The Secret Soldier (12 page)

Today, Saudi Arabia was the only nation still named after a single family. Its Basic Law decreed that “the rulers of the country shall be from among the sons of the founder, King Abdul-Aziz... and their descendants.” For almost sixty years, Abdul-Aziz’s own sons had been the only rulers the Kingdom had known. Under the system, which had been formalized after Abdul-Aziz’s death, the crown passed from half-brother to half-brother, usually following birth order. Because Abdul-Aziz had sired at least forty-three boys by more than a dozen wives between 1900 and 1947, the Kingdom had no shortage of potential rulers. As head of the Defense Ministry, Saeed was generally considered the most likely candidate to succeed Abdullah.

But a year before, Abdullah had secretly told his brothers that after his death, he expected his own son Khalid to be named the next king. So far, the brothers had resisted that demand. For now, Abdullah’s successor remained unchosen.

 

 

“KHALID IS READY, ” ABDULLAH
said now.

“More ready than Mansour? Or the rest of his cousins?”

“You compare Mansour to my son?”

“It’s not only Mansour. Saeed has waited his turn. And our other brothers. And after that, a whole new generation.”

“Stand up, my brother.”

Miteb pushed himself off the couch, wheezing, his breath unsteady.

“You want to be king? Is that what this is? Then go ahead. Slake your thirst. Take my crown.”

“My brother, don’t slander me.” Miteb sat down heavily on the couch, which creaked under his bulk. “I know my age. Unlike you. I tell anyone who asks, I don’t want the crown.”

“Then help me. Tell our brothers. Khalid is ready.”

“Abdullah, you don’t know how alone you are.”

“I listen to my brothers—”

“Your brothers
beg
you to stop. And you refuse. Saeed wants you gone, yes. But the others don’t want to oppose you. Because they love you.”

“And don’t love Saeed.”

“Because you’ve ruled wisely. Until this foolishness. But Khalid is only fifty. You’re asking Mansour and all our sons to give up any chance at the throne.”

“Only Khalid is strong enough to move against these rejectionists who set off these bombs. These men who want girls to marry their uncles.”

“Let me ask you, Abdullah. Has Khalid ever told you he wants this?”

“Of course.” Though Abdullah was lying. The only time he’d ever discussed his plans with Khalid, Khalid had said something like,
If that’s what you want, father.
An answer that had been enough for Abdullah. He’d never asked again.

“Admit the truth, Abdullah. To yourself, if not me. Khalid may be a good king, and he may not. None of us know. Khalid is the flesh of your flesh, and that’s why you want him to rule. Drop this plan or you’ll return us to the days of Ali and Uthman”—seventh-century Muslim leaders who engaged in bloody power struggles after the death of Muhammad.

“Not as long as he has the National Guard.”

In Saudi Arabia the force known as the National Guard functioned almost as a second army. The Guard trained and ran separately from the regular Saudi military and existed mainly to protect the royal family from the threat of a coup. Its soldiers were mostly Bedouins whose tribes were considered loyal to the family. Abdullah had controlled the Guard for forty years, long before he became king. A few months before, he had turned the force over to his son.

“You think that giving him the Guard makes him safe, Abdullah. But it’s the opposite. It makes the other princes think they have to take power by force.” Miteb pulled himself off the couch, sat on the ottoman beside Abdullah.

“Say what you mean, Miteb. You think that our family is working with these terrorists. Against me. And my son. You wish that I reward them for that? For betraying me? Attacking Riyadh? Never, Miteb. The snakes in my court, I’ll cast them out. It’s time. Time and past time.”

“Who, Abdullah? Who are the snakes? You don’t even know.”

“How can I know? They come to me with their fine words and their smiles, and promise me their love.”

“Because you’ve isolated yourself. Staying in this palace alone. Making the rest of us fly from Riyadh to see you. The ones who love you and believe that you’re right, the system must change, they’re frightened. Those that oppose you, they’re growing more bold. I don’t know if you can stop them anymore. You surely can’t trust the
mukhabarat.
”

“There’s always the Guard.”

