The Secret Soldier (16 page)

“Then what’s my next step, uncle?” Bakr expected to be told that he should go to Afghanistan, join the jihad there.

Instead, his uncle sketched out a very different path.

 

 

AT TWENTY, BAKR JOINED
the National Guard—the one-hundred-thousand-man militia that served as the Saud family’s private fighting force. For the next eight years, he served ably, getting the military training he knew he would need. He kept his fundamentalist views concealed. To his superiors, he was a devout Muslim but a loyal Saudi.

Meantime, he quietly looked for men who might one day prove useful in his quest. The
mukhabarat
closely watched the National Guard. Bakr knew that being identified as hostile to the regime would land him in prison for decades. Nonetheless, he connected with soldiers and officers who shared his views.

Eight years passed. Then, on a spring morning, as Bakr napped in his two-room apartment in the National Guard barracks outside Mecca, a knock woke him. He opened the door to see two military police officers. “Captain Bakr? Please come with us. And leave your sidearm.”

“What’s this about?”

But they wouldn’t answer. And somehow he knew. The
mukhabarat
or the internal Guard police had gotten to one of his men. Lieutenant Gamal, maybe. Gamal was fervent but weak. Bakr didn’t doubt he would break. Without another word, he followed the MPs to a Jeep.

They drove along the edge of the base, which stretched over thousands of acres and housed an entire battalion, two thousand five hundred soldiers, plus air support. The Saudi government had built it after the 1979 fundamentalist attack on the Grand Mosque. If terrorists ever again tried to seize the mosque, the battalion’s soldiers could reach it in fifteen minutes.

A windowless two-story concrete building squatted near the southwest corner of the base. It housed the battalion’s internal security unit. Bakr knew he should be frightened. Yet he wasn’t. Whatever was about to happen would be Allah’s work. And Allah had guided him since that moment in the desert.

They drove past the security headquarters and parked at a warehouse two hundred meters on. The warehouse had once housed spare parts for the vehicles in the battalion but had been abandoned because of its inconvenient location. Now its front door was open. “Go on,” the military police sergeant said.

The warehouse was hot and stank of epoxy. Inside, the overhead lights illuminated a concrete floor. Broken pallets lay at the far end of the building. A man in an officer’s crisp olive uniform stood near them. As Bakr approached, he saw crossed swords and three stars on the officer’s shoulderboards. Not merely an officer. An
amid—
a brigadier general. Bakr stopped a few feet away, offered his crispest salute.

“At ease, Captain Bakr. Do you know who I am?”

“No, sir.”

“General Ibrahim.”

Bakr hadn’t recognized the face, but he knew the name. Though not a royal, Walid Ibrahim was a cousin of a low-ranking prince. He was also head of internal security for the western brigades of the National Guard. He was rarely seen and much feared. His men handled “political problems”—as they were euphemistically known—with a brutality that would have pleased a commissar for Stalin.

The general stood toe-to-toe with Bakr. He was light-skinned, taller than Bakr, with pockmarked skin and a neatly trimmed goatee. His breath stank of coffee and cardamom. “One of your men has confessed, Captain Bakr.”

“Sir?”

Ibrahim slapped Bakr, catching his cheek with all five fingers. “Must I repeat myself? A man in your cell has confessed. Step back. Three steps. And go to your knees.”

The concrete was warm through Bakr’s khakis. He wondered whether Allah would save him again. Perhaps he didn’t deserve to be saved, not after being so stupid as to trust Gamal.

Ibrahim unholstered his pistol. “Lieutenant Gamal al-Aziz has told us that you’ve recruited a cell of traitors”—Ibrahim spat on the concrete floor, the sound echoing softly—“and you plan to steal weapons from this base.”

“He’s mistaken, sir.”

Bakr found himself looking at the pistol’s dark eye. It didn’t shake, not even a fraction. He didn’t doubt that Ibrahim would pull the trigger. “Hands behind your back, captain. And don’t move your head, no matter what I do.”

