The Aisha Prophecy (17 page)

This, Mulazim heard. He said, “Wonderful. Good news.”

“The party’s private, but the bar will be open. Come in then and you’ll catch him. If not before.”

“Excellent,” said Mulazim. “I will be here.”

Mulazim was still watching as she crossed the street. She got to her car. It was a green SUV. She paused to reach into her purse for her compact. She raised it as if to examine her right eye. Perhaps she was doing so. Perhaps she was not. He suspected that she was being watchful. She put it away. Now she reached in for her keys.

Mulazim so wanted to ask her last name, but the question became stuck in his throat. No matter. He knew it. There could be no doubt. Elizabeth Stride, worth one million in gold, had just now passed within inches of him. He wanted to leap up and run out the door. He wanted to follow her to where she lives, but this was impossible; Sam would see what he was doing.

Calm yourself, Mulazim. Breathe deeply. Breathe slowly. At least now you know where she will be on Wednesday. And the birthday party? A sweet-sixteen party. Niki told him they were planning it. For Aisha.

Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she eased the green Subaru into traffic. He couldn’t read her plate, but its design was familiar. Like Bernice’s, it was from South Carolina.

Bernice. This was Monday. When will she be found? Will news of her death reach Belle Haven? He didn’t know. There was no way to know. He knew about Wednesday. That was enough. He knew that Stride, surely Kessler, and all four of the girls would be all in one place Wednesday evening. The guest list is growing? Who else besides this Harry? Must be the bodyguards Niki mentioned.

Still looking out the window he saw Gilhooley’s pick-up. It was coming left to right, slowly picking up speed. Gilhooley, not much question, was following the Subaru.

But why, though?

Gilhooley, last night, had brought up her name. Gilhooley indicated that he knew Harry Whistler and therefore he knew which house was his. Another bodyguard, perhaps? Employed to watch over Elizabeth Stride? Does he sit in bars keeping an eye out for strangers who might possibly be Muslim hunters? Mulazim thought that unlikely. Muslims don’t go to bars. Not unless they are exceptional hunters. Even so, this Gilhooley needed watching.

Should he call the sheik now? Have him send more Hasheem? They could be here by Wednesday. Some others sooner. The sheik had said that there were others who wouldn’t be far, but Mulazim knew who he meant when he said it. He meant former convicts who converted to Islam while they were in American prisons. Not just any converts. Blacks known to hate whites. But unless they showed up in good cars dressed like African diplomats, they would set off alarms in Belle Haven.

Same thing with the Hasheem. They would come, but then what? You saw Sergeant Ragland. They look at every new face. The hunters from Hasheem would surely shave off their beards, but that would leave a paleness on their chins and on their necks. They would be stopped and searched, their papers examined. Stride would be alerted. She would vanish again.

No, Mulazim would wait. Be patient. Bide his time.

He’d see who comes to this party Wednesday night.

He would be there with his video camera.

SEVENTEEN 

On that same Monday morning three time zones to the West, Charles Haskell was about to attend a scheduled lecture. It was entitled, “Oil. The Coming Crisis. Some Solutions.”

Haskell snorted when he read it on the calendar of activities. Coming crisis, indeed. It’s already here. And he damned well had solutions of his own. But he’d go and he’d listen to the usual pap, if only to make sure that he, as always, was still at least two moves ahead of them.

He hadn’t heard from the banker and the prince. He assumed that they’re probably still in Riyadh trying to undo the daughter’s damage. Perhaps they’re already on their way back. Two moves ahead? If they were successful, make that at least three. He’d have hundreds of powerful Saudis by the balls. Arrogant bastards. He’ll show them.

The mogul, speaking of arrogant bastards, had scheduled an activity of his own. Much smaller in scale, it was his breakfast with Leland. It was the mogul’s I-speak-his-language attempt to elicit Leland’s assistance. Fine, thought Haskell. Let them out-snob each other. Haskell was ahead of that as well.

He’d knocked on Leland’s door while Leland was shaving. Leland came to the door in the green terry robe that every guest found in his bathroom. The club’s insignia was embroidered on its breast.

Haskell said “Well? You told me you’d sleep on it.”

“A civil ‘good morning’ would be nice, Charles.”

“Sorry,” said Haskell, “but I’m off to a lecture. Your room was on the way. I seized the moment.”

Leland wasn’t cheery, but he did have good news. He said that he’d done more than sleep on it. He said he’d spoken to Elizabeth Stride. He’d said he’d reached her by way of Roger Clew.

Haskell felt his pulse pick up a few beats. He found himself imagining the sound of her voice. Low and sexy? No. But cool and confident, surely. Not overly cordial toward a man she’d never met. But respectful of his rank. She would be courteous.

“Charles…”

He shook it off. He asked Leland, “You called her from here?”

“Not from the Grove. From outside the gate. No cell phones, remember? I’d have had to take a swim.”

“Very wise. Rules are rules. Where is she these days?”

“I don’t know,” Leland told him. “Clew routed the call. He spoke to her first and then he put me though.”

