by David Lender
“As long as it takes to get a visa.” She glanced around the room. “Technically, we’re in France. So, forever?” She laughed, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Tom smiled, but there was no warmth in it.
“This whole thing has taken an abrupt turn,” he said. She saw him fingering the edge of the desk, a little nervous oddity she’d never noticed before. “It’s become more serious and needs some immediate steps from our side.”
“Our side?”
“The U.S., the Brits and Israelis are taking the lead. NATO is involved, or we wouldn’t be here in the French Embassy.” Sasha raised her chin expectantly. Tom went on. “We’re coordinating some measures against the al-Mujari…”
“Measures?” she cut in. She heard the edge in her voice.
“I’m not sure you want to know all this, but you probably need to, and certainly deserve to.” Sasha felt her breath quicken. “Some people are going to disappear, or at least stop being a nuisance.” He looked at her with a hard glint in his eyes. “The world will be better off, believe me.”
So they were talking about killing people, she realized. She felt a numbness in her fingers. Then a flare of anger. “And you’ll be asking me to do something, no doubt. What?”
She saw him frown at the aggressiveness of her question. “We aren’t enemies here. You and I are on the same side, remember? There’s no need for tension between us.”
Sasha realized he might be right. Still: “But you didn’t call me urgently to tell me this. You want my help, right?”
“Yes.” His eyes were now softer, connecting with her as usual. But she knew he was asking her help in killing someone. Why not just ask her for information, use it to do it and not even tell her? Despite herself, she asked, “Who?”
The answer was immediate. “Ibrahim.”
The shock was a blow inside her brain. “Oh my God, you can’t be serious!” His face didn’t move. “Are you out of your mind? I thought somebody, some faceless…somebody I didn’t know. He’s Yassar’s son! For God’s sake, I sleep with him. Yes, he’s an unwitting, egotistical fool who’s being taken advantage of. But kill him?”
“It needs doing.”
“Don’t tell me that!”
“Maybe I should let him tell you himself.” Tom put a tape recorder on the desk, hit the play button. “We recorded this yesterday in Waleed’s hotel room.”
“We do not need to tell you the solution,” Abdul was saying in near frenzy.
“Shari’a does not permit the killing of an Arab brother, but it does permit driving out the infidels!” Waleed said, incensed. Obviously at the end of a long, passionate exchange. Sasha heard a low grunt of acknowledgment, unmistakably Prince Ibrahim’s. She tensed her shoulders. “There is no sin, no violation of shari’a in driving the infidel Saudi regime from the holy Saudi peninsula. There is no violation of shari’a if they must be killed in order to wipe out the stain of the infidels from our holy land, the home of the two holiest sites in all of Islam!”
“Then, our holy friend, you must choose between the life of your own father or the preservation of the purity of the Islamic state! Either your father and his brethren in the Saudi government must die or the infidels will eventually pollute our holy land and destroy the nation of Islam!” Sasha was unsure whether she heard the murmur of Prince Ibrahim’s acknowledgment. Her breathing had accelerated to the point she had to make a conscious effort to slow it down.
“Do you accept this grave challenge, this test that Allah has chosen for you? Do you choose the preservation of the nation of Islam? Do you choose the return of the holy Islamic sites to the Muslim people? Do you choose the expulsion of the infidels? Do you choose death for the Saudi royal family?”
“Yes!” came Prince Ibrahim’s unmistakable reply. Sasha felt a slam of anger, and simultaneously tears flushed to her eyes. “Damn you!” she yelled at Tom. “Damn you!”
“Would you rather we do nothing and let them kill Yassar?”
Sasha slumped back into her chair, hearing her pulse slamming in her ears. “And killing Ibrahim is the alternative? So I help you kill his son—God, I’ve already helped you!” Tom sat still, his expression betraying nothing. “And have Yassar hate me for the rest of my life?”
“There’s no other way.”
“Take Yassar the tape!”
“They’ll kill him anyhow!”
“If you won’t, I will!” She reached for the tape recorder. Tom yanked it back and started the machine again.
“Will you do it?” Abdul asked.
