The Secret Soldier (41 page)

“It’s not so simple.”

And we come to the real reason for your visit,
Abdullah thought. Saeed sat beside Abdullah on a plush green silk couch. The brothers stared at each other in silence, the only sound Abdullah’s breathing, heavy as a steam engine.

“My brother,” Saeed said. “When you met with Kurland before he was attacked that day, what did you tell him?”

“Of you. What a snake you were. He didn’t need convincing. I told him I suspected you in the attack on Alia. Our own blood, and you slaughtered her.”

“I tell you I didn’t know Alia was going to die.”

Abdullah would have dealt whatever life he had left, months or years, for one day of strength. One day to squeeze the truth from his brother. But Allah didn’t offer such trades. “Sit beside me and lie to my face.”

“I need you to see our position.”

“I see. If we don’t save Kurland, we can’t survive.”

“And if we do save Kurland, what then? He’ll go home and tell them everything.”

“Good. The Americans can have you. And Mansour into the bargain.”

“And what happens then? You think the Americans say to the world, ‘Saeed bin Abdul-Aziz, he’s behind this. But his brother King Abdullah and the rest of the princes, the rest of these billionaires in their palaces, we love them. More than ever.’ No. We’re all together now, my brother.”

“You’ve brought this on us.”

“And I am trying to
save
us.”

Finally, Abdullah saw what Saeed was planning.

“You want to let Kurland die? Let the kidnappers kill him?”

“I want to find him.”

“But he’ll die in the rescue.”

“Along with the kidnappers.”

“Graham Kurland was my
guest.
Our guest.”

“These stupid rules. We don’t live in the desert anymore, Abdullah.”

Everything that Abdullah hated about Saeed in two sentences.

“
Snake, scorpion,
those words are too fair for you. There’s nothing living in you.”

“Insult me all you wish, Abdullah. The situation doesn’t change.”

“Even if I agreed with your plan. And I don’t. It’s too late. He probably called the secretary of state as soon as he got in his car.”

“No. He’d have waited to get back to the embassy. That kind of conversation, he would have wanted a secure line.”

“Even if you’re right, the Americans must know already. I told someone else.”

Saeed stubbed out his cigarette. “John Wells.”

How do you know about that?
Abdullah almost said. But of course Saeed knew. He had moles everywhere, including in Abdullah’s security detail. His spies were the reason that Abdullah had gone to Wells in the first place.

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.” Abdullah wondered if Saeed knew he was lying, if Saeed knew that Wells was inside the Kingdom. “But again, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure Wells told the Americans of my suspicions. He needed their help to attack that camp in Lebanon where your man trained his assassins.”

“I tell you he wasn’t my man—”

“One day to squeeze you,” Abdullah murmured.

“What?”

“You’ll kill Wells, too, then? If you come across him.”

Saeed shrugged, as if Wells’s fate was beneath his notice.

“You can’t control this, Saeed. That simpering son of yours left a trail a thousand feet wide. The Americans will find it. Even if Kurland and Wells are dead. Our only chance, God willing, is to find the ambassador and give him back and kill the terrorists. And plead for mercy.”

“No.”

And then Abdullah understood the final piece. Saeed knew he couldn’t escape if Kurland got out alive. This argument that Kurland could give them evidence they didn’t have was only half true. If Kurland lived, the Americans would be relieved. They might even be willing to take Saeed in payment for the kidnapping instead of demanding the entire family. But if Kurland died, it would be all or nothing. The family would have to stand as one and hope that the Americans couldn’t put together the evidence. Saeed was trying to expand his crime, make it so great that he couldn’t be brought to account without bringing down the entire House of Saud.

“You’d risk us all to protect yourself and Mansour. Three hundred years of our family.”

“It’s the only way.”

“And you expect me to abet your crime.”

“Make sure that if the National Guard finds the ambassador, my men are notified. Immediately.”

“Go, Saeed. Take your poison from my house.”

