The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(55)

“I have the recordings.”

“And what about the words you were shouting after the bomb went off?”

Gabriel said nothing.

“I must admit,” said Khalid, “I have thought of nothing else since that night.”

“You know what they say about vengeance?”

“What’s that?”

“‘If you live to seek revenge, dig a grave for two.’”

“That’s a very old Arab proverb.”

“It’s Jewish, actually.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Khalid with a flash of his old arrogance. “Have you made any attempt to find them?”

“We’ve made inquiries,” answered Gabriel vaguely.

“Have any borne fruit?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“Neither have mine.”

“Perhaps we should pool our resources.”

“I agree,” said Khalid. “Where should we begin?”

“Omar Nawwaf.”

“What about him?”

“Why did you give the order for him to be killed?”

Khalid hesitated, then said, “I was advised to.”

“By whom?”

“My dear uncle Abdullah,” said Khalid. “The next king of Saudi Arabia.”





40

Jerusalem


But it was the Americans, began Khalid, only half in jest, who were ultimately to blame. After the attacks of 9/11, they demanded the royal family crack down on al-Qaeda and stem the flow of money and Wahhabi ideology that had given rise to it. The Kingdom’s links to the worst attack on the American homeland in history were undeniable. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi citizens, and Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s founder and guiding light, was the scion of a notable Saudi family that had grown fabulously wealthy through its close financial ties to the House of Saud.

“There are many reasons why nine-eleven happened,” said Khalid, “but we Saudis must accept responsibility for our role. The attack left an indelible stain on our country and on my family, and something like it must never happen again.”

To effectively combat al-Qaeda, the Kingdom sorely needed cybersurveillance technology so it could monitor the Internet-based communications of suspected terrorists and their fellow travelers, especially after the global jihadist movement morphed and shapeshifted with the advent of social media. To that end, it established the vaguely named Royal Data Center and filled it with sophisticated cybertools purchased from the tech-savvy Emiratis and a private Italian firm. The center even acquired mobile phone-hacking software from an Israeli company called ONS Systems. Gabriel was aware of the transaction. He had vehemently opposed it, as had the chief of Unit 8200, but both were overruled by the prime minister.

The Royal Data Center allowed the regime to monitor not only potential terrorists but ordinary political opponents as well. For that reason, Khalid seized control of it when he became crown prince. He used it to spy on the mobile devices of his enemies and track their activity in cyberspace. The center also gave Khalid the power to monitor and manipulate the social network. He was not ashamed to admit that, like the American president, he was obsessed by his standing in the parallel universe of Twitter and Facebook. It was not merely vanity that drove his preoccupation. He feared he might be toppled by an Internet-inspired “hashtag” uprising like the one that had brought down Mubarak of Egypt. Qatar, his blood rival in the Gulf, was working against him online. So were a number of commentators and journalists who had acquired large cyberfollowings of young, restless Arabs desperate for political change. One such commentator was a Saudi named Omar Nawwaf.

Nawwaf was the editor in chief of the Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s most prominent English-language daily. A veteran Middle East correspondent, he had managed to maintain good relations with both the House of Saud, to whom he owed his survival as a journalist, and al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, the royal court regularly used him as an emissary to the forces of political Islam. Religiously secular himself, Nawwaf had long championed loosening the Wahhabi-inspired restrictions on women in Saudi society, and initially he greeted the rise of a young reform-minded KBM with editorial enthusiasm. His support dissolved as Khalid ruthlessly suppressed political opposition and enriched himself at the public trough.

It did not take Khalid and his courtiers long to realize they had “an Omar Nawwaf problem.” At first, they tried to defuse the situation with charm and engagement. But when Nawwaf’s criticism intensified, he was warned to cease and desist, or suffer dire consequences. Faced with a choice between silence or exile, Nawwaf chose exile. He took refuge in Berlin and found work at Der Spiegel, Germany’s most important newsmagazine. Now free of Saudi Arabia’s machinery of repression, he unleashed a torrent of biting commentary targeted at its headstrong crown prince, painting him as a fraud and a grifter who had no intention of delivering real political reform to the calcifying Kingdom. Khalid waged war on Nawwaf from within the Royal Data Center, but it was no use. On Twitter alone, Nawwaf had some ten million followers, many more than Khalid. The meddlesome exiled journalist was winning the battle of ideas on social media.

“And then,” said Khalid, “there was a most intriguing development. Omar Nawwaf, my great detractor, requested an interview.”