by Sean McFate
Plus, the CIA director would wonder what a mover and shaker like Winters was after with all these questions. Larry never thought that way, which was why Larry was still eating tuna salad in the CIA basement.
“Mr. Fitzhugh,” Winters said with barely feigned enthusiasm. “It’s been too long.”
Larry smiled but didn’t get up. There was tuna salad on the corner of his mouth. Larry was a bit of a legend, too, within the Agency’s MENA division (Middle East and North Africa, the Muslim beat). The other analysts called him Yoda, because he knew everything and had a sixth sense about what was important. Also, he was old, squat, and had big ears, with wisps of white hair protruding from the holes.
“How’s the Middle East?” Winters joked as he sat down.
“I assume you’re wondering about Paris,” Larry said.
“What have you heard?” Winters asked. As usual, Larry was right. Winters was wondering about Paris.
“I doubt it was a robbery for $350,000, as has been reported in the media. Frankly, I doubt any money was stolen at all.”
“Cocaine?”
“Mishaal certainly has a history. I still don’t know how he managed to evade arrest when his party boat was boarded on the Nile. A hundred pounds of pure cocaine and thousands of Captagon and Adderall pills.” Larry shook his head. “His father doesn’t have that kind of wasta,” an Arab word for power.
You only say that, Larry, because you don’t know where true power lies, Winters thought. Abdulaziz didn’t have an impressive title, but he knew how to work the system. He was a crocodile you pass every day, sleeping quietly on the bank. Just because you’ve never seen him eat doesn’t mean he goes hungry.
“My sources tell me it was a professional hit,” Winters said.
“It took place in Paris during rush hour, against an armed convoy. Of course it was a professional hit. The question is what they were after.”
“Not drugs.”
“It would have gotten bloody.”
“Not money.”
“There are easier ways to steal $350,000. The ransom alone—”
“What then?” Winters asked, feeding Larry’s ego. Help me, Larry, you’re my only hope. When Larry flexed his Jedi muscles, Larry got chatty.
“Mishaal met with someone in his hotel room the afternoon of the robbery. Don’t ask, because I don’t know. The Four Seasons Hotel George V is Saudi owned. The Saudis are playing this close to the vest. No security footage from the hotel or parking garage. No interviews. The Paris police only had the prince for ten minutes before a Saudi diplomat showed up and claimed Mishaal had diplomatic protections. Very odd.”
“Very Saudi.”
Larry nodded. The Kingdom was notoriously secretive. Even tourism was illegal. “They took him to the embassy and kept him behind closed doors. His father flew in immediately to retrieve him. Poor guy. Abdulaziz is a beast.”
“And an associate of mine.”
“Of course,” Larry said without contrition. Larry was clearly on the spectrum; he couldn’t figure out social graces to save his life. “I forgot about your Yemen contract.” And also apparently that the Yemen operation was black, not to be discussed openly, even in the CIA cafeteria. “It’s just that . . . when you’re a billionaire like Abdulaziz, why bother, you know? Why take so many risks?”
That was Larry’s other problem. He was one of most knowledgeable Arabists in the business, but he thought small. He never risked. He was happy with his windowless cubicle at age sixty and his middle-class life in McLean, Virginia. Happiness, Brad Winters knew, was the first step to starvation. It didn’t matter how much you had. When you lose the hunger, you die.
“So what was it, Larry? An inside job? Royal politics?”
Larry nodded. “Three factors point that way. First, the knowledge needed to hit Mishaal at that precise time and place. Second, the cover-up, because you know the Saudis planted that drug-and-money rumor. Abdulaziz wouldn’t have agreed to the embarrassment if the real story wasn’t worse. Third, Mishaal picked up a package from the Saudi Embassy an hour before the robbery.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t with him two hours later,” Larry said. Clearly, this wasn’t widely known, and probably TS/SCI classified. That’s why I’m here, Brad thought, as he forced a waxy tomato into his mouth. Personal contact springs leaks.
“Diplomatic papers?”
