The Secret Soldier jw-5 Read online

  The Secret Soldier

  ( John Wells - 5 )

  Alex Berenson

  In Saudi Arabia, a series of terrorist attacks has put the Kingdom on edge. King Abdullah is losing his hold, and his own secret police cannot be trusted. With nowhere to turn, the king asks for ex-CIA agent John Wells's help.

  Alex Berenson

  The Secret Soldier

  FOR MY WIFE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  The House of Saud, which is the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, provides a central structure to fictional events in this novel. The descriptions of the rise of the House of Saud and its relationship to Wahhabi Islam are factually accurate, to the best of the author’s knowledge, and based on reliable nonfiction histories. However, imaginary people are intermingled freely with real ones, so, for example, Princes Saeed and Mansour are wholly fictional characters and are not, of course, the defense minister and the director of the mukhabarat, respectively, of the present-day Saudi Arabian government. Similarly, although King Abdullah is real, his plan to install his son on the throne — along with all other dialogue, action, and motives attributed to him or other members of the ruling family, whether real or fictional — is a product of the author’s imagination and is not based upon actual events. Finally, references to unidentified members of the Saud ruling family are also fictional and bear no resemblance to any real person, living or dead.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  PROLOGUE

  MANAMA, BAHRAIN

  JJ’s HAD COLD CARLSBERG ON TAP AND A DOZEN FLAT-SCREEN televisions on its dark wooden walls. It was an above-average bar, generic Irish, and it would have fit in fine in London or Chicago. Instead it occupied the ground floor of a low-rise building in downtown Manama, the capital of Bahrain, a small island in the Persian Gulf.

  By eleven p.m., JJ’s would be packed with men and women pressing their bodies together in search of pleasures great and small. Now, at nine, the bar was crowded enough to have a vibe, not too crowded to move. A skinny kid with bleached-blond hair spun Lady Gaga and Jay-Z from his iPod as a dozen women danced badly but enthusiastically. The crowd was mostly European expatriate workers, along with American sailors from the Fifth Fleet, which was headquartered in Bahrain.

  Robby Duke had gotten to JJ’s early. The best girls were taken by midnight. Robby was twenty-eight, built like a rugby player, squat and wide, with long blond hair and an easy smile. Plenty of girls liked him, and he liked plenty of girls. Expat birds were all more or less the same. British, European, whatever, they came to the Gulf for adventure, and adventure usually meant a few easy nights.

  Dwight Gasser was Robby’s wingman. He was soft-spoken, almost shy. He wasn’t much use as a wingman, but some women liked his curly hair and sleepy eyes. “Them two,” he said, nudging Robby toward the corner. A blonde with a round face and nice thick lips. The other skinnier and darker. Spanish maybe. They sat side by side, facing a table with two empty seats.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Robby squared up and headed for them. Once he’d decided to go for it, he didn’t see the sense in mucking about.

  “Room for two more?”

  The blonde sipped her drink and looked at him like a copper who’d caught him pissing in an alley and wasn’t sure whether to give him a ticket or wave him on.

  “All yours,” she finally said.

  Robby extended a hand. “I’m Robby Duke.”

  “Josephine.”

  They shook. Robby sat. Robby looked around for Dwight, but he’d disappeared, as he sometimes did when an introduction didn’t seem to be going well. Annoying bastard. Though he’d be back soon enough, might even have a beer for Robby by way of apology.

  “Josephine. A fellow commoner. Where you from? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “London.”

  “The center of the universe.” He’d bet his right leg that she didn’t live in London.

  “Slough, really.”

  Slough was a suburb west of London, just past Heathrow Airport. Slough was more like it, Robby thought. He could line Slough up and send it into the right corner and the keeper wouldn’t do anything but wave.

  “Slough sounds like London to a Manchester boy like me.” He turned to the dark-haired girl. “You from London, too?”

  “Rome.”

  “Rome. The city of—” Robby couldn’t remember what Rome was the city of. “Anyhow, the plot thickens. What brings you ladies to JJ’s?”

