Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse, Sasha Del Mira Thriller #1, by David Lender
Copyright 2011 © by David T. Lender

Prologue

July, Twenty Years Ago.  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  Omar pressed the button that activated the lighted face of his watch, cupping his hands so he wouldn’t be detected.  Today is a good day to die, he recited the mercenary’s creed in his head.  0158 hours.  The others would start to arrive momentarily.  He pulled out the American-manufactured night-vision goggles and stood in the shadows across the street from the outside perimeter wall of the grounds of the Royal Palace.  He felt the chill of the Saudi night.  He was grateful for the warmth provided by his German kevlar vest and British army fatigues beneath his robe, the traditional Saudi dress he wore as a disguise.  Still, his Russian army boots were ridiculously obvious; the disguise wasn’t about to fool anyone.

He scanned the street from where he knew the others would be joining him.  Still no one.  His mouth was dry.  He fingered the Uzi clipped to his belt on his left hip, the .45 automatic Colt holstered on his right hip.  Then behind the Colt the .22 caliber Beretta with its silencer extending through the hole in its holster.  Omar was the only one of the team of twelve who carried a Beretta.  He was to be the shooter.

Two men walked toward him, shielded by the shadows against the wall.  He motioned to them and they gestured back.  It was time.  The other nine appeared like a mirage in the desert.  Each was armed with Uzis and .45 caliber automatic Colt pistols; two carried American M-203 grenade launchers.  All were eclectically uniformed and hardwared to defy nationalistic identification if killed or captured.  They waited silently against the wall, listening for the passage of the patrol jeep.  It lumbered by, bearing two heavily armed guards.

Omar raised his hand:  the “Go” signal.  He felt his pulse quicken and the familiar butterflies and shortness of breath that preceded any mission, no matter how well planned.  The twelve-member squad crossed the street to the white stucco perimeter wall of the palace.  Four faced the wall and leaned against it, shoulder to shoulder.  The others performed a series of acrobatic maneuvers and materialized into a human pyramid.  The top man silently secured three rubber-coated grappling hooks with attached scaling lines to the top of the wall.  Omar was over the top and down the other side in less than fifteen seconds.

While the others followed, Omar pulled off his robe.  His heart pounded.  He pulled five bricks of C-4 plastic explosive from his pouch and stuck them to the wall in an “X” configuration, aware that his palms were clammy.  He wiped them on his robe and again focused on his work.  He inserted an electrical detonator in each brick of C-4, and wired them to a central radio receiver that he inserted into the center block of the “X.”  By the time he finished, the rest of the team had cleared the wall and removed their robes.  They stashed their robes in zippered pouches buckled to the backs of their waists.

Omar squinted at the wall of the palace, illuminated by floodlights, fifty meters away.  This area had no first floor windows.  His eyes adjusted to the light, and he looked for guards he hoped wouldn’t be there.  He focused on a second floor window at the junction of the east and north walls.  Be there, he thought.  Just be there.

#

Sasha didn’t awaken at 2 a.m. as she had intended:  she hadn’t slept at all.  She glanced to her right at Prince Ibrahim, illuminated in the light from the display of the digital clock.  His body moved up and down with the rhythm of his breathing.  Sasha had earlier treated him to some extended pleasures in an effort to assure he wouldn’t awaken at an inopportune moment.  She smelled the pungent scent of the evening’s energies, felt the smooth silk of the sheets against her naked breasts:  sensations that under other circumstances would cause her to revel in her sexuality.  Now she felt only the flutter of apprehension in her stomach.  She thought of the business to be dispensed with.

The Royal Palace was stone quiet at this hour.  Sasha listened in the hall for the footsteps of the guard on his rounds.  A moment later he passed.  A renewed sense of commitment smoothed a steadying calm down her limbs.  It’s time, she told herself, and she slid, inches at a time, from the sheets to the cool marble floor.

Yassar will never forgive me.  She breathed deeply, then felt exhilaration at the cool detachment her purpose gave her.  She stood, naked, shoulders erect and head back, observing Prince Ibrahim, the man she had served as concubine for three years.  But you don’t deserve to see it coming.

Backing from the bed, Sasha inched toward the closet.  The prince stirred in his sleep, inhaled and held it.  Sasha froze in place.  She felt her stomach pull taut and she held her own breath.  The cool marble under her feet became a chilling cold, the silence an oppressive void.  This mustn’t fail.  The prince resumed his rhythmic breathing and she exhaled in relief.

One more cautious stride carried her to the closet.  She reached into it for her black abaya, the Muslim robe she wore in the palace.  She cringed at the rustle of the coarse fabric as she put it on.  The prince didn’t stir.  She picked up her parcel from the closet floor, crossed the room and slipped out the door.

At the corridor window, she removed the clear plastic backing from one side of a 2×5 centimeter adhesive strip.  The acrid odor of the cyanoacrylate stung her nostrils.  She slid the strip between the steel window frame and the steel molding around it, precisely where the pressure-sensitive microswitch for the alarm sat.

She took an electromagnet from her parcel and plugged it into an outlet, unraveling the cord as she walked back toward the window frame.  She placed the magnet against the corner of the window frame behind the alarm microswitch and clicked on the electromagnet.

