Portrait of a Spy

by Daniel Silva

  Despite the extremes of climate, the newly laid surface of Highway 65 was smooth and black, like the rivers of crude that flowed beneath it. Running in a northwesterly direction, it followed the path of the ancient caravan route linking Riyadh with the oasis town of Hail. A few miles south of Hail, near the town of Buraydah, Nadia instructed her driver to turn onto a smaller two-lane road running westward into the desert. Rafiq al-Kamal was by now visibly uneasy. Nadia had told him nothing of her plans to travel to the Nejd until the moment of their departure from the Four Seasons, and even then her explanations had been opaque. She said she was having dinner at the family camp of Sheikh Marwan Bin Tayyib, an important member of the ulema. After the dinner—which would be strictly segregated by gender, of course—she would meet privately with the sheikh to discuss matters related to zakat. It would not be necessary for her to take along a chaperone to the meeting since the cleric was a good and learned man known for his extreme piety. Nor were there any concerns about safety. Al-Kamal had accepted her edicts, but clearly they did not please him.

  It was now a few minutes past five, and the light was slowly seeping from the endless sky. They sped through groves of date, lemon, and orange trees, slowing only once to allow a leathered old shepherd to drive his goats across the road. Al-Kamal appeared to relax with each passing mile. A native of the region, he pointed out some of its more important landmarks as they flashed past his window. And in Unayzah, a starkly religious town known for the purity of its Islam, he asked Nadia to make a small detour so he could see the modest home where, as a child, he had lived with one of his father’s four wives.

  “I never knew you came from here,” Nadia said.

  “So does Sheikh Bin Tayyib,” he said, nodding. “I knew him when he was a boy. We attended the same school and prayed in the same mosque. Marwan was quite a firebrand back then. He got into trouble for throwing a rock through the window of a video shop. He thought it was un-Islamic.”

  “What about you?”

  “I didn’t mind the shop. There wasn’t much else to do in Unayzah but watch videos and go to the mosque.”

  “It’s my understanding the sheikh has moderated his views since then.”

  “The Muslims of Unayzah don’t know the meaning of the word ‘moderation,’ ” al-Kamal said. “If Marwan has changed in any way since then, it is for public consumption only. Marwan is an Islamist through and through. And he has very little use for the al-Saud, despite the fact that they pay him well. I’d watch your step around him.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Maybe I should attend the meeting with you.”

  “I’ll be fine, Rafiq.”

  Al-Kamal fell silent as they left Unayzah and plunged once more into the desert. Directly before them, across a sea of boulders and stones, rose a barren escarpment of rock, its edges carved and scored by millions of years of wind and sand. The sheikh’s camp lay to the north of the outcropping along the edge of a deep wadi. Nadia could feel heavy stones thudding against the undercarriage of the car as they drove along a pitted unpaved track.

  “I wish you’d told me where we were going,” al-Kamal said, clutching the armrest for support. “We could have taken one of the Range Rovers.”

  “I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

  “It’s a desert camp. How did you think we were going to get there?”

  Nadia laughed in spite of herself. “I hope my father isn’t watching this.”

  “Actually, I hope he is.” Al-Kamal looked at her for a long moment without speaking. “I never left your father’s side, Nadia, even when he was discussing highly sensitive business with men like Sheikh Bin Tayyib. He trusted me with his life. Unfortunately, I couldn’t protect him that night in Cannes, but I would have gladly stepped in front of those bullets. And I would do the same for you. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  “I think I do, Rafiq.”

  “Good,” he said. “If God wills it, this meeting tonight will be a success. But next time, tell me first so I can make proper arrangements. It’s better that way. No surprises.”

  “Zizi’s rules?” she asked.

  “Zizi’s rules,” he replied, nodding his head. “Zizi’s rules are like the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Follow them carefully and God will grant you a long and happy life. Ignore them . . .” He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “That’s when bad things happen.”