Larry shook his head. “It was a private package, not official government.”
“Business arrangement, perhaps?”
“Likely a secret pact between princes jockeying for the crown. You know how factional they are, with the Sudairi, Yamaniyah, and other clans. And the Wahhabi clerics are a force, too. The king is sick, and we’re getting lots of chatter. Powerful people in the Kingdom are ready to dispense with tradition and break with the Council of Princes. You got the liberals, emboldened by the Arab Spring. You have the conservatives, who think the king took reforms too far. There’s even talk of a palace coup.”
“Liberals or conservatives?”
“Both.”
Winters waited, hoping Larry would fill the awkward silence with more information. But Larry took a bite of his tuna sandwich, and then changed the subject.
“Prince Farhan,” Larry said. “Your friend Abdulaziz’s other son. The former ISIS commando. He disappeared in Istanbul.”
“Five minutes after Mishaal’s hit,” Winters said, “there was a brief shoot-out in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. Nobody hurt except a bodyguard, clipped in the thigh. A woman loading her luggage chipped a tooth when she fainted. A bellboy crapped his pants—and I mean that literally, Larry, he shit his uniform. The assailants got away. So did Farhan. That seemed to be his plan all along, to the chagrin of his father.”
Larry’s face fell. “Oh, so you know.”
“Of course I know, Larry. It’s my business to know.”
“Then you know why we’re worried.”
Winters sighed. He knew, and it was bad for business. “You don’t want a guy like Farhan in play again.”
“Farhan is a member of the Emni, ISIS’s assassination unit. One of the few to survive the training. He killed in Syria, until his father had Saudi intelligence kidnap and return him to Riyadh. I’m guessing the deradicalization program failed.”
“What do you make of it? Are the two events connected? Mishaal’s capture and Farhan’s escape?”
“Unlikely,” Larry said. “Farhan went jihad. Istanbul is the main junction in the ISIS recruitment pipeline, and it’s the first time his father let him out of the Kingdom in six months. He’s probably in Syria or Iraq by now. His skill set, contacts, knowledge of English, and access to wealth makes him dangerous, so we put a bounty on him last night. A hundred thousand dollars. Seems like the kind of wet work your company does.”
“I’ll check into it,” Winters said, although the bounty was a pittance, not even a rounding error for a typical Apollo contract. Still, it was good politics to take small jobs sometimes.
“Nothing wrong with doing the right thing and making a little money on the side,” Winters said. “It’s the American way.”
Larry sighed. He was a public servant who despised contractors of all stripes, especially private military ones. Some things were inherently governmental, Larry believed, like national security. Larry was living in 1979.
“It was blackmail,” Winters said, leaning back and straightening the monogrammed cuffs of his shirt. His watch cost more than Larry would make in a year.
“What was?”
“Paris. Someone wanted leverage on Abdulaziz.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“That’s what I’m telling you, Larry. As payment.”
“Who?” Larry said, staring at Winters. He had forgotten he was holding his half-eaten sandwich.
“I think you know.”
“Prince Khalid,” Larry said, and Winters could see the lightbulb flickering to life in his head. The lightbulb Winters had switched on.
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“It makes sense,” Larry said, thinking it through. “Abdulaziz is a Sudairi and Khalid a Wahhabi fanatic, so they’re natural rivals. Khalid was Crown Prince Nayef’s protégé in the Ministry of Interior, before Nayef died in 2012, causing Abdulaziz’s faction to rise in power. Khalid has taken his mentor’s position and commands the respect of the clerics. He’s perfectly placed for a palace coup.”
“He also directs the Mabahith,” Winters said. The Mabahith were the Kingdom’s powerful secret police, notoriously religious. Some of their leaders quietly advocated the overthrow of the royal family and a return to the stern Islam of the seventh century, but not too quietly for everyone not to know. A prince with the Mabahith behind him would be formidable indeed.
“You’re here on Abdulaziz’s behalf,” Larry said.
