“Private military business? Is that a euphemism for mercenaries? Maybe you’re too scared to say the word in my presence. Mercenary.” He laughed sincerely at the young Dutchman’s worried expression. “Publish the story, Meijer, and then we’ll come to terms on the interview.”
He left the bar and walked a few yards to the mouth of the metro that would take him to the center of Amsterdam. He passed by the car with tinted windows from which Dingo and Axel were trailing Lars Meijer. He lowered his face to speak into the microphone hidden in the wool collar of his Hogan jacket.
“I just left him alone. I put the transmitter and microphone where we agreed. Don’t let him out of your sight. Not for a minute. Remember, I want you to protect him like it was your ass on the line.”
“Understood, boss.”
Just after two in the afternoon, he took off in his Gulfstream V, heading to the aerial base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where he arrived five hours later. Having returned the controls of the plane to Captain Paloméro and settled comfortably in his seat, he had an urge to call Matilde, but in the end, with the encrypted telephone in his hand, he abstained, telling himself that she was at the institute. He knew that this was just an excuse; it didn’t really matter if she was at the institute. Juana had promised him that she wouldn’t turn off her phone, even during class. Why had he decided not to call her? Did he want to punish her for the concern she had shown that maggot Roy Blahetter? For having cried so bitterly or rejecting his consolation? He shook his head. No, the cause of his coldness went deeper and it lay with her, not her ex-husband. He had been struggling with it for some time: he was afraid of Matilde, because he felt she was unattainable. He wanted her to suffer in his absence, to suffer the uncertainty of not knowing what had become of him, to miss him. He was starting to realize that when he was afraid of something, he reacted like an animal: he attacked it. In the end, he called Sándor and was reassured to hear the Bosnian tell him that everything was in order.
On Monday night he had dinner in an opulent restaurant in Dhahran with his uncle, Prince Abdul Rahman, commander of the Royal Saudi Air Force, and slept at the aerial base. The next morning, he interviewed four old colleagues from the French air force who wanted to work on a new training program for the recruits. Two of them, like him, had requested a discharge after the Gulf War; another had been kicked out for disobeying an order while following a plane that had encroached on French airspace and the fourth, who had retired, said that he still had enough energy to continue training.
The meetings on Tuesday took all day. It wasn’t easy mediating between his French colleagues and the Saudi soldiers. The problem wasn’t the language barrier, since they all spoke English, but the eternal conflict between Eastern and Western ways. Al-Saud knew that the program wouldn’t run smoothly unless his colleagues from L’Armée de l’Air adapted to the customs of their Saudi peers. This included not getting infuriated every time the pilots disappeared to comply with the Koranic salah; neither would it be easy for these four Frenchmen to do without alcoholic drinks, forbidden in the Saudi territory. The healthy pay would compensate in part for swallowing the bitter pill of living in such a different society; nevertheless, there were some customs that they wouldn’t give up for all the treasure in Arabia. He would be able to follow the development of the program closely as the agreement required his presence on the air base once a month to evaluate the progress of the recruits.
On Wednesday, very early in the morning, the Gulfstream V landed at Rafic Hariri International Airport, in Beirut. Al-Saud entered the country with an Argentinean passport under the name of Ricardo Mauro Lema. He took a taxi, an old Mercedes Benz, and told the driver to take him to the Embassy, on Makdessi Street, a low-quality but quiet and well-located hotel, just a block from Hamra, the commercial highway of the city. He presented himself at the Embassy check-in and said that he had a reservation. Nobody accompanied him to the second floor, room 208.
He took off his jacket; it was hot. He looked around. There was a door that connected to the contiguous room, number 210. He knocked once and Peter Ramsay’s voice invited him to come in. They heartily slapped hands by way of greeting. Al-Saud noticed that the curtains were closed and Peter was working in artificial light. His equipment—a laptop and small satellite antenna—was spread out on the table. He had a pair of headphones around his neck.
“You can speak freely. This room is clean, so is yours.”
