The Secret Soldier jw-5

by Alex Berenson

  “I’m not meant to give you that information until we’re airborne, sir.”

  Three flight attendants waited at the top of the jetway. All women. They wore demure jackets and knee-length skirts, but all three could have modeled on their days off. Wells supposed that anyone who could afford this jet could afford whatever crew he wanted.

  “Mr. Wells,” the prettiest attendant said. “I’m Joanna. Please come this way.”

  At the center of the jet, four leather chairs were arranged before a fifty-inch television and a fully stocked bar. Despite its opulence, the interior was studiously anonymous. No books or flags gave away the name or nationality of the owner. The exit signs were in English. The jet seemed to be part of a fleet. In that case, the pool of possible owners shrank even further. The Russian and Chinese governments were the most obvious suspects. But Wells’s recent adventures hadn’t made him friends in Moscow or Beijing. The Saudi or Kuwaiti royal families. Maybe the French, though in that case this jet ought to be an Airbus. Maybe an oil company.

  Nobody very nice. The short answer was that nobody very nice owned a plane like this.

  “Mr. Wells,” the attendant said, “we have a video-on-demand library with six thousand movies. There’s also a live satellite feed. Whatever you’d like to watch.” She gave Wells a smile that could be described only as saucy. “If you’d rather sleep, the bedrooms are this way.” She nodded toward the front of the cabin.

  “And we’ll be in the air about ten hours?”

  “Less than eight, sir.”

  Information, of a sort. Eight hours meant Western Europe or South America. “Thank you.”

  The jet took off fifteen minutes later. An hour after that, Captain Smith walked into the cabin. “Sir. You asked our destination. It’s Nice.” As in France. “We get in around eight in the morning local time.”

  “Who’s waiting for me?”

  “I don’t know. Truly.”

  “When a man feels the need to say truly, he’s usually lying. And I told you about calling me sir.”

  “Yes, Mr. Wells. In any case. We’re expecting a smooth flight. But if you need medicine to sleep, Joanna can help.”

  The bedroom was as pointlessly luxurious as the rest of the jet. Wells lay on the white cotton sheets and closed his eyes. But he couldn’t sleep. He found himself thinking of Evan, his son. He wondered how he could be so strong and so weak at the same time. Death hardly scared him, but the idea of picking up a telephone and calling his own blood had paralyzed him for years. Evan was a teenager now, old enough to decide for himself whether to allow Wells in his life. Wells supposed he feared that Evan would reject him, leaving him even more alone. But he had to take that chance. He needed to drop his guard and tell the boy that he’d never forgotten him, not in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

  Just as soon as this mission was over. How many times had he made that promise to himself? Too many. He closed his eyes and lay in the dark as the jet crossed the sea.

  * * *

  IN THE MORNING, THE coffee was strong and black, and the landing was smooth. The jet banked low over the Mediterranean before swinging into the airport at Nice, offering a priceless view of the waves crashing into the Côte d’Azur. Priceless, indeed. In 2008, a villa near here had sold for five hundred million euros, close to one billion dollars. Wells had entered a land of wealth beyond comprehension. He wondered again who had summoned him, and why. As he left the plane, Captain Smith gave him a perfectly correct smile, neither too large nor too small, neither familiar nor dismissive. “Beats coach,” Wells said.

  “My pleasure,” the captain said. Wells supposed that the crew never broke character, never acknowledged that they and the passengers they served were members of the same species.

  Outside, a breeze whipped off the Mediterranean. A French immigration agent stood on the runway beside a white Renault minivan. Beside him, a second man wore a blue sport coat that flapped open to reveal a shoulder holster. Neither looked happy to see Wells. Their hostility was a relief after the paid-for, painted-on smiles of the plane’s crew.

  The agent waved Wells into the Renault, and they sped to the main terminal building. In a windowless office, the agent scanned Wells’s passport. “Are you carrying any weapons, Mr. Wells?” That question again. Wells shook his head. “Raise your arms,” the man in the blue sport coat said. Wells did and was rewarded with a thorough pat-down before the agent handed him back his passport. “Welcome to France, then. Jean will show you to your car.”

