The Phoenix Affair

THE PHOENIX AFFAIR

Paul Clark

Copyright 2013 Paul Clark

Smashwords Edition

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Copyright and License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's hard work.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents or events are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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For Dad/Grampy Jim—

He would have thought this was so cool.

And for the rest of my Family,

who Do think so.

Table of Contents

I. Paris

II. Langley

III. Paris

IV. Bahrain

V. Paris

VI. Langley/Paris

VII. Paris

VIII. Saudi Arabia

IX. Paris/Langley/Dhahran

X. Saudi Arabia/Paris/Langley

XI. Paris

XII. Paris

XIII. Northern Paris

XIV. Southern Paris

XV. Paris/London

XVI. London/Washington/Riyadh

XVII. London

XVIII. Virginia

XIX. Saudi Arabia/Jordan/Langley

XX. The Desert, Northern Saudi Arabia

XXI. Riyadh/Northern Desert

XXII. Langley/Taif

XXIII. Paris/Buraydah/al-Ha'il

XXIV. Langley/al-Ha'il

XXV. Epilogue: Northern Virginia

Afterword

About the Author

An Excerpt from the next book in the Paul Cameron Series

I. Paris

The great mass of a Boeing 777 drifted out of the misty haze on final approach to runway 8L, and floated majestically toward landing. In the terminal, Rene LaPlante checked his watch, saw that it was 9:10 am, and correctly deduced that this would be Delta flight 44 from Cincinnati, but a little late. He made a mark in the small notebook he’d been poring over during his breakfast, and resumed scanning the crowd.

Just another day at Roissy Rene thought. Detective Sergeant Rene LaPlante belonged to an arm of the French National Police which, since September 2001, had taken up the task of covertly monitoring passenger traffic at international airports throughout France. To be completely correct, this step had not been taken immediately. Not until one Richard Reid, late of Great Britain by way of Afghanistan and an al Qaeda camp, had got on a Delta flight enroute to Boston and tried to blow himself up with his shoe, had the FNP chosen to get serious. The best counter-terrorist operatives that service could muster were placed into a special unit, and found themselves on rotating duty at De Gaulle, and Orly in Paris, and at all the other major airports of the Republic at which one could arrive or depart on an international flight.

That had been nearly 10 years ago. Rene yawned, ruffled his newspaper and his notebook a little, checked the fake boarding pass in his briefcase as though he was waiting for his own flight, and glanced around the snack bar and the two gate areas immediately outside. He intended to look like any other passenger waiting for his flight, and he succeeded His fake boarding pass was for the 12 o’clock departure for Montreal. At gate 34 he could see a few people who were very early for the Air France flight that would leave for Beirut in 3 hours. Many Middle Eastern types there, he saw, but that was no surprise. Among them some Europeans, a couple who were clearly Bengali and middle aged, and one man who looked like a Gulf Arab. He passed over this one casually, trying to look bored or interested in the movements of the great airliners beyond the glass, but then came back to him for a closer look. Late 20s, early 30s maybe; good haircut, thin, not athletic; mustache but no beard. Clothes, European. Shoes—one could tell so much from shoes—cheap, probably from his own country, flat smooth soles with heels about ¾ inch, loafers. Safe shoes, and they matched the man. The face he did not recognize, which was just as well, for if Rene had, the poor man would likely have missed his flight.

LaPlante was perfect for this job, which was why he was here, but that didn’t always make him happy about it. He was gifted, or cursed, with a photographic memory, and had a catalogue of at least a thousand faces of known terrorists in his head, all of whom had at one time or another been guests at one of bin Laden’s camps. The number grew, it seemed, each month, as new information came to the FNP from sources both French and otherwise. The world had changed, and despite some lingering differences on grand policy, the great nations of the world found they had to cooperate and share at least in this. Rene was also famous among his service for an uncanny power of observation, to judge in an instant nationality, mood, some thought even motive. He had apprehended many criminals in his 12 year career by intuition alone it seemed, including the only two terrorists seized on French soil in the aftermath 9/11.

