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  “I’m sorry I asked,” he said. “I won’t bring it up again.”

  After a moment Sasha said, “Sometimes I feel like you’ve got a checklist.”

  “Checklist?”

  “You’re ticking off items each week, trying to convince yourself it’s okay to get involved with a woman who you consider sold her body.”

  He sat up in bed. “I never said that.”

  “Not in so many words. But for months you’ve been asking me about that life. Today you checked the box on teenage lovers. Then you hit the biggest box in the concubine/assassin column.” She was staring him down, her jaw clenched, angry, and yet felt tears coming at the same time.

  Saif let out a long sigh. “I don’t want to argue.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Tell me you love me,” he said.

  “What?” She felt her heart melt. Oh, God, do I? After thinking about this for so many months, did she want this?

  She grabbed his face, pulled it to her and kissed him. “Oh, darling, do you feel the same?”

  His smile told her, but she still needed to hear it. “I asked you first, sweetheart,” he said. Then: “Yes, I love you.

  It felt like an explosion of warmth in her heart. It was the first time a man had told her that. She pulled his face to hers, kissed him. “Oh, darling, I love you, too.”

  A month later, Sasha sat on the same bench in the botanical garden where Saif and she had talked on his first visit to the Royal Palace. Now the place always made her smile. It was the scent of the orchids here that inspired Saif to choose his nickname for her: Western Orchid. Her mind was twisting with thoughts, her emotions in a tangle. Her instincts told her it was all wrong with Saif. They seemed to be living a shadow life, eating alone in restaurants or in his hotel room, hardly ever going out in Riyadh during the days. She couldn’t complain about his attentiveness to her, or the urgency of his lovemaking, but they seemed to be living in a bubble, away from the rest of the world. He’d never taken her to Buraida, never introduced her to any of his friends, or even spoken of introducing her to his parents. She’d reached the point of wanting to introduce him to Yassar, but couldn’t bring herself to ask Saif because she sensed Saif wouldn’t hear of it.

  She realized it wasn’t all Saif’s doing. Aside from Nafta, one of her fellow concubines, and Yassar, she wasn’t close to anyone in Riyadh. So she wasn’t in a position to propose dinners or outings with other couples. She felt stuck, one leg in and then one leg out of her former life as a concubine. If there was a lack of complete fulfillment to her first love, it wasn’t something she could blame on Saif. She’d brought a lot of baggage to the table.

  Two weekends in a row, Sasha and Saif argued. On the first he left on Sunday afternoon, leaving Sasha with half-cooked kabsa on the hot plate. On the second, they went to bed on Sunday night not speaking to each other, and Saif got up early on Monday morning and left without awakening Sasha.

  Sasha went into the next weekend tentative. On Friday evening before Saif arrived, her emotions were raw. She paced in her room in the Royal Palace as she waited for him, thinking that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. She’d never had a serious relationship like this before, but this tension wasn’t bearable in the long term without clearing the air in some way.

  She was grateful that Saif insisted they eat out at a restaurant that night; it was less stressful than preparing the meal herself. They went back to the room and made love, Sasha giving herself to him as freely as ever. Afterward, she propped herself up on one elbow and said, “I’ve been upset all week. We’ve been fighting a lot and I can’t understand why. Is it you or me?”

  “I don’t think we can point fingers. I know I’ve been stressed. Part of the reason is I can’t find a job.”

  “I’d been meaning to ask you about that.”

  “You haven’t in weeks,” he said, sounding bitter.

  Sasha pulled her hand away, her feelings hurt. After a moment she said, “I’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about asking Yassar. He has a number of economists on his staff at the Ministry.”

  “I thought you said talking to Yassar about me was too sensitive a subject, given that I was involved when Nibmar and Ali were killed up in Buraida.”

  “I’ve told him all about you, and he’s even agreed to allow us to stay together in the Royal Palace.”

