Arab Summer Page 8

  “You’re an idealist.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. But I do feel like I’m one of the last lines of defense.”

  “Sounds solitary, even lonely.”

  “In a way it is. It’s a full-time commitment. Hard to have anything or anyone else in your life.”

  “Are you married?”

  “I was. Six years. Ellen. We split up a year ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t be. In retrospect it was over a long time before that. Just faded away. Ellen said I was too busy saving the world to have room in my life for her. I’m afraid I wasn’t much of a husband, not even around enough for it to end with any fireworks.”

  She imagined Tom kissing his wife good-bye before leaving for the office one day, coming home and finding her gone, then making macaroni and cheese in the microwave, eating dinner in silence at the kitchen table. It made her feel melancholy. She forced a smile.

  “Don’t look so sad. It really doesn’t matter,” he said. He took a deep breath, exhaled. “So, my friend, how about we talk some business before Seth gets here? We’ve got a lotta work to do.”

  Sasha reached out her hand to him. He extended his to her. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Okay.”

  Seth came to the conference room to pick up Sasha at 11:55 a.m., and was taking her through a series of warm-up and stretching exercises in the basement gym five minutes later. He wore black tights and a dark-green army T-shirt. He still looked like a scrawny kid, but his demeanor was totally different than in her introductory meeting. He was all business, barking crisp commands without smiling.

  After 20 minutes of warm-ups, he said, “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.” He moved to the center of the mat and took a zenkutsu stance, feet slightly apart, one forward of the other, resting on the balls of his feet, arms forward at chest level and his hands balled into fists. Sasha took her stance, moved toward him. He opened one hand and waved her in with his fingers, his eyes steeled. Sasha lunged in and snapped a front kick at his chest. He leaned sideways and deflected her with a knife hand block to the calf that had her seeing stars with the impact. She spun away and bounced on her toes to get the feeling back into her leg. He waved her in again. She stepped toward him, faked a punch with her right and threw one with her left, which he slapped away. She whirled and threw a roundhouse kick. He ducked under it, then swept his leg out into a hooking ankle block and put her on the mat. She lost sight of him momentarily, did a kip up, throwing front hand jab punches as she landed on her feet. She saw a blur in her peripheral vision to her left, never saw the punch that landed square in her ribs and put her on her back again. He stood over her with his right arm poised for a knockout punch to her head an instant later. She held both hands up in a sign of submission.

  He moved to the center of the mat and took his zenkutsu stance again. “Show me more,” he said.

  Half an hour later she had trouble raising her arms and she smarted from the blows in at least a dozen places. She was certain when she pulled off her black leotard that she’d have welts and bruises. They took their positions again. This time she waved Seth in toward her. He stepped forward and she went to him, tried to hook his leg with a foot sweep and he put her on the mat again with a short punch to the chest.

  He stood back and bowed. Sasha got up, gasping for air, and said, “Looks like I have some work to do.”

  “Yes, but I’m impressed,” Seth said, his face lighting up, showing that gap-toothed smile.

  I can hardly breathe, and he’s only puffing a little.

  “You’re in better shape than I expected. You’ve been working out?”

  “Almost every day. Aerobics and calisthenics, but nothing like this.”

  “No problem. I can teach you some things quickly. You’re aggressive, almost too aggressive, but it’s easier to dial that back than it is to force you into it if it doesn’t come naturally to you. And you lead with your mind and your body follows, in true Shotokan fluid style. Not like most of the guys I work with, trained with the macho approach, all muscle. I’ve got a lot to work with. You’ll do great.”

  Sasha groaned as she stood up. “So that’s it for today?”

  Seth pointed to one of the treadmills in the corner. “Three miles of roadwork, then some strength training for your core, then stretching.”

  Sasha smiled. “Okay. Then back to the hotel for a hot Epsom salts bath.”

  “No, then we break for lunch and hit the range for weapons training.”

