The Secret Soldier jw-5

by Alex Berenson

  “I’m proud to be Muslim. I know that Islam doesn’t fear women’s rights. We should wear our burqas by our own choice. Not because the muttawa force us. If we choose to wear an abaya and show our faces, the police shouldn’t interfere. As to whether we work or stay home, we and our husbands can decide.”

  The princess paused, looked out at the crowd. “I know you don’t mistake what I’m saying, my sisters. I don’t want to live immodestly. But let’s not confuse what is haram”—forbidden—“with what is allowed. Drinking alcohol is haram. Eating pork is haram. Eating during the fast, that’s haram. But driving and working, those are allowed. I know some of our brothers and fathers don’t agree”—a few in the audience laughed—“but they’re allowed.”

  Alia went on for another twenty minutes. Her arguments weren’t new. But she spoke with a regal authority. And slowly the crowd warmed, lost its fear. The women leaned forward, interrupted her with applause and laughter. She came to her last page knowing she’d won.

  “My sisters, this won’t be a short fight. In fact, I shouldn’t even use the word fight to describe it. We’re all believers. Let’s call it a conversation. It won’t be a short conversation. It’s going to happen in bedrooms and living rooms and even bathrooms”—more laughter—“all over our kingdom. It will happen one husband at a time, one brother at a time, one father at a time. But it will happen. One day we will drive and work and sit with men in public. I believe with all my heart, as a woman and as a Muslim, that day will come in my lifetime.”

  THE ASSASSIN SAT IN the third row of the audience, no more than seven meters from the princess. He wore a black burqa with a full veil that covered his face. His hands — small and hairless, with manicured pink fingers — rested lightly in his lap.

  The assassin was a short man with sloped shoulders, narrow hips, light brown skin. He had a valid Jordanian passport that didn’t show up on watch lists. On his Saudi visa application, he called himself a religious tourist coming to the Kingdom for an umrah—a pilgrimage to Mecca that occurred outside the annual hajj period.

  He arrived in Jeddah eight days before the princess was due to speak and booked a room at the InterContinental, a junior suite that looked east toward Mecca. He left after two days. He’d used a debit card from a Lebanese bank to guarantee his stay, but he settled his bill in cash. No surprise. Arabs liked paying cash. Tax collectors couldn’t trace it.

  “I hope you enjoyed your visit,” the clerk said.

  “Jeddah’s very pleasant.”

  “This time of year, yes.”

  “I may be back as early as next week.” The assassin handed a fiftyriyal note to the concierge — almost fifteen dollars, enough to be remembered favorably without really being remembered.

  “If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

  Sure enough, the assassin returned four days later. Two nights before the princess was due to speak. Again he booked a junior suite. Nineteen hundred Saudi riyals a night, about five hundred dollars. He traveled with two roller suitcases, small enough to fit in an overhead cabin compartment, the kind that experienced travelers everywhere used. The first held men’s clothes, Western and Arab. A long gray robe. Khaki slacks.

  The second case would have been of greater interest to the security agents downstairs, if they’d seen it. Its top compartment held a burqa, a modest dark blue dress, a full-face veil, a padded bra, pink nail polish, and a cell phone that looked ordinary but wasn’t. Beneath the clothes, a second compartment contained what looked like a thick, stiff piece of cardboard in a plastic bag. The cardboard was actually made of two kilograms of RDX, military-grade plastic explosive.

  The assassin had spent nearly a year practicing for this day. Long before he learned of the princess’s speech, Ahmad Bakr realized the value of having a suicide bomber who could convincingly pass as female. Saudi society was so sexist that women weren’t viewed as threats. And though security officers knew that men could hide themselves in a burqa, they had never addressed the threat. The police hesitated even to speak to a woman in full burqa. They would make her remove it only in extreme circumstances.

  Bakr had found a man perfect for the task. The Jordanian was skinny, high-voiced, with thin arms. He might have been one of those. Bakr didn’t care, as long as he passed as a woman. And surely they had an easier time passing.

