66
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
It had clearly been a long, difficult night for the young American. Nash’s clothes were rumpled. His hair was unkempt. The bottom half of his face was dark from two-day-old stubble. He’d been forced to sleep in the conference room. His jacket was folded on top of the backpack that he’d tried to use as a pillow on the hard floor.
“I am so very sorry, Nash. I truly am,” Abdul apologized. “There is no justification for this.”
Nash stared back at the Saudi prince through haggard, bloodshot eyes. “These things happen. But a bed would have been nice,” he said with a lopsided grin. “This floor is awfully hard.”
Abdul extended a hand. “You are a good soul, my friend. You have a marvelous spirit of adventure and goodwill about you. That anyone could smile under such circumstances…”
“Hey, it’s fine. Really. I’ve slept in some pretty awful places before. I once had to spend the night in a phone booth in London for an entire evening while it poured down rain. And I spent the night behind the furnace in a boiler room at an apartment complex in Paris.” Nash glanced down at the hard floor and then the backpack he’d been forced to use as his pillow. “So this is a piece of cake. I got a few hours of sleep.”
“I have come to tell you that you are free to leave,” Abdul said. “You have my sincerest apologies. You should never have been detained. It is not the way we do things here.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. But I’m curious. Who did you speak to about this before you came here? King Faisal? Prince Natal? The crown prince?”
Abdul studied Nash. This young American knew more than he was letting on. He was not asking out of idle curiosity. Abdul wondered what exactly had transpired in this room over the previous twelve hours.
“I met with the king,” Abdul said. “In fact, I just came from his quarters.”
Faisal had been polite but circumspect. He’d confirmed to Abdul that Natal was now the crown prince, that it would be announced within the hour in advance of the Day of Anger protests, and that the move was part of an effort leading to a new change in the country’s leadership.
Abdul knew that it would not mollify those who’d begun to identify with the protests in the kingdom. Replacing one elderly crown prince with another member of the House of Saud from the same generation was cosmetic, at best. But he kept his own counsel and simply informed Faisal that he intended to meet with Nash and allow him to leave the king’s palace. Faisal had not objected.
“And the king has said I may leave now?” Nash asked.
“He did. I am here to make certain of that. I will escort you personally from the grounds.”
“And Natal? What did he have to say?”
Abdul hesitated but only for a moment. There was no reason not to tell Nash about the transfer of power. He would learn of it from the news reports shortly anyway. “Natal is the new crown prince. He is on his way to Mecca even as we speak, to meet with the governor of Mecca about the transition.”
The news did not seem to surprise Nash. “This happened last night?”
“Yes. It will be announced shortly.”
“I see,” Nash said. “And it’s done? Natal is the crown prince, next in line to become king?”
“Yes, it is done. But the intention is to make it quite clear that the governor of Mecca, Prince Muhammad, is to become the next king. Natal is crown prince for only a time, through the transition.”
Nash stood. He made a quick, intuitive decision, based on this news. It was a risk—but one he felt confident in taking. He trusted this man.
Natal had already orchestrated one attack against a rival for the crown, on American soil. And it appeared he might be poised to do so again, this time in a place where many battles for control of Arab lands had taken place throughout history.
“Prince Abdul,” he said, “you and I need to talk—but not here, and not in the king’s palace.”
“Where, then?”
“On our way to Mecca. And it is important we get there quickly.”
“Why?”
“I will explain on the way,” he concluded mysteriously. “So are you with me? May we leave?”
Abdul made his own quick decision. There was something about this young American that he liked. He nodded, turned to the door, and beckoned to the guard to allow them to leave. Abdul led Nash through the various corridors that wound through the king’s palace and to the outer courtyard.
Neither spoke as they walked. Abdul made one call to his aide, who arranged for a helicopter to meet them in the courtyard. They were on their way to Mecca in a matter of minutes. And once they were away from the king’s palace and airborne, Nash began to talk.
By the time they’d arrived in Mecca, Nash had given the same information to Prince Abdul that his staff had delivered to NSA and then the White House the night before.
It would be a long, uncertain day in the kingdom.