The Mahdi, page 10
“I’m going to try to bring all of Islam into the fray as a matter of honor and faith,” Alex continued. “I have a few ideas how to do it. But most of all, I have the need.”
The early objective would be the return of the Bedouin land. The longer the Israelis let the problem go unsolved, however, the greedier Alex and his leadership would get in terms of a solution.
“Larger investments will create larger demands,” he explained. “Jerusalem’s sovereignty may come into play. Israel has to see the writing on the wall: they can’t corner the market on the holy city forever. The danger comes when they figure out that their ironclad control of the city is slipping away. That’s when the knives will come out.”
“How are you going to handle that?” Brooks said. “I don’t think the president will step up to any serious commitment of US resources. I’m pretty sure I would be unable to recommend it.”
“It can’t be allowed to get that far, and I doubt we’ll need to,” Alex said. “We’ll be on our own. If it does come to that, I hope we’ll have the Saudis and the oil bunch on our side.”
The Bedouins were Sunni, after all—among the first worshippers in the early moments of Islam in Medina. There was a crowd of Bedouins in Saudi Arabia as in Israel and other Middle East countries. They were Muslim royalty, albeit without a country to call their own.
“If we do engage, I plan for Israel to suffer hundreds of wounded, yet very few killed, in the early moments of the conflict.”
“Oh, boy,” Mac interjected. “Global three-D micro-chess. This could be very entertaining.”
“Moroccan diplomatic status, along with a note from the Moroccan king to the Israeli prime minister introducing me as the official representative of the Bedouin tribes across the Middle East, should keep folks from thinking this isn’t serious diplomacy as things evolve. I doubt that I’m at serious personal risk.”
“So you can be reasonably sure assassination is off the table,” Brooks said. “But what do you expect to gain from this effort?” Brooks said. “In all honesty, how do you expect them to react?”
“I imagine I’ll be treated courteously, given a pat on the head, and perhaps get a meeting with some of the power players on the Orthodox side.”
“Then what?” Mac asked.
“We’ll play it by ear.” Alex grinned. “And that ear will be extra sensitive to whatever the liberal Jewish community is saying.”
The game was afoot.
UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN
FRIDAY
ALEX CAUGHT THE SHUTTLE BUS BACK TO NEW YORK THE NEXT morning. Manhattan was being itself. People were everywhere, each with a purpose and someone trying to get in their way. Alex threaded around them all, making a beeline back to the brownstone on East 73rd Street. When he rang the doorbell, the same big guy answered, but this time in a loose-fitting blazer.
“Much better,” Alex said. “You look like the real thing now.”
He followed the grinning man to the den once more, where two different televisions displayed Wednesday’s chaos in Hackettstown. Fire trucks, state police, local police, and others milled about, taking notes and measurements, with TV trucks from all the networks jammed into the mix. The televisions’ talking heads clashed: “… including four men found just beyond the explosion with close quarter .40-caliber bullet wounds to the forehead … no one survived the blast … dead sniper in the woods downrange … two shots within two inches …”
That one was nice, Alex thought.
Edgeworth turned toward him. “Elliot tells me this is your doing. Was it?”
“Do you really want to know?” Alex responded. “Do you care?”
“I want to know how they died. That they suffered.”
“They didn’t suffer,” Alex confirmed. “That was not part of the deal.” Although that might have been entertaining to plan …
Then again, he explained, burning to death was probably painful, not to mention having your eardrums blown out a split moment before the fire consumed you. And a few suffered from large ball bearings puncturing their bodies, so Edgie could console himself with that thought. Alex had shot a few outliers too, which didn’t exactly tickle if it took them a few minutes to die.
“All in all, though, they just disappeared—eighty-three of them, including your target and his management,” he continued. “It was the entire Bollito family, all the bosses and members of their organization. But if I missed a few, you should let me know quickly, and I’ll deal with them. Loose ends can burn if left untended. I want to be sure I live up to my end of the bargain.”
