Redback (2 page)

Hotel George V, Paris France
12 days ago

Assad bin Khalid al Harbi looked at his wheezing father and fat uncle deep in
conversation on the other side of the opulent presidential suite. They had summoned him to this
meeting in Paris and were now ignoring him, as always, as if he was the lowest of subjects. They
lived only for empire and business. Assad's long absences from the family circle had not softened
their attitude. Family was for profit not togetherness.

Assad took little comfort in the knowledge that their attitude to him was nothing personal. His
father and uncle, always known collectively as 'the Brothers Khalid and Salman' or just 'the
Brothers,' treated all but their first-born children with equal-indifference. They might complain
about his long absences but it was not because they missed him. Cousins, brothers - also ignored -
filled the room.

The Brothers were making up for their grandfather's lack of family planning. Ahmed bin Youssef al
Harbi had been a simple Egyptian builder who made his first fortune from a small construction
company he established in Alexandria during World War I. He had migrated to Saudi Arabia where his
construction and business skills brought him to the attention of the royal family. He had chosen the
best possible time to migrate and was soon granted many and exclusive building contracts with the
House of Saud.

Ahmed's failing in life was that, despite five marriages, he only ever produced one son, Tariq.
He also produced one daughter, Alia. They both did their duties as inheritors of the 'al Harbi'
name, by building on the mounting fortune and producing between them 23 children - 14 of whom were
sons. Bad health, bad luck and sheer stupidity had culled those sons to five, of which the Brothers:
Assad's father Khalid, son of Tariq, and his Uncle Salman, son of Alia, were the eldest - and
meanest. All their sons were sired to keep the many arms of the al Harbi family business operating.

Assad bin Khalid noticed his father's beckoning hand and weaved his way across the room, between
cousins and brothers, to join his uncle on the couch. His father sat enthroned on an open-sided
armchair, a Louis IV gilt tapestry-upholstered
fauteuil
. He was lording it like the Saudi or
perhaps European prince he wished he was.

'Assad, so good of you to take time out of your busy schedule to attend this gathering,' his
father Khalid bin Ahmed said in a tone so patronising it hung in the air like smog.

'So good of you to recall that I am 17th of your 28 sons and daughters,' Assad smiled.

'Show proper respect for your father,' his Uncle Salman hissed.

'Dear uncle, I am nothing if not respectful.' Assad bowed his head in deference, all the while
wishing he could plunge his
jambiya
into the man's fat gut and watch him bleed to death.

'It saddens us,' his father was saying, 'that you have not been home for so long, that we had to
come all this way to Paris to see you.'

'As I was in Singapore when you requested my attendance, I believe it was I who came to Paris to
spend a few precious minutes with you.'

Khalid narrowed his eyes. 'Either way, it is a shame that you could not dress properly for our
reunion.' He gestured to his brother then back to himself, to the black
agal
encircling the
ghutra
on his head and down the snow white
thawb
that covered him from neck to
ankle.

Assad, who had long ago given up wearing the traditional garb of his father's home, pointedly ran
his left thumb under the lapel of his double-breasted charcoal Armani suit. 'When in Rome, father.'

'Do not begin to imagine that you are, or can be, anything other than what you're born to,'
Salman said.

Assad shook his head. 'It is good that you were not around to say that to your grandfather or we
would all still be lugging bricks in Egypt, uncle.'

Salman smiled - like a cobra. 'Do not dare compare yourself to Ahmed bin Youssef. Allah blessed
our grandfather with the gift of reinvention. From nothing he made our family. You, who already have
everything, have nowhere else to go.'

'Except home,' Khalid stated. 'It has been decided you are to work with your brother Ali in
Jeddah. We are launching a new project there that will also involve our shipping consortium in
Alexandria.'

'With my brother?' Assad raised an eyebrow. 'Certainly you mean I would work for Ali.'

'Of course,' Salman said. 'He is older than you by ten years. And while you have been roaming the
world like a playboy Bedouin, Ali and Sharif have been doing the groundwork for our new
pharmaceutical venture.'