  “We’re cabin crew,” the Italian girl said. “For Emirates”—the biggest airline in the Middle East, known for its shiny new planes and equally shiny flight attendants.

  “Emirates. Have you flown the A-three-eighty, then?”

  “It’s a beast,” Josephine said. “Who thought a plane with eight hundred seats was a good idea?”

  “Not glamorous, then?”

  “About as glamorous as the Tube.”

  “I like it,” the Italian said. “I know it’s stupid, but still, there’s something amazing about it. How something so big can fly.”

  Robby turned to face the Italian. She had a big nose, but she wasn’t bad. Those dark eyes and that long black hair. And the accent. Most important, she looked happy to talk to him, unlike Josephine. “What’s your name, Italiano?”

  “Cinzia.” Beside her, Josephine sighed. Have fun with Dwight, Robby almost said. You two will get along great. Instead, he raised his glass. “Here’s to Italy.”

  “To Italy.”

  “And to Bahrain on a Thursday night.” He took a long swallow of his beer. And we’re off.

  THE BLACK MERCEDES E190 rolled down the King Fahad Causeway, the ten-mile bridge between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Below the asphalt was the water of the Persian Gulf, warm as a bathtub and nearly as flat.

  Omar al-Rashid sat behind the wheel. His younger brother, Fakir, slept beside him in the passenger seat. A line of drool curled into Fakir’s pure white thobe, the long gown that Saudi men wore. Fakir had the soft bulk of a high school nose tackle. His thobe draped his round stomach like a pillowcase. He was eighteen, two years younger than Omar.

  “Fakir.”

  Fakir grunted irritably. “Let me sleep.”

  “You’ve been asleep since the Eastern Province. And you’re drooling.”

  “I’m relaxed.”

  “You’re as stupid as a donkey.”

  “Better to be stupid than scared.”

  “I’m not scared.” Omar punched Fakir, his fist thumping against Fakir’s biceps. And then wished he hadn’t, for Fakir didn’t complain, didn’t even rub his arm.

  “It’s all right, brother. If you want to back out. We can do it without you.”

  “I’m not scared.” For the first time in his life, Omar hated his brother. He was scared. Anyone would be scared. Anyone but a donkey like Fakir. But now he’d gone too far. The humiliation of quitting outweighed the fear of death. And maybe the imams were right. Maybe virgins and endless treasures awaited them on the other end.

  Though he didn’t see the imams lining up to find out.

  Three minutes later they reached the tiny barrier island that marked the border of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. A bored guard checked the Mercedes’s registration. A hundred meters on, an immigration agent swip
ed their passports and waved them through without asking their plans. Everyone knew why Saudis went to Bahrain. They went for a drink, or two, or ten. They went to hang out with their girlfriends without being hassled by the muttawa, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The Saudi religious police. They went to watch movies in public, movie theaters being another pleasure forbidden in the Kingdom.

  After Bahraini immigration, they were waved into a shed for a customs inspection. An officer nodded toward the blue travel bag in the backseat. “Open it, please.” Omar unzipped the bag, revealing jeans, sneakers, and black T-shirts. The clothes were hardly suspicious. Saudi men often changed into Western-style clothes in Bahrain. “Enjoy your visit,” the officer said, and waved them on.

  “We will,” Fakir said.

  AT JJ’s, ROBBY WAS off his game. Dwight had won Cinzia’s attention, leaving Robby with Josephine. He decided to go the tried-andtrue route of getting her drunk.

  “Time for another round. What’s your pleasure?”

  Josephine raised her glass, still half full. “No thanks, Frodo.”

  “Frodo!” Robby said, in what he hoped sounded like mock horror. In reality the joke cut a bit close. “Hope I’m bigger than he is.”

  “I hope so, too. For your sake.” She glanced at Cinzia.

  “Figuring the odds you’ll be stuck with me?”

  “Exactly.” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “All right, then. Vodka and tonic. Grey Goose.”