Bakr intertwined his fingers behind his back. Ibrahim disappeared behind him, his clipped steps echoing on the concrete. Now he was just a voice. “It’s my business to evaluate men like this. And he’s telling the truth. He came to us of his own accord. Says he had an attack of conscience. Probably he got scared. He’s hoping for clemency. You made a mistake with him.”

Sweat ran down Bakr’s chest. He promised himself that whatever happened, he wouldn’t betray the men he’d recruited.

“But here’s the thing, captain. He only has four names. He says there’s more, but he doesn’t know them.”

“There is no cell.”

Crack!
Half the sun poured into Bakr’s eyes. For a moment, ecstasy filled him, and then the pain came. Pistol-whipped. Still he stayed upright, kept his hands laced.

“Tell me the truth. Or I’ll put a bullet through your neck. If you’re lucky, you’ll die right away. If not, you’ll wind up paralyzed for a few miserable years. Then you’ll die.”

“Sir. Lieutenant Gamal is mistaken—”

“Three seconds. Two—” Bakr bit his tongue so he couldn’t speak. “One—” The pistol touched the nape of his neck, settled in. Bakr closed his eyes.

The pistol pulled back. The shot echoed in Bakr’s ears—and nothing changed. He felt the concrete against his legs. He opened his eyes. He was still in the warehouse.

“Last chance,” Ibrahim said. Another endless pause—

“Stand up and face me.” Ibrahim holstered his pistol. “I know that lieutenant is telling the truth. But I’ve been looking for a man like you. I’m sick of the corruption, too. We’re on the same side. I’m going to give you a chance. I’ve sent Gamal to his barracks. Take care of him and we’ll talk.”

Bakr didn’t trust himself to speak.

“You won’t be suspected, captain. For now, I’m the only one who knows what he’s said. My men brought him directly to me.”

“Sir—”

“You have forty-eight hours. If you don’t solve this problem by then, my men will be back for you.” Ibrahim handed a handkerchief to Bakr. “And clean yourself up. You’re bleeding.”

BAKR MOPPED AT THE
blood dribbling from his skull as he stumbled to his barracks. The day had turned scorching, forty-eight degrees Celsius—one hundred eighteen degrees Fahrenheit. The devils in his head danced. In his quarters, he pulled the shades and draped a wet towel over his skull and tried to think through what had happened. Maybe Ibrahim was trapping him, hoping to make him incriminate himself. Gamal had confessed, but Ibrahim didn’t have enough evidence to bring a case.

Then why not just arrest him and the others, and shake out the truth? Ibrahim had brought him to the warehouse to test him. Oneon-one, without witnesses.

A trap, or a lifeline? Perhaps he should ask Gamal directly, let the man defend himself. Bakr lay on his bed and closed his eyes. His head ached terribly, and he squeezed his eyes tight. Then, suddenly, the headache passed and he knew what to do.

It was six p.m., the dinner hour. The barracks were nearly empty. Bakr scribbled a note—
The warehouse for spare parts. 11 p.m. Bring this. Tell no one. I.
He took the fire stairs to the fourth floor, where Gamal lived. He checked to make sure he was alone and then slipped the note under Gamal’s door.

 

 

A T 10:55, THE WAREHOUSE
door creaked open. “General? Hello?”

Even before he saw Gamal, Bakr knew his reedy voice. Bakr stepped forward from the wall where he’d hidden himself. He dropped the garrote over Gamal’s neck and pulled tight. Gamal tried to scream but managed only a wet whisper. His hands came up and tugged at the wire as he desperately tried to take the killing pressure off his carotid artery.

But Bakr was stronger, and had the surprise and the leverage. With every second, Gamal weakened. Bakr tugged on Gamal’s neck until Gamal’s hands fell away and his feet drummed a death rattle against the floor.

“Traitor,” Bakr whispered. “Infidel. Apostate.” Let those be the last words that Gamal heard before the next world. Let him know that he would face an eternity of torment. Finally Gamal’s feet stopped their useless clacking and his body slumped. Bakr put him on the floor and flicked on the lights. Gamal’s face was mottled, his eyes bulging. The garrote had seared his neck. Bakr leaned close to Gamal’s mouth. Nothing. Not a breath.

