by Vince Flynn
Tayyib remembered blowing out his knee at the age of twenty-five, and how he had laid there on the field looking at his leg. It was a night game, as most of them were. To play a soccer match in the midday heat would have been suicide. Tayyib played defense, and his size and roaming ability enabled him to cover a lot of ground. The first rule for a defender was to never let an opponent get behind you. There was one exception which involved a good deal of risk. Usually once or twice a game Tayyib would be back on defense and he would perfectly anticipate an opponent’s pass. They always underestimated his speed. He would lull them into thinking he was moving one way and then when he saw his opening, he would dart forward and pick the pass perfectly. He would catch the entire opposing team leaning toward his own goal and Tayyib would be off like an Arabian thoroughbred, racing to the other end of the field with everyone chasing him.
On this last night of his career, he had made it practically the entire length of the field, the goalie had come out to cut down the angle, Tayyib made a fake to his right, and then kicked the ball from the right center over to the left center. The goalie was caught completely out of position, and Tayyib had an open net. He let up for just a second; it was the easiest of shots. He planted his right leg to deliver a booming kick with his left foot and then from out of nowhere an opposing player came in high and fast and rather than take him out at the ankle, took Tayyib out at the knee. With all of his weight on his right leg, his knee folded like a cheap umbrella in a gale. Tayyib hit the turf, rolled, and when he lifted his head his thigh was straight, but his foot was off to the side at a right angle. Tayyib knew his soccer career was over before he’d even registered the agonizing pain.
Now, as he walked down the wide, opulent marble hallway to Prince Muhammad’s office, he had the same feeling as he had had that day. None of this had been his idea, but that didn’t matter. He believed in Prince Muhammad. He trusted the man’s vision to expand Islam under the banner of the Wahhabis—the only true followers of the faith. Their religion was under a constant onslaught by the West. To protect Islam they needed to expand and retake the southern shores of Europe as a buffer. He so believed in the cause that he planned on offering his resignation. Tayyib’s career was over. He had failed a man who did not accept failure.
After firing the RPG through the front door of the Sheriff’s Department on Saturday night, Tayyib had gone back to Alexandria and waited down the street from the car garage. He had $500,000 sitting in the trunk and had never been so eager to give money away. As the clock inched toward 11:00 he expected the three black trucks to come pulling up any second. At 11:15 he started to worry. By 11:30 he was crawling out of his skin. He waited until midnight and dialed the phone he’d given Castillo. After eight rings he got a recording. Tayyib started the car and left. On the way to the embassy, he wiped down the phone, removed the battery, and chucked it out the window.
He didn’t sleep that night. He tried, but he couldn’t. Two scenarios kept playing on a loop in his brain. In the first Castillo and his men took the $500,000 they already had and were out having the time of their lives laughing at the stupid foreigner who had handed them such a large amount of money. The second scenario was that they had gone to the safe house and failed. The more he thought about it, the more he hoped they had taken the money and flown to Las Vegas. If they had been caught trying to kill Mitch Rapp, it might create some problems. Tayyib doubted Castillo or any of his men knew he was a Saudi, but they might be able to make a link with the witness he’d had them kill the year before.
The Sunday morning newspapers were delivered to the embassy at 5:00 a.m. There was no mention of anything happening in Virginia. Tayyib supposed they’d had to go to press before the story could be written. He turned to the TV to see if he could learn anything. At 7:00 a.m. one of the local affiliates led with the story of the explosions in Leesburg. There were reporters on site giving live updates, and there was an announcement that the sheriff would hold a press conference at 12:00 noon. Tayyib checked the twenty-four-hour news channels. Fox mentioned the explosions on the crawl at the bottom of the screen, but that was it. Tayyib got on the Internet to see if he could learn more. There was nothing. The press was not equipped to handle stories that broke late on a Saturday night, but by the time the sheriff held his press conference three of the twenty-four-hour news outlets and all of the local affiliates were covering the story.
Tayyib watched the press conference in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. He listened intently to everything that was said. At no time did anyone mention an attack on a federal facility in conjunction with the attacks in Leesburg. Tayyib spent the afternoon trying to learn something, anything. He drove by the garage three times, half expecting to see police cruisers and yellow crime scene tape, but there was nothing. He took this as a bad sign. A very bad sign. Tayyib jumped on the last nonstop flight of the day from Washington, DC, to Riyadh.
He had a first class ticket so he was able to sleep through most of the flight. He landed in Riyadh a little before 1:00 p.m. He did not want to face Rashid, but he knew he must. Tayyib wasn’t a man to shake responsibility or blame. A car and driver were waiting for him. As soon as he’d settled into the backseat of the Mercedes sedan he called his office to get an update on what was going on with the Leesburg story. Nothing had changed since he’d left Washington. Something else had happened, though. Tayyib listened carefully and then asked the man on the other end if he was certain. He said he was. Tayyib hung up, looked out the window of the Mercedes sedan, and closed his eyes. He had been back in the country for a little more than thirty minutes and the situation had gone from bad to disastrous. The car pulled up in front of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Tayyib got out and put on a white robe over his suit.