Waleed jumped in, still at a fever pitch: “You are the only one who can! Nobody else can get close enough!”
Sasha thought her lungs would burst. “Yes! Yes, I’ll kill him!” Ibrahim cried.
Sasha’s slammed her fists down on the table. “All right! Enough!” Tom turned the machine off. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. Tom reached into his jacket pocket and Sasha saw the blue-gray steel of a Beretta in his hand when it emerged, a silencer in the other.
“Oh my God! You’re not suggesting…I…?”
Five minutes later Sasha’s breathing was still coming in deep gusts; she couldn’t get enough air, and fought the urge to vomit. Her throat was jagged with pain.
Tom motioned to the glass of water he had brought her. She sipped. “And you’re convinced if we go to Yassar he won’t believe us?” Her voice was faint, and she heard the tremor in it. Yet her mind was clearing.
“Even if he did, if he hesitated, or he went to Ibrahim, it might be all over before we could intervene,” Tom said. She saw now the fatigue in his face, the lines around his eyes. She thought they were sympathetic now. “Besides, it’s not just about Ibrahim at this point. There are others. And as I told you, it’s a coordinated program. If you go to Yassar, they’ll find out about it and go underground, and if we don’t take as many of them as we can out now, they’ll get to Yassar eventually. Even without Ibrahim.”
How could she not tell Yassar? She sat, staring at the gun on the table until Tom put it back inside his coat.
Sasha’s gaze went to Tom’s eyes. “Okay. When?”
“Three days. At night. You’ll call into the hotel every day, to your ‘friend’ Maria who’s visiting from Italy, visit her if necessary. We’ll do what we need to do to communicate. And three days is enough time to teach you to shoot.”
Sasha felt her anger subsiding, then thought of Yassar and felt clarity, purpose. “Not necessary. I’ve been shooting since I was ten, shotguns, rifles—and pistols. Besides, I’ll be at close range.” The tremor was gone from her voice.
Sasha allowed herself to take in everything in Yassar’s study, knowing it would be the last time she would visit with him. Two days left. Yassar got up from the floor following their lesson and sat in one of the stuffed chairs. Sasha lingered for a moment, kneeling in front of him, wrapping her Koran in its special cloth. So far she’d gotten her wish: a quiet evening, studying the teachings with Yassar. She’d asked for a special lesson because she wanted to say good-bye, and to leave him with enough facts for him to fill in the gaps afterward so that hopefully he might at least understand.
She got up and sat in the chair adjacent to him. “Thank you,” she said. She observed Yassar, the drooping eyelids, the prominent nose and the serious, contemplative forehead. He still had gentle eyes.
“You’re welcome. Still an enthusiastic student.” There was pride in his voice.
She poured tea. “Yassar,” she began. “I was thinking the other day, we’ve now known each other over ten years.” She saw him nod. She felt content. “And I remember the first time you mentioned Ibrahim, when you used to come visit Christina’s after the oil meetings in Vienna.”
He sipped his tea. “Yes.”
“I remember the high hopes you had for him…” She trailed off to see if he’d pick up on it. Was he disappointed in him? She knew he was helping him at the ministry now that he’d returned from Harvard, but was Yassar aware of any change in
Ibrahim’s views?
“I still have high hopes for him. He straightened out wonderfully. Thanks in part to you, my dear. I hope you can continue to keep him company, even while he’s away at school.”
Sasha didn’t respond, didn’t know how. God, this isn’t easy. “Do you believe he’s helping you at the ministry?”
“Absolutely. He’s been critical to the jobs program, even in the short time since he’s returned from school.”
“And is he still keeping up with his religious studies?”
“You are modest, my dear. I’m certain it’s your influence. He even quotes the Koran now.”
She wished it were her influence. She knew it was the tip of the al-Mujari iceberg. Or ice pick? “I’ve been finding him a little overbearing at times since he’s gone to school,” she said. “At least in his political views. They’re not exactly always in line with the family’s.”
Yassar waved his hand. “Ibrahim is open-minded. Harvard has had an influence on him. He respects other’s views.”
