Gulf of Aqaba, near Haql, Saudi Arabia
From a distance, the massive yacht shone like a gleaming jewel on the dark ocean. Alyan Sultan al-Qahtamni leaned forward in the custom leather seat of the helicopter until his face nearly touched the glass.
Al-Buraq came into sharp detail as they drew closer. Sixty meters of the finest seagoing custom-built luxury money could buy. The ship was at anchor, but the clever illumination on her superstructure made her seem as if she were racing forward into the dark seas of the Gulf of Aqaba. In Arabic, her name meant “lightning,” but the religious overtones were clear. Al-Buraq was the winged steed who carried the prophets of Islam to heaven.
Both the forward and aft helicopter landing pads were occupied and both of the side landings were down, a sure sign that the owner of the yacht, Saleh bin Ghannam, had put the yacht staff on shore leave for the evening. As was his custom for a meeting of the Arab-Israeli Benevolence Coalition, he kept only a skeleton crew of trusted security men on board.
Saleh was the kind of man who liked to control his environment—completely. As the former head of the Saudi secret service, Saleh made his money the old-fashioned way: by trading in secrets. Indiscretions of the royals, business deals with multinationals, even arrangements with the right kind of Israeli. All done in the service of his beloved country, of course. For Saleh, his life’s mission would be complete only when the Saudi Kingdom was raised to the status of a true world power.
For that to come to pass, all other regional powers needed to come under the sway of the House of Saud.
The MD 902 Explorer helo slowed, then hovered, as the pilot waited for clearance to land from the security team on Al-Buraq.
Alyan watched as another helo lifted off from the yacht. He had been told the Israelis would be arriving by boat from the nearby port of Eilat, Israel, so that must be their visitor for the evening. For Saleh to invite a potential business partner to his yacht for a full meeting of the coalition spoke volumes about the strategic importance of that partner.
Perhaps Saleh was finally recognizing the need to increase the pace of their investments in the Nile River basin, just as Alyan had been advocating for the last year.
The pilot acknowledged a command over the radio and pushed the cyclic forward. Al-Buraq came into sharp detail as they came in for a landing.
It was a beautiful ship, with long, clean lines, and technology integrated into every nook and cranny. Undoubtedly filled with electronic surveillance devices of every possible design. Alyan laughed to himself. One could take the man out of the secrets business, but never the secrets business out of the man.
The pilot executed a gentle touchdown and the side door opened immediately. The security man who greeted Alyan was armed with a submachine gun on a strap around his neck, a sidearm, a Taser, and a knife. And his hands. All of Saleh’s men were ex-Saudi special forces and trained killers.
“This way, sir,” he said in Arabic. With his free hand, he gestured toward the staircase aft of the landing pad.
“I know the way,” Alyan said. The security man spoke into his throat mic and stepped back with a nod.
The meeting room of the Arab-Israeli Benevolence Coalition was in the heart of the big yacht, one level below the main deck. The richly carpeted hallway leading to the room was a tribute to the owner’s long career. Pictures of Saleh with world leaders from the decades: Ronald Reagan, Anwar Sadat, Muammar Gaddafi, Abdullah II of Jordan, Erdogan of Turkey, Sheikh Khalifa of the United Arab Emirates, and finally, the current leader of the House of Saud.
Alyan noted that Saleh scrupulously avoided showing pictures of himself with famous female world leaders. In his less guarded moments, the old warrior railed against the recent efforts to allow more freedoms to women in the kingdom.
Alyan rapped on the door to the meeting room and entered. The sharp smell of burning tobacco nearly stopped him in his tracks.
“Finally,” growled Haim Zarecki, as he crushed out a cigarette. “You’re late—again.” He slipped a fresh Noblesse from a silver case and lit it even as smoke from the last cigarette leaked out from between his lips. The arms dealer’s skin was the color and consistency of water-spotted parchment, and he wheezed as he spoke.
From the clock on the wall above Zarecki, Alyan could see that it was two minutes past ten. He ignored the comment and dropped his mobile phone into the EM-shielded box by the door—another of Saleh’s meeting requirements.
“Salaam alaikum.” Saleh’s voice came from behind a cloud of cigar smoke. “Welcome to my humble home, my friend.”
“Alaikum salaam,” Alyan replied. He sometimes thought that Saleh smoked at these meetings as a way to fight back against his Israeli compatriot’s cigarettes.
In contrast to Zarecki’s obvious illness, Saleh was the picture of health. The hair brushed back from his forehead was snow white, contrasting with the deep bronze of his skin. High cheekbones, a firm jaw, and a generous nose gave the retired intelligence chief a royal look. His sharp eyes took in the newcomer at a glance, leaving Alyan with the feeling that he’d been measured and found lacking.
Alyan suppressed a flash of annoyance at Saleh’s demeanor as he took a seat next to the third man in the room, Itzak Lehrmann. Although he was a decade younger than Lehrmann, he liked to think of the man as a generational ally.
