“Tea?”
“No, thank you,” I said, gesturing away the young man. Winters sat across from me, impeccably groomed and dressed in Jermyn Street’s finest bespoke cloth. So was I. The tailor had finished with the suit an hour ago, and we’d come straight here. Even my new Berluti leather shoes were so au courant they hadn’t yet come into fashion. I can’t lie. It felt good, especially after four months of living in the dirt.
I’d had a good dinner after the private jet landed, six fingers of Woodford Reserve in a “sky bar” at a five-star London hotel, and, most important, a good night’s sleep on five-hundred-thread-count sheets and three pillows. I’d had a good shit, shower, and shave, in that order, making me feel like a new man. No one would have guessed I had been fighting a battle in the Jazira desert almost exactly twenty-four hours before. I suppose that was the point.
“Try the tea,” Winters said. “It is quite good, and we may be here awhile.”
The small antechamber was richly appointed with upholstered chairs, a Qom rug from ancient Iran, oil paintings, an eighteenth-century chandelier, and a marble fireplace. It was perfectly quiet save the tick tock of a grandfather clock somewhere downstairs.
“The scones are dry to my taste,” Winters added, offering me the plate.
“No thanks.”
The music from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice stuck in my brain, a running theme since I’d boarded the Gulfstream back at Camp Speicher. It was Dukas’s orchestral fantasy, based on Goethe’s poem, about a student wizard who tries to imitate his master and nearly dies from his arrogance. Faced with endless chores like fetching water, the young apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him. It works, until the apprentice realizes he never fully learned how to un-enchant the broom. Even Mickey Mouse knew the feeling. And yet few, I kept reminding myself, could avoid the pitfalls.
Nine gongs of the grandfather clock. Nine o’clock. Outside, London plodded along in a morning rush hour rain, the damp and rheumy opposite of the dry desert heat. Eventually, the large pocket doors slid open.
“Mr. Winters,” an Indian gentleman said. He looked healthy, happy, and put together by a valet.
“Kabir,” Winters said, rising to shake hands. He didn’t introduce me, and Kabir didn’t ask. He barely looked my way. It was only after I’d followed on Winters’s heel that I realized the young man serving tea had followed on mine.
The private office looked extracted from a Pall Mall social club circa 1850. Lit portraits hung from crown molding along red silk damask walls and oak paneling. Floor-to-ceiling windows with polished brass fixtures and frothy curtains overlooked an English garden. A four-tier crystal chandelier hung from a twelve-foot coffered ceiling, and wall-to-wall Persian carpets obscured the parquet floor. Decanters lined a credenza near a Venetian marble fireplace. At the far end of the room sat an enormous carved desk that could have been plucked from the lord chancellor’s personal office.
We took the leather chairs across from it, as Kabir seated himself behind the desk.
“Tea?” he asked, as the young man slid to the silver set on the credenza. He poured carefully and stirred in a cube of sugar. He was late twenties, dressed in Savile Row with ostentatious pinstripes. It struck me that he wasn’t a manservant, as I had assumed, but Kabir’s protégé. He took a seat in the back, eyeing me silently as he passed.
“Prince Khalid has been arrested,” Winters said. “Prince Abdulaziz has accused him of trying to buy a nuclear weapon in a palace coup attempt.”
“What is Khalid saying?”
“Nothing. He is in Abdulaziz’s black cells. If he meets an unfortunate accident, there will be trouble, but many will understand. A man is not fully in control when his two sons and heirs have been recently murdered, especially a man like Abdulaziz. The evidence, when it comes to the nuclear deal, will point to Khalid.”
Kabir nodded. “And Farhan’s death?”
“Unfortunate. He was a troubled boy, but not the first prince to join the extremists. It is the death of the other son, Mishaal, who perished mysteriously in a Mabahith prison, that will hang Khalid . . . although a hanging will most likely be unnecessary.”
It occurred to me these men were casually discussing the framing of an innocent man, while drinking tea, no less. In some other state, it sounded as if this Khalid was powerful. In his home, at least, he must have been loved. In this office, he was merely a convenient prop.
“And the . . . key?” Kabir asked.
“I have it,” Winters said.
“In your possession?”
“No, but I will have it soon.”
I fought the urge to speak up. I expected him to reference me, or simply to look in my direction, but neither man seemed aware I was in the room. It was clear that, like Kabir’s protégé in the back, my job was to listen and learn. So many brooms to control. So much sweeping.
“That was a clusterfuck,” Kabir said suddenly, dropping the uptight British tone. I didn’t know if that was for Winters or for me, but it was startling. “I don’t expect to ever be put in that position again.”
“All’s well that ends well,” Winters said.
“No, it’s not. Shoddy practices make shoddy partners.”
Winters hesitated. He looked contrite, but I could see the act. “You’re right, of course, Kabir. It was a clusterfuck, as you so accurately put it. But the crisis was averted, Abdulaziz has been managed, and the Saudis won’t go looking for nukes again in our lifetime, not after this . . . clusterfuck. Bagging that madman Khalid, and pushing our chosen faction closer to the throne: that was a stroke of genius.”
“And luck.”
“They go together, of course.”
Kabir laughed. He couldn’t keep his anger. He was too relieved. In fact, for British aristocracy, he was positively giddy. The knot around his neck must have been quite tight before Brad Winters cut him free. “Mr. Winters,” he said, “you are certainly confident. I will give you that.”
“I’m an American,” Winters replied. “Confidence is our greatest quality.”