The New Girl Page 16

  If he was grieving, he gave no sign of it, at least not within the walls of King Saul Boulevard. Khalid’s abdication had thrown Saudi Arabia—and by extension the entire region—into political turmoil. To make matters worse, the American president declared his intention to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria, effectively ceding control of the country to the Iranians and their ally, Russia. Within hours of the announcement, which he made via Twitter, a Hezbollah missile fired from Syrian territory crossed into Israeli airspace and was intercepted over Hadera. Gabriel supplied the prime minister with the location of a secret Iranian command bunker south of Damascus. Several officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the retaliatory strike, drawing Israel and the Islamic Republic ever closer to war.

  But it was Saudi Arabia that occupied the lion’s share of Gabriel’s time during those endless days after his return from France. His accurate prediction that Khalid was about to abdicate had suddenly made him flavor of the week at Langley, which was grasping at straws trying to figure out what was happening inside the royal court of its closest ally in the Arab world. Was Khalid in Riyadh? Was he even alive? Gabriel was able to offer the Americans precious little intelligence, for his own attempts to reach Khalid had proved fruitless, and the Saudi’s compromised phone was no longer emitting a signal. Nor was Gabriel able to provide the Americans—or his prime minister, for that matter—reliable intelligence as to Khalid’s likely successor. Consequently, when Gabriel was awakened at three in the morning with the news that it was Prince Abdullah, the king’s London-based half brother, he was as surprised as everyone else.

  The Office knew the basics of Abdullah’s undistinguished career, and in the days following his elevation, Collections and Research rapidly filled in the missing pieces. He was anti-Israel, anti-West, and harbored an abiding resentment of America, which he blamed for much of the Middle East’s violence and political chaos. He had two wives in Riyadh whom he rarely saw and a stable of high-priced prostitutes, boys and girls, who tended to his sexual needs at his mansion in Belgravia. A devout Wahhabi Muslim, he was a heavy drinker who had thrice received treatment at an exclusive facility outside Zurich. In business he had been aggressive but unwise. Despite a generous monthly stipend, money was constantly an issue.

  There was speculation in the media that Abdullah was merely a caretaker crown prince who would remain in the post only until a suitable candidate from the next generation could be chosen. Abdullah, however, quickly consolidated his hold on power by purging the royal court and the Saudi security services of his nephew’s influence. He also scrapped The Way Forward, Khalid’s ambitious plan to transform the Saudi economy, and made it clear there would be no more talk of reforming the faith. Wahhabism, he proclaimed, was the Kingdom’s official religion and would be practiced in its purest and sternest form. Women were summarily stripped of the right to drive or attend sporting events—and the Mutaween, the dreaded Saudi religious police, were once again given license to enforce the rules of Islamic purity, with arrests and physical brutality if necessary. Those who objected were jailed or publicly flogged. The fleeting Riyadh Spring was over.

  Which prompted, mainly in the West, another great reassessment. Had the Americans and their European allies been too hard on KBM for his misdeeds? Had they foolishly backed the House of Saud into a corner, leaving them no choice but to revert to their tried-and-true method of survival? Had they let a golden opportunity to fundamentally change the Middle East slip through their fingers? In the secure rooms and salons of Washington and London, they quarreled among themselves over who had lost Saudi Arabia. In Tel Aviv, however, Gabriel approached the question altogether differently. Saudi Arabia, he concluded, had not been lost, it had been taken from them. But by whom?

  Though Gabriel managed to conceal his grief from his troops, Chiara saw through him as though he were made of glass. It wasn’t difficult; he relived it each night in the sweat-drenched tumult that passed for his sleep. Several times she was awakened by his shouting. His words were always the same. “You’re dead,” he would cry out. “Dead, dead, dead!”

  He had given her a highly abridged version of the story after his return from France. He and Khalid had been led by the kidnappers to a remote field, the child had died. Chiara had resisted the temptation to press him for more details. She knew that one day he would tell her everything.

