by Greg Rucka
“Treat our host with respect,” he warned them. “No matter what he asks or what he says, he is worthy of your respect, and he is your host.”
Sinan dropped out of the vehicle behind Matteen, adjusting the strap of his rifle on his shoulder. The others fell in, and Aziz motioned for the men to follow.
They were in an enormous courtyard, the size of a football pitch to Sinan’s eyes, and that alone would have been amazing, but more than half of it appeared to be comprised of an immaculately maintained lawn. In the starlight all colors washed away, but from the scent of it, Sinan knew it was lush and green. Centered on the lawn was a fountain, perhaps eleven feet high, spurting water in arcs that shimmered as they fell to the pool at its base. As they walked along the tiled driveway that skirted the lawn, Sinan felt the sand and dirt in his clothes, grinding against his skin.
Following Aziz, they made their way to the front of an enormous, sprawling mansion. Marble steps led to a massive door where two more paramilitaries, wearing grenades and pistols on their belts, each holding a submachine gun, watched their approach. Sinan thought the men looked bored and wondered if they would ask for his rifle, and then wondered what he would do if they did. Much as he hated the thought of it, he decided he would hand it over, in order to show respect.
It turned out that the rifles didn’t interest the guards; they wanted their boots. Following Abdul Aziz’s lead, each man removed his shoes, setting them in a matched pair on the second step, before proceeding inside.
The group moved into a cavernous entry hall, so brightly lit that Sinan’s eyes began to tear from the glare. Chandeliers glowed above, and sconces along each wall, and there was more marble here, on the floor, on the walls, on the curving staircase that climbed to the upper floors. Fixtures glittered gold and silver, compounding the effect.
A young man in a black thobe and white kuffiyah came through a door down the hall, followed by a boy no older than ten.
“Salaam alaykum,” the man said.
“Salaam alaykum,” Abdul Aziz echoed.
The man reached for Aziz’s right hand, placed his left on Aziz’s right shoulder, and Aziz mirrored him. They exchanged kisses on each cheek before releasing the grip.
“Hazim will take them to the study,” the man told Aziz. “But His Royal Highness wishes to see you first, upstairs.”
“Very well.” Aziz turned to them. “Go with the boy.”
Sinan nodded, reassured. It explained the extravagance of the mansion, the mysteriousness of their journey, the guards, everything. This was the home of a prince to the House of Saud. At least now he understood where they were, if not why.
Hazim led them down the hall and through another set of doors, and here the marble floor gave way to smooth stone and a new flight of stairs, this one leading down. They descended perhaps twenty feet into what Sinan would have called a rec room but that he assumed was the indicated study.
The floor was carpeted in an emerald-green shag that felt strangely uncomfortable to Sinan’s bared feet. Three large televisions occupied the far wall, spaced irregularly, two of them plasma screens, one of them a projection model. All three were on, and all were broadcasting sports, two football games, one basketball. A billiard table stood to one side, purple felt with fittings that Sinan first thought were brass but on second look decided were gold. Books and magazines were strewn on the easy chairs and couches, and he was shocked to see that a number of them were pornographic. CD jewel boxes and DVD cases littered the floor. The titles ranged from Arabic to English, pop music from the Middle East and the West.
Sinan looked to Matteen, and Matteen frowned, made the faintest shake of his head.
“Please, be comfortable,” Hazim told them, and then vanished through a door off to a side.
The group stood still for a few moments longer, and then two of the Saudis propped their Kalashnikovs against one of the easy chairs and took up pool cues. Matteen moved to the nearest couch, facing one of the football matches, the remaining Saudi joining him. Only Sinan didn’t move.
It was all so Western, he thought, and this made him uneasy. It had been years since he’d been anyplace like this, in a space like this, and it was a space for William Leacock, not for Sinan bin al-Baari.
He didn’t like it, and he didn’t like it in the home of a Prince of the House of Saud most of all.
