Seven years later, there were still restaurants in the United States that refused to serve French wine, even wine importers and wholesalers who refused to touch French products.
And here again was the world’s most self-centered nation—this time perhaps having overstepped itself in terms of pure national interest—casting itself into the role of international pariah…assuming that someone, somewhere, felt they could prove French compliance in the takeover of Saudi Arabia.
Arnold Morgan was sure he could prove 100 percent French involvement. And he said to the President, “Sir, I am going to lay this right on the line for you. France was the nation that agreed to help Prince Nasir. Those oil installations were hit by French missiles fired from French submarines. Those oil-loading platforms were blown with time bombs fixed by French underwater commandos. Those military bases at Khamis Mushayt were attacked by a brigade of French Special Forces, and that street rabble was marshaled into a fighting force by a former French Army officer who led the assault on Riyadh on behalf of the new King.
“During the course of the next twelve months, you are going to see France move into the jockey seat in the marketing of all Saudi oil. It is entirely a matter for you whether we get left behind in the coming stampede to join the line for Saudi oil and gas.”
“Arnold, do we have sufficient evidence to accuse the French absolutely of this treachery?”
“Damn right we do.”
“What about the submarines, the Améthyste and the Perle? Where the hell are they?”
“One of them is heading into the Arabian Sea, the other into the Indian Ocean.”
“And what if they don’t turn up at La Réunion, as you and the NSA expect?”
“Doesn’t matter a damn whether they turn up or not. There were only two hunter-killer submarines in all the world that could have fired those missiles. And they were French, in the area, and now they’re missing, having behaved most unusually.”
“Who has to speak to the French?”
“I suppose you do. Or your Secretary of State. Not that it will do any good. The French will just say they have no idea what you are talking about.”
“So how can we hang ’em out to dry?”
“We have to capture Le Chasseur and make him talk.”
“Is that likely to be difficult?”
“Extremely so. Especially if the French manage to assassinate him first.”
“You think they might?”
“I would.”
President Bedford stood up and walked to the other side of the room. Once more he stood beneath the portrait of General Washington. “Arnold,” he said, “I am asking you to come back here as my special adviser for a few months. You can name your salary.”
“Sir, I’m not good at advice. I give orders and they have to be carried out. I will not offer my views for a bunch of half-assed Democrats to sit around wondering whether to do something else.”
“How about I make you Supreme Commander of this operation, with powers to order the military into action?”
“Do you and your advisers have a veto on my decisions?”
“I would need to have that.”
“Then it’s time for me to go home. If you put yourself in my hands, you also put yourself in the hands of your most senior commanders in the Pentagon. And I will not order anyone to do anything without their agreement. I work with the Pentagon, not against it.”
President Bedford ruminated. “Are you suggesting I give you supreme authority to take this nation to war?”
“Of course not. I am suggesting you give me supreme authority to kick a little ass with no questions asked. That way you’ll save your presidency and we’ll get back to where we want to be, dealing with the Saudis.”
“Arnold, I am putting myself into a precarious position where you essentially tell me what is going to happen? Is that more or less correct?”
“Yes it is. Because I’m not having anything to do with this, unless you give me the authority to act and act fast. If you don’t trust me, don’t do it. But if you do trust me, I should decide pretty damn quickly if I were you. Because this bullshit with the oil could get right out of hand.”
“Where do you want your office?”
“Right next to yours. And I speak only to you. I attend no Cabinet meetings, or any other meetings. I brief you, and you take your cue from that.”
“Arnold, I would not think of doing this with any other person except you.”
“Neither would I, sir.”
“Salary?”
“Forget it. Just all the backup I need.”
“Well, I guess that’s a deal then. I appoint you Supreme Commander of Operation…what? Desert Fuel?”
“How about Towelhead Treason?”
“Jesus, Arnold.” The President laughed. “I think something less inflammatory.”
“Okay, let’s make it Operation Tanker.”
“No problem. Operation Tanker. When do you start?”
“‘Bout ten minutes ago. Make sure my new quarters have a sizable anteroom for Kathy, and she’ll need a deputy secretary.”
“No problem. You speaking to France today?”
“Probably not. I’m concentrating our inquiries on the land battles, and I probably won’t stick a firecracker up the ass of the French until we get a sight of those submarines. Then I can act as if we know rather more than we do.”
“Uh-huh,” said President Bedford. “And then what?”
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere. The French will just do a lot of shrugging and say they have no idea what happened in Saudi Arabia. It is none of their business, n’est-ce pas? ”
“Then what?”
“We find them guilty in the courtroom of Uncle Sam. And then, as they say in the Pentagon, we’ll try to appreciate the situation.”
“Do we say anything to the media?”
“Christ no, sir. Nothing. NO announcements. NO press conferences.”
