John Thompson: Armageddon Conspiracy

Europe made him yearn for silence, for the burn of the Saudi Arabian desert air in his nostrils, for sunbaked sand and the endless emptiness south of Riyadh. Unlike this northern hell, with its babble of godless infidels and honking horns, he craved his homeland, where the aridity and bone-scorching heat reduced man to his essence.

Out of the corner of one eye he could see his young lieutenant, Naif Abdulaziz, dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, reading the Financial Times in a chair where he could observe the entire lobby. Naif’s hair had been styled in dreadlocks, which made him look less Muslim and more secular, like some young African businessman. His left leg was crossed over his right, the all-clear signal, so Abu Sayeed continued through the lobby to the library bar where he would meet the American.

He sat at a small table at the rear of the otherwise empty room and ordered tea. He was several minutes early, and in the brief moments before his meeting he reflected on his belief that Islam and the desert embodied the same truth. The extreme rigor of Wahaddi Islam seared impurities from a man’s soul, and the desert did the same to a man’s flesh. Westerners regarded both the land and the religion as inhumanly harsh, yet for Abu Sayeed truth and beauty could be accurately perceived only in utter extremes, either morally or in the physical contrast of life and death.

“Lost in thought?” a voice asked.

Abu Sayeed looked up from his tea, and from years of practice his mind instantly changed gears. He searched the American’s eyes for any hints of danger or betrayal. He sensed extreme nervousness, but no immediate threat. The man was clearly anxious at the risk he was taking, and he probably considered Abu Sayeed a lethal and unpredictable Arab extremist. So much the better.

“I was reflecting on the irony of your offer,” Abu Sayeed countered in his flawless Oxford-accented English. He suffered a small flush of shame that he’d been caught yearning for his homeland. In the present circumstance all considerations other than the Greatness of Allah were sinful, all personal desires inconsequential. He smiled and waved at an empty chair.

The man threw an edgy glance at his two bodyguards who had positioned themselves in the entrance to the otherwise empty room, then sat. He tapped his toe against the table leg. “I see no irony,” he said after a moment. “We simply believe in different versions of truth.”

Abu Sayeed smoothed an invisible wrinkle from his suit. He yearned for the freedom of an abaya and thobe, but traditional Saudi garb brought unwelcome attention in the West. He was thirty-four years old, a little under six feet with a lean face and piercing eyes that people often likened to a falcon’s. The eldest son of one of the richest men in Saudi Arabia, he traveled the globe managing his family’s vast business interests.

The Western media fussed over his “movie star” looks, a preoccupation he despised, but he valued the accolades of its financial press regarding his brilliance. He wondered what they would say if they discovered that he also directed the terrorist group known as the Wahaddi Brotherhood.

“Clearly one of us must be misguided,” he said at last. He needed what this infidel had to offer. With this man’s help he would carve a wound in the American Devil that mujahideen would sing about for centuries, yet he must not appear too eager.

The American leaned forward, again betraying his intensity. “One of us is.” He was a few years older than Abu Sayeed, perhaps midforties, also with a reputation for financial wizardry. He had the high forehead of an intellectual and the leanness of an athlete, but the odd spark in his blue eyes betrayed his barely controlled fervor.

“A belief in infallibility is a powerful weapon,” Abu Sayeed agreed. “I have the same conviction about the eventual success of my jihad.” He glanced at his companion’s uncalloused hands, on the surface as soft as any westerner’s. It was the wild passion that glowed just beneath the surface that made him formidable.

The bodyguards—one red haired with freckles, the other big and square jawed, both with the rough-cut look of country policemen—had the same hot flush, too. All three of these men had the ardor of suicide bombers. Such emotion could make people resolute but at the same time unpredictable.

The other man nodded and raised his eyebrows. “We pursue a common course, yet I’m afraid only one of us will find Heaven.”

Abu Sayeed sipped his tea. “Each of us understands why the other is here.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Which brings me back to irony.”

The American’s eyes became pinched with impatience. “Which brings me back to the package. We have demonstrated our ability to do what we promise.”

Abu Sayeed knew that he was referring to the Penn Station bombing and the one hundred and twenty five dead and wounded. He nodded in agreement.

“We will pay to acquire the items,” the other man went on. “You must promise to use them as we discussed.”

Abu Sayeed flicked his hand. “We have already agreed to your terms,” he said.

The “items” the man referred to would be terribly costly. Over the past several years as the Wahaddi Brotherhood’s bank accounts had been systematically seized or blocked by Western intelligence services, any attack like the one they were plotting had become increasingly impossible. How miraculous that the tools he needed were being laid at his feet, by a Christian no less, whose sole demand was that the Wahaddi Brotherhood use them to kill the American President!

Clearly, the Christian believed this act was going to bring about the onset of Armageddon, which meant Allah had prepared the Christian’s mind. Thanks be to God for my enemies, Abu Sayeed prayed in silence. “There is of course one proviso,” he said.

The American raised his eyebrows, his look suggesting that beggars did not propose conditions. “What would that be?”

“That you undertake the transportation,” Abu Sayeed replied. “Such a mission must not be exposed to needless risk.”

The man nodded. “Of course. I will be in touch with the details.”

Abu Sayeed reached into his briefcase and turned off the frequency-masking transmitter that would have prevented electronic eavesdropping on their conversation. “I look forward to our business relationship,” he said as he stood. Anyone observing the two men, particularly if they recognized either one, would have found it unremarkable that Yusuf ben Abu Sayeed had hired Prescott Biddle’s highly acclaimed Genesis Advisors to manage some of his family’s massive fortune. It was the kind of deal done in a city like Paris every day.

NEW YORK, JUNE 15

PRESCOTT BIDDLE GAZED DOWN FROM the mountaintop. He wore a white robe and held a scepter in his right hand. Far below, a ruined battlefield held millions of dead and dying sinners. Somewhere over his head a voice like thunder intoned, And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

As the voice faded, an angel appeared bearing a golden crown. The angel placed the crown on his head and named him —Messiah Bringer . He snapped awake, blinking in surprise at his French Regency desk, the familiar walls of his office, and realized he’d dozed off. He wasn’t the Messiah Bringer yet, but that would come soon enough. He rose from his chair and strode around his office, forcing blood through his jet-lagged veins.

When he opened his office door, Betty Dowager turned from her computer screen with an anxious glance. “Go with God,” she mumbled.