The Aisha Prophecy (30 page)

“This can’t be right,” said Kessler to Elizabeth. “Ten billion?”

She shook her head uncertainly. “Impossible.”

She read about the disk that must be in their possession. Yes, their possession. Not that of the Nasreens. Rasha had clearly kept a copy.

Netanya wrote,”This is flight money mostly, not charity money. It’s the Saudi princess, Rasha, who froze it.”

“You’re certain?” asked Kessler.

“Who else?” replied Netanya. “But if it isn’t, so what? She’s the one they’ll come after. The Saudi’s will pressure your government to find her. Your government, if you’re lucky, will begin with Roger Clew, but it won’t give Clew more than a couple of days before it pulls out all the stops. The Saudis, meanwhile, will be sending their own if they manage to find out where you are. Nor, by the way, is it only the Saudis. They’ll all come, and not just the Muslim fanatics. Every Muslim regime where this prophecy has caused problems will be taking a bead on your town. Especially Iran. Sadik has met with them. He thinks he’s bought you some time, but not much.”

Kessler started to type another question for Netanya, but Netanya was still listing the belligerents.

“There was a banker, an Englishman, in Riyadh with the prince. This was on Monday, two days ago. The banker was after that money as well. Sadik says he’s from the Bohemian Club. Do you know about the Bohemian Club? Very powerful; they own half the world. Ten billion dollars should be pocket change to them. A lot of them work in big oil which is trillions. Do you begin to get the picture? This is all about oil. You won’t survive a fight with big oil.”

Kessler asked Elizabeth, “The Bohemian Club?”

“I’ve heard of it,” she told him. “I don’t know much about it. Netanya talks as if it’s some kind of mafia. I’ve never heard anything like that.”

“How big? How many members?”

“Maybe two or three thousand.”

“Too many,” said Kessler, “to be of one mind. But there are always clubs within clubs.” He wrote, “Who is this banker? We need names.”

“Sadik says he knows,” came Netanya’s reply. “Also the names of the banker’s associates, both of whom are Bohemian Club members. He won’t give me the names. He says nothing for nothing. This is how he got me to get him to Belle Haven. He says he’ll tell you the names and maybe you will tell me. Do I have your word that you will?”

“If I can.”

“Martin, maybe you were joking about changing the world. If not, you’ve bit off more than you can chew.”

Elizabeth looked at Kessler. “Changing the world?”

“Said in jest,” he told her, “before I knew about this.”

“This is all news to you? Be straight with me, Martin.”

“Elizabeth, I knew nothing that you didn’t know. I knew that Rasha got out with some material on a disk. Here’s Netanya saying that she kept a copy. If so, she broke faith with the Nasreens who saved her. Does that sound like Rasha to you?”

“No, it doesn’t. But never mind that for now.” She reached past Kessler, her fingers on the keyboard. She typed, “Yitzhak, it’s Elizabeth. What’s this about Aisha? Why would they want to hurt Aisha?”

He replied, “Elizabeth? Did you know this was happening?”

“No, damn it,” she wrote, “and neither did Martin. Answer my question. Why Aisha?”

“The prophecy, Elizabeth. The Lady of the Camel in that prophecy is Aisha. If you don’t know Muslim history, think Joan of Arc. Think what happened to her when she was betrayed. The English called her a heretic and they burned her.”

She wrote, “I know Muslim history, but I don’t know this prophecy. You say it’s all over the internet?”

Netanya replied, “You can look for yourself. Do a search and you’ll see. It’s already making half the world crazy.”

She said to Kessler. “Let’s get the girls in here.” But before she could open her mouth to call them, she saw the name Shahla appear on the screen. Netanya had written, “To show Shahla Darvi the harm she has done, you can tell her that her friend, a girl named Farah, died for her. This is true. Sadik was with her when she died.”

Kessler read it. “Let’s do this one at a time.”

“Shahla first,” said Elizabeth. “Let her see this.”

