The Mahdi, page 27
It was time for Kufdani to get on the road. After the early morning’s excitement, he would need a rest before meeting the Saudis. “The Israelis will have to regroup. I doubt they planned for this one to fail, but I still want to get about my business before they hear the bad news.”
After backslaps and handshakes, winks and nods of approval, and more than one round of high-fives, Jimmy was at the rail, ready to take Kufdani on the short boat trip to shore. He turned for a last wave goodbye, hoping that when the news broke about the attack, some of the details would remain under wraps.
Kufdani drove his rental car through Prince George’s County and into the District of Columbia, down New York Avenue toward the Hay-Adams. After he got to his hotel room, he drank two bottles of water, hung up his garment bag, cleaned his boots, and took a nap.
WASHINGTON, DC
THURSDAY
EARLY THAT EVENING, KUFDANI STROLLED THROUGH THE STREETS OF Washington, DC, until he came to a brick wall with greenery growing uniformly along it and stepped through a small wrought iron gate into the courtyard of Tagine, a restaurant near Georgetown University. Well known for its Moroccan cuisine among the substantial Arab crowd laboring in and around the US government, the restaurant comprised small indoor and outdoor eating spaces. At the center of each table was a colorful tagine resting on a wrought iron stand, with a gas burner installed below.
Inside the gate, Kufdani saw the Bedouin owner, Freddie, sitting on a high stool in his usual spot near an open fireplace. Freddie leaped to his feet and lifted a hand in greeting. “Kufdani! Welcome!” He led his honored guest to a chair by the fireplace and began to gossip in Moroccan Arabic, that fluid, staccato lingua franca, spattered with French derivatives, that is a source of pride for Tangerines, although largely unintelligible to most other Arabic speakers.
“Tea!” Freddie boomed. “Bring more tea.”
Kufdani surveyed the seating arrangement. Dr. Abdul Al-Fraih, director of the Arab League and a personal friend from his years at Oxford, had called with regrets that he would be a few moments late. On the bright side, the deputy ambassador from Saudi Arabia would be joining them, at Kufdani’s request. This would be the first of several meetings, Kufdani hoped, that would bind the Bedouin efforts with the larger Muslim world—and bring them closer to the money and influence required to finish his efforts.
A few minutes later, just as Freddie’s repertoire of recent events within and about the local Arab community was winding down, a booming voice echoed from the restaurant’s entrance. Two men—one heavy-set and another smaller, both wearing the headscarves of the Saudi Arabian ruling tribe—were walking through the courtyard, their faces lit up with smiles.
“It is so good to see you, Kufdani!” the heavy-set man bellowed. “You have been making trouble for the Jews, I hear. Good for you! A bunch of bigots who shit on Muslims. Come meet my friend Abbas.”
“Good for you, Sheik Kufdani,” replied Haasim Abbas, the deputy ambassador. “I didn’t think the Palestinians had it in them. Red-headed surrender moneys, indeed!”
“It pays to use sunblock,” Kufdani said, grinning. “You never know when you will have to stand nude for five hours in the hot sun. Being a coward is tough duty sometimes.”
Introductions were made, and they headed for a table that Kufdani had chosen—partially inside the building but facing the end of the courtyard. Three ornate chairs with bright cushions were arranged around a small steel table covered with a white Egyptian cotton tablecloth, set for a full meal. Kufdani sat between the two, facing the courtyard.
Freddie came to the table with a bottle of 1989 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. “I trust this wine is acceptable to you?” Al-Fraih smiled warmly. “I keep a small cellar here at Freddie’s.”
They made small talk about the original artworks commissioned for the vintner’s label, the grape varietals used, and the Muslim approach to drinking alcohol.
“It’s a Pauillac,” Al-Fraih said. “That makes it a winner for Arabs like me who don’t drink—much.”
“You haven’t bought a bottle of wine in ten years,” Abbas said with a laugh. “Every time a Muslim diplomat gets transferred, you end up with the good wine he was saving for a special time.”
