Retribution

Yousef al-Qadi had not been to the capital of Saudi Arabia in nearly a decade. He had not been home. He had not been allowed home. The House of Saud had made it clear that he was not welcome. And then, suddenly, he had been summoned.

ArRiyadh, he thought as he looked out over the early morning skyline as the Gulfstream jet circled for landing. The fresh air of the morning seemed to amplify the sparkle of silver-tinted glass, steel, and aluminum and the giant palm trees that surrounded the buildings. The city had a population of barely a million when he’d last left.

It began as an oasis, a garden surrounded by the wasteland of the desert. Now Riyadh had grown to more than six million. As his airplane tilted in its turn, the sun flashed off the tall buildings of glass and steel, which spread out across the skyline. Riyadh had been kind to the inspirations and unlimited budgets of young architects. The Al Faisaliah Tower’s point stood out just beyond the airfield. It appeared more like the point of some gigantic spaceship ready for launch into the stratosphere. Again, across the city and beyond the King Fahd Highway, the bright Markaz Al-Mamlakah skyscraper seemed to confirm that the students of I. M. Pei had been given the city as a playground. The glimmering metallic tower dominated the skyline, rising over a thousand feet from the desert floor.

As a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yousef was a descendant of the House of Saud. Unlike bin Laden, although born in Riyadh as well, Yousef was not the son of a Yemeni immigrant. In that regard, Yousef ’s banishment had been more painful.

It had taken the death of bin Laden for Yousef to be summoned back home; and even so, his return would be brief, only for one specific meeting with the secretary of the Bay’ah Council. Politics were divided in his homeland. Some were happy about bin Laden’s death. Others thought of Yousef as necessary and needed. He was the new bin Laden. But even his supporters worried about how far he was willing to go. Yousef wanted a new pure Muslim state shaped out of the wilderness. It was an unpredictable event.

The Royal Saudi jet landed and taxied up to the general aviation terminal, where it parked in line with nearly a dozen other Gulfstreams, Boeing business jets, and Boeing 767s built as exclusive private aircrafts. A white GMC Yukon with two security escort vehicles were waiting as the jet pulled up. One of the escort Humvees was topless with a machine gun and gunner in the back. The vehicles cut across the city on the multilaned King Fahd Highway, flying at breakneck speed as they cut from lane to lane. The highway was tiered with four lanes above and four lanes below. Yousef looked up as the drivers of the cars in the lanes above stared down when they heard the sirens. The city was far more tense than the city he knew as a child. It seemed on edge.

The security escorts peeled off as the Yukon entered the grounds of the palace of the secretary. As a member of the Bay’ah Council, the secretary was one of the most powerful men on earth. In 2006, by royal decree, King Abdullah had carved into stone the creation of a new Bay’ah Council, a council with virtually unlimited power. It would choose the next ruler of the kingdom, who would control well over 25 percent of the world’s oil. And the Council not only chose the next king. It would also determine who would never be king.

The kingdom had struggled for years after a stroke had incapacitated the former crown prince. On several occasions, the power struggle almost erupted into bloodshed. The sons of the House of Saud realized that the incapacitation caused as much risk to the stability of Saudi Arabia as any war. Much depended now on the Council’s judgment, wisdom, and speed.

“As sala’amu alaikum,” the secretary greeted Yousef at the entrance, below a high arch of white stone and a stained-glass ceiling. Waterfalls on both sides of the entrance gave a backdrop of sound that was almost deafening. To the desert, it was a commodity far rarer than oil.

“Walaikum as sala’am.”

Yousef knew the secretary from their days at elementary school many decades ago. Now they were both middle-aged men. The secretary, however, was dressed in one of his bespoke suits. Gieves & Hawkes provided a private tailor from Savile Row to visit him regularly twice a year. His face was full and round, unlike his distant cousin’s bony face, and his beard neatly trimmed. He had the sweet smell of Grafton, a London gentlemen’s aftershave, along with tobacco.

Yousef, relegated to playing the poor country cousin, smiled to himself at the thought of their respective, starkly separate worlds.

“Come with me, Cousin.”

Yousef knew the secretary was being generous in calling him cousin. He could have called him brother, as in the Muslim faith, but it would have had less of a meaning than cousin. He led him through the hallway, across a vast room with red and gold carpets and Louis XV–styled, gold-trimmed settee sofas and chairs, to a sitting area that looked out over a garden that extended for hundreds of meters.

Yousef felt no pangs of envy as he absorbed the surroundings. Yes, all the comforts of the modern world were available if he simply chose another way. But he had chosen his path years ago and his mind was clear. Muhammad had lived a simple life. And so would Yousef.

“Congratulations on your being named secretary.” Yousef suspected that his cousin knew how much he despised him.

“Yes, it is a great honor, but there are always complications.”

“I heard.” Yousef knew that despite the fact that the thirty-five members of the Bay’ah Council were all brothers and sons of brothers, the stakes were too high for politics not to play a part. Thirty-five sons and grandsons of Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz were given the power to select the next ruler from a list of three provided by their king. They also had the power to reject the choices. Without doubt, the one selected would be a son of Aziz. It stood to be a battle of epic proportions. And the battlefield was starting to take shape.

The play to become king required the utmost balancing act of interests. Like the selection of the next pope by the Vatican Council, the early candidates polarized the votes and rarely succeeded. Now, with the death of bin Laden, the princes that supported moving the world by violence had been left without an antagonist.

“I was saddened,” said Yousef, “by the cowardly attack in Pakistan.”

The secretary nodded.

“Do not wonder, Cousin. When the day ends and the sun sets, a new Muslim state will rise to vanquish the infidels.”

Yousef watched the secretary for his reaction. He knew perfectly well that the secretary and those on the Council considered Yousef a dangerous weapon, capable of doing far more harm than good, as far as they were concerned. Rumor had said for some time that Yousef was bent upon being the father of a new Muslim state to be carved out of the western provinces of Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Many believed that a new state would begin a rallying call for fundamentalism in the Muslim faith. It would serve as the anchor. It would be a challenge to the constantly Westward-leaning House of Saud. If it hadn’t seemed such a ridiculous long shot, Yousef knew, the House of Saud would have acted overtly against him, not simply banished him from the country. But his dream of forming a fundamentalist Muslim state was considered, at best, a long-shot lottery ticket. Now, with the constant strikes on the al-Qaeda leadership, a vacuum had opened up.

“You are an ambitious man,” said the secretary at last, showing no emotional reaction whatsoever.

“You have said that before.”

It was not meant to be a compliment.

“No one has ever doubted you, Yousef.” The secretary stood up, signaling the end of the meeting. He signaled for his servant with the wave of his hand. “Oh, by the way, Saudi Aramco informs me that it is best that we reduce our production.”

“Yes?”

“The production of El Haba will need to be tightened.”

Yousef frowned at the thought of his family’s income being reduced, especially as a childishly punitive measure.

“I’m afraid that we all must sacrifice some, my cousin.”

Yousef bit his tongue and nodded. The message had been sent and there was no point in quarreling about it now.

The secretary turned to face Yousef squarely. “Our stability here relies upon the stability of the American market.”

So that was it? Yousef had been summoned to receive a warning against reacting too severely to the attacks on the al Queda leadership—against carrying out any major, anti-American operation before the Council had finished its byzantine maneuvering and named a successor?

“I understand.” Yousef acknowledged the warning without agreeing in any way. “Are we finished?”

“While you are here, you must go by your father’s home.”

“There is nothing there for me.”

“My brother, Riyadh will always be your home. Do not turn your back on it.”