For all that, it was usually a boring task, and often he found himself drifting away from his tradecraft, daydreaming of either his wife, children, or mistress. To do this job well, and for his intuition to serve him as he wanted it to do, required a kind of forced non-concentration on any one detail, so that he could take in the whole picture of surroundings, movement, and person. Inattention to the task at hand resulted in an unwanted focus on particular details. Such focus prevented the big picture sight that Rene needed to work his magic, which seemed opposite of what one would expect, but there it was. So, as he’d decided to daydream for now about Vivienne, his mistress, Rene lost sight of the Gulf Arab at gate 34, in his particular kind of sight that is. It was only the opening of the door of neighboring gate 33 that drew him back to the here and now, and the first passenger off what had turned out to indeed be Delta 44 from Cincinnati.

Without seeming so, Rene was instantly at work and alert, watching for anything out of the ordinary as the passengers filed by. In truth, he did not expect to see anyone remarkable on a flight coming from the US, and his job was rather more directed at detecting someone bound in the other direction. It was always interesting, though, by way of practice, for him to watch the Americans and returning Frenchmen off US flights, to catalogue them, decide who they were and what they did and why they had come to France. Tourists, mostly, and some businessmen. Here was a software executive and his colleague—you could tell by the glasses, the chic laptop case, invariably the MP3 player at the belt and earphones in the ears, on the telephone already to someone they were to meet today. Young clothes, American, those new American shoes that looked like Dutch clogs, but leather. Software guys.

Rene continued in this way and nearly passed over a man who was so ordinary he was not worthy of comment or catalogue, but something was not quite right, and he took another look. Right, he thought: ordinary guy, about 6 feet, clothes—hmm, not sure, European, maybe British. Ordinary glasses. Hair is short but not too short, medium build. Ordinary. Rene forced himself to work his magic. What is it? The walk, he realized. The man walked very erect, back straight, shoulders back—it was a military walk. Not an enlisted man, but an officer most likely. Well dressed, though, for an American officer, they are usually not so. Probably retired. He is alone, mon dieu, what are you doing here, my friend? Then, the man put his hand on the shoulder of the woman in front of him, an attractive woman about his own age, early 40s, and spoke in her ear and pointed the direction to go. She smiled, turned and looked at him, as a woman does to her husband of many years. Rene had been about to make a note in his book, but he did not. A couple on a lovers’ trip, perhaps a second honeymoon now that the children had gone. Rene looked past the retired American officer to the next group of passengers coming through the door of gate 33.

The shoes had been English, sure, the clothes were American, and he was an American officer, but he was not retired. He did not really care that the watcher at the gate had seen him, that was expected. What mattered was that the watcher did not know he himself had been detected. And he was good, the American had to admit, I nearly missed him. As it was the American was certain of what he saw, and equally certain he had not been remarked in the end by the FNP watcher. Welcome to Paris, he thought, and strode easily down the concourse toward immigration, baggage, customs, and the anonymity of the Metro.

The woman was not his wife; he didn’t even know her name. But he knew that there were always watchers, some on the right side and some not so, and so one took precautions. These things were best done at random. About an hour before landing, after the small breakfast had been served and was being cleared away, he had headed for the lavatory to freshen up. Along the way he picked her. Right age, right looks, also traveling alone, a kind face that would react as he required when the time came. On the way back to his seat he bumped her elbow slightly, and took the chance to stop, turn, smile, and apologize. On board still but at the gate, he took his time gathering his briefcase, time enough to let the woman come almost past from the rear of the plane and time enough for him to bump into her again, almost knocking her down into the row of seats. His own briefcase fell, and he apologized profusely again, helped her up, smiled, laughed at his own clumsiness, drew her smile again, and said Welcome to Paris. He fell in behind her and walked off the plane.

A man traveling alone was what watchers, well, watch for. Men and their wives are ordinary, especially in Paris. He had seen the watcher as the latter was still looking over the lead elements off flight 44, and he saw him almost pass on to the two elderly women behind him, and then come back for another look. It was easy enough to make a quiet joke just then in the woman’s ear, about not tripping where the carpet turned to stone tile, to smile again, to draw her smile, and to seem what they were not. The simplest tradecraft is the best.

