69

 

The White House

Washington, DC

President Camara always had a difficult time sleeping, but especially at times such as this. So it was almost a welcome relief to see the soft red light glowing on the phone beside his bed. He glanced over at his wife to make sure he wasn’t disturbing her, then answered the call.

“Mr. President, I’m sorry to disturb you,” General Alton said. “But you’d asked to be briefed when we had news about Nash Lee.”

“Yes, is he all right?” The president was accustomed to receiving bad news. But he fervently hoped that was not the case here.

“He’s fine,” Alton reported. “In fact, we just heard from Ambassador Lee. Nash called his father from the helicopter shortly after it left the grounds of the king’s palace. He was accompanying Prince Abdul.”

Camara sat up in bed. “Abdul? What does he have to do with any of this?”

“Well, there’s been some other news, which will break over there shortly as the day starts there. They’re making Abdul the new foreign minister. Prince Muhammad, the governor of Mecca, is now the minister of interior. And Saud has stepped aside. Natal is the new crown prince.”

Camara smiled. So Susan Wright had called it from the beginning. The grandsons were, in fact, taking power in the kingdom. Natal was a wild card, and he wondered how that might play out.

“But Nash is fine? I can cross that off my list of worries?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what of the Day of Anger protests today? Can we help? Do we have folks in place? What about other parts of the world, in case this spills over?”

“We have ships to the east and west of Saudi Arabia, on both coasts—the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf,” Alton said. “But you do realize that we can’t help the Saudis? This is their fight. We can’t do much else except observe.”

“I understand. But I’m still glad they’re close by. If the Saudis ask for our help, we’ll be nearby.”

The president closed his eyes, wondering what the world might look like soon. Light was starting to peek over the horizon and work its way into the bedroom. He decided that the night was over. It was time to work on a speech he was considering to a secret joint session of Congress. Whether he gave such a speech would depend on events.

“Thank you, General Alton,” the president said. “Call if you have any other news.”