by Allan Topol
Suddenly, the lights went on. Startled, David looked up. A man dressed in a Saudi air force uniform was sitting in a high-backed chair directly across what was the living room of a suite, and watching David’s every movement.
“My God, Khalid, it’s you!” David blurted out. “I should have guessed.”
Four powerful hands grabbed David. Khalid’s two bodyguards had been waiting in ambush on either side of the door. Like book ends, they collapsed on David.
Roughly, they searched him. The burglar’s tools and the pagerlike device on his waist were tossed onto a nearby table. As one of the guards frisked David, he felt the small microphone beneath David’s shirt. He pulled up the shirt and ripped the microphone from David’s chest. That, too, went onto the table.
“That’s enough,” Khalid said in Arabic. The guards moved away.
“Whom are you working for?” Khalid demanded to know.
David could tell from his uniform that Khalid was now a full colonel. Except for a thin mustache that had been added, Khalid looked the same as he had five years ago.
“I could say no one.”
“But I wouldn’t believe that, and my men here would be effective at obtaining the real answer.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, Khalid. I shouted out your name before they took away my microphone. That’s all we wanted to know. Who was behind the coup. My colleagues will come for me now.”
“Tell them you’re okay. Tell them to go away.”
David picked up the microphone and in Hebrew said, “It’s all right. Don’t worry about me anymore tonight. I’m with an old friend. Keep your captain for an hour, ditch him and meet me back at your hotel.”
Annoyed, Khalid said, “Repeat it in Arabic and then English.”
David complied with the order, which satisfied Khalid, who directed one of his men to stand in the corridor outside the room. Then he placed the microphone on the floor at his feet, stood up and crushed it into a useless pulpy mess.
“Now tell me who you’re working for, or we’ll force the answer out of you.” The colonel’s eyes were cold and menacing.
“But I thought we were good friends, Khalid.”
“Once we were, but that was a long time ago. Things are different now.”
“What happened to the old Chinese proverb that if you save someone’s life you’re responsible for him forever?”
“And I saved your life by flying you out of Saudi Arabia after the Dhahran bombing five years ago?”
“Precisely.”
“We’re not in China, Greg. Now tell me whom you’re working for.”
“The Mossad, of course. They recruited me right after I came to Israel five years ago.”
“What about the CIA? How do I know you’re not working for them?”
“You heard me talking into the microphone. The language I picked was Hebrew. Have you ever heard a CIA agent speaking Hebrew?”
Khalid’s cold, hostile look softened. “I guess not.”
The momentum was shifting, David thought. “Now I want to ask you something. What are you doing here?”
“You forget, Greg, I’m no fool. Your second request for information raised alarms in my mind. You wanted too much information. Asking for troop strength and so forth. It just didn’t seem right given your limited role for Madame Blanc. I figured that you have your own game going on behind Madame Blanc’s back. And I have to know what it is,” Khalid said, smiling slyly. “So I decided to set a little trap for you tonight, even having the captain flash the room number on the key to your colleague to make it easier. You took the bait.”
David was impressed. Khalid had outfoxed him. “And here I thought I was so clever in trying to find out who was behind the coup.”
“Remember, you taught me a lot about intelligence work that last year you were in my country.”
“I hope you didn’t share your suspicions about me with Madame Blanc.”
Khalid smiled and rubbed his hand over his mustache. “If I had, you’d probably be at the bottom of the Thames right now.”
“Yeah, that’s about what she’d do.”
The colonel was staring hard at David, trying to decide what his next move should be.
Watching and waiting, David felt as if he were in a chess game with Khalid. Behind that smile and genial manner, he knew the man could be as tough and cruel as the circumstances warranted. Now with his own life, those of his wife and children, and scores of other officers, at stake, he would kill David—old friend or not—in an instant if he thought it was necessary.
David decided to take the offensive. “Killing me won’t help you, Khalid. As of a few minutes ago, the Mossad knows you’re behind the coup. Telling Madame Blanc about me won’t do you any good either, because she’ll be furious that you came to London tonight on your own. She might even decide to call off her participation, and you certainly don’t want that, this late in the game.”
“What are you getting at?” the colonel asked suspiciously.
“I’ve got a proposition for you to save your coup. I may even be able to get you Israeli and American support.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not tonight. Not here,” David said. He didn’t like playing his cards while Sagit was still with the Saudi captain. From what had just happened, Khalid couldn’t be underestimated. He might have a plan to hold her hostage. David also didn’t want to run the risk of their conversation being taped.
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. The Four Seasons Hotel has a steam room in the health club on the lower level. That way neither of us will have to worry about the other one wearing a wire. I’ll make sure they let you in, and no one else will be there.”
Khalid was mulling over David’s offer.
“You’ve got no choice,” David said, revving up the pressure. “Unless I turn off the Mossad tonight, their agents here will file a report with Jerusalem that will be sent immediately to Washington. You’ll be arrested as soon as you land back in your country. As to what happens after that,” David shrugged, “I’ll leave that to your imagination.”
