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The Saudis were going to abandon the peace process.
And the prince was about to give her an earful about Israeli “aggression” in southern Lebanon.
Whitney knew what was coming. But it hurt all the same. She and the president and their team had invested so much in helping forge the first new full-fledged Arab-Israeli peace treaty in over a quarter of a century. She could not bear to see everything fall apart now, and all because of an obvious Iranian plot to sabotage the talks.
“What kind of news?” she asked, as calmly as she could.
“It’s from one of our sources.”
Whitney was confused. “Your sources?”
“Yes.”
“In Tehran?”
“Yes.”
“Inside the palace?”
“Close enough.”
“And?”
“And our source says the balance of power has just shifted.”
The prince was delaying the inevitable. Still, the secretary went with it for now. “Shifted?”
“Dramatically.”
“How so?”
“The commander of the Revolutionary Guards—”
“General Entezam.”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“Apparently he has secretly thrown his support behind a new contender.”
“Who?”
“Afshar.”
“Yadollah Afshar?”
“Yes.”
“The president of Iran?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’m afraid so,” said the crown prince. “It won’t be known publicly for several weeks while the country mourns. But when it is announced, when it actually comes to pass, it will be a disaster for you and for us.”
The two were silent for some time. Whitney was trying to take in the full measure of the catastrophe and comprehend just how deeply Saudi intelligence had penetrated the highest echelons of the Iranian regime.
“Yadollah Afshar is not just a hard-liner,” the crown prince continued. “He’s a genuine Twelver—and that doesn’t even begin to explain the full situation. He’s a fanatic, really. He talks all the time about preparing for the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi. He is leading the effort to build Iran’s nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver them against your country and mine, to say nothing of the Israelis. He doesn’t simply believe the Hidden Imam is about to reveal himself or that the Caliphate is about to rise. He can’t think or talk about anything else. We have recordings of him. Intercepted phone calls. Text messages. Letters. Speeches. Afshar speaks not just of conquering Christendom and Israel and our kingdom. He speaks of annihilating us all. Annihilation. That’s the word he uses again and again.”
“That’s crazy—that will never happen,” Whitney protested. “The assembly would never choose him.”
“Why not?”
“Because they have never chosen a politician to be Supreme Leader.”
“Ah, but Afshar is a cleric,” the crown prince said. “He, too, was trained in a seminary—in Qom, by Ansari—and it makes perfect sense. Ansari treated him like a son, like a prince.”
“A crown prince?” Whitney asked.
The Saudi nodded, then grew even more somber. This was it, Whitney realized. She took a sip of tea, wiped her mouth with a linen napkin, folded her hands on her lap, and waited for the bomb to drop.
Yet to her amazement, it did not.
“We’re ready,” said the prince.
“For what?”
“To sign the treaty.”
“With Israel?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t understand,” Whitney said. “Why? And why now, after all your delays?”
“We only delayed in order to further lay the groundwork, to prepare our people,” Abdulaziz replied. “We could hardly be seen by our citizens or the Muslim world as rushing into this. We needed to be thoughtful and deliberative and appear that way. And we wanted to squeeze some more concessions from Mr. Eitan. Now we’ve done all that. Now the Terrible Tyrant of Tehran is dead and soon to be buried. And now the Iranians have once again launched a horrible war of aggression against Israel and against the people and leaders of the United States. They think we are going to be frightened off because of this. But just the opposite is true. Hezbollah’s action—at Iran’s direction—has emboldened us. It has shown the Saudi people—indeed, all the Arabs in the region—that unless we band together in an alliance of strength and unity, we will never stop Iran, and what they are doing to Israel they will then try to do to us. Madam Secretary, we have a window—a brief window—to define our future and that of the new Middle East, and we are ready to seize it. And we will.”
Whitney was so stunned, she said nothing.
“Do you think the president would be willing to host a signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House?” the prince asked.
The secretary pulled herself together. “I believe he would,” she replied. “How soon are you thinking?”
“How does next week sound to you?”
“Next week?”
“Next week.”
“Carpe diem?” She smiled.
“Carpe diem,” he said and smiled back.