The force of the magnet jolted the molding against the window frame.  She endured a count to thirty until the adhesive fused the microswitch closed, then switched off the magnet.  She turned the window latch, took a deep breath, shut her eyes, pushed.  The window opened.  No alarm.

The face of the man she knew only as the squad leader popped into her view from his perch atop his team, who had formed a pyramid on the wall below.  She stepped back from the window.  In an instant he was inside, raising his finger for her to be silent, and then turning and attaching one of the grappling hooks to the window frame.  Never mind shushing me, she thought, just make sure you know what you’re doing.  Within sixty seconds the other eleven members of the squad stole inside.  The rope was up and deposited on the floor and the window closed and latched.

The black-haired girl backed herself against the wall, her palms against the marble.  Omar stared into her jet-black eyes, saw her fierce spirit.  That was close, he thought.  She nearly blew it.  Late.  He sensed her excitement in the heaving of her chest, but she appeared otherwise to be in complete control of herself.  She raised her chin defiantly.  He looked into those penetrating black eyes again.  Black steel, he thought, and felt a fleeting communion with her.  She motioned with her eyes in the direction of Prince Ibrahim’s chamber.  He nodded.

Sasha stood with her back pressed against the wall and watched as the team leader made hand signals and head motions to his men.  He ordered a group to stand guard, then led most of them down the labyrinthine passageways that rimmed the outside perimeter of the palace toward Prince Ibrahim’s chamber.  She watched the team leader disappear from sight around the first turn of the corridor.  For some reason Sasha was seized by the premonition that something was wrong.  She pushed herself out from the wall, trotted toward the Prince’s chamber.

One of the team members, who had spread themselves in pairs in firing position, grabbed her by the wrist as she passed.  A bolt of adrenaline coursed through her.  She clenched her teeth and shot a glare at the man.  His widened eyes showed fear.  She jerked her arm away and continued.  She was now aware of the exhilaration of life-threat and the calm purpose that drove her.

He’ll never forgive me, again crashed through her consciousness.  It sucked the strength from her, but she kept on.  She reached the next turn, the last before Ibrahim’s chamber and saw the team leader ten feet from the door.  At that moment three Saudi guards bustled around the next turn in the corridor.  She felt hot blood rush to her face and a charge of anger erupt from her chest.  She saw two of the squad members three meters beyond the team leader rear their heads back like horses at the sight of fire, then crouch over their weapons.

Shots hissed from the two squad members’ silenced Uzis.  The three Saudi guards were hurled backward in a spray of blood amid the crack of bullets ricocheting off the marble walls.  Their bodies hit the floor with thuds.  Two more Saudi guards materialized at the same turn, M-16s aimed from the waist.  Bursts from their guns flashed stars of flame from their barrels and flattened the two squad members.  The squad leader froze, the hesitation of death, five feet from the Prince’s door.  An instant later twin bursts from the Saudi guards’ weapons slammed him backward into the wall.

Sasha forced herself to bury her panic within her.  Next she was aware of the rush of her own breathing and the momentary sense she should conceal herself behind a tortured wail.  Instead, she stretched out an arm and raised a hand toward the guards.  They lowered the muzzles of their automatics and nodded to her in recognition.  She pressed her back against the marble wall, her feet inches from the pool of blood that oozed from the team leader’s body.

“More!” she called in Arabic and motioned with two fingers back down the corridor toward the window she had opened.  The men nodded again, crouched over their weapons and trotted toward the turn in the corridor. She squinted at the two guards as they passed, seeing the panic in their faces, and resisting her own urge to flee.  She slid down the wall, noting the Beretta and silencer protruding from the team leader’s holster.

This mustn’t fail, she told herself again.  She yanked the Beretta from the team leader’s belt and gave he silencer a jerk counterclockwise to make certain it was anchored in place.  Then she held the gun at arm’s length with both hands and fired one round into the back of the first guard.  She saw the startled look of terror in the eyes of the second as he turned.  She aimed the gun at his chest and pulled off two more rounds.

Three gone, five rounds left.  She ran up to the two fallen men with the gun outstretched.  The second one down didn’t move, the first did.  She put another round in the back of his head.  She spun and darted toward Prince Ibrahim’s chamber, gulping air in huge breaths as she thrust herself through the door.  The glow from the digital clock outlined the shape of the prince, who sat upright in bed, staring directly at her.  She raised the gun at his chest.  “Pig!” she said in Arabic.

“Sasha, I don’t understand,” the Prince stammered.

“Then you don’t deserve to,” she said, and pulled the trigger.  He lurched backward onto the pillows.  A circle of red expanded on his white nightshirt directly over his heart.  Sasha stepped forward, lowered the Beretta and fired another round into the Prince’s skull just behind his right ear.  Then she dropped the gun.

Her brain told her what to do next—run for the window at the end of the corridor, throw down the rope and escape—but her body wasn’t nearly as composed as the voice in her head.  Her breath came in gasps, her stomach churning at the smell of the blood puddled on the floor as she passed the bodies toward the first turn in the corridor.  She shot a glance over her shoulder.  Still no other guards.  Thank God.  She heard a crackle of static from a portable radio on the squad leader’s belt and heard the words, “We are blown!  We have casualties and are aborting!  Prepare transport!  Minutes one!”  Seconds later she heard shots and screams from someplace.  An alarm sounded and the corridor lights flashed on.  As she reached a turn in the corridor, one of the squad members must have triggered the C-4, because a yellow-white glare flashed as bright as the sun.  A shock wave whooshed down the corridor and threw her over backward to the floor.

