Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (4 page)

 
          
The
new president of the United Kingdom of Libya, Jadallah Salem Zuwayy, sauntered
over to Fazani, barely acknowledging his presence, only casting enough of a
glance in his direction to order him to follow. Zuwayy was a tall,
light-skinned man in his late thirties, with dark eyes, a thin mustache, and a
dark beard that grew to a satanic point to the base of his long, thin throat.
He was a former army officer who reportedly engineered the military coup that
overthrew Qadhafi. Like Qadhafi before him, Zuwayy liked to wear different
outfits depending on the occasion and his audience: Today he wore traditional
Bedouin garb, rich-looking silks and muslins, bordering on opulent. Most times,
Zuwayy was in desert-style battle dress uniform, often wearing tanker’s boots
and carrying a variety of weapons, from antique, ornate curved cavalry swords
to live grenades.

           
“What is it, Fazani?” Zuwayy asked
sternly.

 
          
“He
wants an update on the deployment,”
the chief of staff replied. He then held out a secure cellular telephone.

 
          
Zuwayy
felt like telling Fazani to throw the phone into the garbage—but he dared not.
The man on the other end of that secure connection had very long fingers—more
like very long claws. “Everything is ready?” the tall, thin, ethereal cleric
asked in a low, monotone, disembodied voice.

 
          
“Yes,
Highness,” Fazani reported. “Just yesterday. All units are in full readiness.”
He handed the cellular phone to Zuwayy and bowed.

 
          
Zuwayy
smiled, then touched a preselected code on the phone’s keypad. “You’d better
have some good news for me, Zuwayy,” a voice said angrily. “You’ve been dodging
me long enough.”

 
          
“All
is in readiness,” Zuwayy said. “My troops are in place, and the units are
ready.”

 
          
“It
took you long enough, Zuwayy,” the voice on the other end of the phone warned.
“They should have been in place days ago.”

 
          
“Come
here and try dragging those things across the desert yourself, my friend,”
Zuwayy said. “You will see how easy it is.”

 
          
“I
gave you plenty of time and money to set those units up, Zuwayy,” the voice
said. His foreign accent was thick, but his meaning was all too clear. “You had
better not screw this up, or the first casualty in this war will be you.” And
the call was abruptly terminated.

 
          
Zuwayy
did not disguise a look of utter contempt on his face as he handed the phone
back to Fazani. “I look forward to meeting him in person,” Zuwayy muttered. “I
should like to see how black his heart really is.” He erased the scowl on his
face, replacing it with a serene smile, as he noticed an entourage heading
toward him. “Now I must suffer this lackey.”

 
          
“Peace
be upon you, Mr. President,” the host of this celebration said warmly.
President Kamal Ismail Salaam was the fourth elected Egyptian president since
the Nasserite revolution in 1952. Tall, slender, and energetic, appearing more
Italian than African, Salaam was the minister of finance under former president
Muhammad Hosni Mubarak and leader of the National Democratic Party upon
Mubarak’s retirement from politics. Like Mubarak, Salaam was a military
veteran, serving as the commander in chief of the Egyptian Air Defense Force
Command.

 
          
“Es salaem alekum!
Peace upon you,
brother!” Zuwayy said loudly so the whole room could hear, spreading his hands
far apart as if to embrace his host even from across the room. He stepped
quickly across the richly carpeted floor toward his host. Walking the requisite
three paces behind him was the Libyan Secretary of Arab Unity—the closest Libya
came to a foreign minister—Juma Mahmud Hijazi.

 
          
Two
of President Zuwayy’s bodyguards quickly stepped up to President Salaam and
stared at his hands and those of the others around him, looking for drawn
weapons. It was a little irritating, but Salaam let the feeling go. The hall
here at the Al-Azhar Mosque in
Cairo
,
Egypt
, was filled with dignitaries, diplomats,
and celebrities from all over the world, here to celebrate the Prophet
Muhammad’s birthday. There was a lot of security in the place already— two
Egyptian soldiers inside and outside every doorway, along with a dozen
Presidential Guard snipers watching from catwalks overhead—but Zuwayy was the
only one to bring his own bodyguards into the great hall.

 
          
Salaam
clasped Zuwayy’s shoulders and embraced him in a traditional Arab greeting.
“Ahlan wa sahlan. Tashar- rafna!
Hello
and welcome. We are pleased and grateful by your presence, Mr. President.” This
was the first time meeting the new leader of neighboring
Libya
, and it was about what he expected, given
Zuwayy’s reputation. Zuwayy’s lips turned tense and hard, and his hands
disappeared per- turbedly inside the billowing cuffs of his ornate silk robes.

 
          
Zuwayy’s
Minister of Arab Unity looked positively horrified. “Pardon me, Mr. President,”
Secretary Hijazi said in a low but stem voice, “but my lord prefers to be
addressed as ‘His Royal Highness’ or as ‘King Idris the Second.’ I am sure my
office made the proper notifications to your office in a timely manner. And
touching his highness without his permission is
absolutely
forbidden.”

 
          
“Of
course,” Salaam replied. “Yes, I was so notified.” He bowed to Zuwayy. “My
apologies, Highness.”