“Bah! They are all sinners,” Al-Fraih replied. “It makes them feel better to give it away, especially to a pure spirit such as me. So I do what I can for them—thus, my cellar.” At his approval, Freddie poured the wine, and the three diners went through the ritual of sniffing and snuffling and sipping, as one must do with a noted and expensive French red Bordeaux.
“Al-Fraih said you wanted to speak to me personally,” Abbas began at last. “How may I assist you?”
Kufdani looked around the courtyard and lowered his voice. “I’d like you to arrange a private meeting for me with the Crown Prince.”
Abbas’s eyes widened. He bought himself a moment by drinking another tiny sip of wine. “Just you?”
“Just me,” Kufdani confirmed. “It is time to address the larger issues of Islam in the world.”
Abbas sighed. “I’m afraid you do not understand how such things work, Sheik Kufdani. I am the twelfth son of the fifteenth most senior prince in Saudi Arabia. I have no power to attract the attention of ABS, the Crown Prince. Nor do I have the ear of any intimates of ABS intimates.”
Kufdani chuckled. “Yes, I know how family politics work. ABS was once in the same boat as you are: he had a distant father with limited power.”
Abbas bowed his head slightly, his eyes never leaving Kufdani’s.
“I understand the feeling of powerlessness,” Kufdani continued. “My own father was a noted US Marine, but that gave him no power to bring peace either. Yet now I am the appointed leader of one million Bedouins, tribes without their own country or government. I commanded the humiliation of the Israelis with minimal defensive losses, disrupted their efforts at diplomacy, and damaged their status in the United States, a very important source of funds and political support. Are you certain the Crown Prince will view me with such disinterest?”
“That may be enough to get his attention,” Abbas admitted, “but it will take far more than that to get his ear.”
“Is that not your job, Abbas? Make this a showcase effort. Find out who I really am. Build a dossier to share with the Crown Prince. Do your research. Am I rich or poor? An expert in violence or just lucky? You get the idea. In other words, do my mind, my background, my accomplishments, my ambitions make me compatible with ABS? I have done my research, and I believe they will.”
“And I should do this … why? I take no orders from you,” Abbas said, his voice rising.
“Abbas, listen to me. When an Arab does a bad thing, he gets stomped and humiliated in public. When an Israeli does an equally bad thing, he merely gets scolded. For many years this has been true. We are going to change that, and ABS will want to be a part of it.”
Abbas regarded him thoughtfully.
“I’m giving no one orders. I do that only in battle. But now you must think carefully about my offer.” Kufdani’s voice hardened, and he locked eyes with Abbas. “Bringing to the Crown Prince the best idea he has ever seen, wrapped in a chance to be revered as a leader in Islam and in the world, will raise you mightily in his eyes. I believe that is what he really wants. He was educated in his own country by a talented British Algerian. He understands how the Western world views him, and he wants very badly to matter.” He paused. “It is a point of honor.”
Abbas leaned back in his chair. “Al-Fraih, what do you think?”
Al-Fraih shrugged. “It seems to me that the worst that can happen is that ABS says no to the meeting, and you have wasted your time.”
Kufdani’s back was straight. His hands rested loosely on the edge of the table. The big vein in his neck pumped the blood at an insanely low rate, maybe fifty beats a minute. He waited.
Abbas sat for a long time before speaking. “A dossier,” he repeated, “a solid and thoughtfully researched dossier, on a person whom ABS will most certainly wish to meet, one-on-one.” As he looked up and fixed his eyes on Kufdani, a smile crept onto his face. “A dossier that also makes the Saudi deputy ambassador seem underappreciated, perhaps even underpaid.”
“Yes,” Kufdani encouraged him. “All of Islam is depending on you, Abbas.”
Abbas frowned suddenly. “What about the Wahabi? Are you ready for those who practice a radical form of Islam, who follow Allah’s will in the strictest sense?”
Kufdani relaxed, thinking, Done deal.
His plan was falling into place.
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said. “I am a messenger of Allah, an imam, a Bedouin who commands all Bedouins. We can arrange a meeting as you see fit, either before or after I meet ABS—perhaps with the Grand Mufti, with his entourage if that is best.”
“They’ll tear you apart. In public.”
“Perhaps. Others have tried.”