In the meeting held at the base a few days before, they had agreed that the false hand-off of evidence would be done the next day, Thursday the nineteenth of February, at night in the Tropicale bar of the Hotel Summerland on Avenue Jnah. They had chosen the resort on the banks of the Mediterranean because Al-Saud knew it well. One of Ramsay’s men, Franky, checked in to the Summerland under the name of Mark Levy, with a British passport. On Thursday, Peter Ramsay would be outside, keeping watch over the surroundings, and Gabriel and another member of his team would be inside.
“I would have preferred Amburgo as your bodyguard instead of Gabriel, but you have him in Paris following the three stupid Iraqis,” Peter complained.
“Those three stupid Iraqis could be very useful. They’ll lead us to the guy who got into the apartment on Rue Toullier.”
“Fine, fine, whatever you say. Both Gabriel and Franky think that there are at least four people guarding the Summerland.”
“The fish is about to bite.”
“So it would seem. Be careful,” Peter emphasized.
Al-Saud didn’t feel comfortable with this mission because, with the distraction of Blahetter’s death, he had hardly participated at all in its planning. Really, he told himself, there wasn’t that much to plan. Once the bait was set, he just had to wait for the attackers from Cairo to reappear in Beirut to confirm what they already suspected: that they had a leak at Mercure, and, if they were lucky, they might even find out who was behind it. Only a handful of employees—including Masséna, their principal suspect—knew the details of the supposed exchange.
Al-Saud’s cell phone rang, and Ramsay proceeded to divert it to a secure line before Eliah answered the call. It was Dussollier.
“I just received the results of the autopsy of your acquaintance, Roy Blahetter. Forensics gave it priority, just like I asked them,” he added.
“Thank you, Olivier.”
“This case is more complicated than we thought, Eliah. They killed the guy with ricin, a highly poisonous alkaloid, for which there is no antidote. They injected a tiny pellet in his thigh. It was such a high dosage that it destroyed his body in two days. This isn’t technology that just any criminal can get his hands on. What do you know about Blahetter?”
Al-Saud felt a chill in his stomach. What was he facing? Who was his enemy? Who was lying in wait for Matilde?
“As far as I know,” said Al-Saud, “ricin is pretty easy to get. You don’t need a big laboratory. They get the paste from crushing ricin seeds. And you can get those anywhere.”
“That’s true,” Dussollier agreed. “However, this reeks of terrorist activity, which is why the district attorney is going to ask Edmé de Florian’s department to take part in the investigation.”
That’s good, Al-Saud said to himself.
“What do you know about Blahetter?” Dussollier inquired.
“Little to nothing. He’s an acquaintance, nothing more. I know that he was a nuclear engineer, graduated with a high degree, but I don’t know where he worked or anything else about his life.”
“The doctors at Georges Pompidou mentioned that his wife was with him when he died. We have a cell phone number. We’ll call her so she can come in and testify.” The chill in his stomach invaded his lungs and froze his breath. “Also,” Dussollier continued, “we have the head nurse’s statement in which she says that she saw a stranger coming out of Blahetter’s room on the night of February eleventh. We’re preparing an Identi-Kit, not a very good one, I have to admit, because the nurse saw him from a distance in the hallway, w
hich was dim.”
“Would you mind sending it to me?”
“Not at all. Give me a fax number and I’ll send it now.”
Al-Saud put a hand over the phone and hissed at Ramsay, “A fax number. Now.” Ramsay wrote it down for him and Eliah repeated it to Dussollier. “Send it as soon as possible, Olivier. And thank you for everything.”
“Thank you,” the inspector said in a more friendly voice. “The Cartier cuff links are absolutely gorgeous.”
“It’s nothing. Just something to compensate you for all the trouble I’ve caused you lately.” They said good-bye. “Merde!” Al-Saud muttered, and immediately said, “Peter, get me Alamán. Find him, wherever he is.”
A few minutes later Al-Saud greeted his brother. “Dussollier, an inspector in the French police, just told me that Blahetter was poisoned with ricin. He’s going to call Juana’s cell phone and ask for Matilde. He’ll ask Matilde to go to thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres to testify. I want you to go with her and my lawyer, Dr. Lafrange. Tell her that she shouldn’t mention the attack outside the institute or the painting under any circumstances. She should say that they were separated and that she didn’t know about her ex-husband’s activities, which, by the way, is true. Brother, I’m entrusting her to you. Don’t leave her alone for a second. I’m afraid that the person who assassinated Blahetter is after her.”