The American walked now just a half step behind her, and he was in that identical full state of un-concentration that made LaPlante so good at what he did. We do not need any mistakes here, now, he thought, and so he watched as he walked, occasionally appearing to make a comment to the woman but not actually speaking to her. He could see a reflection in a shop window, back down the concourse, as they turned the corner for the escalator down to immigration; the watcher was not following.

Ten minutes later, with the woman gone and his rolling case in tow, he was on the Metro platform with a week-long pass purchased with American cash. No credit cards, yet. The train came, and he boarded the RER in second class. He bought a paper and coffee from the vendor who wheeled the cart through the aisle, and settled in to watch. With Rene LaPlante’s skill he surveyed his companions in the car, and seeing nothing remarkable, pretended to read in French as the countryside gave way to the shabby northern suburbs of Paris. It was a 35 minute ride into town.

It would have been, at least, if the American had gone directly to his hotel. He’d been taught long ago that the straight way was the dangerous way, a lesson never to be forgotten. At Gare du Nord he got off the RER and walked through the station to the Purple line, which he took to Gare de l’Est. There he changed again to the Pink line, West to the Opera station. Here he left the train, and went up stairs to the street. Consulting his map, he made a show of looking around to get his bearings and at the same time scanned for a watcher in the Place, but saw none. He set off to the south down rue de L’Opera, walking at a moderate pace, slumping his shoulders slightly, concentrated on dropping his weight down toward his navel; he did not want to look military. A block further on he came to the Hotel Gaillon Opera, where he had stayed a year ago on his last time in Paris. He stepped through the door and up to the reception desk and asked the maitre d’hotel for a room.

He was not surprised to learn that there were no vacancies for tonight—he had checked that already. Managing a disappointed look, he turned suddenly back toward the door he'd entered in a movement that was so quick it slightly startled the man behind the desk. Then the American, having seen nobody lurking outside or across the street, turned again to the old man, apologized for his trouble, and left out the door on the south side of the lobby. He turned West now, and two blocks later found the Auber station, where he boarded the Red line for the short trip to Chatelet-Les Halles. He left the train here and climbed up to the street on the south side of the Rue de Rivoli.

Almost there but not quite, he thought. He turned right, not left, and walked to the end of the block to enter the Place du Chatelet, then right again along the west side of the square. He found the bistro he was looking for on the far corner. Here he selected a table commanding a view of the entire Place, and to the South the Palais du Justice, the Conciergerie, and away East another few blocks in the middle of the Seine the tops of the towers of Notre Dame. He ordered coffee and a baguette, adopting the look of a very tired American tourist just arrived from home on the morning flight. When it came he settled in to eat his breakfast and to watch for a while.

In 20 minutes he was sure, but still he waited and sipped on the strong Continental coffee which he missed when he was home and never quite was able to replicate. Must be the Krups coffee maker he mused for the hundredth time. Fifteen minutes more and he was satisfied. He paid his bill and left the bistro. This time he went out on the south side of Place du Chatelet, turned and walked a block west, then half a block north, finally entering the quiet street of Rue de Jean Lantier, only a block south of Rue de Rivoli had he come the short way. Fifty yards on he entered the Grand Hotel de Champagne and checked in using a credit card in the name of Paul Cameron. The tiny elevator took him to the third floor, where he entered his room and fell fully clothed onto the bed and was asleep in five minutes..

The American had not been followed, but only just. Rene LaPlante had watched from his seat in the restaurant as the American couple walked away down the concourse, having seen no one else at all interesting among the crowd debarking Delta 44. He had satisfied himself as well that the Gulf Arab was not an interesting case, and now he was aware he would fall into boredom if he did not find something to work on for a while. Making his decision, he got up, collected his things, and left the restaurant to fall in behind his prey but by now nearly 50 meters behind them. He was just on the verge of working out what it was that did not seem right about the man when he saw the latter talking to the woman again, and his spirits fell. Merde, Rene cursed to himself, not interesting at all. He turned his back on the American and walked toward the opposite end of the terminal, where he knew an Emirates Air flight from Dubai was due to arrive in about 90 minutes.

