The Secret Soldier

Forty kilometers north of Riyadh he turned off the highway, headed west, and reached a wadi between dried, crumbling hills. A small aquifer ran beneath the land here. Recently, wealthy Riyadhis had bought plots in this valley and become gentleman farmers, installing wells to feed plots of cucumbers and oranges that loved the winter and hated the summer. Before Riyadh’s bourgeois had found it, the valley had been home to a brick factory, now abandoned.

Bakr and his men left the Tahoes in the factory’s garage and moved the ambassador to the trunk of a white Mercedes sedan. Then they drove southwest to an abandoned date farm in a wadi deep in the Saudi desert and waited for nightfall. Now Bakr was about to make his final move. The transfer was risky, and arguably unnecessary. But the police would never expect it. And Bakr believed with all his heart that Allah wouldn’t let him fail in this mission. “Come on,” he said to the pilot. “It’s time.”

Together they carried the ambassador’s limp body to the helicopter.

AT FIRST KURLAND WASN’T sure he was awake at all. He opened his eyes, but the world around him didn’t change. He couldn’t find a hint of light. Then the day came back to him, scene by scene, as though he was watching a slideshow in his mind. The meeting with Abdullah. The ambush. The car bombs. The men grabbing him. Maybe he was having a nightmare. Once or twice he’d dreamed of attacks on the embassy.

“Wake up,” he whispered.

But he was awake, he knew. He felt the chair under him and the bite of the cuffs on his wrists. His mouth was dry and clotted from the sedative they’d given him. He thought he’d been unconscious for at least twelve hours, probably longer. His body ached, as though he’d been handled and moved roughly and repeatedly.

He tilted his head left and right, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The walls were several feet away. The air was cool, not too stuffy, and he heard the faint hum of ventilation. Despite its darkness, this was a cell, not a tomb.

Time went by, he wasn’t sure how much. The darkness terrified him, the darkness and the anticipation. His heart thumped wildly, and he warned himself to relax. He concentrated on controlling his breathing and pulse. Pretty ironic if I die before they can kill me. Though it might be for the best.

He heard the grind of metal on metal. A hatch above slid back. An overhead bulb flicked on, and Kurland saw the cell around him, maybe fifteen feet square and nearly as deep. It had a concrete floor and walls, and in place of a ceiling were big metal plates, one with a hatch cut into it. He was chained to a chair near the back. In place of a ladder, simple steel rungs had been mounted on the front wall.

A man climbed down, a bag over his shoulder, his face unhooded. He was Saudi, early thirties, short, with brown eyes and the thick legs of a baseball player.

Kurland remembered a lesson from the cursory survival training that State provided its ambassadors, cursory because no one believed an ambassador could be kidnapped. Don’t panic if your captors are hooded. Hoods may mean they don’t want you to see their faces because they plan to free you and don’t want you to recognize them later. Until now, Kurland hadn’t understood the corollary of that proposition: If they’re not wearing hoods, they don’t care if you see their faces. Because they’re not planning to free you.

Kurland thought back to the hour of advice he’d gotten in that conference room in Foggy Bottom: Build a rapport. Establish your common humanity. Don’t panic. Don’t make threats. Don’t push them for personally identifying details. Answer whatever questions they have. Don’t lie. Try not to give up classified information, but don’t worry if you do. Look for clues to where you are. Consider possible escape routes. The tips struck him as worse than useless. His captors, whoever they were, had destroyed a convoy of marines to get him. They were going to do what they liked.

But he was going to follow one rule, no matter what: Don’t beg. Begging was counterproductive, the survival expert said. It widened the gap between captive and captor by reminding the captor of his power. Kurland promised himself that even if he had an ironclad guarantee that begging would save his life, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t give these murderers the pleasure.

Easy enough to say now.

The Saudi brought out a camera and a tripod. Seeing the camera loosened Kurland’s bowels. Nothing good would happen on camera. The man set up the camera, taking his time, and then reached again into his bag—

And pulled out bottles of Coca-Cola and water, and two pieces of pita bread. Despite his fear, Kurland felt a tremor of anticipation. He hadn’t realized until now that he was famished. The man uncuffed Kurland’s hands and gave him the water bottle. He left the Coke and the food against the wall behind him. Kurland wondered if the water might be spiked with something but couldn’t keep himself from drinking.

He had never tasted anything so good. He sipped slowly, trying to savor each mouthful. He wasn’t sure whether to drink it all at once or save some, but the question answered itself. Before he could stop himself, he’d finished. He carefully put the empty bottle down next to his chair. “Thank you.”

To Kurland’s surprise, the man responded. His voice was soft, his accent vaguely English. “You’re welcome.”

“What’s your name?”

“Don’t be silly.”

Kurland could have asked any number of questions: Where am I? How long have I been here? And, of course, What do you plan to do with me? But the cool way the man had said “Don’t be silly” stopped him. He felt as if his captor had warned him with those three words that the ground rules were obvious, that if he pressed too hard he would be mistreated, and that if he behaved they’d be fair. The warning was a lie, of course. By definition, these men could change the rules on him anytime, treat him however they wanted for any reason or no reason at all. Still, Kurland felt better than if the man hadn’t spoken at all.

“We have a speech we want you to make.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Please don’t argue. We just want you to say a few words, and then you can eat. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“No.”

“Your wife will want to see you’re all right.”

Barbara. Kurland was ashamed to realize that he’d forgotten her these last few minutes. She must be terrified. A place beyond panic. Even if he was already dead, he had to hang on as long as possible for her.

“What is it you want me to say?”

CHAPTER 20

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA

EVEN FROM FIVE MILES OFFSHORE, THE CRISIS WAS UNMISTAKABLE. Graham Kurland had been kidnapped a day earlier. Now police and National Guard helicopters circled low and slow over downtown. A Saudi navy destroyer sat at anchor outside the harbor, broadside to the city, its radar winding slowly. Wells wasn’t sure what good the destroyer would do in finding Kurland, but he didn’t have to worry about it. He and Gaffan had their own escort, two Saudi National Guard speedboats armed with.50-caliber machine guns. They were bound for Abdullah’s giant palace on the Red Sea.

Gaffan steered the boat between two jetties and into a basin outside the palace’s high gray walls. An officer in a khaki dress uniform waved them toward a pier, as a machine gun tracked their progress from a turret atop the wall.

“Happy to see us,” Gaffan said. He brought the boat to a bobbing halt by the pier, and Wells hopped out.

“Good to be back on solid ground.”

“Is that where we are?” Gaffan said.

The officer stepped toward them. “Salaam aleikum.”

“Aleikum salaam.”