Khalid hesitated, looking very unhappy. David had managed to turn the tables on him. “And if I agree to meet with you tomorrow morning, you’ll stop the Mossad people from reporting to Washington at least until after our meeting?”
“I’ll do that, Khalid. I promise. Well, what’ll it be?”
The Saudi looked unhappy. “As you just said, what choice do I have?”
* * *
It was close to midnight when David and Sagit met back at the Hyde Park Hotel.
“Let’s walk in the park,” he said. “I’ll tell you what happened tonight.”
It was raining lightly and dense fog covered the city. David grabbed one of the large hotel umbrellas, and they crossed the road to Hyde Park.
Huddled under a single umbrella, it was easy to talk. David kept looking around, but no one was on foot nearby. It was too damp and miserable for the tourists who normally wandered through the park at night.
Without interrupting, she listened to his recounting of the evening. When he finished, she said, “You like this Colonel Khalid, don’t you?”
“We were friends when I was in Saudi Arabia. As close as we could be under the circumstances. He invited me to his home for wonderful dinners with his wife, Nura, a lovely woman, and their four children. A boy and three girls.” David paused, remembering those evenings. “And he saved my life at great risk to himself. But it’s more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I respect him. He’s a decent man. With integrity. Somebody who’s not in it just for the power, but genuinely wants to help his country. Now, what about you? What did you do tonight?”
She gave him a devilish glance. “I won twenty pounds at roulette, and I had a good dinner.”
“And the captain?”
“You don’t have to worry. He was a perfect gentlemen, even though he lost about ten tho
usand pounds.” She turned around and began walking swiftly back to the hotel. “We better get back. I have to get a cab to our embassy.”
“Now? This late? What for?”
“I want to use the secure embassy phone line to call Moshe. Then I want to call Margaret Joyner in Washington. We have to report to her.”
“Report on what?”
“Everything that happened tonight.”
Alarmed, he said, “You can’t do that, Sagit.”
“Why not?”
“You weren’t listening. I promised Khalid we wouldn’t do that.”
She was furious. “You weren’t authorized to promise that.”
“I did what I had to do. I gave Khalid my word. You’ve got to honor it.”
“I don’t see why.”
He kicked the mud in frustration. He couldn’t believe she was taking such a ridiculous position. “Besides, spilling your guts about what we have so far is stupid.”
She bristled. “You have such a nice way of expressing yourself. Tell me why what I want to do is stupid.”
From the sound of her voice, David knew he had gone too far. He softened his tone. “Because I’m not finished with Khalid yet. You’ve got to let me talk to him tomorrow. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
“What are you so worried about?”
“People in Washington often act impulsively. Suppose the President picks up the phone and calls the Saudi king. Khalid’s family will be beheaded about an hour after he makes that call. These are real people. People I know.” He could see that she was skeptical. “Trust me. You know the Saudis don’t believe in due process. So we can’t tell Washington until we have the whole story, and until we have a plan for dealing with all the facts.” He was pleading with her. “You’ve got to believe me.”
She relented partially. She would only tell Moshe for now. A report to Margaret Joyner would wait until they had the complete story. Sagit was certain that Moshe would go along with that. As for Joyner, Sagit didn’t like holding out the information from her. She was worried that her personal involvement with David was clouding her judgment. Tonight she vowed to sleep alone. “I’ll wait until tomorrow morning,” she said.
* * *
With a towel wrapped around his neck, David sat on a wooden bench in the steam room and glanced at his watch. It was five minutes past nine. What if Khalid didn’t show? What if the Saudi colonel found some new way to outsmart him? Khalid was smart. He couldn’t be underestimated. Particularly now when his life was on the line.
No, he’ll be here, David thought. He glanced down at his wrist. Through billowing clouds of steam, he followed the black sweep second hand of his watch.
Suddenly, the frosted glass door opened. It was Khalid with a white towel draped around his waist. His dark-skinned body was tight and lean. He obviously still worked out extensively. He looked young for forty. A long scar ran across his abdomen, the result of a knife battle with a hotheaded young officer in training, David remembered.
In each of his hands, Khalid carried a cup of ice water. He handed one to David and sat down.
“Thanks for coming,” David said.
“You didn’t leave me much choice, but I wanted to. We were such good friends when you were in my country, and I treated you so rough last evening. I wanted to apologize.”
“You don’t have to. You had a lot at stake. Besides, five years is a long time. People change. How are Nura and the children?”
“Everyone’s fine. Thank you.”
“Your son, Hisham, must be quite a young man now, and I’ll bet he’s still a good soccer player.”
“He is,” Khalid said with pride. “The captain of his school team. And a good student.”
The memories were rolling back in now. “Does he still want to be an air force pilot?”
“He’s not sure. Perhaps he wants to work with computers. The king’s done his best to shut out the Internet, but as always the forbidden fruit is the best. What about you?”
“I had an Israeli wife. Yael was her name. She died a year ago.”