Sasha jumped to her feet and ran down the corridor.  She saw six squad members near the window, leaping out and down the rope each in turn.  By the time she reached the window they were all down the rope.  She leapt over the top without looking down.  As she slid down the rope she listened for the sound of the three BMW 535s she knew the squad would have waiting for their escape.  They were her only hope.  But she couldn’t hear them.  She could only hear the pounding of her heart in her ears and the ringing from the sharp blasts of the guns and that malevolent C-4 blast.  She knew she was beginning to think again and not just act on instinct and adrenaline and the passion of what she believed in, and she realized she would survive, and that even with the disastrous intervention of the Saudi guards, and her split-second improvisation that the plan hadn’t gone so horribly awry.

Sasha ran for the hole in the perimeter wall.  At ten meters away from it she heard the staccato bursts of Uzis from two of the death squad members stationed at either side of the hole.  She saw two more men running in front of her and now they were in the ten-foot-deep crater where the wall had been.  She could see one of the black BMWs on the other side.  She heard bullets whiz past her head.  The dust from the explosion that hung in the air tasted musty in the back of her throat.  She felt the rubble of the wall beneath her feet and lost her balance, then dove into the crater.  She landed on her stomach and wheezed for breath but the air wouldn’t flow into her lungs.

Sasha could still hear the sharp retort of those Uzis and then even they went silent.  Her eyes were wide open again and she couldn’t breathe but her legs were starting to work and she tumbled down on top of somebody or something, she couldn’t tell which, and then two men were dragging her by either armpit up the other side of the crater and she could see the open door of the BMW in front of her, hear the engine racing, and felt herself being thrown headfirst inside.  She smashed her face on the floor and felt another body dive in on top of her and then the car was moving.  Soon it was moving fast and she realized that not only was she alive but that she was going to make it out of there.  And in that same instant a flash of anguish shot through her brain:  But where do I go from here?

#

The crack of automatic weapons awakened Prince Yassar.  He reached for his telephone, but there was no one to call, so he placed the receiver back in its cradle.  Over the next five minutes he alternately sat and waited for someone to come, then got up and took a few halting steps toward the door to his outer suite, uncharacteristically uncertain.  Should he fling the door open into the corridor and investigate for himself?  Then a stiffly formal sergeant knocked sharply and entered the room.  Prince Yassar observed the sergeant’s stony face.  He expected bad news and felt as if the weight of it were pulling his jowls toward the floor.  He stroked his forehead.  Sweaty.

“Prince Yassar, sir,” the sergeant said expressionlessly, staring as he said the words, “Your son, Prince Ibrahim, has been murdered.”

Yassar felt the words burst in his chest like a hollow-point round.  He closed his eyes, knowing already that it was true.  She tried to warn me.  His sigh emerged as a moan.

Yassar glanced from side to side as if to find a way to escape.  He hung his head in resignation, then glared up at the sergeant.  Why are you telling me what I already know?  What I already have imagined in my worst fears?  He felt that he wanted to strike the little man.

“There were no other civilian casualties,” the sergeant continued, still with no expression in his voice, on his face.  Only that vacant stare.  And the measured tones.  “But five guards were killed in the corridor only meters from Prince Ibrahim’s chamber, and three of the provocateurs—” Yassar noted with rising anger the ridiculously mispronounced French word— “were killed in the corridor.  That, and twenty-three other soldiers are dead in the courtyard, most from the explosion.  Everyone else is accounted for and safe, except one of the Prince’s concubines.”

Yassar opened his eyes.  They felt like black pools of moist agony.  And rage.  He realized the strength had been sucked from his limbs and now tried to move his arms, wanting to strike at this pompous man.  But he all he did was motion for the soldier to continue.  “It is Sasha.  She is gone,” the sergeant said, “and we found a disabled microswitch on the window used to thwart the alarm, as well as an electromagnet and a grappling hook and rope.  It would appear the death squad had help gaining access to the palace.”

Yassar tried to stand and still could not.  His legs trembled and he placed his hands on his knees to steady them, leaned forward, then slumped backward onto the bed.

“We found a gun on the bed.  We found footprints in blood leading into the bedroom and then out again,” the unbearable fool continued.  “And we did not find Sasha.”

Yassar felt the words like the twist of a knife in an already mortal wound.  He closed his eyes again.  Sasha?  How could Sasha do such a thing?  He felt his face contort.  He raised his head and looked at the man, this man who would say such things, feeling the conflict of his anger against what he knew in his heart to be true.  Sasha, whom he had taken under his patronage, treated like a daughter, and who had honored him like a father.  Sasha, who had heeded his need for her to both minister to and keep his beloved, yet wayward, son in line.  This cannot be true.  But his shoulders curled over.

The sergeant continued his unemotional droning as if he were pushing through a checklist.  “The perimeter of the palace is now secure and no intruders are believed left inside.  Except for the three who were killed, the remainder of the assassination team appears to have escaped.”

