Oil

by Jeff Nesbit

  “And we’re sure that’s the news bin Rahman delivered to Shahidi?” Dr. Gould asked.

  “We are,” Wright said. “NSA is certain of the context of the conversation and its import. The problem, of course, is that the propagandists inside Iran have been laying the groundwork for this for some time. Whether we like it or not, films and books for years have been referring to Sunni and Shi’a hadiths alike.”

  “Hadiths?” someone asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Wright said quickly. “They’re stories—collections, really—about the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. You can think of them like commentaries. And there are some inside Iran who’ve been handpicking certain hadiths to justify that real, live people like the Supreme Leader, Amir Shahidi, and Iran’s president, Nassir Ahmadian, are fulfilling prophecy. What’s more, they’ve even identified other political leaders, like Sa’id Nouradeen—”

  “The Shi’a military leader in southern Lebanon?” someone else asked.

  “Precisely,” Wright said. “There is literature that identifies Nouradeen with a prophetic figure known as Yamani, who will precede the emergence of the Twelfth Imam. What makes this important is that, should Nouradeen be seen leading military forces into battle—possibly aimed directly at a holy site like Mecca in Saudi Arabia or Jerusalem— then others might very quickly rally behind him as the Yamani who is to precede the Mahdi’s emergence.”

  “So it might not make any difference whether there’s some messianic Mahdi waiting in the wings?” Gould asked. “If Nouradeen is hailed as a predecessor of this Mahdi, and people believe it, then it could start a chain of events…”

  “Yes,” Wright said, “which is why we’re taking all of this quite seriously. We already know Nouradeen’s reputation to the masses— as the one and only general to defeat the Israelis on the field of battle in southern Lebanon. If, for some reason, Nouradeen were to show up in Yemen, then, I would say, it’s time to start worrying.”

  “And have we been tracking Nouradeen?” Gould asked.

  The room grew quiet.

  Wright hesitated for just an instant. “In fact, yes, we have been. And as of last evening, Sa’id Nouradeen is in Yemen. What we don’t know is why—and what he might be up to. We lost him for a time, but at least one intelligence asset has reacquired him in the past three hours…”

  Gould’s cell phone buzzed. So did Dr. Wright’s, and then several others in the room. A few received text messages. Dr. Wright stopped talking, glanced at the message, and tried to keep her composure. She glanced at Gould, who confirmed with an almost imperceptible nod that he’d received the same message.

  “We need to wrap this up,” Wright said quickly. “The president wants us in the Situation Room. We’ll pick this up at a later date.” She rose, and the others in the room rose as well.

  DJ moved quickly to keep up with Dr. Gould as they exited the briefing room. “What happened?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

  Dr. Gould sighed. “There’s been a terrorist nuclear incident at Aramco’s oil refineries in southern Arabia, just north of Yemen—which might explain what Nouradeen’s been up to.”

  30

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Nash really wanted to take a quick jog through a park. He was starting to go a little stir-crazy in his hotel room.

  But of course, that was nearly impossible to do in Saudi Arabia. First, he didn’t particularly want to call attention to himself. Not many tall, young white men from America went jogging in the Saudi desert during the heat of the day. And second, he had dozens of e-mails and SMS messages from his mVillage network “friends” to deal with. Most had come in from other time zones while he was asleep.

  So he did what he always did while he was traveling. He grabbed his iPhone, headphones, and iPad and headed down to the small gym in the hotel. To make himself a little less conspicuous, he wore sweatpants and a pullover jersey as he made his way through the hotel complex.

  Thankfully, the gym was empty, though it was extraordinarily chilly. He wandered around the room, found a thermostat tucked away in one corner, and adjusted the air-conditioning to a more reasonable setting. He had his pick of stationary bikes and treadmills.

  Nash set up shop on a stationary bike at the far corner of the room. The TV at the top of the room was set to CNN International. Nash turned the volume off but kept the pictures on. He couldn’t help himself. He liked constant input and thought nothing of simultaneously watching video from CNN while he read his SMS messages and listened to his collection of songs on his iPhone.

  He set his stationary bike to a comfortable aerobic course, placed his iPad in front on the bike, adjusted the volume on his iPhone, and set off on his imaginary bike trip through a virtual world of hills and valleys. It felt good to stretch his limbs.

  Nash was still thinking through his meeting with Prince Abdul— and the offer the prince had placed squarely on the table. It was a gamble on the prince’s part, one that no doubt had the backing of the royal family and the extended House of Saud.

  Oppressive or totalitarian regimes rarely gave up power willingly. The House of Saud was far from an oppressive regime, but it certainly wielded extraordinary power over its people and commanded vast sums of private wealth for the elite of its society.

  At some point, Nash knew, the House of Saud was vulnerable to an uprising from people who were disaffected with the Saudi rulers. It was this sort of disaffection from the youth and ordinary citizens that had led to the uprisings and the Arab Spring revolts that had toppled so many despots and regimes across the Middle East.

  Saudi Arabia, though, was the crown jewel in the equation. It was the center of oil wealth and the core of pan-Islamic art and culture. Nash had just witnessed the House of Saud’s impressive and grand design to create a science, arts, technology, and cultural mecca in Riyadh. It was impressive.

