Brad Winters knew it was trouble the moment he entered Abdulaziz’s office. The man was trying too hard to look calm. The two guards on the door were too alert, aware this wasn’t a typical meeting. Winters pulled on his suit lapel to straighten it and brushed lint from his sleeve. He took a seat. He had considered the angles in the car ride over. He had been considering them since the moment Farhan disappeared in Istanbul. Talk wasn’t cheap. Talk made deals. It ran the world. Today, he sensed, talk would have to save his life. Fine. He was ready. This is what he did better than anyone in the world.
“Farhan has escaped,” Abdulaziz said, coming straight to the point.
“Maybe.”
“So you know. You don’t deny it. You had men in Sinjar. They participated in a firefight against my men.”
“The fog of war.”
The prince pounded his fist on his desk. “I told you to stay out of Iraq.”
“I told you I didn’t like that idea.”
“I didn’t hire you to think,” Abdulaziz said.
“Then you shouldn’t have hired me at all,” Winters replied calmly. His honesty had the prince off balance; now he had to push him the right amount to tip him over.
“No, Mr. Winters, I shouldn’t have. But mistakes can be corrected. No loose ends, as you always say. Above all else, this operation stays confidential.”
Winters knew the guards were in position to grab him, but he also knew Abdulaziz wouldn’t shoot him here, on his million-dollar rug. He had black torture cells for that.
“I agree. Those responsible for the debacle should die,” Winters said. The prince stared, wrong-footed again. “But it was not my men who made the mistake.”
“They killed my team.”
“But Farhan wasn’t there. You understand that, right? Your son was not in the building when the assault took place.” Abdulaziz clearly didn’t know, so Winters pressed on. “He had help. It was a ruse, allowing your son to escape through a secret exit in the floor. Your men had already let him escape, before they met their unfortunate demise.”
“They could have caught him. He couldn’t have gone far.”
“Agreed. Farhan is still in Sinjar. My men will apprehend him, and kill whoever is helping him.”
“Your men shouldn’t be in Sinjar,” Abdulaziz thundered, bashing his fist on his desk again. “I said I would take responsibility for my son.”
“This isn’t about your son.”
Abdulaziz started to object, but Winters cut him off.
“This is about nuclear weapons, Prince Abdulaziz. It’s not about managing your personal affairs. You want to keep your family together. You want to hide the fact that both your sons are a disgrace. You want to keep your high treason a secret. But the Americans know. They told me of their suspicions not one hour ago.”
Pause. Let him chew. Hit him again. “I don’t doubt your intentions, Prince. I know you and the Sudairi clan would never use a nuclear device. It is a deterrent against the Shia, a guarantee to keep the Kingdom safe. But what about the other side? What would Prince Khalid do, if he had the power? What would ISIS do, if your son gave them the ability to kill a hundred thousand people fifteen times over?”
Abdulaziz didn’t say anything.
“A hundred years ago, terrorists initiated World War I with a single assassination in Sarajevo. ISIS will do the same, except they will assassinate a whole city. Fifteen bombs, fifteen cities, fifteen mushroom clouds.”
Abdulaziz was seething.
“You care about your son, Prince, to the detriment of your judgment.” Winters leaned in. “I fear him.”
“I’ll shoot you in the face for this,” Abdulaziz growled angrily. “I’ll strangle your children.”
“Maybe. But I cannot sit aside while you let Farhan walk to the ISIS Caliphate with the key to a nuclear arsenal. I’m not going to wait while your son gives ISIS the power to destroy us all.”
“Farhan is changed.”
“Is that why he fled your men in Istanbul?”
“Do you think I’m a fool? I trusted him to exchange the $5 billion for the nuclear controller key. I trust his loyalty.”
“Do you trust him enough to risk the world? Because that’s the stakes.”
“I know my son,” Abdulaziz snarled.
But he glared at Winters, grinding his teeth. Winters could tell the man wanted to shoot him in the face, as promised. If they’d been in a torture cell, he might have done it. He was that angry. But a portion of that anger, Winters knew, was because he was right. It was foolish to trust Farhan with the world, and the prince knew it.
“This is not a game, Prince.”
“I never thought it was.”
“Then why did you send your boys to play it?”
Winters could tell from the expression on the prince’s face that the man was beat. He had come in blaming his American advisor, but Winters had turned him with the truth. The problem was his sons. Now the father was blaming himself. It was the leverage Winters needed.
“Who else could I trust?”
“I advised you against it. So did your majordomo.”
Abdulaziz looked away.
“I am doing this for my family,” he said. Winters knew this was a lie. Abdulaziz did everything for himself. He wanted to live on through the success of Farhan and Farhan’s sons and grandsons, so he had manipulated the boy and given him far too many chances. He believed that was love. “Would you not do everything for your sons?”
“It’s time to cut the ties,” Winters said. He had no sons. He didn’t share Abdulaziz’s weakness.
“It’s the Iranians,” the prince said, suddenly slamming his fist on his ornate gilt desk for the third time. “The Persians are behind this.”
Brad Winters relaxed, although not that anyone noticed. The dangerous part was over. He’d saved his own ass. But there was still hard work to do. “We have been over this, Prince Abdulaziz,” he said calmly. “It was not the Iranians. The original operation was too precise. The thieves knew where to hit Mishaal’s convoy. They knew when he would arrive. They knew what he was carrying. It was an inside job.”