How can this mechanic, this mere functionary defile the memory of my son with his prattle? Yassar felt his strength returning as his anger rose.  He sighed, then lifted himself from the bed, seeming to bear the weight of his dead son as he did so.  He wanted to crush the man’s head like a melon for having the audacity to bring such a message with such methodical reserve.  The sergeant reached out and put a hand on Yassar’s shoulder.  Anger boiled in Yassar at the touch.  He whirled, all the strength that had been drained from him in the last quarter hour focused in a single fist that he lashed toward the sergeant’s face.  A roar emerged from his breast, the single word, “No!”  And then with the same ferocity of effort he stopped the blow just inches from the man’s face.  He hung his head so the man could not see the tears he knew he could not stop.  He reached forward blindly, unclenched his fist and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder.  He squeezed it and pushed the sergeant toward the door.  “Go.  Please, go,” he whispered.  He heard the sergeant back out and shut the door.

Yassar turned back into the room.  Then a dark sensation rose in him, one he had never felt before in all his years of adherence to the faith in his pursuit of the path of Allah:  newborn hatred.  I will avenge this act.  I will find out who has done this and chase them down.  And Sasha.  I will find her and destroy her.

BOOK 1

Chapter 1

July 2, This Year.  New York City.  Daniel Youngblood knew when people were lying to him.  He sniffed out untruths, half-truths, even eighth-truths like a bloodhound.  Not through force of will or training, but by instinct.  And the scents of these lies, ranging from the subtly sour to the glaringly rotten, stung Daniel’s gut like ulcers.  It wasn’t because ‘it takes one to know one’.  In fact, Daniel was proud of the fact that he could look someone in the eye and say something difficult, or avoid saying something difficult, without lying.

Daniel had suffered uncomfortable moments throughout his career by not lying, but it was something by now, at 45 years old, he’d resigned himself to.  And if anything made him unsuited to his chosen profession, it was Daniel’s honesty, because he’d been an investment banker for the last twenty years.  He always thought the only consolation in it was that God had steered him from becoming a lawyer.

He glanced around his office.  It was a familiar, comfortable world.  Antique Persian rugs.  The hand-rubbed sheen of 19th century mahogany.  Two exhausted but wonderfully comfortable overstuffed guest chairs.  Computer keys in the outside corridor emitted muted ticks, hushed by the hallway carpet that deadened phones and voices into reverent whispers.

His gaze went to the side of his desk where Angie’s photo had always sat.  He felt a pang of guilt, he guessed because he’d removed it—but after two years, enough, even his shrink said so—then a flood of shame, because it caused him to think of their fatal trip to Peru.

Daniel’s assistant, Cindy, buzzed him on the intercom.  “Robert Knakal from Goldman Sachs—I mean Knakal & Co.”  Daniel’s back stiffened and he sat up straight.

Thought I got rid of you yesterday.

“My compliments,” Knakal said.  “Always great to work on the other side of a deal from a real pro.  Always knew you’d pull a rabbit out of a hat.”

Daniel’s stomach surged like a blender slapped to “pulverize.”  “Thanks, Bob,” Daniel said.  “So what’s up?”

Knakal chuckled.  It was the low, insinuating chuckle Daniel knew well.  He’d heard it for 10 years as Daniel and Knakal worked their way up side by side in Goldman Sachs’ Oil and Gas group.  He hadn’t heard it as Knakal worked behind the scenes to elbow Daniel out of the way for Oil and Gas partner over the next three years, after which Daniel had left Goldman to set up his competing Oil and Gas practice at the international investment banking firm of Ladoix Sayre & Cie Banque.  Knakal had recently set up his own boutique investment bank, Knakal & Co.  Talk on the Street was he’d been forced out at Goldman for being too sharp-elbowed.  Knakal said, “No, no, just called to congratulate you.”

Lying son of a bitch, what do you want?  Daniel had been holed up in a conference room negotiating with Knakal and his client in a death struggle for two weeks.  He waited.

Knakal added, “Just a congratulatory gesture.  You were brilliant.”

Pause.  “Thanks.”

Silence.

“Yes, well,” Knakal said.  He hesitated.

Come on.  Daniel’s stomach’s action had subsided to a mere sea squall.  Knakal cleared his throat.  Daniel was still trying to figure out what this was all about; Knakal always had an angle concealed beneath his faux Boston Brahmin charm.  Like the way he played old Harvard chum while he’d been hitting on Angie, by then Daniel’s fiancée, at the same time he was screwing Daniel over for partner at Goldman.  Guess you need a kick in the pants.  “You leave something on the conference room table?”

Knakal laughed.  “No, actually I was calling to see if we could strike an arrangement on a piece of business.”

Here we go.  “Sure, what’s up?”

“You know Walt Dean at Houston Oil and Gas?”

“Of course.”  One of Knakal’s locked clients, somebody who always pretended to flirt with other investment bankers when he had a deal, soliciting quotes to keep Knakal honest on fees.

“He’s got a nice buyside—about a billion dollars, good for about a six million dollar fee.  My legal people say I’ve got a conflict on it.  I was wondering if I could throw it your way.”

Beware of Czechs bearing gifts. Knakal had never done this before; he’d rather throw a piece of business away than send it to Daniel.  His stomach gurgled.  “That’s very gracious of you, Bob.  What’s the deal?”

“The meeting with Walt is scheduled in Houston next week on . . . . Monday.”

