Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

“And it leaves no doubt that Nadia al-Bakari, a woman of unimpeachable jihadist credentials, would like to have a word with the sheikh in private.”

“To discuss spiritual matters, of course.” Carter returned the transcripts to the file. “The question is,” he said, closing the cover, “do we let her go?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Because it would violate all our standing agreements with the Saudi government and its security services. The Hadith clearly states that there shall not be two religions in Arabia. And the al-Saud have made it clear they won’t tolerate two intelligence services, either.”

“When are you going to realize they are the problem rather than the solution?”

“The day we no longer need their oil to power our cars and our economy,” Carter said. “We’ve arrested and killed hundreds of Saudi citizens since 9/11, but not inside Saudi Arabia itself. The country is off limits to infidels like us. If Nadia goes to see Sheikh Bin Tayyib, she has to go alone, without backup.”

“Can we bring the mountain to Muhammad?”

“If you’re asking whether Bin Tayyib can travel outside Saudi Arabia for a meeting with Nadia, the answer is no. He’s on too many watch lists for that. No European country in its right mind would let him in. If Bin Tayyib bites, we have no choice but to send Nadia up the mountain by herself. And if the al-Saud find out she’s there on our behalf, heads will roll.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you created an entire separate government agency to handle this,” Gabriel said, pointing at the op center beyond the window. “But that’s your problem now, Adrian. Under the terms of our most recent operational accord, this is the point where I hand over the keys and fade quietly into the background.”

“I’m wondering whether you might accept a few amendments,” said Carter cautiously.

“I’m listening.”

“Before I became the leader of the world’s largest counterterrorism force, I actually recruited and ran spies. And if there’s one thing a spy hates, it’s change. You found Nadia. You recruited her. It makes sense for you to continue running her.”

“You want me to serve as her case officer?”

“I suppose I do.”

“Under your supervision, of course.”

“The White House is adamant that the Agency assume overall control of the operation. I’m afraid my hands are tied.”

“It’s not like you to hide behind higher authority, Adrian.”

Carter made no reply. Gabriel appeared to give the matter serious thought, but in reality his mind was already made up. He tilted his head toward the soundproof glass and asked, “Do you have any room out there for me?”

Carter smiled. “I’ve already made an ID badge so you can get into the building unescorted,” he said. “It’s green, of course.”

“Green is the color of our enemy.”

“Islam isn’t the enemy, Gabriel.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot.”

Carter stood and escorted Gabriel to a small gray cubicle in the far corner of the op center. It contained a desk, a chair, an internal-line telephone, a computer, a document safe, a burn bag, and a coffee cup with the CIA emblem on the side. The girl with spiky black hair brought him a stack of files and then returned wordlessly to her pod. As Gabriel opened the first file, he looked up and saw Carter admiring the view of Rashidistan from the observation platform. He looked pleased with himself. He had a right to. The operation was his now. Gabriel was just another private contractor, a man in a gray box with a green badge around his neck.

THE BOEING BUSINESS JET OWNED and operated by AAB Holdings entered the airspace of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at precisely 5:18 p.m. As was customary, its British pilot immediately informed the passengers and crew of this development so that any females on board could begin exchanging their Western clothing for appropriate Islamic dress.

Ten of the women on board the plane did so at once. The eleventh, Nadia al-Bakari, remained in her usual seat, working through a thick stack of paperwork, until the first lights of Riyadh appeared like bits of amber scattered across the desert floor. A century earlier, the Saudi capital had been little more than a mud-walled desert outpost, all but unknown to the Western world, a speck on the map somewhere between the slopes of the Sarawat Mountains and the shores of the Persian Gulf. Oil had transformed Riyadh into a modern metropolis of palaces, skyscrapers, and shopping malls. Yet in many respects the trappings of petrowealth were a mirage. For all the billions the al-Saud had spent trying to modernize their sleepy desert empire, they had squandered billions more on their yachts, their whores, and their vacation homes in Marbella. Worse still, they had done little to prepare the country for the day the last well ran dry. Ten million foreign workers toiled in the oil fields and the palaces, yet hundreds of thousands of young Saudi men could find no work. Oil aside, the country’s biggest exports were dates and Korans. And bearded fanatics, thought Nadia grimly, as she watched the lights of Riyadh grow brighter. When it came to producing Islamic extremists, Saudi Arabia was a market leader.

Nadia lifted her gaze from the window and glanced around the interior of the aircraft. The forward seating compartment was arranged in the manner of a majlis , with comfortable chairs along the fuselage and rich Oriental rugs spread across the floor. The seats were occupied by AAB’s all-male senior staff—Daoud Hamza, the legal team of Abdul & Abdul, and, of course, Rafiq al-Kamal. He was staring at Nadia with a look of transparent disapproval, as if silently trying to remind her it was time to change her clothing. They were about to touch down in the land of invisible women, which meant Rafiq would become more than just Nadia’s bodyguard. He would also serve as her male chaperone and by law would be obligated to accompany her everywhere she went in public. In a few minutes’ time, Nadia al-Bakari, one of the world’s richest women, would have the rights of a camel. Fewer, she thought resentfully, for even a camel was permitted to show its face in public.

Without a word, she rose to her feet and made her way toward the back of the aircraft to her elegantly appointed private quarters. Opening the closet, she saw her Saudi uniform hanging limply from the rod: a simple white thobe , an embroidered black abaya cloak, and a black niqab facial veil. Just once, she thought, she would like to walk the streets of her country in loose-fitting white clothing rather than inside a constricting black cocoon. It wasn’t possible, of course; even wealth on the scale of the al-Bakaris offered no protection against the fanatical mutaween religious police. Besides, this was hardly the moment to test Saudi Arabia’s social and religious norms. She had come to her homeland to meet privately with Sheikh Marwan Bin Tayyib, the dean of the department of theology at the University of Mecca. Surely the esteemed religious scholar would find it odd if, on the eve of that meeting, Nadia was arrested by the bearded ones for failing to wear proper Islamic attire.

Reluctantly, she shed her pale Oscar de la Renta pantsuit and with clerical slowness robed herself in black. With the niqab now hiding the face God had given her, she stood before the mirror and examined her appearance. Only her eyes were visible, along with a tempting trace of flesh around her ankles. All other visual proof of her existence had been erased. In fact, her return to the forward passenger cabin provoked scarcely a glance from her male colleagues. Only Daoud Hamza, a Lebanese by birth, bothered to acknowledge her presence. The others, all Saudis, kept their eyes conspicuously averted. The illness had returned, she thought, the illness that was Saudi Arabia. It didn’t matter that Nadia was their employer. Allah had made her a woman, and upon arrival in the land of the Prophet, she would assume her proper place.