The American froze as he stared at the pictures, his hands shaking. He nodded, his eyes burning bright. His buddy gritted, his jaw closing in a smile.
This man was so eager.
So close to a deal.
“How much?” the American demanded.
The Iraqi stared at the eager eyes and doubled the price quickly in his head. “Twenty thousand,” he answered. “U.S. dollars. Nothing else. And we want half up front.”
The American scowled. “That’s not what we agreed!” he protested.
The old man nodded to the pictures. “But that was before you saw her,” he replied. He continued to study the American, who continued to stare.
The Iraqi knew that he had them; there was no doubt in his mind. Ignorant American, he laughed to himself as he watched the Yankee stare at the floor. He could have had the same thing for four or five thousand if he had just played it cool. But no, he was stupid. And the old man would make a huge profit, which would make his masters proud.
“Twenty thousand,” the Iraqi repeated firmly. “Half now and half later and not one penny less. Cash. All American. And you must decide now.”
The two men glanced at each other, and the American swore bitterly. “When will you be ready?” he demanded.
“The pipeline is in place. I only wish it were as simple to smuggle whiskey or cigarettes.”
The foreigners glanced at each other.
“OK,” the American finally said. “Twenty thousand. But I want delivery this week.”
The old man grunted. “It will take another two weeks.”
“Two weeks!” complained the American. “I thought you said it was easy.”
“It is easy, friend,” the Iraqi replied. “But this is a special order, and custom orders take time. So stay, enjoy our hospitality. Sightsee for a while. Come back in two weeks with the rest of the money and you will get what you want.”
The American picked up the photographs, his hands shaking again.
Although they had been taken from a long way away, the photographs had been cropped to show Azadeh’s face very clearly. She looked very scared in the first photograph, her lips drawn and tight as she gazed past the camera at something unseen in the distance. The second photo showed her checking through the in-processing desk at Khorramshahr, her dark eyes shining intently, a white scarf covering her hair. The last one showed her walking through the muddy camp, a burlap sack under her arm.
She looked vulnerable and lonely, yet there was a light in her eyes.
How long would that light shine? Not very long, the American was sure.
The American’s voice took on a deadly edge. “Don’t disappointment me,” he threatened the Iraqi as he leaned toward him. “I want the girl in ten days, or you and I will have issues, my friend.”
TWELVE
The Orchid Flower Presidential Palace, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
The royal Saudi family had been on a nonstop program of building palace since 1990. The king and his sons had been spending billions of dollars on their homes, including man-made lakes, gold trim, diamond-studded fixtures, marble floors, and other luxuries that beautified their palaces and those of their supporters as well. The security features, extensive, in some cases even formidable, were designed to protect the royal family from their own people as much as from their enemies around the world. Incredible gardens surrounded each of the dozens of palaces, gardens that required large amounts of water, often in drought-stricken areas. Beyond that, there were sophisticated waterfalls, interconnected swimming pools, aquariums, and deer farms, all of which required enormous quantities of water, all dredged up by the powerful pumps that had been dropped into the underground aquifer.
The Orchid Flower Presidential Palace had always been one of the king’s favorite retreats. Built over 4.2 square kilometers and completed in 1998, the palace compound contained a fabulous central home, with five smaller palaces for various wives and family members, a presidential compound and VIP residences for visiting dignitaries, all surrounded by three lakes, five man-made waterfalls, and two fishing holes.
But though the palace had been a favorite of the king, he was dead now, and the new king, Al-Rahman, didn’t care for it much. It certainly wasn’t what he would have built, but it would have to do for now.
King al-Rahman sat in his enormous leather chair, smoking a thick brown cigar and sipping the illegal Jack Daniels® whiskey his brother had brought back from his recent trip to New York. As he looked at the huge office around him, the Saudi king couldn’t help but smile.
If this was what it felt like to be king, he was going to like it. He was going to like it a lot.
Sitting there with his smoke and his whiskey, knowing the throne was now his, was the happiest moment in his life—a life that had, so far, been altogether too dull.
Prince al-Rahman was the second son born to King Fahd bin Saud Aziz, monarch of the House of Saud, grandson of King Saud Aziz, the first king of modern-day Saudi Arabia. From a young age, it had been clear that Prince al-Rahman was not the preferred son. Highly intelligent and strikingly handsome but with an infrequent smile, the young prince had always fallen in the shadow of his older brother, the now dead Prince Saud bin Faysal. From the time they were old enough to compete in soccer or wrestle together on the tile floors, the younger son had been overshadowed again and again, always beaten by his older brother no matter what they did. And Prince al-Rahman knew from a very young age who the next king would be: the first son. The loved son. The preferred son of the king.
The first son owned the birthright.
The second son did not.
The first son owned the kingdom.
The second son didn’t own a thing.
But death had changed everything.
King al-Rahman thought, how many years, how many lives, how much pleasure and pain had gone into this moment? How much effort and planning had brought him to this point, when he could sit on the throne and go where he pleased, when he could hold the reins of power without constant fear—fear of his brothers, his father, fear of their kin, fear of the secret Palace Guards or one of the several security organizations his father had created to maintain his great power.