  Saif shrugged. “Great, so that’s one step closer to you asking him about me taking a job for him and the people that are running my father’s company out of business.”

  Sasha’s back stiffened. “That’s not fair. Yassar is doing all he can to support people like your father. He’s created a jobs program, he’s pushing for unemployment programs to tide people over until they’re on they’re feet again, and his Ministry is sponsoring educational loans.”

  “The royals are driving my father into his grave!”

  “Is Yassar responsible for anything done by any royal? You can’t lump them all together.”

  “Why not? They run everything. We’ve become a nation of haves and have-nots.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Ibrahim after Abdul and Waleed got to him.”

  Saif got out of bed and started pulling his clothes on. “Maybe I am. Maybe Ibrahim wasn’t brainwashed like you keep insisting. Maybe he finally saw the inequity and felt he had an obligation to do something about it.”

  “Starting with murdering his own father?”

  That shut him up. He paused, standing beside the bed, his pants halfway up, looking ridiculous. Sasha laughed at him. That made him angrier. He pulled his pants up and turned away from her as he started putting on his shirt.

  “So now you don’t just have a problem with me, you’ve got a problem with Yassar?”

  He spun around. “What do you mean, a problem with you?”

  “The problem you’ve always had, that I was a concubine. You’ve never gotten past it.”

  “Oh, so the subject is off-limits if I want to bring it up, but you can throw it out there any time you want?”

  “Admit it. You’ll never let yourself be with me in the long run,” she said, realizing she was having trouble using the right words, then pushing through it. “You’ll never marry me, because you think I was once a whore. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  He turned his back to her and continued dressing.

  Sasha’s stomach muscles tensed with rage. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me! I’m talking to you!”

  Saif spun around and glared at her, then turned back to face the wall again.

  “Get out!”

  Saif had finished dressing. He turned and said, “So now think you can throw me out of my own room?”

  “Get out of Riyadh and don’t come back!”

  “Oh, Little Miss Royal, banishing me from your capital.” He leered at her. “I’m going out for a while. When I come back to pick up my things, I’ll expect you to be gone.” He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  Sasha felt no urge to cry, but only a sense of liberation. You’re damn right I won’t be here when you get back.

  Archer said, “So that was it?”

  “I only wish it had been. It went on for months like that. In the end, he called me one week and said he was coming to Riyadh, staying at the Hilton as usual, as if nothing was amiss.”

  It was quiet in the restaurant, one Saif hadn’t taken her to before. The lights were low and they were playing American soft rock music on the speakers. It reminded her of one of the radio stations she’d heard in Paris. Trying to be cool, but five or six years behind the times. She figured it out before he started talking: a quiet, well-populated restaurant, where it would be difficult for either of them to start any fireworks.

  “How is your steak?” he asked.

  “A little overdone, but tolerable.”

  He looked concerned, more so than usual, as if making a display of it. “You want me to send it back?”

  Sasha didn’t look up from her plate. She shook
her head. She was waiting.

  After another minute or two he got around to it. “I think we should talk.”

  Now she looked up. “I gathered that’s why we’re here.” From the novels she’d read as a teenager, she felt as if her heart should be breaking, feeling some sense of agony. Nothing. She met his gaze, still waiting.

  “I think you would agree we’ve had some difficulties.”

  Sasha decided he should do this in his own time. She should neither push him nor drag it out. She nodded.

  “I’ve been very troubled over the last few months. I love you, you know that, but I just don’t think it’s working.”

  Now she felt a sagging sensation in her chest, as if she wanted him to hurry up, not so much for her, but to make it easier for him. She knew they were through, although she felt oddly detached from it.

  “I think we have too many differences. Too many incongruities.”

  The word struck her. She raised her eyebrows. “Incongruities?”

  “I mean, we’re from different worlds. Not just Buraida and Riyadh, but you’re a royal, I’m from the Shiite North, a working stiff, as the Brits would say it.” He smiled for the first time.