  Tom didn’t know how long he sat, staring at the wall, thinking, after Sasha left with Seth to go downstairs for training. Her scent, some hand cream or body lotion, was still on his hand from when she’d reached out to him and squeezed it. Funny she mentioned that lunch on the Promenade des Anglaise, that same afternoon that had come back to him a few days earlier when he’d seen her. Funny the impressions people make on you, how you feel about them, and how it sticks with you over the years. Did she know how he felt about her all those years ago, how it had ripped at his guts to send her back into the Royal Palace, to Yassar, knowing she would tell him she’d murdered his son? Knowing that, however strong Sasha thought the bond was between Yassar and her, Tom was almost certainly sending her to her death.

  And here he was, dancing with those same emotions. Now not with some misguided 18-year-old kid who’d been screwed over by anybody close to her, now with a grown woman who lived with her passion for life unconcealed, ready to throw herself in harm’s way to do something she felt from her soul. And him sitting here with that grungy feeling again because he was possibly sending her to her death. It was only a few days ago he’d reflected on the same thing and asked himself, What kind of scum am I? Now Sasha had forced him to break through his professional veneer that shielded him from a much deeper reason for feeling anguished. He’d fallen in love with her all those years ago. Now what was he feeling? He realized he didn’t need to ask himself. Some things just didn’t change with time.

  He sighed and focused on his papers again. Enough of this. He had a job to do.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE NEXT MORNING, RYAN, TOM and Sasha flew on a chopper to Qassim Regional Airport in Buraida, Ryan and Tom dressed in casual clothes, Sasha in her black abaya, headscarf and veil. Tom told everyone to use code name Archer only. They drove in a beat-up jeep into the center of Buraida and parked in a commercial section behind a halal butcher shop on a back street. They entered the back of the shop and seated themselves around a rough-hewn table in a windowless room smelling of meat and blood. They waited.

  “How long?” Tom said to Ryan after about fifteen minutes.

  “He’s on the way. Could be another five minutes, could be an hour.”

  Sasha watched Tom as they waited, no one exchanging small talk. She met his gaze and he smiled, then looked over at the wall. She realized she was getting anxious, feeling that sense of unnatural calmness she remembered experiencing as a girl before a riding competition, or when Christina asked her to perform a piano piece she hadn’t rehearsed in weeks at one of her parties.

  At last, in walked a bearded Arab, wiry, with a trim frame. He wore the dress of an average Saudi—a long-waisted, white cotton shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves, worn over baggy cotton pants. He had deep eye sockets, brown hair shooting off in all directions and carried the smell and dust of the streets in with him. “Sasha Del Mira, meet Archer,” Tom said.

  Sasha felt rising excitement, inhaled sharply.

  Archer sat down, propped his elbows on the end of the table with his arms crossed and hunched his shoulders. He looked at each of them around the table, his eyes penetrating when they made contact with Sasha’s. “Things are heating up.”

  “Tell us,” Tom said.

  “The UIP founders were imprisoned earlier this week—undoubtedly you’ve heard. We just got word they were released in exchange for withdrawing all their demands and disbanding their party.”

  “Were they tortured?” To
m asked.

  “Treated like royalty. Air-conditioned cellblocks. Sumptuous meals, even prayer mats. The Secret Police said they might even offer to have their families join them to help them change their minds about the king and his policies.”

  “Very convincing,” Tom said.

  “Yes. And if that wasn’t convincing enough, the Secret Police told them that the Saudi Arabian Council of Senior Scholars issued a fatwa opposing petitions and demonstrations, including a severe threat against internal dissent.”

  Tom thought of his conversation with Yassar, wondered if it had anything to do with a renewed effort for a fatwa. He said, “Doesn’t sound like it’s open season on dissenters, but it does sound like the royals are closing in.”

  “Yes. It looks like they’re going to start rounding people up to keep them out of mischief. Saif is tense. He’s got everyone ready to go underground. He’s making plans to move his family.” Archer paused. “So when do you want to move?”

  Tom said, “We need a week to get Sasha prepared. After that, as soon as possible.”

  “Then I get her in face-to-face with Saif?”