“Promise me you and Khalid won’t use the Guard. If you try, then the army will interfere and there will be war.”

“I promise you only this, Miteb. My son will be king. Leave me if you wish.”

 

 

THE TWO MEN SAT
in silence for a minute that stretched to five and ten. Finally Miteb knelt at his brother’s feet, his joints popping audibly. He lifted Abdullah’s hand and kissed it. “You’re a fat old fool. But I can’t leave you now.”

“Because you know Khalid should be king.”

“Enough of Khalid. I’m your brother, and I’ve always done what you asked, and we’re both too old to change. If this is what you want, I’ll help. Maybe somehow I can convince the others. But we’ve got to keep the Guard out of it.”

Abdullah stood and pulled Miteb up, and the two old men hugged and swayed back and forth, each braced against the other’s bulk, aged sumo wrestlers in long white cloaks.

“Miteb, my friend.” But even so, Abdullah felt the darkness creeping close. For the briefest moment, he wondered whether he ought to give up, let Saeed have the crown. And after Saeed, the next generation of al-Sauds could fight among themselves. But he shook his head—
No, no
—and opened his eyes. He wouldn’t let the darkness have him yet.

“I’ll tell you in the morning.”

Anne arranged herself around Wells, her breasts touching his back, her nose in the crook of his shoulder. “Come on, out with it.” She tugged his ear.

“Then ... then he took off. Sprinted all the way to Montego, jumped on a cruise ship. He’s probably having cocktails with some honeymooners as we speak.”

“Idiot.”

“I told him who I was. He’d never seen me before. He looked me up and down, didn’t say anything. I should have worried he was going for a weapon, but I didn’t. He walked up the stairs to his bedroom. I followed him. He wasn’t running, and neither was I. He reached under his bed, and then I did start to wonder, but he came up with a suitcase. Unzipped it and started packing. Like he was going on vacation.”

“What I want to know is how he looked. What he said.”

Around them, the old house settled, timbers creaking like a sailboat on the open ocean. Tonka roused herself from the rug at the foot of Anne’s bed, looked around, sighed, and lay down again.

“He asked me if Janice told me where he was. I didn’t answer. Then he got mad. He seemed angrier that she’d broken the vow she’d made on their son’s grave than anything else. He started ranting about her. I cooled him off.”

“How’d you do that, John?”

“I expressed my dismay. I’m very persuasive, you know.” In fact, Wells had given Keith “Eddie” Robinson what kids in junior high called a swirly. Picked him up, dunked his head in the toilet. Lucky for Robinson, the water was clean. “After he was calm, I sat him down and told him he would have to confess to everything, no trial. I told him he owed that much to Janice.”

“And what would you have done if he said no?”

“He didn’t say no.”

“But if he did?”

“Then I would have threatened to tell the dealers he was buying from that he was working for the DEA.”

He knew that she wanted to ask him if he would have followed through on the threat. The answer was probably. Robinson was overdue for a reckoning. But she stayed quiet, and after a few seconds Wells went on.

“How he looked? He looked relieved. Maybe not relieved but tired. Like he had been getting ready for somebody to knock on his door. I asked him why he called Janice, and he said he was lonely. He showed me in his closet he had cash, maybe twenty-five thousand dollars in hundreds and twenties. He had another passport, too, a Mexican one that said his name was Eduardo Márquez. He said it was real, that he’d paid somebody at the Mexican embassy in Kingston.”

“But he didn’t want to go anywhere else.”

“I guess not. He said he could have stayed hidden a lot longer. With that passport, he could have gone to Cuba or somewhere in Southeast Asia where there are enough white people that he wouldn’t get noticed. But he said it was wearing on him, being alone, never telling anyone who he really was. He said he was scared to death of prison, but that living this way was prison, too. I think there’s something else. I think he might be sick. He had all kinds of pill bottles in his bathroom. But when I asked him, he denied it. And choked up. Which was weird, because aside from that, he wouldn’t stop talking. But all the things he said, he certainly didn’t say he was sorry.”

“Did you think he would?”

“I hoped he would.”

