“His Majesty will be along shortly. Please make yourself comfortable.” The door locked with a faintly audible click as they left.
So Wells watched the parrots twitter. At this moment, hundreds of workers were cleaning up the carnage from last night, filling the eight-foot-deep crater in Prince Turki Road, shoring the damaged buildings. In a few hours they would hang heavy plastic drapes to hide the broken apartment façades. The intersection would look like just another construction site in a city full of them, a view as false as this tropical tableau. The Saud family preferred to pretend that terrorism didn’t exist inside the Kingdom’s borders.
A half hour passed before Abdullah entered, helped by a fifty-something man who could have been a younger clone. The King’s hair was as black as ever. His eyes were still clear under his glasses. But three years had passed since Wells had first met him. And three years meant a lot to a man born in 1924. Abdullah’s hands shook, and the folds of his robe couldn’t hide the weight he’d lost. He wheezed gently as he walked. The King had genetics and the best doctors money could buy, but time always won.
“Your Majesty. As-salaam aleikum.”
“Aleikum salaam. Come, please, Mr. Wells.”
Wells did. To his surprise, the King reached out, hugged him.
“You were injured.”
The night before, a National Guard medic had strapped bandages on his cheeks and chin to cover the cuts from the blast wave and put a proper splint on his broken pinky. Wells had turned down the medic’s offers of painkillers. The decision seemed like the right way to honor Ghaith. But as a result, Wells hardly slept. “It was nothing.”
“My men failed you.”
“No one could have stopped what happened.” A lie, as Abdullah probably knew. “Your men gave everything. I’m the one who’s alive.”
“Inshallah.”
“Inshallah.”
The King lumbered to an armchair and sat.
“Sit, please.” The King indicated the couch nearest his chair. “These men, they call themselves believers, soldiers, an army of Islam. Soldiers? They kill innocent Muslims—” Abdullah stopped himself, shook his head. “You know all this.”
Wells nodded.
“Allah sends them all to hell, this I’m sure.”
“Nam.” The men who’d blown that bomb had their own theological explanations for what they’d done, but Abdullah was in no mood for debate. Besides, he was right. The killers belonged in hell.
Abdullah nodded at the fiftyish man who’d come in with him. “This is my nephew, Fahd bin Salman, commander of the National Guard. He has a few questions for you and then he’ll tell you what his men have found so far. After that, you and I will talk.”
Fahd extended a hand. “I’m sorry to meet you under such unpleasant circumstances, Mr. Wells.” His resemblance to Abdullah ended when he opened his mouth. His voice was soft, vaguely fussy. Even at ninety, the King was more powerful.
“As am I.” Wells felt the need for a certain formality around these men.
“May I ask what you saw last night?”
Wells explained everything, including the delay at the air base gate, the motorcycle on the Mecca Road, and the attack.
“Do you have any idea why Ghaith didn’t respond more forcefully?” Fahd said when he finished.
“I think he felt we were adequately defended. With the armored limousine and the convoy.” Too many 5 a.m. wake-up calls left him punchy didn’t strike Wells as the right answer, even if it was true.
“But you disagreed.”
“I guessed.”
“You were right. Did you see the license numbers of the motorcycles? Or their makes?”
“I’m almost sure they didn’t have plates. They were big, a thousand ccs or more. Black. Sportbike fairings. I think they were identical, both the same model. Beyond that, I can’t say. I’m sorry.”
“What about the bomb vehicle?”
“White, a minivan.”
“And you didn’t see the driver.”
“No. I can’t identify the men on the bikes either. They wore helmets with mirrored face shields. One dropped a pistol at the scene. I’m sure you’ve recovered that.”
“A Makarov, yes. We’re trying to trace it, but as you know they’re very common. I wish I could tell you we had good leads, but we don’t. We recovered the vehicle number of the van earlier today from a piece of the frame that survived. It was reported stolen about two months ago from a parking lot in Jeddah. There were no cameras in the lot there and the police have no leads. Most likely, whoever stole it just drove it to Riyadh and parked it in a garage somewhere, waiting for this sort of chance. The driver, we haven’t even found fragments. I think we’ll be lucky even to recover enough for a DNA sample.”
“How big was the bomb?”
“Based on the size of the crater and the damage to the buildings, we’re estimating five hundred kilos of high explosive.”
More than a thousand pounds. A huge bomb. They were lucky it hadn’t done even more damage. “You have a list of guys who can put together a bomb that size?”
“We try to track them. But every month, more come home from Iraq and Syria.”
Depressing. And true. “What about the bikes?”
“They reached the southern ring road, turned west. After that, we believe they went into the desert. We’re looking, but I fear they were garaged before sunrise. Before the attack, they passed several intersections where we have cameras, so we’re analyzing those. But we don’t have plates, and as you said, the riders hid their faces.”
“Professional job.”
“Very much. Mr. Wells, do you think this attack could in any way be related to the mission that brought you to the Kingdom?”
Wells had given that question plenty of thought during his sleepless night. “I doubt it. I’d be shocked if the people I’m going after have resources like that in Riyadh. I think someone heard I was here and decided to take a shot at me.”
“I agree.”
“So have you asked the FBI for forensic help?” Over the years, the Bureau had quietly worked with the Saudis to investigate terror attacks.
Fahd looked at Abdullah. “For now, no. We believe we have the situation in hand.”
So the King didn’t want the United States looking over his shoulder on this investigation. Wells knew why. “How about investigating from the other end?”
“The other end?”
“Who told the jihadis that I was in Riyadh?”
Fahd hesitated.
“I think before we can answer that question we’ll need to find out who carried out the attack.”
“Of course. I understand.”
Wells did, too. The King was angry about the attack. But he knew that the tipster was probably inside his family. One of his nephews. He might even have a good idea which one. He didn’t intend to disturb the fragile peace within the House of Saud by finding out if his hunch was right. He certainly didn’t want the FBI poking around. Wells was his friend, and Ghaith his grandnephew by marriage, sure. But neither man was blood.
“You can only do so much. I appreciate the briefing.”
“Go,” Abdullah said.
Fahd hurried off.
Then Wells and the King were alone.
“I’m glad you see our position.” Abdullah spoke without irony or apology. A statement of fact, honest and cold as a North Atlantic wave. We’re both grown-ups, and you know the reality I face. The reason he was King.
“As long as you don’t mind leaving me unfinished business.” They may be your family, but if they’re foolish enough to leave these borders, if they give me the chance, in Europe, Dubai, wherever, I’ll kill them. The reason Wells was Wells.