  Sasha smiled back, reached across the table for his hand. He started to pull away, but left it and she placed hers on top of his, squeezed it. “Go on,” she said, her eyes soft.

  “We have different opinions about things, too. You know I’ve been torn about my father’s business, and what that means in terms of where Saudi Arabia is going.” He looked down at his plate.

  She waited, and then when he didn’t continue, she said, “Saif, I’m not surprised by this. It’s okay.”

  He nodded without looking up, then raised his head and met her gaze. “I think we’ve reached the point where this isn’t going anywhere anymore. Regardless of how we both feel.”

  Now Sasha felt the pain in her chest, as if someone were stomping on her heart. She realized this wasn’t going to be easy for her. Still, she raised her chin and said, “I know.” She couldn’t help that her voice was trembling and tears started flushing into her eyes. She looked back down at her plate, carved another slice from her steak and put it into her mouth. They ate in silence for another ten minutes. Sasha noticed that the candle on the table had burned out, smelled the wax as the smoke from the extinguished flame wafted upward. She wondered if that scent would always remind her of tonight. She didn’t look up at Saif until the waiter came to clear their plates and asked if they wanted dessert. Saif waved him off. Now Saif’s face was somber, his eyes misty, too.

  They rode home in a cab to the Royal Palace in silence, holding hands. He kissed her, then said, “Good-bye, my Western Orchid.”

  She hugged him, her mouth pressed to his ear and whispered, “Good-bye, my love.”

  Tom checked his watch. It’d been forty-five minutes since he and Ryan had left the room to let Archer and Sasha talk. It’s time. He walked back to the door and knocked, then entered. Archer was hunched over at his end of the table, looking at Sasha like a stern teacher. Sasha looked pensive, maybe even upset. He saw her eyes were teary. What’s all this?

  Archer turned. “We’re just finishing,” he said.

  Tom walked to the center of the table and sat down. A moment later Ryan entered and sat across from him. Sasha was looking at Tom like maybe she was annoyed. “Everything okay?” he said to her.

  Sasha said, “As he said, we’re almost finished.”

  “What she means is, we’re getting through everything we need to, but we aren’t getting along very well.”

  Tom glanced at Archer, saw him look at Sasha.

  “Right?” Archer said to Sasha.

  Sasha said, “Let’s just say my new colleague is an animal.”

  “I’ve been called worse,” Archer said.

  “No doubt,” Sasha said.

  Tom looked back and forth at each of them, figuring he’d let them go on for a while if they needed to. Finally he said to Sasha, “All part of the process.”

  No one spoke for a few moments. Ryan cleared his throat, said, “Well,” and opened his mouth to speak. Tom shook his head at him. Ryan kept his mouth shut.

  After another moment, Archer turned to Tom and said, “I won’t do it. I won’t risk my life for some emotional woman seeking closure with her former lover. She’s living in the past. She doesn’t know Saif as he is today.”

  Tom glanced over at Sasha, saw her ball her hands into fists.

  Archer said, “Besides, you don’t have a plan. You expect me to bring her in to Saif with no idea what happens beyond that. It’s absurd.”

  Tom said, “That’s one of the reasons we’re here today. To start developing a plan.” He assumed that Sasha would have at least started working that out with Archer. Apparently not.

  Sasha said, “Once I get inside, I’ll improvise, as I always do.”

  “He’ll slit your throat, or cast you off to his men to do with you what they please.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sasha said.

  “I’m under deep cover, my life on the line. I’m not in a position to sit by and see if your sentimental notions of his memories of you as his lover cause him to spare your life.”

  “I’m not working off of sentimental notions.”

  Tom’s head was going back and forth to each of them as they spoke, like at a tennis match.

  Archer said, “I think perhaps you’ve lost your mind.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “No, we won’t. Because I’m not risking my life for you.”

