The Blue Widows - [Kamal & Barnea 06]

by By Jon Land

  They had both lost their mothers, at the same time, ironically. His to a bullet, hers to a shattering, long-hidden truth. Berger had given her a photograph of Hanna Frank as a young woman, one that had been part of her file during the selection process for Operation Blue Widow, and Danielle had spent much of the flight staring at it, transfixed.

  The resemblance between them was striking. They shared the same dark, wavy hair and full, piercing eyes. But the picture also showed the kind of dreamy sadness and detachment Danielle had come to know all too well from the mirror, as if Hanna Frank too had accepted a fate she was powerless to change.

  “How do you deal with it?” she asked Ben finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them.

  He looked up from the magazine one of the business-class flight attendants had given him. “With what?”

  “The confusion, the lies. People not being what you expected they were.”

  Ben took her hand and gripped it tightly. He thought of his father, the life of secrets he led that endured well beyond his death. “You realize all that was just their facades, the appearances they put on. Inside they’re no different. The way they feel about you is no different.”

  “Layla Aziz Rahani is my sister.”

  “Half-sister, but there are things more important than blood.”

  “But that’s the irony of it all. Neither of my brothers lived long enough to marry. I have no nieces or nephews, not even any uncles or aunts left. She’s my last living relative. I thought I had no one. Now I find out the person I have . . . Never mind, I’m not making any sense.”

  Ben looked across the seat at her, suddenly fearing again for the safety of Sayeed and his family. “Yes, you are, more than you realize. You asked me how I dealt with the lies, the confusion. The answer is I don’t get surprised anymore. People are always after something; I learned that a long time ago. I thought it would be different when I came back to the West Bank, and it was worse. I thought it would be different when I stayed in America to work for Security Concepts, and it was just as bad.” He twisted in his seat and looked at her tenderly. “The thing is, Danielle, you’ve been dealing with the lies a lot longer than you realize. They just never hit home before.”

  She squeezed his hand back and turned toward the window. “I guess that’s where I’m going, Ben: home.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 84

  M

  ajor Karim Amir Matah of the Saudi intelligence service felt the desert winds batter him as he stepped from the stairwell of the Nahran Mediterranean Restaurant on the rooftop of the Abha Palace Hotel. The stiff winds had forced all the diners inside today, and Matah made his way past the empty tables overlooking Lake Saad and the city of Abha. A waiter held the door open for him, and another man Matah guessed was the maitre d’ escorted him to a booth in the rear where a single man sat with his back to him.

  “Sit down, Major,” Saed Aziz Rahani said without turning.

  Matah bowed slightly. “Your Highness,” he greeted him, and slid into the booth across from the man dressed in an elegant Western business suit.

  “Please don’t call me that here,” Saed Aziz Rahani said, speaking softly as he dipped another shrimp into some cocktail sauce. “We’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”

  “I understand.”

  “What do you think of the hotel?”

  “Not very much, sidi. It reminds me of America.”

  “With good reason. My father negotiated the deal with Rosewood Hotels and Resorts. He spent weeks in Dallas, Texas, finalizing the plans.”

  “I apologize for my rudeness.”

  “Don’t bother, Major,” said Saed Aziz Rahani, his voice slightly slurred. “I quite agree. We all must make compromises. They asked for an outdoor swimming pool; my father granted them an indoor one. They insisted on a bar; my father allowed them to serve alcohol in the two restaurants. Things are changing in Saudi Arabia, too quickly for some, too slowly for others. We do not have to embrace that, but we must accept it. Change is inevitable. It’s strictly a matter of who can best see how to use it.” Rahani gobbled up his last shrimp, dabbed the cocktail sauce from his mouth with a napkin, and guzzled the rest of a drink until the ice cubes jangled together and smacked across his lips. He signaled the waiter for another. “Then there is my sister, Major, who threatens to disrupt all the good my family wishes to do for our country.”

  “I understand, sidi.”

  “No, Major, I don’t think you do. If you did, you would have made sure she did not return from the United States alive, as I instructed.”

  “Out of respect for your father.”

  “My father is dying.”

  “But he isn’t dead yet.”

  Saed Aziz Rahahi poked around his plate with a fork. “He always appreciated your loyalty to him.”

  “As I appreciated his support.”

  “But I wonder how the Saudi intelligence service would react if they learned that fifteen years ago you arranged the rape of his daughter on his behalf.”

  “His behalf?” Matah challenged, staring Rahani in the eye.

  “He’s in no position to deny it, is he?” Saed said and dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin once again.

  “I was only doing your bidding. A personal favor, you called it.”

  “But whose version of events do you think will be accepted, yours or mine? You should have made sure my sister died back then, Major, as I suggested. Now, because you didn’t, she threatens the success of everything we are trying to accomplish with developments like this and others that are being finalized even as we speak. My sister would seek to poison our work in full view of the world. Keep the world from seeing Saudi Arabia through a lens colored with something different from oil. It is a fine line we walk, Major, is it not?”

