“What time is the meeting?”
“Ten, sir.”
“And what time is it?” The secretary never wore a watch.
“Quarter ’til.”
The secretary extended his open hand to his assistant, which meant only one thing: He needed another pack of the Marlboro Golds. They were flown in from London by the case so as to ensure that none were purchased on the open market. He didn’t need an imam preaching his name from the pulpit.
The Rolls-Royce pulled up to the gate of the Al-Yamamah Palace. The guards came to attention, saluting, as the car passed. He lit another cigarette with his gold lighter, knowing that he had time to inhale only once or twice.
He was fully aware of the irony of his smoking habit. The Americans will kill me. One way or the other. He didn’t care.
The guard opened the door to the automobile. A billow of smoke escaped, but no matter. The guards always looked away.
The gold doors to the palace were framed above in palm leaves, also made of gold. The gold’s glint reflected off the milky white marble floors. The man the secretary was expecting to meet was waiting for him just inside.
“Al-Waleed!”
“Cousin!”
“Let us talk.”
The secretary led the way for his cousin, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talai bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Al-Waleed was his younger cousin and also one of the richest of the princes of the House of Saud. He was wealthy for a good reason. Al-Waleed enjoyed the powerful backing of the secretary.
“I understand you have received your newest airplane. Tell me about it, Al-Waleed.”
The secretary already knew that the Airbus 380 had cost more than four hundred million. The largest aircraft in the world had been modified for bedrooms, movie theaters, and gourmet kitchens. The master bedroom was equipped with a Jacuzzi. The baggage hold was being modified so as to carry three Rolls-Royces.
“It will be magnificent,” Al-Waleed admitted.
“I understand that the Jacuzzi was a particular problem?”
“Yes, the American FAA had a problem with it.”
“And we need the American FAA?”
“Otherwise, they will give us difficulty landing in New York.”
“How is Prince Khalid?”
Khalid was a member of Bay’ah Council, but he didn’t act like it. His frequenting of the bars of London and Moscow was well known. The problem was that they were not simply bars. The back rooms would hold young Russian girls, innocent and barely out of their teens. Khalid had become a liability and an embarrassment, but he was still one of the thirty-five votes. Every vote mattered.
Enough preliminaries. The secretary had not come to discuss jet-borne Jacuzzis or perverted cousins. He had much bigger issues on his mind. He liked Al-Waleed for one important reason. The cousin never tried to play the game of politics within the House of Saud. Instead, he’d become a vehicle for family members to invest in other world economies, to pull dollars out of Saudi Arabia in order to diversify their wealth.
Saudi Arabia remained on a dangerous course and everyone in the House of Saud knew it. The birth rate predicted a population increase to forty million within a decade. Only seven thousand of those millions were members of the House of Saud. Add to that the state’s ever-decreasing oil resources and you had a rather grim outlook, long term. Instability scarcely began to describe it.
“What is your opinion of Yousef?” the secretary asked, well aware that Al-Waleed and others knew that he’d helped create Yousef.
“He is getting bolder.”
The secretary pulled his chair up close to his cousin. The smell of perfume and cigarettes exuded from Al-Waleed.
“What is the sense of the vote?”
“For many,” said Al-Waleed, “Yousef is an asset.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
The secretary felt torn, debating the pros and cons of his connection with Yousef. The secretary’s contact with Maggie O’Donald in Doha had a purpose. She was his escape hatch, his plan B. If Yousef became uncontrollable, the CIA would take care of the problem. At the same time, his connection with Yousef was buying him some important votes. But the message had become garbled. Now Maggie lay near death in the United States. Her mind and memory were reported to be confused. If she made the wrong comment at the wrong time to the wrong people, the consequences would be devastating.
“You walk the fence.” Al-Waleed hesitated. “But, despite many of our cousins’ rantings and ravings about the Americans, our world would be very different without them.”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Of course.”
“You will buy my interests in Omnipol. One hundred million.”
Al-Waleed smiled. “I always thought that was wrong for you, a man who aspired to be a politician.”
“I know. But the king thought it important that someone he could trust would know who was doing what.” The secretary had been assigned a job. His funding of the largest independent manufacturer of plastic explosives in the world gave him the chance to see where it was going.
If it comes down to the last vote, they can use this against me, he thought. The Council was becoming divided. Those pro West would be concerned that the world’s scrutiny would focus on a candidate who made money from selling explosives. But at the same time, he didn’t want to give up access to the information. Al-Waleed was the perfect answer.
The manufacturer of explosives had his hand on the pulse.
“You will buy it, you will keep it, and you will make more money.”
The secretary was right. Al-Waleed had the gift of good fortune. If he bought it for one hundred million, it would soon be worth two hundred million.
“Yes, it is done.”
“Thank you, Al-Waleed. As always, my good brother, you are an asset.”
CHAPTER 27
The tube continued beneath London until the last few stops. When it emerged aboveground, the late-fall fog was penetrated only by the glow of city lights. Parker stared at the beads of water streaking across the moisture on the windows. The wind pushed the droplets across the glass in streams. He leaned back on the subway seat, closing his eyes to the rhythm of the tracks. He looked down at his watch. It had only been a few hours. The fighter jet was cramped, but at forty-six thousand feet, using the jet stream, it took less time than a movie on the transatlantic flights for his return from New York. The oxygen in the face mask gave him a sense of euphoria as he looked down on the slower 747s and 767s below. But he hadn’t slept now for more than twenty-four hours. He didn’t want to waste one moment with Clark on something as unimportant as sleep.
Good God. This line of thought was a grave mistake. He couldn’t afford to have Clark on his mind now.
The subway train’s brakes squealed like fingernails on a chalkboard. A jolt brought the train to a stop.
Parker pulled up the collar to his Barbour jacket as he stepped into the fog.
The man waited there, out of view, in the corner of the station.
Parker sensed his presence. A hunter always knew when he was being hunted.
The glow of the streetlight barely made it to the sidewalk below. Parker saw the shape of a police officer near the entrance to the pub, in the opposite direction of the stranger. The officer stood below the overhang of a building, giving him some shelter from the drizzle as it came down. He waved his hand to the officer as he did whenever he passed. It didn’t hurt for the police officer to know him. Parker knew the officer had registered him in the policeman’s mind. The first time Parker had passed through the station, the officer stared at him. He could see in the moment of a glance that his look, his height, his frame were all being registered for future reference.