The Innocent

He hit the flush lever with the sole of his shoe, zipped his pants, and unlatched the stall door. While he washed his hands, he stared at his image in the mirror. A fifty-year-old man looked back at him: gray in the beard and quite large in the belly. He was worth well north of twelve billion dollars, making him the sixty-first richest person in the world according to Forbes magazine. He had taken his oil money and leveraged it into many profitable operations using his business savvy and international connections. He was sandwiched on the list between a Russian oligarch who used gangster tactics after the fall of the Soviet Union to snap up state assets for virtually nothing and a twenty-something tech king whose company had never made a dime in profit.

He left the bathroom and walked back to the table with his guards organized in a hard-diamond pattern around him. He had copied this tactic from the American Secret Service. His personal physician traveled with him, just like the U.S. president. Why not emulate the strongest? was his thinking.

And in his mind, he was just as important as the American president. In fact, he would have liked to replace him as the de facto leader of the free world. Although the world would not be nearly as free with him in charge, starting with the women.

Drinks finished, they moved on to their evening meal at a restaurant that had been completely rented out so that the prince could dine in peace without the fear of strangers interrupting. After that he changed back into his robes and returned to his jet, housed in a secure hangar back at a private jet park outside the city. The Hummers pulled past the open doors of the hangar and stopped in front of the massive jet. While most planes were painted white, this one was all black. The prince liked the color. He thought it was masculine and powerful and possessed a tangible element of danger.

Just like him.

The hangar doors closed before he got out of the Hummer.

There would be no targets for long-range rifle shots between open hangar doors.

He walked up the steps, puffing slightly as he neared the top.

The hangar doors would reopen only when the plane was ready to take off.

The meeting would be held on the plane, while it was on the ground. The meeting would last for one hour. The prince would control the meeting.

He was used to controlling situations.

That was about to end.

CHAPTER 6

There were two guards at the bottom of the stairs leading to the jet. The rest of the security was in the plane, surrounding what would be the main target for any attack. The fuselage door was closed, locked. It was like a vault. A very expensive vault. But as with all vaults, there were weaknesses.

The prince sat at the center of the table in the main part of the cabin. The interior was entirely of his own design. The plane consisted of nearly eight thousand square feet of marble and exotic woods, oriental rugs, and exquisite paintings and sculptures by long-dead, museum-quality artists that he could admire at forty-one thousand feet and five hundred miles an hour. Talal was a man who spent his money and thereby enjoyed his wealth.

He gazed around the table. There were two visitors here. One was Russian, the other Palestinian. An unlikely partnership, but it intrigued the prince.

They had promised that for the right price they could accomplish something that virtually everyone, the prince included, would have thought impossible.

The prince cleared his throat. “You’re sure you can do this?” His tone was full of incredulity.

The Russian, a big man with a full beard and a hairless head that gave him an unbalanced, bottom-heavy appearance, nodded slowly but firmly.

The prince said, “I am curious as to how this is possible, because I have been told that it is absolutely pointless even to try.”

“The strongest chain is defeated by its weakest link.” This came from the Palestinian. He was a small man, but with a fuller beard than the Russian. They were like a tugboat and a battleship, but it was clear that the small man was the leader of the partnership.

“And what is the weakest link?”

“One person. But that person is placed next to the one you want. We own that person.”

“I cannot see how that is possible,” said the prince.

“It is not just possible. It is fact.”

“But even so, access to weapons?”

“The person’s job will allow access to the necessary weapon.”

“And how do you own such a person?”

“That detail is not important.”

“It is important to me. This person must be willing to die, then. There is no other way.”

The Palestinian nodded. “That condition is met.”

“Why? Westerners do not do that.”

“I did not say that the person is a westerner.”

“A plant?”

“Decades in the making.”

“Why?”

“Why do any of us do anything? We believe in certain things. And we must take steps to realize those beliefs.”

The prince sat back. He looked intrigued.