“I’ll do it. Don’t worry. When are you coming back?”
“Probably Saturday. I promised Mama that I’d be at her birthday party.” As soon as they hung up, he called Sándor. “Where are they?”
“In your house. The young ladies are having lunch. In a while we’ll leave to go to the institute.”
“Sanny, listen carefully. Don’t let anyone come near Matilde.”
“Yes, we already know,” the Bosnian answered in a weary tone.
“No, you don’t know!” Al-Saud was infuriated. “They assassinated Matilde’s ex-husband by injecting poison in his leg. Don’t let anyone near her! Merde! I shouldn’t even let her leave the house,” he muttered to himself. “Sanny, anyone could just walk by and prick her, do you get it? With, I don’t know, an umbrella, the antenna of a cell phone, a ring, anything, and it might contain poison. Sanny, you have to understand: we’re facing a powerful enemy, with limitless resources. It’s imperative that you and Diana stay as sharp as you can. Go into the classroom with her and sit behind her.”
“That will seem strange to her. I always stay outside of the room.”
“I don’t give a shit if it seems strange to her! Tell her that I gave the order and that’s it.”
While they were eating sandwiches, the Identi-Kit came through on Ramsay’s computer. He printed it and handed it to Al-Saud after glancing at it.
“He doesn’t look like the guy from the recording in the Rue Toullier apartment,” Peter said.
There was a footnote in Dussollier’s handwriting at the bottom of the drawing: “The nurse says that he was tall, around six foot three, and of robust build. He had very short hair, but she couldn’t establish its color because of the lack of light.”
After he had taken a bath and put on comfortable clothes, some light blue jeans and a white Christian Dior polo shirt, Al-Saud put on his Serengeti sunglasses and left the hotel as though he was an ordinary tourist. He was walking around to make sure that no one was following him. He headed toward Hamra and went east from there, toward the Mediterranean. He went into a jewelry shop and bought Francesca a multistrand pearl necklace with a tear-shaped pendant covered in diamonds and a sizable ruby in the middle. He went back to the hotel sure that no one was lying in wait for him and stretched out to watch TV; he wanted to distract himself. He flipped through the channels without settling on anything, thinking about Matilde and how much he missed the sound of her voice until he dropped the remote control and looked for her portrait in his bag. He stared at it; it cheered him up just to imagine her preparing this present for him. Maybe, he thought mournfully, it was all just out of gratitude for having helped her overcome her sexual phobia.
He looked at his Breitling Emergency. Eight at night. In Paris it was seven. She would be getting home from the institute. He couldn’t bear the martyrdom he had imposed on himself just to punish her. His mood changed, and the situation seemed ridiculous to him. He realized that he was acting like a teenager. He went to Peter’s room to call her from a secure line, but at that moment his cell phone rang. Ramsay manipulated his electronic rigs to make sure that half of the world’s secret services weren’t listening to his call.
“Hello, chéri.” Madame Gulemale’s cavernous voice surprised him. “I’m in London and I want to see you. Tomorrow.”
Al-Saud leered smugly.
“Hello, Gulemale.” That was what everyone called her, and no one knew exactly if it was a last name, a first name or a pseudonym. “I think we’ll have to wait until Friday, unless that goes against your sweet nature.”
He heard a sensual laugh on the other end of the line.
“For you, darling, I’ll make an exception. Shall I reserve a table at our favorite restaurant? Friday at eight thirty?”
“Sounds stupendous.”
After hanging up on Gulemale, he went back to his room and lay down on the bed to wait for the reports from Franky and Gabriel. He didn’t feel the same need to talk to Matilde anymore, but he still wanted to hear her voice. What had gained strength was a disturbing need to make her suffer. Was it working? Had Matilde noticed that he hadn’t called her? Would she reproach him when he returned or would she greet him with her habitual sweetness without complaining about anything? She never called him.
Later, before he went to sleep, he talked to Alamán and asked about her.
“She seems subdued, very quiet. When she speaks, she does it even more softly than usual. I have to bend down to hear her. I think the death of her ex left her pretty depressed. And her father and her in-laws, who won’t leave her alone, aren’t helping to cheer her up.”