She grabbed at the hope she could get him to listen to her tapes, intervene, go to Tom…” What if he was to get involved with some people with wildly different views? Not the Saudi royal family way?”
“Don’t trouble yourself. If that happened, I’d get involved.” He winked. “Besides, he’d need to take you on first, and I know how persuasive you can be.” She felt a lump in her throat. He went on, making it worse. “And he and I have never been closer, particularly since he’s been back from school. I’ve never been more dependent on him at the ministry, never more hopeful for him.” Her anger rose now. Diabolical.
“I confess I’ve never felt more confident he’ll succeed me,” Yassar went on. “He’s become—righteous.”
Why was he so blind? But how could he help being taken in by his own son? She was having trouble suppressing her rage. “You might find yourself with a totally new perspective after you have a chance to reflect on things from a distance—perhaps when he goes back to school in the fall.”
Yassar almost cut her off. “Not true. This year it will be much more difficult to see him go back.” He paused. “As one gets older, one lives more through one’s children. Hopes, dreams are for them. And Ibrahim is my oldest son. There’s no pride in the world like that.”
Sasha didn’t know which focused her more—her anger at Ibrahim or her love for Yassar. What she did know was that she needed another answer, realized she couldn’t stop Ibrahim the way she’d planned. Forget about what she’d told Tom. How could Yassar lose Ibrahim, and not at least have her around to take care of him? And how could she stand leaving Yassar? Tom wasn’t going to like it, but the plan needed to change. And immediately, because there wasn’t much time.
CHAPTER 28
JULY, TWENTY YEARS AGO. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia. Tom Goddard was getting his ass chewed over the phone by John Franklin, his Section Head at Langley. His mind raced. Two hours earlier Sasha had dropped in his lap the fact that she wasn’t going through with taking out Ibrahim, part of six coordinated hits mostly under his direction. She’d smuggled in the Beretta Cheetah with the custom-made silencer like a pro, an iceberg, then a day later plopped down on the stool in the bathroom in their cover suite at Le Meridian Hotel Riyadh for the final debrief, her black abaya draped over her down to the floor, and said, “We need a change of plans.”
“Everything’s set,” he’d said, trying to sound reassuring. But he’d seen something was wrong. His next thought had been to just get her through this. Take her in. See how she’s doing.
She looked like a little boxer there on her stool, waiting to go at it. “I know,” she said, looking at him as casually as if she were telling him what she had for breakfast.
He chalked it up to fear, then sensed she wasn’t afraid at all, and at once he realized that he had no idea what was going on.
“Everything’s been coordinated. We can’t change things. Just tell me what’s going on. I know you can do this.”
“It’s no use, Tom.” Her eyes softened as she said his name. “I’m not afraid. I’m just not going to do it the way we planned.” She sat back a little on the stool, slumped to the side with her elbow on her knee, like she’d finished whupping him and was just waiting for the judge’s decision.
“What are you talking about?” He felt sudden anxiety.
“I’m not leaving Yassar. Come up with some other way to do it. I’ve tried dreaming up other solutions, but I’m out of ideas.” She lowered her head and looked at him just so, almost coy. “You’re the spy. You think of something.”
Tom wondered for a moment if it was a bluff. She wanted Ibrahim taken out as much as they did. Was she pushing for something? He’d never seen her have any ulterior motive. No hidden agendas. Still, he had to ask: “What do you want?”
She tossed her head back. “Nothing. Except a change in plans so I can stay. I’m not leaving Yassar. He needs me, and especially will afterward. And I don’t want to leave him. He’s all I’ve got.”
Tom was snapped back into the moment by Franklin’s voice bellowing over the phone. “…and now after all this she’s chickening out.”
“She’s not chickening out,” Tom said.
“I can hear her clucking from all the way across the Atlantic.”
“She’ll do what we need. I think she wants to get rid of the guy more than we do.”
Then Franklin was off on his griping about the timing again, still hadn’t vented it all. “Christ, we’ve done the planning work in days that’d normally take weeks. Six hits within forty-eight hours. Timing is critical, and everything’s been coordinated. How many times you gonna change things?”