II. Langley

Bobbie, see if there’s any decaf in the pot still he half yelled out of his open office door. From without, he heard her response There is, but you’ll ruin your afternoon if you have any! Nice, he thought, and was about to say something he’d regret, but thought better of it. Instead he said take pity on an old man, then, and bring me some anyway. I’ll skip tomorrow morning if you’re still counting then. There was something that might have been an expletive muttered out there, but then he heard it being poured and the clink-clink of the spoon stirring in the cream and sugar. Good woman, Bobbie he yelled, and returned to the file on his screen.

Randall Randy Anderson thought she was the best secretary a man could want, even if she could be a little stingy with the coffee after lunch. Whodathunk the DDO of the CIA would have to do battle with a moat dragon like that every day of his working life he thought with a chuckle. Well, she’s the best anyway and keeps me honest as nobody else could but Amelia when she was alive.

Anderson was, in fact, the DDO, Deputy Director, Operations, for the CIA. That meant, of course, that he was not master of the CIA, but rather, master of the spooks that made it famous. It was the funnest job in the agency if you had the guts and the stomach to get there, and Anderson did in spades. He had come up as an Operations agent, all his life a spook in the field somewhere. He knew how it worked out there in Indian Country, which was just about everywhere these days, and he knew how to support his people and get things done when they needed to be done. He was also an uncanny Washington politico, which is what really got him into the DDO’s chair.

Born something of a northeast blue blood, he’d played lacrosse through high school and then at Holy Cross as an under grad. He’d taken a turn as an entry level broker on Wall Street, but after a year had been bored despite having already made something of a small fortune, and that’s when the Company found him. He was what the recruiters liked best when they could get one. Independent, tough, good on his own without much of a team around him, smart as hell, aptitude for languages though he spoke none but English (the tests told them that). He’d done well in the training, and in every post he’d had in career that spanned all of the world to the East of Vienna. Like most of the guys (they were mostly guys back then) he’d eventually been blown out there and had to come back to Langley to run agents rather than play one. He was good at that, too, and racked up successes that put him in charge of more and more people and money. Eventually, there was nowhere else to go, and he’d ended up in the DDO’s office, sitting behind the big desk in the glass walled office at Langley, moving the pieces around the board in the greatest and most dangerous game in the world.

It was that moving of pieces that had got him so far. Of the many innovations he’d brought to CIA, one of them had been something he’d worked out with the Agency’s personnel folks and those of the Department of Defense back in 1988. When he was out there Randy’d met a lot of agents who had been ex-military people who were really, really good at what they did. When he got to the staff at Langley, though, he was surprised to learn that there was no systematic way of tapping into this pool of people. Up to then, the CIA waited for these guys to get out of the service and come looking for the Agency, not the other way around. So, it was a relatively simple but brilliant idea to put the personnel people and DoD and CIA together in a loose sort of way to make some referrals between the former and the latter which might work to the benefit of the US government’s service.

The scheme was simple. The DoD would funnel the names and unit addresses of each officer who’d formally petitioned to separate from the services to the CIA recruiters. CIA could then screen these names and do a quick background check to see if anyone looked interesting. Interesting prospects received a postage-free brochure through their military units’ address which (it was hoped) would provoke these desirables to consider a new career in the CIA. Back in ’88 there were lots and lots of pilots leaving all the services to go fly for the airlines. Lots of special ops guys were leaving the Army and the Navy, too. It was very simple, and it worked. Some of the best field spooks in the Agency had come in just this way over the last 20-plus years. Good pieces made for a better game, and Randall Anderson loved to play, so much the better with good pieces.

So it was that in the summer of 1990, and just before Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait put an end to the late 80s airline hiring binge, an Air Force pilot by the name of Captain Paul Cameron had apparently decided to seek greener pastures and applied to separate from the service effective in January 1991. As agreed, his name and service number were sent from the USAF to DoD and thence to CIA. The good Captain received an envelope from the CIA in his squadron mailbox in mid October 1990.