  It was clawing at him, that much was obvious. What he needed, she thought, was a painting, a few square meters of damaged canvas that he could make right again. But he had no painting, he had only a country to protect, and he was haunted by the prospect of war in the north. Hezbollah and the Iranians had stockpiled more than one hundred and fifty thousand missiles and rockets in Syria and Lebanon. The largest could reach Tel Aviv and beyond. In the event of a conflict, the entire Galilee and much of the Coastal Plain would be within range. Thousands might die.

  “Which is why the American presence in Syria is so important. They’re a tripwire. Once they’re gone, there will be only one check on Hezbollah and Iranian aggression.”

  “The Russians,” said Chiara.

  It was after midnight. Gabriel was propped upright in bed, a stack of Office files on his lap, a halogen reading lamp burning brightly over his shoulder. The television was muted so as not to wake the children. Earlier that evening Hezbollah had fired four rockets into Israel. Three had been destroyed by the Iron Dome missile defense system, but one had landed outside Ramat David, the town in the Valley of Jezreel where Gabriel had lived as a child. The IAF was preparing a massive retaliatory strike based on intelligence supplied by the Office.

  “A preview of coming attractions,” he said softly.

  “How do we stop it?”

  “Short of all-out war?” Gabriel closed the file he had been reading. “With a strategy to drive the Russians, the Iranians, and Hezbollah out of Syria.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “By creating a decent central government in Damascus led by the Sunni majority instead of a brutal dictatorial regime led by a tiny Alawite minority.”

  “And I thought it was going to be something difficult.” Chiara slipped into bed next to him. “The Arabs have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt they’re not ready to govern themselves.”

  “I’m not talking about Jeffersonian democracy. I’m talking about an enlightened despot.”

  “Like Khalid?” asked Chiara skeptically.

  “That depends which Khalid we’re talking about.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Two,” said Gabriel. “The first was handed absolute power before he was ready.”

  “And the second?”

  “He was the man who watched his child die an unimaginable death.”

  There was a silence. Then Chiara asked, “What happened in that field in France?”

  “I saved Khalid’s life,” said Gabriel. “And I’m not sure he’ll ever forgive me for it.”

  Chiara gazed at the television. The new de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia was meeting with senior clerics, including an imam who regularly denounced Jews as the descendants of apes and pigs. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m going to find out who stole Saudi Arabia.”

  “And then?”

  Gabriel switched off the lamp. “Steal it back.”

  37

  Tel Aviv

  It was at this point, in late February, as Israel was lashed by a series of winter storms, that there commenced a great search the Office would later refer to as “Where in the World Is Khalid?” That he was even among the living was a matter of considerable internal debate. Eli Lavon was convinced that Khalid was a few feet beneath the surface of the Nejd, probably in several pieces. To support his case, he pointed to the fact that Khalid’s mobile phone was off the air. Even more alarming was a report, never corroborated, that Khalid had been taken into custody not long after the Allegiance Council appointed Abdullah crown prince. Khalid, surmised Lavon, was never
supposed to leave France alive in the first place. Returning to Saudi Arabia with the remains of his daughter had given the plotters the perfect opportunity to make certain he would never pose a threat in the future.

  Gabriel did not dismiss Lavon’s theory out of hand, for in the hours after Reema’s murder he had warned Khalid he would be a fool to return to Riyadh. Quietly, he reached out to his old nemesis from the Saudi secret police to see whether he had news of Khalid’s fate, but there was no response. The old nemesis, said Eli Lavon, had probably been caught up in the post-Khalid purge and cast out. Or perhaps, Lavon added darkly, the old nemesis was the one who had plunged the dagger into Khalid’s back.