“I’m here on your behalf, Larry,” Winters said. “Our interests are aligned. Nobody wants to see a religious fanatic take the Saudi throne.”
Both men knew Abdulaziz and Khalid themselves would never ascend the throne. They were small powers behind a big throne. But having a king in your debt was no small thing, especially when he controlled most of the world’s oil supply.
“I’ll take a closer look into Khalid,” Larry agreed.
“Any information you discover would be helpful.”
Larry nodded as Winters stood to leave. “When do you need it?”
“Yesterday,” Winters kidded, sort of. “Before Paris.”
“No really.” Larry didn’t understand jokes.
“I leave for Riyadh in three hours.”
Larry took off his smudgy glasses and cleaned them with his tie. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You know I would do the same for you,” Winters said, as he walked away, leaving his “jazz salad” mostly untouched on the table. Larry waddled after him as they passed the ridiculous gift shop, huffing to keep up.
“Do you mind giving me an escort to the Yemen team?” Winters said over his shoulder. It chafed that the government trusted him with $4 billion worth of secret contracts every year, but not to walk the halls at Langley without an escort. He couldn’t even take a piss in this rathole without a chaperone. Not that he’d want to. The sanitary conditions were appalling.
“Sure,” Larry said as they took the up escalator. “Routine consultations?”
“We got some hot intel I need to deliver in person.”
“Off your Yemen contract?”
Winters didn’t answer. He knew nothing tormented an intel analyst more than being left out of the loop.
Larry broke down. “Care to share?”
“You’ll owe me,” Winters said. Larry nodded, and Winters leaned in close and whispered. “It has to do with the Kingdom’s nuclear option.”
Larry turned pale.
Decades ago the Americans persuaded the Saudis to give up their nuclear program in exchange for a U.S. promise to defend the Kingdom if threatened by a hostile power, like their great traditional enemy Iran. But the nuclear program wasn’t dismantled. The Saudis secretly transferred it to Pakistan and bankrolled the program, with an understanding that if the Kingdom ever needed a nuke, Pakistan would oblige.
“Saudi Arabia is going to buy a nuke from Pakistan?” Larry whispered, and Winters could see his Yoda ears twitching. Larry would be on this tip within minutes and, pretty soon, so would everyone else in MENA.
Like giving candy to a baby, Winters thought.
A twenty-minute bus ride later, Brad Winters called his associate in London, Sir Kabir Basrami-Heatherington, from the backseat of his chauffeured Town Car. Winters assumed the NSA was monitoring his calls; they were monitoring everyone’s calls, especially the CEOs of companies like Apollo Outcomes, which did the government’s dirty work. That was why he and Kabir only used encrypted phones with proprietary tech.
“Yes,” Kabir said. He sounded annoyed. Winters could hear him breathing heavily. He was probably on his treadmill.
“They don’t believe the cocaine story,” Winters said.
“And Farhan?”
“They don’t know anything more than we do.”
Kabir grunted. Winters wasn’t sure how to take that. He imagined the man at his Mayfair gym, running himself into the ground surrounded by chilled Evian waters. He could picture it, because he’d seen the surveillance photos. Know your enemy; surveil your friends.
“I want this contained,” Kabir said, huffing.
“It has to be Khalid. I’ve just put the CIA on his scent.” Kabir didn’t respond. “And we’ve got the green light to action Farhan.” Action was military lingo for “eliminate.” “That will keep Abdulaziz in check. His arrogance created this problem.”
“It wasn’t his arrogance.”
Winters knew whose arrogance Kabir was referring to, but he chose to ignore the insult. “It was using his sons. The man placed too much faith in his sons.”
Kabir breathed deep. He was definitely on his treadmill. “Men always place too much faith in their sons.”
Kabir Basrami-Heatherington was a seventh-generation banker who could trace his lineage back to the early days of the British Empire, when his Indian forebears had been among the first to embrace their new masters. Winters, a self-made man, always liked to stick it to the inheritors of the world.
“I don’t want your philosophy,” Kabir said. “I want a Sudairi on the throne. I want our Sudairi on the throne, someone who will open the Kingdom for business.”