TWENTY EIGHT 

On Wednesday, Roger Clew had gone back to his office. He still had most of his day to kill before Harry’s plane landed at Reagan. Harry’s ETA was 3:50 PM. He decided that he’d better brief Howard Leland on all these exchanges with Harry and Yitzhak. Perhaps he wouldn’t mention Sadik just yet, least of all that he was being smuggled in. He had placed a call to Leland’s security detail. They would pass the message in to Leland.

It would be something more than a courtesy briefing. He wanted to know whether Haskell bought Leland’s promise that Stride would find that disk for him. Also, Leland had said that he had reason to suspect that Haskell might know where Stride and Kessler are living. If Haskell does, he’s almost surely got some people in Belle Haven. Maybe Leland has learned something more. He wanted to be alone in his office if and when Howard Leland returned his call. He didn’t want to take it on a cell phone.

To kill some of that time, he sat through two briefings. Both, as it happened, were Mideast-related and both mentioned, as a footnote, the disquieting effect of the prophecy throughout the region. A paper in Bahrain, the English language Tribune, had run a recent feature that included a drawing of what the reborn Aisha might look like. Also of Qaila, Aisha’s guardian angel. Aisha on her camel. Qaila hovering, sword in hand.

The briefer had seen State’s copy of the paper. She hadn’t thought it worth bringing to this meeting because it was only some artist’s impression. A footnote to a footnote, so to speak. She hadn’t thought that the drawing would interest him, but he saw that it had clearly interested her. She was able to describe it in detail.

The Aisha depicted was beautiful, she said. Very young and with enormous dark eyes, her expression serene and yet determined. Her eyes seemed to be looking into the soul of anyone reading that paper. She was dressed, as expected, in a flowing white robe, but the garment had been girdled at her waist and at her wrists as it might be if she were preparing for battle. Her head was wrapped in a white linen turban. The wrap’s end had been brought down under her chin and then thrown back over her shoulder.

There was nothing serene, said the briefer, about Qaila. Flame-haired wasn’t a color; it was actually on fire. So was the sword that she held in both hands. From the look on her face she seemed itching to use it on anyone who looked at her cross-eyed. Clew’s briefer had heard that thousands of readers had made multiple copies of the drawing. They were faxing it well beyond the borders of Bahrain. It was said to be hanging in women’s lavatories as far away as Malaysia.

Normally, the daily Bahraini Tribune was available in Saudi Arabia. Not this week, said his briefer. It’s been banned since that drawing. Even so, a few issues had managed to slip through, carried over the connecting causeway by truckers. The Saudi censors had already been busy trying to block any reference to the prophecy.

Clew had to smile. They were always blocking something. The Saudis had thousands of low-level clerks whose job it was to run a black Magic Marker through any article that seemed critical of the regime or of its religious establishment. The job was highly labor-intensive. They’d black out the article in every single copy of every newspaper or magazine before allowing them to reach Saudi newsstands. Even Time or Newsweek. There were no exceptions. But usually not the whole edition.

The blacking-out, thought Clew, was exquisitely dumb. All it did was call the reader’s attention to an article that otherwise might have been ignored. And all the reader had to do was hold the page up to the light and easily read the text underneath. Or the interested reader could find it on the internet. The Saudi censors did a fairly effective job of restricting internet access. But it was a losing battle in a wired world. Too many Saudis had satellite dishes even though they were technically illegal. Those with dishes were able to download the internet from one of the many satellites overhead. The Saudi authorities didn’t dare seize those dishes because every Saudi prince had one, often several, one at each of his homes and at his office. And the dishes were sold at every shopping mall.

Clew told the briefer to bring him State’s copy of the Bahrain Tribune. He knew that the drawings were only composites. They were probably closer to a thousand other women than they were to our Aisha and Elizabeth. But perhaps too close for comfort, given all those faxed copies. He thought he’d best see for himself.

The second briefing was just winding down, this one by a small team of analysts. He’d had a tray sandwiches brought in. Clew saw the light of his private line blinking. He peered at the read-out. It was Howard Leland. He asked the briefers to excuse him, take their sandwiches with them.

