The Phoenix Affair Page 3

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 p
ilot 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 direction of the Place de la Concorde.