RIYADH
MAJOR HENRY TSANG ARRIVED a little early at the Marriott, looking fresh in a charcoal gray suit with faint stripes, a white shirt, and a tasteful tie. At the reserved table, he chose the seat that would allow him to keep his back to the wall. Silverware gleamed in the bright artificial light and soft jazz music spilled through speakers hidden in the ceiling. He shook out a cigarette and lit it. Swanson would arrive in a short while but Tsang had things to arrange beforehand.
Tsang ordered a carafe of hot water and slices of lemon, promising to order breakfast when his friend arrived. After the waiter vanished through the swinging doors to the kitchen, Tsang slid a small microphone into a small arrangement of flowers and pointed it toward the chair in which Swanson would sit. Everything said at the table would be transmitted to a recording station in a blue surveillance van parked outside the hotel. The pager on his belt buzzed one time as the listeners confirmed that everything was working, picking up the sounds of the restaurant.
The waiter returned. Tsang put a slice of lemon in his cup, poured in the hot water, and settled in to wait, calmly smoking his cigarette and enjoying the drink. It was nine fifteen on Sunday morning where he sat, which made it four thirty in the afternoon back in Beijing, where things were busy and final decisions were being made and orders were being cut. This time tomorrow, his country would be at war.
Ranking people were awaiting his report of this backchannel meeting.
He was here. Where was the American?
KYLE SWANSON WAS STRETCHED out comfortably on a plush sofa and Jamal Muheisen was in a large leather chair, absorbed in a paperback whodunit mystery. Jamal turned the pages slowly, killing time. Swanson stared at the white ceiling. “Hell of a prison, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jamal replied. “Fuckin’ A-rab dungeon. You want me to call for some fresh coffee?”
“Unh-unh,” grunted Swanson. “I’m coffeed out.” He got up and went to the window to watch the cars and trucks go by. He could not hear the buzz of the traffic below because the huge office was soundproofed. A few military vehicles rolled past in small convoys, but the capital city was returning to normal. The morning sun was shining brightly.
The room was the spacious personal office of another Saudi prince who was senior vice president for special assignments for Saudi Aramco, the petroleum giant that controlled the vast oil fields of the nation. The place was immaculate, with several bright hand-knotted carpets, tall bookshelves, chairs, tables, and a few sofas. A large desk dominated the area before a set of windows, and every paper on it was squared neatly with all of the others. Framed pictures of members of the royal family and foreign dignitaries hung on the dark walls. A full bathroom, including a shower, was just through a doorway.
“Fuck this,” Swanson said as he returned to the sofa and plopped down. The two soldiers at the door watched, but remained silent. The security team was changed every thirty minutes, and another pair of guards was just outside.
Swanson knew any hope of surprising his Chinese contact was blown at the time of their arrest. Now the entire meeting was at risk. All methods of communicating with the outside world had been removed from them and, although the borrowed office had every creature comfort, even a game console, there were no telephones, no TV sets, and no device that would let him call for help. They were trapped in an air-conditioned cave of riches.
Big chunks of time were falling away like an iceberg calving in the summertime. A nuclear warhead was still out there to be collected, but it was fading in importance with the anticipation that the Chinese were about to attack. Stay calm. Wait it out. Be ready.
THE MAIN DOOR OPENED at nine seventeen, according to Kyle’s watch. The guards snapped to attention but never took their eyes from the prisoners. Prince Colonel Mishaal bin Khalid walked in, grim and unsmiling, and went straight to the desk. He flung his black beret down in exasperation, then sat in the chair and stared at Kyle. “You lied to me.”
Swanson returned the glare. “Don’t expect an apology.”
“You were under my orders,” the prince retorted in a frosty tone. “I gave the two of you permission to go to the hotel and you tried to play me for a fool. When I had my aide check up on you, he found that you were gone.”
“I was never under your orders, colonel. We are working together. There’s a big difference. Instead of finishing our mission of getting all of the nukes, you became wrapped up in that conference with the talking heads on television screens and I was left sitting there with my thumb up my ass while a war may be brewing. Why the hell should I wait around when there was work to be done?”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” Mishaal was on his feet and his voice thundered. The guards became more alert. “Your job was to help me collect the nuclear weapons and we have done so, except for the one in Tabuk. We will go and retrieve it right now, and then you both will be expelled from the country. I’ve already discussed this with His Majesty and he approves. We appreciate your help, Gunny, but your job is almost done. You are too much of a loose cannon.”
Kyle shook his head in dismay. “Of course I’m a loose cannon, Colonel. I do what needs to be done, even when things escalate out of control, even in an entirely different situation. I am a scout-sniper and the rule for any commander is to not tell a sniper how to do a job.”
Mishaal sat back down. “You have no idea what has been going on. Our military is in the midst of cleaning up the mess from the coup attempt and have zero time to get reorganized. Those conferences that you so disdain involve the highest level of national security and how we will respond to this possible Chinese aggression. We are talking all-out war here, Gunny Swanson.”
“Don’t count your nuclear chickens before they are hatched, Colonel.”
Mishaal looked at his watch. “Then let’s go get it, Gunnery Sergeant. I have a plane waiting. And then I can kick your impertinent ass out of the country and get to work on the other major threats facing us. I don’t need your ego eating up my time.”
“Fine by me,” Kyle snapped. “But aren’t you even going to ask me why we left early to get to Riyadh if the only thing I wanted to do was pick up the last nuke? As you say, that now seems like a routine job, and anyway it is several hundred miles away in Tabuk.”
The colonel grabbed his beret. “I really do not care, Gunny. And I had roadblocks set up there, too. Now move out.”
“I know who one of the Chinese point men on the ground is, Prince Mishaal.” Kyle took the edge off of his voice. “I had set up a meeting for this morning and was trying to get into Riyadh and trap him beforehand and throw him off balance. I hoped to persuade him to tell his people to back off of the military action by confirming that both the Saudis and the Americans would oppose them.”
The prince stopped in mid-stride. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
Kyle stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked the prince in the eyes. Ignored the question. “The contact is a special forces type named Henry Tsang, a guy that I met down in Khobz. He probably has a straight pipeline into the Chinese central command, and I thought he would trust another special operator because we are cut from the same cloth. I considered it best not to have your fingerprints, or the official imprint of either of our governments on this meet. I was going to tell you everything, when it was done.”
Mishaal dropped the beret again and sat back down. He spun the chair away from the Marine and the CIA agent and looked out of the windows, his thoughts moving fast, grabbing for passing details. He turned around again. “Can you still make a meet?”
“He’s waiting for me at the Marriott Hotel right now.”
“Very well. But I want in on this, too, Swanson. This is my country and we’re running out of time.”