The truth was, General Brighton didn’t much like the press. Left or right, it didn’t matter, he had little respect for any of them; he had seen how they worked, he knew the agendas they had. But as he looked at the president, his face remained neutral and calm. His was a nonpolitical position, and he took great pains to be careful of everything he said.
The president watched him carefully. “Is your family okay then, Neil?” he asked in a caring tone.
“Yes, sir, they are.”
“You’ve been working long hours.”
“We all have, sir.”
“You’ve been working longer hours than most.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.”
“I’m sure. And I appreciate it.”
“Thank you, Mr. President, but really, I’m just doing my job. Like everyone else, we’re just trying to make this whole thing work.”
The president pressed his lips together. “Your other boys, they’re going to be leaving on those church-service things . . . ah, what do you call them . . . ?”
“Missions, sir.”
“Yes. You were telling me a few months back that they would be leaving this winter.”
“Luke and Ammon will be leaving right after Christmas, sir.”
“Now, how does that work? How much do they pay them? Will they earn some money for college?”
“Actually, sir, it is volunteer service. They don’t get paid anything.”
“Really!” The president whistled. “Not even expenses?”
“They pay their own way, sir.”
“I didn’t know that.” The president glanced at his chief of staff, who had been raised in the West. “Did you know that, Charlie? Pretty impressive, huh? I wish we could get more kids to take on such a challenge. Think of what kind of leaders they could be!”
The chief of staff nodded but didn’t say anything. He fidgeted anxiously, ready to get to the point of the meeting. As the unofficial timekeeper, he took his responsibilities seriously.
But the president wasn’t ready. “Can your sons choose where they go?” he continued. “Do they want to go somewhere in Europe? I’ll bet Florida’s a pretty good place to serve. Anything I could do? I’d be happy to put in a call to headquarters out there in Salt Lake. You know, I know a few people, I could pull a few strings.”
Brighton had to smile. In fact, he almost laughed out loud. It was just an absurd proposition: the president of the United States making a call to Church headquarters in Salt Lake in order to pull a few strings on where his sons would be called to serve. He shook his head and waved off the offer with his hands. “Thank you, Mr. President. You are very generous. This doesn’t really work like that, sir, but thank you again.”
The president cocked his head to the side. “All right,” he said. “But if you change your mind . . . ”
“Yes, sir, I’ll remember your offer.”
The men were silent a moment, then the chief of staff said abruptly, “Mr. President, we only have a few minutes.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the president answered. “A few minutes, a few minutes, never more than a few minutes. It’s the way we all live.” He turned to General Brighton, then glanced at his National Security Advisor, a middle-aged man with slender shoulders and thin hair. “You got something for me, Bo?” he asked.
The NSA straightened himself. “Yes. A couple of things.”
The president nodded. “Go,” he said.
“First, we wanted to update you on the situation in Saudi Arabia. As you know, sir, Crown Prince Saud and his entire family seem to have entirely disappeared. Now, we know the crown prince’s helicopter went down a little more than a fortnight ago, but we haven’t been able to confirm his status. As to his family, it’s very likely most of them are simply laying low. In fact, the entire royal family has dropped out of sight. There is upheaval in the kingdom, no doubt about that, but the workings inside Arabia are nearly impossible to track, and we haven’t been able to find out anything more.”
The president frowned. He had been a huge fan of the Saudi king, but he disliked his sons. “What about that little jerk, Abdullah?” he asked. “What’s going on with him?”
“Sir, we’re hearing a few rumors—Jordan’s King Mohammad has been very helpful and a few others as well—but that’s all we have right now, rumors and whispers. Still, it appears that Prince Abdullah al-Rahman has ascended or soon will ascend to the throne. But again, that’s only rumor; we really don’t know. The House of Saud is a tight little family. They hate each other, yes, but they never talk, and it was easier for us to crack the atom than to crack the secrecy around the royal family. There could have been a nuclear explosion in the kingdom, they all might have been killed by falling meteorites, and we wouldn’t know it. Until we hear something definitive, all we can do is guess. So while we are attempting to make contact with Abdullah or his subordinates, right now we have to sit tight.”
“I’ve never liked Abdullah,” the president said. “He’s a spoiled little brat. He’s got a few guns, he feels invincible, but he’s nothing without his posse and some cash in the bank.”
“If he’s the next king, we have problems,” the NSA replied.
“Oh, don’t you worry about Abdullah. I can take care of him,” the president said.
Brighton sat forward in his chair. He knew the royal family perhaps better than anyone, and the president’s estimation of Abdullah was clean off the mark. “Mr. President,” he said, “I must respectfully disagree. Abdullah is a dangerous man. We’ll have to approach him carefully.”
“He’s nothing!” the president shot back. “He’s a spoiled kid, oversexed and over-moneyed. No brains. No ambition. No direction. No core. If he’s the next king, that’s fine. I know how to deal with him. I’ve dealt with worse men before.”
Brighton shook his head slowly. “No sir, that’s simply not true. You don’t know Abdullah. None of us do. It would be foolish, even stupid, to underestimate this man.”