  Of course, Grey Goose, Robbie thought. Top-shelf all the way, this one. And thin odds I’ll get more than a peck on the cheek. “One Grey Goose and tonic coming up.”

  Five minutes later, he was back with fresh glasses. “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “What about you? Live here?”

  “Indeed.” Even this one would melt a bit when she heard his next line. “I teach.” Robby grinned. “I know what you’re thinking. How could I teach? You probably think I barely made my O-levels”—the basic British high school graduation exams. “But these kids are special.”

  “Special how?”

  “Autistic. Developmentally disabled, we call it.”

  “That must be hard.”

  “I feel lucky every day.” Robby wasn’t lying. He did feel lucky. Lucky he wasn’t one of the monsters. Half of them spent their days spinning and screaming whop-whop-whop every ten seconds like they were getting paid to imitate helicopters. The other half punched you when you asked them to look you in the eyes like they were actual human beings. Once in a while, Robby felt he was getting through. Mostly he could have been playing video games in the corner for the good he did. Lucky, indeed.

  “My cousin’s son, he’s autistic.” Josephine’s mouth curled into a smile Robby couldn’t read.

  “Are you close with him?”

  “Hah. Real little bugger, inn’t he? Talk to him, he runs off and bangs his head against the wall. Pick him up, he claws at you like you’re about to toss him out the window. Six months of his mum telling him, ‘Pick up the spoon, Jimmy, pick up the spoon.’ And he picks up a bloody spoon. And we’re supposed to pretend he’s solved cancer or some such. But come on, the kid’s basically a vegetable with arms and legs and a mouth for screaming. Pick up the spoon already and be done with it.”

  Robby was speechless. Of course, what she’d said wasn’t that different from what he’d been thinking, but you weren’t supposed to say it. It wasn’t civilized.

  “I wish you could see the look on your face. Like I’d suggested putting the darlings in the incinerator.”

  “Is that what you think we should do?”

  “Only if they misbehave.” She smiled. “My. I’ve shocked you again. I’m pulling your leg, Robby. Honest to God, I don’t have any idea what to do with them. Do you?”

  “They’re people. Could have been any of us.”

  Josephine took another sip of her Grey Goose. “Could have been, but it warn’t. Why should we all run around and pretend that the facts of life aren’t so?”

  “Maybe sometimes pretending is the only way to get by.”

  OMAR AND FAKIR HAD grown up in Majmaah, a desert town in north-central Saudi Arabia. Omar’s father, Faisal, was a big man who wore a red-and-white head scarf and kept his thobe short around his thick calves, the practice followed by conservative Muslims. He saw Omar and Fakir — the youngest sons of his third wife — only rarely.

  By the time Omar reached puberty he understood that he was a spare, to be watered and fed in case his older brothers died. The knowledge hollowed his insides, but he never complained. His brother was simpler and happier than he. They were best friends, their strengths complementary. Omar helped Fakir with his lessons, and Fakir pulled Omar out of his doldrums. They spent their teens in a madrassa, a religious school, where they learned to recite the Quran by heart.

  When Omar was seventeen and Fakir was fifteen, the madrassa’s imam brought the boys into his office to watch mujahid videos. Helicopters crashed into mountains, and Humvees exploded on desert roads. “One day you’ll have the chance to fight,” the imam said. “And you may give your life. But you needn’t fear. You will be remembered forever. In this world and the next.”

  The imam couldn’t have chosen a better pitch for a boy who hardly believed he existed. Omar offered himself to the cause, and Fakir followed. A few months later, they were blindfolded and taken to a date farm tucked in a wadi—a desert valley whose low hills offered faint protection from the sun. A man who called himself Nawif trained them and two other teenagers for months, teaching them how to shoot and take cover. How to clean and strip assault rifles, to wire the fuses on a suicide vest.