  “It is, sidi.”

  “Between tradition and progress. My sister threatens both, along with your career.”

  Matah’s eyes locked on the knife lying on the edge of Saed Aziz Rahani’s plate. Rahani moved the blade subtly out of his reach.

  “You wish to keep your name in good standing, of course, Major?”

  “What is it you wish done?”

  “The next time she leaves the country, Major,” Saed Aziz Rahani told him, “my sister must not return.”

  “Mafhum,” said Matah. “I understand.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 85

  T

  he American business visas Hyram Berger had provided made negotiating Saudi customs and immigration a surprisingly smooth process at King Khaled International Airport outside Riyadh. Tourists with no defined reason for being in the country faced a much tougher task and endured far more rigorous questioning. The Saudis understood business; they still did not understand tourism and only grudgingly accepted it as a necessary evil in the face of their shrinking oil-based economy.

  In the past two decades, the country’s population had grown from 7 million to 19 million while the per-capita income had shrunk by more than half. Menial jobs held by foreigners for generations were now taken by Saudis facing economic hardship for the first time in memory. And still millions remained unemployed and often unemployable.

  The prospects for the future were no better. Not with 40 percent of the Saudi population now under the age of fourteen. What would these children do for work when they came of age? How would the government support them? The vast majority would be well-educated, unsuited to the low-level jobs most available.

  After clearing customs, Ben waited outside one of several changing rooms into which Danielle had ducked to don Muslim robes and a head scarf in place of her Western attire. For those women who had forgotten to bring a change, or had packed it away in their yet-to-be-retrieved suitcase, a small shop had been conveniently situated to deal with the oversight.

  Once Danielle reemerged, she and Ben exited the arrivals area at the airport and entered the main terminal, where a score of drivers held up cards imprinted with
names in Arabic, English, and even, surprisingly, Hebrew. Ben saw his name written in Arabic a moment before he recognized the man holding it. He headed straight for him, neither he nor his driver able to contain the smiles that reflected the deep friendship they had shared for a decade.

  “How was your trip, Inspector?” beamed Colonel Nabril al-Asi.

  Al-Asi made a show of leading them subserviently to the limousine parked outside King Khaled International Airport amid a sea of others squeezed into two rows with little room to maneuver between them.

  “Our lack of luggage makes us conspicuous,” Danielle noted, watching many of the other cars being loaded.

  “Not to worry, Chief Inspector,” the colonel soothed. He wore a tuxedo accessorized by a matching keffiyah, in keeping with Saudi custom. “Many guests prefer to have their bags taken directly to their hotels for them.”

  Al-Asi opened the limousine’s rear door and helped them enter, then climbed behind the wheel himself. A pair of matching limos had boxed theirs in on the right, the three of them glad for the time it would provide to catch up.

  “Good news or bad, Colonel?” Danielle asked.

  “Good, if that’s what you call a meeting with Layla Aziz Rahani that can come to no good end,” he answered grimly. “The real representatives of a Palestinian business consortium she’s scheduled to meet with this afternoon were unavoidably detained. You will be taking their places at the family palace, where she takes all her meetings; you’ll find few women doing business from high-rise offices here, Chief Inspector. I’ll brief you on the way.”

  It was already afternoon. The length of time it had taken to make the trip here, coupled with the time difference, had conspired to make Ben and Danielle feel as if they had lost a day. Even Hyram Berger’s influence could not change flight schedules, and they were lucky to have made a late-night Saudi Arabian Airlines flight out of New York’s Kennedy Airport.

  “How much did you really know about Zanah Fahury when you asked me to look into her murder, Colonel?”

  Al-Asi turned in the front seat to look at Danielle. “About your father’s secret operation, you mean.”

  “Apparently not so secret.”

  “The rumors have been around for years, dismissed by most.”

  “But not you,” said Ben.

  “Not after I met Chief Inspector Barnea. If her father was anything like her, I would put nothing past him.”

  “Why Zanah Fahury, though?” Danielle persisted. “She was just an old woman. You thought she was my mother, didn’t you, not just a governess who could never return to her homeland of Saudi Arabia?”

  Al-Asi shrugged. “Before his death, your father visited her on a regular basis.”

  “And you knew this because . . .”

  “Files kept by far less scrupulous individuals than I with an eye toward blackmailing high-ranking Israeli officials.”

  “He must have been picking up funds to send to Hanna Frank in Saudi Arabia,” Danielle said to Ben, recalling his theory of the reason behind Zanah Fahury’s frequent diamond sales. “And then she outlived him,” she added, somewhat sadly.

  “I can’t help you find Hanna Frank, Chief Inspector,” al-Asi told her. “And you’d be well advised not to consider searching for her.”