 

 

EVERY BALL BARBARA HIT
went over the embassy wall. Kurland watched from the baseline. He told her to relax, but she wouldn’t listen, didn’t seem to hear him at all. And then Roberto began to instruct her, in Arabic, his voice low and guttural—

All at once Kurland realized where he was. He couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe an after-effect of the sedative they’d given him. Maybe sleep was the only sensible response to this place.

The light above clicked on. The hatch pulled back. Two men climbed down the metal rungs, both carrying bags, the second also holding a steel stepladder. The first was the one he’d seen before, the one who’d made him read the speech. The second had broad shoulders and deep-set unsmiling eyes and a nose that had been badly broken many years before. Kurland pegged him as a commander. Maybe
the
commander.

The second man said something in Arabic. “The major wants me to ask how you’re feeling,” the first man said.

“I’ve been better. Have you had any word about your demands?” Kurland figured he might as well humor these men, pretend they had a chance of getting what they’d asked for.

“I’m sorry to tell you that it appears they’ve been rejected.”

“Already?”
You’re lying,
Kurland thought. He didn’t have a good sense of time in here, but he knew he’d been asleep only four or five hours at most. He’d made the video an hour before he fell asleep. So a full day couldn’t have passed since the release of the video. And however insane the demands were, the White House wouldn’t reject them until the last moment of the deadline. Probably not even then. The president would delay as long as he could, to give the CIA and the Pentagon the most possible time to find him.

A bilious dread rose up Kurland’s throat. These men had only one reason to lie. And that was to justify—to themselves, to him, to Allah—whatever they were about to do.

The translator unzipped his bag, took out the tripod and camera he’d used earlier, along with another bottle of Coke. “Would you like?”

“No, thank you.”

“You should drink. You’ll need your strength.”

The fear crept out of Kurland’s throat and into his mouth, as real and bitter as month-old milk. He thought of Barbara sitting with him at Wrigley Field. She didn’t like baseball, but she humored him a couple of times a year, the same way he humored her at the Art Institute galas. She wouldn’t let him beg.
He wouldn’t beg.

The translator set up the tripod and camera as the commander put the stepladder beside Kurland’s chair. Now that the ladder was next to him, Kurland noticed that it had some unusual features. Its feet were welded to heavy metal plates. And two notches were cut into its top step.

Despite, or because of, his fear, Kurland found himself semi-calmly puzzling over the ladder’s purpose. Its meaning
. I’ll take Obscure Torture Devices for one thousand dollars, Mr. Trebek.
Were they planning a poor man’s hanging? What was a poor man’s hanging, anyway? He felt his breathing get shallow. No. He couldn’t lose his cool. They hadn’t even touched him yet.

 

 

THEN THE COMMANDER SPREAD
the contents of his bag on the cell’s concrete floor. He turned toward Kurland and waved his hand over them like a magician unveiling his best trick. Six items lay on the ground. Five were merely frightening. The sixth was terrifying.

A fat hypodermic needle. A thick gauze bandage. Two sturdy steel clamps. A tourniquet.

And a circular saw, big and mean, its steel teeth shining brightly under the overhead bulb.

“You don’t want to do this.” Kurland kept his voice even. “You don’t have to do this. Let’s talk about this.”

The commander answered in a long stream of Arabic.

“Would you like to know what he’s saying?”

“Okay. Yes.”
I’ll buy every second I can.

“He says that for two generations the United States has stolen the oil that belongs to the people of the Arabian Peninsula—”

“We haven’t stolen it, we
paid
for it—”

The translator slapped Kurland’s face with five stinging fingers, ending the argument. “Again. He says that for two generations the United States has stolen the oil that belongs to the people of the Arabian Peninsula. He says that the whole world knows this crime, and that the only reason no one stopped you is your army and your air force and all your tanks and bombs. He says that America is a thief.”

The commander pulled latex gloves from his pocket and tugged them on his strong, brown hands. When he was satisfied with their fit, he spoke again.

“He asks if you know the penalty in
sharia
”—Muslim law—for theft.

“No.” Though Kurland did.

“It is amputation of the hand of the thief.”

“I’m not a thief.”