Fair enough, thought Haskell. Clew probably declined to say where she is. A part of Haskell wanted to say, “Well, I know. She’s at Harry Whistler’s house in Belle Haven, Virginia.” But that would have been showing off. “What did she say?”

Leland said that she confirmed that three young Muslim women were in fact staying with her and with Kessler. Two were sisters, Iranian, not Saudi. The third was young Aisha who was born in Egypt, but who has been here since she was twelve. Ms. Stride knew nothing of a Saudi princess, but agreed to make inquiries of the Nasreens. She said she would seek to recover that disk. She said she owed Roger that favor.

Haskell must have blinked. “You told her what was on them?”

“No, I did not. And she didn’t ask. She assumed that they contained nothing of interest to anyone other than the family in question. I assured her that the girl had no need of insurance because I intend to see to it personally that her father will not be coming after her.”

Haskell asked, “And she trusts you?”

“She trusts Roger Clew.”

“And?” asked Haskell. “When will you hear from her?”

“She’s to call me on Thursday when I’m back at my desk.”

Three days, thought Haskell. “Not before then?”

“She might, but I didn’t think I should push. Perhaps if I’d told her that it’s you who’s asking, she would have leaped into action.”

Smart-ass, thought Haskell. “Good thinking.”

Haskell thanked Howard Leland and left for his meeting, still seeing Elizabeth Stride in his mind. His was a breakfast meeting as well, held at one of the conference facilities. The attendees were mostly senior oil executives. Two experts had been scheduled to speak. Both of their topics dealt with the likelihood of a catastrophic drop in world oil supply due largely to Islamic “insurgencies.”

Insurgencies, thought Haskell, were the least of our problems. They hate us, sure. They hate each other even more. Although no one liked to say it out loud, the entire gulf region, our “allies” included, was pretty sure it had us buy the balls.

The first speaker was more comfortable blaming the jihadists. He stressed the vulnerability of the pipelines and refineries of the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Iraqis. They were, between them, the world’s largest exporters and would be until the Russians catch up. Sabotage of their facilities was occurring almost weekly. Although the Saudis did their best to keep that quiet, production was down by almost thirty percent and the price of raw crude had quadrupled. That combination could well, if sustained, cripple most of the developed world’s economies.

Well, then we mustn’t let happen, thought Haskell to himself. But the only solution that the first speaker offered had to do with new drilling on rich offshore fields that were, by their nature, more immune to attack.

True enough, thought Haskell. But off-shore is expensive. More than double the cost of extracting on land. They’ll drill for it anyway because it is there, but he’d be damned if he’d be pushed into it. He’d show them an attack they won’t forget.

The second topic was even more alarming than the first. It was also one closer to his heart. It had to do with the likelihood that the Shiites of Iran and those of Iraq would combine with those of Eastern Saudi Arabia to form what would amount to a whole new cartel. A Shiite cartel. Much more powerful than OPEC. That cartel would control a full two thirds of the world’s known oil reserves.

It was more than likelihood. It was inevitable, thought Haskell. Or at least the attempt was inevitable. Iran and Iraq have plenty of oil. Iran and Southern Iraq are both Shiite. But the Saudis are Sunni. More than that, they’re Wahhabi. And Wahhabis feel only contempt toward the Shiites. How, therefore, one might ask, could they ever unite? They’ve been at each others’ throats now for centuries.

Aha, but not all the Saudis are Sunni. A small minority, maybe five percent, are Shiite. And where does one find this Shiite minority? In easternmost Saudi Arabia. They are concentrated along a four hundred mile strip that is flush against the Persian Gulf due south of Iraq and Kuwait. They feel cultural ties to Iran and Iraq and zero to the Saudi regime. How are they treated? They are barely tolerated. Even the best and brightest of them are reduced to second class citizenship. They go through their lives being sneered at as heretics by the Wahhabi majority.

The strip is called the Hasa by the Shiites who live there. It’s called the Eastern Province by the Saudis. It gets its name from the Hasa Oasis which happens to be the world’s largest. Less than two percent of the country is arable and most of that two percent is there. Fertile enough to be self-sufficient, even without all its oil. Endless acres that grow dates, watermelons and grapes. There are wheat fields as big as some in Kansas.

“Kansas?”

Well, okay, not that big, but for that region? They’re huge. Who’d have thought that the Saudis not only grow wheat, but so much of it that they can export it?

Above all, however, this Hasa strip holds nearly all the Saudi oil reserves. It’s the region that Saddam intended to invade after securing Kuwait. He’d have let the Saudi royals keep all the rest of their country. He would have let them keep all the sand.

Saddam thought, with good reason, that he would be welcomed. Hitler, after all, was welcomed most warmly when his troops reclaimed the Sudetenland. It’s people had always been German, not Czech. As Czechs, they were a powerless minority. They felt liberated when Hitler marched in. Why would not the Hasa Shiites feel the same?

They would not have, of course, for a number of reasons. First among them was that Saddam was, at least nominally, Sunni. As importantly, they knew how Saddam operated. They’d be trading one oppressor for a sociopath who’d do more than sneer at them; he’d kill them en masse and replace them with the Baath Party faithful.