  Gabriel and the Office were not the only ones looking for Khalid. So were the Americans and much of the world’s media. The former crown prince was sighted variously on the Pacific coast of Mexico, on the enchanted Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy, and in a gulfside villa in Dubai. None of the reports proved remotely accurate. Nor was the report in Le Monde that Khalid was living in splendid exile at his lavish château in the Haute-Savoie. Paul Rousseau confirmed that the French had not been able to find him, either.

  “We have one or two questions we’d like to ask him about Rafiq al-Madani. He’s missing, too.”

  “He’s probably back in Riyadh.”

  “If he is, he didn’t get his passport stamped on the way out of France. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

  Gabriel replied, with some truth, that he did not know al-Madani’s whereabouts. Khalid’s remained a mystery, too. And when another week passed with no sign of him, Gabriel feared the worst. In the end, it was Sarah Bancroft who found him. More to the point, it was Khalid who found her. He was very much alive and hiding out aboard Tranquillity with a skeleton crew and a couple of trusted bodyguards. He was wondering whether Gabriel might have a few minutes to talk.

  “He’s anchored off Sharm el-Sheikh in the Red Sea,” said Sarah. “He’ll send the helicopter to pick you up.”

  “That’s very generous of him, but I have a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  Gabriel explained.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “He promised to give me anything I wanted. This is what I want.”

  38

  Eilat, Israel

  As director-general of the Office, Gabriel possessed the broad authority to undertake sensitive operations without first obtaining approval from the prime minister. His mandate, however, did not grant him license to invite the deposed leader of a formally hostile Arab nation to visit the State of Israel, even unofficially. It was one thing to slip Khalid into the London embassy in the heat of battle, quite another to grant him access to the world’s most contested piece of real estate. The prime minister, after an hour of tense debate, approved of the visit, provided it remained secret. Gabriel, who had all but given the Saudi prince up for dead, was comfortable with the terms. The last thing they needed to worry about, he said, was a selfie popping up on social media. Khalid’s old Twitter and Instagram accounts were dormant, and the House of Saud had erased his memory from existence. Khalid was an unperson.

  His Airbus H175 VIP helicopter plopped down in a cloud of dust at the edge of the Gulf of Aqaba at eight o’clock the following morning. A crewman opened the cabin door, and Khalid, in chinos and an Italian blazer, stepped hesitantly onto Israeli soil for the first time. Only Gabriel and his small security detail were on hand to witness the occasion. Smiling, Gabriel extended his hand, but Khalid drew him into a crushing embrace instead. For better or worse, and for all the wrong reasons, they were now the closest of friends.

  Khalid surveyed the harsh khaki-colored landscape. “I had hoped to come here one day under different circumstances.”

  “Perhaps,” said Gabriel, “I can arrange that, too.”

  They headed north into the Negev Desert in Gabriel’s armored SUV. Khalid seemed surprised to see other traffic on the road.

  “It’s better,” explained Gabriel, “if we hide in plain sight.”

  “What if someone recognizes me?”

  “Israel is the last place in the world anyone would expect to see you.”

  “That’s because it’s the last place in the world I should be. But then again, I suppose I have nowhere else to go.”

  Khalid was clearly uncomfortable with his reduced circumstances and diminished global status. As they plunged deeper into the desert beneath a cloudless sky, he spoke of what had transpired when he returned to Saudi Arabia after Reema’s murder. He buried her in the Wahhabi tradition, he said, in an unmarked grave in the desert. Then he quickly set about trying to reclaim his place in the line of succession. As he had feared, it was not possible. The Allegiance Council had already settled on Abdullah, Khalid’s mentor and confessor, as the new crown prince. Khalid dutifully pledged his loyalty to his uncle, but Abdullah, fearing Khalid’s influence, summarily stripped him of all his powerful government posts. When Khalid objected, he was arrested and taken to a room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where he was forced to surrender much of his net worth. Fearing for his life, he gathered up his remaining liquid assets and took refuge aboard Tranquillity. Asma, his wife, had refused to go into exile with him.

  “She blames you for Reema’s death?”

