99

Amin al-Azzam sat in his office, watching the coverage with his staff.

All except his son-in-law.

“Where’s Hussam?” the Grand Mufti asked as images of King Faisal’s plane taxiing flickered on the screen before them. “Has anyone seen him?”

“He was here earlier,” a young cleric said. “I think he was going to the mosque.”

“Perhaps he’s in the lavatory,” said another.

“No, no, I saw him in the Noble Sanctuary,” said a third. “He said he needed to make some final preparations.”

Al-Azzam said nothing, but as he toyed with the lanyard dangling from his neck, he couldn’t decide if he should be annoyed or concerned. All the preparations they could possibly make had been completed the day before. There was simply nothing left to be done. So where was Hussam? Why wasn’t he here with the rest of the staff?

As the jumbo jet pulled to a halt next to Air Force One, al-Azzam found himself admiring the color scheme of the Saudi plane. The fuselage of flight 001 was painted beige on the top half and white on the lower half. The words Saudi Arabian were painted on the side in Arabic and English in a rich royal blue. The tail was painted the same shade of blue and featured the national symbol of the two crossed swords under a giant palm tree. The two planes looked good side by side.

A stairwell was rolled into position. The door opened. The king, stooped but smiling, appeared in the doorway. The Israeli crowd roared and applauded even more loudly than for the American president. Soon the aging monarch made his way down the steps and was greeted by Clarke and Eitan.

To al-Azzam’s astonishment, the scene stirred something deep, something hopeful, in his soul. He could not say why, not even to himself. But at that moment, he found himself looking around the room and out the windows to his left, wondering what could cause Hussam to miss it.

Donning a Kevlar vest given to him by an Israeli officer, Marcus headed inside.

He bounded up the stairs and entered the flat where the commander and his team were waiting. It took only an instant to realize whom he was looking at —the bullet-riddled, bloodstained body of Ali Haqqani.

“That your man?” the commander asked, bending down to examine the bullet holes and the coagulated blood around them.

“One of them,” Marcus replied.

“Nine-millimeter,” said the commander. “Close range. Probably a Glock. And he hasn’t been dead long. Less than an hour. But who shot him?”

“Mohammed al-Qassab,” Marcus said, almost under his breath.

It wasn’t a guess. It was a certainty. The Syrian terrorist was no novice. The man knew precisely what he was doing. He’d gotten all he needed from Haqqani. Now he was tying off loose ends.

Looking around the room, Marcus surveyed the medical equipment, the bloody sheets and pillowcases piled in the trash bin in the kitchen, and dried blood on the plastic tarp still on the dining room floor. Technicians were taking samples. They’d be sent back to a lab for analysis and DNA testing. All of it confirmed there was a bomber out there somewhere, and suddenly Marcus found himself wondering: Could it actually be al-Qassab?

As the Syrian watched the welcome ceremony, the rage within him was building.

Eitan’s and Clarke’s remarks were revolting but thoroughly predictable. Yet it was the speech by King Faisal Mohammed Al Saud that sickened him. Each line was more reprehensible than the last.

“What a joy it is to step foot on soil once trod by prophets, priests, and kings.”

“I must say how disappointed I am in my brothers in the Palestinian Authority.”

“The Arab nations have embraced rejectionism far too long, but today, new breezes —fresh breezes —are blowing in the Middle East.”

“It has been said, ‘There is a time for war and a time for peace.’ This, my friends, is a time for peace.”

This, from a Muslim?

This, from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques?

Al-Qassab fumed. A bomb was too good, too quick and painless for such a man who epitomized the very definition of apostasy. Such a man deserved instead to be hanged. Or better yet, beheaded in the public square.

It was too late for that, of course. Yet for a moment, however fleeting, al-Qassab wondered if he’d been too hasty. Perhaps instead of killing Haqqani, he should have insisted the good doctor perform one more surgery, place one more bomb in one more shahid —in al-Qassab himself. True, he would never get close enough to the king, to such a kafir, to such an infidel. But oh, to walk into a crowded synagogue three days hence, on the Jewish Sabbath, and blow himself and all those around him into eternity.

Al-Qassab savored the fantasy, then cursed himself for it. The plan that he and the Turk had developed was sound. If it worked, it would change the Muslim world forever. But he had to stay focused. There was so much that could still go wrong.