The room fell suddenly silent, the general’s words hanging like a chill in the air. The NSA scrunched, counting the offensive words in his head: No sir . . . you don’t know . . . foolish . . . stupid to underestimate this man. No one talked to the president of the United States that way. It was . . . undiplomatic, unacceptable, at least to most of these men.
The president stared at Brighton, then smiled. The general returned his gaze, never blinking an eye. “Sir,” he continued, “forgive me for speaking so bluntly. I certainly don’t mean to offend. But the truth is, Mr. President, something is going on here. We’ve got high leaders throughout the Muslim world dropping like flies in a bucket of swill. The Saudi king. The crown prince. Now it has spread beyond Saudi shores. General Sattam bin Mamdayh, head of the ultra-secret Iranian Interior Police. Abu Nidal Atta, deputy director of Pakistan’s Special Weapons Section. Both of them dead. Their governments deny it, but we know it is true. And the one thing all of these men held in common was their association with Prince Abdullah al-Rahman.”
The general sat back, feeling a tiny trickle of sweat move down the side of his ribs. He thought of the dream, the grass and explosions, and his mouth went dry.
It was nothing, he repeated again in his mind. The dream means nothing. It means nothing.
But that wasn’t what he really believed. In his heart, he knew he was being warned.
How to convey that to the president, though? “Mr. President, I had a really scary dream . . . ”
The men he worked with were analysts and politicians, some of the smartest men in the world. They were professionals, the highest ranking officers his government had. They were ambitious and powerful men, men who did not bet their future on dreams.
It was impossible to tell them. The president needed facts, hard intelligence, analysis that was sharp as a knife. He needed solid counsel from his advisors and all the information 80 billion dollars could buy. He needed details.
He didn’t need someone’s dreams.
Bu
t that was what the general had to give him. He lowered his eyes, trying to think.
The president placed his fingertips together and lifted his hands to his face, covering his mouth and resting his chin on his thumbs. Muted voices could be heard in the hallway, and a security chopper flew overhead, vibrating the windows gently against their old wooden frames.
Brighton lifted his eyes and leaned forward in his seat. “I’m just saying, Mr. President, and you’ll forgive me for being so frank, but I’ve got a bad feeling. I think we need to presume the worst case.”
“You always do, General Brighton.”
“That’s why you pay me, sir. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
The NSA stared at Brighton, then cut in anxiously. “There’s another little thing, Mr. President, that we need to talk about. It may be nothing, it may be something, and we hate to bring this to you when it is so preliminary, but some of my staff . . . ” the NSA glanced at General Brighton again . . . “particularly General Brighton feels this is something worth bringing to you.”
The president waited, sipping his southern tea.
“You remember our Jackson Teams?” the NSA said.
The president frowned. “They are what, some guys up in New York? They monitor the SEC or something, right?”
“Sort of, Mr. President. The team consists of Homeland Security agents, SEC investigators, some guys from Justice as well. But the team leaders are all FBI agents, and the team is under FBI control. The Jackson Team is tasked with monitoring suspicious trends in trading, securities, currency markets, that sort of thing.”
The president sipped again at his tea, studying his security advisors over the rim of the glass. “Sounds like law enforcement,” he said. “Why are you guys involved?”
Brighton sat back in his chair as he explained, “Sir, the Jackson Team was put together with the 9/11 commission’s recommendation. It is based on the theory that, before we would see another major attack, there would be some indicators on Wall Street.”
The president scowled. Out of the hundreds of issues he discussed every day, national security was by far his highest priority. But there were ten thousand security programs and procedures that had been put in place, or were being put in place, or were being considered, or were being funded, or studied, or talked about by his staff, and there was simply no way he could remember them all. So while this whole Jackson thing was faintly familiar, it was still full of holes. “I don’t see how Wall Street can give us warning?” he queried suspiciously.
Brighton continued. “Sir, the Jackson Team operates on the premise that before a terrorist organization or hostile government were to launch a major attack against the U.S., they would provide some kind of warning to their financiers. You have to consider, Mr. President, every terrorist organization, whether al Qaeda or a hostile government, gets its funding from somewhere. We know that a lot of that money comes from wealthy individuals throughout the Middle East. And we hope that, before we would see a major attack on our soil, we would see some movement in the market as these individuals begin to liquidate their U.S. assets . . . ”
“Their terrorist comrades would warn them before they attacked?”
“We think that they might.”
“So they could cash in their assets? Jump like a rat from a ship?”
“A ship that was sinking very fast, sir.”
The president shook his head. It seemed unlikely to him, that was clear from the look on his face.
“You have to remember, Mr. President,” General Brighton went on, “the financial cost of the 9/11 attacks to our nation was more than ten trillion dollars. The market tanked. The dollar fell. The recession lasted almost three years. Then, after 9/11, when we were going back through our records, we discovered a very interesting thing. Several extremely wealthy Saudi princes started diversifying their U.S. assets just a few weeks before the attacks.”
The president sipped quietly. “So they made money predicting how our markets would fall!”
“Not really, sir. It appears they weren’t so much interested in making money from the market’s collapse; they were interested in not losing everything they had invested over here.”
