Everything had gone smoothly.
CNN were still running round-the-clock news programmes about the kidnapping and its consequences, interrupted only by a bulletin at the top of every hour with other headlines, which basically interested nobody. Right now, they were talking about the New York Stock Exchange, which had plummeted in the past couple of days. Even though most analysts believed that the sharp drop was an ultra-nervous reaction to an acute crisis and the market would not continue to fall so dramatically, everyone was gravely concerned. Particularly as oil prices had taken an equally sharp upturn. Rumours were buzzing in political circles of a hyperfast cool-down in the already tense relationship between the US and the most important oil-producing countries in the Middle East. You didn’t need to be particularly politically informed to realise that the American government was primarily focusing its attention in its investigation of the kidnapping on Arab countries. Persistent claims, coupled with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia and Iran, had resulted in hectic activity for the countries’ diplomats. Three days ago, before Helen Bentley had disappeared, the price of oil per barrel had been forty-seven dollars. An elderly gentleman with a hooked nose and the title of professor gave the TV presenter a glowering look and declared: ‘Seventy-five dollars within a few days. That’s my prediction. A hundred in a couple of weeks if this doesn’t cool down.’
Abdallah drank some more water. He spilt a bit and some of the ice-cold liquid ran down his naked chest. He shivered and his smile widened.
A much younger man back in the studio tried nervously to point out that Norway was also an oil nation and that the extremely wealthy small country on the periphery of Europe could therefore potentially earn billions from the disappearance of the President.
The embarrassed silence that ensued in the studio did nothing to diminish Abdallah’s good mood. A senior adviser to the Federal Reserve then gave the whippersnapper a thirty-second lecture. It was true that Norway stood to gain from a higher oil price, in isolation, but the Norwegian economy was so integrated and dependent on the global economy that the fall on the New York Stock Exchange, which had of course spilled over into stock exchanges the world over, was also catastrophic for them.
The young man gave a forced smile and checked his notes.
These are the true American values, Abdallah thought. Consumption. We’re getting closer now.
Having spent sixteen years in the West – six in the UK and ten in the US – he was still astounded when he heard otherwise educated people talking about American values as if they really believed that they were about family, peace and democracy. This had been a central theme during the election campaign the year before. The debate on values was Bush’s only ticket to re-election. The electorate had already begun to tire of war and was more open to a president who would get them out of Iraq with their collective dignity intact, so George W. Bush tried to make the bloody, unsuccessful and apparently endless war in Iraq into a question of values. The fact that more and more young American boys were being sent home in coffins covered by the flag was the price they had to pay to preserve the American Ideal. In Bush’s rhetoric, the continued fight for peace, freedom and democracy in a country that most Americans didn’t care two hoots about, and that was more than ten thousand kilometres away from the closest domestic shore, had become a fight to protect key American values.
For a long time, people had believed him. For too long, they started to realise when Helen Lardahl Bentley came sailing into the election campaign and offered a better alternative. The fact that it would prove far harder than Candidate Bentley anticipated to withdraw from the hell that Iraq had become for the Americans was another matter. The US still had full forces present in the country, but Bentley had now been elected.
Abdallah stretched on the bed. He picked up the remote control and turned the volume down a bit. The programme switched over to the CNN team in Oslo, who looked like they’d set up camp in some kind of garden in front of a low, Eastern European-looking building.
He closed his eyes and cast his mind back.
Abdallah could still remember the fateful conversation as if it had been yesterday.
It was during his time at Stanford. He was at a party and as usual was standing on the fringes, with a bottle of mineral water, watching the noisy, laughing, dancing, drinking Americans through half-shut eyes. Four boys, who were sitting at a table groaning with half-full and empty beer bottles had called him over. He dithered a bit before sauntering over.
‘Abdallah,’ one of them laughed. ‘You’re so bloody smart. And not from here. Sit down, man! Have a beer!’
‘No thank you,’ Abdallah had replied.
‘Listen,’ the boy continued. ‘Danny here, who’s a bloody communist by the way, if you ask me…’
The others howled with laughter. Danny ran his fingers through his long, messy hair and then smiled as he raised his beer bottle in a sloppy salute.
‘He says that all this talk about American values is bullshit. He says we don’t give a damn about peace, the family, democracy, the right to defend ourselves with weapons…’
His memory blanked on the basic key values, and he paused for a moment while he waved his beer bottle around.
‘Whatever. The point that Danny-boy wants to make is that…’ The boy hiccuped, and Abdallah remembered wanting to leave. He just wanted to get away. He didn’t belong there, so he was never really included in anything on American soil.
‘He says that we Americans basically have only three needs,’ the boy slurred, and tugged at the sleeve of Abdallah’s jacket. ‘And they are the right to drive a car wherever we want, whenever we want and cheaply.’
The others laughed so loudly and made such a noise that more people started to come over to see what was going on.
‘And then there is the right to shop wherever we want, whenever we want and cheaply.’
Two of the boys were now lying on the floor clutching their stomachs, rolling around with laughter. Someone had turned the music down a notch or two, and a small crowd had gathered round to find out what it was that was making the second-year students laugh so much.
‘And the third thing is,’ the boy shouted, getting the others to say it with him, ‘
More people laughed. Someone turned the music up even louder. Danny got up and gave a deep and exaggerated bow, holding his right arm over his stomach and making a gallant sweeping gesture with his left arm, the beer bottle still in his hand.
‘What d’you reckon, Abdallah? Is that what we’re like?’
But Abdallah was no longer there. He had slipped away unnoticed, between the giggling, drinking girls who eyed his body with curiosity and made him go home long before he had planned to.
That was back in 1979 and he had never forgotten it.
Danny had been absolutely right.
Abdallah was hungry. He never ate at night, as it was not good for the digestion. But now he felt that he would need something in his stomach if he was going to get any more sleep. He picked up a phone that was built into the bed frame. After two rings, he heard a sleepy voice on the other end. He gave his order in a quiet voice and then put the phone down.
He leant back again in the bed with his hands folded behind his neck.
Danny-boy: a long-haired, unkempt, sharp Stanford student who had seen reality so clearly that, without knowing it, he had given Abdallah a recipe that he would use more than quarter of a century later.
Abdallah al-Rahman knew all about military history. As he had had no choice but to take on responsibility for his father’s business empire very early on, the possibility of a military career was lost. He had always dreamt of being a soldier, particularly as a boy. For a period he had studied and read about all the old generals; the art of Chinese warfare, in particular, fascinated him. And the greatest strategist of them all was Sun Zi.
A beautifully bound copy of the 2,500-year-old book,
He picked it up now and leafed through the pages. He himself had commissioned a new Arabic translation, and the book he held in his hand was one of only three copies that he had had made. He owned them all.
He stroked the thick hand-made paper. Then he closed the book and laid it carefully back in its usual place.