“God bless you, Alex,” Edgeworth whispered. “Okay, I buy it. And a deal is a deal. Now, you better tell me how you think this Israeli thing will work, ’cause it’s not going to be a day at the beach.”
“But you are in? You are committed?”
“I am, God help me. I’m committed—zipper down, balls out. But I’d like to hear all the details.”
Alex handed him a thumb drive. “A souvenir. Put that in your pocket for later viewing. Now, watch this.” He held the Kphone in front of the two of them.
High-quality Nikon images started peacefully, with black limousines and motorcycles parked around a one-story 1950s-style building, and guards sitting patiently with rifles and shotguns. Then came the slow-motion destruction of eighty-three lives: The walls blasted open. Cars shook, and bikes fell over. Bodies were ripped apart. Then the flaming roof collapsed on the whole scene.
In two of the images, the end of the 6.5mm Creedmoor barrel jutted up from the corner, with a standing man downrange, his chest just above the barrel. The subsequent images showed each of the two men down and dozens of vehicles on fire in the background.
“Those are the details,” Alex said.
Edgie put a hand on his shoulder. “I can see now that Elliot was not exaggerating. You are indeed the legendary Cooch.”
“I am.” Alex nodded. “Now, let’s spend a few hours outlining my approach to our next collaboration—and your response. It will get hairier from here. And more fun, or at least that’s how I look at it.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
Alex grinned. “Of course not. Changing the mindset of an entire country never is.”
TANGIER
SUNDAY
CAITLIN O’CONNOR WAS BORED, AS CAN BE EXPECTED WHEN YOU ARE the smartest person in the world. She had spent an hour working out with Tang, who had tutored Alex in martial arts for over two decades, and then some extra time in the gym on her own. But her swim time was always the best for thinking, which was why she needed to swim every day—she’d done two miles earlier that morning. Swimming took just enough effort that her brain could work and sort things out without interruption. Underwater, Caitlin could hear nothing, and the motion of her body gave just enough distraction that her mind was free to wander.
Besides swimming and sex, she knew of few ways to empty her mind so she could think properly or just relax. Taking in the view was one of those ways, and for that reason, the master bedroom in her apartment—the largest in the Kufdani Industries complex—had a large window facing the bay. Right now, though, she reclined in one of the two guest bedrooms tucked behind the master, where Lynn Shaler etchings were prominent, hanging large and small on much of the available wall space. Artwork could sometimes take her to that quiet place too. She went often to this spare room.
The Shalers were a visual representation of Caitlin’s fondness for Paris (if only for a few days at a time). Released in small editions, the tinted etchings were dark in a calming, quiet, candlelit kind of way, strangely formal and full of unspoken pursuits. One piece depicted an old-fashioned library with a globe on the center table, and beyond it a small window that Caitlin told herself looked out over a river with cafés filled with smart, colorful, happy people. Shaler also drew great doorknobs.
Alex was on his way to Israel. He’d messaged Caitlin from his Kphone after stopping in Algeciras to handle some things around education planning. Not that Hala needed much help—she was smart, she was tough, and she had built a kick-ass executive team. Whatever it was, Hala could pull it off without much help. Things were really moving forward in that department, anyway.
Educate a million Muslims here, a million Muslims there, Caitlin thought, and before long …
Recovering the Bedouin lands would be easiest if the Orthodox Jews who were always pushing for the West Bank takeover were shorn of their political support. Alex thought that would be tricky. Caitlin agreed. He was better at figuring out that sort of thing, given the range of personalities involved and all the other determinants that didn’t lend themselves immediately to math or science. But she still had a great deal of value to add—namely, in the endeavor to shut down communications in most of Israel and (she hoped) blow some electronics up if needed—and she was ready for something to happen.
