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“I insisted on it.”
Gabriel was silent.
“You obviously disapprove.”
“Only with some of your recent acquisitions. One in particular.”
“The Leonardo?”
“If you say so.”
“You’re dubious about the attribution?”
“I could have painted a better Leonardo than that one.” He looked at her seriously. “You should have come to me when he approached you about working for him.”
“And what would you have told me?”
“That his interest in you was no accident. That he was well aware of your ties to the CIA.” Gabriel paused. “And to me.”
“You would have been right.”
“I usually am.”
Sarah picked at her pastry. “What do you think of him?”
“As you might imagine, Crown Prince Khalid bin Mohammed is of particular interest to the Office.”
“I’m not asking the Office, I’m asking you.”
“The CIA and the Office were far less impressed with Khalid than the White House and my prime minister. Our concerns were confirmed when Omar Nawwaf was killed.”
“Did Khalid order his murder?”
“Men in Khalid’s position don’t have to give a direct order.”
“‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’”
Gabriel nodded thoughtfully in agreement. “A perfect example of a tyrant making his wishes abundantly clear. Henry spoke the words, and a few weeks later Becket was dead.”
“Should Khalid be removed from the line of succession?”
“If he is, it’s likely someone worse will take his place. Someone who will undo the modest social and religious reforms he’s put in place.”
“And if you learned of a threat to Khalid? What would you do?”
“We hear things all the time. Much of it from the mouth of the crown prince himself.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your client is the target of aggressive collection by the Office and Unit 8200. Not long ago, we managed to hack into the supposedly secure phone he carries around. We’ve been listening to his calls and reading his texts and e-mails ever since. The Unit also managed to activate the phone’s camera and microphone, so we’ve been able to listen to many of his face-to-face conversations as well.” Gabriel smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, Sarah. As a former CIA officer, you should have realized that once you went to work for a man like Khalid bin Mohammed, you could expect no zone of privacy.”
“How much do you know?”
“We know that six days ago, the crown prince placed a number of urgent calls to the French National Police concerning an incident that took place in the Haute-Savoie, not far from the Swiss border. We know that later that same night, the crown prince was driven under police escort to Paris, where he met with a number of senior French officials, including the interior minister and the president. He remained in Paris for seventy-two hours before traveling to New York. There he had a single appointment.”
Gabriel removed a BlackBerry from the breast pocket of his jacket and tapped the screen twice. A few seconds later Sarah heard the sound of two people conversing. One was the future king of Saudi Arabia. The other was the director of the Nadia al-Bakari Collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
“Do you know how to reach him?”
“Who?”
“The man who produced this painting without so much as a photograph to guide his hand. The man whose name should be right there.”
Gabriel tapped PAUSE. “I had breakfast with my prime minister this morning and told him in no uncertain terms that I want nothing to do with this.”
“And what did your prime minister say?”
“He asked me to reconsider.” Gabriel returned the BlackBerry to his pocket. “Send a message to your friend, Sarah. Choose your words carefully to protect my identity.”
Sarah removed her iPhone from her handbag and typed the message. A moment later the device pinged.
“Well?”
“Khalid wants to see us tonight.”
“Where?”
Sarah posed the question. When the response arrived, she handed the phone to Gabriel.
He stared gloomily at the screen. “I was afraid he was going to say that.”
9 (#ulink_9436dd03-94dd-5d90-85a3-cd919e75629c)
NEJD, SAUDI ARABIA (#ulink_9436dd03-94dd-5d90-85a3-cd919e75629c)
THE PLANE THAT DELIVERED SARAH BANCROFT to Israel was a Gulfstream G550, a ninety-six-foot aircraft with a cruising speed of 561 miles per hour. Gabriel replaced the flight crew with two retired IAF combat pilots, and the cabin crew with four Office bodyguards. They departed Ben Gurion Airport shortly after seven p.m. and streaked down the Gulf of Aqaba with the transponder switched off. To their right, ablaze in the fiery orange light of the setting sun, was the Sinai Peninsula, a virtual safe haven for several violent Islamic militias, including a branch of ISIS. To their left was Saudi Arabia.
They crossed the Saudi coastline at Sharma and headed eastward over the Hejaz Mountains to the Nejd. It was there, in the early eighteenth century, that an obscure desert preacher named Muhammad Abdul Wahhab came to believe that Islam had strayed dangerously from the ways of the Prophet and the al salaf al salih, the earliest generations of Muslims. During his travels throughout Arabia, he was horrified to see Muslims smoking, drinking wine, and dancing to music while dressed in opulent clothing. Worse still was their veneration of trees and rocks and caves linked to holy men, a practice Wahhab condemned as polytheism, or shirk.
Determined to return Islam to its roots, Wahhab and his zealous band of followers, the muwahhidoon, launched a violent campaign to cleanse the Nejd of anything not sanctioned by the Koran. He found an important ally in a Nejdi tribe called the Al Saud. The pact they formed in 1744 became the basis of the modern Saudi state. The Al Saud held earthly power, but matters of faith they left in the hands of the doctrinal descendants of Muhammad Abdul Wahhab—men who despised the West, Christianity, Jews, and Shiite Muslims, whom they regarded as apostates and heretics. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda shared their view. So, too, did the Taliban and the holy warriors of ISIS and every other Sunni jihadist terrorist group. The toppled skyscrapers in Manhattan, the bombs in Western European train stations, the beheadings and the shattered markets in Baghdad: all of it could be traced back to the covenant reached more than two and a half centuries ago in the Nejd.