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “Where is he now? We’ll need to hide weapons for her and keep close enough to get her out when we need to.”

  “Moving around. For the last two weeks he’s been at a date farm ten miles outside northeast Buraida.”

  “Give Ryan the location and we’ll get a satellite fix for observation.”

  Archer looked at Sasha, said, “You sure you know what you’re getting yourself into? How long ago was it that you knew Saif?”

  “About 20 years ago.”

  Archer wrinkled his forehead. “That was a long time ago.”

  Sasha clenched her jaw and leaned toward him. “I know how to handle myself.”

  “Allah be with you if you don’t. How about you tell me about how you know Saif?”

  Tom motioned with his head toward the door. “Let’s step outside so these two can get acquainted,” he said to Ryan. They left.

  Not very subtle. “Looks like I’m being interviewed for a job.”

  Archer shrugged. “You were about to tell me how you know Saif.”

  “I’d been a concubine to Ibrahim, Yassar’s eldest son, for about two years when Abdul and Waleed started working Ibrahim for the al-Mujari.”

  “I knew them,” he said, looking bored.

  “Tom recruited me about that time. In the beginning it was just to feed him information about Ibrahim and Abdul and Waleed’s influence on Ibrahim. Within a year they’d turned Ibrahim and things changed. At that point Tom played me a tape in which Ibrahim agreed to kill Yassar and be installed by the al-Mujari as their puppet ruler after they’d overthrown the Saudi regime. With Yassar at risk, I agreed to take out Ibrahim as part of a dozen CIA-coordinated hits here and in Buraida on senior al-Mujari lieutenants.”

  “The al-Mujari remembers that day well. It’s a major recruiting tool.”

  “After the hit on Ibrahim I escaped to a safe house, where I insisted that Tom give me the tape. I returned to Yassar the next day and played it for him. We reconciled. That night, I was kidnapped from my quarters in the Royal Palace and brought to Buraida. I met Saif in Buraida that night.”

  The memory of that evening flashed into her mind. Coming back to consciousness, wondering where she was and where her captors were taking her. She’d blacked out, then awakened with a piercing headache, her mind fuzzy. She tried to reach up to rub the pain in the center of her chest where she’d been shot by a dart gun and realized her hands were bound in front of her. She took stock of her surroundings: lying on her side on something cushioned, feeling a rocking motion. Riding in a car. Her mouth tasted like metal and garlic. Sedative dart.

  Who was behind this? It had to be Nibmar, the first of Yassar’s four wives and Ibrahim’s mother. Who else could have the access and power within the Royal Palace to do this? Or motive? Yes. Nibmar. Sasha imagined Nibmar’s eyes as on the first day she met her. Sasha had seen the steel in them as Nibmar had ordered Sasha to stand at attention in front of her, then had her aides strip Sasha naked. Nibmar stood like a little Napoleon in front of Sasha in a Chanel dress, her prominent nose and pointed chin elevated. Her dark Arab skin was creamy, her daily facials evident. Her British-tutored English was refined on her tongue. The haughty Valide Sultana, ruler of the women’s quarters in the Royal Palace, asserting herself. A Saudi mother willing to do anything to assure the comfort and pleasure of her fine Saudi sons. Sasha was now sure those cold eyes showed blood hatred.

  She checked the binding on her hands. Plastic electrical connector straps. Sasha moved her feet, finding they weren’t bound. They must have been in a hurry when moving her from the Royal Palace to have neglected that. She listened; no one was talking. She felt with her hands and sensed the coarse fabric of an abaya. She inched her hands up to her face, put the plastic strap in her mouth and started gnawing with her front teeth. The plastic was thick and tough, but chewing through it was doable.

  Now she heard men joking with each other in Arabic.

  Then a female voice, harsh, said, “Stop your foolishness!” It was Nibmar. She must have turned to face the rear, because her voice was now louder. “We are a half hour away. Prepare yourselves.”