  They came upon a cluster of cars parked haphazardly along the edge of the wadi: Range Rovers, Mercedes, Toyotas, and a few battered pickup trucks. Adjacent to the parking area, aglow with internal lighting, stood two large communal tents. A dozen smaller tents were scattered across the desert floor, each fitted with a generator and a satellite dish. Nadia smiled beneath the cover of her niqab. The Saudis loved to return to the desert each winter to reconnect with their Bedouin heritage, but their devotion to the old ways only went so far.

  “The sheikh is obviously doing quite well for himself.”

  “You should see his villa in Mecca,” al-Kamal said. “This is all bought and paid for by the government. As far as the al-Saud are concerned, it’s money well spent. They take care of the ulema, and the ulema takes care of them.”

  “Why this spot?” asked Nadia, looking around.

  “Long before there was such a thing as Saudi Arabia, members of the sheikh’s clan used to bring their animals here in the winter. The Bin Tayyibs have been camping here for centuries.”

  “The next thing you’re going to tell me is that you came here when you were a boy.”

  Al-Kamal gave a rare smile. “I did.”

  The security man gestured to the driver to park in a spot isolated from the other cars. After helping Nadia out of the backseat, he paused to look at a Toyota Camry. But for the thin coating of fine powdery dust, it looked as though it had just rolled onto the dock at Dhahran.

  “Your dream car?” asked Nadia sardonically.

  “It’s the model they give to graduates of the terrorist rehabilitation program. They give them a car, a down payment on a house, and a nice girl to marry—all the trappings of a normal life so they stay tethered to this world rather than the world of jihad. They buy the loyalty of the ulema, and they buy the loyalty of the jihadis. It’s the way of the desert. It’s the al-Saud way.”

  Al-Kamal instructed the driver to stay with the car and then led Nadia toward the two communal tents. Within a few seconds a young man appeared to welcome them. He wore a calf-length thobe in the style of the Salaf and a taqiyah skullcap with no headdress. His beard was long but sparse, and his eyes were unusually gentle for a Saudi man. After offering them the traditional greeting of peace, he introduced himself as Ali and said he was a talib, or student, of Sheikh Bin Tayyib. He looked to be about thirty.

  “The meal is just getting started. Your bodyguard is free to join us, if he wishes. The women are over there,” he added, gesturing toward the tent on the left. “There are several members of the sheikh’s family here tonight. I’m sure you’ll be made to feel very welcome.”

  Nadia exchanged a final brief glance with al-Kamal before setting off toward the tent. Two veiled women appeared and, greeting her warmly in Nedji Arabic, drew her through the opening. Inside were twenty more women just like them. They were seated on thick Oriental rugs, around heaping platters of lamb, chicken, eggplant, rice, and flat bread. Some wore the niqab like Nadia, but most were fully veiled. In the enclosed space of the tent, their energetic chatter sounded like the clicking of cicadas. It fell silent for a few seconds while Nadia was introduced by one of the women who had greeted her. Apparently, they had been waiting for Nadia’s arrival to begin eating, for one of the women loudly exclaimed, “Al-hamdu lillah!”—Thanks be to God! Then the women set upon the platters as if they had not eaten in many days and would not see food again for a very long time.

  Still standing, Nadia searched the shapeless veiled forms for a moment before settling herself between two women in their twenties. On
e was named Adara, the other Safia. Adara came from Buraydah and was the sheikh’s niece. Her brother had gone to Iraq to fight the Americans and had vanished without a trace. Safia turned out to be the wife of Ali, the talib. “I was named for the Muslim woman who killed a Jewish spy in the time of the Prophet,” she said proudly before adding the obligatory “peace be upon him.” Rafiq al-Kamal had been right about the Toyota Camry; it had been given to Ali after his graduation from the terrorist rehabilitation program. Safia had been given to him as well, along with a respectable dowry. They were expecting their first child in four months’ time. “Inshallah, it will be a boy,” she said.