Knakal’s momentary pause gave Daniel’s tell-tale stomach another turn.  What are you up to?  Then it came to him:  the Saudis.  Prince Yassar would be in town for one day next week interviewing investment bankers for his acquisition program.  He wants to see if I’m competing for the Saudi assignment, too.

“Thanks, Bob, that’s really kind of you,” he was thinking on the fly.  Do I want him to know I’m in the hunt?  And of course if I bite on this, his conflict will dematerialize.

“My pleasure.  I can’t think of anybody I’d rather recommend.  Really, you were brilliant on the Dorchester deal.”

“Thanks again, Bob.”  Enough of this bullshit.  “Well, thanks for the offer, but I’m in town pitching the Saudis next week.”  Daniel waited for Knakal’s reaction.

A long pause.  “Ah, well, good luck,” he managed.

“Thanks again for the offer.”

“Right,” Knakal said.  “Well, see you next deal.”

“Goodbye, Bob.”  Knakal hung up almost before Daniel finished the words.  That ought to have spun him a little.  Then Daniel realized probably all he’d accomplished was ruining the Fourth of July weekend for two or three of Knakal’s junior staff—Knakal would now push them flat out to compete with Daniel.  You’re what’s wrong with Wall Street, Knakal.  “You’re what’s wrong with the world,” he said aloud.

A moment later the phone rang and Cindy buzzed him again.  “Michael Smits.”

“Congratulations on the Dorchester deal,” Michael said.  Michael Smits was Daniel’s best friend, one of Daniel’s partners at Ladoix.  One of the only partners at Ladoix he regularly spoke with.  “I saw the announcement in the Journal this morning.  Front page, but below the fold.  You’re slipping.”  He chuckled.  “Didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”

“Thanks.  I started to think nobody’d ever see me again either.  Got swallowed alive by a conference room at Jones Day.  Two weeks of raw acrimony, sandwiches and take-out Chinese.”  He noted the vague paunch that had begun protruding over his belt line and sighed.  He hadn’t even had time to exercise.

“Well, the deal closed.  Fee of four or five million?”

“Six million two hundred fifty-two thousand three hundred ninety-six dollars.”

“Shoulda been a heroic end to the fiscal year for your bonus.  How’d you make out on it?”

“Haven’t gotten it yet.  I see the poisonous little rat at 11 o’clock.”  Daniel’s stomach gurgled at the mention of his upcoming bonus negotiation.  Jean-Claude Dieudonne, Ladoix’s senior partner, the son-in-law to the third generation of the founding French family, always had that effect.

They both paused.

“I can hear the wheels turning,” Michael said.  “And not too quickly.  Maybe it’s time to head off to the beach.”

“Maybe.  But I want to go out on an uptick.”

“This oughtta be enough of an uptick.”

“I don’t know . . .” Daniel’s voice trailed off.  He could almost see Michael scrunching up his face with an ‘Oh, come on, Daniel’ look.

“Oh, come on, Daniel, there’s no rule book.  Nobody’s gonna come up to you and say ‘Okay, Mr. Youngblood, finished with engines.  Stand down old boy.’”  Michael let it drop.  “Anyway, you had a decent year.  I imagine you won’t have too much trouble with our enfant terrible in your bonus review.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears.  You know Dieudonne.”

Michael laughed.  “Well, good luck,” he said and hung up.

Daniel started getting ready for his bonus negotiation with Dieudonne.  He stood up, smoothed his lapels and looked down at his black Italian loafers:  impeccably shined.  His European-cut suit was freshly pressed and his pants had knife-edge creases.  The suit was not too wild, yet something he would never have gotten away with at Goldman Sachs.  He wore a custom made white-collar-and-cuff English-striped shirt.  His blue-green Hermes tie was strong enough for his upcoming negotiation, but not too powerful as to be distracting.

He looked at his reflection in the glass in front of a print on his office wall, and drew himself up to his full 6’4”.  I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

His reflection looked back at him dubiously.  He saw he didn’t have it today:  eyes glassy, lack of color in his cheeks, projecting no energy.  He was burned out, and it would handicap him this morning.  The Dorchester deal had closed solely because he had made it happen.  But the deal had sapped him like a reverse exorcism.  He knew why:  he was no longer a young man in a young man’s business.  A crushing insight.

He walked back to his desk and sat back down.  The Cromwell Group/Dorchester Refining – 6.3 million.  Closed July 1, he thought, “And almost just killed me,” he said aloud.  He wrote it on the pad.  He continued, writing deals and fees in reverse chronological order of the closing dates of his transactions over that year.  In a moment he had a total of seven deals for 11.3 million dollars.  Not bad.  It wasn’t the kind of year to feel exuberant about, but respectable.

He wanted his last year to be a smashing success, a huge bonus.  11.3 million.  Not great, but not bad.  But enough?

Daniel’s mind drifted.  He’d brought his car to the garage underneath 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where Ladoix’s offices were, to drive out to his weekend house in Milford, Pennsylvania, this afternoon, a day early for the Fourth of July weekend.  He tried, but couldn’t remember this year’s theme for Gary and Jonathan’s annual Fourth of July party.  Last year it had been Tennessee Williams Night, a not-surprising choice for the two gay hosts.