He picked up and said his name. He heard only a hum. Then a smacking of lips and a clearing of the throat. The hum, it turned out, was from the jet engines of Leland’s State Department C-4. Leland was on his way back. Clew glanced at his watch. It was already after two. After ten on the coast. Leland had left a few hours earlier than planned.

“Sir? Are you there?”

He heard a deep sigh. “Yes, Roger. I’m here.”

“Sir, I’m glad you called. I have a number of questions.”

When Leland spoke again, it was as if he hadn’t heard. He said, “Roger, I want you to record what I say to you. Or are you recording already?”

“No, I’m not, sir.”

“Begin recording when I say ‘now.’ Stop recording when I say, ‘We’ll talk again later.’ After that, we’ll have a private discussion.”

Clew shrugged. “Should I be silent while I am recording?”

“By no means. It must be clear that I’m speaking to you. You’ll have questions, but please try to keep them to a minimum. I’m doing this to try to convince… you, to start with… that I was not a willing participant in… well, you’ll hear it all in a minute.”

“I’ll say the ‘now’ for you.” Clew reached for a button. “You’re being recorded starting… now.”

Clew listened as Leland identified himself and gave his oath that what follows is the truth as he knows it. That said, he recounted the events of that morning. The Saudi prince in his shower. Made to look like a suicide. Almost certainly a murder. The role of Haskell’s friends, the mogul and the banker, in hustling him away from the scene of the crime. Leland, himself, becoming complicit by allowing himself to be removed. Leland knowing full well that those two had arranged for a clean-up crew to obliterate any evidence that a death had occurred.

“Including the body? This is Roger Clew asking.” Clew added his title, the date and the time.

“Thank you, Roger. I’m not thinking. Should have logged this myself.”

“You’re welcome, sir. What about that dead body?”

“Gone. Disappeared. I don’t think it will be found. All that remains is a suicide note. I’ve seen it. I’ve read it. I watched it being burned. Or more likely, a facsimile thereof. I will now recite its contents from my memory of it. I wrote it down while I was being driven to the airport. I believe I have it almost verbatim.”

Clew listened in growing astonishment as Leland read from his notes. Harry Whistler, Martin Kessler, the Nasreens and himself, and, of course, Howard Leland, all enemies of God and corruptors of Muslim wives and daughters. Harry Whistler “pulling the strings.” All this done behind the walls of Harry’s house in Belle Haven. So Haskell has known all along.

It gets worse. They’re also thieves. Ten billion dollars stolen. Taken from some vast Saudi poor box. And spreaders of false prophecy – no doubt the Aisha prophecy – with the help of Sadik who is now… Netanya’s mole? They’re all involved in this enormous conspiracy. All evil-doers. Can’t trust a one of them. Who can you trust? Charles Haskell, that’s who. Everyone else should be killed.

Clew wondered if he’d heard right. “Ten billion dollars?”

“Yes, billion. With a B. Perhaps more.”

“Holy shit.”

Leland added, “This Sadik. I don’t know that name. I don’t know how he’s involved.”

“I’ll… check out the name with Netanya.”

Leland asked, “Have you heard from Elizabeth Stride?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Clew. “Did you tell Haskell that you spoke to her?”

“I did, but I think he knows I did not. Is she still in Belle Haven? Was he right about that?”

Damn, thought Clew. “For the moment.”

“The Saudi princess as well?”

“For the moment.”

“Why do you suppose… never mind. Not important.”

“All of this is important. What were you about to say about the princess?”

“Oh. Not her. I was thinking of Stride. Why would she be left out of this list of transgressors? It’s as if she’d been given a pass.”

Clew pondered for a moment. He asked, “Haskell’s words, right?”

“In the prince’s handwriting. But the text could only have been Haskell’s.”

Clew shook his head. “I have no idea.” He said, “Let’s get back to this murder.”