  But the House of Saud was vulnerable. A well-financed and organized military excursion into Saudi territory would likely succeed, in part, until the Saudis could call on US military allies. A collapse in the price of crude oil on the world market—one that OPEC could not control—would also do serious damage to their wealth.

  And of course, there was always the slim possibility that the Shi’a minority population could organize itself and mount a serious political challenge to the ruling House of Saud. Tehran had long plotted this sort of movement but had never made many inroads.

  As usual, Nash’s inbox was filled with dozens of e-mails. He scrolled through them quickly and efficiently. He responded to the business ones that seemed most urgent. He’d become quite adept at brief, one-sentence answers. He’d learned long ago that a short answer was often better than a lengthy reply days after an initial inquiry.

  But his personal e-mails were another matter. He often felt guilty about not responding to inquiries from friends and acquaintances. It bothered him that there weren’t enough hours in the day to sit and respond to the well-wishing and friendly back-and-forth that most people enjoyed during the course of their daily correspondence.

  Su knew this about Nash, so she rarely sent him e-mails or SMS messages. If she wanted something from him, she just called him. But others hadn’t quite figured that out about Nash and often sent him long, winding e-mails about everything under the sun, from the dinner parties they’d been to the night before to new recipes for sun-dried vegetable soup.

  “Oh my,” Nash muttered to himself after he’d quickly perused one especially long e-mail from one of Su’s close friends in Washington. They’d gone to DC Coast on K Street the night before and had apparently stayed quite late into the evening. Su’s friend had recited the types of drinks, their appetizers, and then their main courses for the evening. None of which Nash wanted to read about.

  But it was a friend of Su’s. Therefore, by extension, he knew that he was required to care. So he typed in a few sentences, commenting on the wide variety of things they’d ingested for the evening, and hit the SEND button. The fa
ct that he’d forgotten everything he’d read and written the instant he sent it off into cyberspace actually bothered Nash on a certain level.

  But then he came to a series of SMS messages on his mVillage account that nearly stopped him cold. He slowed his fast-paced clip on the stationary bicycle in order to read through them carefully. They were drafted in a series of bursts, one after the other as the limit was reached on each message. Nash stared at the words.

  The message was from You Moon. Nash had assumed—wrongly, as it turned out—that You Moon and Kim Grace had been safely moved from Camp 16 in North Korea after the president of the United States and the new, young Dear Leader had reached a tentative peace on the Korean peninsula.

  Nash knew from his father, the US ambassador to Japan, that President Camara had made a special diplomatic request for the release of both You Moon and Kim Grace. Given that sort of interest, and the commitment to peace on the part of both parties, Nash and Su had both believed that the two people who’d risked their lives for peace would be allowed to leave Camp 16.

  But nothing of the sort had happened. In fact, You Moon’s SMS message was precisely the opposite of this hope:

  My friend Nash,

  This will be the last message I will be able to write to you. It will also be the last words I will write in my life.

  I am to be executed in the morning. Kim Grace and I have both been sentenced to death for our part in the events that led to the peace talks.

  There is no appeal. We cannot speak to anyone. I have tried, many times, with the guards, but they will not speak to my friend in Pyongyang.

  I have not heard from him. And with our execution scheduled for the morning, I have lost all hope that I will ever hear from him.

  There has been some change in North Korea since the peace talks began. But political prisoners still show up here at Camp 16 every day.

  That is how I am able to send you this message. My mobile device was taken before, but a new friend was able to bring in his own phone before the guards took over daily life again.

  I do not know anyone else. By the time you read this, I will most likely be dead. But I wanted to thank you for what you tried to do for Kim Grace and me.

  I wanted to tell you one other thing, in the hope that it will mean something to you. It is something that we have learned from the new political prisoners at the camp.

  The nuclear weapons that North Korea agreed to give up to achieve peace have been moved. Some of them were given to the Americans.

  But there were many other weapons that the world did not know about. Those have been moved. The prisoners say they have been given to Iran.

  I do not know if this is true. But I wanted to give you this information. I am sure you will know what to do with it. There is nothing more that I can do.

  I am at peace. Kim Grace has given me the gift of the knowledge of Jesus and what He died for so very long ago. I am indebted to her for that gift.

  I will die in the morning, knowing that she and I will see our God soon. I believe this. It gives me hope that I will soon be in a better place.

  Kim Grace also sends her love to you. She hopes that you will be able to continue to make the world a better place.

  Your friend,

  You Moon

  Nash simply could not help himself. He stopped moving on the stationary bicycle. The images on the television screen above him blurred. The music in his ears lost meaning.

  He began to cry, uncontrollably. The tears streamed down his face and landed quietly on the plush carpet at his feet. It was so patently unfair. He felt helpless to do anything about what he was feeling at that moment.

  You Moon and Kim Grace had risked their lives to bring peace to the world. Now they would pay with their lives for that act. And here he was, in an expensive hotel gym, with his toys and cultural pleasures surrounding him, a network of information at his disposal, and he could do nothing whatsoever to help two friends he’d never met avoid an execution they did not deserve.