The young king considered his brother, whom he had killed recently along with his brother’s family, his wives and their children, even most of his friends—better to make a clean sweep than to have to spend his nights wondering if he had missed anyone. Yet, here he was now. The first step was complete.
Was he satisfied with his work? Almost perfectly so.
Was he eager for the next action? He could hardly wait.
While smoking, the new king thought of his dead older brother and shivered with pride. Swiveling his office chair, he looked east. From where he sat, the Persian Gulf was a little more than two hundred miles away, but he had walked the gray sands that lined the Saudi beaches at least a hundred times, and he could picture the scene perfectly in his mind, the blue-green water, the pebbled beaches, the burning sun in the sky. The waters were infested with sea snakes and eels, and he knew that, even now, some unseen sea scavenger was nibbling on his brother’s corpse.
I waited. I was patient, he told himself. I paid the price, I bore the burden. I deserve what I have now.
The new king of Saudi Arabia took another quiet drag on his cigar, sipped at the alcohol, and leaned back in his chair.
The truth was, Prince al-Rahman had first thought of killing his brother at a very young age. Indeed, one of the earliest memories he had was of sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at an open cut on his knee. He and his brother had been wrestling on the tile floor, and, being older and larger, Prince Saud had flipped him over his shoulder and Al-Rahman had landed on the knee, splitting the flesh nearly down to the bone. He had grabbed his leg and caught his breath, clenching his teeth, the blood oozing through his fingers as his eyes grew wide in pain. But he hadn’t cried. Not a tear. Not a whimper. He would have died before he would have let his brother see him
cry.
Ten minutes later, sitting on the edge of his bed, he had applied a thick bandage, wrapping the white cotton tightly around his bloody leg. As he doctored his own wound, the thoughts had first come into his head.
“He is stronger than you are,” the voice seemed to say.
The young prince was crying angry tears now that he was alone in his room.
“He is stronger than you are,” the voice came again. “He will always be stronger. You must not fight him anymore. Every time you fight by his rules, you end up on the floor.”
The prince shook his head and wiped a quick hand across his eyes.
“He is the oldest, born of the first wife, in every way preferred. Have you seen how your father looks at him? Have you seen the look in your father’s eye?”
Al-Rahman hung his head, taking in a deep sob.
“You might as well get used to it. This is the way it is and the way it will always be. This anger you are feeling, it will never go away. He is the oldest. He is chosen. He will get everything!”
The young prince finished wrapping the bandage and tightened the knot with a quick, angry pull.
The voice continued in a low voice, a cold buzz in his head. As he listened, Al-Rahman felt a sudden surge of emotion in his chest, a hard, growing knot that seemed to pump up his heart. It was cold and unpleasant, but tempting, somehow. Like a moth drawn to fire, he knew it could hurt him, but he wasn’t afraid.
He could have shaken it off. He could have stood up and walked away. He could have fallen to his knees and prayed for the voice to depart. But he didn’t. He wanted it. And he listened carefully.
“He will be the next king,” the voice was hissing now. “He will rule over you unless . . . . There might be a way if you are strong enough. Strong in other ways. Strong is ways that I could show you. If you show enough courage. If you do what I say . . . .”
And that was how it had started, such a long time ago. He had been just a child, but he was old enough and smart enough to know. These thoughts didn’t come from Allah. They came from somewhere else.
As the years went by, the voice came with more frequency and force. And the voice seemed to know how he felt. The voice seemed to understand him, his doubts and his fears. It seemed to understand his frustration far better than anyone else.
The day before Al-Rahman’s sixteenth birthday, the voice came again. “Like you, I was rejected,” it spoke in a dry hiss, “just as you have been rejected by the king. I know what it is like to live under a master who is bent on destroying everything that I hold dear, everything that I have built, everything that I have loved.
“I too have been pushed away, forced into the shadows at the back of the room, forced to listen while others proclaimed their great love for the other. I too have been forced to watch as the chosen one absorbed all the attention and power, as if it were his right just because of when he was born.
“So yes, I understand you. I know the pain of being rejected. And what could you do to change it? You could not help when you left your mother’s womb. Is it fair that you were brought into this world under the curse of being the second son?”
The young Al-Rahman sat on the top of a fortified wall that surrounded his father’s mountain palace, looking down on the dry and barren desert below. The sand stretched for miles, and the sun was unbearable. A hot breeze blew up from the desert, and the mountain smelled of dry pine. Al-Rahman stared. His dark skin was dry and he was used to the heat, but he had to squint at the hot sun, and he frowned as he thought.
“He will be the next king.” The voice always came back to this point. “He will leave you with nothing. You will never be anything.”
Although he was smarter than his brother, more capable, and far more willing to work, more willing to do what it took to protect the kingdom from its enemies, both at home and abroad, none of that mattered, for he would never be king. That thought was the most vicious cut, the deepest wound that he could feel. “You will not be king,” the voice hissed again. “Unless . . . there still might be a way, if you are strong enough. If you are brave enough. If you do what I say.”