Cameron would note later that he’d not heard that any of the many other squadron guys who’d left in the past few years got such a letter. On the other hand, most of the guys just wanted to fly something forever, so maybe they just tossed them in the trash and never thought about the CIA again. Paul was intrigued, though, and thought at the least that he might supplement the notoriously low first-year airline salary with some side income from the CIA. It seemed perfect to him. He had no idea what the CIA had in mind, but it might be a natural way to get people into and out of all kinds of places in the world without being noticed. Airline crews, after all, passed through separate checkpoints without much examination, and they came and went without much remark by anyone. Perfect, as Cameron thought it.

Which was exactly what Randall Anderson had had in mind, frankly. He was a little disappointed from the very beginning, however, with the low response rate he got out of the many Air Force pilots to whom he sent invitations. He was never, on the other hand, disappointed with the quality of those who did respond, and certainly not with Captain Paul Cameron. From the beginning, he’d thought Cameron a very interesting and promising case. He watched his application and testing process carefully, noting that he had exceptional language ability though at that point he spoke only Spanish (however well). He scored very high in physical strength and endurance despite his average height and build. His IQ was in Mensa territory, but he didn’t seem to know or care, both of which were very positive. Conversation and oral exam was where he really shone, though. Quick thinking, brilliant at free association, a natural master for connecting disparate things he already knew or was just learning into an intricate tapestry of a big picture. Anderson saw very early that Cameron was nearly perfect for what he had in mind, and was determined to have him.

Captain Cameron promptly dashed these ambitions, however, when in early January 1991 he concluded on his own that their would be a real, live, shootin’ war in the Gulf that spring, early spring rather than late because of the heat at the top end of the Gulf. He retracted his separation application from the Air Force and signed on for 7 years in hopes of joining his squadron in Saudi Arabia before the war might end. That quick, Cameron slipped through Anderson’s fingertips. The latter could not believe his bad luck, and spent a whole weekend thinking in front of a TV he never saw, over scotch on the rocks he didn’t drink, trying to figure a way to get this boy back. He did not, but he did have an idea that worked almost as well.

It was clear Cameron was back in the Air Force for the long haul, so what Anderson did was what he did best: he thought of the long haul and the big picture. If he could not have Cameron now, he would wait until later. Such a man, if given the right training, education, and experience, would be even better in 20 years than he would be now. That weekend Randall Anderson, DDO, invented another of his little known secret personnel schemes, and he called it Phoenix.

Cameron was asked to take leave for 3 days and come to Langley, which his curiosity would not allow him to skip. He came. He never knew it, and did not know it to this day, but his first meeting with the DDO took place on that trip. Anderson posed as a personnel geek for the interview so he could get a first hand look at Cameron. He also wanted to make sure the personnel guys didn’t blow it. The pitch to the young Captain went this way: CIA proposes that you become a very deep cover sleeper employee. You don’t do anything for now, follow your own career, learn what it can teach you. From time to time we may send opportunities your way, so that you learn some things we need you to learn. Don’t worry, they will also be things the Air Force wants you to learn. Most, maybe all, will not be anything you recognize as having come from us. We may not need to help you much at all, indeed we don’t expect to have to. We believe your own abilities and interests will take care of most of what you need. You work, you train, you learn, you live, you progress like a regular Air Force Joe. When the time is right, and we need you, we’ll call. When that happens, it’s an opportunity for you. You owe us nothing, but we offer you the chance to do something we think will interest you. If not, you walk away. If you like it, we arrange it with the Air Force, or if you’re retired, we arrange it with your employer. Don’t worry about that. What do you say?

To Anderson’s great relief Cameron accepted immediately. Simple arrangements were agreed about methods of communication and contact, which should wait, Anderson said, for CIA to call him and not the other way around. No money was involved, he told the new recruit, but that was not quite true. Anderson took care of his people. He wanted to make sure that in 15 or twenty or however many years, when he needed Paul Cameron, Paul Cameron would have the resources he needed to respond to CIA’s call. It wasn’t much, but CIA would place $25,000 a year tax free into the Agency thrift savings plan in Cameron's name. Paul Cameron was on the payroll from that day. He was only just about to find out 21 years later.