“Your country is. This is the law. This is justice.”

Kurland nodded, as if they were in the middle of the sanest conversation he’d ever had. “Justice. So I’m to have my hand amputated. For the sins of the United States. He’s going to do it. And you’re going to videotape it. And then you’re going to upload it or FedEx it or whatever to Al Jazeera so the whole world can watch.”

“Correct. Are you left-handed or right-?”

“Right.”

“Then the major will take your left.”

“Kind of you.”

The translator either didn’t recognize the sarcasm or ignored it. He and the commander had a rapid-fire conversation in Arabic. “We’re going to give you morphine to make you sleepy and make the operation easier.”

“I don’t want any morphine.”

“You do. Believe me.” He reached down, picked up the needle.

Behind his back, Kurland squeezed his hands together, clenched and unclenched his fingers. His left hand. He’d better get as much use of it as he could. “At least wait for the deadline to pass.” He couldn’t believe he was negotiating this way, as if the end of the deadline would somehow justify what they were planning to do to him. But those extra hours sounded more than pretty good about now.

“We both know your country won’t agree. This way, the next video will be ready as soon as the deadline passes.”

“I applaud your understanding of the demands of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Though I guess I won’t be applauding anything much longer.”

If the translator understood the joke, he didn’t smile. He uncuffed Kurland’s arms and recuffed his right hand to the chair leg. The commander grabbed Kurland’s left arm with his thick gloved hands and pulled it around the chair and slapped it against the ladder’s top step, the metal cool under his forearm.

Kurland didn’t resist. He’d wondered sometimes when he saw the brief announcements that a death-row prisoner had been executed, why didn’t the guy resist? Why didn’t he fight instead of walking to his fate like a sheep? But now he knew. His own dignity was all he had left. And his voice.

“No religion justifies this. No law. You know that, right? You’re just a couple of psychopaths with a saw. And whatever your plan is, whatever you’re hoping to accomplish, it won’t work, it’s going to end with both of you dead, sooner, not later—”

The translator put a hand over Kurland’s mouth, squeezed his nose shut. “Keep talking and there won’t be any morphine. You won’t like that.”

The commander moved Kurland’s arm until his wrist was dangling just off the edge of the ladder. With the translator’s help, he slid the vises into the notches and wound them tight around Kurland’s forearm, squeezing the muscles and the bone against the ladder’s top step. And then squeezed tighter still, pinching the skin, immobilizing Kurland’s arm well and truly.

The commander tied the tourniquet around Kurland’s biceps and tapped the crook of Kurland’s elbow until the vein rose. He aspirated the needle to make sure the morphine was free of air bubbles and slid it deep into Kurland’s vein and sank the plunger. After the prick of the needle, pleasure flowed into Kurland’s arm. Despite his knowledge of what was about to happen, he couldn’t help but ride away on the rush that filled his body, as if the room and the very air he breathed were warm and liquid. His head lolled forward, and he sighed, and all the pressure left him. He hoped for an overdose. Better to die this way than from a bullet.

He didn’t die, though. And the peace didn’t last. The translator put the camera on the commander, and he spoke for a minute in Arabic. No doubt the same justifications he’d just given Kurland. Then he pulled on a surgical mask and goggles—goggles, as if he were about to prune a tree—and picked up the saw.

Its scream filled the room, and tears streamed down Kurland’s cheeks.
No,
Kurland said
. Don’t.
It was time for the cavalry, time for men in American uniforms to burst in and end this madness. Time and past time. He wouldn’t complain at their tardiness—

But the cavalry didn’t come. Only the commander, crossing the room in four slow steps. Kneeling beside the ladder. Lining up the protective housing around the saw’s blade with the edge of the top step. Sliding the saw forward and backward, making sure the blade was where he wanted it. All the morphine in the world couldn’t help Kurland now. His fear and adrenaline had burned through it. Even in the commander’s tight grip, the saw was vibrating madly, shaking the ladder, shaking Kurland’s poor left arm.

Kurland clenched his tongue—
Don’t beg
—and closed his eyes—