One wall was covered with framed photographs, and Sinan made his way to it, picking his steps carefully to avoid the debris. The pictures were a mix, black and white as well as color, and as far as he could see, the only unifying factor was that the same man appeared in most of them. If there was a purpose to the display, Sinan figured it was in presenting their host the Prince in as many roles as possible.
Most often, the Prince appeared in a black thobe and white kuffiyah, with trimmed black beard and mustache, often wearing sunglasses that failed to flatter his face. There was one of the Prince with King Fahd, and another, apparently more recent, with Crown Prince Abdullah. Another, elegantly framed and dominantly placed, showed the Prince seated between Usama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, taken at a camp, presumably in Afghanistan before the Coalition had arrived. Still others showed the Prince with various holy men, Sheikh Wajdi Hamzeh al-Ghazawi and Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid, and Dr. Faud bin Abdullah al-Shimmari.
It wasn’t all vanity. There were three photographs of racehorses, beautiful creatures at a gallop, breaking away from the pack. Another of a kindergarten graduation ceremony, and Sinan recognized it instantly, because he’d seen others of its kind before. Beaming Palestinian children, wrapped in pretend bomb harnesses, their hands dripping with the red paint that signified the blood of the apes and pigs.
The door opened again and Hazim returned carrying a silver tray laden with small cups. The boy served the men at the pool table first, then worked his way around the room, offering coffee to each of them in turn. Sinan sipped his, savoring the flavor, the hint of cardamom mixed into the drink. By the time he’d finished the cup, the boy was making second rounds, and this time Sinan waggled the cup in his hand back and forth, indicating that he was fine, that he didn’t wish another serving. The coffee had driven the taste of the desert from his mouth but had failed to do anything for his thirst.
He moved away from the wall of photographs, toward one of the couches. Matteen was still engrossed in the match he was watching, and the Saudi who wasn’t playing pool was flipping through a magazine. He was one of the veterans, named Jabr, and had been in the camp when Sinan had arrived. Jabr had taken delight in mocking Sinan and Aamil, hazing them as rookies.
At least until Sinan had returned alone.
Jabr stopped on a photo spread of a pale blonde, holding her thighs apart, head back, breasts artificially full and defiant. Beneath her belly, inked into the skin above her shaved opening, was a red and black tattoo of a valentine’s heart.
“Sinan, you ever had one like this?” Jabr asked, raising the magazine. “Back home, you must have fucked one like this, yes?”
Sinan glared at him, shook his head. The magazine was contraband in Saudi Arabia, it shouldn’t have even been there. If any of them had been found with such a thing in their possession at the camp, they’d have been beaten, if not killed. In Riyadh, it would lead to prison, or worse.
But here in the Prince’s house, it was easy and available, and the hypocrisy made Sinan want to spit.
“Never?” Jabr grinned at him, not believing the answer. “Not even once?”
Sinan shook his head a second time. The room was air-conditioned, the whole house was, heavily so, but he felt himself growing warm, heat crawling along his spine.
He tore the magazine from the man’s hands, threw it down on the carpet. Jabr cursed, starting to his feet, fists turning to balls. Sinan swung his Kalashnikov on its strap, bringing the weapon up and into line, trapping the butt against his hip with his forearm, and Jabr stopped cold, looking up the barrel.
The pool game had stopped.
�
��Sinan, lower that weapon,” Abdul Aziz ordered from the bottom of the stairs.
Everyone except Sinan and Jabr turned to look. Jabr didn’t because he was still fixed on the gun leveled at him; Sinan didn’t because, at first, he hadn’t heard the order. Then the words penetrated, and he let his finger return to the trigger guard, and he stepped back from Jabr on the couch, lowering the weapon.
The man in the photographs on the wall was standing beside Aziz, looking at Sinan with delight. “If he needs to shoot him, could he do it outside?”
“He doesn’t need to,” Aziz said. “I’m sure it was a misunderstanding. It was a misunderstanding, wasn’t it, Jabr?”
Jabr, still looking at Sinan, nodded.
“Sinan?”
“Yes.”
“So you see, Your Highness,” Aziz said. “A misunderstanding, nothing more.”
