by Ted Dekker
He threw it over his head and pulled it down. There were no arms as such and he quickly gathered it around him in a fashion that matched the pictures he’d seen. His leather shoes poked out the bottom—that might be a problem. He snatched up the veil and pulled it over his head. Ha! Perfect!
The door opened and another woman entered.
Another?
She looked at him as if something was wrong. For a moment neither moved. Then she stepped over and straightened his head covering, mumbling something he couldn’t understand. Seth nodded his thanks and walked out.
He stood for a moment, gathering his senses. He was blind to the future. Did women in Saudi Arabia ever wear leather tennis shoes? He hoped so; he sincerely doubted so. He couldn’t very well slip on a pair of pumps, though, could he? He’d be tripping in every crack.
He’d seen enough of the future to know what he should attempt now, but he hadn’t seen whether he would succeed. He could get to the city riding a shuttle bus. But the specifics of that future had faded. Not the general future, but the tiny things that made a difference. When to say what, which seat to sit in—those sorts of things.
He struck out for the sign that indicated buses. There was no going back now. This was Miriam’s homeland. The thought brought her rushing to his mind. She was here; he had no doubt. Where was another matter entirely.
The bus ride involved little more than suffering through an hour of humiliation. Several men glared at him, focusing first on his hairy hands, which he quickly hid, and then on his shoes, which he could not. Whether their scorn came from his choice of shoes or from traveling alone, he couldn’t guess. It took some effort not to slap the one male who evidently saw it as his duty to scowl at him, but otherwise Seth survived his first hour in Saudi Arabia.
He stepped off the bus in downtown Riyadh near midnight. He walked away from the bus as quickly as possible, painfully aware that most Saudi women were not out at this hour.
The city was virtually deserted. If he had his sight, he might be able to begin his search for Miriam now, but he would have to wait for at least another five hours. And hide.
Seth found a deserted alley and settled to his haunches behind a large garbage bin. The night hid him well. He was the night. A black blob in a dark alley in the dead of night.
He hadn’t felt so anxious since his father had kicked him out of the house for spilling his Coke on the kitchen table at his fourth birthday party.
There was screaming and there was hitting and Seth awoke.
“Get up, get up, you filthy woman!” someone screamed in Arabic. A stick hit his head, snapping him to full awareness. A man stood over him wielding a baton. One of the religious police, the mutawa, by the looks of his dress.
Seth scrambled to his feet. The mutawa drew back to strike another blow, and Seth did the only thing that came to his mind. He ran.
Curses rang down the alley after him. The abaaya flapped around his ankles and he pulled it up to his knees for the getaway. Something about the sight silenced the mutawa. Seth’s shoes, maybe. Or his long stride.
He couldn’t take any chances now. If the man suspected that Seth was something other than a woman, he would investigate. Cross-dressing wasn’t exactly encouraged in Saudi Arabia.
Seth cut up another alley. He sneaked around the shops in the souk for ten minutes until satisfied the mutawa was no longer a threat. The abaaya disguised him only among other women; at this dawn hour they weren’t yet out.
The day’s first prayer call warbled through the cool morning air. That would summon some men—those devout enough to rise early—but he would have to wait to start his search until enough women could give him cover.
Until his sight returned, he intended to eavesdrop on market conversations. Someone somewhere had to know something about Omar. If he could find Omar, he was sure he would find Miriam.
The absurdity of his situation hit him as he walked through the market, trying to look as if he belonged. But the fact was, he didn’t belong. He imagined Miriam walking this same market before her flight to America. In so many ways, she belonged.
Where could she be now? If she were with him, he would belong; without her he was lost. And without his clairvoyance, he might as well be in a tomb. The thoughts brought a lump to his throat.
Miriam, my princess. Where are you? He was here to find her, still powerless to begin.
An air-raid alarm wailed across the city. Then the sound of automatic-weapons fire, like popping corn. His heart bolted. The air fell silent. What could that mean? Trouble. But not for him. This was something bigger.
Seth hurried to a large structure that stood against the horizon, half a mile ahead. He needed his clairvoyance now. He needed it badly.
And if it didn’t return?
It did return, two hours later. Seven hours after it had left him. Seven hours! And it would be gone in under two.
The cause for the sirens roared through his head. Someone in a passing car was about to tell someone else on a cell phone, and Seth saw it as a future.
“What I’m saying, Faisal, is that we can’t just pretend that nothing is happening. The royal palace is under siege, you imbecile.” The connection faded as the car raced out of range. Seth gasped.
The coup was under way! Which meant Miriam had married Omar. Seth felt ill.
He searched the futures for events beyond this small square. Nothing. He saw as he did at the beginning. How much longer until his clairvoyance vanished?
If militants had the palace under siege, they kept it well concealed—it hadn’t upset daily life in any obvious way here at the city’s heart. A few police cars screamed by, followed by lumbering army trucks, but the streets were filling with pedestrians, unconcerned or unaware.
Okay, Seth. One step at a time.