“You know, I’ve arrested I don’t know how many. Eight years—say, one a week—that’s, ah, eight times fifty. Four hundred, give or take. Of course nothing like this. But serious stuff. Domestic violence, assault. Rape. Two murders. And I’ve never heard a genuine apology. Ever. It’s not in these guys.” She let go of him, pushed herself away. “I have to say, I don’t like what you did, John.”

He turned toward her. Her eyes were intense on his. “Say again?”

“You should have just called the FBI. Done it the right way. You almost killed somebody down there.”

“He was a coke dealer.”

“It’s a matter of time before you hurt somebody who’s completely innocent—”

“You wanted the story. You got the story. I’m going to sleep.”

“God forbid anyone question your judgment.”

“I hate to tell you, Anne, but Keith Robinson isn’t some DUI you Breathalyze on Main Street.”

“And I hate to tell you, John, but you’re a grade-A asshole.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You believe it, though. Push comes to shove, you think I have no right to express any opinion on this.”

Wells knew he should apologize, tell Anne the truth. He’d blown up because he was worried she was right. He had refused to involve the FBI for no better reason than his anger at the CIA and Duto. Over the years, he’d lost his moorings one by one. His wife and child. His parents. Then Jennifer Exley, his lover. Then his faith. He still believed in Islam, but how could he claim to be part of the
umma,
the community of believers? He prayed sometimes, but almost always in private, rarely in mosques. Faith was hard to sustain that way. Only his identity as a CIA agent had remained. But now he’d quit.

He believed he’d made the right choice in leaving. Even so. He’d severed his last connection. He was completely alone. An amnesiac without the consolation of forgetfulness. He knew who he was, what he’d done. After so much violence, killing came to him naturally. He’d always imagined that he could take off the killer’s mask as he wished. But he feared the mask had become his face.

He could have said some of this to Anne. Or all of it. Could have and should have. Instead he closed his eyes. “You’ve got every right to express your opinion,” he said. He hated the words even as he spoke them. He sounded like a lawyer. A lousy one.

“I can’t even start to imagine what you’re thinking,” she said. “Are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“Are you happy I’m challenging you, then?” He was silent. “Do you have any emotions at all, John?”

“I’ll leave tomorrow if you want.”

She put her arms around him. “I don’t want you to
leave.
I just want to understand you a tiny bit. It’s like the longer you stay here, the less I understand you. And that’s awful.”

He heard her breathing quicken and opened his eyes. She was sitting up, her back to him.
Women.
She left the room and walked downstairs. A few minutes later, he heard the teakettle squealing. She came back holding a cup and lay beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“This is why the others left, isn’t it? Your wife and the one from the CIA.”

“Maybe. My wife, we got divorced because I went undercover. And Exley, my fiancée, someone hurt her and I wanted to find out who did it and she didn’t want me to.”

“You wanted revenge. She asked you to stay away. And you ignored her.”

They lay in the dark and the minutes unrolled, a black carpet stretching to infinity. At this hour, North Conway was as still as a chimney with no fire. He put his arms around her, and she didn’t fight him.

“I meant it. If you want, I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Please. Have you looked at the quote-unquote eligible bachelors in North Conway? Slim pickings. Anyway, I see hope for you yet. You wonder if all this violence has destroyed your core. And I’m telling you that it hasn’t.”

“I hope so.”

Her laugh was music. “There you go. ‘I hope so.’ On the John Wells scale, that counts as a soul-opening revelation. You’re gonna be okay, John.”

He fell asleep feeling something close to peace.

 

 

HE WOKE ALONE, HIS
cell phone ringing. A blocked number.

“John Wells.” The voice was soft, cultured, European. Immaculate as marble. The past was tugging him again. First Keith Robinson. Now Pierre Kowalski. Kowalski was a Swiss arms dealer, a gleefully amoral man who had made a fortune off miserable little wars that no one cared about.

“Pierre.”

“I hear you’re at liberty. I might have something for you. To supplement that government pension of yours. Nadia, you know, she still mentions you.” Nadia was Kowalski’s lover, a model, tall and blueeyed, the most beautiful woman Wells had ever seen. “She’s waiting for you to make your fortune.”