“Okay,” the president answered. He glanced at his watch, then turned back to his NSA. “So, where are you going with this, Bo? What do I need to know?”
The NSA folded his hands on his lap. “Mr. President, our Jackson Team has seen indications that have caused us concern. Significant Saudi holdings have been moved from U.S. markets to various holdings overseas. Almost ten billion dollars have left our country in just a few weeks.”
“Are you telling me the Saudis are dumping their U.S. assets before another terrorist attack!”
“We don’t know, Mr. President. But we think it is worth looking at.”
The president caught his breath. “It might be a purely financial decision,” he countered. “I mean, you have the Saudis, the Europeans, the Chinese and Japanese, half the world moves in and out of our markets every day. We live in a global economy; trillions of dollars cross our borders in any twenty-four-hour period. Our unemployment rate ticked up last month. Gas prices keep climbing through the roof. Don’t you think it might be nothing more than a reaction to the current market?”
The general moved his head slightly but didn’t say anything. This wasn’t a reaction to high oil prices—he was certain of that.
“A purely financial adjustment?” the president prodded again.
“We can never be certain,” the NSA replied. “But it is a significant adjustment, if that’s all it is.”
General Brighton leaned forward again, but the NSA’s eyes warned him off. He had been cautioned before the meeting not to say too much, and he had spoken too much already. But General Brighton knew there was something else—something the president really needed to know.
The royal families of the House of Saud weren’t the only ones dumping U.S. stocks and securities. A firm up in New York City was dumping as well—dumping so much and so fast, it would have been impossible not to take note. Jackson Team or no, it was obvious.
Which meant one of two things: They were either stupid or scared. And these men weren’t stupid.
So the general swallowed hard.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Khorramshahr Refugee Camp
Iran/Iraq Border
Mr. Sebastian Raule, special assistant to the camp administrator at Khorramshahr, stared at the paper that he held in shaking hands. His mouth went dry as he stared. His heart beat like a butterfly wing in his chest.
He didn’t believe it! It was not possible! He read the dispatch again and again, then held it up to the light to study the signature.
It appeared to be real.
What was he going to do?
He put the paper down and turned to his phone. The yellow light in the corner of the black receiver was blinking weakly; there was only one line into Khorramshahr and it was already in use. He was almost relieved. He didn’t know what he would say when he made the call anyway. He turned back to the dispatch and read it for the fifth time, then turned again to the phone. The light was out. He picked up the receiver and dialed with a shaking hand, his pointer finger jammed into the round slot on the rotary dial.
His knees bounced anxiously as he waited for the phone call to go through. The phone clicked and hummed through forty-year-old communications switching machines, then fell silent. He was just thinking he might have been cut off when he heard a man’s voice: “U.N. Baghdad mission headquarters.”
“Yes, this is Sebastian Raule calling from Khorramshahr. I need to speak with Mr. Conner. Is he available?”
“Mr. Conner. Let me see. May I ask again who is calling?”
“Sebastian Raule. I’m the assistant—”
“Yes, Mr. Raule, I know who you are. Let me see if Mr. Conner is in.”
The phone hummed again as he was placed on hold, then he heard the American pick up the phone. The director of the U.N. missi
on in Baghdad answered in a hurried tone. “Conner,” he said.
Raule swallowed tensely.
The director of the U.N. mission in Baghdad was the big dog at the top of the pile. The Americans were calling all the shots in Iraq—a fact that drove the other U.N. representatives crazy, especially those from the E.U.—and Conner was the point man for all the U.N. officers working in-country.
“Yes, Mr. Conner,” Raule began, his voice diminutive and polite. “My name is Sebastian Raule. I’m calling from the Khorramshahr refugee camp . . . ”
“Yes, yes, Sebastian.” The American chuckled. “I know who you are. And I think I know why you’re calling.” He laughed again.
Raule couldn’t help feeling that the American was laughing at him. He hesitated, then asked, “Well yes, sir, I don’t suppose you are surprised I might call. I have the message from your office, and I must say I find it remarkable. It raises so many questions. Honestly, I’m not sure how to proceed. But before I did anything, I wanted to confirm that this was legitimate?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Raule. It is perfectly legitimate, I assure you.”
“And you think I should . . . ”
“What I think, Mr. Raule, doesn’t matter a lot. She is your responsibility. But I have every confidence you will handle the situation with appropriate courtesy and dispatch.”
Raule was silent a moment, then said, “Sir, there is the issue of repatriation.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“Then, sir, you might also be aware there is the possibility she may not be amenable to an offer.”
Conner wasn’t surprised. He had been briefed by his staff, and they had indicated that might be the case. Her family, all killed. Nowhere really to go. Miserable as it was, after half a lifetime of waiting, Khorramshahr had become her home. “After almost twenty years, I can see why she might have lost some interest,” Conner said. It wasn’t a personal dig at Raule, just a dig at the system that could fail so miserably.
Raule exhaled, embarrassed. “Yes, Mr. Conner, it’s been a long time.”
“Too long,” Conner answered, a bit more acidly. “The U.N., I’m afraid, is not very good at these things.”
The Great and Terrible Page 74