“Haskell’s two associates seemed as shocked as I was to find the prince dead in my shower. I don’t think it was an act. I think their shock was genuine. I’m quite sure that Haskell did it, or that he had it done, without either man’s prior knowledge.”

“Maybe. These other two. Who are they?”

“The banker is Sir Reginald Leeds. He’s chairman of InterBank, Limited of London. His bank financed Trans-Global’s early expansion. Branches all over the Mideast. The other, their spokesman on this occasion, is Huntington Bentley, the media giant. Right wing, an elitist in the extreme, divides the world into two different groups, the Bohemians and everyone else. I assume their names are not unfamiliar.”

Clew jotted them down. “I’ve heard of Leeds. Can’t recall much about him. But everyone knows Huntington Bentley.”

“Then you know the extent of his media empire. It reaches a quarter of the world’s population. Certainly all of the English-speaking world and, through his several satellite stations, almost everyone whose language is Arabic.”

Clew was well aware it. He knew Bentley’s reach. He also knew that the largest of those satellite stations, the one that broadcast out of Dubai, was a regular booster of Trans-Global Oil. It tried to hammer home that only Trans-Global had the technical competence to keep the oil flowing regardless of political uncertainties. If he checked, thought Clew, he’d probably find that InterBank Limited was similarly touted as the only bank competent to handle their revenues. They made for a very cozy threesome.

Clew wondered in passing whether Huntington Bentley also owned that Bahraini newspaper. Probably not, he decided. It would not seem to be in that threesome’s interest to publicize Aisha’s second coming.

“He has real power, Roger. He can make or break anyone.”

“So they say. But, I gather, not you.”

“Bentley promised to insulate me from all this. He made it clear how I might return the favor.”

“He wants the ten billion? He thinks it’s in Belle Haven?”

“Wherever it is, whoever has it, they want it. By ‘they’, I mean the three of them, Bentley, Haskell and Leeds, although it seems clear that a rift has developed. By ‘it,’ I mean a disk. The money’s all on a disk.”

Clew listened further as Leland explained what all he understood to be on the disk. Names of key Saudis who helped themselves to funds intended for legitimate charities. All in off-shore accounts. Flight money, certainly. Account numbers, access codes; everything. That those names, and not the money per se, were what Haskell and friends wanted most. How the prince’s daughter got out with that disk. How she, only days ago, sent word to her father that she’d doctored the original files. How that disk was not only the sole record of those names, but the only means of accessing those funds by either Haskell’s friends or the Saudis.

Clew told him, “I’m finding this hard to believe.”

“Roger, I was there. Horse’s mouth.”

“Why the wild accusations of that suicide note.”

“Haskell’s mouth,” said Leland. “Those words were his. Somehow he got the prince to write them down in my notebook. To me, the ‘why’ is obvious. Misdirection.”

“And I’m one of the plotters?”

“In your capacity as my lackey.”

“Yes, sir. I caught that.” Clew couldn’t help smiling. He asked, “And the prophecy? How does that figure in?”

“At the very least, it’s a wonderful diversion. We know that Haskell has some scheme in the works and that it involves Saudi oil. Haskell, however, knew nothing of the prophecy. I was standing there the first time he heard of it. But give the man credit. He’s fast on his feet. It’s clear to me from the language of the suicide note, that he saw it as a way to keep Kessler diverted.”

“Diverted from Haskell? Howard, I told you…”

“That he has no interest. Yes, Roger, I heard you. But Haskell thinks he does and that’s all there is to it. What sweeter way to get even with Kessler – to say nothing of Whistler who pulls Kessler’s strings - than to pit him against the whole Muslim world. Or half of it anyway. All the husbands and fathers.”

“Sir…”

“Oh, I know,” said Leland. “Not half. A tiny fraction. But it’s still no small number. A few thousand fanatics. Enough for one hell of a diversion.”

“While Haskell ingratiates himself to the rest?”

“That would seem to be his hope.” Leland paused. He cleared his throat. He added, “Roger, I’m on my way home. You and I will talk again later.”