Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

“I see,” Nayef replied, beginning to be swayed by al-Wandi’s logic.

The conversation went on as Ali continued to lay out the facts and add his own spin, and eventually Nayef promised the additional 80 million riyals.

Ali al-Wandi smiled with satisfaction at how he had worked Nayef, but that gratification was short-lived as he recalled a subsequent meeting. Now it was more than his reputation and status that were tied up in the pipeline; it was now part of his personal fortune. The meeting where Nayef had shaken him down remained a bitter memory. He replayed the meeting in his head, the bile in his stomach churning.

It was late afternoon in Riyadh, and Prince Ali al-Wandi was packing his Tony Perotti black leather briefcase when his assistant came in. “Your Excellency, Prince Nayef has asked to see you, and he says it’s urgent.”

Al-Wandi just rolled his eyes. He had had the man checking their construction account several times a day since Nayef had promised him the 80 million riyals, but thus far nothing had been deposited. “Have you checked the account this afternoon?”

“Yes, Your Excellency, nothing yet.”

“He probably wants me to grovel some more,” al-Wandi muttered.

Al Wandi brushed past his assistant and strode down the long hallway toward Nayef’s office. He was getting tired of this lazy oaf making his life difficult. It was one thing if he felt the need to remind him who was boss from time to time. Fine. It was a relatively small price to pay for the fame, and access, he had garnered in his new role as pipeline czar, to say nothing of the fortune he was skimming off the top for each oil futures deal he made. Now Nayef was costing him money.

He needed the 80 million riyals to keep the pipeline project moving at the pace they had planned on. There were construction companies, suppliers, and security services to pay. Because of the lack of ready cash, a few of them had begun to withhold services and supplies.

As he entered Nayef’s outer office, al-Wandi was steaming and made straight for Nayef’s desk.

“Your Excellency, you asked to see me?” al-Wandi all but barked, almost spitting the words “Your Excellency” at Nayef.

“Yes, yes, please sit down.”

Al-Wandi sat in one chair, facing Nayef just a few feet away.

“Yes, well, I suspect you know the funding you have asked for has not been deposited yet.”

“Yes, I know that,” al-Wandi answered abruptly.

“Well, there is a problem, you see.”

“A problem?”

“Yes, a problem. I took this to His Majesty and the king is … well, to be truthful, he’s not completely convinced we need to move forward this rapidly.”

“Not sure?”

“Yes. Now hear me out, please. I know you are dedicated to this project, and His Majesty knows that, too. Yet you also must know what a drain this is on the kingdom’s resources.”

Oh, so this is what this is about. Nayef needs to plead poverty. Very well, I’ll hold my tongue and listen, up to a point.

“Yes,” al-Wandi replied. He didn’t know where this was going, but he figured if he kept saying yes, Nayef would get to the point and get this charade over with.

“Well, as I’m sure you know, the US$60 billion commitment we made with the United States in 2011 to buy weapons has been a drain on the kingdom’s treasury. You also know all too well the price of oil has not reached the levels we projected. Further, no one had anticipated…”

Nayef droned on, laying out the kingdom’s financial woes. Yet al-Wandi still didn’t know where this was going. His project was going to solve many of those woes. Was Nayef really that dense?

“So, in speaking with His Majesty, he is willing to add the additional eighty million riyals to the project’s funding stream. However, he would like you to add some of your personal funds to the project, just to show good faith mind you. His Majesty was thinking in the neighborhood of perhaps thirty-five million riyals.”

Al-Wandi’s head was spinning. Was Nayef bluffing? Did the king really decide this? Did he dare call his bluff?

“That is vastly more money than I have. I’m just a humble servant.”

“Well, no, that’s not quite right. You see, we have examined your finances.”

“Examined my finances!” al-Wandi exclaimed, pushing himself out of his chair. “Who are you to ‘examine my finances’? This is enough. You say this is coming from the king. Then let’s go see him — now! He can tell me this himself.”

“Now calm down. It’s not possible to see His Majesty; he is at the Intercontinental London Park Lane in his usual suite of rooms. He is in England for a medical procedure, but, I assure you, these are his wishes.”

Al-Wandi sat back down. Examining his finances? Asking him to put up his own money for this project? Why?

Nayef broke the silence.

“I would have assumed you would not have to think about this. As you said a moment ago, you are a servant of the kingdom, and these are His Majesty’s wishes.”

Al-Wandi just sat mute. Nayef had put him in a box.

“So I must ask you again. Will you put up your own thirty-five million riyals to support this important project or not?”

“Yes,” al-Wandi mumbled.

“Good. Then we are done. May Allah be with you and with our pipeline project.”

Al-Wandi all but staggered out of Nayef’s office and headed for the safety of his own office suite. He needed time to think.

After Prince Nayef had held him up for the initial thirty-five million riyals, he had come back to him three more times to put up additional money of his own, always upping the ante, and always as a “show of good faith for the king.” Now he was personally invested in the pipeline to the tune of over 250 million riyals.

His accountants had worked feverishly to ensure he would be the first person paid when the oil revenues the pipeline would generate found their way to the kingdom. Al-Wandi smiled to himself. Then he would be a hero and there would be money for everyone. He seldom drank anything stronger than tea, but once the money began rolling in he would part with that established practice. He had already purchased two bottles of 2005 Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam to celebrate when the first tanker was filled with pipeline oil in the Syrian port of Baniyas. That was in the future, or what he hoped was the future.

That all changed in an instant, and Prince Ali al-Wandi’s world was turned upside down. What was worse, he didn’t see it coming.

With the pipeline nearing completion, disaster struck for al-Wandi. Fueled by the 2011 uprisings, and especially by the Assad family’s brutal murder and repression of the Syrian people, Syria took a major lurch toward instability. The Syrian government, still dominated by the Alawites, was especially hostile to Saudi Arabia because of how ruthlessly the Saudis suppressed their own popular uprisings in 2011, to say nothing of how their autocratic state repressed its people today. When the dust had settled and some semblance of stability had been restored, the Syrian government reneged on the pipeline deal with Saudi Arabia and agreed to pay back the huge advance they had received “in due course.”

Now the government in Syria was not only impacting the Saudi monarchy, it was impacting him ! No amount of manipulation, cajoling, or outright bribery of Syrian government officials by Prince Ali had been able to sway their decision. He suddenly went from being the toast of the Saudi royal court to the scapegoat for everything wrong with the kingdom. How much effort had he put into working his way to a position of power near the top of the Saudi Oil Ministry bureaucracy? How much money, and part of his own personal fortune to boot, had he lavished on those ministers and bureaucrats in Jordan and Syria until they relented and allowed the Saudis to build the huge pipeline from the Saudi oil fields through their countries to the Mediterranean? And now it would go up in smoke? Not if he could help it.