He took the elevator up to the top floor and stepped into a wide hall with Carrara marble floors and alabaster stone columns every twenty feet on the right and the left. Deep burgundy fabric hung on each side of the columns, creating semi-intimate nooks. There were eight of them. Four on the left and four on the right. Each nook contained a desk. Behind each desk sat a man. No women worked in the building. The hall served as the outer office for the Minister of Islamic Affairs.
Tayyib marched down the hall, his gaze straight ahead, more intent than usual. He did not bother to look at any of the gatekeepers and they did not bother to stop him. He stopped in front of the last desk on the right and said, “Is the minister alone?”
“No.”
“Clear the office.” It was a command.
The administrative assistant looked at an appointment book on his desk and hesitated.
Tayyib leaned his six-foot-four-inch frame forward and placed his large hands on the man’s desk. “It is not a request. It is an order. Unless the king is in there, I suggest you clear the office or you will be out of a job.”
The man jumped to his feet and scurried into the office. Tayyib followed.
The office was eighty feet long by fifty feet wide. There was no desk anywhere in sight, just clusters of chairs, couches, and pillows. Rashid was at the far end of the room sitting on an oversized chair that was almost, but not quite, a throne. Five men, well into their seventies, were gathered around Rashid on a group of three couches. The assistant scurried ahead at a pace just short of an all-out run. Tayyib made him nervous.
He approached Rashid and whispered in his ear. Rashid nodded and then informed his guests that he was most sorry, but he would have to cut their meeting short. The men got up and filed out of the room at a snail’s pace. Tayyib stood off to the side clenching and unclenching his fists.
When they were finally gone and the door was closed, Tayyib bowed at the waist and said, “My prince, I apologize for the intrusion.”
Rashid stared down at him with his slightly hooded eyes. He’d known Tayyib for eleven years now, since the man’s early days at the Saudi Intelligence Service. Tayyib built a reputation as someone who got things done and kept his mouth shut as well. There were plenty of m
en who got things done, but few knew how to keep quiet about it. Tayyib was not a lighthearted individual, but neither was he someone prone to melancholy, fits of rage, or any other outward expression of emotion. He was serious and steady, and that was why Rashid liked him. That was also why the look on Tayyib’s face gave the prince cause for concern. “I assume things did not go well in America.”
Tayyib blinked, his business in America already a distant memory. He dropped to a knee. His bad one. He lowered his head and said, “Prince Muhammad, I am sorry, but I have some terrible news.”
Rashid exhaled through his nostrils and nodded for the man to continue.
“On my way here from the airport I received a call from my office.” Tayyib lifted his head and glanced up at the prince. “There was an explosion in Riyadh just a short while ago.”
“Where?” Rashid asked in a guarded tone.
“In front of the headquarters of Abdullah Telecommunications.”
“Abdullah Telecommunications,” Rashid said absolutely shocked. “What kind of explosion?”
“A suicide bomber.”
“A suicide bomber,” repeated a confused Rashid. The Kingdom was very good at exporting suicide bombers. Occasionally one would strike within the Kingdom itself, but it was always against Western targets, usually the Americans. “Was anyone killed?”
“I’m afraid so.” Tayyib looked down. “Saeed Ahmed Abdullah.”
Upon hearing the name of his childhood friend, Rashid was speechless. After a moment he regained his composure and asked, “How did this happen?”
“Witnesses say that Saeed was leaving noontime prayer and was walking across the street to his office. The man was waiting for him. He came up and hugged Saeed and then blew himself up.”
Rashid was dumbstruck. “Who was the bomber?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Why would a suicide bomber want to kill Saeed?”
Tayyib had been wrestling with this same question.
The prince stood and gathered his robes, one folded over each arm. “Rise,” he said as he stepped down from the platform. His mind had stumbled upon a horrible possibility. “And what of our business in America?”
Tayyib stood and said, “I have failed you, my prince.” He had thought about his answer on the long flight. The truth was he didn’t know what had gone wrong, but that in and of itself was proof of failure. “The men I sent to take care of the job never returned.”
“What happened to them?”
“I do not know.”
“So Mitch Rapp is still alive.” It was a statement not a question.
“I think so.”
“And my good friend Saeed has just been killed.” Rashid walked across the marble floor from one Persian rug to the next until he was looking out a small window. He could think of no reason why a Muslim would kill Saeed. Rapp on the other hand had plenty of motives. Rashid remembered he had warned his old friend to keep his mouth shut. The Americans had found out about the bounty, and Rapp was already in Saudi Arabia killing those responsible for his wife’s death.
“I know what you are thinking, my prince, but I do not see how Rapp could have left America and put this together so quickly. Who would he find to be a suicide bomber?”
“Maybe he blew himself up?” Rashid asked in a hopeful tone.
Tayyib thought about that for a moment and then announced, “I have studied Rapp. The man would never commit suicide unless he had to. He would have simply shot Saeed.”
“Then tell me why a fellow Muslim would want to kill Saeed?”
“Maybe it wasn’t a Muslim.”