ON THE DRIVE TO NEW YORK late that evening, Kufdani checked in with Brooks and Mac. The US president had been outraged when he heard about the attack on Old Fashioned. Although they had no proof yet, being able to pin it on the Israelis would help send him over the edge—and prepare him to put up the boatload of money required to bring the Middle East together at last.
Next Kufdani rang Caitlin. It was very early in the morning in Tangier, but he was hoping to hear that her injuries were healing and all was well with her molar implants. They chatted a bit while he drove north on Interstate 95, about not just her face, but also those faces Emilie had been working to identify, looking through years of photos from every enforcement agency on earth. He asked Caitlin to take a hard look at the electronic devices belonging to the Israeli embassy in Northwest DC, as well as the country’s US consulates. Those intruders were coming from somewhere, and someone on American soil had to know about it.
Kufdani excused himself from the conversation with Caitlin when he saw that Jimmy was calling. “Hey, pal. All good?”
“Not so good, Cooch,” Jimmy responded. “I’m so sorry. They got to Edgeworth. Pros. Sniper, two rounds to the head.”
EDGEWORTH STUDIOS, MIDTOWN MANHATTAN
FRIDAY
THE STUDIOS WERE ON FULL ALERT. THE WORLD-FAMOUS, SUPER-RICH, highly protected Reginald Ketcher Edgeworth had been assassinated the previous day as he got out of his limo, in front of his Upper East Side apartment. The whole city—the whole world—was in shock. And tonight was the third in Elsa Sachs’s series of interviews with Sheik Kufdani, this time right here in New York.
Arriving at his apartment on Manhattan’s West Side the previous evening, Kufdani had felt the sorrow that always washed over him when comrades fell. He would look at all those people in his mind at some point later on. It was never pleasant.
“We got one of the guys, but dead men don’t speak,” Jimmy had said. “No ID, no clothes labels, great rifle. Really professional job. We had our best guys on him, Cooch. We’re all so pissed. We liked him.”
“I liked him too,” Kufdani had replied. “Tell your guys they are now employed directly by me. Details to follow. Use them to button up Elsa Sachs now that she’s here in New York. Do it now, and make it tight. The rest of them go on the general security team. These are Sayeret Matkal.” He had thought that being an Israeli Jew would protect the Sachs woman, but now he wasn’t so sure. “Let Brooks and Mac know. Hunker down. Arm up.”
“Roger that,” Jimmy had said. “Wilco.”
Setting all the alarms and leaning a twelve-gauge pump shotgun by his side, loaded with no. 4 shot—one in the chamber, thumb safety on—had made Kufdani feel a little better. So had the extra two security guys Jimmy stationed across the hall in the vacant apartment that Kufdani Industries kept there.
It was late when he’d returned from DC, but still he had called Elsa Sachs himself and told her to expect more security. Then he told her about Edgeworth.
“Oh my god!” she’d said. “How awful! How did this happen?” She paused. “Should I cancel tomorrow’s interview?”
Kufdani had to admire her priorities. “I’m fairly sure it was Sayeret Matkal, the special forces arm of Shin Bet. And no, we shouldn’t cancel our interview. We should play it up.”
“Hm, yes. Dedicate the show to Edgie. Dress it up for him.”
“And get you that Pulitzer,” he’d said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hm. See you at seven, then. We’re live at seven-thirty, full network coverage.”
“I’ll be there,” he’d said. “You’re going to be famous. Oh, and Ms. Sachs?”
“Elsa.”
“Okay. Elsa?”
“Yes?”
“Welcome to New York.”
TWO CHAIRS WERE SET UP in the recording studio, with a small table between them. The art director had chosen the skyline of Tel Aviv as a background. On one side screen was a huge photo of the Haredi troops, standing nude and defeated with their sunburns and bald, red heads. On another huge screen was the now-famous image of the Palestinian mother falling in a fan of blood. Multiple cameras were manned and ready for lights, cameras, action.