  Another voice from the front, calmer, “Check your weapons, but keep your cool. We expect no problems, but you must be on your guard.” Ali’s voice. Nibmar’s only other child, a son two years younger than Ibrahim, always in his older brother’s shadow, a nothing.

  Sasha now chewed furiously on the plastic binding strip.

  Nibmar said, “When we arrive I will do the talking. We will meet with the man called Khalid in northeastern Buraida at a building next to a mosque he is hiding in. The sheik will not be present. Nor will his right-hand men, Abdul and Waleed, with whom we previously dealt. We understand the sheik has fled to the Yemen, taking Abdul and Waleed with him, following an attempt on the sheik’s life and the assassinations of many of his other top lieutenants last night. Khalid has been elevated in the al-Mujari’s chain of command and will direct its activities from their headquarters in Buraida while the sheik, Abdul and Waleed are absent. As such we are dealing with someone who can make decisions. Expect Khalid to be surrounded by heavily armed guards. No mistakes, no sudden movements, or you’ll be dead. The whore is not essential to our business, only a sweetener for Khalid and his men to enjoy before they dispose of her.”

  Sasha felt her stomach involuntarily tighten. She didn’t know Khalid, but had met Abdul and Waleed many times. And Nibmar doing some secret business with them, and now with this new man, Khalid. It seemed inconceivable. Sasha’s heart started pounding. What was going on?

  She concentrated. She had a half hour to chew through the plastic binding. As she worked her teeth, she worked her situation over in her mind. The vehicle had three seats, likely a van or some form of military vehicle. Whatever it was, it must have a rear door that she could open from the inside. That would be her escape route.

  A moment later the vehicle slowed, felt like it was exiting the highway, then slowed more. It stopped, turned and accelerated again, moving slower than on the highway, bumping on an uneven side road. She continued grinding at the bonds, now making progress.

  At last, she heard a snap and felt the plastic break in her mouth. Her breath quickened. She rolled over. Above the back of the seat, she could see two doors at the rear. She knew she’d only have one chance. She took a deep breath, grabbed the back of the seat and hurled herself over it.

  “Hey! She’s trying to get away!” Sasha heard as she landed on the floor behind the seat. She found the door latch, pulled it up and felt the rush of cold air. She heard shouting inside the van as the door flew open and she threw herself out.

  “Ooof!” Sasha landed hard, rolled, got to her feet and limped for the side of the road, realizing she was in a residential neighborhood. Her right knee was in crushing pain, but with each stride she was able to put more weigh
t on it. She turned and saw the van—it looked like an American Chevy Suburban—start backing up toward her. She leaped over a fence between two houses before the van reached her, then ran through a backyard, over another fence and across another street. She heard men shouting, the doors on the van slamming, but by then she was over another fence, through another backyard and crossing another side street. Had she lost them? She heard voices from the direction of the van, then people running on the street a block away. Yes, they were going away from her up another side street she’d crossed.

  She rubbed her knee. She’d be fine. She shivered, still winded from her run, and pulled her abaya close around her against the chill of the night breeze. Now what to do? Should she run, leave Saudi Arabia? After the hits in Riyadh the night before, Tom had provided her a passport as the wife of an oil broker from Cleveland to get her out of the country, but took it back when she’d told him at the safe house that she’d decided to return to Yassar. If she could get to the American Embassy in Riyadh she could contact Tom, so that probably wasn’t a closed door. Then she thought about Yassar. The fact that Nibmar had history with the al-Mujari, and was going about some new business with them, could mean that he was in worse danger than before. His first and favorite wife up to no good. It didn’t make sense. Sasha couldn’t think clearly. Maybe the sedative was still affecting her. “Oh, God,” she said aloud.

  “I hear them coming up the street in the back,” she heard a man behind her say. She turned, startled, and saw a young Arab in his early 20s standing in the backyard behind the house where she crouched in the darkness. He said, “Who’s chasing you?” He held an unlit cigarette in his hand.

  She didn’t answer, thinking. She was in Buraida, primarily Shiite Muslim, very fundamentalist and frequently at odds with the Sunni royal family policies.