  Khalid nodded slowly. “Rather ironic, don’t you think? I championed the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, and as my reward I have been forsaken by my wife.”

  “And by your uncle, too.”

  “So much for his advice not to abdicate,” agreed Khalid. “It seems Abdullah was plotting against me from the beginning. The Allegiance Council gave no serious consideration to any other candidate. The cake, as they say, was already in the oven. Once I was out of the way, the throne was Abdullah’s for the taking. Not even my father could stop it.”

  “How is he?”

  “My father? He has moments of lucidity, but for the most part he exists in a fog of dementia. Abdullah has complete control of the machinery of the Kingdom, and you’ve seen the results. Rest assured, he’s not finished. Those senators and congressmen in Washington who were baying for my blood will rue the day they ever criticized me.”

  It was approaching ten o’clock when the mercury-colored surface of the Dead Sea appeared on the horizon. At Ein Gedi, Gabriel asked Khalid whether he wanted to have a swim, but Khalid, with a wave of his hand, declined. He had once bathed on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea and had not enjoyed the experience.

  They flashed through a checkpoint without slowing and entered the West Bank. At Jericho was the turnoff for Jerusalem. They continued north instead. Khalid’s expression darkened as they passed through a chain of Israeli settlements along the Jordan River.

  “How do you expect them to build a state if you’ve taken all the land?”

  “We haven’t taken all the land,” responded Gabriel. “But I can assure you we’re never leaving the Jordan Valley.”

  “There can’t be two states if there are Jews on both sides of the border.”

  “I’m afraid that train has left the station.”

  “What train?”

  “The two-state solution. It’s dead and buried. We have to think outside the box.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “First we have peace. After that,” said Gabriel, “anything is possible.”

  They passed through another checkpoint into Israel proper and sped through flat, fertile farmland to the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. There they turned to the east and scaled the Golan Heights. In the Druze town of Majdal Shams they peered through a razor-wire fence into southern Syria. The Syrian military and their Russian and Iranian allies had wiped out the last of the rebel forces. The regime was once again in control of the territory along Israel’s border.

  They stopped for lunch in Rosh Pina, one of the oldest Zionist settlements in Israel, before starting across the Upper Galilee. Gabriel pointed out the footprints of abandoned Arab villages. He even walked with Khalid among the
ruins of al-Sumayriyya, the Arab village in the Western Galilee whose residents had fled to Lebanon in 1948. The shimmering new skyline of Tel Aviv they viewed from Highway 6, and Jerusalem, God’s fractured city upon a hill, they approached from the west. After crossing the invisible border into East Jerusalem, they made their way along the Ottoman walls of the Old City to Lions’ Gate. The small square that lay beyond it was empty of pedestrians. There were only Israeli police officers and soldiers present.

  “Where are we?” asked Khalid, his voice tense.

  Gabriel opened his door and climbed out. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

  The small square inside Lions’ Gate was not the only section of the Muslim Quarter that Gabriel had arranged to be closed to the public that evening. So was the broad, sacred esplanade to the south known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. Gabriel and Khalid entered the compound through the Bab al-Huttah, the Gate of Absolution. The golden Dome of the Rock glowed softly in the cold light of early evening. The mighty al-Aqsa Mosque was in silhouette.

  “You did this for me?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “How?”

  “I am a man,” said Gabriel, “of some influence.”

  A few representatives of the Waqf were huddled on the eastern side of the esplanade. “Who do they think I am?” asked Khalid.

  “An Arab notable from one of the emirates.”

  “Not Qatar, I hope.”

  They entered the Dome of the Rock and together gazed solemnly at the Foundation Stone. It was the summit of Mount Moriah, the spot where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into heaven and where Jews believe Abraham would have sacrificed his young son were it not for the intercession of an archangel called Gabriel. Afterward, Khalid prayed in the al-Aqsa Mosque while the angel’s namesake, alone in the esplanade, contemplated the risen moon over the Mount of Olives.