'Pharmaceutical venture?' Assad tried hard not to laugh. 'You mean cousin Sharif has given up
arms dealing for drug running?'

'Assad.' His father snapped his fingers twice. 'This attitude is troubling. You have been left to
do as you please for far too long. You will return to Singapore, close the deal on the hotel by
Tuesday and take the next flight to Riyadh. There, your uncle Salman will brief you on the new role
before you report to Ali and Sharif at the end of the month.'

To make his point Khalid flicked his fingers again and turned away from his son, already
summoning someone else.

Assad had no intention of contradicting his father at that point. He stood, without a word, and
returned to his original position on the other side of the room. His seething anger at being
dismissed like a dog was only balanced by the supreme amusement he took in knowing that he had
already answered the last summons from the House of al Harbi.

His new life was ready. In just over a week there would be no coming back - ever. So this time,
this last time, he revelled in the fury they engendered. Their indifference, their intolerance,
their connections, their corruption, their hypocrisy, their blind acceptance of the status quo had
made him the man he was and shaped his future. Their belief, not that their world would remain this
way forever but that it
should
was stifling.

The Brothers had unwittingly fashioned a driven, angry, passionate and independent man of far
greater wealth than they could possibly guess. He planned to use everything at his disposal to
destroy and rebuild the world of his creators. He was much more like his great-grandfather Assad bin
Khalid al Harbi. He, too, was a Prince of Reinvention.

Laui Island, Pacific Ocean
Tuesday evening

Dr Jana Rossi pledged a silent oath of allegiance to anyone who could get her out
of this mess. With the same breath she also hoped that this time the rebels would shoot her
companion, otherwise she'd have no choice but to kill the stupid bastard herself.

She also knew that developing a grudge was better than sitting in fear, and the desire to hurt
Alan Wagner was quite empowering. If this was anger management, then it worked for her.

Alan, meanwhile, was giving his testosterone a pep talk as he got ready to get them both
seriously hurt. He actually gave Jana a patronising in-charge wink. The sound of returning bootsteps
did not bode well for either of them. She knew that.

She hit Alan as hard as she could.

When the two gunmen flung their door open they found her waiting quietly, and him doubled over
groaning about his balls.

'You come now,' the taller one said. 'Both you.'

Jana did as she was told. It was more sensible than giving lip to a teenager with a
semi-automatic.

Once outside their bure they were shoved along the winding path through the tropical vegetation.
She knew it led towards the dining room, about 50 metres away on the far side of the waterfall-pool
and beach volleyball area. As soon as they cleared the private gardens, Alan stumbled and fell. One
soldier laughed, the other kicked him in the ribs; both trained their weapons on him.

Jana stopped and waited. Unlike her roommate, she knew it was pointless to make a break for it.
There could be no escape from here without outside help. And that was unlikely. Still, and ever the
optimist, she scanned the grounds between them and the lagoon for any signs of rescue.

Twilight in the tropics, she noted irrelevantly, is just a state of mind. The sun sinks so fast
near the equator that day becomes night in a blink of the eye. And while Jana had never seen a
sunset look so ominously like blood smeared on the horizon, she caught her breath in that moment
before dark and hoped that what she'd glimpsed was a conning tower. Then she laughed silently at her
wishful thinking. Given her luck this week, she'd just seen the arse end of a cruise ship.

Alan was now dusting himself down and shrugging the boy soldiers off, as if they were nothing.

What kind of rebels are these
? One of the men pushed her in the back to hurry her on. If
she so wanted to kill Alan, why the hell didn't they?

Movements to her left caught her attention. A magnificent banyan tree, the focal point of the
resort's three swimming pools, was still covered in streamers and coloured lights from the
traditional welcome they'd been given nine days ago. Now she saw it was occupied by four grotty
rebels inside a circle of mounted machine guns. All directions were covered, but one of the guns was
aimed at the five-star bures - the cabins - of Laui Island's East Garden. They were now nothing more
than superbly appointed thatched prison cells that held the other randomly paired-off members of the
Pacific Tourism & Enviro-Trade Conference.

