The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(64)

“You remember Konstantin, don’t you, Khalid? Konstantin is the Russian billionaire who sold you this ridiculous boat.” Gabriel made a show of thought. “Remind me how much you paid for it.”

“Five hundred million euros.”

“In cash, right? Konstantin insisted the money be wired into one of his accounts at Gazprombank in Moscow before he would agree to leave the boat. A few days later he lent your uncle a hundred million pounds.” Gabriel paused. “I suppose that’s what it means to recirculate petrodollars.”

Khalid was silent.

“He’s an interesting fellow, our Konstantin. He’s a second-generation oligarch, not one of the original robber barons who looted the assets of the old Soviet Union after the fall. Unlike many of the oligarchs, Konstantin is diversified. He’s also quite close to the Kremlin. In Russian business circles it is assumed that most of Konstantin’s money actually belongs to the Tsar.”

“That’s the way it works for people like us.”

“Us?”

“The Tsar and me. We operate through cutouts and fronts. I’m not the nominal owner of this boat, as you call it, and I don’t own the chateau in France, either.” He glanced at Sarah. “Or the Leonardo.”

“And when people like you are no longer in power?”

“The money and the toys have a way of disappearing. Abdullah has already taken billions from me. And the Leonardo,” he added.

“Somehow you’ll survive.” Gabriel admired Khalid’s view of the Egyptian coast. “But back to your uncle. Needless to say, Abdullah never repaid the hundred million pounds Konstantin Dragunov lent him. That’s because it wasn’t a loan. And it was only the beginning. While you were engaging in court intrigue in Riyadh, Abdullah was doing lucrative business deals in Moscow. He earned more than three billion dollars in the last two years, all through his association with Konstantin Dragunov, which is another way of saying the president of Russia.”

“Why was he so interested in Abdullah?”

“I suppose he wanted an ally inside the House of Saud. Someone who was respected for his political acumen. Someone who hated the Americans as much as he did. Someone who could serve as a trusted adviser to a young and untested future king. Someone who might be able to convince the future king to tilt Moscow’s way and thus expand the Kremlin’s regional influence.” Gabriel turned and looked at Khalid. “Someone who might offer to rid the future king of a meddlesome priest. Or a dissident journalist who was trying to warn the future king about a plot to force him to abdicate.”

“Are you saying Abdullah conspired with the Russians to seize the throne of Saudi Arabia?”

“I’m not saying it, Omar Nawwaf is.” Gabriel drew Hanifa Khoury’s flash drive from his pocket. “I don’t suppose there’s a computer on this boat, is there?”

“Yacht,” said Khalid. “Come with me.”



There was an iMac in the suite’s private study, but Khalid had the good sense not to allow the chief of the Office to impale it with a flash drive. Instead, he led Gabriel down to Tranquillity’s hotel-style business center. It contained a half dozen workstations with Internet-connected computers, printers, and multiline phones tied into the ship’s satellite communications system.

Khalid sat down at one of the terminals and inserted the flash drive. A dialogue box queried him for a user name.

“Yarmouk,” said Gabriel.

“The camp?”

“Her parents ended up there in 1948.”

“Yes, I know. We have a file on her, too.” Khalid entered the name of the refugee camp, and an icon appeared.

“Omar,” said Gabriel. “The password is Omar.”





47

Gulf of Aqaba


The story was twelve thousand words in length and rendered in the free-flowing fashion of a reporter at large. Its opening scene described a chance encounter with an exiled Saudi prince in the lobby of a Cairo hotel. Over dinner that evening, the prince told the reporter a remarkable tale about a plot against his country’s future king, whom he described unflatteringly as “the most interesting man in the world,” a reference to a character in a Mexican beer commercial.

What followed was an account of the reporter’s rapid quest to corroborate what he had been told. He traveled far and wide to confer with his many regional sources—including to Dubai, where he spent an anxious forty-eight hours within easy reach of Riyadh’s secret services. It was there, in a suite at Burj Al Arab, that a prized source wove the disparate threads he had gathered into a coherent narrative. KBM, he said, had worn out his welcome inside the House of Saud. The White House and the Israelis were in love with him, but he had dispensed with the Al Saud tradition of ruling by consensus and was running roughshod over his kin. A palace coup, or something like it, was inevitable. The Allegiance Council was coalescing around Abdullah, mainly because Abdullah was desperately lobbying for the job.

“And, oh, by the way,” the source was quoted as saying, “did I mention Moscow Center is pulling the strings? Abdullah is totally in the Tsar’s pocket. If he manages to seize the throne, he’s going to tilt so far toward the Kremlin he’s likely to fall flat on his face.”

From Dubai, the reporter returned to Berlin, where he discovered that his wife, a journalist herself, had been communicating secretly with a member of the crown prince’s court. After much soul-searching, chronicled in the article’s final passage, he had decided to travel to Turkey to meet with the man who had driven him into exile. The encounter was to take place at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, at one fifteen in the afternoon.