Lehrmann was impeccably dressed in his preferred garb: a dark blue, double-breasted jacket, white shirt, dark tie, and lapel pin. While technically a banker by trade, Lehrmann had made his real fortune in legal money laundering, mostly real estate deals. The über-wealthy Lehrmann family was the closest thing Israel had to business royalty.
Two Israelis, two Saudis—an unlikely grouping if there ever was one—bonded by the shared goals of financial and political power. As billows of cigarette smoke curled in the artful illumination, the silence in the room lengthened.
“Well, let’s get started,” Zarecki growled. Another cigarette butt joined its companions in a nearly full ashtray.
Saleh set his cigar aside and jetted a fresh cloud of smoke across the table. As he touched the control panel on the glass-topped table, the surface came alive with graphics. Another touch and the image morphed into a map of the Nile River basin.
Across the table, Zarecki moved his ashtray so as not to cover up the Central African Republic.
Spanning 4,500 kilometers, the Nile River was popularly associated only with Egypt, but Alyan had foreseen decades ago that the real wealth of the Nile lay upstream. As if on cue, Saleh reoriented the map to zoom in on the countries of the upper Nile basin: Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.
Alyan’s gaze traced the Nile south from Cairo, as it snaked across the desert to Khartoum, in Sudan. There, the mighty river broke into two branches: the White Nile ran from Lake Victoria, deep in the continent of Africa, and the Blue Nile drew its flow from the mountains of Ethiopia and Eritrea. A half dozen bright red bars transected each branch of the Nile River, denoting the location of dams being built.
The dams were the reason these four men were in the same room. The Arab-Israeli Benevolence Coalition, through an elaborate series of shell companies run by Alyan, had invested billions in each project. Each dam equaled potential untold wealth to the men at this table.
Like the Aswan High Dam, built in Egypt half a century ago, each new dam tamed the waters of the Nile, reducing uncontrolled flooding in the rainy season and making farming and development much more predictable. But the real wealth lay in the rapid industrial development in the nations bordering the mighty Nile and its tributaries.
Dams meant plenty of cheap electricity, predictable water supplies, and millions of customers hungry for a chance to live a modern lifestyle in the twenty-first century—all ingredients needed for massive business investment.
And the coalition won at every turn. Their initial investment in the dam construction paid them interest—heavily padded by Lehrmann’s connections—as did their share of the energy-generation revenue. Now they were about to embark on the expansion phase of their plan: luring multinationals to invest in the region.
There was only one problem—the Egyptians. After the political instability of the Arab Spring, the Egyptian political elite never fully recovered. While the countries controlling the flow of the Nile River built dams and made plans for their future, Egypt was locked in political turmoil. Now the fate of Egypt was in the hands of its upstream neighbors, causing tensions to ratchet up on both sides of the growing conflict.
The members of the coalition spoke in English, the only language they shared.
“Have we made any headway with the damned Egyptians, Saleh?” Zarecki grumbled as he sucked another cigarette to the filter.
Water treaty negotiations between Egypt, Sudan, and the Ethiopians had been going on for the better part of a year now with little to show for it. The Egyptians wanted guarantees of water flow during all seasons. The upstream countries wanted the freedom to fill their massive reservoirs quickly, which would reduce downstream flows for as much as two years or more. Then there was the fact that Sudan and Ethiopia would control water flow indefinitely to Egypt, which was unsettling for a nation that only existed because of the Nile.
Negotiations were stalled. Alyan feared that the next step was armed conflict, and armed conflict was bad for business.
“We have not.” Saleh discarded his cigar. “In fact, I have new intelligence that suggests a much bigger problem than Egyptian saber rattling.” His fingers tapped the keypad, and the map cleared. In its place was a photograph taken from a car window at night. The blown-up image was grainy, but the face unmistakable.
Zarecki smacked an age-spotted fist on the table and cursed. “Where was this taken?”
Alyan stared at the picture of Mahmoud Alavi, the head of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Unlike Zarecki, who was raised Jewish in Iran and fled during the revolution, and Saleh, who spent his career fighting the Shiite theocracy, Alyan had no special animosity toward Iran. His concern was strictly financial. Iran represented instability, and instability was bad for business.
“Cairo,” Saleh said. “He was spotted going into the president’s personal quarters. He stayed for nearly two hours.”
“Do we have anyone on the inside?” Zarecki pressed.
Saleh grimaced. Intelligence for the coalition was his responsibility. “They met alone.”
The men at the table digested the information and more secondhand smoke. Lehrmann broke the silence.
“They’re baiting us,” he said. “There’s no way the Egyptians would ally themselves with a Shiite theocracy.”
