The Alboran Codex

by J C Ryan

  At first, he thought he could get away scot-free because of his illegal abduction, interrogation, and the bullet through the knee to make him talk. But those ideas were short-lived when his lawyer advised him that although the maltreatment certainly entitled him to take legal action against his abductors, it would have no impact on the treason or any other charges against him. The prosecution’s case was based on Miller’s evidence and information retrieved from the CRS servers, not on anything he told Sean Walker or James Rhodes while under duress.

  He was placed on twenty-four seven suicide watch. He could not escape, and… well, there were no other options. All he could do was admit Sean Walker was right when he said, “Gordon, sooner or later in life, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.”

  Chapter 2 -

  The Vice President’s way out

  The Vice President, George Robertson, was not arraigned with Gordon, Miller, or any of the other suspects for two reasons. One, he was “in a coma” due to a “debilitating stroke”. Two, because of a stipulation in the Constitution, which reads as follows: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”’

  That clause meant only the House of Representatives had the power to impeach the Vice President, and the Senate had to convict him, and only then could he be arrested and punished.

  This latitude for “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers” built into the Constitution afforded Robertson much more time to ruminate about his options than the other accused had.

  Even so, it was debatable whether Robertson had a good understanding of the gravity of his situation.

  For the past five and a half years, Vice President Robertson had been living in a surreal world where there had never been one single moment when he had been alone. At any given point in time during those five and a half years, at least twenty-five people knew where he was, although they didn’t always know what he was doing. Always being surrounded by officials, media, and guards — constant movement, ideas, action, planning, scheming — by God, he loved every moment of it. And he would love it even more if he became President.

  Whenever asked, and very often even when not asked, why he wanted to be President, he responded with the tried and tested platitudes — love for our country, service to the American people, a better future for all of us and the generations to follow.

  Of course, that worked. That’s what people wanted to hear, and that was part of the reason he was so far ahead in the polls. But that was a lot of horse manure; he didn’t believe one word of what he told the people.

  The truth?

  Well, if the President was the most powerful man in the world, then surely, I must be the second most powerful man in the world. And I reached this position without getting one single vote. I was asked. No, actually, they begged me, no doubt because of my extraordinary intelligence and exceptional leadership abilities, to take up the position.

  It was undeniable; he was destined to ascend to the command of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.

  He had never doubted it was his destiny to be President; I was born to it; I was carved out for it. And by the way, when in history was it ever possible to become a deity bloodlessly?

  The secret service agents guarding the Vice President at the undisclosed clinic struggled to fathom his tempestuous moods and bad behavior. Although none of them uttered the words, all of them were perturbed by the fact that a man such as George Robertson could become Vice President, and none could imagine he could ever become President.

  Maybe it was because he was “appointed” — not elected.

  In his room at the clinic, there were days when Robertson was crying, some days he was quiet and looked depressed, still other days he was screaming and swearing, and some days he was making speeches.

  The Vice President would watch his former opponents in the Presidential race on TV addressing the crowds, and then he would turn the sound off and make his own speech to the voters who were soon going to slingshot him into power.

  The secret service agents just shook their heads every day in disbelief, the TV turned off at the end of the talk show featuring four women sharing their varying views on the world so the Vice President could have his turn delivering his campaign debate speech to the “crowd” – the crowd being them and the health care aides attending him, who faithfully stood at attention through the entirety of the ramblings and would clap at the conclusion to soothe the Vice President’s ego.

  He almost never slept — the campaign trail was hard work.

  Was the Vice President delusional?

  Absolutely.

  Could the Vice President escape the inevitable consequences of his evil deeds with an insanity plea?

  Maybe.

  His condition was critical, and it was imperative that he did not receive any visitors, not even his family — doctors’ orders. However, there was no prohibition on receiving flowers and presents.

  The Vice President was curious to see what was in the little box wrapped in red gift paper, which arrived with a bunch of flowers. When the door closed behind the Secret Service agent who brought the items in and placed them on the small table, he got up from his bed and walked to the table.

  Squinting at the contents of the little box — a 9mm SIG Sauer P938 pistol.

  He frowned at it for a while, then took it out of the box. There was no magazine. He was perplexed. A gun without bullets? He opened the breech slightly and saw there was one round in the chamber.

  “Oh, now I know what to do with this,” he muttered. He placed the front end into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  For Vice President George Robertson, the judicial process ended abruptly on the eleventh day after he suffered a stroke at the White House.

  For the rest of the accused, the judicial process would stretch out over years, and for those who would receive the death penalty, the process would end only after a decade or more.

  ***

  The news about the Vice President’s demise was given to them the night when Carter and his family, accompanied by Liu and the rest of the rescue team, arrived back in America. There was no jubilation amongst the group when they heard the news. On the contrary, it caused a somber mood. The senseless death of so many people over the past ten months was no cause for celebration.

