice. The precautions seemed pointless to Wells. He had no phone, no gun, not even a change of clothes. The tactician in him admired the way these men had cut him off from any possible support.

Outside Nice, they turned back onto the A8, running east this time, and fast, the driver’s hands high and relaxed on the wheel. Another racing clinic. Wells would have liked to ask for tips. On an overpass ten miles east of Nice, the sedan pulled over.

“Get out.”

Wells didn’t argue, just stepped out and watched the BMW pull away. He didn’t bother getting the plate number. The last twelve hours had left him sick of tradecraft. He wouldn’t have long to wait, he guessed. After going to so much trouble to make sure he was sterile, they’d be foolish to leave him alone for long.

Sure enough, a stretch Mercedes Maybach pulled up almost before he finished the thought. Black? Check. Tinted windows? Check. Runflat tires and armored doors? Check and double-check. Wells raised a thumb, leaned toward the window. “Anywhere east, I’ll take it. I can chip in for gas. Cool?”

The door swung open.

THE MAN IN THE backseat had a heavy square face and wore a white ghutra low on his forehead. A neatly trimmed goatee covered his jutting chin like black-dyed moss. From a distance, he might have passed for sixty-five. Up close, his face betrayed his age. His skin was as creased as month-old newspaper. Under his thick black glasses his eyes were rheumy and yellow. Wells didn’t recognize him.

Then he did. Abdullah, the king of Saudi Arabia. The richest man in the world. Everything made sense. The overwhelming security. The one-million-dollar fee. The ridiculous opulence of the plane. Everything except the question of why he was here.

“Salaam aleikum,” the man in the front passenger seat said. He turned to face Wells. He was almost as old as Abdullah, with swollen cheeks and a quiet, wheezy voice. Wells guessed he had heart trouble.

“Aleikum salaam.”

“You are John Wells.”

“Nam.”

“I am Miteb bin Abdul-Aziz. This is my brother, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”—the official title of the Saudi kings.

“Prince Miteb. King Abdullah. I’m honored to meet you.”

“Please excuse our precautions. They’re for our protection, and yours, too.” Miteb’s Arabic was the most perfect that Wells had ever heard, a smooth stream. Wells’s own Arabic was rough and visceral.

“I understand.” Though Wells didn’t. The king’s security team should have been Saudi, not European. And this meeting should have happened at the Saudi embassy in Paris, or in Riyadh. Did the king mistrust his own security detail?

“You speak Arabic,” Abdullah said, his first words to Wells. He looked Wells over, a cool appraisal, then broke off, coughed into his hand, a wet, soft murmur. He wiped his mouth with a white handkerchief embroidered with gold thread. When Abdullah put the kerchief away, Wells thought he saw flecks of blood on the fabric. Wells wondered how long Abdullah had left.

“Yes. But I’m American.”

“And a spy.”

“A retired spy.”

“Do spies ever retire?”

“Do kings?”

“My brother Saud, he retired. Because he was weak. From whiskey. It fogged his eyes and his mind. Made him too weak to rule. And too weak to fight when we told him he wasn’t our king anymore. That we could no longer trust him with our fate.” The king looked at the front seat, as if waiting for his brother to explain further. But Miteb stayed silent, and Abdullah returned his focus to Wells.

“The fate of the king is the fate of the people. You don’t understand this. No American can. We told Saud to leave our land. Go wherever he wanted. Here. Switzerland. We sent him into exile, and he accepted our decision like a child. Oh, he whined, but he never once raised a hand to save himself. He knew he was weak. Do I look weak to you? Answer me, Ameriki.”

“If you weren’t weak, I wouldn’t be here.”

“You don’t lie? Not even to a king?”

“Especially not to a king.”

The Maybach turned up a narrow road hemmed by walled villas on both sides. Abdullah closed his eyes. He seemed too old for this, whatever this was. “Some of my family is against me,” he said, his eyes still closed, his voice low. “I look into their hearts. They have turned.” He coughed. His voice vibrated. “They’re feckless. Spoiled. All of us are to blame. We drown in our own luxuries. We thought that it was Allah who left us the oil, but I know better now—”

“Abdullah—” Miteb said.

“Hush, brother. My nephews, they’ll agree to anything the clerics say to keep their power.” Abdullah opened his eyes, waved at the hills around them. “All Gaul is divided into three parts—”