  Jean, the man in the sport coat, led Wells in silence through the airport’s back halls, windowless corridors lined with banged-up baggage carts. Two men in brown uniforms smoked under a poster that warned, “Défense de fumer.” They reached a door with a simple pushbutton combination lock. Jean keyed in the code, pulled it open, waved Wells through. They were near the front entrance of the arrivals level. A black BMW 760 waited at the curb, two men inside. Wells admired the precision of the handoff. Even if he had known he was being taken to Nice, even if he had somehow arranged for a weapon at the airport, he couldn’t have picked it up. He hadn’t been alone since Kennedy. And whoever was on the other side had plenty of juice with the French government.

  Wells slipped into the rear seat of the 760, leaned against the cushioned leather. No point in asking. He’d have answers soon enough.

  THEY DROVE ALONG THE A8, the highway called La Provençale, which tracked the coast to the Italian border. The BMW’s driver sliced through the heavy morning traffic as if he were playing a video game in which the only penalty for an accident was the loss of a turn. Wells loved to speed, but this man was at a different level. “You ever race F1?” he said. He didn’t expect an answer.

  “He never made F1,” the man in the front passenger seat said. “Only F2.”

  “Where are we going?”

  No answer. Wells tried to turn on his phone but found the battery had been drained. Nice touch. West of Nice, the sedan swung onto the coast road, two narrow lanes that rose and fell along the hills. They turned back toward Nice. The precautions seemed pointless to Wells. He had no phone, no gun, not even a change of clothes. The tactician in him admired the way these men had cut him off from any possible support.

  Outside Nice, they turned back onto the A8, running east this time, and fast, the driver’s hands high and relaxed on the wheel. Another racing clinic. Wells would have liked to ask for tips. On an overpass ten miles east of Nice, the sedan pulled over.

  “Get out.”

  Wells didn’t argue, just stepped out and watched the BMW pull away. He didn’t bother getting the plate number. The last twelve hours had left him sick of tradecraft. He wouldn’t have long to wait, he guessed. After going to so much trouble to make sure he was sterile, they’d be foolish to leave him alone for long.

  Sure enough, a stretch Mercedes Maybach pulled up almost before he finished the thought. Black? Check. Tinted windows? Check. Runflat tires and armored doors? Check and double-check. Wells raised a thumb, leaned toward the window. “Anywhere east, I’ll take it. I can chip in for gas. Cool?”

  The door swung open.

  THE MAN IN THE backseat had a heavy square face and wore a white ghutra low on his forehead. A neatly trimmed goatee covered his jutting chin like black-dyed moss. From a distance, he might have passed for sixty-five. Up close, his face betrayed his age. His skin was as creased as month-old newspaper. Under his thick black glasses his eyes were rheumy and yellow. Wells didn’t recognize him.

  Then he did. Abdullah, the king of Saudi Arabia. The richest man in the world. Everything made sense. The overwhelming security. The one-million-dollar fee. The ridiculous opulence of the plane. Everything except the question of why he was here.

  “Salaam aleikum,” the man in the front passenger seat said. He turned to face Wells. He was almost as old as Abdullah, with swollen cheeks and a quiet, wheezy voice. Wells guessed he had heart trouble.

  “Aleikum salaam.”

  “You are John Wel
ls.”

  “Nam.”

  “I am Miteb bin Abdul-Aziz. This is my brother, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”—the official title of the Saudi kings.

  “Prince Miteb. King Abdullah. I’m honored to meet you.”

  “Please excuse our precautions. They’re for our protection, and yours, too.” Miteb’s Arabic was the most perfect that Wells had ever heard, a smooth stream. Wells’s own Arabic was rough and visceral.

  “I understand.” Though Wells didn’t. The king’s security team should have been Saudi, not European. And this meeting should have happened at the Saudi embassy in Paris, or in Riyadh. Did the king mistrust his own security detail?

  “You speak Arabic,” Abdullah said, his first words to Wells. He looked Wells over, a cool appraisal, then broke off, coughed into his hand, a wet, soft murmur. He wiped his mouth with a white handkerchief embroidered with gold thread. When Abdullah put the kerchief away, Wells thought he saw flecks of blood on the fabric. Wells wondered how long Abdullah had left.

  “Yes. But I’m American.”