The dining room was shut-up. While the bures were self-contained and lockable, most of the
resort's communal buildings like the bar, theatre and convention room, had folding timber storm
doors rather than permanent walls. Ordinarily, they were rarely used. Given the balmy evening and
crystal-clear sky, why was the dining room closed in?

Their escorts stopped in the sand below the outdoor deck and ordered, 'You wait.'

Jana grabbed Alan's sleeve and yanked him to a stand still. 'Don't aggravate them any more
Alan.'

'Stupid bitch. We'd be outta here now if you'd follow me.'

'No. We'd be dead now. Didn't you see that little arsenal?' She pointed to the banyan tree.

Alan looked up. She saw his shoulders stiffen but he was not about to admit his near death error.
Jana strained to identify the voices coming from the dining room. One belonged to Mila Ifran, the
leader of these island rebels, but while the other man's first language was obviously English, his
accent was hard to determine. Not a rebel or a staff member then.

Jana allowed herself a grain of hope: perhaps all the other delegates were inside. Maybe the
rebels' demands had been met and their release had been secured.

And perhaps you're already dead and stuck forever in a nightmare. No one negotiates with rebels,
terrorists or kidnappers any more. No governments, no agencies, no one.

As if verifying that notion, Jana heard Ifran say, 'What is taking so long? Do they not believe
we are serious? What is wrong with these Australians?'

'The Americans probably,' the other man said. 'What did you expect, Mila? If you only wanted to
deal with the Aussies or Kiwis, you should've made sure there were no US citizens here.'

'But there are only two of them,' Ifran shouted. He appeared in the doorway and motioned at them
with a toss of his head.

Jana led the way up steps, while Alan whispered in her ear, 'Let me do the talking.'

'I don't think so, Alan. Let's see who
he
wants to talk to.' She was, after all, the
conference chairperson and official delegate of the Australian Economic Tourism Council, while Alan
Wagner was merely a Sydney TV journo on a travel junket. She was also a trade negotiator of some
international renown, and far less obnoxious.

There's that other thing too, she thought, but there's no way these rebels could know about that.

As Jana entered the dining room, she noticed two things immediately: Mila Ifran was alone; and
the space had undergone a technological transformation since she'd been dragged here seven days ago.
Then the rebels hadn't cleared away the mess they'd made in the initial attack; now the place was
clean, tidy and full of high-tech equipment. Highly suspicious, high-tech equipment.

Jana frowned. These were island rebels. Dressed in a motley assortment of tourist T-shirts and
camouflage pants or khaki shorts; their 'uniforms' reflected the grassroots poverty that topped a
long list of grievances against their government. Yet here were several tables covered with laptop
computers and state of the art communication and surveillance gear.

While Alan tried to take control of the situation, Jana's already baffled attention was drawn to
the swinging kitchen door, through which she caught sight of a departing soldier. Obviously it was
the man with whom Mila Ifran had been talking, but why was he alone wearing pristine combat
fatigues? And since when do Pacific Islanders - rebel or not - have red hair?

Sixth rule of survival, Rossi style: never admit seeing or knowing anything you weren't meant to.

Mila Ifran meanwhile told Alan Wagner to shut up and sit down and then turned to Jana.

'Dr Rossi.'

'Mr Ifran,' she nodded.

'I trust my men are taking good care of you,' he said, indicating she should sit opposite him.

Jana shrugged. 'More than one meal a day would be nice but, given the circumstances, they are
being quite, ah, polite.'

'Good. I,' Ifran began.

'Bloody hell, woman!' Alan exploded. 'We've been held hostage for over a week by a bunch of
filthy bastards with guns.'

Ifran raised his hand. 'Have you been harmed?'

Alan opened his mouth.

'Not by your people he hasn't,' Jana interrupted, with a smile. First rule of negotiating, Rossi
style: charm or disarm with polite composure. No matter how scared you are.

'Are the other delegates okay?' she asked.

'Yes. They are fine.' Ifran leant forward, turned a TV on and picked up a remote control. 'Your
famous mediating skills, Dr Rossi, would involve being able to read people, yes?'