The city of Ha’il was the region’s capital. It had several palaces, a museum, shopping malls, public gardens, and a Royal Saudi Air Force base, where the Gulfstream landed shortly after eight. The pilot taxied toward a quartet of black Range Rovers waiting at the edge of the tarmac. Surrounding the vehicles were uniformed security men, all armed with automatic weapons.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” murmured Gabriel.
“Khalid assured me you would be safe,” replied Sarah.
“Did he? And what if one those nice Saudi security guards is loyal to another faction of the royal family? Or better yet, what if he’s a secret member of al-Qaeda?”
Sarah’s phone pinged with an incoming message.
“Who’s it from?”
“Who do you think?”
“Is he in one of those Range Rovers?”
“No.”
“So who are they?”
“Our ride, apparently. Khalid says one of them is an old friend of yours.”
“I don’t have any Saudi friends,” said Gabriel. “Not anymore.”
“Maybe I should go first.”
“An unveiled American blonde? It might send the wrong message.”
The Gulfstream’s forward cabin door had a built-in airstair. Gabriel lowered it and, trailed by the four bodyguards, descended to the tarmac. A few seconds later the door of one of the Range Rovers opened and a single figure emerged. Dressed in a plain olive-drab uniform, he was tall and angular, with small dark eyes and an aquiline nose that gave him the appearance of a bird of prey. Gabriel recognized him. The man worked for the Mabahith, the secret police division of the Saudi Interior Ministry. Gabriel had once spent a month at the Mabahith’s central interrogation facility in Riyadh. The man with the bird-of-prey face had handled the questioning. He was not a friend, but nor was he an enemy.
“Welcome to Saudi Arabia, Director Allon. Or should I say welcome back? You’re looking much better than when I saw you last.” He grasped Gabriel’s hand tightly. “I trust your wound healed well?”
“It only hurts when I laugh.”
“I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“A man in my position needs one.”
“Mine, too. Business is quite brisk, as you might imagine.” The Saudi glanced at Gabriel’s bodyguards. “Are they armed?”
“Heavily.”
“Please instruct them to return to the aircraft. Don’t worry, Director Allon. My men will take very good care of you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
The bodyguards reluctantly complied with Gabriel’s order. A moment later Sarah appeared in the cabin door, her blond hair moving in the desert wind.
The Saudi frowned. “I don’t suppose she has a veil.”
“She left it in New York.”
“Not to worry. We brought one, just in case.”
THE HIGHWAY WAS SMOOTH AS glass and black as an old vinyl record album. Gabriel had only the vaguest idea of its direction; the throwaway phone he had slipped into his pocket before leaving Tel Aviv read NO SERVICE. After leaving the air base, they had passed through miles of wheat fields—Ha’il was the breadbasket of Saudi Arabia. Now the land was harsh and unforgiving, like the brand of Islam practiced by Wahhab and his intolerant followers. Surely, thought Gabriel, it was no accident. The cruelty of the desert had influenced the faith.
From his vantage point in the Range Rover’s rear passenger-side seat he could see the speedometer. They were traveling in excess of one hundred miles per hour. The driver was from the Mabahith, as was the man seated next to him. One Range Rover was in front of them, the other two were trailing. It had been a long time since Gabriel had seen another car or truck. He supposed the road had been closed.
“I can’t breathe. I actually think I’m beginning to lose consciousness.”
Gabriel looked across the backseat toward the black lump that was Sarah Bancroft. She was cloaked in the heavy black abaya that the senior Mabahith man had tossed over her a few seconds after her feet touched Saudi soil.
“The last time I wore one of these things was the night the Zizi operation fell apart. Do you remember, Gabriel?”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“I don’t know how Saudi women wear these things when it’s a hundred and twenty degrees in the shade.” She was fanning herself. “Khalid once showed me a photograph from the sixties of unveiled Saudi women walking around Riyadh in skirts.”
“It was like that all over the Arab world. Everything changed after 1979.”
“That’s exactly what Khalid says.”
“Is that right?”
“The Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and Khomeini seized power in Iran. And then there was Mecca. A group of Saudi militants stormed the Grand Mosque and demanded the Al Saud give up power. They had to bring in a team of French commandos to end the siege.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“The Al Saud felt threatened,” said Sarah, “so they trimmed their sails accordingly. They promoted the spread of Wahhabism to counter the influence of the Shiite Iranians and allowed hard-liners at home to enforce religious edicts strictly.”
“That’s a rather charitable view, don’t you think?”
“Khalid is the first to admit mistakes were made.”
“How magnanimous of him.”
The Range Rovers turned onto an unpaved track and followed it into the desert. Eventually, they came to a checkpoint, through which they passed without slowing. The camp appeared a moment later, several large tents standing at the foot of a towering rock formation.
Sarah unconsciously straightened her abaya as the Range Rover drew to a stop. “How do I look?”
“Never better.”
“Do try to keep that Israeli sarcasm of yours in check. Khalid doesn’t appreciate irony.”
“Most Saudis don’t.”
“And whatever you do, don’t argue with him. He doesn’t like to be challenged.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, Sarah.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s the one who needs my help, not the other way around.”
Sarah sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
10 (#ulink_64ea246c-4fd4-5c40-a95f-320133e86f8c)
