“I could roll up these men tomorrow. And no one can connect them to me.”
“The funding—”
“Goes through a dozen different places. It’s airtight. I hid it from you, didn’t I?”
“And how do you propose to use these men?”
Then Mansour had sketched his plan, the step-by-step process of provoking Abdullah, of ratcheting up the Kingdom’s instability until Abdullah would have no choice but to overreact.
Five years before, or even one, Saeed would have stopped his son.
NOW THE ATTACKS HAD begun.
On at least one level, they had succeeded. Abdullah was furious. At Princess Alia’s funeral, he hardly spoke. He sat beside Saeed, fists clenched, his legs twitching under his robe. Saeed didn’t believe Abdullah would be able to control himself much longer. Already, he’d nearly accused Mansour of treason. And when he exploded to the other princes, his accusations would rebound against him. Without evidence, he would sound insane. The family would have to rally around Saeed.
And yet. Saeed wished he hadn’t chosen this path. Mainly because of Mansour. When he’d agreed to rely on his son, the balance between them had shifted. The irony was not lost on him. In his quest for absolute control, he’d given power to his son. And overconfidence was Mansour’s great weakness. He was nearly fifty but had a young man’s arrogance. He had grown up in a world of supreme luxury and privilege, protected by Saeed’s power. He didn’t realize that even perfect plans could come apart.
A thought that reminded Saeed of another potential complication.
“What about the American? Wells?”
“We’ve lost him for now. Abdullah and Miteb can’t possibly have told him anything. And he doesn’t even work for the CIA anymore.”
Saeed knew about John Wells. Years before, Wells had stopped a nuclear bomb from going off in America. The incident was never publicly disclosed, but Saeed had heard of it because a jihadist Saudi princeling had financed the operation. Afterward, the CIA had given the Saudis proof of the prince’s involvement. To quiet the Americans, Mansour’s men had killed him in a staged car accident. But it was Wells who had found the bomb and killed the men who’d built it. Wells spoke Arabic, and he’d fought in Afghanistan. Saeed didn’t want him within one thousand kilometers of this operation.
“You need to find him,” Saeed said now.
“All right, father. We will.”
FIVE MILES SOUTH, AHMAD Bakr sat against the wall of a mosque that was really nothing more than a one-room box with suras stenciled on the walls. Midday prayers had just ended.
Day by day, he was closing his camp in Lebanon and bringing his men to Saudi Arabia. Some flew from Beirut. Others drove overland through Syria and Jordan. In a few days, he’d have everything he needed for the third operation. This time he didn’t expect any congratulations from the general. No, this operation would come as a surprise to Ibrahim — and whoever was behind him.
Bakr’s phone buzzed. A blocked number.
He stepped onto a crowded street that stank of baked sewage and week-old meat. The buildings around him were only a few years old and already crumbling, rusty rebar poking from their concrete. This was Suwaidi, a gigantic slum in southern Riyadh, home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants and unlucky Saudis. The Riyadh police rarely ventured into Suwaidi, never at night.
Bakr flipped open his phone. “One hour. The gold souk.”
The gold souk sounded glamorous. It wasn’t. Wealthy Saudis shopped for jewelry in Dubai or London. The souk was a run-down warren of shops selling gold-plated necklaces and silver earrings. Bakr arrived early and wandered the stalls, making sure no one had followed him. The sergeant showed up five minutes late. He wore a plain white
“Show me,” Bakr said.
The sergeant passed over a palm-sized digital camera. He worked on the north entry gate at the Diplomatic Quarter. “These are from today.”
“No one saw you take them?”
The sergeant shook his head.
“Tell me again how it works.”
“We get a call ten minutes before. Maybe fifteen. Telling us to be ready for a special convoy.”
“Always the same gate?”
“Not always. But mostly they prefer my gate. There’s less traffic. Then they give us another call a minute in advance. They’re so arrogant. Like it’s our only job. We clear the cars, make sure they have a path, and they come through. Fast. They’re very concerned about getting hit on the way out.”
“Then?”
“Police cars wait outside, and the convoy picks them up and then they go.”
“And how can you be sure it’s him?”
“If he’s involved, it’s five vehicles at least. Big ones, thick armor. Today it was a van at the front and the back and three Suburbans. You’ll see in the pictures. And like you told me, I made sure I was on the gate when they came through. And I saw him. You can’t see it in the pictures, not through the glass. But I did.”
Bakr waited, but the sergeant didn’t give him the last, vital piece of information. So, finally, he asked: “Which car?” Mentally adding,
“Sorry. Second vehicle. The first Suburban. Middle row, left side.”
“You’re sure.”
“A thousand percent.”
CHAPTER 13
THE BEKAA WAS REALLY TWO VALLEYS.
The southern half, nearer Beirut, was densely populated and fertile. A half-dozen rivers supported farms and light industry. On day trips, tourists visited vineyards and the ruins at Baalbek. In Zahle, which had eighty thousand people and was the largest town in the valley, Muslims and Christians lived together, their churches and mosques practically side by side.
North of Baalbek, the valley looked different. Water was scarce and precious. The people were entirely Shia, and mostly poor. The twin mountain ranges, the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, pulled away from each other. The land between grew dry and wild. Herds of sheep wandered across rocky hummocks. Roads turned to gravel without warning.
In the north, Wells felt very much at home.
HIS RIDE FROM CYPRUS had gone smoothly. Wells sat on the deck as Nicholas and his men smoked in the cabin and argued in Greek. At one a.m. Wells called Gaffan on Nicholas’s satellite phone, confirming that Gaffan had arrived and passing along the GPS coordinates for the landing.
Two hours later, five miles off the Lebanese coast, Nicholas cut the cruiser’s lights. “You’re captain the rest of the way.” Nicholas nodded at the rubber raft tied loosely to the deck.
The raft was six feet long, five feet wide, with a rusted outboard engine at its back. It was made of black rubber, with a yellow patch sewn onto its right tube. Someone had drawn a smiley face on the patch. The smiley face failed to reassure. Wells felt a flutter in his stomach. He wasn’t a great swimmer. He hadn’t had much chance