He recalled it as a particularly painful evening, because it was the first time many of his acquaintances had seen him without Angela, and two had actually asked him where Angie was.  “Oh, I guess you didn’t hear,” he remembered saying, and pain clamped his heart and the guilt that had squeezed his brain then sneaked back up on him now.  A shape appeared before his eyes—Cindy standing in the doorway, brow wrinkled.

“Everything okay?” Daniel said.

“Oh, oh, yes, I mean . . .”

“Jeff again?”  Teenage son plus single parent equals Cindy in early grave.

“Afraid so.  You mind if I leave a little early?  A fight in gym class this time.  Stitches.”

“Better get going now.  I can cover my own phone.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.  Get going.”  She mouthed ‘Thank you,’ and left.

Daniel checked the markets on his desktop monitor.  The pre-Fourth of July holiday weekend trading was listless.  The Dow Jones news ticker showed not much of any significance happening.  Boring day except for the oil markets.  Wow.  Oil down to $30.93 per barrel.  That has to be hurting the oil economies.  Maybe that’s why the Saudis are looking for outside financial advisors.  He let his mind wander into the notion of the fees his potential representation of the Saudis could produce.  I could make a fortune on those deals.

Daniel’s phone rang:  “Mr. Dieudonne is ready for you.”

Show time.  And the son of a bitch is twenty minutes early.  His stomach turned over.

#

July 2, This Year.  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  Prince Yassar raised his eyes from his morning prayers to a vision that stiffened his back.  Through his window a jangle of traditional, low-slung buildings huddled in subdued browns, tans and orange patches of the sunrise, framed against modern skyscrapers.  That wasn’t what sent the shiver of unease through him.  What affected him was something he couldn’t see on the horizon, a horizon that would soon be obscured by waves of heat under the sun of a one-hundred-degree day.  I must again admit failure.  He relaxed his muscles and settled down again onto his haunches.  The earthy scent of the wool of his prayer rug soothed him.

He bathed in a moment of silence, prolonging the moments before the cares of the day invaded his consciousness.  He raised his head, again, at the expanse of desert that was the kingdom of the Al Mamlakah al Arabiyah as Suudiyah:  Saudi Arabia.  A forbidding sight to contemplate.  A giant field of sand—harsh, mostly uninhabited desert—sitting atop unfathomably large oil fields.  Questions came to Yassar against his will, as they did every morning:  how long before the unfathomable becomes fathomable, and the oil deposits deplete; how long before the oil revenues that constitute three quarters of the government budget stop?  When we are out of oil, we are out of oil.

Yassar wished he could ponder them as an ordinary Saudi citizen might, rather than as the Finance and Economy Minister, the most powerful of the twelve members of the Council of Ministers, mostly royal family members appointed by his cousin, King and Prime Minister Abad.  Would that I did not bear this responsibility.  The thought brought back his own words to his fellow Ministers and King Abad almost two decades ago.  His words after decades of unrestrained spending of unspeakable oil profits by their regime, when they’d begun running government deficits:  “We must adapt to life in a normal economy.”

Yassar felt the tension in his forehead, even this early in the day.  He dreaded his upcoming meeting with the King and Council of Ministers.  “It is not just our pride at stake, but ultimately our survival.  I will conceive a plan for diversifying our economy away from oil revenues,” he heard himself say to them decades ago.  Words forged in his mind.

He turned from the window, straightened his back and looked to the end table at the photograph of his son, Prince Ibrahim.  Ibrahim had been the eldest of his twelve children, the son of Nibmar, the first, still favorite and most loving of his four wives.  The familiar wooden frame on the photograph was stained with the oil from Yassar’s hands, rounded at the corners from his touch.  He’d be in his mid forties, old enough to be a Deputy Minister. Yassar remembered the hopes he had held for Ibrahim, and through him great hopes for the Saudi people.  Harvard-educated, a blending of the cultural, religious and educational heritage of Saudi Arabia and the western ways of their chief ally, the Americans.  Ibrahim would be a fine young man now.  Immediately Yassar’s thoughts turned to his old adversaries, the extremist Shiite Muslim fundamentalists blamed for his son’s murder.  That conjured the image of Sheik bin Abdur, the man he held liable for Ibrahim’s death, the spiritual and day-to-day leader of the al-Mujari, their terrorist organization.  You are as responsible for where we are as our government policies. Yassar knew that on top of the budget deficits and recessions, the fundamentalist preachings of the Sheik now captured the emotions of a restive Saudi people.  Sheik bin Abdur, a man . . . and Yassar’s thoughts trailed off as his memories were linked in a struggle in his soul, his Islamic values versus revenge; shari’a—Islamic law—versus blood-hatred; self-control versus obsession.

Now he thought of Sasha, the young concubine he had brought to Ibrahim from Switzerland three years before his death.  Sasha had dominated Ibrahim with her fierce pride and energetic loins.  Sasha, the last person to see his son alive.

Time to get ready.  He turned and walked to his desk, settling in for a full day of preparations for his meeting.  Again, he thumbed through his worn and dog-eared manila folders, the top one bearing the name “J. Daniel Christian Youngblood, III,” files on individuals and institutions who would figure into Yassar’s plans for redemption.  The redemption of the Saudi people from their downward spiraling economic situation.  Yassar’s redemption from his decades-old unfulfilled promise to solve their problems.