Rashid frowned. “There is no such thing as a non-Muslim suicide bomber. Do you see any Jewish suicide bombers? Even the Irish during their war with the British never resorted to suicide bombings. The Japanese are the only other culture to employ the tactic in modern history, and I doubt the Japanese killed Saeed.”
“I’ll grant that the timing looks bad, but I don’t see how Rapp could have left America on Sunday and orchestrated something like this. I myself left Sunday evening and I arrived only an hour ago.”
“What about Abel?”
Tayyib considered the possibility. “We still can’t find him. As of Saturday I know he had not returned Saeed’s money, but again where is Abel going to find a suicide bomber?”
“Then what happened?”
“I am reluctant to guess with so little information.”
Rashid turned away from the window and said, “Guess anyway.” It was a command.
Tayyib stood off to the side and tried to come up with anything that was plausible. “Saeed has many militant ties. It is possible that a rival to one of these groups decided to kill him.”
Rashid scoffed at the idea. “You don’t find it at all coincidental that Saeed paid twenty million dollars to have Mitch Rapp killed? The killers miss him and end up killing his wife, and now Saeed is dead. You don’t find that odd?”
“Of course I do, but with all respect, Prince Muhammad, men like Rapp don’t blow themselves up.”
Rashid thought about that for a second. He had a point, but things had changed. “His wife was killed. Who knows what he is capable of now?”
Before Tayyib could respond his phone rang. Tayyib froze. The prince hated phones, and had a steadfast rule that when in his presence they were to be turned off. He struggled to get it out of his pocket and silence the ringer. His large hands fumbled with the tiny buttons. The screen told him it was his office. Tayyib hesitated. The call could be important. He looked at Rashid, held up the phone and said, “I’m sorry. This is my number two. He might have more information about the explosion.”
Rashid nodded reluctantly.
Tayyib answered the phone and listened intently. After about thirty seconds he said, “Are you sure?” He listened to the man for a little bit longer and said, “Call me if you learn anything more.” Tayyib shut the phone and exhaled.
“What?” Rashid asked impatiently.
“Several of Saeed’s sons were there. They had accompanied him to prayer and they were walking back to the office together when it happened. After they’d overcome the initial shock of the bombing they began cursing the body of the suicide bomber. They were spitting on it and kicking it when one of them suddenly realized he recognized the bomber.”
“Who was it?”
“It was their brother Waheed.”
“Waheed?” Rashid said in utter disbelief. “That cannot be. He is dead.”
“He is now,” Tayyib said, not trying to be funny.
“Rapp killed him six months ago,” the prince insisted.
“Apparently not.” Tayyib folded his arms and thinking aloud said, “The body was never returned.”
“Why would Waheed kill his own father?”
“He may not have.” Tayyib knew something the prince didn’t.
“You just said he did,” Rashid snapped.
“He may not have known what was happening. There is a security tape. It shows Waheed being led by another man. The two stop in front of the office building and wait there for several minutes. Then as Saeed starts to cross the street from the mosque to go back to the office the man leaves Waheed’s side and walks away. He looks over his shoulder once and then looks down at something in his hand. We think it was a remote of some sort. A second before the explosion the man raises his hand to the camera like this.” Tayyib held up his middle finger and made the gesture toward the wall, away from Rashid. “Then there is an explosion, and Saeed is blown in half.”
“Can they tell who the man on the tape is?”
“They are going to try, but it will be difficult. The man was wearing a kaffiyeh and sunglasses.”
Rashid looked back out the window, his mind running down the list of possibilities. “That gesture is very American.”
Tayyib nodded. “The Americans and the French.”
“What is your assessment now?” the prince asked.
“Six months ago, Mitch Rapp
captured Waheed Ahmed Abdullah in a mountain village on the Pakistani-Afghan border. Shortly after that the U.S. government informed us that Waheed was dead. Now Waheed shows up back from the dead and ends up blowing his own father to pieces.” Tayyib shook his head.
“Who was the man in the surveillance video?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it.”
Rashid scoffed. “You know who it was.”
Tayyib nodded. “It was more than likely Mitch Rapp. I don’t know how he did it, but it was probably him.”
“You must find Abel,” Rashid said in a slow, methodical voice. “I don’t know how the Americans know that Saeed was behind this, but my guess is that Saeed was too talkative about his role in the matter.”
“I warned you about that.”
“I know you did and I talked to him, but he did not listen. There is only one way we can be linked to this.”
“Abel,” answered Tayyib.
The prince nodded. “You must find him and kill him.”
“I will see to it myself.”
“Good. I am leaving for Spain tomorrow morning. The dedication of the mosque is on Friday. This is very important to me. Find Abel before then, interrogate him to find out if he has talked to anyone, and then kill him.”
“What about Rapp? If he is in Saudi Arabia you might not be safe.”
Rashid pursed his lips and looked out across the flat rooftops. “Maybe I will leave for Spain tonight.”
“I think that is a good idea. I will make arrangements to have your security detail strengthened.”
“Good.” Rashid had an idea. “In the meantime, I will call America and see if I can make things more difficult for Mr. Rapp.”
68