Thirty years in the making.
And the voice owned him now.
But none of that mattered, for now he was the king.
*******
King al-Rahman sucked the last puff of smoke from the tight, brown cigar, glanced at his watch, and smashed the cigar’s glowing orange ash on his desk. The executive committee would be gathered. It was time to get back to work.
He walked down three flights of stairs, deep into the underground bowels of the palace, to the secure briefing room. There, his three younger brothers were waiting, along with four of their closest advisers: the commanding general of their military forces, the communications czar, the foreign minister, and, most important of all, the head of state security and palace police.
The underground command center had cinderblock walls and a bare cement floor. It was crowded with banks of telephones and computers along three sides and several large maps along the back wall. Several command consoles sat in the middle of the room, each with a square metal desk and a row of three or four telephones. A ten-foot plasma screen illuminated the front of the room. But the screen was a deep blue; all it showed was the time, the seconds and minutes ticking by on a digital clock in the center. There were no windows in the command center and only one exit, a heavy steel door along the east wall. Although the room had been designed to accommodate the king’s entire security staff, there was no one there besides Al-Rahman’s three brothers and his top advisers, all of them waiting around a dark conference table. They stood when the king entered and remained standing until he had walked to the head of the table and sat down. His three younger brothers sat at the far end of the table. The advisers sat on each side. To the king’s immediate right was General Abaza, head of the state security and palace police.
Out of all the men in the room, General Abaza was the king’s most trusted counselor, the only man he could truly depend on, the only man whom he didn’t suspect he might find standing at the foot of his bed one night, a grim look on his face, a long knife in his hand.
Abaza was a large man, brawny if not particularly bright, and with the instincts of a badger huddled in the back of its cave. Leave him alone, and he was OK. Crowd him, and he would fight you to the death. General Abaza and Al-Rahman had known each other since they had been in primary school and by the time they had reached adolescence they were best friends. The general had proven extremely loyal over the years. Of course, he owed everything he was or ever would be to Al-Rahman, but both men understood that, so the relationship worked.
King al-Rahman smiled as he thought of how he had recently tested the general. It was simple, yet brilliant, and he was proud of the plan that had been carried out just three nights before.
A group of hooded men broke into General Abaza’s home. Brandishing rifles and swords, they rounded up the general, his wife, and four children and herded them into the basement, all the time screaming obscenities and flashing their guns. The children howled in terror. His wife nearly fainted in fear. After gathering the family in a back room, the men pulled back their hoods to reveal painted faces in black and red camouflage. They looked like raging devils, their eyes circled in dark rings, drops of blood dripping from their painted lips. The men stood over the terrified family, all the time screaming and shoving, giving Abaza no time to think, no time to analyze, no time to wonder who they were or what was going on.
The leader moved forward and grabbed the youngest child. Looking into the general’s eyes, he lifted his sword. “Prince Abdullah al-Rahman has killed our king!” he yelled. “He poisoned him. We know that. And he killed the crown prince as well. Now we are going to kill him. And we are going to move tonight. Are you with us or against us? You’ve got five seconds to decide!”
Abaza stared, his eyes wide in terror, his mouth dry as sand.
“Who will you die for!” the terrorist yelled. “A
re you loyal to Al-Rahman, or are you on our side? Pledge you will help us kill Al-Rahman, or you and your family are dead!”
Abaza’s Adam’s apple bobbing like a bubble in a sea, his eyes wide in terror. Then he bowed his head, took two steps forward, and dropped to his knees. “I cannot betray him,” he muttered. “If you are going to kill us, I only ask that you kill me first.”
The leader raised his sword over the general’s head. Abaza’s wife screamed. The children cowered in the corner and covered their heads. But the swordsman only grunted, then laughed and fell to his knees. He moved over to the general and took him in his arms. The general looked up, staring into the man’s eyes.
The man rubbed his face, removing part of the camouflage, and removed the black wig. It was Al-Rahman, the new king. His eyes danced with delight.
“So, you are with me, General Abaza?” he laughed to his friend.
The general stared in disbelief then dropped his head into his hands in gut-wrenching relief.
“Good. That is good. You have won my respect, General Abaza. You have won my trust, too. I will never forget you and what you have shown me tonight.”
And Al-Rahman had meant what he said. Abaza was now his most trusted adviser, the only man in the room he knew he could trust with his life.
Al-Rahman glanced at the general, giving him a knowing look, then turned back to the others. Standing, he lifted a finger and held it menacingly in the air. “Brothers,” he said, “my father has passed. The kingdom is secured. We have saved our people, our family, and most importantly the Holy Cities of Allah from an unspeakable catastrophe, a disaster that would have set us back four hundred years.”
The king’s men grunted in false agreement. It was a cynical rationalization, and each of them knew it. They weren’t in this for religion, their nation or Allah. They were in it for the power—the power and the money. It was simple as that. They wanted to control their people. They wanted to control the hundred trillion dollars’ worth of oil under their sand. They wanted to control the significant events in the world. They craved to have other nations adore them, or, if they didn’t adore them, then to fear them, it mattered not which.
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