“And what about when someone notices you are ensconced in the White House right next to the President?”
“You have someone say that Admiral Morgan and the President are assessing a possible problem to the United States. They are working together as two former naval officers. Admiral Morgan is an acting, unpaid adviser on a purely temporary basis.”
“Right before you have the SEALs blow up the Eiffel Tower or something?”
“More or less,” replied Morgan. “But to set your mind at rest, we’re not blowing up anything on land. But equally, we are not anxious that France should carry on as normal, running tankers in and out of their ports with oil from Abu Dhabi…while the rest of us starve.”
“Oh, Christ,” said President Bedford. “This is going to be interesting.”
“For the final time, sir. Your only chance is to get aggressive, show your outrage, be absolutely fearless in your contempt for what France has done. Get the focus of blame right away from yourself. Shock and surprise the world as necessary. But look like the victim, and make a lot of noise. Above all, turn France into the enemy of the Free World. That way you cannot possibly lose.”
“I’m listening, Arnie. And I know you’re right. It’s just that I have nothing to do with this. And I find myself in the middle of everything.”
“Other Presidents in other times have felt precisely the same,” replied Morgan. “We gotta bite the bullet and turn this thing around. And we have to somehow turn it to America’s advantage. And that’s going to cost France plenty.”
ONE WEEK LATER, THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 11:00 A.M.
DIPLOMATIC QUARTER, RIYADH
Col. Jacques Gamoudi and Gen. Ravi Rashood had been keeping their heads well down while the dust of war settled. The city of Riyadh had been quiet since the new King took over, and the entire Saudi armed services had agreed to serve King Nasir.
He had already announced, to a thunder of national applause, an end to the massive annual stipends to the thousands and thousands of royal princes. He further announced that those
royal princes who were left in the country—not many—faced a wide confiscation of their property, except for primary residences.
He advised those who could leave to do so, and immediately froze any assets of more than a half-million dollars kept by any prince in any Saudi bank. He ruthlessly passed these laws in retrospect, meaning there were a lot of casinos, hotels, and boat marinas all over the Riviera that were left holding large debts incurred by the former golden boys of the kingdom.
“Frankly,” said King Nasir, in imitation of his great hero Clark Gable, “I don’t give a damn.”
The King’s view was simple. These princes had had their day. And if any of them had debts that they expected the King of Saudi Arabia to pay…well, those days were over. They’d have to get a job and start paying them off. Either that or go live somewhere else and hide from their former dissolute habits.
He further announced that the only members of the royal family who would in future be paid anything were those who buckled down and found a way to serve a useful purpose in the kingdom. He made it illegal for any member of the vast former royal family to transfer money from Saudi Arabia to another country.
As for the armed services, he appealed to the land forces, the Royal Saudi Air Force, and the Navy to remain loyal to the Crown. He announced that the salaries of all serving members of those services would be paid as a matter of priority from Saudi Arabia’s currency reserves. He told them he had allocated the sum of $3 billion for this purpose in the first year.
Thus King Nasir, at two strokes, had rid himself of a $200 billion a year “obligation to the princes,” and gained himself a fabulously loyal national fighting force at a net “profit” of $197 billion.
As the Saudi soldiers, sailors, and airmen owed him a huge debt of honor and allegiance, so King Nasir felt toward Colonel Gamoudi and General Rashood. They were both ensconced in the big white house he had personally made available to the Colonel, and their every wish was his profound pleasure to grant.
They had servants, limousines, helicopters on call, a facility at every restaurant in the city to dine at the King’s expense, endless invitations to attend the palace, and if they wished to dine with the King in the desert.
King Nasir was especially fond of his comrade-in-arms Colonel Gamoudi, and he was growing to like equally well his forward commander in the battle for Khamis Mushayt. If the two leaders of the revolution so wished, they were free to remain and make their homes in Riyadh as permanent guests of the King for the rest of their days. They were the nearest thing to the most privileged of princes, ever since the former King went down in a hail of bullets from Rashood’s machine gun the previous week.
The King had also moved forward on his promises to France. He had allocated $10 billion to the rebuilding of Pump Station Number One, the Abqaiq complex, the Qatif Junction manifold, the Sea Island Terminal loading platforms, the LPG Terminal off Ras al Ju’aymah, and the Red Sea refineries.
At present, there was of course a vast amount of incoming dollars still owed to Saudi Arabia, and while the King intended to increase the personal state allowances to all citizens to $14,000 a year, he did not feel able to commit billions to the rebuilding of the oil loading platforms at Yanbu al Bahr, Rabigh, and Jiddah. He would begin that work as soon as some oil began to flow.
