Dressed as a woman, coated in Dior perfume, more than four pounds of explosive strapped to his stomach, the assassin knelt on his rug and asked Allah for success.
TWO OFFICERS MONITORED THE metal detector outside the conference room. The assassin handed his purse to one and walked through the detector. It stayed quiet. The detonators and wires, which would have set it off, were in his purse.
The guard picked out the cell phone from the purse, a black leather satchel from Chanel. A very close observer might have noticed that the phone’s handset cord looked thicker than normal, or that the headset’s earbuds were oddly shaped. The guard didn’t. Nor did he see the two metal cylinders that looked like AA batteries at the bottom of the purse. He held up the phone. “Does this take photos?”
“Yes.” The assassin’s voice was light and breathy, not falsetto, as he’d practiced.
“Photos aren’t allowed.” The guard handed back the phone and purse. “And once the princess comes, you’ll have to turn it off. Go on.”
Inside the room, the assassin moved quickly. He’d come early. The room was barely one-quarter full. He chose a seat three rows from the podium, on the right. He’d scouted the conference room the day before, noted the door on the front-right side of the room. She would probably enter there.
No one else was in the row. The assassin sat down and unzipped his purse. He reached inside for the phone and the AA batteries, which in reality were RDX detonators. He kept his hands inside the purse. He uncoiled the cord wrapped around the phone and screwed the earbuds, which were actually electrically initiated blasting caps, into the detonators. He had drilled this move hundreds of times, with his eyes closed, in the dark, with his right hand and his left. Many nights he found himself dreaming the motions.
He armed the detonators in four seconds.
He lifted the detonators into his burqa. The awkwardness of the motion couldn’t be avoided, but no one noticed. He leaned forward in his chair and pulled his right arm up his sleeve to his chest. He slid the detonators though the holes in the dress and slotted them into the explosive plate. For a moment, he couldn’t find the second hole. He didn’t panic. He found it.
And he was done.
He pulled his arm out of the burqa. He’d finished the tricky part. The cord hung loosely down his right sleeve. When he was ready, he would plug it in. Pushing any button on the phone would fire the blasting caps, setting off the detonators and the explosive.
He sat up in his seat and waited for the princess.
“I BELIEVE WITH ALL my heart, as a woman and as a Muslim, that day will come in my lifetime.”
The assassin reached in his purse, plugged the cord into the cell phone.
On the podium, Princess Alia smiled. “Thank you, my sisters. Thank you.” The assassin turned on the phone. Around him, women applauded. Scattered cries of
He stood. “Princess.” She turned toward him. The crowd stirred. The officers on the podium looked at one another. The colonel, Alia’s bodyguard, who had watched the speech from the edge of the podium, stepped forward. They were all too late.
ABDULLAH AND MITEB SAT in wicker chairs in the sunroom of Abdullah’s villa in Cap d’Antibes. Beneath them were the homes of lesser royalty. Beneath those homes, the sea. A chessboard lay on the table between them.
Abdullah was playing white, but he had lost interest. Early on he had moved his knight diagonally, like a bishop, to see if his brother would stop him. Miteb hadn’t. Finally, Abdullah looked at Miteb and said, “Are we playing Arabian rules, my brother?”
“‘Arabian rules’?”
“Where the king does what he wants and no one stops him?”
“Aren’t those always the rules, Abdullah?”
The sun broke through the high white clouds. Under the room’s bulletproof glass, orchids and ferns rose to greet the rays. The heat baked the pain from Abdullah’s bones, and for a few seconds he imagined himself young.
“What did the American say?” Abdullah said. “Will he help us?”
“As if you don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“My brother. You made your point with the chess. Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Didn’t you meet him this morning?”
Miteb cleared his throat. “I met him yesterday, not this morning. And I told you about it yesterday.” Quietly, now: “You really don’t remember.”
Abdullah didn’t. Not a word. Yesterday had disappeared. Yesterday was today, and today was never.
“He’s suspicious, but I think he’ll help us.”
The conversation came to Abdullah in pieces, a book with half the pages torn out.
“He said… something about a credit card? And numbers on money?”
“That’s right. You remember.”
The pity in Miteb’s voice infuriated Abdullah. “What do you mean he’s suspicious? He dares judge me? He’s insolent. I don’t want him.”
“We need him.”
“Did he ask for money?”
“No.”
The answer surprised Abdullah. Everyone asked for money. Some asked slyly, some directly. But they all asked sooner or later. “He will.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain.”
“It would be best. ”
Abdullah trailed off. Miteb waited. Abdullah pushed back the hem of his
“Abdullah—”
“Tell me that this is better.”
A knock on the sunroom door stopped Miteb from answering. Hamoud, Abdullah’s servant, entered. “Your Highness—”
“Out. Now!”
“Sir.” Hamoud tried to hand the king a cell phone. Abdullah ignored him, and he gave it instead to Miteb, who listened silently. “You’re sure. In Jeddah. Yes. I’ll tell him.” Miteb’s face hollowed like an empty house. “We need to go back. It’s Alia.”
“What’s happened?”
Miteb told him. Twenty-three women were confirmed dead at the InterContinental. Including the princess.
Abdullah grabbed the phone, threw it down. It shattered on the tiles, and Hamoud hurried to collect the pieces. The king ignored him. The king looked through the glass and into the sun until his eyes burned and he couldn’t see anything at all.
“Saeed will burn for this.” A terrible new thought raged through his ravaged mind. “You wanted me to come here. To distract me. You’re part of it, too.”
