Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

“If it is the will of God,” repeated Nadia with a serenity that did not match her thoughts.

Nadia served herself a small portion of chicken and rice and looked around at the other women. A few had removed their niqab s, but most were attempting to eat with their faces covered, including Adara and Safia. Nadia did the same, all the while listening to the constant hum of chatter around her. It was frightfully banal: family gossip, the newest shopping center in Riyadh, the accomplishments of their children. Only their sons, of course, for their female offspring were symbols of reproductive failure. This was how they spent their lives, locked away in separate rooms, in separate tents, in the company of women just like themselves. They attended no theater productions, because there was not one playhouse in the entire country. They went to no discotheques, because music and dancing were both strictly haram . They read nothing but the Koran—which they studied separately from men—and heavily censored magazines promoting clothing they were not allowed to wear in public. Occasionally, they would grant one another physical pleasure, the dirty little secret of Saudi Arabia, but for the most part they led lives of crushing, depressing boredom. And when it was over they would be buried in the Wahhabi tradition, in a grave with no marker, beneath the blistering sands of the Nejd.

Despite it all, Nadia couldn’t help but feel strangely comforted by the warm embrace of her people and her faith. That was the one thing Westerners would never understand about Islam: it was all-encompassing. It woke you in the morning with the call to prayer and covered you like an abaya as you moved through the rest of your day. It was in every word, every thought, and every deed of a pious Muslim. And it was here, in this communal gathering of veiled women, in the heart of the Nejd.

It was then she felt the first terrible pang of guilt. It swept up on her with the suddenness of a sandstorm and without the courtesy of a warning. By throwing in her lot with the Israelis and the Americans, she was effectively renouncing her faith as a Muslim. She was a heretic, an apostate, and the punishment for apostasy was death. It was a death these veiled, bored women gathered around her would no doubt condone. They had no choice; if they dared to rise to her defense, they would suffer the same fate.

The guilt quickly passed and was replaced by fear. To steel herself, she thought of Rena, her guide, her beacon. And she thought how appropriate it was that her act of betrayal should occur here, in the sacred land of the Nejd, in the comforting embrace of veiled women. And if she had any misgivings about the path she had chosen, it was too late. Because through the opening in the tent she could see Ali, the bearded talib , coming across the desert in his short Salafi thobe . It was time to have a quiet word with the sheikh. After that, Allah willing, the rains would come, and it would be done.

SHE FOLLOWED THE TALIB INTO the desert, along the rim of the wadi . There was no proper footpath, only a swath of beaten earth, the remnants of an ancient camel track that had been carved into the desert floor long before anyone in the Nejd had ever heard of a preacher called Wahhab or even a trader from Mecca called Muhammad. The talib carried no torch, for no torch was needed. Their way was lit by the hard white stars shining in the vast sky and by the hilal moon floating above a distant spire of rock, like a crescent atop the world’s tallest minaret. Nadia carried her high heels in one hand and with the other lifted the hem of her black abaya . The air had turned bitterly cold, but the earth felt warm against her feet. The talib was walking a few paces ahead. His thobe appeared luminescent in the moon glow. He was reciting verses of the Koran softly to himself, but to Nadia he spoke not a word.

They came upon a tent with no satellite dish or generator. Two men crouched outside the entrance, their young, bearded faces lit by the faint glow of a small fire. The talib offered them a greeting of peace, then pulled open the flap of the tent and gestured for Nadia to enter. Sheikh Marwan Bin Tayyib, dean of the department of theology at the University of Mecca, sat cross-legged on a simple Oriental carpet, reading the Koran by the light of a gas lantern. Closing the book, he regarded Nadia through his small round spectacles for a long moment before inviting her to sit. She lowered herself slowly to the carpet, careful not to expose her flesh, and arranged herself piously next to the Koran.

“The veil becomes you,” Bin Tayyib said admiringly, “but you may remove it, if you wish.”

“I prefer to keep it on.”

“I never realized you were so devout. Your reputation is that of a liberated woman.”

The sheikh clearly did not mean it as a compliment. He intended to test her, but then she had expected nothing less. Neither had Gabriel. Hide only us , he had said. Adhere to the truth when possible. Lie as a last resort . It was the way of the Office. The way of the professional spy.

“Liberated from what?” Nadia asked, deliberately provoking him.

“From the sharia ,” said the sheikh. “I’m told you never wear the veil in the West.”

“It is impractical.”

“It is my understanding that more and more of our women are choosing to remain veiled when they travel. I’m told that many Saudi women cover their faces when they are having tea at Harrods.”

“They don’t run large investment companies. And most of them drink more than just tea when they’re in the West.”

“I hear you are one of them.”

Adhere to the truth when possible. . . .

“I confess that I am fond of wine.”

“It is haram ,” he said in a scolding tone.

“Blame it on my father. He permitted me to drink when I was in the West.”

“He was lenient with you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “he wasn’t lenient. He spoiled me terribly. But he also gave me his great faith.”

“Faith in what?”

“Faith in Allah and His Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

“If my memory is correct, your father regarded himself as a descendant of Wahhab himself.”

“Unlike the al-Asheikh family, we are not direct descendants. We come from a distant branch.”

“Distant or not, his blood flows through you.”

“So it is said.”

“But you have chosen not to marry and have children. Is this, too, a matter of practicality?”

Nadia hesitated.

Lie as a last resort. . . .

“I came of age in the wake of my father’s murder,” she said. “My grief makes it impossible for me to even contemplate the idea of marriage.”

“And now your grief has led you to us.”

“Not grief,” Nadia said. “Anger.”

“Here in the Nejd, it is sometimes difficult to tell the two apart.” The sheikh gave her a sympathetic smile, his first. “But you should know that you are not alone. There are hundreds of Saudis just like you—good Muslims whose loved ones were killed by the Americans or are rotting to this day in the cages of Guantánamo Bay. And many have come to the brothers in search of revenge.”

“None of them watched their father being murdered in cold blood.”

“You believe this makes you special?”

“No,” Nadia said, “I believe it is my money that makes me special.”

“Very special,” the sheikh said. “It’s been five years since your father was martyred, has it not?”

Nadia nodded.

“That is a long time, Miss al-Bakari.”

“In the Nejd, it is the blink of an eye.”