“Yeah. You bullshit people. Like you’re bullshitting me now.”
“After college, I got involved with a whole other world. The kind of world where, once you’re in it, you tend to stay in it. And it’s important to keep that world separate from your family. Even your brother. For their own good.”
“You’re a spy.”
“I prefer intelligence operative.”
“For the United States?”
“It’s complicated. It’s one of those ‘the more you know, the more you’re at risk’ deals.”
Rad was quiet for a while. Mark listened to the voices outside. There were still at least three men.
“What’s going to happen to me, Marko? Are they going to let me die?”
“I’m not going to let you die.” Mark wasn’t sure that was true, but he’d try his best to make it true. “I’m sorry about this.”
“I’m supposed to be getting married.”
“Congratulations.”
“I can’t die, Marko. I’ve got too much going on.”
“I said I’d handle it.”
Mark sat cross-legged in the dirt for a while, thinking about what to do next.
“Give me your wrist.” Mark felt for a pulse. It was high, around 140. “Listen,” he said. “You’re going into shock, which is normal after what you’ve been through. I’d say lie down, but right now we want to keep your shoulder high. So just sit back, get as comfortable as you can, and try to relax. Focus on your breathing. Keep it slow and steady. Don’t panic. Try to meditate or something.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“Then pray, think of your favorite movie, whatever. The point is — get to a calm place in your head. And don’t lose hope. You’re not going to bleed out now. We can set your leg later. You’re hurt, but believe me, you can survive for a long, long time like this.”
No one spoke for a minute. Then Rad said, “You got any water?”
“No.” Eating or drinking a lot when you were going into shock wasn’t a good idea, Mark knew, but a little water wouldn’t hurt.
He stood up and tried the door, but it wouldn’t open, so he banged on it for a while.
“A little water in here!” he yelled.
He banged on the door some more. When no one came to open it, he sat back in the dirt next to Rad.
Moments later, the door opened. A Saudi used his pistol to gesture to Mark. “You. Get out.”
“Give him some water first.”
“No.”
“I’m not leaving, which means I’m not handing over the kid until he gets some water. All he needs is a little. Too much will make him sick.”
The Saudi muttered a few words in Arabic and two more men appeared. They grabbed Mark, hauled him out of the shed, then threw him into the back of the blue Chevy.
46
Mark was driven to the little town of Awali, which lay on the southern edge of the desert, not far from the golf course. They stopped near the center of town, in front of an apartment complex spray-painted with depictions of Shias who had been killed by the government. Before they shoved him out of the car, the driver handed Mark a phone. It was on. Mark raised it to his ear.
“Bring the boy immediately to the Hyatt Regency hotel in Bishkek. A plane will leave Manama shortly. It should touch down in Bishkek in five hours.”
Mark gripped the phone hard in his hand. He pictured Saeed slicing into a steak at the golf course, watching the sun slowly set. Or driving around in a fancy car with leather seats, the air-conditioning humming as he crossed the causeway that connected Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. Then he pictured Rad bleeding in the dirt.
“I wasn’t lying about needing time to get the boy to Bishkek. He’s in a remote region in Kyrgyzstan. The roads are awful. I’ll get him there as soon as I can,” Mark said.
“The sooner you get the boy to the hotel, the sooner your brother will be released.”
“Five in the morning, Bishkek time. That’s two in the morning Bahrain time, a little more than eight hours from now.”
“My men will be there.”
“Treat my brother well.”
“We’re not animals here. He will be treated as a guest. But if the transfer of the boy doesn’t take place as planned, you can bring a body bag when you come to pick up your brother. Consider yourself warned.”
“If I need to reach you before the transfer, how do I contact you?”
“You don’t. You just deliver the child. I sense you’re a man who likes to bargain, Marko. But there will be no more bargaining because I won’t be there for you to bargain with. In a moment, you will be released to make whatever arrangements you need to make, and I will disappear. The only thing that will save your brother is if you deliver the child. If you do so, I will have him transferred to the Royal Bahrain Hospital in Manama. If you don’t… well, I think we have an understanding now, no?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mark. “We definitely have an understanding.”
What Mark understood was that he’d have to be an idiot to trust Saeed to hand over his brother once Muhammad had been delivered. What incentive would Saeed have to do so? What could he possibly stand to gain?
Rad now knew his captors were Saudis. He’d be able to recognize many of them. If the Saudis were to release Rad, he might make a stink with the US embassy in Manama. He might go to the press. His employer, BP, might get involved. The only reason to release Rad would be to placate Mark.
And Mark wasn’t convinced that was enough of an incentive. He thought it just as likely that the Saudis — once they had Muhammad — would try to kill both Saveljic brothers and be done with the whole mess.
Mark had been playing this game for far too long to walk like a lamb to that slaughter. No, the best way to secure Rad’s safety — and to do right by Muhammad — was to insure that Saeed was properly motivated to do the right thing.
Money was an option. Mark had over a half million dollars he could wire to Saeed overnight. Though that might do the trick, Mark doubted it would. Saeed was just a representative of the Saudi intelligence apparatus, and to Saudi intelligence, a half million dollars was pocket change. Other common tools — appealing to a person’s ego or conscience, or offering them an opportunity to exact revenge upon an enemy — were also almost certain to fail in this case.
Dredging up compromising information about Saeed was definitely on the table. Maybe Saeed was an adulterer, or had tried to embezzle money, or was gay — a potentially capital offense in Saudi Arabia. But those were leverage points that — if they even existed — would take time to uncover.
Extortion through other means was possible, though. Especially if it were combined with some of the cruder tools of his trade. A plan began to form in Mark’s mind.
PART III
47
Mark caught a cab back to the Manama Sheraton. By now it was a little after six. The sun was beginning to wane.
He connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi and used his iPod to call Kaufman. When he got sent into Kaufman’s voicemail, he hung up and called again. And then hung up and called a third time. This time Kaufman answered on the fourth ring.
“I can’t talk to you, Sava. You’re radioactive on the seventh floor.”
The offices on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, were occupied by the men and women at the very top of the Agency’s bureaucracy.
“Someone on the inside shared my personnel file with the Saudis, Ted. I think it was Rosten.”