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July 2, This Year.  Buraida, Saudi Arabia. In the commercial section of Buraida, 200 kilometers north of Riyadh, the man was certain everyone knew he was a non-local, despite his dark Arab complexion and features.  He was tall and muscular, and didn’t try to hide his walk with an erect military gait.  He crossed through an alley toward the main street, his hands thrust into the pockets of his green windbreaker.  He wore long tan slacks and heavy black boots.  The dust kicked up by dozens of other feet hung in the still morning air and deposited in his nostrils and throat.  The sun from the cloudless sky burned on his head.  Damn desert. The man wanted to spit to clear the dust from his throat but knew that was frowned upon by the Mutawwa’iin, the religious police, the only law in this Islamic fundamentalist northern province.  His eyes darted from side to side, not out of fear but from his years of training as a mercenary, now an instinctive component of his military equipment.

He rounded the corner of a butcher shop and entered the main street.  Amid the cries of shopkeepers pronouncing their wares, he passed Arab men dressed in robes and headdresses seated in groups on the street in front of shops, conversing, sharing bowls of food or meditating.  The smell of spices intermingled with the scent of cooking meat in the smoke and dust that hung in the stifling air.  The man walked another fifty feet past a group of skinny Arab kids and stopped in front of the first building after the mosque.  He looked around to see that no Mutawwa’iin were apparent.  He knocked.

An Arab man in traditional dress opened the door, then moved out of the way to allow the man to enter.  He pointed to a doorway into a back room and the man walked into it.  Sheik bin Abdur was seated in a half-lit corner.  The man smelled the odor of spices on the breath and skin of the five other men in the room.  He knew they would be silent, but that he would have to tolerate an hour-long speech from bin Abdur.  The man reminded himself of the premium he charged the al-Mujari, because very few others would do business with them.  The risk/reward was worthwhile if all he needed to do in addition to his usual services was tolerate being regaled by this despot.

It’s a living.  And a good one.

Bin Abdur’s robe formed a table of his lap, in which he held a pile of papers.  He wore the traditional headdress.  His beard was mottled with grey and untrimmed in the conservative Islamic fashion.  His face was craggy and his dark Arab skin sunburned, wrinkled and coarse, and his eyes gleamed with energy and intelligence.  He motioned for the man who used the name Habib to sit down.  He did so in the corner.

The Sheik removed his Koran from its special stand in front of him, wrapped it in cloth, and gestured to the man who had admitted Habib.  The man approached, retrieved the book from the Sheik and placed it on a shelf high in a corner of the room.  The Sheik closed his eyes in contemplation for a full two minutes, moderating his breathing to relax himself, almost meditating.  Damn.  The Sheik seemed to be preparing himself for a long speech.  He wasn’t just the al-Mujari terrorist organization’s day-to-day leader, he was its spiritual head as well.  The al-Mujari, the dominant terrorist force in the Muslim world now that al Qaeda was no longer a factor.

The Sheik exhaled and looked up at Habib.  “Greetings.”

“Thank you, Sheik bin Abdur.  Greetings to you as well.”

“There is no God but Allah!” the Sheik said.

“La ilaha ilallah!” the others repeated.

“These are historic times,” Sheik bin Abdur said.  “Not since the first Caliph, Abu Bacr, the successor to the Prophet Muhammad himself, have the Shiites and Sunni Muslim brothers been united in our spirituality or our way of life.”

Sheik bin Abdur’s audience leaned forward, expectant.

“Since the first dynasty, we Shiites have claimed that Sunni Islam is not the true Islam at all, but the creation of the lax and worldly first generation Caliphs,” the Sheik began.  “Shiite Islam is the true way, based on the practices of the Prophet Muhammad and his original four successor Capliphs.”

He bent his head knowingly toward his colleagues, who returned his gesture.  Habib sat in silence, motionless.

“Since King Abdel Aiziz al-Asad led the Sunni religious brotherhood from the local tribes over a half century ago in conquest, and created our current monarchy in Saudi Arabia, the al-Asad family succession has relied on the support and approval of our religious leadership.  We—the clerics, the religious leaders of the Muslim faithful—act as a protector of the Muslim principles on which our kingdom was founded, and upon the guidance of the Koran and the guidance of shari’a, our Muslim law.  And it was with our support that the al-Asad kings have assumed the title of Imam, the law giver.”

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi . . . , Habib drifted into his thoughts as the Sheik went on.  The skinny kids in front of the mosque reminded him of himself when he was growing up, South Side of Chicago.  Rough neighborhood, all blacks and Arabs.  Getting kicked around every day until his brother, Muhammad, helped him bulk up:  protein shakes three times a day and weights four times a week.  Back then he thought getting the hell out of there was the best thing he ever did.  But after the Black Ops boys in Langley made him into a soulless tool that could never go home again, he realized having a place to call home was something he never should have given up.  And now . . .  He refocused as it looked like the Sheik was winding down.  Looking at the Sheik now, Habib had to admit the old man did have a presence that could will men to extraordinary feats.  His eyes gleamed with an intensity Habib had rarely seen in the class of murderers and fanatics Habib encountered in his trade.

“And now the al-Asads have betrayed the laws of Islam.  They have permitted the infidel Western troops to inhabit our sacred Arabian Peninsula, site of Islam’s two holiest places.  We declare this government illegitimate.  We declare them to be infidels.  As infidels, they, like the Western infidels, must be expelled or destroyed!”