Seth hurried out onto a crosswalk that overlooked a large courtyard of the Al-Faisaliah Center. The mall’s central structure towered high above the skyline, a narrow pyramid shape, oddly modern among its peers. Seth’s attention turned to the people crowding at its base.
He could walk up to any one of the thousands who passed by and ask if he or she knew who Omar bin Khalid was and, if so, where he lived. That created possible futures. He could see those, and he could see all the possible answers. His task was to look into those futures and find the person who knew the answer to both questions.
Seth stood over the people. He was a woman resting on the walkway, unusual only because she was alone. The futures spun through his mind, fruitless for ten minutes. And then twenty. And then forty.
A hundred thousand people must have passed in the crowd below and not one of them knew Omar? Actually, he saw eight who would have responded in the affirmative to his first question, but as to where Omar lived, they possessed no more information than he. If he could just find one who knew, he could probably trick them out of the answer.
What if the coup had already succeeded? If Miriam was married to Omar, what could he, an American citizen with no diplomatic status, possibly do? Kidnap her? The questions made him weak.
A girl coming across the walk caught his attention. She was hardly more than a child, still unveiled, and he knew immediately that she was the one. She spoke English and his conversation with her would have gone like this:
“Excuse me. Is this man Omar one you could know?”
She looked at him, amused. “You are English?” she asked in English.
“Yes! Yes, I am.”
“Then speak English. Do I look like a fool? And why are you dressed like a woman?”
“You are positively brilliant. I am dressed like a woman because I am from the theater.”
“We don’t have theaters.”
“There is one and it’s a secret. Do you know of Omar bin Khalid?”
“I don’t believe you. There are no theaters. Yes, I do know Bin Khalid.”
“You do? That’s wonderful. And where does he live? I must speak to him about the theater as soon as possible.”
“It is? That’s wonderful! And do you know, was there a wedding there recently? In the past few days?”
“I could never tell you that. You are a man,” she would have said.
And indeed, she never would tell him. But she just had, hadn’t she? The conversation could have become interesting, but he had what he needed.
Seth whirled from the railing. He had to find a way to the Villa Amour. He had less than an hour before the clairvoyance ended. Maybe a lot less.
chapter 35
king Abdullah stormed into his office, furious. Incompetence surrounded him. He felt vulnerable without his security chief, who lay dead in a box somewhere on its way back to Saudi Arabia. Hilal would have ended this madness already if he hadn’t gotten himself killed. For that Abdullah blamed the Americans.
“How many men do they have?” he asked, sliding behind his desk.
General Mustafa crossed his legs. “The sheik claims to have ten thousand just beyond the city to the west.”
Abdullah eyed his brother. This man had persuaded him not to act after receiving the call from the American secretary of state. With the crown prince in Indonesia, Abdullah weighed his general’s advice and agreed. Now that Khalid had taken control of the palace perimeter, Abdullah wondered whether General Mustafa was not divided himself.
“Where is the crown prince?”
“His plane has been turned back to Jakarta,” Mustafa said. “Khalid has taken control of the airport as well.”
The airport! “Ahmed is with Khalid?”
“It would seem so.”
“How many other ministers?”
“At least twelve. Khalid has planned this for a long time to have such a broad base of support.”
Abdullah stared out the window. The sky was blue. A pigeon soared by. It wasn’t the first time a prince had tried to remove him from power—the threat was constant. But this one seemed to have some momentum. “You are speaking about my death, General. Not a political rally.”
“No, Your Highness. They’ve made no such threats. They’ve given you twelve hours to evacuate the government. If they planned to storm the palace, they would have done it already, when they had the advantage of surprise.”
“Don’t be a fool. They’ve given me twelve hours only to appease the half of the city that supports me. They have no intention of allowing me to walk out of here alive. I’ve always been a threat to the militants.”
The general waited before answering. “Perhaps they have other plans to contain that threat.”
“I have no intention of rotting in a cell. How many men does Khalid have outside now?”
“It’s not how many, sir. It’s where he has them. They control all of the security outside the palace itself. And they control most of the ministries.”
“No change in the military?”
“No. Both the air force and the army are standing down. They aren’t necessarily with Khalid, but they aren’t against him either.”
“So in the end, Khalid’s real force consists of the sheik’s men?”
“Yes. And the sheik has another twenty thousand standing by.”
Abdullah closed his eyes and thought about the events that had led up to this moment. His predecessor, King Fahd, had always prevailed, using both cunning and brute force. Cunning was all Abdullah had. Cunning and the Americans.
“We still have communications?” he asked.
“No telephones,” General Mustafa said.
“Then get a message out with a courier. You can do that, can’t you, General?”
“Perhaps. Yes, I think so.”
Abdullah opened his eyes. “Good. Let the city know what’s happening here. We will create as much confusion in the streets as we can. Tell them that the Shia have besieged the palace. That should get a reaction. Sheik Al-Asamm is the key. Perhaps we could do what Khalid has done. Perhaps we could dislodge his loyalty to Khalid.”
The general was silent.
“What do you think, General? Can the sheik’s allegiance be shaken?”
