70

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA

By 3 p.m., the Boeing 757 had touched down in the kingdom’s second largest city.

Nestled on the eastern shores of the glistening Red Sea, King Abdulaziz International Airport was the gateway to Mecca, Islam’s most sacred jewel, the destination of millions of pilgrims every year, only an hour’s drive away. The sky was blue. The temperature was eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit, and there was a lovely breeze coming in off the water. It was no wonder, then, that the crown prince had already moved his family and staff here and taken up residence in his summer palace. Back in Riyadh, it was a sizzling 107 degrees in the shade with no breeze whatsoever.

The American secretary of state, however, paid scant attention to the weather or the view as she stepped onto the tarmac and was whisked into the backseat of a black bulletproof Lincoln Navigator by her security detail. She was only going to be on the ground in Jeddah a mere two hours. By nightfall, she would be dining with the king of Bahrain in downtown Manama. By breakfast the following morning, she would be in Abu Dhabi, and then it was off to Cairo and Amman.

The motorcade of four identical American-made SUVs was flanked by police cars, a phalanx of motorcycles, and several vehicles from the Office of Royal Protocol. They roared off the airport grounds and in short order arrived at the Al-Salam Royal Palace and entered through the western gate.

Meg Whitney had spent the drive buried in her briefing book. Now, however, she looked up, removed her reading glasses, and remembered what Special Agent Geoff Stone had told her over the phone before she had taken off. It was on this spot, just a few years before, that a twenty-eight-year-old homegrown Saudi terrorist by the name of Mansour al-Amri had launched a brazen attack, jumping out of a Hyundai and opening fire with a Kalashnikov, killing two palace guards and wounding three others before being cut down himself in a hail of gunfire. Whitney had not exactly understood why the head of her detail was telling her this, especially since Stone wasn’t coming with her, and she told him as much.

“I’m telling you, Madam Secretary, because you need to understand something about the crown prince,” Stone had replied.

“And what’s that?” she had asked.

“Well, let me say up front that I’m making no assessment of his politics or even his policies,” Stone had replied. “I just think it’s critical that you understand what drives the man.”

“Fair enough,” Whitney had said. “What does?”

“I’ve studied His Royal Highness very closely since the mess in Jerusalem not so long ago,” Stone had explained. “And I’ve come to believe he wakes up every morning asking himself three questions. The first is—How do I not die? The first Arab leader to make peace with Israel was Anwar Sadat, and he was assassinated by Egyptian radicals in 1981. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin made peace with Jordan and signed the Oslo Accords with Yasser Arafat, and then he was assassinated by an Israeli radical in 1995. Is the Saudi crown prince really ready to finalize a deal with Israel? He hasn’t yet. Maybe he will. But the incident at the western gate of the very palace you’re going to be visiting is a reminder. The radicals will never accept peace with Israel, and they are gunning for anyone who moves in that direction.”

Agent Stone had paused a moment to let that point sink in, then moved on.

“Second, the crown prince asks himself, How can I protect myself and my kingdom from external threats like Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, ISIS, and a list of others that goes on and on? Obviously he’s deeply concerned about Iran getting the Bomb and the long-range missiles to deliver them as far as the United States. And just as obviously he’s worried about Iran funding, training, arming, and directing proxy forces like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. Ideally, he would love to dramatically strengthen and solidify his strategic alliance with us. Signing a peace deal with the Israelis would go a long way in helping achieve that. But as you well know, there are grave risks that even engaging in peace talks with the Israelis will cause his external enemies to become even more hostile, more aggressive, more willing to use their missile forces to decimate the Saudi oil fields and refineries. Are there benefits to the kingdom to making peace with Jerusalem? Yes. But there are very serious risks as well, and you can be sure that the crown prince—and his father—are weighing them all.”

“And the third?” Whitney had asked.

“Every day the crown prince wakes up asking himself, How do I fundamentally transform the Saudi economy before the oil runs out? He’s got a very ambitious plan to wean the kingdom off its dependence on oil revenue. But to get it done, he desperately needs foreign direct investment, foreign technology, foreign trade, and a flood of foreign tourists from all over the world. Peace and stability help him achieve his goals. Another war in the region does not.”

As the motorcade pulled onto the grounds, Whitney found herself once again pondering these three questions. Geoff Stone was not one of her undersecretaries or even an assistant secretary. He was not an ambassador or part of her Bureau of Intelligence and Research or even on her Policy Planning Staff. He was a member of the Diplomatic Security Service, typically seen and not heard and rarely noticed even if he was seen. Yet in a single phone call, Stone had given her more insight into the future king of Saudi Arabia than anyone on her staff. How was that possible? And why wasn’t he with her now?