  STAYING AT THE HOTEL allowed the assassin to penetrate the outer cordon of Alia’s security. Still, he faced additional defenses, including the second metal detector and a potential pat-down, a disaster he had to avoid. He had learned that the breasts and the hips were the key. Breasts couldn’t be too large. A padded 34B bra worked best, with small silicone pads taped to his chest to fill out the cups. For his hips, he favored black spandex stockings that pushed his behind up and out.

  While the princess prepared for her speech, the assassin was preparing, too, following a routine he’d practiced a dozen times in hotels in Lebanon and Jordan. He didn’t have a heavy beard or body hair, but he shaved himself smooth anyway. After he put on his bra and stockings, he sprayed eau de toilette on himself, Dior, just a few drops, enough to cover him in a light citrus scent.

  The next part was the trickiest. He took the explosive plate from its plastic bag, taped it to his stomach, pulled its straps tight around his body. The plate was large, a rectangle fifteen centimeters long, ten centimeters wide, and two centimeters thick at the center. It tapered at the sides, so that its silhouette wouldn’t be obvious under the dress. Even so, the assassin would have preferred a smaller plate. But because of the metal detectors, the explosive couldn’t be covered with buckshot to create shrapnel. The explosion itself had to be powerful enough to be lethal in a ten-meter radius. Bakr had insisted on two kilograms of explosive.

  The assassin made sure the plate was tightly bound and that the holes for the detonators were where he wanted them. Then he pulled the blue dress over his skinny body, making sure the holes he’d cut into it matched the holes in the explosive plate. He strolled around the suite, adjusting his stockings and bra. He stopped in front of the mirror, studied himself. He smoothed the dress over the plate, turned sideways. His hair was too short, and his Adam’s apple protruded. The explosive wrinkled the belly of the dress. But his burqa would hide those flaws. He knew it would. He had walked through Baalbek and West Beirut dressed this way without being noticed.

  The burqa’s veil was made of a thick fabric that looked like black mosquito netting. The veil smudged his features but didn’t completely hide them. The outlines of his eyes and nose and cheeks were visible. He needed to be sure nothing about them was masculine. He stroked his cheeks with foundation, plucked his eyebrows until they were pencil-thin. He plumped his eyelashes with mascara, smoothed the circles under his eyes, painted his nails.

  He was ready.

  He pulled on the burqa, hid himself in its rich, black folds. The fabric was a wool-cotton blend, heavier than usual, the better to hide any trace of his body. He leaned close to the mirror, studied his face. The makeup had done the job. He was a woman now.

  The assassin was not a reflective man. He didn’t question why he liked dressing this way, didn’t question why he felt such hatred for this princess. When Bakr had told him about the mission, he had accepted immediately. Alia couldn’t be allowed to spread her lies. She wasn’t Muslim at all. He knew that she had lived for years in Europe. No doubt she had behaved shamefully there. Now she would pay for her sins.

  He unrolled his prayer rug, faced Mecca. The holy city. Just over the horizon. He’d had the chance to visit it three days earlier, to circle the Kaaba seven times and spend the day praying. A blessing. A vision of the Kaaba filled his mind, and he knew that he’d succeed today.

  Dressed as a woman, coated in Dior perfume, more than four pounds of explosive strapped to his stomach, the assassin knelt on his rug and asked Allah for success.

  TWO OFFICERS MONITORED THE metal detector outside the conference room. The assassin handed his purse t
o one and walked through the detector. It stayed quiet. The detonators and wires, which would have set it off, were in his purse.

  The guard picked out the cell phone from the purse, a black leather satchel from Chanel. A very close observer might have noticed that the phone’s handset cord looked thicker than normal, or that the headset’s earbuds were oddly shaped. The guard didn’t. Nor did he see the two metal cylinders that looked like AA batteries at the bottom of the purse. He held up the phone. “Does this take photos?”

  “Yes.” The assassin’s voice was light and breathy, not falsetto, as he’d practiced.