“I don’t know. If it can, Khalid will fail. But Al-Asamm is bound by marriage, and he’s a traditional man.”
“Yet he broke his bond with me.”
“Only because the religious leaders agreed that he could, under the circumstances.”
“And what about you, General? Where do your loyalties lie?”
“With the king.”
“And if Khalid were king?”
“The king will be whomever Allah has willed. But I believe that he has willed you, Your Highness.”
“I see. And is Khalid following God’s will?”
The general didn’t have an answer. Conviction had divided the country between fundamentalists and more moderate Muslims. But like many, Mustafa himself was probably torn. Fatalism was indeed convenient at times.
“If I don’t hear rioting within the hour, I will assume you haven’t spread the word, General. That is all.”
“The coup is six hours old from what we can gather, but we have no direct contact with the House of Saud so we can’t be sure,” Smaley said. “You’re still in Colorado Springs?”
So Seth had been right! Clive shifted the cell phone to his right hand. “I’m on my way to the airport now. You’re saying that Khalid bin Mishal has actually succeeded?”
“Too soon to call it.”
“Then Seth may be our only hope.”
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s dead in the water. He obviously failed to disrupt the wedding, and we haven’t heard a thing from him. You, on the other hand, may be able to help us out.” Smaley paused. “Look, you were right on this one, and you have my apologies. Meanwhile, we have a serious situation on our hands. Khalid has sealed off our embassy in Riyadh and both consulates in Dhahran and Jidda. We have no idea how Jordan and his staff are doing; communications are down. It’s a mess.”
“Miriam’s alive?” Clive asked.
“We assume so. Sheik Al-Asamm has gathered a pretty decent force east of the city. Which is why we want you back in the lab with that last scenario Seth ran. Was the sheik a factor in Seth’s simulation?”
Clive used his free hand to maneuver the car into a 7-Eleven. “He must have been. In any real scenario the sheik would have to be dealt with. You want me to analyze the actions of the sheik and Omar in Seth’s scenario? Makes sense.” He swung the car around.
“The techs are already doing it, but they don’t have your sense of this thing. We think that our best hope may rest with the sheik. We need to know his weaknesses, his responses to real situations. If Seth’s scenario was real, it could give us that, right?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Do you have contact with the sheik?”
“Not yet, but we think we can get to his personal line. Either way, we don’t have a lot of time here.”
Clive motored back onto the 24 bypass and headed for Cheyenne Mountain. “I’m on my way. So nothing from Seth, huh?”
“Not on this end. That may be a good thing. The last thing we need is for some maniac American to walk in and kidnap the sheik’s daughter. We need Al-Asamm’s cooperation, not his anger.”
“You still don’t get him, do you, Peter? It’s a good thing he’s beyond your reach now. At the very least, don’t go out of your way to stop him.”
“For all we know, he’s dead,” Smaley said. “You should’ve never let him go. Forget it, Clive. He’s no longer a factor.”
Clive wanted to object, but on the surface, the deputy secretary made sense. For all he knew, Seth had lost his gift altogether by now. And if Miriam was married . . .
Still, even without clairvoyance, Seth was no idiot.
“I’ll call you if I get anything,” Clive said. He turned the phone off.
chapter 36
time was everything now.
Seth found a taxi driver who knew the location of the Villa Amour. Despite butchering a few words in Arabic while using his best impression of a woman’s voice, Seth convinced the driver to take him. But the effort wasted half an hour.
A tall wall ran around the villa, and guards stood at the gates. Didn’t matter—he saw no way past the gate anyway. The only way to sneak in was over the wall at the south end. Thank the stars he was still seeing.
He ran as best he could in the abaaya without looking like a wounded bat. He jumped for the top of the wall, caught it, and hauled himself over.
The villas were called palaces, and he could see why at first glance. Tall Greek pillars framed a fifteen-foot entrance made of wood. But he had no intention of using the front door. It was the servants’ housing near the back that interested him.
Not so long ago, he would have been able to stand here and know precisely what was in the villa by scanning through possible futures. But at the moment he was capturing only glimpses, like at the start of this whole mess, when he’d first seen Miriam about to be attacked in the ladies’ room at Berkeley.
Seth ran under cover of bushes and palm trees that lined a huge fountain, spinning through the questions that had plagued him during the long cab ride. Why hadn’t he seen Miriam in any future? This was Omar’s newest villa; he knew at least that. And he knew that a wedding had been performed here recently. But he still did not know with certainty that Omar had married Miriam here or, if he had, that she was still here.
Seth swallowed hard, aware of how thin his chances were. He placed his hope in the Filipino maid who would engage him in the servants’ quarters. He didn’t know how cooperative she’d be, but he had seen that she would talk to him. At least he had that.
One step at a time, Seth. Just one step.
He paused at the door and glanced back. He couldn’t take his seeing for granted anymore. He put his hand on the knob and turned. The door swung in.
A wood table, window coverings made of sheets, and an old wood stove furnished the dim room. A dark-skinned woman, unveiled and dressed in a dirty tunic, turned from the stove, eyes wide.