Fifty-six bottles of beer on the wall, fifty-six bottles of beer, take one down and  . . .

Minutes later, Sheik bin Abdur paused; Habib thought he was finished at last.  But then the Sheik started up again, this time with eyes burning in a manner that made even Habib uneasy.  “And since they will not go, they will be destroyed in our holy Islamic war.  We will collapse this infidel Saudi regime and reestablish the great Muslim Caliphate that once unified the Middle East, Northern Africa and Islamic Europe under shari’a, our holy Islamic law.  And we will go further!”

Habib saw the Sheik’s followers swaying as they listened.

“In our jihad we will strike at and destroy the enemies of Islam throughout the world.  We will extend the Caliphate to the infidel United States, Britain, to all the Christian nations.  We will show the American infidels in particular, who have invaded our Islamic soil, that Osama bin Laden’s September eleventh was only a taste.  Now the true jihad is conceived!”

Habib saw balls of spittle at the corners of the Sheik’s mouth.

“Our own believers and our hired warriors like our friend Habib who joins us today will strike the oil facilities of the infidel nations, chiefly the Americans, and of the infidel Saudi government.  We will strike at the oil facilities of the Saudi government to cripple the royal family’s ability to maintain their illegitimate hold on our people.  Throughout this we must continue our efforts to educate our people, to urge them to protest, to undermine and topple these infidel royals.”  Bin Abdur shook his fists at the heavens.  “We must expel the foreigners that the royals give our Saudi jobs to!  We must expel the Americans who caused the wars of Islamic Arab brother against brother!  We must continue to punish their military forces who are a stain on our holy Saudi soil!  We vow the ultimate destruction of the Americans who are a stain on the Islamic world!  There is no god but Allah!”

“La ilaha ilallah!” the Sheik’s followers repeated.

The Sheik fell silent.  The lesson was over.  It hadn’t been so intolerable, Habib thought, less than twenty minutes.

After another minute, the Sheik’s retinue got up and left, closing the door behind them.  Habib waited for bin Abdur to arouse from his meditation.  Finally the cleric opened his eyes.

“You know of our efforts in the United States?”

“I have heard,” Habib said.

“Good.  You are well connected.  As usual, Habib, or whatever your real name is.”  The Sheik’s eyes twinkled.  “Perhaps it is time for you to reveal your true identity.”

In your dreams, old man.  You’d have your people slit my throat and hang me by my feet until I bled out like a halal sheep if you knew I was American-born and CIA-trained.

“I think not, Sheik.”

The Sheik hesitated, smiling.  He went on, “I will pay you to recruit some additional, shall we say, ‘committed individuals’ in the United States.”

“I understand.  Go on.”

“And we would like our identity to be kept secret.”

“Of course.”

“Good.  I need you to recruit professionals who can provide us with access for our plans.”

Habib nodded.

“Our plans to cripple the Americans’ oil production.”

“You need me to handle that, too?”

“No.  That is a different kind of specialist.  Computers.  I will involve you in coordinating their work with the professionals you recruit, but later.  Can you help us?”  He handed Habib a paper he held in his lap.  “These are the organizations we need access to.”

“Yes.”  Habib didn’t look up from the paper.

“I want to know the details after you have thought it through.  Today I wish to agree on your engagement and to know that I can look to you for delivery of results.”

“Always,” Habib said.

“And I know where to find you if you don’t deliver.”

The men sat in silence for a minute.  Finally the Sheik spoke again.  “I do not wish to be difficult.  I merely wish to stress that I would like to continue our relationship on a basis which maintains the level of confidentiality and satisfaction with results that has existed in the past.”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I trust you’ll understand that these new efforts must not be traceable to the al-Mujari until we wish to claim responsibility for them.  Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Good, then I’ll arrange for an initial wire transfer to your bank account of one hundred thousand dollars.”

“We haven’t agreed on my compensation yet,” Habib said.  “What you ask is difficult.  And dangerous.”  The Sheik offered no reaction.  “Orchestration won’t be easy.  Security has never been so tight.  This requires planning.  Subtelty.”

“That’s what I pay you for.”  Sheik bin Abdur’s eyes penetrated Habib’s.  “Are you saying you’re not up to the task?”

“You know better than that,” Habib snarled.  He remembered the rumored oil billions that funded the al-Mujari’s terrorist activities.  What’s it worth?  Two million?  Ten?  “One million advance against ten million upon completion.”

The Sheik blinked as if in disbelief.  “Five hundred thousand against two million completion.”

“This will require that I recruit very specialized professionals.”

“Seven hundred fifty thousand against three million.”

“It will require significant travel, expenses and coordination with people we must grow to trust.”

“One million advance against three million success.”

“I think perhaps you should find another vendor.  At that level, I must respectfully decline.”

“One million advance against seven million success.  That’s final.”

He offers three million, then bumps right up to seven.  Quite a move.  He must really need me for this.  Habib put his hands on his knees and shifted his weight forward as if ready to rise.  He saw the Sheik’s eyes widen as he did so.

“I accept,” the Sheik said.  “One million advance against ten million success.”

Habib leaned back again.  “Thank you, Sheik bin Abdur.  I’m grateful you’ve seen things in an appropriate light.  I will not disappoint you.