Now, however, it’s a whole new ballgame. Whether Iraq stays in one piece or not, there is going to be a Shiite Iraq. To those who take a long view of history, a union of those two Shiite peoples would seem natural. Existing borders would mean less than nothing. Those borders were imposed on them anyway.

So they’d say, this is wonderful, let’s at last be together. They’d say, but we don’t mean under one flag. They would form a commonwealth of independent states; Iran, Southern Iraq and the Hasa. Kuwait and the Emirates would join up or strike a deal. Their own Shiites would soon force the issue. As would Bahrain with all its natural gas and a populace that’s three quarters Shiite. They’d say, “Have you noticed? The whole thing forms a crescent. If that’s not a sign from Allah, what is?”

Iran would try to be dominant because of its size. Seventy million. Too big to push around. An educated middle class. Women vote and hold office. It has, like Turkey, but unlike all the others, a functioning governmental system. Iran may or may not ever have the bomb, but will allow it to be thought that it might have the bomb, having learned to play that game from North Korea.

But Iran still won’t dominate. Not for long anyway. For one thing, Iran’s mullah management is unraveling. Iran’s younger generation has had quite enough of them. For another, the Iranians are Persians, not Arabs. A shared adherence To e Islam notwithstanding, those two cultures are still a world apart. Ask a Persian what he thinks of Arab culture and he’ll tell you that there’s no such thing. Persia was a world power for a thousand years before any Arab even took his first bath. The printing press had been invented for three hundred years before the first Arab country permitted its use and only to print the Koran. Oil to an Arab was some foul-smelling goop before the Brits came along and said they’d take it off their hands. Ask an Arab what he thinks about Persian culture and he won’t even know what you’re talking about. The only culture worth mentioning is his own brand of Islam. He certainly won’t tell you to go read a book. Most Arabs still think there’s only one.

Even so, they’ll unite. Or they’ll certainly try. If they succeed, they’ll have formed a political union that is richer and more powerful than any on earth. At least until corruption sets in and religion gets a nice pat on the head. And at least until the oil runs out or until theirs is no longer needed.

But it is needed now. It will be needed tomorrow. We can’t have those people controlling so much of it. And he, Charles Haskell, would see to it that they don’t. He intends to persuade them to let him control it. A good part of it anyway. The whole Hasa region. He’ll show them how easily it could be set ablaze if they should fail to name Trans-Global as their final arbiter on production and pricing. Not just a few wells. Entire fields burning. Production down for a year. The oil field security firm that he owned had prepared a compelling demonstration in the Hasa. Nearly all was in place. It was now just a matter of picking the right time and having the right people where he needs them to be. Especially certain Saudis. Certain names on the list. Certain Saudis who will then either do as they’re told or face utter ruin and disgrace.

You want to see a world power? I’ll show you a world power. His name is Charles Barrington Haskell.

Haskell left the breakfast meeting. It was half past ten. It was time to go check his mail. The desk clerk at his cabin had received several pieces, all of which came by Federal Express. All save one were from Trans-Global Oil. He glanced at their contents. All routine reports. None required his immediate attention.

The one he saved for last, the one not to be rushed, was the one sent by Desmond Gilhooley. Sent yesterday. Sunday. Wonderful service. From Belle Haven to the boondocks overnight. Haskell opened the envelope and looked inside. There were photo graphs. A stack of them. And with the photos some handwritten pages containing whatever he’d learned since last Friday.

“Is everything all right, sir?” The desk clerk was asking. He must have heard Haskell suck in his breath at his first sight of the contents.

Haskell smiled. He said to him, “Better than ever.”

Haskell wanted to dump the photos out then and there. But these deserved to be savored in private where he needn’t pretend to conceal his excitement. He tucked the several FedExes under his arm and climbed the stairs to his room.

Good man, Gilhooley, his last outing notwithstanding. His cover, however, was Haskell’s idea. An itinerant handyman, worked at odd jobs. A little carpentry, light plumbing, brush-clearing and such. This explained his popping up all over town in a dented and rusty old pickup. He wears a clunky old-fashioned hearing aid in one ear, the better to pick up and record conversations. The older models never seem to be suspected of being anything else. But that might not be true of his camera cell phone. A useful tool for spying. No question about that. It does seem, however, a bit too hi-tech for a man who pretends to live hand-to-mouth. But Gilhooley says no. All the high school kids have them. Half the town drives around with one at their ear. He remarked that landlines are becoming extinct. Anyway, he’s clearly got another good camera, equipped with a telephoto lens.

Haskell shut his door, sat down on his rocker, and poured the collection onto his lap. He sifted through them looking first for the photos of Stride. And there she was, in the shot Gilhooley mentioned, in Whistler’s front yard cutting lilacs. A young girl watching, chatting with her, an orange-colored kitten held in one arm and a basket for the cuttings on the other. It showed Stride stretching to cut a high branch. Up on her toes, not showing strain. Languidly graceful. Like watching ballet. Except no ballerina would have curves such as Stride’s. See the way her chest thrusts as she reaches.