Caitlin moved toward her office and sat idly in front of her screens, which were plugged into the Jerusalem city network and the Shin Bet technology, allowing her to observe various street scenes from the live cameras there and the occasional Israeli drone flyover. Transcripts of encrypted phone conversations floated across one screen, curated by Emilie according to the circumstances Caitlin had defined. Other screens showed drone views of Tel Aviv and the Ben Gurion Airport, south of Tel Aviv along Route 1. Dribs and drabs of written documents and newspaper articles also drifted by, all curated by Emilie.
Ever since Alex came back from the desert with his plan to restore the honor of the Bedouin nation and educate their people, Caitlin had focused Emilie’s attention on Israel and the West Bank. At the moment, Emilie was hard at work figuring out the Israel Defense Forces: structure, operations, planning, personnel. She was snooping into Shin Bet—the state cops who answered to the prime minister—and the organization’s director, Nabov Dayan. Unsurprisingly, there were quite a few moving parts, and Emilie was getting a little pushback from her probes: the IDF and that bunch were trying to block her and figure out her identity.
I may have to deal harshly with them, Caitlin thought, barely able to contain her glee. Maybe blow up a few servers now … and some computers later.
She didn’t care so much about the Bedouins getting screwed out of their land, but Alex did care about the Bedouins, and she cared about Alex. A lot. She knew helping him would help with progress on their shared education goals—the glue that held their little group together. Besides, it was fun. But they both knew she would have helped him even without expanding education as part of the plan.
Caitlin didn’t like the Israelis so much either. Too many of them were intellectually arrogant—an unjustified attitude as far as she could tell, although she had to admit that a few of them were exceptionally bright. She had even slept with a few of them over the years, and had learned a little something she didn’t already know from each one—a tiny piece of thinking that contributed to her efforts to solve the evolving global puzzle.
Needle-dicks, she recalled now, but they did take direction well.
Having confirmed that Emilie was still at work and undetected, Caitlin found there wasn’t much for her to do at the moment. Maybe another swim?
Jerome wasn’t even around for a good run out into the desert. He was off in Germany at Rheinmetall, buying grenade launcher ammunition or some such. Alex had designed some new type of ammunition that was now being made by the thousands. She wasn’t sure what this was, but she knew it would be brilliant.
He had also found a way to deliver her mobile EMP device. Using Alex’s control software, Caitlin had managed to vary the blast radius and the lethality of the shootable EMP round. She had long since hardened their Kphones against EMP interference, and the satellites that the devices relied on were too far away to be affected by local blasts. It was a bit of very cool synergy, and she was confident Alex would find a way to exploit it.
The immediate goal was clear: get the Israelis to give up the West Bank and its development. The path to getting there was less so, but Cailtin knew one thing for sure: it would be quintessential Alex.
JERUSALEM
MONDAY
KUFDANI’S MIND WAS BOILING. TRYING TO SORT OUT THE RAGE, HE chose to walk—charge, actually—the mile back to his hotel despite the heat. He had just been spat upon by the Israeli government. Was the spittle targeted at the Bedouins, the Arabs, or Islam in general? He wasn’t sure the specifics really mattered.
As he stormed down the street, passersby quickly turned elsewhere. A few women and fewer men glanced at his suit before turning away, thinking, Good fit. But most just avoided him, understanding instinctively that this huge-necked, slit-eyed monster was not to be confronted.
The prime minister’s office had been a little fancier than most government offices. A bragging wall in the reception area displayed dozens of pictures, each featuring the office’s current occupant with someone who was famous or controlled many votes. While waiting to be called in for the meeting, Kufdani sat on a sofa surrounded by three armchairs, browsing on his Kphone. Across from him, at a desk framed by an Israeli flag, a young, severe-looking woman typed at her computer and studiously ignored him.
He had been sitting there for more than an hour after identifying himself. Perhaps his outfit was the problem: Above his black, highly polished wingtip shoes, he wore a gray, tropical wool suit with faint green pinstripes, a white shirt, and a green silk tie. Green was the Muslim color.