“She doesn’t want to leave Yassar,” Tom repeated as evenly as he could.
“Jesus Christ, she think he’s gonna hug her and forgive her afterward? I mean, what kind of bimbo—?”
“She’s no bimbo.”
That stopped him. “What’s your proposal?” Franklin asked.
“Put a team on Ibrahim.”
“We tried to make that work before.”
“We dropped the idea when Sasha agreed to do Ibrahim herself. Plus it was tricky to get the team in. Now Sasha will let them in.”
“You’d rely on her? After this?”
“She’ll do it. Believe me.”
“She better do it. But where the hell you gonna get a team at this stage?”
“Only way to work it is to pull a team from one of the other targets. We’re using all mercenaries.”
“Oh, great.”
Enough, already. Give it a rest. “I can work this out. It’ll take a dozen. The squad goes in undetected. One shooter. Everybody using silencers. Hopefully a clean exit.”
“Crazy,” he heard Franklin’s low murmur. Then: “Can you get these guys to do it?”
“They’ll do it. We’ll have to up their fees, but yeah.”
“And these guys are untraceable.”
“Yeah. This can work.” Tom said it as much to convince himself as Franklin.
“If not, it’s your ass.”
If not, it’s Sasha’s ass. “It’ll work,” was all he said. He had a grungy feeling.
Sasha wondered what she would find out upon returning to Maria Del Tredici’s suite at Le Meridian Hotel Riyadh, her cover meeting place with Tom. After firmly planting the responsibility on Tom to come up with something new that would preserve her life here with Yassar, she was now afraid she’d thrown events into motion that she couldn’t control, and that she might not like the outcome. What would he expect her to do?
She felt her soul screaming in pain; in less than 36 hours she was going to help these people kill someone. And not just anyone: a man she had lived with for almost three years. And regardless of her feelings for Yassar, it was still hard to believe she was going to do it. She would offer her prayers to Ganesha tonight, her Remover of Obstacles. Would that he could remove her guilt as well.
“Hi. Ready?” Tom asked when she arrived at Maria’s room.
He was serious. She saw him observing her, checking.
Never mind. I’m okay. She nodded.
“Good.” He pulled out a diagram. She recognized it as the plans for Ibrahim’s suite and the surrounding corridors. She now had an odd sense, an absence of emotion toward Ibrahim. Was it her guilt that caused it, out of self-defense? No, she still found him repugnant. But there was an anger, too. Something that needed to be there, yet controlled in a determined, equally diabolical response to Ibrahim’s deception. She kept reminding herself of his words on the tape: “Yes, I’ll kill him.” She saw Tom’s eyes watching her again, still checking.
“I’m okay. Go on.”
“All right. We’ll be using a dozen men. The team comes over the perimeter wall here.” He pointed to a spot on the diagram. “Once inside they pack it with charges—C-4 explosive—in case something goes wrong and they need to blow the wall for their escape.”
Sasha listened and observed, but felt curiously detached, as if she were watching this on a movie screen.
“The team will be using silencers, so if there are guards in the courtyard, they may still be able to take them out without being observed and continue the plan. The team leader will make the judgment at that time. Your part of the plan is next.” He pulled out latex gloves and slid them on. “You’ll deactivate a microswitch that triggers the alarm on the window they’ll come in through.” He pulled out a plastic strip from his bag, holding it up and peeling a cellophanelike substance off the front of it. She smelled the acrid odor of the adhesive. “Cyanoacrylate, extremely fast drying and activated by exposure to the air,” he explained. He moved it up toward the metal window frame. “You’ll slide it between the window and the frame like this, and then use this electromagnet”—he pulled a clump of metal the size of a tennis ball out of his sack—”to clamp the steel window molding against the frame.” He unraveled the cord from the contraption. “It’s very powerful.” He plugged it in and positioned the device against the window frame, flipped a switch, and she heard the clunk of the magnet pulling the window molding against its frame. He moved his hands and left it securing itself in place. “You getting this?”