“It was a mistake not to involve us. We could have brought her in safely.”
“They said they would kill her.”
“Yes,” said the minister. “And now she is dead.”
And on it went, deep into the afternoon, until the lights of Paris glowed beyond the ministry’s windows. It was a folly, and both sides knew it. The French intended to sweep the entire messy episode under the rug. When at last the questions stopped and the note takers laid down their pens, there were handshakes all around. They were of the graveside variety, fleeting, consoling. A ministry car took Gabriel, Mikhail, and Keller to Charles de Gaulle. Keller boarded a plane bound for London; Gabriel and Mikhail, for Tel Aviv. During the four-hour flight they did not speak of what had transpired in the field in the Département du Tarn. They never would.
There was a small itemthe next day in one of the southern papers, something about a set of remains being found in a remote field, an adolescent, almost certainly a female. It madeLe Figaro, and a short story was read on one of the evening newscasts, but the French cover-up was so thorough—and the French media was so distracted by the “Yellow Vests”—it was soon forgotten. At times, even Gabriel wondered whether he had dreamed it. He had only to listen to the recordings of his conversations with the woman to be reminded that a child had been blown to pieces before his eyes.
If he was grieving, he gave no sign of it, at least not within the walls of King Saul Boulevard. Khalid’s abdication had thrown Saudi Arabia—and by extension the entire region—into political turmoil. To make matters worse, the American president declared his intention to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria, effectively ceding control of the country to the Iranians and their ally, Russia. Within hours of the announcement, which he made via Twitter, a Hezbollah missile fired from Syrian territory crossed into Israeli airspace and was intercepted over Hadera. Gabriel supplied the prime minister with the location of a secret Iranian command bunker south of Damascus. Several officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the retaliatory strike, drawing Israel and the Islamic Republic ever closer to war.
But it was Saudi Arabia that occupied the lion’s share of Gabriel’s time during those endless days after his return from France. His accurate prediction that Khalid was about to abdicate had suddenly made him flavor of the week at Langley, which was grasping at straws trying to figure out what was happening inside the royal court of its closest ally in the Arab world. Was Khalid in Riyadh? Was he even alive? Gabriel was able to offer the Americans precious little intelligence, for his own attempts to reach Khalid had proved fruitless, and the Saudi’s compromised phone was no longer emitting a signal. Nor was Gabriel able to provide the Americans—or his prime minister, for that matter—reliable intelligence as to Khalid’s likely successor. Consequently, when Gabriel was awakened at three in the morning with the news that it was Prince Abdullah, the king’s London-based half brother, he was as surprised as everyone else.
The Office knew the basics of Abdullah’s undistinguished career, and in the days following his elevation, Collections and Research rapidly filled in the missing pieces. He was anti-Israel, anti-West, and harbored an abiding resentment of America, which he blamed for much of the Middle East’s violence and political chaos. He had two wives in Riyadh whom he rarely saw and a stable of high-priced prostitutes, boys and girls, who tended to his sexual needs at his mansion in Belgravia. A devout Wahhabi Muslim, he was a heavy drinker who had thrice received treatment at an exclusive facility outside Zurich. In business he had been aggressive but unwise. Despite a generous monthly stipend, money was constantly an issue.
There was speculation in the media that Abdullah was merely a caretaker crown prince who would remain in the post only until a suitable candidate from the next generation could be chosen. Abdullah, however, quickly consolidated his hold on power by purging the royal court and the Saudi security services of his nephew’s influence. He also scrappedThe Way Forward, Khalid’s ambitious plan to transform the Saudi economy, and made it clear there would be no more talk of reforming the faith. Wahhabism, he proclaimed, was the Kingdom’s official religion and would be practiced in its purest and sternest form. Women were summarily stripped of the right to drive or attend sporting events—and the Mutaween, the dreaded Saudi religious police, were once again given license to enforce the rules of Islamic purity, with arrests and physical brutality if necessary. Those who objected were jailed or publicly flogged. The fleeting Riyadh Spring was over.
Which prompted, mainly in the West, another great reassessment. Had the Americans and their European allies been too hard on KBM for his misdeeds? Had they foolishly backed the House of Saud into a corner, leaving them no choice but to revert to their tried-and-true method of survival? Had they let a golden opportunity to fundamentally change the Middle East slip through their fingers? In the secure rooms and salons of Washington and London, they quarreled among themselves over who had lost Saudi Arabia. In Tel Aviv, however, Gabriel approached the question altogether differently. Saudi Arabia, he concluded, had not been lost, it had been taken from them. But by whom?
Though Gabriel managed to conceal his grief from his troops, Chiara saw through him as though he were made of glass. It wasn’t difficult; he relived it each night in the sweat-drenched tumult that passed for his sleep. Several times she was awakened by his shouting. His words were always the same. “You’re dead,” he would cry out. “Dead, dead, dead!”
He had given her a highly abridged version of the story after his return from France. He and Khalid had been led by the kidnappers to a remote field, the child had died. Chiara had resisted the temptation to press him for more details. She knew that one day he would tell her everything.
It was clawing at him, that much was obvious. What he needed, she thought, was a painting, a few square meters of damaged canvas that he could make right again. But he had no painting, he had only a country to protect, and he was haunted by the prospect of war in the north. Hezbollah and the Iranians had stockpiled more than one hundred and fifty thousand missiles and rockets in Syria and Lebanon. The largest could reach Tel Aviv and beyond. In the event of a conflict, the entire Galilee and much of the Coastal Plain would be within range. Thousands might die.
“Which is why the American presence in Syria is so important. They’re a tripwire. Once they’re gone, there will be only one check on Hezbollah and Iranian aggression.”
“The Russians,” said Chiara.
It was after midnight. Gabriel was propped upright in bed, a stack of Office files on his lap, a halogen reading lamp burning brightly over his shoulder. The television was muted so as not to wake the children. Earlier that evening Hezbollah had fired four rockets into Israel. Three had been destroyed by the Iron Dome missile defense system, but one had landed outside Ramat David, the town in the Valley of Jezreel where Gabriel had lived as a child. The IAF was preparing a massive retaliatory strike based on intelligence supplied by the Office.
“A preview of coming attractions,” he said softly.
“How do we stop it?”
“Short of all-out war?” Gabriel closed the file he had been reading. “With a strategy to drive the Russians, the Iranians, and Hezbollah out of Syria.”
“And how do we do that?”
“By creating a decent central government in Damascus led by the Sunni majority instead of a brutal dictatorial regime led by a tiny Alawite minority.”
“And I thought it was going to be something difficult.” Chiara slipped into bed next to him. “The Arabs have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt they’re not ready to govern themselves.”
“I’m not talking about Jeffersonian democracy. I’m talking about an enlightened despot.”
“Like Khalid?” asked Chiara skeptically.
“That depends which Khalid we’re talking about.”
“How many are there?”
“Two,” said Gabriel. “The first was handed absolute power before he was ready.”
“And the second?”
“He was the man who watched his child die an unimaginable death.”
There was a silence. Then Chiara asked, “What happened in that field in France?”