  Carter was surprised to discover he didn’t care about George Robertson’s death and that his apathy was actually a relief. In the final instance, Robertson’s death amended nothing. It didn’t restore life nor did it heal injuries — physical or psychological.

  Chapter 3 -

  Mayon and Aisha’s way out

  With their father’s parting words, “May Allah go with you and bless you in every undertaking,” still ringing in their ears, Mayon and Aisha were quiet as they headed south out of Riyadh. Aisha had donned her full-face niqab and stuffed some clothes under her long black dress over her tummy, making her look more than a little pregnant. Mayon had put on dark sunglasses and a black and white kufiya, held in place with a camel hair circlet — the `iqal — covering his head and most of the lower parts of his face.

  They had left an hour and a half before the Mabahith agents arrived at Xavier Algosaibi’s house. They were frazzled to the verge of panic. They’d had no idea about their father’s surreptitious life, neither did they have the profound knowledge about their ancestry, until a few hours ago. Illustrious as their lineage might be, they knew it was not going to avert their heads being separated from their bodies with their father’s. Although they had lived much of their lives in Europe, both graduating from the prestigious Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris, they understood the Saudi justice system all too well. Being the progeny of the architect of the plot to overthrow King al Saud’s empire carried the death penalty.

  They’d tried to persuade their father to take flight with them,
but he was resolute in his decision. He was going to face the music, and his children had to get away to continue the noble lineage. He always had contingency plans in place, and this time was no exception as he opened his safe, took out two envelopes, and handed one to each of his children. They contained fake passports and $250,000 US dollars in cash for each of them.

  Mayon and Aisha had opened the envelopes and stared at the contents in silence. Nothing had to be said — it was clear what had to be done.

  Next, Xavier had taken a miniature portable hard drive, the size of a box of matches, out of the safe. “This contains your promise. This is my blessing to the two of you,” he said in a melancholic tone. “On it is the latest backup of my laptop and a lot of other information I never kept on the laptop. Information about my businesses, contacts, plans, family history, and a lot more. With this in your hands, you can start a new life and become very successful. Keep it with you always, and use it wisely.”

  Mayon and Aisha gaped at him, nodding slowly. No doubt this was the worst day of their lives. At first, they were besieged by the realization that their lives of extravagance and privilege had come to an end. Then came the awareness of the reality awaiting them if they didn’t get out of Saudi Arabia immediately — run and hide — fugitives for the rest of their lives.

  Mayon was thirty-two, and apart from the science degree from the Pierre and Marie Curie University, he held a master of business administration (MBA) from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. He was married but childless because his wife was infertile. For years, his father had been putting pressure on him to get a second wife, as was allowed by Sharia law, but Mayon’s many years in a Western European society convinced him of the sensibility of monogamous marriage.

  There was no time for him to collect his wife to join them in the escape. His father’s contingency plans did not include his barren daughter-in-law. All that Mayon could hope for was that the authorities’ hunger for vengeance against his father would not extend to his wife. He could not even warn her; neither would he be able to contact her in any manner, ever. When he left their house earlier, it was the last time he would see her.

  Aisha didn’t have many family matters to worry about. She was thirty, not married. Unusual for an Arab woman at that age, but maybe not for an Arab woman with a Ph.D. in quantum physics from one of the top six universities in Europe. She was dedicated to her work on quantum computing. Men were not on her mind; besides, homosexuality was a capital offence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

  Their father had one more item to take out from the safe. It looked like a credit card, except it had no logos, names, or engravings on it. “This card holds the digital numbers to three of my secret bank accounts in Zürich. Those accounts can only be accessed by the bearer of this card. I have been putting money into those accounts for years. No one else, except, of course, my banker, you, and I, know about the accounts. There is twenty million US dollars in the accounts. If you so choose, the two of you can live comfortably off that for the rest of your lives without having to lift a finger.”

  Mayon swallowed hard to get the dry lump out of his throat. Aisha was sobbing. They had so many questions and thoughts, so much to talk about, but no time.

  Xavier was beginning to get more and more nervous. “You have to get ready to leave now. We can’t wait any longer.”

  They got up and hugged their father.

  When they took a step back and looked at each other, all of them had tears in their eyes. Xavier said, “Listen carefully now. Here is the map of where you have to go from here . . .” For the next ten minutes, he gave them detailed instructions about the escape plan, then handed them a suitcase with a variety of outfits, disguises, and a makeup kit, before he literally pushed them out of his study and down the hallways and stairs to the basement where Mayon’s car was parked.

  Mayon and his father quickly clipped new registration plates on the car, and Mayon got in on the driver’s side. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, women were not allowed to drive.

  ***

  It was about thirty miles to the estate of their father’s friend, Rashid Ajmal Kasab, who had a four-seat, twin-engine airplane and his trusted pilot ready to fly them to Salwa, a small town on the Gulf of Persia on the border with Qatar.