  “If it is the will of God,” repeated Nadia with a serenity that did not match her thoughts.

  Nadia served herself a small portion of chicken and rice and looked around at the other women. A few had removed their niqabs, but most were attempting to eat with their faces covered, including Adara and Safia. Nadia did the same, all the while listening to the constant hum of chatter around her. It was frightfully banal: family gossip, the newest shopping center in Riyadh, the accomplishments of their children. Only their sons, of course, for their female offspring were symbols of reproductive failure. This was how they spent their lives, locked away in separate rooms, in separate tents, in the company of women just like themselves. They attended no theater productions, because there was not one playhouse in the entire country. They went to no discotheques, because music and dancing were both strictly haram. They read nothing but the Koran—which they studied separately from men—and heavily censored magazines promoting clothing they were not allowed to wear in public. Occasionally, they would grant one another physical pleasure, the dirty little secret of Saudi Arabia, but for the most part they led lives of crushing, depressing boredom. And when it was over they would be buried in the Wahhabi tradition, in a grave with no marker, beneath the blistering sands of the Nejd.

  Despite it all, Nadia couldn’t help but feel strangely comforted by the warm embrace of her people and her faith. That was the one thing Westerners would never understand about Islam: it was all-encompassing. It woke you in the morning with the call to prayer and covered you like an abaya as you moved through the rest of your day. It was in every word, every thought, and every deed of a pious Muslim. And it was here, in this communal gathering of veiled women, in the heart of the Nejd.

  It was then she felt the first terrible pang of guilt. It swept up on her with the suddenness of a sandstorm and without the courtesy of a warning. By throwing in her lot with the Israelis and the Americans, she was effectively renouncing her faith as a Muslim. She was a heretic, an apostate, and the punishment for apostasy was death. It was a death these veiled, bored women gathered around her would no doubt condone. They had no choice; if they dared to rise to her defense, they would suffer the same fate.

  The guilt quickly passed and was replaced by fear. To steel herself, she thought of Rena, her guide, her beacon. And she thought how appropriate it was that her act of betrayal should occur here, in the sacred land of the Nejd, in the comforting embrace of veiled women. And if she had any misgivings about the path she had chosen, it was too late. Because through the opening in the tent she could see Ali, the bearded talib, coming across the desert in his short Salafi thobe. It was time to have a quiet word with the sheikh. After that, Allah willing, the rains would come, and it would be done.

  Chapter 43

  Nejd, Saudi Arabia

  SHE FOLLOWED THE TALIB INTO the desert, along the rim of the wadi. There was no proper footpath, only a swath of beaten earth, the remnants of an ancient camel track that had been carved into the desert floor long before anyone in the Nejd had ever heard of a preacher called Wahhab or even a trader from Mecca called Muhammad. The talib carried no torch, for no torch was needed. Their way was lit by the hard white stars shining in the vast sky and by the hilal moon floating above a distant spire of rock, like a crescent atop the world’s tallest minaret. Nadia carried her high heels in one hand and with the other lifted the hem of her black abaya. The air had turned bitterly cold, but the earth felt warm against her feet. The talib was walking a few paces ahead. His thobe appeared luminescent in the moon glow. He was reciting verses of the Koran softly to himself, but to Nadia he spoke not a word.

  They came upon a tent with no satellite dish or generator. Two men crouched outside the entrance, their young, bearded faces lit by the faint glow of a small fire. The talib offered them a greeting of peace, then pulled open the flap of the tent and gestured for Nadia to enter. Sheikh Marwan Bin Tayyib, dean of the department of theology at the University of Mecca, sat cross-legged on a simple Oriental carpet, reading the Koran by the light of a gas lantern. Closing the book, he regarded Nadia through his small round spectacles for a long moment before inviting her to sit. She lowered herself slowly to the carpet, careful not to expose her flesh, and arranged herself piously next to the Koran.