Alright Boss, here it is, but you’re skipping a cup tomorrow as you’ve said! It was Bobbie and the coffee shattering this reverie as she blasted through the office door like only she could do. Bobbie was a compact woman, full of lively energy and what the English would call pluck. Indeed, Randy Anderson’s opposite number in MI6 had called Bobbie a rare plucked ‘un, but not when she could hear it. The mug and its contents came to rest on the desktop to his right as Anderson looked up at the half smile, half snarl, of his protector and defender. You have 10 minutes until the staff meeting, after that the meeting with State over at his place, then back here for the regular four o’clock down in the tank with the usual suspects which will last you the rest of the afternoon. I’m leaving at five to go pick up the girls tonight, so if you need anything, make sure it’s on my desk before you go to the staff meeting. He loved her when she was this way. Thanks, you’re the best. Great coffee he mumbled, and she smiled and stormed back out to her desk.

Well, ten minutes, he thought, and returned to Camerons’s file on the screen. All things considered, the boy had done pretty well on his own. He’d got himself picked to spend a year at a prestigious graduate school studying international affairs. He’d spent nearly 25 months in Saudi Arabia on various assignments, also some contacts in Bahrain, the Emirates, Tunisia, Morocco, Spain, Paris, Turkey—he’d done very well with travel. Anderson noted with a smile that the Agency had quietly managed to have Cameron meet the Saudi Ambassador twice. His Highness would not remember, but Cameron would have learned something each time. Very good. War College with the Air Force over 10 years ago, and now the boy’s a Colonel. Aha—he’s taken some martial arts training? Interesting. He read a report from an agent who’d been sent by someone down in the Phoenix office last year. J. Smith, Operations Directorate, attended 2-hour evening Aikido class with subject on two occasions, once in Arlington, VA and another time in Terre Haute, IN. Smith did not identify himself to the subject, but did train with him on both occasions. Smith reports student has made excellent progress and should earn first degree black belt in early 2009. Intrepid rascal, and at his age Anderson thought. What’s this guy, going on 45? Randy, my boy, you can still pick ‘em.

Bobbie bellowed Two minutes from outside the door, time to go. Randall Anderson gathered his papers and coffee for the staff meeting, and killed the file he’d been reading on his computer. Rising to leave, he smiled as he mused: I’ve got 15 of these guys, first time we’ve tried to use one. Should be an interesting play. He walked out of the office and into the conference room across the hall looking happier than the staff had seen him in a month.

III. Paris

At a small café on the Champs Elysees, only 3 blocks from the Saudi Embassy, two Saudis were having an afternoon coffee. Both were light-skinned Arabs, men whose tribal roots were in the far North of Saudi Arabia, and truth be told, their traditional nomadic range extended all the way across Iraq into Northern Syria. In their great grandfathers’ time, the tribe had summered there, in the cool and green of the birthplace of the Euphrates River. Eden, most thought. Neither of these men had ever been there. But, in consequence of this lineage and close attention to marriages in the tribe for more than a thousand years, their skin was light, almost European. They knew this, and so they spoke English. Not Arabic—it drew too much attention these days, everywhere. Not French, too easy for listeners in Paris.

Well, cousin. Why have you come to Paris? Isn’t it early for a family holiday? asked the first. He was troubled. What is my cousin doing here at this time of year? He himself worked here, in the Embassy, as a minor official in the commercial attaché’s office. There is not much commercial to do with Saudi Arabia, in reality. He admitted to himself at least once a day that the real business was done by the oil ministry’s office and its staff, so there was really not much for him to do. But it was honest work and he had an honorable title, and he could live here instead of Riyadh, so what was to complain about?

It is early, you are right, Majid, the other answered. But nevertheless, we are on holiday. Little Aziz has been having trouble with his stomach again, so we brought him here for treatment as before.