David decided to leave it go at that.
“I’m sorry,” Khalid replied. He paused for a moment, startled by David’s news. He wanted to ask about Yael, but he didn’t think this was the time or place. “Now the question is, where do you and I go from here?”
David looked him squarely in the eye. “You’ll be pleased to know that I kept my end of the bargain. Nobody from Israel reported to Washington.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Khalid responded, very relieved. “You always kept your word with me. In a way, you’re responsible for all of this. You realize that?”
“What do you mean?”
“We had the grim choice of continued rule by the House of Saud or turning the clock back eight centuries and having rule by the fundamentalists, as they do in Iran. You encouraged me and some of my fellow air force officers, including Colonel Azziz six years ago to think that we could create a democratic alternative. So I decided that the time was right now to organize a group of officers myself to stage a coup.”
“What’s taken you so long to get to this point?” David asked. It was a question he’d had last night.
“Conditions in the country had to get even worse, which they have. The economy is in shambles because of corruption and mismanagement. Despite our massive oil revenues, our foreign reserves are nearly exhausted. The middle class has a reduced standard of living, and per capita income has plunged in the last five years. Meanwhile, key positions in the oil industry are awarded to friends of the royal family, and they’re running it into the ground.”
Becoming agitated, Khalid struck the side of his hand against the hot wooden bench. “You can forget about personal freedoms. A newspaper editor wrote an article raising questions about a system of justice that still has decrees by regional princes, and they cut off both of his hands. A married woman whose husband fled the country four years ago slept with an unmarried German construction worker, and they stoned her to death. There are fewer Saudis in college now than ten years ago.”
Khalid’s eyes were blazing with animosity. “While all this is happening, the fundamentalists are getting stronger and stronger. They’re totally wired in with the rulers in Iran, and Mohammed Nasser is planning to launch his own coup on January 1 by assassinating the Saudi king.”
At the mention of Nasser’s name an intense loathing showed on David’s face. It was so strong that Khalid pulled back and paused for a moment before continuing. “So, unless some intermediate democratic alternative is found soon, Saudi Arabia will become like Iran. That’s certainly not in Israel’s or America’s best interest. The Israelis should understand that I and my air force colleagues are a preferred democratic alternative. They shouldn’t do anything to stop my coup from succeeding. You have to make those Zionist hotheads in Jerusalem understand that.”
“How hard is your information that Nasser will move on January 1?” Khalid hesitated. “I need to know. It will help me persuade Israel not to act.”
“Very hard. You taught me a great deal about the value of intelligence. I have a mole buried deep at the top of Nasser’s organization.”
Here was a way, though David to test the information Bill Fox had given him at their meeting in Green Park. He asked Khalid, “Which terrorist acts has Nasser been responsible for, according to your mole?”
“This year the assassination of a number of Saudi princes and some of their families. Always in a brutal way. Six months ago, an attack on the U.S. embassy in Kuwait. Then August a year ago, a bomb on a bus in Jerusalem—”
“That was it. You’re sure he was responsible for the bus bomb?”
“I’m positive. And there’s one more.”
“What’s that?”
Khalid smiled with satisfaction, knowing that he was about to drop one more bit of significant information on David that his old friend never expected. “The attack on the Khobar housing complex five years ago that you know so well. He planned
the entire operation. With it he established himself as the undisputed leader of what had previously been a handful of splinter groups. Money and arms began flowing from Iran to Nasser, and he built an organization.”
Khalid saw the stunned look on David’s face.
“What will you do about Nasser and his people once you launch your coup?” David asked.
“We haven’t been able to decide that. To put it mildly, there are serious disagreements at the top of my own group. Believe it or not, some of my colleagues want to bring him into our tent.”
David was incredulous. “That’s insane. You either crush him, or he’ll destroy you.”
“Personally, I couldn’t agree with you more, but I’m trying to run a somewhat democratic organization.”
David finished his ice water and moved to a lower bench where it wouldn’t be so hot. Khalid dropped down beside him.
“With all of these lofty ideals of yours, how did you get mixed up with Madame Blanc?” David asked.
“Through a friend who directs security for the national oil company. I sought Madame Blanc out when I learned that Nasser planned to move on January 1.” Khalid frowned. “But she’s a devil. That woman. She wants too much control. I wish I’d never met her.”
“But she’s given you military equipment.”
“True. That’ll make the battle easier.”
“And when I finish my work, you’ll have a blueprint for your attack, which will save lives.”
“That’s my doing.” Khalid looked guilty. “A couple months ago, when I saw you by chance in Paris, and recognized you by your distinctive walk going into a Left Bank hotel, I insisted that she find a way to get your help.”
“So you’re the one? Thanks a lot for ruining what was left of my life.”
Khalid smiled. “You have too much energy to take early retirement. Besides, you owe me for that airplane ride five years ago.”
“So you turned that French devil on me?”
Looking at David somberly, Khalid said, “I’d take help from any source to free my country from the ironclad rule of the royal family.”