Gamal still clenched the note in his fist. Bakr slipped it into his pocket, reminding himself to flush it away at the barracks. He had a sudden urge to mutilate the corpse, put Gamal’s pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger. Punish the traitor properly. But Gamal was already in hell, and that was punishment enough. Bakr flicked off the lights and left.

Fifteen minutes later, he lay in his bed, reading his Quran. He slept easily that night, and in the days that followed he hardly thought about what he’d done. Gamal had needed to die, and so Gamal had died.

 

 

THE CORPSE WAS FOUND
a week later. Rumors blew through the base. A Star of David had been carved into Gamal’s chest, his eyes gouged out. His corpse had decomposed so badly that he could be identified only by the name on his uniform. Bakr waited for the police to take him away. But no one came, and Bakr saw that Ibrahim’s offer had been genuine.

Two weeks later, Bakr was ordered to report to the National Guard base at Jeddah, the headquarters of the western region. When he arrived, a sergeant escorted him to an unmarked black SUV. They drove north along the seaside road, past a gleaming white mosque that seemed to rise out of the Red Sea. The sergeant left him in a parking lot that looked out over a narrow inlet, told him to wait, and disappeared.

Bakr settled himself on a concrete bench. Nearby, a handful of families played on a public beach a few meters long. Even here the women wore long black
abayas
and burqas, as Saudi law required. Still, the children were having fun, squealing and running and dumping sand on one another. Public spaces such as the beach were rare in Saudi Arabia, and a great treat. Bakr didn’t object to the beach, as long as unmarried women didn’t pollute it with their presence and married ones stayed covered. As Allah had intended.

Ibrahim arrived a few minutes later. Today he wore traditional Saudi clothing, a
thobe
and
ghutra
. Bakr stood to salute, but Ibrahim shook his head and sat beside him. “Captain. It’s terrible what happened on your base.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It looks like the killer will never be found.”

“Then that’s Allah’s will, sir.”

“Lieutenant Gamal was deprived of a proper funeral,” Ibrahim said. Under Muslim law, corpses were supposed to be buried or cremated as soon as possible, never more than two days after death.

“Perhaps that’s as it should be. If the lieutenant betrayed our faith.”

“How long have you been putting your cell together, captain?”

“Sir?”

“Listen now. No more games. If I’d wanted to arrest you, I would have already.”

Bakr saw himself tumbling down the dune. Everything had led to this moment. “Three years.”

“How many men do you have?”

“Nine. Eight now, I suppose.”

“You’ve done well, captain. No one has ever hidden so much from me. So what is it you want?”

“For the land to be pure, sir. For us to live as Allah intended.”

“And you think King Abdullah is failing us.”

Bakr was silent.

“You don’t have to answer, captain. Every true Muslim knows it’s so.”

For a general to speak this way... Allah had rewarded his faith. For the second time in his life, he asked, “So what’s our next step?”

“Nothing can happen now, captain. Abdullah is too strong. But the moment will come when he’s weak. When he overreaches. It’s then that we’ll strike.”

 

 

BAKR QUIT THE NATIONAL
Guard a year later. His superior officers were surprised, since he’d just received a promotion to major. One by one, his men followed him out. With them as trainers, he built his organization. To find recruits, he relied on a dozen deeply conservative clerics. He wanted a small, elite force. Let other groups make grand pronouncements. His men would strike on their own timetable and cause maximum damage. He saw Ibrahim once every few months. They both knew that meeting more frequently would be dangerous. Ibrahim provided tactical advice—and money. On a day-today basis, he let Bakr work without interference.

A year ago, Ibrahim had told Bakr that the time for action was coming. Abdullah had secretly told other princes that he wanted to install his son Khalid as the next king. Khalid was even more liberal than Abdullah, Ibrahim said. He would lead the nation astray, allowing women to drive and to vote, letting Christians and Jews into the Grand Mosque
.
He had even spoken of making peace with Israel. “Everything we believe in, Khalid hates,” Ibrahim said.