“Don’t worry. That’s why I’m working through Abdulaziz.”
“I want my man at the future king’s right hand.”
“Understood.”
“And I want my name left out of it.”
“Your name won’t come up. Hardly anyone even knows your name.”
Kabir took a deep breath. It sounded like a sigh. “Good. Don’t call me again until it’s done.”
Chapter 7
Boon, Wildman, and I spent most of the day obtaining supplies and rigging our vehicles for the mission ahead. We’d split the $100,000 with our Kurd partners, as always, but there was plenty left over. Wildman had wanted to ditch them, but Boon and I disagreed. The Kurds had been helping us for eight weeks, with almost no pay. They were good fighters, dedicated to their people’s cause. They deserved to be cut in on the retainer.
The million if we succeeded? That was still to be determined.
“Where do you want to go?” Boon asked, as he strapped on our extra water.
“Morocco,” I said. “Nicest police state I’ve ever seen.”
“Beaches, booze, and naked bodies,” Wildman said, loading his C-4. Wildman was our explosives expert, the best in the world, in my humble opinion. It was a good thing when you enjoyed your work.
“I guess that rules out the Muslim world,” Boon said.
“Inshallah,” Wildman replied. Inshallah was Arabic for “God willing.” The only other Arabic word Wildman knew was mushkila, problem.
“What about you, Boon?”
Boon shrugged. “I’m comforted by the wisdom of Wildman.”
Wildman grunted approval.
I returned to our near-empty flat to pack my rucksack with combat essentials, then threw in whatever personal effects I had left: a pair of chopsticks, the I Ching, my ballistic humidor, the bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon I’d been nursing since Ankara.
I looked at the bottle, wrapped in the blue bespoke sport coat I hadn’t worn since arriving in Kiev to save a Ukrainian oligarch’s family from murderous thugs. I drank, hung the coat on the shower rod—we didn’t have a curtain—and showered under a pathetic dribble of water. The rough shave took twenty minutes, but it turns out I was still there, under the beard. I donned my coat and sunglasses, and wheeled out a motorbike from our garage. Boon had traded loot for it, then fixed it up.
I got to the clinic around 1800, just after it officially closed. Outside a bearded man lay on a stretcher, clutching his bloodstained side. I leaned the motorcycle against the wall, stepped over
the moaning man, and peeked inside the front door.
Kylah’s clinic was no-frills. She treated the indigent, the criminal, those with no other recourse. These days, that described half the people in Erbil. God knew who she swindled to get the medicine and pay her staff of three. Usually she worked after hours, and I thought she might still be there tonight. I was right. She sat in her back office, the glow of a laptop’s screen illuminating her face.
I banged on the door. She jumped, then smiled, then walked over and unlocked the door. I had to hand it to her. Kylah knew how to walk.
“What are you doing here?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“You clean up nice,” she said, eyeing my linen blazer and clean shave.
“You know there’s a guy dying outside,” I said as we walked through the tiny waiting room. On a table sat Arab magazines, three years old.
“He’s a jihadist,” she said, tossing her white lab coat over a chair. “He’ll just kill more people if I patch him up.”
“Isn’t that violating the Hippocratic oath or something?”
“If he’s alive tomorrow, I’ll save him.”
She bent over her desk (nice) and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, but I waved it away and put down the Woodford. “Get some ice,” I said.
“What’s the occasion?” she said, reaching into the medical fridge.
“I’m leaving.”
I poured two fingers of Kentucky’s finest into two plastic medical cups, the kind you pee in for a sample. The ice crackled when the warm liquor hit, the aroma of buttery bourbon perfuming the air. “That should pay our tab, with a generous tip,” I said, sliding an envelope across her desk.
Kylah peeked at the pile of dollars, but didn’t count them, so she didn’t know how very generous the tip was. “You’re a mystery, Tom Locke.”
“Just a drifter.”
She took a drink and nodded her satisfaction. “There’s more to you than that.”