Finally, at a buzz coming from near the desk, the young woman looked up. She frowned and nodded to the closed door, saying, “The prime minister will see you now.”
The familiar visage of the prime minister, sitting behind a very large desk with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie askew, was a bit disconcerting. Another man sat in an upholstered chair next to the desk, notepad in hand: Yakov Bernstein, the newly named defense minister. In addition to a disdainful sneer, he wore a white shirt, a black tie pulled tight to his neck, and a yarmulke from which long black ringlets of hair fell beside each ear.
Kufdani handed the formal introduction letter from the king of Morocco to the prime minister.
“Please, have a seat, Mr. Cuchulain. Or shall I call you Mr. Kufdani?” the prime minister said, glancing at the letter and setting it aside. “I understand that you were of great help to the IDF in the Iran venture. Thank you for that.” He looked down, moved some papers on his desk, and looked up again, quizzically. “Is there … something else?”
“There is, Mr. Prime Minister,” Kufdani said, absorbing the insult. “I would like you to sponsor a legislative effort to return the Bedouin lands in the West Bank to their rightful Bedouin owners.”
“Owners? Hogwash,” the prime minister scoffed. “Why would I do that? A great number of my voters live in that area. Perhaps you should discuss it with them.”
“I’d be delighted,” Kufdani said. “Will you arrange such a meeting and introduction?”
The prime minister stared at him briefly, shrugged, and reached for a piece of notepaper. He wrote on it, then pushed it across the desk, not making eye contact. “Contact this man. I will direct him to hold this meeting with you and listen to your arguments.”
“Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister,” Kufdani said, reaching across the desk to accept the paper.
Using one hand, the prime minister had waved him from the room without even looking up.
Arriving at his hotel now, Kufdani stepped into the air-conditioned lobby and nodded at the desk manager. Then he bypassed the elevators for the stairs and climbed to his room, three steps at a time. After ten flights, he stepped from the stairwell into the corridor, breathing heavily but smoothly, and dug in his pocket for the room key. After entering the room, he pulled off his tie, threw his jacket on the bed, and stripped off his sweat-soaked dress shirt.
He opened the little fridge and took out two bottles of water, drinking one and tossing the bottle in the trash. With a sigh, he picked up his suit jacket, placed it on a wooden hanger in the closet, and hung the tie over one shoulder. The shirt went into a basket for the laundry. He wiped his shoes with a dirty sock and arranged them, side by side, under a chair. Then he rolled into a handstand and, closing his eyes, took a long breath before letting it out slowly—then another, even slower. He settled his mind into his emotions and let them swirl until, slowly, his mind cleared.
The second water bottle was waiting when Kufdani spun right side up to his feet again and collapsed onto the bed, picking up his vibrating Kphone. “Brooks.”
“Hey, Alex,” Brooks said. “Back from your audience with the Prime Minister?”
“I am,” Kufdani said. “It was more an exercise in contempt than an audience. What an asshole. His new Haredi defense minister was there. No one else.”
Brooks chuckled. “So he failed to meet even your very low expectations? What are you going to do about that?”
“He gave me a name and number so I could pitch my case to a guy who would set up a meeting near the West Bank. I suppose I’ll set it up and go.”
“Why bother?” Brooks asked. “It seems a bit unlikely that it will do any good for your cause. They’re the problem, not the solution.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kufdani said. “But our whole case will ultimately be about the optics. According to Edgie, I want to be able to say that I followed the path the prime minister provided, to no avail. If optics are the bulk of our effort, I may as well start now.”
“I get it,” Brooks said. “Seems like overkill to me, but you have a plan and you’re executing it. So you’re still high on Edgie as your PR guy?”
“So far, he makes sense. I like his intensity. He’s marvelously smart and agile, and he’s motivated. He wants us to move every stone to create a good positive image for the world to see.”
“However one decides to define the target ‘world,’” Brooks pointed out.