  “And a spy.”

  “A retired spy.”

  “Do spies ever retire?”

  “Do kings?”

  “My brother Saud, he retired. Because he was weak. From whiskey. It fogged his eyes and his mind. Made him too weak to rule. And too weak to fight when we told him he wasn’t our king anymore. That we could no longer trust him with our fate.” The king looked at the front seat, as if waiting for his brother to explain further. But Miteb stayed silent, and Abdullah returned his focus to Wells.

  “The fate of the king is the fate of the people. You don’t understand this. No American can. We told Saud to leave our land. Go wherever he wanted. Here. Switzerland. We sent him into exile, and he accepted our decision like a child. Oh, he whined, but he never once raised a hand to save himself. He knew he was weak. Do I look weak to you? Answer me, Ameriki.”

  “If you weren’t weak, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You don’t lie? Not even to a king?”

  “Especially not to a king.”

  The Maybach turned up a narrow road hemmed by walled villas on both sides. Abdullah closed his eyes. He seemed too old for this, whatever this was. “Some of my family is against me,” he said, his eyes still closed, his voice low. “I look into their hearts. They have turned.” He coughed. His voice vibrated. “They’re feckless. Spoiled. All of us are to blame. We drown in our own luxuries. We thought that it was Allah who left us the oil, but I know better now—”

  “Abdullah—” Miteb said.

  “Hush, brother. My nephews, they’ll agree to anything the clerics say to keep their power.” Abdullah opened his eyes, waved at the hills around them. “All Gaul is divided into three parts—”

  “Caesar—” Wells said.

  “Of course Caesar.” He dug his fingers into Wells’s arm, surprising Wells with his strength. “You think I never learned about Caesar? You think I’m too old to remember? The kingdom is mine, and it will be my son’s. No one but his. Do you understand?”

  Had old age destroyed Abdullah’s reason? Wells wasn’t sure. Everything he’d said made a sort of sense, though not as much as Wells would have liked. It will be my son’s. No one but his. Wells understood that much, anyway.

  Abdullah leaned toward Wells. He exuded a bitter mix of coffee and stomach bile. He smelled like a rusty V-8 burning oil from a leaky cylinder. He smelled like an old man who’d scare the grandkids if they got too close. He grabbed Wells’s cheek and looked Wells over like an angry lover.

  “Ameriki.” Abdullah relaxed his grip. He leaned back and grunted as though a stone had fallen on his chest. After a few moments, his breathing slowed. His eyes opened. He touched his goatee as if seeing Wells for the first time. “You’ve come a long way to see us.” His voice was smooth and low, all trace of his madness gone. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “I assume it’s related to what happened last week, the attacks.”

  “Yes and no. I don’t have long to live, Mr. Wells.” Abdullah spoke with an authority Wells wouldn’t have expected from a man who’d seemed so unhinged a minute before. “I’ve lived my life. My bones grind like beetles. The doctors say they can fix me, but they’re lying. One day you’ll be old, and you’ll cough as if your soul means to escape through your mouth, and you’ll understand. But for now I still breathe. And before I die, I want to lay my kingdom on its foundation. Do you see?”

  “I see you want me to help your son become the next king.”

  The king waved at Miteb and settled back in his seat, as if this portion of the conversation was beneath him.

  “We need someone from the outside to help us,” Miteb said. “Someone unconnected with our security forces. A private citizen. Someone Muslim. Someone who can handle the most difficult situations.”

  “Your enemies are within your family?”

  “Yes, but not only. We should never have let the radicals and the clerics get so powerful,” Miteb said. “We thought we would give them a few tokens, let them send men to Afghanistan, they’d be satisfied. But these men, once you give them power, you never get it back, not without war.”

  “Your brothers don’t agree.”

  “Our brothers, our nephews. Some believe what the Wahhabis preach. They want jihad. But the middle, most of them, they just want the oil to flow. Or to gain power. To become ministers, have planes and palaces.”

  “Their blood is thin,” Abdullah said. “When I was a child, there was only desert. To both ends of the sky. We were proud to be Bedouin. We knew we lived where no one else could. In all of Arabia, there were a few hundred thousand of us. Now Riyadh has five millions all by itself. We’ve forgotten the desert. And it’s forgotten us. It won’t have us anymore.”