The studio audience was live this time: two hundred strong, highly vetted, and under the watchful eye of two men in long, dark coats standing alert behind the last row of seats, and two more stationed outside the doors. The crowd murmured excitedly as Kufdani and Elsa walked from opposite ends of the stage to the center, shook hands, and sat down. They were dressed in contrast—Kufdani wore a loose, white flowing shirt and dark slacks, and Elsa wore a dark outfit with her single strand of pearls—yet they seemed to complement one another somehow.
“So, Sheik Kufdani,” Elsa asked. “How was your yesterday?”
There was more murmuring from the audience and a little nervous laughter.
“Well, as you know, my friend Reginald Ketcher Edgeworth—an American leader, and your boss—was killed by cowardly sniper fire.” Kufdani spoke softly, with intensity. “He was a friend of Israel, but no friend of the Haredim.”
“Yes, we were all stunned by the news of Mr. Edgeworth. I knew him only a short time, but he was loved by many.” Elsa’s sudden tears were endangering her mascara.
Kufdani nodded. “It is a terrible loss. Yesterday was a difficult day.”
They both bowed their heads in a brief moment of silence.
“In fact, my difficulties started even before this tragic news,” he continued. “In the middle of the night, six men came over the railing of a sailboat where I was sleeping. They had silenced weapons and enough explosives to sink the boat.”
Kufdani knew that the attack on Old Fashioned had been disclosed to the press already, with some of the details strategically excluded—including the presence of General Kim. But he also knew that people slobbered over exciting news, especially when there was intrigue and danger involved.
Elsa nodded. “I heard about that. You were on the sailboat of Special Ambassador Brooks Elliot and … someone from the National Security Agency?”
Kufdani nodded.
“The attackers were killed,” Elsa continued, shaking her head, “and you walked away without a scratch.”
“It’s true. We believe I was the target, but the other two were unhurt as well.” He gave a small smile. “The boat seems fine.”
“What did you do after the attack?” she asked.
“I got the hell off the boat and headed for DC. I had an important dinner and didn’t want to fight any new wars.”
“And how was the important dinner?”
“Delicious. I had a marvelous experience at a very nice restaurant named Tagine in Northwest DC.”
“I’m happy to hear it,” Elsa said, acknowledging the crowd’s light laughter. “And who were your assailants?”
“We’re working on facial recognition from photos.”
“Sheik Kufdani, do you know who is responsible for the attack?”
“Of course,” Kufdani said. “The Israeli government.”
Gasps could be heard from the crowd.
“Go on,” Elsa said.
“They are angry over their losses, their poor planning, the exposure of their cowardice.”
Elsa paused, squinting at him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kufdani. That seems unlikely. Who would authorize such an incursion into US territory?”
“Why your nutcase, slimebag prime minister, I assume.”
Again there were gasps, and this time some tittering from the studio audience.
“I am not a fan of our prime minister, as many know,” Sachs said. “But it’s hard to believe that he would order such a thing. Why do you believe it was him?”
“Who else?” Kufdani replied. “He commands Shin Bet, and Shin Bet commands the Sayeret Matkal—the Israeli version of the US Delta Force. Six assassins have been killed—maybe seven. Very professional. They have been photographed. We will identify them.”
Kufdani looked intently into the nearest camera.
“Until then, we have as evidence the humiliation he has faced at my hand, and the devastation of parts of Jerusalem and Beersheba that is attributed to me. But most of all, they hear what the people say: that I am the Mahdi, come to restore Muslim glory. For this, he and his cronies want me dead. They don’t want an effective Arab warrior on their doorstep. So they have tried twice to kill me, while endangering and harming those around me.”
“Will these attacks on you slow your efforts to reverse the course of Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank,” Elsa asked, “or accelerate them?”
Kufdani paused to give the impression of deep thought. “Well, the Israeli government seems to respond only to a tit-for-tat approach in the occupied territories. So I have decided to oblige them. Our next ‘tat’ will happen tomorrow morning.”
Cries of surprise rang out from the audience.
“Wait, wait,” Elsa exclaimed. “Did I just hear you say that you’re going to attack Israel … tomorrow?”
“Yes, yes, tomorrow morning at rush hour or thereabouts. I’m afraid the Israeli prime minister has left us no choice.”