  “Photos aren’t allowed.” The guard handed back the phone and purse. “And once the princess comes, you’ll have to turn it off. Go on.”

  Inside the room, the assassin moved quickly. He’d come early. The room was barely one-quarter full. He chose a seat three rows from the podium, on the right. He’d scouted the conference room the day before, noted the door on the front-right side of the room. She would probably enter there.

  No one else was in the row. The assassin sat down and unzipped his purse. He reached inside for the phone and the AA batteries, which in reality were RDX detonators. He kept his hands inside the purse. He uncoiled the cord wrapped around the phone and screwed the earbuds, which were actually electrically initiated blasting caps, into the detonators. He had drilled this move hundreds of times, with his eyes closed, in the dark, with his right hand and his left. Many nights he found himself dreaming the motions.

  He armed the detonators in four seconds.

  He lifted the detonators into his burqa. The awkwardness of the motion couldn’t be avoided, but no one noticed. He leaned forward in his chair and pulled his right arm up his sleeve to his chest. He slid the detonators though the holes in the dress and slotted them into the explosive plate. For a moment, he couldn’t find the second hole. He didn’t panic. He found it.

  And he was done.

  He pulled his arm out of the burqa. He’d finished the tricky part. The cord hung loosely down his right sleeve. When he was ready, he would plug it in. Pushing any button on the phone would fire the blasting caps, setting off the detonators and the explosive.

  He sat up in his seat and waited for the princess.

  “I BELIEVE WITH ALL my heart, as a woman and as a Muslim, that day will come in my lifetime.”

  The assassin reached in his purse, plugged the cord into the cell phone.

  On the podium, Princess Alia smiled. “Thank you, my sisters. Thank you.” The assassin turned on the phone. Around him, women applauded. Scattered cries of “Inshallah!”—God willing — came from the rows. “Inshallah,” the princess said. She stepped away from the lectern, walked to her left, crossing in front of the assassin.

  He stood. “Princess.” She turned toward him. The crowd stirred. The officers on the podium looked at one another. The colonel, Alia’s bodyguard, who had watched the speech from the edge of the podium, stepped forward. They were all too late.

  “Inshallah,” the assassin said. He squeezed the phone’s call button—

  ABDULLAH AND MITEB SAT in wicker chairs in the sunroom of Abdullah’s villa in Cap d’Antibes. Beneath them were the homes of lesser royalty. Beneath those homes, the sea. A chessboard lay on the table between them.

  Abdullah was playing white, but he had lost interest. Early on he had moved his knight diagonally, like a bishop, to see if his brother would stop him. Miteb hadn’t. Finally, Abdullah looked at Miteb and said, “Are we playing Arabian rules, my brother?”

  “‘Arabian rules’?”

  “Where the king does what he wants and no one stops him?”

  “Aren’t those always the rules, Abdullah?”

  The sun broke through the high white clouds. Under the room’s bulletproof glass, orchids and ferns rose to greet the rays. The heat baked the pain from Abdullah’s bones, and for a few seconds he imagined himself young.

  “What did the American say?” Abdullah said. “Will he help us?”

  “As if you don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My brother. You made your point with the chess. Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Didn’t you meet him this morning?”

  Miteb cleared his throat. “I met him yesterday, not this morning. And I told you about it yesterday.” Quietly, now: “You really don’t remember.”

  Abdullah didn’t. Not a word. Yesterday had disappeared. Yesterday was today, and today was never. Is this what happens? I know I lose the future, but must I give up the past, too? He grabbed Miteb’s arm. “I know. Of course I know. But pretend I don’t. Repeat it, then. What did he say?”

  “He’s suspicious, but I think he’ll help us.”

  The conversation came to Abdullah in pieces, a book with half the pages torn out.

  “He said… something about a credit card? And numbers on money?”

  “That’s right. You remember.”

  The pity in Miteb’s voice infuriated Abdullah. “What do you mean he’s suspicious? He dares judge me? He’s insolent. I don’t want him.”

  “We need him.”

  “Did he ask for money?”

  “No.”