  “I’m here to deal with Layla Aziz Rahani and nothing else,” Danielle said, not too convincingly.

  “And that too promises to be a none-too-easy task. It’s a thinly kept secret among the Saudi elite that Layla now controls all of the Rahani family’s vast holdings. You’ll find the information already downloaded onto this car’s built-in computer. Hit the return key to bring it up on the screen. I’ve highlighted the holding I think you’ll find most pertinent.”

  Ben’s seat was closest to the keyboard and monitor, so he hit the return key. Danielle slid closer to him as the screen brightened to life, revealing an elaborate Web site.

  “Immutech?” she raised.

  “The ninth-largest pharmaceuticals manufacturer in the world. Rahani Industries purchased it a year ago from a British conglomerate. The deal hasn’t even been formally announced yet, a codicil of the agreement, I understand.”

  “A year ago,” Danielle echoed.

  “Dating back to the beginning of Operation Flypaper,” Ben added.

  Danielle reached across Ben and began to scroll down the screen. “Meaning the Rahanis bought Immutech with something already in mind.”

  “Clearly. But what?”

  “This,” Danielle said, the screen frozen before her and Ben. “Production of the vaccine for smallpox.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 86

  T

  hen she never intended to infect the country with the disease,” Ben theorized, thinking of Hollis Buchert in the Mall of America.

  “Not all of it. Just enough to force a mass inoculation of a vaccine she now controls.”

  “Contaminated?” Ben posed. “Poisoned?”

  Danielle shook her head. “She could have achieved that effect equally well by releasing all her smallpox, or something else from Fort Detrick. No, this is something quite different. Why else would she go through all the trouble of stealing reserves of a virus she never intended to release?”

  “I pray you’re wrong, Chief Inspector,” al-Asi said grimly.

  “I’m not. I know how Layla Aziz Rahani thinks, Colonel. The only thing she couldn’t anticipate was Zanah Fahury. If she hadn’t sent Hassan to kill the old woman, we’d never have made the connection and uncovered her involvement.”

  “Even she has her weaknesses, apparently.”

  “You’re missing the point, both of you,” Ben interjected. “What could Layla Aziz Rahani possibly be planning to do that’s worse than infecting all of America with smallpox?”

  The city of Riyadh, some forty miles from the airport, looked like a steel-and-glass oasis in the middle of the desert. The pristine four-lane highways, their concrete colored near white instead of gray or black to better reflect the sun, stretched in a ribbon around its outskirts. The regal palace belonging to Abdullah Aziz Rahani was located north of the older sections of the city in the Sulaimaniya District.

  Colonel al-Asi drove past numerous palaces as they wound through Sulaimaniya. More like walled fortresses, the palaces were all adorned with such a profusion of lush flowers, greenery, and landscaping that it was easy to forget the desert even existed.

  Ben and Danielle didn’t get their first glimpse of the Rahani palace until their papers had been checked and rechecked by the guards at a closed entry gate, and the limousine was thoroughly searched. An armed guard also passed a hand wand about them politely, making a show of paying respect even as he checked for weapons. Once cleared to enter the grounds, the limousine followed another armed guard on a motorcycle up the finely paved drive toward the palace.

  The palace had a smooth, white-stone finish that looked like polished granite. The windows were small and unobtrusive, in keeping with more ancient designs in which windows were as much a protective addition as a decorative one.

  More guards were posted at the front entry, where the limousine deposited Ben and Danielle at the foot of a multilevel entry stairway adorned with beautifully crafted statues and a fully operational marble fountain. A waiting guard opened the rear door of the limousine and then escorted Ben and Danielle up the stairs, passing them on to a tall, gaunt man in a business suit standing just inside the huge double doors of the entry.

  “Sayyida Rahani will be with you momentarily,” he greeted. “If you will just follow me ...”

  The entry foyer was palatial in all respects, the marble floor adorned with lavish Persian silk carpets and elegant busts placed on pedestals fashioned from alabaster, porphyry, and other precious stones. These, along with the brilliant portraits and landscapes covering the walls, provided testament to the Saudi elite’s unceasing penchant for collecting priceless art treasures.

  Danielle had expected their civilian escort to lead them up the st
airs that branched off in two different directions on all three floors above. Instead, though, he led them down a darker hall to a private staircase covered with a scarlet Oriental runner. Ben and Danielle followed him up three flights and through a pair of double doors onto a corridor the size of one usually found in a midsize hotel.

  Ben caught the pungent scent of alcohol and antiseptic in the air. Not a hotel, he thought, more like a hospital.

  Their escort brought him and Danielle to a door at the near end of the hall. He opened it, bowed subserviently, and invited them to enter. The scent of alcohol was stronger now, joined by a faint beeping sound and a mechanical whir.