  When they arrived on the Kasab estate, they parked their car out of sight in one of the sheds on the property. Kasab would take care of the destruction of the car later. He was waiting for them inside the shed. Mayon and Aisha got out, retrieved everything they would take with them from the car, and greeted Kasab as he approached them. Mayon quickly dressed up as a woman, donning a long black abaya, full-face niqab, and a walking stick. They got into Kasab’s car, and he drove them out to his private airstrip where the plane was waiting. The pilot was told that the two women, his passengers, were a mother and daughter going to the funeral of a close relative. Lucky for them, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, men were not allowed to talk to women unless their husband, father, or older brother accompanied them — it was a very quiet flight.

  Salwa was only 240 miles east of Riyadh, less than two hours flying from Kasab’s estate. When the plane landed at Salwa, another friend of their father, Nidal Deobandi, the head of the border control post, was waiting for them and took them to his house, about ten miles outside of town, where they would hide for the rest of the day. By the time their plane landed at Salwa, their father was already in Mabahith custody.

  When darkness fell that night, Mayon and Aisha were taken down to the beach, just a few hundred yards from the house. There a small, twin-engine fishing boat picked them up and carried them to a secluded spot on the beach ten miles away, just outside As Salwa in Qatar. Deobandi had stamped their passports to show them leaving Saudi Arabia. Closer inspection of their passports would have revealed that they were Faisal Shazad and his wife, Farhat. The many stamps in their passports were testimony to their globetrotting habits.

  The fishing boat arrived on the Qatar beach, dropped them off, and turned back immediately after they went ashore. The two of them stood on Qatar soil, and for both it felt as if they could take their first breath since the ill-fated call from their father at two a.m. that morning. However, for the first time in their lives, they also felt deserted, without sponsorship, orphaned. There was no one on the beach to welcome them and take care of them. No one to take orders from them. They had to wait — a displeasure they would have to get used to. The days of a crowd of obedient subordinates, always ready to please them at the snap of a finger, were over.

  Aisha turned to her brother, trying to hide her fear and the feeling of helplessness as best she could. “Mayon, I was so scared we would never get here. Allah has indeed been merciful to us.”

  Mayon put his arms around her and hugged her. “It is not over yet, Aisha. We must remain vigilant, and to be honest with you, I think that is going to be required for the rest of our lives. But so far we have done well.”

  Aisha stared at her brother and slowly nodded. “Yes, those thoughts have been on my mind since we left Riyadh this morning.”

  Just then, Mayon caught a glimpse of a beam of flashlight about a hundred yards away from where they were hiding behind a small sand dune. “Shhh,” Mayon whispered as he moved lower down the dune to get out of sight of the visitor. “Someone is coming this way.”

  After a while, he peeked over the crest of the dune again and waited. He saw it again. The light was pointed in their direction. It went on and off in four short bursts, a long pause, and then two more on and off flashes.

  Mayon turned to Aisha. “Hand me the flashlight. It’s our contact. I need to answer the signal.” He crawled back to the top, switched the flashlight on and off three times in short succession, counted to ten, and did it again with two short flashes.

  The visitor’s flashlight came on and remained on as Mayon and Aisha approached.

  From As Salwa to Doha, the capital of Qatar, was about 450 miles, a distance that could easily be covered in seven to eig
ht hours by car. However, traveling only at night to attract as little as possible attention to themselves, it took them two days to reach Doha, from where they took a late-night flight to arrive in Istanbul four days after they had left Riyadh.

  After clearing customs at Istanbul Atatürk Airport, they both sighed a deep breath of relief. They still had a long way to go, but now they both felt a lot safer than they had at any time during the past four days.

  Chapter 4 -

  The Council of the Covenant of Nabatea

  Graziella Marie Nabati and her son, Mathieu Nabati, were busy doing research in the secret library ten levels below her house on the bank of the Seine River in the third district of Paris. The library was adjacent to the chamber in which the twelve members of the Council of the Covenant of Nabatea conducted their meetings.

  She had a wry little smile playing on her strikingly beautiful face as she read the article about Confucius’s lineage. “You keep on believing that,” she whispered. “It suits us just fine as long as you keep on believing and publishing that.”

  “Did you say something, maman?” Mathieu asked.

  Mathieu Nabati was forty-five years old and lived in Zürich, Switzerland, where he was the owner-manager of a small boutique private bank, catering to by-invitation-only clients from around the world. He cut a striking figure — six foot one, slim, well-turned legs like a fencer, square shoulders, ramrod straight back, and deep-set, coffee-colored eyes. His curling, lush, black hair shone in the light, with a few attractive speckles of gray here and there on the sides.

  Graziella was proud of her son — no doubt about that. She had been grooming him to step into her place as the chairperson of the Council of the Covenant of Nabatea. And he did not disappoint her — Mathieu held doctorates in computer science and economics, he was married and produced three children, two boys and a girl. He was a brilliant businessman and a natural leader.