  One day Nawif said, “Each of you must tell me you’re ready.” And one by one they pledged themselves to die for the cause. Then Nawif outlined their mission. Allah had smiled on them, he said. Their targets were Christians. American sailors. Drinkers and drug-takers. Any Muslims in the place were even worse, guilty of apostasy, forsaking the faith, the deadliest of sins.

  They spent the next week walking through the attack. Just before they left the farm, Nawif announced that Omar would be the group’s leader. Omar wasn’t surprised. He was the oldest of the four, the best shooter. Despite his vague doubts about the mission, he was proud to be chosen.

  On the night they left, the stars were as bright as they would ever be, the desert air cool and silent. A van waited, its exhaust burbling. Nawif held a blindfold. Omar submitted without complaint. He felt like a passenger in his own body.

  Ten hours later, they stepped onto a Riyadh street filed with two-story concrete buildings. Nawif led them past a butcher store, flies swirling over the meat, to a dirty two-room apartment with a rattling air conditioner. Nawif handed them passports with their real names and photos.

  “How—”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll need this, too.” Nawif tossed Omar a car key. “There’s a Mercedes outside. You’ll take a practice run this afternoon.”

  The highway to Bahrain was flat and fast. They reached the border post in five hours, just after sunset. A Saudi immigration officer flipped through their passports.

  “Just got them last week, and already you’re on the road.”

  “We didn’t want to wait.”

  “Enjoy yourself.” The agent handed back the passports, and they rolled ahead.

  In Manama, they found the apartment easily. Curtains covered the living-room windows. When Omar peeped out, he saw only an air shaft. Beside the couch was the locked chest Nawif had told them to expect. It held two Beretta pistols. Four short-stock AK-47 assault rifles, wrapped in chamois and smelling of oil. Extra magazines. Twelve Russian RGD-5 grenades, rounded green cylinders with metal handles molded to their bodies. They were the simplest of weapons, metal shells wrapped around a few ounces of explosive, triggered by a four-second fuse. Omar picked one up, fought the urge to juggle it.

  “Let me see,” Fakir said. Omar ignored him. Fakir grabbed a Berett
a, pointed it at Omar. “Let me see.”

  “Put it down. You know what Nawif said. Treat them with respect. Next week you can have all the fun you want.”

  Now next week had come. Omar steered the Mercedes down the eight-lane avenue that led into downtown Manama. Skyscrapers loomed ahead, glowing in the dark. In the cars around them, women sat uncovered. Across the road was a building hundreds of meters long, with a giant LCD screen displaying brand names in Arabic. A mall. Omar wondered what the inside looked like. A traffic light turned yellow in front of them, and he stopped for it, ignoring the honking behind them.

  “You shouldn’t have stopped,” Fakir said.

  “No need to rush.”

  “You know, you hide it well. How scared you are. If I weren’t your brother, I wouldn’t see it.”

  “What is it you want? Tell me. Or I won’t go any further.”

  “I want you to believe. Otherwise, you shouldn’t be here. Because you’ll chicken out at the last minute.”

  “Don’t worry about me, brother. I’m ready.”

  Fakir squeezed Omar’s shoulder. “Good.”

  “Good.”

  The light dropped to green, and Omar steered them toward the apartment. Fifteen minutes later, they parked outside. Omar grabbed the blue bag and climbed the building’s narrow stairs as Fakir huffed behind. Omar didn’t know who had rented the place, just as he didn’t know who had bought the Mercedes or arranged his passport. Nawif had said they would be kept in the dark for their own protection. Omar didn’t even know why Nawif had told them to attack this particular bar. He saw now that he had been treated all along like a disposable part. But Fakir was right. The time for questions had passed.

  At the apartment, the other two jihadis, Amir and Hamoud, waited. Omar unlocked the chest, splayed the weapons on the floor. He stripped off his thobe, put on his Levi’s and T-shirt and hiking boots. In the bathroom, he shaved and gelled up his thick black hair and sprayed on his cologne. He brushed his teeth, too, though he wasn’t sure why. A knock startled him, and he dropped the brush.