  “Abdullah—” Miteb said, apparently nervous that his brother would erupt again.

  “Some of my brothers, nephews, they don’t care about their people. They have their accounts in Swiss banks. Whatever side wins, they’ll give their loyalty.”

  “But I don’t understand. Who’s on the other side?” Wells was genuinely confused. “These terrorists, it’s not like they can be king.”

  “No. But if Khalid isn’t king, it will probably be Saeed. And Saeed will give the jihadis what they want, as long as they don’t interfere with him or try to take the oil. He doesn’t care if women have to stay covered, if the Shia have no rights. I think he’s working with them already.”

  “Why don’t you arrest him, then? You’re still king. You have the mukhabarat”—the secret police.

  “No. Mansour, Saeed’s son, is the head of the muk. They belong to him.”

  “If we trusted them, we wouldn’t be in this car,” Miteb said.

  “On the Côte d’Azur.” Wells was tired. And not from jet lag. When he looked at Miteb and Abdullah, he saw Vinny Duto and the spy chiefs at the top of the Washington bureaucracy. Using Wells to fight battles that only they could win. “You talk about clerics and jihadis. But this, it’s about power. Nothing else. Abdullah, sooner or later he’s going to die. Probably sooner.”

  “You dare speak to me this way?”

  “Every king needs his fool, and I guess that’s me. So let’s call it like it is. The king is dead, long live the king. When that sad day comes, you want Junior to take over. But your brothers don’t agree. Especially Saeed.” Wells wondered if anyone had ever lectured Abdullah this way. Probably not. So be it. He would fly commercial home.

  “Only Khalid has the strength to fight the clerics,” Miteb said.

  “With you as his closest adviser, no doubt.”

  The king twisted toward Wells. “You think I want to waste my last days spitting clever words with you? You Americans are all the same. Too cynical and not cynical enough. The poison in my land, it’s real.”

  Wells almost laughed. These two old men, asking him to help them save their people from religious repression. As if their family hadn’t ruled Saudi Arabia for eighty years
. Abdullah, sitting in a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car and complaining that luxury had poisoned his family. “No wonder you couldn’t meet me in Riyadh,” Wells said.

  “Saeed will set our country back a generation,” Miteb said.

  “Saeed has a thousand eyes, and they all watch me,” Abdullah said.

  “I’ll bet he’s got sons, too.”

  “His sons are nothing. They scuttle through my kingdom like crabs.”

  “Your kingdom. I suspect our ambassador is too polite to tell you so, but Americans don’t like kings much, Abdullah. Not for two hundred years.”

  “You don’t even know what we’d like,” Miteb said. “Or what we’re willing to pay. I promise, it’s more than you can imagine.”

  Wells was angry now. He should have guessed they would eventually dangle a fortune. “First you appeal to my better instincts. Then you offer cash. Next you’ll promise me a woman. The oldest game there is. At Langley, they call it MICE. Money, ideology, compromise, ego. Will you drop me at the airport, or do I have to catch a cab?”

  Abdullah leaned toward the driver. “Take him to the airport, be done with it.”

  “Please,” Miteb said. The word seemed directed at both Abdullah and Wells. “We have a villa for you. At the Eden-Roc. Relax this afternoon, and we’ll talk tomorrow morning. If we can’t reach agreement, you can fly home as you like.”

  The Maybach crested a hill, giving Wells a view of the smooth, blue waters of the Mediterranean. He hadn’t heard of the Eden-Roc, but he guessed its villa would have the same view, or better. And truth be told, his curiosity was piqued. He still had no idea what these two octogenarians wanted from him. He could do worse than spend the night.

  CHAPTER 8

  BEKAA VALLEY, LEBANON

  HEZBOLLAH, PARTY OF GOD.

  Hashish, god of partiers.

  The Bekaa Valley has both.

  A rocky, hilly plateau that lies between Lebanon’s coastal mountains and a lower range on the Syrian border, the Bekaa has had a fierce reputation for centuries. Like Napa Valley, its hot, dry summers and cool winters make it ideal for growing grapes. Unlike Napa Valley, it is controlled by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Muslim group that aims to destroy Israel.