TWENTY-SIX
The man who had adopted the code name Tarik landed at Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, just west of his own homeland of the UAE, on an Airbus Citation executive jet owned by his father. He and his four personal security men, all men with significant combat experience, easily passed through customs on a diplomatic passport, and then they were met by a driver outside the VIP arrivals lounge.
The doors to the silver Bentley were open, and the five men climbed in, along with the driver.
The Bentley rolled down B Ring Road, its chrome radiating the noonday Doha sun. The temperature was already one hundred six degrees, and not a single cloud provided any coverage over the city.
Sultan al-Habsi rode in the backseat, his mind shifting between his operation in Berlin and the events that would transpire here in the next hour. If he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that, with all the dangers and risk of failure and the ticking clocks of Berlin, he was more frightened about Doha right now.
His trepidation only increased when the Bentley made a right off B Ring, and more so when it made another right onto Al Khudri Street. And by the time the sleek silver vehicle pulled into the parking garage of the Apollo Cancer Center, Doha, al-Habsi could feel his heart pound while rivulets of perspiration ran down his temples past his ears.
He was led into a private VIP hospital entrance by doctors who met the Bentley in the garage, and then he was taken, surrounded by the doctors and his assemblage of bodyguards, directly to the sixth floor, where he was express-laned past two dozen other people waiting to see patients in the ICU.
Outside a door he was handed a mask and given brief but detailed instructions, going over what was about to happen. He listened distractedly, took slow and measured breaths to control his anxiety, and then closed his eyes to steady his brain an instant.
He opened them, nodded resolutely to the doctors, and a door slid open. The small entourage walked down a hall, past examination rooms, and then finally to the door of the cancer ward’s ICU.
Al-Habsi moved more slowly with each step; he had to will himself into the room indicated by the doctor with the mask over his face.
Inside, an old man lay on a hospital bed, a catheter reservoir hanging from the side. There was an oxygen tube in his nose, an IV PICC line in his arm, and various medicines and other chemicals dripping into him. His eyes were open and alert; he looked towards Sultan, but no expression could be discerned from the white-bearded man’s face.
Sultan stepped in closer, all the doctors and bodyguards waited outside, and the door was pulled shut behind him.
The younger man spoke first. “Waladi.” My father.
The old man regarded him for a time, no real excitement or emotion to speak of, and then he said, “My son.”
“How are they treating you?”
Sultan’s father coughed, and heavy congestion was evident in his chest. When he recovered, he just shrugged a little and said, “They’re Qataris,” as if that said it all.
The son came closer still, marveling that all the color had left his father’s face, and his previously jaundiced eyes were now even more yellow. He said, “This hospital, these doctors, they are the best in the region. We could have gone to the U.S. and perhaps your care would have been even—”
“I’ll happily die in Qatar before I go to the Americans.”
Sultan held in a sigh; he never showed frustration with his father. He pivoted and said, “No one is going to die anytime soon.”
The father looked away. “I thought you were an intelligence officer. Surely you can pick up some intel from everything you see around you.”
“Well, I spoke with the doctors, and the chemotherapy is—”
“Enough!” The old man, even racked with cancer and on his deathbed, remained psychologically stronger willed than his younger, robust son, and both men knew it.
Sheikh Rashid al-Habsi was the crown prince of all the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of the Emirate of Dubai. He’d not made it to where he was by closing his eyes to reality. And he’d not raised a son and placed him, covertly, high in the nation’s intelligence services, only to have him come see him on his deathbed and spew worthless lies about his condition.
Before Sultan could speak, Sheikh Rashid said, “I wanted one thing from you when you were a child. I wanted you to become a religious scholar.” He licked his dry lips. “And you failed me.”
Sultan nodded with his eyes lowered. He’d heard this before. He said, “But I felt—”
His father interrupted him. “And then, when you were grown, I wanted one thing from you again. I made you a deputy of my nation’s intelligence apparatus with one mission, one mission only.” The man’s hazy eyes cleared a little. “To protect our people.”
The father sighed now. “And you have failed me again.”
“No, I have not. I’m on the cusp of success. I just need—”
“What was it I told you I wanted to see in my lifetime?”
“You wanted to see the overthrow of the mullahs in Iran.”
Rashid nodded; it looked like it took significant strength to do so. “A lofty wish, I know, but I put my own trusted son in a position where he could make that happen. You were the one who went to America, you were the one the CIA and the president trusted, you were the one given the training, the inside contacts, the resources, the funds.”
“Sahih.” True, allowed Sultan.
“And what did you do with everything bestowed on you, with one mission to accomplish? You fought Iranian proxies in Yemen, along with your two brothers. Yemen! Houthi rebel savages doing the bidding of Tehran, but so far removed from Tehran that you could slay every single one of them and not damage the mullahs in the least.”
Sultan was about to respond to this when his father said, “And when your two brave brothers came home in bags, you shifted your focus to fucking European sanctions. You, Sultan, are a fool. I had three sons. Two are dead, martyred, and one is a disappointment and a failure.”
Sultan hated his father. Sultan loved his father.
He tried to get through to him. “What I am doing has nothing to do with sanctions.”
Sheikh Rashid sniffed. “You don’t think I have my own people still? You don’t think I can’t simply lift this phone by the bed and know exactly what you are doing? All those people at SIA who swear allegiance to you only do so because they have sworn allegiance to me. Are you too thick to see that?”
“No. But I have hidden my aims from everyone in SIA. I am working with my partners in Europe to achieve my objective, but even they do not grasp what is in store.”
“Your partners in Europe?”
“Nem.” Yes.
The milky eyes of the man lying in bed narrowed a bit. For the first moment since Sultan al-Habsi’s arrival, he felt like his father was actually listening to him.
Then the old man turned his head away again. “Your plan, no matter how good you say it is, is irrelevant to me, as I will not live to see it.”
“You will, Father. I promise you will. You can see all my . . . our hard work come to fruition.”
“When?”
Sultan smiled now. “Tomorrow night, it begins, I swear it.”
Sheikh Rashid al-Habsi, prime minister of the UAE, gave off no obvious emotion, but Sultan had become an expert at reading his father’s subtle signs.
There was hope in him. Mistrust of his son’s abilities, but hope that he was wrong, and Sultan left his meeting ebullient.
Minutes later al-Habsi passed his father’s guards and minders, passed the doctors, without speaking to them. There was an intense spring in his step, and even his own personal protection detail had to struggle to keep up with him.
As they all stepped into the elevator, he said one word to his entourage, though that one word was packed with purpose, determination, and satisfaction.
“Berlin.”