The Prince frowned. “I’m not certain they’re the best men for me, for this, if there are misunderstandings of this kind, my friend. You understand my concern.”
Abdul Aziz moved into the room, motioning Sinan toward him. Sinan let his rifle rest against his chest once more, on its strap, moving closer as ordered. Aziz put a hand on his shoulder, turned him to face the Prince.
“These are jihadis, Your Highness. They live for one thing alone, to serve Allah, lord of the universe and prayer. They are the sword in Allah’s hand, the tip at the end of His arrow. You cannot ask for better.”
The Prince adjusted his sunglasses, pursed his lower lip, examining Sinan. His kuffiyah was white, Sinan noted, but the igaal had threads of gold woven into the black wool.
“Tell me your name,” the Prince said.
“Sinan bin al-Baari.”
“Your Arabic is very good.”
“There is no other way to read Qu’ran.”
The Prince smiled. “Have you tasted blood, Sinan bin al-Baari? Have you been tested in battle?”
Sinan glanced to Aziz and saw nothing in his expression to indicate that he shouldn’t answer. “Not as much as others. More than some.”
The Prince’s smile broadened. “I like him,” he told Abdul Aziz.
“I thought you might, Your Highness.”
The Prince used his right hand to indicate Matteen. “You, where are you from?”
Matteen got to his feet before answering. “Gazni, Your Highness.”
“Abdul Aziz says you fought alongside my friend at Tora-Bora.”
“That was my honor.”
“Tell me, did you kill any Americans?”
“Three, Your Highness.”
The answer seemed to please the Prince, and he bobbed his head in appreciation, then turned back toward the stairs, again using his right hand, this time to motion at Abdul Aziz. “My friend, come with me.”
Abdul Aziz moved back to the foot of the stairs, bent his head to the Prince, listening as the other man spoke. Then Abdul Aziz nodded, turned to face them.
“Jabr, the rest of you, Hazim will lead you back to the truck. Wait for me there.”
The three Saudis did as ordered, each bowing to the Prince as they passed him, then making their way up the stairs, following the boy. Abdul Aziz waited until they were gone and the echo of the closing doors above had faded before speaking again.
“His Royal Highness has been of great help to us in the past,” Aziz told Sinan and Matteen. “He is our fiercest ally, and we thank Allah daily for his help, and pray daily for his continued health and well-being.
“Now, he asks a favor of us, and we have agreed.”
“You two men, you will stay with me for a time, guests in my home,” the Prince told Sinan and Matteen. “I have bodyguards, of course, but I will be traveling soon, I hope, and would welcome the company of experienced soldiers like yourselves.”
“It shouldn’t be more than a month,” Abdul Aziz told them.
Sinan tried to keep what he was feeling off his face, certain that he was failing. The thought of remaining in the house, in this place, was a punishment, not a reward. The Prince was an empty shell, he was certain, more interested in appearing to be jihadi than in being one. The photographs on the wall in the same room with pornography and the trappings of Western decadence proved it, if the Prince’s manner alone didn’t.
Abdul Aziz was watching him, waiting for an answer. His expression left no doubt as to the answer he wanted to hear.
“Of course, Your Highness,” Sinan said. “It would be our great honor.”
11
Hampshire—Gosport, Fort Monkton
18 August 0611 GMT
Morning fog from the Channel still clung to the grass as Chace made her way out to the shooting range, dressed in baggy sweats and trainers, trying to shake the last sleep from her head. She’d slept poorly and not for long, opting to take the Thunderbolt from London on the off-chance that Crocker would recall her and she’d need to get back in a hurry. She’d left after work, returning home just long enough to gather her mail, change into riding leathers, and stuff a bag with essentials. It had taken her fifty-seven minutes exactly to clear London traffic, still in catastrophic disarray from the lack of tube service. By the time she’d hit the M3, she’d been more than ready to roll the throttle back and just get the hell on with it.
Which was precisely the moment the Thunderbolt chose to break down.
