my dreams to be that rich. But why dollars, why not euros?”
“You mentioned dollars first, Jacques. You said
“Do I still have a choice? What if I do refuse?”
“I think that would be spectacularly unwise,” said the General.
“You are the man we have selected. This is the biggest operation for France since World War Two. It means more to us than any action by a French government since we joined the European Union. It will seal our prosperity for a hundred years.”
“Yes, I suppose it would.” And again Colonel Gamoudi seemed overwhelmed by it all. He stood up and paced the room again, eventually turning around and asking, “But why me?”
“Because you are an experienced combat fighter. You understand command, and you understand a sudden and ruthless assault on an objective. You know how to deploy troops. You understand the critical path of any attack, you know what cannot be left undone. More importantly, you are an expert with high explosives.
“Even more importantly, you are a Muslim, and you are expert at working with Muslims, at home in their environment. With the massive military and financial backup of the French Republic and Saudi Arabia, there is an excellent probability that our mission will be accomplished.”
Jacques Gamoudi stood still. And then he said, “How and when will I be paid?”
Gaston Savary took over. “You will receive five million dollars upon your verbal agreement to undertake the task. This will be wired into an account that will be opened in your name at the Bank of Boston at one-zero-four, Avenue des Champs Elysees. It will be an account controlled solely by you. Once the money is paid, no one can touch it save for you and your wife, unless you so specify. There will be irrevocable documents to that effect.”
“And the second installment?”
“That will be wired into the same account forty-eight hours before your attack commences. And you will be in a position to check its arrival. Plainly, if it does not come you will not launch the attack.” Gaston Savary looked quizzical. “Jacques,” he said, “I assure you, your paltry sum of ten million dollars is the very least of the problems facing the French government and the incoming Saudi regime at this time.”
“Am I obliged to keep the money in France? Perhaps to avoid taxes?” asked Colonel Gamoudi.
“Colonel,” said General Jobert, “you will have a letter, signed by the President of France, absolving you from all French government taxes for the remainder of your lifetime, and that of Giselle.”
Jacques Gamoudi whistled through his front teeth. “And my bonus?” he said.
“That will be presented in the form of a no-refund, no-recall cashier’s check, to be held by Giselle. But dated for one month after the operation. She will be given the check at the precise time we pay the second five-million- dollar installment.”
“And if the attack should fail?”
“Our emissaries will call at the house to retrieve the check.”
“And if I should be killed in action?”
“Giselle will keep the check and deposit it to her account at the Bank of Boston.”
“And am I free to move the money around if I wish? Perhaps to a different bank?”
“It is no business of ours what you do with the money,” said Gaston Savary. “No business at all. Except for us to express our immense gratitude for what you will have done for your country. And to wish you the best of fortune and prosperity in the future.”
“And what if the attacks from the sea should fail, and the Saudi oil industry is somehow saved?”
“If that happened the operation would be canceled. You keep the initial five million, and come home.”
“And the second five million?”
“We are paying ten million for you to launch the attack and take Riyadh,” said Savary flatly. “Clearly, we don’t pay if you do not attack. And the attack would be impossible if the King remained in control of the Army, which he would, if the oil keeps flowing. Everything depends on the destruction of the oil industry.”
“You make it very clear, and very tempting,” said Jacques Gamoudi. “Giselle?”
“Well, I don’t want you to die,” she said. “And I did think we were past all this fighting and battles. I am very happy here, and you are happy. However, I cannot pretend that I would not wish to have all that money. How dangerous is this?”
“Very,” said Gamoudi, without hesitation. “But we fight a weakened enemy. Maybe one with no stomach for the fight. I think your Saudi prince is correct — no army wants to fight for someone who may not pay them. It knocks the stuffing out of them. Soldiers too have wives and families, and I think the Saudi Army may feel they have no alternative but to join the new regime. That way they carry on getting paid.
“A popular rising by the people is often the easiest of military operations. Because there are too many reasons for their opponents not to fight — one of these is normally money, the second is usually more important; all soldiers have a natural distaste for turning their guns on their own people. They don’t like it. And quite often they refuse to do it.”
“If I agree, will you do it?” asked Giselle.
Before the ex — Foreign Legion commander could reply, Gaston Savary stood up and Michel Jobert gave a suggestion of a nod.
“Jacques,” said Savary, “you and Giselle have much to discuss. We were thinking in terms of one week. I am going to give you two business cards: one is for me and my personal line, the other is for the General and his private number at COS headquarters. If you and Giselle decide to go ahead, you will call one of us, and say very simply that you wish to talk. Nothing more. You will then replace the telephone and wait.
“Meanwhile, remember, the only people in the whole of France who know anything of this are the President, the Foreign Minister, the four people in this room, and two Admirals of the French Navy. That’s eight. I need hardly mention, you will say nothing to anyone. But of course we know you never would. We know your record.”
And with that, the two callers from Paris stood up and shook hands warmly with the mountain guide and his wife. But before they left, Savary had one last question. “Jacques Gamoudi,” he said, “Why Hooks? Such a strange name for a Frenchman to adopt.”
Colonel Gamoudi laughed. “Oh,” he said, “that was the name of the U.S. Ambassador we successfully evacuated out of Brazzaville back in June, 1999. Fourteen U.S. citizens altogether. Ambassador Aubrey Hooks was a good and brave man.”
It had been a long, somewhat intensive, road to Bab Tourma Street, in the old part of the city of Damascus. There had been a zillion contacts with Hezbollah, even more with the militant end of the Iranian government. There had been countless clandestine talks with contacts inside al-Qaeda, mostly orchestrated by Prince Nasir. And finally a succession of e-mail exchanges with the leaders of the most feared of all terrorist groups, Hamas.
But Gaston Savary and Gen. Michel Jobert had finally made it. The Syrian government staff car, containing two local bodyguards and the two Frenchmen, pulled smoothly to a halt outside the big house near the historic gate in the city wall. This was the secretive and well-guarded home of the Hamas Commander in Chief, Gen. Ravi Rashood, and his beautiful Palestinian wife, Shakira.
And Prince Nasir had been insistent.
And now Gaston Savary and General Jobert were about to meet him, on his own ground. But, nonetheless, as allies. France’s roots in Syria go very deep, but the key to this forthcoming conversation rested in one simple fact — there could never be an Islamic nation that stretched from the Arabian Gulf to the Atlantic end of North Africa so long as Saudi Arabia operated with one foot in the United States of America. Every Islamic fundamentalist knew that, every Islamic fundamentalist understood that there was something treacherous, non-Arabian, about the way the Saudi King both ran with the fox and hunted with the hounds. Or whatever the desert equivalent of that saying may be.
And now these two Frenchmen were here, about to enter the lair of the greatest terrorist the world had ever known. And they were bringing with them, perhaps, a formula to change everything. Savary and Jobert would be made very welcome by General Rashood, the native Iranian who had once served as an SAS Commander in the British army.