  The words of his unspoken prayer called out to a God that he believed was there—and listening. The words were unformed. Yet Nash knew in his heart that, if God existed, then He did not need words. Nash bowed his head in silence and continued to cry for a while longer.

  Then he picked up his mobile phone. He did not care what time it was in Tokyo, or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

  “Get me my father,” Nash said when he’d connected with an aide. “I need to talk to him immediately.”

  31

  Tehran, Iran

  Nassir Ahmadian, the president of Iran, was not a stupid man. The world thought so, however. And for that, Ahmadian was grateful. It allowed him to make his way through the world without ever needing to reveal his true nature or his real thoughts.

  Ahmadian bought the finest suits and dressed well. He kept his dark beard trimmed. He employed both a masseuse and a hair stylist. That allowed people to think of him as a cultured, fancy man obsessed by appearances.

  But Ahmadian was anything but those things. His dark countenance masked a fierce belief in his own shining place in the world. He did not care about the material things of this world. He knew, in his heart, that he had been chosen to clear a path.

  When he went to speak to the General Assembly of the United Nations in the great, sinful, sordid city of New York in the United States, he spent much of his speech scowling at the handful of representatives who’d remained behind to hear his words.

  Ahmadian had not cared that much if the hall remained empty. There had been a presence in the hall as he’d spoken about the imminent return of the Mahdi on earth, and the others had felt it. He was certain.

  Ahmadian truly believed he was chosen by his God and fate to serve as the president of the great country that would pave the way for the Twelfth Imam. It was not an act for his countrymen. It was, he was convinced, his calling, and the reason he was put on the earth.

  Ahmadian had strongly objected to the path toward peace that Reverend Shahidi had pledged to forge. Ahmadian felt sure it was the exact wrong thing for his country. Iran was to be a beacon in a rapidly darkening world on the edge of apocalypse.

  In order for the Twelfth Imam to return, the world must first be at war. There must be chaos on the planet. The principalities and powers, both seen and unseen, must surely know that the world was on the brink and that it was time for the Mahdi to return. Iran was the light on the path toward the return of the Twelfth Imam, and Ahmadian was the leader of that effort.

  Perhaps the most direct route to worldwide chaos would be a terrorist attack on the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, as part of an apparent uprising and effort to throw off the monarchy in the Saudi kingdom, Ahmadian knew. It was for this very reason that he’d authorized his own network to plot with others seeking to destabilize the Saudi regime.

  Because of his firm belief in this doctrine—and his willingness to commit what was needed to usher in those days—Ahmadian knew his days were numbered. The Reverend Shahidi had been slowly drawing a noose around his neck. Some of the more conservative clerics who did the Supreme Leader’s bidding had been calling for his impeachment of late.

  For this reason, Ahmadian now traveled with an IRGC armed guard. He was certain that at least some members of the military guard surrounding him at all times were disloyal and answered in whispers and traitorous dialogue to those who served Shahidi.

  Ahmadian didn’t care. He would fulfill his destiny and lead Iran as long as his body and mind was willing and able.

  He’d been thoroughly briefed that Ali bin Rahman had brought to the Supreme Leader news of the imminent return of Muhammad al Mahdi. But what none of them knew was that Ahmadian was several steps ahead of all of them.

  Ahmadian had his own spies inside the IRGC’s intelligence bureau who kept him apprised of developments. He knew the name of the Mahdi that was circulating among the al Qaeda leadership and was slowly making its way through the ranks of Iran’s intelligentsia. />
  There were some who were calling him the new Caliph of God, from a direct lineage that belonged to the House of Muhammad and, perhaps, the line of Imam Hasan and the family name of Abul Qasim. Some said his father had been Abdullah, a Saudi king, and that he was even now in Mecca. His name, it was said, was known to a close circle as Muhammad Abul Qasim al Mahdi.

  Ahmadian wondered, to himself, whether the name alone would be enough to bridge the great gulf that separated the beliefs and hadiths of both Sunni and Shi’a about the Mahdi. Perhaps, if it can be proved that his lineage and family is directly from the House of Muhammad, it may be so.

  If it could be proved that he was descended from Fatimah, the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, and Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad considered by the Shi’a faithful to be the first Imam and the rightful successor to Muhammad, then that would satisfy the Shi’a faithful. He could thus be perceived as an elect from God and descended from the Prophet’s family.

  And if it could be proved that he was also connected directly to Abu Bakr, the father-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad who is known as the first, true caliph to the Sunni faithful, then there might be a bridge. Election from the Shura—from the community—could be addressed in this fashion.

  While the Prophet Muhammad had no sons who lived to adulthood—assuring he would be the Last of the Prophets, according to hadiths—both Shi’a and Sunni agreed that Fatimah had children. The Shi’a believed succession was through Muhammad’s family. The Sunni believed that the Shura, or community of the faithful, selected successors. If this new Mahdi could draw connections through direct lineage while also indicating a connection to the Sunni line of caliphs selected through the process commonly known as Shura that had originated with Abu Bakr, then it would make things interesting.