Osama, his old childhood friend, only wanted destruction. Bin Laden believed that he had won on the 11th of September, but Abdallah knew better. The catastrophe on Manhattan was a massive defeat, but it did not destroy the US; it only changed the country.
For the worse.
Abdallah had bitter experience of that. Over two billion dollars of his assets had immediately been frozen in American banks. It had taken him several years and vast sums of money to free up most of the capital, but the effect of a complete, sustained stop in some of his most dynamic companies had been disastrous.
But he had pulled through. His business dynasty was complex. He had lots of legs to stand on. The losses in the US were to some extent offset by the rise in oil prices and successful investments elsewhere in the world
Abdallah was a patient man, and business was his greatest priority after his sons. The months went by. The American economy could not exclude Arab interests for ever. It wouldn’t survive. In the years immediately after 2001, he had to some extent extracted himself from the US market, but then a couple of years ago he had felt that the time was right to invest again. And this time, the investment was bigger and bolder and more important than ever.
Helen Bentley was his chance. Even though he had never trusted a Western person before, he had seen a strength in her eyes, something different, a glimmer of integrity that he chose to trust. It looked like she was heading for a victory in November 2004 and she seemed to be rational. The fact that she was a woman never worried him. On the contrary, when he left his meeting with her, he felt a reluctant admiration for this strong, sharp woman.
She betrayed him only a week before the election, because she saw that it was necessary if she was going to win.
The art of war was to crush the enemy without fighting.
To fight the US in the traditional sense was futile. But Abdallah had realised that the Americans really only had one enemy: themselves.
If you deprive the average American of his car, shopping and TV, you take away his joy in life, he thought to himself, and turned off the TV screen. For a moment he saw a picture of Danny at Stanford again, with his crooked smile and a bottle of beer in his hand: an American with insight.
If you take the joys of life away from an American, he gets angry. And this anger starts at the grass roots, with the individual, with those who struggle to survive; the person who works fifty hours a week and still can’t afford to have dreams other than those that are fed to him from the TV screen.
With this thought, Abdallah closed his eyes.
They won’t close ranks this time. They won’t direct their rage at the enemy, at someone out there,
They will snap and fight upwards. They will turn against their own. They will turn their aggression on the people who are responsible for everything, for the system, for ensuring that things work, that cars can drive and that there are still dreams to cling on to in their otherwise miserable existence.
But there is chaos at the top. The commander-in-chief is missing and her soldiers are running around like headless chickens, with no direction, in the vacuum that is created when a leader is neither alive nor dead but has just vanished.
A confusing blow to the head. Then a fatal blow to the body. Elementary and effective.
Abdallah looked up. The servant came in silently, carrying a tray. He put the fruit, cheese, bread and a large carafe of juice down by the bed. Then he disappeared again, giving a faint nod at the door. He had not said a word and Abdallah did not thank him.
Only one and a half days to go.
THURSDAY 19 MAY 2005
I
At first, when Helen Lardahl Bentley opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was.
She was lying in an uncomfortable position. Her right hand was squashed under her cheek and had gone to sleep. She sat up gingerly. Her body felt stiff and she tried to shake some life into her arm. She had to close her eyes to fight a sudden bout of dizziness, and then she remembered what had happened.
The dizziness passed. Her head still felt strange and light, but when she carefully stretched her arms and legs, she realised that she was not seriously injured. Even the wound on her temple felt better. She ran her fingertips over the bump and could feel that it was smaller than when she had fallen asleep.
Fallen asleep.
The last thing she remembered was that she had taken the woman in the wheelchair by the hand. She had promised…
It was only now that she realised she was still as dirty. The stench immediately became unbearable. Using her left hand as a support against the back of the sofa, she slowly levered herself up. She had to get washed.
‘Good morning, Madam President,’ a female voice said quietly from the doorway.
‘Good morning,’ Helen Bentley replied in surprise.
‘I was just out in the kitchen making some coffee.’
‘Have you… did you sit up all night?’
‘Yes.’ The woman in the wheelchair smiled. ‘Thought you might have concussion, so I woke you up a couple of times during the night. You were pretty groggy. Would you like some?’
She held out a steaming cup.
Madam President waved it away with her free hand.
‘I want to shower,’ she said. ‘And if I’m not…’ She seemed confused for a moment, and ran her hand over her eyes. ‘If I’m not mistaken, you offered me some clean clothes.’
‘Of course. Can you manage by yourself, or should I wake Mary?’
‘Mary?’ mumbled the President. ‘That was the… housekeeper?’
‘Yes, that’s right. And my name is Hanne Wilhelmsen. You’ve probably forgotten. You can call me Hanne.’
‘Hannah,’ the President repeated.
‘Near enough.’
Helen Bentley took a few tentative steps. Her knees were shaking, but her legs held up. She looked askance at the other woman.
‘Where am I going?’
‘Follow me,’ was Hanne Wilhelmsen’s friendly reply as she rolled towards the door.
‘Have you…’
The President stopped and followed. The dawn light outside told her that it must still be very early. But she had already been there quite some time. Several hours at least. The woman in the wheelchair had obviously kept her promise. She hadn’t let anyone know. Helen Bentley could still do what she had to before raising the alarm. It was still possible to work the whole thing out, but to do that, no one must know she was still alive.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked as Hanne Wilhelmsen opened the bathroom door. ‘How long have I…’
She had to lean against the door frame for support.
‘Quarter past four,’ Hanne replied. ‘You’ve been asleep for about six hours. I’m sure that’s not enough.’
‘It’s a lot more than I usually get,’ the President said and managed a smile.
The bathroom was impressive. A double-width sunken bath dominated the room. It was almost a small pool. The President could make out something that looked like a radio and something that was definitely a small TV screen in the unusually spacious shower cabinet beside the bath. The floor was covered in oriental-patterned mosaics, and an enormous mirror with an elaborate gilded wooden frame hung above the two marble sinks.
Helen Bentley thought she remembered the woman saying that she was a retired policewoman. There certainly wasn’t much in this flat that had been bought on a policeman’s salary. Unless this was the only country in the world