But, true to his word, he immediately awarded all the major contracts to French construction corporations, with a gigantic sum of money for advice, consultation, and planning services to the giant French TotalFinaElf oil conglomerate.
All of this was done in secrecy and it would be many weeks before the full scale of Saudi Arabia’s apparent debt to France was uncovered. Meanwhile, millions and millions of dollars’ worth of hardware, oil pipeline, pumping systems, excavation equipment, trucks, and bulldozers were making their way systematically through the Mediterranean, from French ports to the Suez Canal.
It was boom time in the heartland of industrial France. Just as the French President knew it would be, almost a year ago when Prince Nasir had first come to call.
Meanwhile, the sun shone brightly on the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh. General Rashood and Colonel Gamoudi had elected to dine at one of the best Italian restaurants in the desert city, Da Pino in the Al Khozama Center, next to the Al Khozama Hotel on Olaya Street
. It was a great favorite of Saudi Arabia’s ruling class, who had formerly all belonged to one family, but now Da Pino was hitting very hard times, and it was easier to book a table than it had ever been. Of course, if General Rashood and Colonel Gamoudi had wished, the King would have bought it for them.
However, they only wanted a good dinner of pasta and chicken or veal, with fruit juice to drink, both being devout Muslims and unable to drink alcohol in this country anyway.
Their chauffeur drove them into the city from the Diplomatic Quarter. General Rashood caught his first glimpse of a black Citroën driving behind them before they were out of King Khalid Road
. He could just see it through the passenger-side mirror, and while he was not particularly curious, he did notice that the vehicle was driving up close and had once refused to allow a white van to drift in between them. There was a loud blowing of horns. Rashood turned to see the van driver waving his fist. They turned left onto Makkah Road
, and, routinely, Rashood checked to see if the Citroën was still behind them.
It was, but these were two of the busiest streets in Riyadh, so there was nothing unusual in that. However, when they made their turn onto Al Amir Soltan Street
, Rashood saw the Citroën once again follow them closely. They sped under the big overhead junction with King Fahd Road
and took the third left onto the wide boulevard of Olaya Street
.
They pulled up on the right-hand side, where there was ample parking space. The chauffeur said he would be waiting right there when they had finished dinner. Both men climbed out on the right side, and Rashood watched the Citroën drive past and make a slow right onto Al Amir Mohammed Road
. He never gave the car another thought.
Dinner was outstanding and the chef came out and talked to them. At the next table was Colonel Bandar, liberator of the Riyadh television stations, dining with his family. He and Jacques Gamoudi silently toasted each other with fruit juice, and introductions were made.
They all left, more or less together, just after 10 P.M., and Rashood and Gamoudi walked quickly through the precincts of the Khozama Hotel and out into the fresh night air. The chauffeur waved to them from across the street, and they stood chatting on the sidewalk while the stream of traffic passed.
Finally it was clear, and they stepped out into the street, with the traffic approaching from the left. Still chatting, they set off across the boulevard, when Rashood heard the squeal of tires on black-top, from the left, no more than 100 yards away. He stopped instinctively, but Jacques Gamoudi kept going.
Rashood turned to see an approaching vehicle that might have made zero to sixty in four seconds. Through his mind flashed the thought black Citroën. He could see it bearing down on them traveling absolutely foot to the boards.
He jumped two steps forward and, with an outrageous display of strength, twisted, wrapped his left forearm around the throat of Le Chasseur, and hurled him backward. Jacques Gamoudi’s head hit the ground first, followed by his shoulder blades.
For a split-second the ex–French Foreign Legion soldier thought he was dead. Another half-second and he would have been. The front wheels of the Citroën literally brushed the soles of his feet as it roared past.
Rashood leapt back onto his own feet. He heard the brakes of the Citroën shriek as it skidded to a standstill. For a moment he thought the driver was slamming the gears into reverse, and was coming back for them. They were sitting targets, almost in the middle of the road, with Jacques Gamoudi still supine, trying to clear his head from the wallop he had taken when he hit the road.
But no. The Citroën was stopped dead, but the rear door on the
right side was opening. Rashood could see the tip of a rifle, then he saw their assailant’s face: a dark, hard-eyed, unshaven thug. Ravi Rashood, the master unarmed combat soldier from the SAS, did not hesitate.
He raced toward the car and, with a thunderous right-footed kick that would not have disgraced a French Rugby Union full-back, he almost took the man’s head off, snapped his neck, and broke his jaw in seven places. The rifle, a primed AK-47, clattered to the ground, and Rashood had time to grab it before the driver of the vehicle was out of the left front door and around the car aiming an identical weapon.
Rashood had no time to aim or fire his own weapon, but he did have time to ram the gun’s butt into the man’s face. It was a vicious, high, stabbing blow delivered like a harpooner within reach of his whale.
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