Fahd, tell me you did not bring them all? Allah be merciful, how can you afford it? Majid exclaimed.

The other laughed a genuine laugh. He had a dozen children, by the grace of God, and only one beautiful wife, praise be to Him. She was his first cousin, and they had been sweethearts since childhood. No, thanks be to God, and he was still laughing, as was the other now. There’s only me, and Fadia, also our oldest daughter Miriam to help her. Can you believe she’s nineteen already? I must find her a husband soon, I know, but first Fadia and I want her to finish university. Anyway, our oldest son, Mohammed, is here to watch them with me, and little Aziz of course is here. But you should have heard the others wailing to come, Majid, and Fadia’s mother! God protect me.

God protect us both, cousin Majid prayed in turn. When Nala and Fadia get together, it will be the end of me. She will insist that I take her and the children to Florida for the summer, and God protect us, as you’ve said, I cannot afford it! Plus, the minister will make an awful noise if I take a long vacation, the Yemeni dog. Northern Saudis often referred to their darker-skinned countrymen from the south as Yemenis—it was not a term of endearment. How long are you staying, and how may I be of service to you?

Oh, don’t trouble yourself, Majid, I know you have your hands full with your work, and don’t try to pretend you’re not a big shot here. Fahd flattered him deliberately, and saw that it had immediate effect. Good, he thought. We shall be here only two or three weeks, that is in the hands God and the doctors. How are Nala and the children?

Looking, in his own mind, much more important and powerful, Majid said, She is well, and as beautiful as she was when she was fourteen. She spends my money like it was sand, Fahd, but we have plenty after all. God is generous. The kids are doing well in school. All can speak English very well, sometimes I worry more about their Arabic. The grammar! Bah! Is it the same for you?

Indeed, cousin, it is. I can’t remember having to learn all that garbage when we were young. Oh, look at the time. You are busy, I fear? Do not let me keep you.

Ah, you’re right Fahd, it is late, and I have a meeting. Will you come for dinner? Is there anything you need, cousin?

Yes, we will come. I have your number my friend. Come to think of it, there is a thing you may help me with. Do you know an internet café? My deputy at the base is not what I would like him to be, and I must be in contact with him daily or he may sell the place to a Kuwaiti.

Majid laughed. His cousin Fahd commanded the Royal Saudi Air Force Base just outside of Dhahran, on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. Not Persian, Arabian. He knew the deputy, too, and was equally unimpressed. Yes, you devil, there is one four blocks to the east along this great street, but on the other side. Don’t cross the street though, you will be killed by these lunatic French. Go down into the Metro there, and cross underground, may God protect you.

Thank you, cousin. Well then, I’m off to defeat the wicked French and their traffic, and you to the important business of the Kingdom’s commercial affairs, no doubt. I will tell Fadia we are invited to your house for dinner, and she will arrange it with Nala when it suits them. The Ministers of the Interior, Majid, they rule us with an iron rod, do they not?

"Walhamdulillah, but they do, cousin, they do indeed. Then Majid stood, looking important, threw enough Euros on the table to pay for the coffees, and shook his cousin’s hand. I’ll see you, then, he said in parting, to the King’s business, God bless him."

God bless him, Fahd echoed, and watched his cousin leave the café. He sat back down, ordered another coffee from the very pretty French waitress, and began to think.

In English. He mostly thought in English these days, which he admitted was a curious thing, but there it was. It was an honest thing, anyway. He had been three years to school in England at Sandhurst, whence he had his commission. He was a fighter pilot, and all that training, most in the United States, had been in English. Most of the time he flew in English, the universal language of aviation. He dealt daily with his American and British advisors, often the only people he could trust to help him run his base without someone getting killed once a day. Not that his Saudi pilots weren’t good. They were, many of them. Some not so good, though, but he was working on that and the advisors were helping. It was just that the whole thing was so regulated, and many of his own men were not used to it. That, and they had often too much of the idea that their survival was in the hands of God and not their own. Another generation and we will change that, God willing, he thought.