“It was not Farhan,” Abdulaziz said, halfway between resignation and anger.
“Then it was the work of someone else with inside information, and surely you are not suggesting the Iranians have someone inside the upper level of the General Intelligence Directorate.”
“Of course not,” Abdulaziz barked. A castrated dog is still dangerous, maybe even more so, especially in the moments after the snip. Winters made sure not to forget that.
“Maybe it was the Pakistanis,” Abdulaziz suggested.
“It was not the Pakistanis. Why would they betray you? You framed it as an official back-channel request from the Saudi government. They have their money, and they have no incentive to renege. It was Farhan”—Abdulaziz growled, annoyed at Winters’s persistence—“or it was the Wahhabis.”
He let the suggestion hang in the air, hoping the choice between Farhan and the Wahhabi faction would pull the prince’s mind in the right direction.
“You know this is true, my Prince. They are inside the Saudi government, even on the security council. Their numbers are growing in the royal family, even among those near the throne. You know the Wahhabi faction wants their own king on the throne and hates what you stand for. They have eyes and ears everywhere. I realize this was your operation. I know it wasn’t sanctioned by your government. Believe me, I also take matters into my own hands, when the opportunity arises. Every good and important man does.”
He paused. We are the same, Prince, you and I.
“But the Wahhabis would sense things in motion. Prince Khalid . . . your abhorrent rival . . . is a Wahhabi sympathizer. The Mabahith would be the first to hear rumblings. Who else but Khalid would attempt to intercept the nukes instead of exposing you? Only a savvy prince. A brilliant prince. You would do it that way yourself, if the Wahhabis were planning a similar move.”
Winters paused again. Flattery will get you everywhere, especially with princes.
“Khalid,” Abdulaziz hissed.
“The Paris convoy was hit by a secret faction within the Mabahith, operating illegally outside the Kingdom. They stole the nuclear weapons controller from Mishaal. Last night, they acquired Farhan’s key.”
Abdulaziz started to object.
“Surely they were the ones helping Farhan escape, my prince, which means Khalid’s men also have your son.”
Winters said it softly, as if he hated the obvious. He knew this was delicate. The prince might crack, or swerve in the wrong direction.
“Impossible,” Abdulaziz said.
“Not if Khalid has infiltrated your inner circle.”
“My inner circle is impenetrable.”
“No circle is impenetrable.”
Abdulaziz shook his head. “I pick my men when they are pups, and hand-feed them until they are wolves, loyal only to me.”
“It is the only plausible explanation.”
“My circle is tight.”
“What about these guards?” Winters said.
The prince looked at them, hesitated. “My circle is tight,” he repeated. “Even these guards have proven their loyalty to me time and again. I trust them because I’ve tested them. I test everyone, Mr. Winters. Except, of course . . . you.”
“Finally,” Winters said, with exaggerated exasperation, “you are beginning to think. Everyone is suspect. Everyone. Don’t think I haven’t wondered if you are playing a back door game.”
Abdulaziz laughed harshly. Winters had knocked him off track again. “There is nothing in it for me,” he said.
“True. But what about the majordomo?”
“He is a son to me,” Abdulaziz snapped.
“He wanted to be a son to you. You turned him away.”
Winters saw the recoil in the old man’s eyes, the moment of doubt. He’d hit his mark. Never underestimate the importance of due diligence.
“No,” Abdulaziz said. “No. He is loyal to me. He is my right hand.”
Abdulaziz stopped.
“Have you spoken to him since last night?” Winters asked calmly. He had received a call from the Apollo team just after midnight. He knew what Campbell had seen, that the majordomo was dead, and he had made an educated guess on the rest: that Locke had outsmarted them all.
“Your majordomo is not a traitor,” Winters said. “He is dead. Killed last night in Iraq.”
Abdulaziz breathed deeply, and Winters saw his anger and despair. Despite turning away the marriage proposal, the old man had cared for his majordomo.
“Your men killed him,” the prince muttered.
“No. It was another.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He left only one message. Al-kafir mmayit.”
“‘The infidel is dead,’” Abdulaziz said.
“ISIS,” Winters muttered.
“Or Khalid,” the prince replied, and Winters’s heart did a triumphant backflip. Abdulaziz had reached Winters’s own conclusion, as planned. The prince would never doubt him now.
“Or the two of them, together,” Winters added.
They sat in silence, letting that possibility percolate. The Saudi Wahhabis were Sunni fanatics who agreed with ISIS in principle, if not always in practice. They were the group’s primary financial backers. Winters had never, in his most optimistic scenarios, thought such titanic screwups would accrue to his advantage quite like this.
“We have to call it off,” Abdulaziz said suddenly. “If Khalid is involved, the Wahhabis are too close and the danger too great. We need to wait. Send the nukes back to Pakistan. Try again later.”
“There is no later,” Winters said. “The operation is in play. The Pakistanis won’t trust you again. The ship is en route. All this work—”
“The work is meaningless. We have to protect the Kingdom.”
“The Americans know, Prince Abdulaziz. The Americans know a deal has been made. They have informed people in your government. Worse, Khalid has stolen both nuclear controllers. He can hang you for the Pakistan deal.”
“Then I must inform my government. Cut my losses.”
“No, Prince, you must go forward. Victory is the only way to save your neck, and it is within your grasp. If everything goes right, I might even be able to save your son.”