  Tom looked at Sasha and said, “This is the one subject we haven’t talked about yet. What do you propose to do once you’re inside?”

  “I just told you, I’m not sure. I’ll improvise.” Her eyes were intense. “All that matters is that I kill him.”

  “You’re awfully confident,” Archer said.

  “I get that a lot.”

  Tom said, “You have to admit it’s thin. Risking your own life is one thing, asking Archer to risk his is another.”

  Sasha looked Tom in the eye. She said, “I haven’t told you everything. The shooter said something else to me other than Saif’s name. He said Saif wanted me back. He’s not going to kill me, or turn me over to his men for sport.”

  Archer said, “That’s moronic. The shooter could have just decided to say that.”

  “The shooter used Saif’s pet name for me. Only Saif could have told it to the man.”

  Tom said, “Pet name?”

  “The shooter said, ‘Saif wants his Western Orchid back at his side.’”

  Tom took note that Sasha was unusually quiet on the helicopter flight back to Riyadh. Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll hear about it shortly. After their driver dropped off Ryan, she turned to Tom in the backseat of the embassy car and said, “You could have given me a heads-up.”

  “About?”

  “That I’d be getting cross-examined by Attila the Hun in there.”

  That’s all. “Like I said back there, it’s part of the process. He pushed you pretty hard?”

  “Like I said back there, he’s an animal.”

  “To do what he’s doing, he has to be. Besides, you sold him in the end when you told him about the Western Orchid comment the shooter made, didn’t you? You convinced him that Saif wouldn’t automatically have you shot on sight.”

  Sasha nodded.

  “He’s cleared you, so we’re good to go. His name is Rashid al-Abdel. And don’t be so hard on him. He’s got his own reasons for wanting Saif taken out—all of the al-Mujari, for that matter. His younger brother was recruited as a suicide bomber by the al-Mujari seven years ago. The kid’s in paradise now with his 100 virgins. And about six months later his older brother and his wife, daughter and baby son were killed on a bus in Riyadh full of American soldiers by another suicide bomber. So whether you know it or not, you two are kindred spirits.”

  CHAPTER 10

  AMIR SAT IN THE SHADOWS between two houses, feeling the c
ool of the Saudi night, the breeze on his face. The stars illuminated his line of sight 100 meters to Saif’s house, and back up the street another 200 meters. Two SUVs cruised up and stopped fifty meters from Amir, engines idling. A light went on briefly in one of them, but he couldn’t get a glimpse inside. Was it the Secret Police?

  He wrote a text to Saif: “SP, 100 METERS, MOVING TO YOU,” got ready to send it, then decided he needed to be sure. He opened the gate and walked out from between the buildings, heading toward the SUVs, his mouth dry, sweat on his forehead. The breeze whipped up the sand and he could feel it sticking to his face. He kept his eyes straight ahead. Thirty meters now. He thought of the imam, Sheik Qahtani, what he said about paradise and the virgins who would await him. He felt the grenade inside the left pocket of his windbreaker, cradling it like he’d been taught, so it wouldn’t sag conspicuously. He held the disposable cell phone in his right windbreaker pocket, his thumb on the SEND button.

  Ten meters now. He fingered the grenade, slipped his thumb inside the ring. He thought of his older brother, Syed, from his father’s second wife, who had declined when the imam had offered the opportunity to serve. Syed had ridiculed Amir when he’d accepted and gone for weapons training for two months in Madinah Province. Now what would Syed say? Little, insignificant Amir, intervening to protect Saif and preserve their path to glorification.

  There is no God but Allah, he prayed.

  He was abreast of the nose of the first SUV, facing toward him in the direction of Saif’s house. Light gray Mercedes, both of them—identical. He darted a glance inside. Nothing. Tinted glass. His breath came in short gasps, waiting to hear a door open, the sound of a man telling him to stop. He passed the first SUV, now abreast of the front door of the second. Still nothing. He held his pace.