  “The veil becomes you,” Bin Tayyib said admiringly, “but you may remove it, if you wish.”

  “I prefer to keep it on.”

  “I never realized you were so devout. Your reputation is that of a liberated woman.”

  The sheikh clearly did not mean it as a compliment. He intended to test her, but then she had expected nothing less. Neither had Gabriel. Hide only us, he had said. Adhere to the truth when possible. Lie as a last resort. It was the way of the Office. The way of the professional spy.

  “Liberated from what?” Nadia asked, deliberately provoking him.

  “From the sharia,” said the sheikh. “I’m told you never wear the veil in the West.”

  “It is impractical.”

  “It is my understanding that more and more of our women are choosing to remain veiled when they travel. I’m told that many Saudi women cover their faces when they are having tea at Harrods.”

  “They don’t run large investment companies. And most of them drink more than just tea when they’re in the West.”

  “I hear you are one of them.”

  Adhere to the truth when possible. . . .

  “I confess that I am fond of wine.”

  “It is haram,” he said in a scolding tone.

  “Blame it on my father. He permitted me to drink when I was in the West.”

  “He was lenient with you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “he wasn’t lenient. He spoiled me terribly. But he also gave me his great faith.”

  “Faith in what?”

  “Faith in Allah and His Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

  “If my memory is correct, your father regarded himself as a descendant of Wahhab himself.”

  “Unlike the al-Asheikh family, we are not direct descendants. We come from a distant branch.”

  “Distant or not, his blood flows through you.”

  “So it is said.”

  “But you have chosen not to marry and have children. Is this, too, a matter of practicality?”

  Nadia hesitated.

  Lie as a last resort. . . .

  “I came of age in the wake of my father’s murder,” she said. “My grief makes it impossible for me to even contemplate the idea of marriage.”

  “And now your grief has led you to us.”

  “Not grief,” Nadia said. “Anger.”

  “Here in the Nejd, it is sometimes difficult to tell the two apart.” The sheikh gave her a sympathetic smile, his first. “But you should know that you are not alone. There are hundreds of Saudis just like you—good Muslims whose loved ones were killed by the Americans or are rotting to this day in the cages of Guantánamo Bay. And many have come to the brothers in search of revenge.”

  “None of them watched their father being murdered in cold blood.”

  “You believe this makes you special?”

  “No,” Nadia said, “I believe it is my money that makes me special.”

  “Very special,” the sheikh said. “It’s been five years since your father was martyred, has it not?”

 
Nadia nodded.

  “That is a long time, Miss al-Bakari.”

  “In the Nejd, it is the blink of an eye.”

  “We expected you sooner. We even sent our brother Samir to make contact with you. But you rejected his entreaties.”

  “It wasn’t possible for me to help you at the time.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was being watched.”

  “By whom?”

  “By everyone,” she said, “including the al-Saud.”

  “They warned you against taking any action to avenge your father’s death?”

  “In no uncertain terms.”

  “They said there would be financial consequences?”

  “They didn’t go into specifics, except to say the consequences would be grave.”

  “And you believed them?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because they are liars.” Bin Tayyib allowed his words to hang in the air for a moment. “How do I know that you are not a spy sent here by the al-Saud to entrap me?”

  “How do I know that you are not the spy, Sheikh Bin Tayyib? After all, you are the one who’s on the al-Saud payroll.”

  “So are you, Miss al-Bakari. At least that’s the rumor.”

  Nadia gave the sheikh a withering look. She could only imagine how she must have appeared to him—two coal-black eyes glaring over a black niqab. Perhaps there was value to the veil after all.

  “Try to see it from our point of view, Miss al-Bakari,” Bin Tayyib continued. “In the five years since your father’s martyrdom, you have said nothing about him in public. You seem to spend as little time in Saudi Arabia as possible. You smoke, you drink, you shun the veil—except, of course, when you are trying to impress me with your piety—and you throw away hundreds of millions of dollars on infidel art.”