A bitter taste filled his throat. He sat up in bed, put his elbow on his leg and cupped his forehead in his hand. They were tormenting her, reminding her of her role as a wife to the bastard who had first raped her and then made her part of an intrigue with unforeseen consequences. They were hurting her, abusing her compassionate heart. Eventually she would give in and go to Córdoba for Blahetter’s funeral. The very idea of going back to the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus and not finding her there plunged him into a nervous panic. Quickly, he said, “Alamán, don’t let Matilde go back to Córdoba. Don’t let those sons of bitches take her.”
“Don’t worry, Eliah,” Alamán tried to reassure him, surprised by his younger brother’s outburst. “Juana’s taking care of it. She’s your best ally.”
The false hand-off was set for Thursday, February 19, at ten in the evening. Familiar with the Tropicale bar, Al-Saud walked gracefully to a table near the piano. He sat with his back to the wall and checked the time: five to ten. The voices of Peter, Franky and Gabriel whispered out of a tiny speaker in his right ear. He studied his surroundings. There wasn’t much of a crowd at the bar or the tables. He ordered a whiskey, because he wanted any onlookers to think his reflexes would be slower, and pretended to sip it; although he would have enjoyed the alcohol, he wouldn’t drink it because of the risk that it might contain a narcotic. He checked his watch again in a gesture of impatience. Ten past ten. His pursuers would have been told by the Mercure leak that the supposed informant, Mark Levy, was late. In fact, Mark Levy would never show up. Following the plan, Al-Saud got up from the table at fifteen minutes past ten and went to the men’s room.
“I’m inside the bathroom now,” Al-Saud informed them.
“Three individuals are heading your way,” Franky reported. “I can’t see if they’re going into the bathroom,” the agent admitted as the door swung open and the men entered.
“Here they are,” Eliah whispered, facing the urinal, his head bowed, pretending to be watching his stream of urine. He
was actually watching the men in the mirror out of the corner of his eye. One of them blocked off the entrance without making a sound. The other positioned himself at the next urinal. The third was washing his hands.
Al-Saud zipped up his pants and went over to a sink. As he made as if to squirt liquid soap onto his hand, he crouched down to dodge the elbow of the guy washing his hands next to him, which had been aimed at his neck. He punched him in the side, and the man groaned at the sound of his ribs cracking; he bent over his stomach with the wind knocked out of him. The other two flanked Eliah. He had no way out and started to back away toward the marble sinks until he touched the cold surface. The one with the wind knocked out of him straightened up, recovering a little, although pain still creased his face, and stepped forward to form part of the semicircle that closed around Al-Saud. All three brandished bladed steel knuckle-dusters. They were splendid weapons, typical of elite military groups.
It happened in the blink of an eye and they reacted too late. Al-Saud, pushing the soles of his feet against the marble, leaped over the heads of his attackers to land behind them in the open space of the bathroom. He kicked the one who had already been punched, hitting him in the same spot as his elbow had landed. The man bellowed and fell to the ground.
The other two immediately rushed forward, and from the way they moved and attacked him, Al-Saud identified the fighting technique of Krav Maga, used by the Israeli army special forces and Mossad kidonim. They were very good, agile and precise. Al-Saud was in continuous movement; his feet were always shifting, first as a feint, then to retreat into a defensive posture. He confused them, keeping them at bay, and then let them get within arm’s reach. They were nervous, not just because their objective was so slippery, but also because of the kicking and shouting of the men trying to break down the bathroom door.
“Horse of Fire!” Ramsay shouted. “Are you okay?”
“Everything’s under control.”
The attackers feinted a few times before they pounced on Al-Saud in a joint attack, with their knives pointed at his abdomen. Eliah, using the same technique, Krav Maga, hooked the arm of the one from the right, breaking it, while he broke the wrist of the one charging at him from the left with a kick. He finished his work with a solid punch in the latter’s face, leaving him unconscious. He approached the other and reduced him to the floor with a knee to the sternum. He put his hand on his broken forearm and asked him in English, “Who sent you?” He received a gob of spit for an answer. He wiped his face on the shoulder of his shirt, squeezed the broken bone and waited for the man to stop screaming before insisting, “Who sent you?”