Now this business, he puzzled. At least here I can think without worrying about someone trying to blow me up or shoot me. He smiled at that. Let’s hope anyway, he corrected himself, and took a casual look around the café. Seems innocent enough.

His position was difficult, but not impossible. He had information that was dangerous, very dangerous, and he did not know what to do with it. So far, he was fairly certain that nobody knew he had it, and that was good. But who to tell? He had no idea at first, but he had to get out of the Kingdom quickly, and so he had left on the pretense he’d laid out to his cousin. What he did not tell was more revealing, however, and he had seen that Majid was troubled to see him in Paris. He’d brought Fadia and Miriam to watch after the little one, that much was true. But he had chosen Mohammed for a more delicate reason. Mohammed had been running with the wrong kind of people of late. Fahd thought the boy needed a refreshing taste of the West to wake him up to the more moderate politics of his family, and lure him away from some of the shocking influences that had gripped much of the Kingdom the last year. More to the point, Fahd was worried about the rest of the family. He had brought Mohammed to get him out of the way. Another son, Ali, could be trusted to do his father’s bidding. Tomorrow Ali would move the rest of the family by road from Dhahran to the family home in the northwest, at al-Ha’il. There, if things did not go well in Dhahran, they would be protected by the tribe. Had Mohammed been there, he might not have obeyed, and Fahd could not have that right now.

All things considered, things were laid out as well as could be expected. The family would all be safe for the time being, praise be to God. What he needed to do next was to send an email to let someone know he was here. He had got the address from one of his American advisors, an F-15 pilot flying with the 13th Squadron at Dhahran. How the Captain had got it he did not know. What he did know was that he’d asked the man if there was any way he could be put in touch, confidentially, with an old friend of his from the USAF. It must be very quiet, he’d said, and perhaps a meeting out of the country, in Europe, might be arranged? It had taken a long, nervous week, during which Fahd wondered how long he’d last. But the Captain came through, and he did well. No emails, no phone calls. He’d waited for Fahd to come to the squadron to fly, managed to schedule himself to fly with the General (for Fahd was a Brigadier, himself). In the privacy of the briefing room, Captain Davidson handed over the small slip of paper with a HotMail address on it.

General, take this, he’d said quietly. If you are in Paris the third week in April, a friend may meet you there. Here are some instructions, do not write them down. Use an internet café, not your hotel or your laptop. Create a new email account, one you’ve never used before. Send a message to this address. You are to say Falcon one, contact in the email body, no subject line. Wait for a reply, and instructions will be given to you."

"Thank you, Captain. If I am in Paris this Spring, perhaps I will try it. Have you ever been to Paris yourself?

No sir, I don’t much care for the French, Davidson admitted.

Pity, said General Fahd. Well, I think I will not fly today after all, Captain. I’m feeling a little under the weather, as you say in the USAF. I’m going to see the flight Surgeon.

God protect you, General, was the Captain’s parting remark. At this the General turned, a look of some alarm crossing his face, then it was gone.

And you, Captain, and you. Fahd left the squadron. He and his family were on their way to Paris the next evening.

And now he was here. In truth, he’d been here a week already, but Majid did not need to know that. His family was soon to be protected, and that was a comfort. He’d now checked in with his embassy, as required, even if his mode of doing it had been a little irregular. In fairness, he should have gone to the embassy himself and spoken with the Military Attaché. But that might have been messy, and the story of little Aziz might not have held up. He did not know the Attaché, so he could not trust him. Majid was important enough, and well connected enough, that he could cover with the notification if it ever came up. At least, he would make a lot of noise about it to keep his honor with me, he thought.

His coffee finished, General Fahd paid his bill and got up. At the door, he turned and asked the waitress in French where the nearest Metro entrance was. To your left, monsieur, about one block to your left. He made a show of looking out the door in a wide semi-circle from his right to his left, and then pointing in that direction. Looks OK I guess, but who am I kidding? he wondered. "Well, inshallah, he mumbled in Arabic, as God wants," and he left and moved quickly down the street in the