Zarecki cursed again. Saleh’s expression remained sour. Alyan watched both men closely. When it came to matters of Iran, their judgment was colored by decades of regional violence. His own mind was pure business, uncluttered by the politics of the matter.
“We need to focus on the long-term here,” Alyan said. “We will crush the Iranians by harnessing the power of the Nile River basin into the greatest business engine of the modern world. The untapped wealth from resource extraction alone is beyond imagination—as long as we can get the infrastructure in place. That is our only goal now.”
Saleh nodded, clamping his now-dead cigar between his teeth. “I’ll deal with the Iranians for now. Let’s move on.”
Zarecki pointed his cigarette at Saleh. “Bring him in.”
The door opened to admit a man dressed in a conservative blue business suit.
“Gentlemen,” Zarecki said in his wheezing voice. “I’d like to introduce you to Jean-Pierre Manzul, CEO of Recodna Genetics. He has expansion plans that will fit into our portfolio very nicely, I think.”
Manzul was tall and lean, with just enough gray in his dark hair to look distinguished. His tanned face was relaxed, even though he knew he was talking to four of the wealthiest men in the world. His dark gray eyes scanned the room, his stance easy. He handed a thumb drive to Saleh, and the table screen shifted to a professional montage of vast fields of flowing wheat and other grains, herds of cattle, goats, sheep.
“The wave of the future is genetic science,” Manzul began in a pleasant, but intense, baritone voice. “For decades, the developed world has had a monopoly on this technology. They have been able to do gene manipulation on crops and livestock to improve yields and disease resistance—and then they sell it to African nations at exorbitant prices.” He nodded at Saleh, who changed the screen to show a model of a business park.
“That ends today, gentlemen. I am proposing a string of new Recodna campuses at every major dam in the Nile River basin. Using energy and water from these new installations, we will take back the technological leadership in genetic engineering and become the engine of growth for the region.”
Manzul was a persuasive speaker, with just the right amount of intensity and detail for his audience. Alyan found himself nodding in agreement. The coalition’s plans had always called for recruiting high-tech manufacturing to the region—industrializing the region in stages, with high tech being one of the later phases.
But Manzul’s vision offered a shortcut. Today, the region was based mostly on subsistence farming. The new dams controlled the river flow, making farming more predictable and stable year over year. Instead of transitioning to industry, they could add true genetic innovations to the mix, transforming the Nile River basin into the breadbasket of the region—perhaps even the world.
He devoured Manzul’s talk of secure bio research centers, recruitment of leading scientists, plans for world-class manufacturing facilities. The multibillion-dollar investment was steep, but the rewards …
By the time Manzul left the room, Alyan’s imagination was on fire with the business potential.
“I thought you would appreciate his vision, Alyan,” Zarecki declared as he fired up a celebratory cigarette. “I move that we provide an initial investment as per the proposal.”
There were no dissenting voices in the room.
Alyan and Lehrmann departed immediately for the flight deck. Outside, Alyan drew in a deep breath of sea air.
“It’s like a fucking gas chamber in there,” Lehrmann said, loosening his collar. “It’s our own Arab-Israeli War, but with cigarettes and cigars as weapons.”
“And us civilians are collateral damage,” Alyan said. He patted his pocket for his phone, realizing he had left it in the conference room. “Be back in a moment.”
The dimmed hallway lights left Saleh’s wall of famous people in shadow. Alyan’s feet made no sound on the rich plush carpet.
The door to the conference room was cracked open, casting a thin line of light into the hallway. He heard the voices of his older colleagues inside and thought nothing of it—until he heard a third voice.
Alyan eased closer.
“The facility is ready.” Manzul’s voice carried into the hallway. “Recruiting has already begun.”
“How long?” Zarecki growled.
“My partner has access to the needed samples. With the team we’re building, we can have a functional weapon within months, a year at the most.”
A weapon? Alyan froze.
“And the genetic component?” Saleh’s voice was intense. “You can guarantee that feature?”
Manzul took a long time to answer. “My partner is the best and the team is second to none, but I need two things from you. I need your assurance that the test sites will be contained.”
“One phone call.” Saleh’s voice. “A simple phone call and it will be like the place never existed. What else?”
“Money,” Manzul said.
“I don’t care what it costs,” Zarecki said, the sound of his fist pounding on the table punctuating his reply. “I just want them”—he launched into a coughing fit—“wiped off the face of the…”
Alyan backed down the hall slowly. At the far end, he clattered his shoes against the uncarpeted steps and coughed as he made his way down the hall. He pushed open the door to the meeting room.
Manzul was gone.
Alyan smiled at Zarecki and Saleh. “Forgot my phone.” He extracted the device from the EM-proof box and slipped it into his pocket.
He met their eyes—Zarecki’s first, then his countryman Saleh’s—giving each of them an opportunity to say something about Manzul’s second visit and their mysterious conversation. Neither man’s gaze wavered.
“Good night, then,” Alyan said.