She managed to get the bike and herself towed to a garage in Winchester, but by the time they arrived, the mechanic had left, and no amount of persuasion, cajoling, or pleading had been enough to rouse him from his home. It was all the more infuriating to Chace because she was positive, absolutely positive, that whatever was ailing the Thunderbolt was minor at best, and certainly a quick fix for anyone who knew the first thing about Thunderbolts specifically or even motorcycles in general.
Forced to abandon the bike, she’d switched to rail, catching a train that took her into Portsmouth and then left her on the platform at half past midnight. She’d utterly failed to find a cab, and after debating her options, she’d used her mobile in an attempt to reach Tom Wallace, hoping that he would drop whatever he was doing—say, sleeping—to come and fetch her the rest of the way. But Tom hadn’t answered his phone. Even when she let it ring two dozen times.
In the end, annoyed beyond the capacity for speech, Chace had gone down to the ferry and caught a ride across the harbor to Gosport, then walked the remaining two and a half miles to Fort Monkton, only to be further delayed by the guards at the gate, who found it hard to believe that London had sent an agent down on foot for a refresher. Even after finding her name on the “expected” list and double-checking her pass, they’d insisted on searching her person and her bag.
At which point she’d had enough and informed the guard reaching for her that he could try to lay a hand on her, but if he did so he’d likely draw back his arm fractured in such a way that he’d have three major joints on the appendage rather than the more traditional two.
“And get Jim Chester down here right fucking now,” she’d added.
•
The rangemaster, a bitter old retired Royal Marine who demanded that students call him “The Master,” remembered her, just as she remembered him. Common lore at the School was that he promoted the appellation not because of his position as the ruler of the firing range but rather because he was a dyed-in-the-wool Doctor Who fan. He brought her four pistols and two hundred rounds of ammunition, along with shooting goggles and ear protection.
“Still know which way to point them, do you?” he asked.
“Why don’t you trot downrange and we’ll see?”
“Ah, that’s the lass I remember. Let’s get started, shall we?”
Chace loaded the P99 first, worked through two clips, thirty-two shots, with The Master over her shoulder, heckling, correcting, and generally annoying. She moved to the Browning next, then the HK USP 9, and finally the Walther TPH. The range remained empty but for the two of them the entire time, though as Chace was finishing with the TPH, she began to see oth
er signs of life on the campus, students emerging from the dormitories in their workout clothes, gathering for the morning physical-training regimen.
They were ready to move to the more practical drills when Jim Chester came down the slope of the lawn from the main house to join them, carrying two paper cups of coffee.
“Feeling better this morning?” he asked, offering her one of the cups.
“She can’t have that,” The Master said, taking the coffee for himself. “Caffeine goes straight to her hands, and she’s on to practicals next.”
Chace looked at the coffee longingly, then to Chester. “I could have done with more sleep and less aggravation.”
“It’s aggravation that keeps us safe.”
“That aggravation, perhaps. I was on the bloody list, Jim.”
“They’re just being cautious.” Chester gave her a proud smile. “Minder One suits you, I must say. You’re as radiant as ever.”
“You testing me on pickups, Jim? I look like hell and feel worse.”
Chester laughed, patted her on the arm with unconscious condescension. Chace smiled in return, knowing that there were things that would never change, and that James Chester was one of them. In his mid-fifties, balding and fringed with gray, perpetually in tweed, he always reminded her of the don who’d instructed her in eighteenth-century French literature when she’d been at Cambridge. His sexism was bone-deep and unconscious, and manifested in him holding the women who came through the School to a higher standard than the men. Not by much, and never obviously, but enough so that when Chace had graduated with the highest scores anyone had remembered for half a century, they both had known she’d truly earned it.
He’d been heartbroken to see his prize pupil join the Special Section. A waste of her talents, he’d said.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” Chester told them. “Firearms today, hand-to-hand tomorrow, is it?”
“And the E&E refresher.”
“Ah, yes, right. We should have lunch if The Master will release you long enough for sustenance.”
“She can eat.” The Master sounded almost sullen.