Clean Kill

home, Allah be thanked. “A fresh uniform, if you please, vice-sergeant.”

“Sir, this would be a good time for you to get a few hours of sleep. You must rest if the country is to survive this crisis. A fatigued man makes mental mistakes,” insisted the mild, polite voice. He handed over a set of pressed pajamas.

“There is no time to sleep, Mas’ud,” the general replied, although the soft bed seemed to tug at him. He yawned. “There is just so much to do.”

“I will awaken you if there is a real emergency. The appropriate forces are dealing with this rebellion of dogs in the slums, sir, and it will all be over soon. We protect the king and I must not let your attention be diverted from that holy cause. I’ll fetch the chief of staff in four hours to brief you.”

“All of these developments…so awfully bad.” The general stretched out.

“There is nothing more you can do about it for the time being, sir. I am sure that Prince Abdullah is now probably the most protected man on earth. I will finish my chores here and then take a chair right beside your door.”

Prince General al-Fahd felt his muscles agree to what his mind was fighting, and he relaxed. “Very well, vice- sergeant. You’re the boss.”

“Rest then, soldier. It is lights out for you.” He had dimmed the two big fixtures and only a soft 75-watt bulb of a lamp beside the bed remained on, not enough to tempt him to read more reports. The valet turned off the final switch and the room went pitch dark.

Soldier? The tension was broken by the small impertinence. The general turned on his left side and stretched and began to doze immediately although sounds still came to him. There was the low buzz of the central air-conditioning, and Mas’ud was busying himself gathering the dirty laundry, the boots, the pistol and the belt, and the tea tray. The full uniform would be cleaned, brass bright and leather polished, by the time the prince general awoke. He listened to the familiar sliding of oiled metal and clicks of his 9 mm Heckler & Koch pistol. Just Mas’ud unloading the magazine and clearing the chamber to be sure the weapon was safe before taking it away for cleaning.

His soldier’s mind registered something odd. The procedure, which he had heard thousands of times, didn’t sound right. Something was out of sequence. He snapped awake in the darkness and managed to partially turn onto his back but was out of time, and could neither see, fight, nor shout.

Mas’ud had wrapped the dirty uniform around the pistol, aimed the muzzle close to the face, and was already pulling the trigger. The head of Prince General al-Fahd was punched open by the big bullets. Blood, brains, and bone fragments from the commander of the Royal Guard Regiment spewed onto the cot and slapped onto the wall in a fan-shaped pattern. The folded clothes had silenced the gunshots.

The valet snapped the table lamp on again and carefully checked his own uniform and body for blood spots. There were none. He threw the clothes onto the dead man and reloaded. The turncoat assassin hurried over to the safe and unlocked it. He had watched the general do it so many times that he had long ago memorized the combination and even practiced opening the little vault when he was alone in the room. Grabbing the key, the red card, and a small booklet, Mas’ud stuck them in his pocket, turned out the light and left, locking the door behind him. Leaving the building, he passed along the order to the chief of staff that the general did not wish to be disturbed until 0600 the next morning.

The vice sergeant slid behind the wheel of the shining black staff Mercedes and drove away unmolested, heading for a nearby mosque to deliver the key and the red card to his imam, and then onto the fashionable home of the prince general to murder the general’s family. Only one more task would remain after that: He would turn the weapon on himself and become a martyr, trading his life for the good of the jihad and a promised payment of money to his impoverished family. He had received a love note by e-mail.

15

THE WHITE HOUSE

“WHAT DO WE HAVE on this soldier who pulled the trigger on his own general?” President Mark Tracy was interrogating his team of close advisers in the Oval Office.

Steve Hanson, his chief of staff, sighed and leaned back against one of the small couches on the edge of the huge circular rug that bore the eagle symbol of the United States. A bright sun streamed in through the bullet-proof glass windows but the air-conditioning kept the inside comfortable. Hanson worked in rolled-up shirtsleeves and had assembled the various dossiers compiled by the CIA, the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, and the Defense Department. “Sir, the guy was a product of the Islamic religious schools, a madrassa, where the Koran is their primary text. Saudi intel says one of his teachers long ago was a hate-based radical who preached the need for a religious government in Saudi Arabia. By the time the preacher died in prison about nine years ago, he had churned out some pretty violent followers. There’s no way that he actually could have steered this soldier for this exact operation, not so many years in advance, but he certainly planted the seed.”

Bartlett Geneen, the director of the CIA, was on the other couch. Wisps of white hair curled around his balding head and deep worry lines etched his face, tracks of having been around the spook business for a long time. “It has all the looks of a one-man terrorist cell. The soldier bided his time, followed his instincts, and waited for the right moment. Those are almost impossible to detect or stop.”

The president sat still and considered that, taking a sip from a cup of coffee, then returning the sturdy Navy mug to a little table beside him. The Saudis had helped bring this crisis down on themselves in so many ways. How far had the rot penetrated the supporting structure? A Muslim kid going to a village school twenty years ago had learned the wrong lessons and now his problems had become the world’s problem. “So he acted alone? Killed the general and the general’s family? People who apparently treated him kindly and considered him a friend, and then he commits suicide? It makes no sense.”

“No, Mr. President, it doesn’t. Such things happen, so we can’t rule it out. But I agree with you. This one smells. It happened right on the heels of the Scotland attack, and that is too much of a coincidence for me to accept. We can’t prove it yet, but I think he was acting on someone’s specific order to hit that specific target.”

“Then there’s the other odd piece of that puzzle that hasn’t been put in place yet,” said Hanson. “The safe was found open in the general’s room and the aide’s fingerprints were on the dial, but it doesn’t look like anything is missing. There was cash in there and some secret military plans that might have been given to the radicals. They were untouched.”

“So what was he after? A lone wolf murderer doesn’t murder an important officer then stick around to open a safe just to exercise his fingers.”

“That we don’t know yet, sir,” answered Geneen. “The Saudis say they are working on it.”

President Tracy shook his head. “Keep me posted, but let’s move on to the central question: The rebellion is growing, but will it succeed?” His eyes darted back to the CIA director.

“Too early to tell, Mr. President. So far, the military seems to be holding it all together, but crowds are making things tricky in the cities and the religious police are really ramping up the shouting, hollering about how the royals betrayed Islam and have to be eliminated.”

“Eliminated?”

“Killed or driven out of the country.” Director Geneen snapped shut the buff folder that was propped on his knees. “The murder of Prince General al-Fahd will shake the confidence of the ruling family. If the commander of the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment can be assassinated by his valet, then who among them is truly safe? We’re picking up backchannel traffic that some of the minor princes are inquiring about possible emergency flights to other countries.”

Hanson studied his notes. “It’s the domino effect. If some leave, they all could start pulling out with the idea of living on their fortunes in investments abroad. The princes head for Monaco, Paris, and New York while the House of Saud falls to the clerics and the mobs.”

“We can’t let that happen,” said the president.

“We can’t stop it,” responded the CIA official.

“So the question is going to boil down to military intervention to support our friends. Do we have forces