 
          
It
was a joke, of course—everyone knew it. Jadallah Zuwayy claimed to be a
descendant of the
sheikhs
of the
al-Sanusi dynasty, the tribe of powerful desert nomads that united the three
kingdoms of
Tripolitania
,
Cyrenaica
,
and
Fezzan
under Islam during the Turkish occupation
and formed the
kingdom
of
Libya
. It was Muammar Qadhafi, after oil was
discovered in
Libya
, who led a military coup that overthrew King Idris al-Sanusi in 1969
and formed a military dictatorship; the al-Sanusi sheikhs were driven
underground by Qadhafi’s death squads and formed the Sanusi Brotherhood, a
monarchist insurgency group. Now Zuwayy claimed to avenge his family’s honor by
taking the country back from Qadhafi in the name of the Sanusi Brotherhood.

 
          
His
claims were utterly baseless. Born and raised in
Tripoli
, the son of an oil executive and housewife,
Zuwayy was an ex-army officer who had been serving in relative obscurity as an
infantry-training officer, specializing in demolition, breeching, and
minelaying. It was widely suspected, though never confirmed, that Zuwayy joined
the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an extension of the Mujahadeen—ultranationalist
rebel groups spread out across the
Middle East
and
Asia
dedicated to the overthrow of existing
governments and replacing them with fundamentalist Muslim religious
governments. Much of his financial backing came from Mujahadeen organizations
in
Iran
and
Sudan
collectively known as the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom Zuwayy had
formed a close alliance.

 
          
He
had no royal blood in him, and his family never was part of the al-Sanusi clan,
a great nomadic tribe that fought Turks, Italians, and Germans to win freedom
for their people. The remnants of the al-Sanusi dynasty were scattered across
Africa
and the
Middle East
, fearing the Libyan assassination squads
that pursued them under orders from Colonel Qadhafi. Although Zuwayy claimed to
restore the monarchy to the al-Sanusi dynasty, his reputation as a ruthless,
fanatical sociopath only drove them deeper into hiding. No one in
Africa
or the
Middle East
dared challenge his reign. The Western
press scoffed at his claims and repeatedly offered much evidence that he was
not a Sanusi, but the evidence was largely ignored, especially within
Libya
itself.

 
          
President
Salaam stifled a smirk at the aide’s remarks about Zuwayy’s grandiose title and
motioned beside him. “Highness, may I present my wife, Susan Bailey Salaam.
Madame, it is my pleasure to introduce His Highness, King Idris the Second,
President of the United Islamic Kingdom of Libya.”

 
          
Susan
Salaam stepped forward, curtsied deeply, averted her eyes, and extended her right
hand upward. “Welcome to
Egypt
, my lord. We are honored by your presence.”

 
          
It
was obvious that her husband thought this too much of a show, even for Zuwayy.
He was surprised when Zuwayy offered her a very pleased smile, the first he had
ever seen or depicted of him. Could this man, could
any
man, be so vain .. . ? “Please rise, woman,” Zuwayy said. “We
are privileged to be here on this glorious occasion.”

 
          
Susan
rose—and Zuwayy looked into the most beautiful, most breathtaking, most
alluring face he had ever seen. Her head was veiled, as it should be, but the
sheen and luster of her deep black hair underneath could not be concealed. She
wore no makeup that Zuwayy could detect, but her lips were deep red, her eyes
dark and mesmerizing, her cheekbones high, her mouth perfectly formed. Her skin
was perfect, fight brown with slightly darker cheeks from exposure to sun,
almost African. She took one look at the Libyan pretender, and even his
rock-hard heart began to melt.

 
          
She
was not African—Zuwayy knew she was an American, bom to southern European
emigrants—but this creature was the most beautiful he had ever seen on the
planet. She could not be human—she had to be a goddess, or a gift from the
loins of Allah himself. He also knew she was much more than just a thing of
great beauty. She was once an American air force military officer, rising in
the ranks from a lowly security police officer to deputy chief in charge of
intelligence for the U.S. Central Command. During the War for the Liberation of
Kuwait, what the rest of the world called the Persian Gulf War of 1991, she
acted as an intelligence liaison to the Egyptian military, which is how she and
Kamal met. Zuwayy had been told that she was a woman of many talents: She could
pilot a jet airliner, drive a main battle tank, fire a rifle, and argue both
common and Shari’a law in any courtroom in the world in four languages.

 
          
Susan
Salaam quickly averted her eyes again, not daring—properly—to gaze into the
eyes of another man, as was proper Islamic custom. Zuwayy had to force his own
eyes from her, realizing—then not caring—that he had let them linger on her too
long. She must be a gift from God, Zuwayy told himself again . ..

 
          
...
a gift for a man blessed enough to have such high favor of Allah. And Salaam was
not,
could not
, be that man. “It is a
pleasure to meet you, my child,” Zuwayy said finally, fighting to control his
breathing. He did not use the more formal address for a married woman,
ya sayyida
, but instead the more
intimate expression
dahab.

 
          
“Thank
you, Your Highness,” Susan said, again letting those beautiful eyes flash up
toward his. “May the blessings of the Prophet, praise his holy name, be upon
you and all of us today.”

 
          
“Insha’allah.”
He had to tear himself
away from looking at her, so instead concentrated on her husband, looking Kamal
Ismail Salaam up and down disapprovingly. Salaam was wearing a simple white and
blue traditional headdress, but was otherwise dressed in a conservative gray
doublebreasted Western-style business suit, with a single gold chain around his
neck. “You do not appear to be prepared for prayer, brother.”

 
          
“I
have been asked to give a few remarks to our guests before the prayers of
celebration begin, Highness,” Salaam replied. “My duties require that I be
elsewhere during the prayers of celebration.” He motioned to his left. “The
chancellor of
Al-Azhar
University
and chief justice of the Arab Republic of
Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council, Ulama Khalid al-Khan, will lead the prayer
celebration in my place.”