  The answer surprised Abdullah. Everyone asked for money. Some asked slyly, some directly. But they all asked sooner or later. “He will.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain.”

  “It would be best. ”

  Abdullah trailed off. Miteb waited. Abdullah pushed back the hem of his thobe, shook his arm, scowled at his pruny, withered skin. “I wish it was five hundred years ago. Back then you would have left me in the desert.” Abdullah coughed, spat a glob of phlegm flecked with blood onto the sunroom’s red tile floor. “No doctors. You would have left me behind, and I would have walked until I died. It wouldn’t have taken long. Only a few days. There’d be none of this.”

  “Abdullah—”

  “Tell me that this is better.”

  A knock on the sunroom door stopped Miteb from answering. Hamoud, Abdullah’s servant, entered. “Your Highness—”

  “Out. Now!”

  “Sir.” Hamoud tried to hand the king a cell phone. Abdullah ignored him, and he gave it instead to Miteb, who listened silently. “You’re sure. In Jeddah. Yes. I’ll tell him.” Miteb’s face hollowed like an empty house. “We need to go back. It’s Alia.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Miteb told him. Twenty-three women were confirmed dead at the InterContinental. Including the princess.

  Abdullah grabbed the phone, threw it down. It shattered on the tiles, and Hamoud hurried to collect the pieces. The king ignored him. The king looked through the glass and into the sun until his eyes burned and he couldn’t see anything at all.

  “Saeed will burn for this.” A terrible new thought raged through his ravaged mind. “You wanted me to come here. To distract me. You’re part of it, too.”

  “Abdullah. Never again accuse me of betraying you. Never again.”

  Apologizing was beyond Abdullah. But he nodded.

  “As for Saeed and Mansour—”

  “I know.”

  “Even if you’re right, this is what he wants, Abdullah. Don’t fall for this. Leave it to the American.”

  “All right. For now. But if he can’t help us—”

  “I understand, my king.”

  “If you don’t, you’ll learn.” Abdullah pushed himself up, knocking over the chessboard. He stumbled toward the door that would take him to the car and then to the plane and then home. His home. His Kingdom. All he knew.

  CHAPTER 11

  NICE, FRANCE,

  SHAFER HADN’T BEEN HAPPY TO HEAR FROM WELLS.

  “Tell me again why I’m helping you?”

  “This isn’t like the Robinson thing.”

  “You don’t work for us anymore. You can’t come running every time you have a problem. Not how it works. Even for you. Even with me.”

  Wells
had no answer.

  “I need to know who’s paying you. Especially on this. This is no such business and they like knowing their clients.” By no such, Shafer meant the National Security Agency. The nickname dated from the Cold War, when the United States denied the NSA’s very existence.

  “I can’t.”

  “Give me something, John.”

  “It goes back to the attacks two weeks ago.”

  “Who hired you?”

  Wells was silent. Shafer was silent. A transatlantic pissing contest.

  “All right,” Shafer said finally. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Faster would be better.”

  “Give me more and it’ll be faster.”

  SHAFER WAS RIGHT. WELLS had asked for a favor he didn’t deserve. He didn’t like being in this position. But only the NSA had a chance of tracking the phones and credit card.

  The card was a better bet than the phones. Before an online purchase could be completed, retailers had to get approval from the bank that had issued the card. Banks stored that data in “server farms,” windowless, high-security warehouses stacked with neat metal rows of computers and hard drives. The farms themselves were impregnable, but the NSA tapped the Internet connections into them to copy credit card numbers and purchase orders.

  In the United States, the taps were legally questionable. The Constitution required warrants for searches. The Bush Administration had decided that the taps were legal, as long as NSA made its “best efforts” to discard purchases made by American citizens. The rule had a massive loophole. “Best efforts” had never been defined. No one outside the NSA knew exactly how much data the government had collected on American citizens. Yet the program hadn’t ended on January 20, 2009. The new president had found it, like Guantánamo, too useful to give up. Expanding national security programs was always easier than scaling them back.