The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(85)
With that, he shook Abdullah’s hand and gestured toward the waiting Mercedes limousine. As the motorcade departed Downing Street, Christopher Keller ducked into the back of a black Protection Command van. Under normal circumstances, the drive to Abdullah’s private residence at 71 Eaton Square might have taken twenty minutes or more. But on empty streets with a Metropolitan Police escort, they arrived in less than five.
The square’s CCTV cameras recorded that Crown Prince Abdullah entered his home at 3:42 p.m., accompanied by a dozen robed aides and several Saudi security men in dark business suits. Six RaSP officers immediately took up positions outside the house along the pavement. One member of the detail, however, remained in the back of the Protection Command van, invisible to the woman standing in the third-floor window of the house next door.
It took the same amount of time, five minutes, for Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster to separate himself from his aides and make his way upstairs to the White Room. Entering, he removed a slip of official Number 10 notepaper from his breast pocket. The pad from which it had been torn was lying on the coffee table in front of Graham Seymour, beneath the MI6 chief’s Parker pen.
“I suspect no British prime minister in history has ever been handed a note such as this in the middle of a state visit.” Lancaster dropped it on the coffee table. “I told Abdullah it concerned Brexit. I’m not sure he believed me.”
“I thought you should know her whereabouts.”
Jonathan Lancaster looked down at the note. “Do me a favor, Graham. Burn that damn thing. The rest of the notepad, too.”
“Prime Minister?”
“You left an impression on the pad when you wrote it.” Lancaster shook his head reproachfully. “Didn’t they teach you anything at spy school?”
63
Eaton Square, Belgravia
The recriminations began the instant the door closed. The meeting at Downing Street had been an unmitigated disaster. There was no other word for it. A disaster! How could they have not known that Lancaster intended to ambush His Royal Highness on the issue of human rights and the jailed women? Why were they not told he was going to raise the topic of Saudi financial support for Islamic institutions in Britain? Why were they blindsided? Obaid, the foreign minister, blamed it all on Qahtani, the ambassador to London, who saw conspiracies everywhere. Al-Omari, the chief of royal court, was so enraged he suggested canceling dinner and returning to Riyadh at once. It was Abdullah, suddenly the statesman, who overruled him. Backing out of the dinner, he said, would only offend the British and weaken him at home. Better to end the visit on a high note, even if it was a false one.
In the meantime, an aggressive media response was in order. Obaid hurried over to the BBC, Qahtani to CNN. In the sudden silence, Abdullah slumped in his chair, his eyes closed, a hand pressed to his forehead. The performance was for the benefit of al-Omari, the courtier. No task was too small, too demeaning, for al-Omari. He hovered over Abdullah night and day. Therefore, he would have to be handled carefully.
“Are you feeling unwell, Your Royal Highness?”
“Just a little tired, that’s all.”
“Perhaps you should go upstairs for a rest.”
“I think I’ll have a swim first.”
“Shall I switch on the steam room?”
“There are some things I can still do for myself.” Abdullah rose slowly. “Short of a palace coup or an Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia, I wish not to be disturbed until seven thirty. Can you manage that, Ahmed?”
Abdullah went downstairs to the pool room. A watery blue light played upon an arched ceiling painted with corpulent swirling nudes in the manner of Rubens and Michelangelo. How shocked the pious men of the ulema would be, he thought, if they could see him now. He had renewed the old covenant between the Wahhabis and the House of Saud to win clerical support for his coup against Khalid. Yet privately he loathed the bearded ones as much as the reformers did. Despite the unexpectedly contentious meeting at Downing Street, Abdullah had enjoyed his brief respite from religiously stifling Riyadh. He realized how much he had missed the sight of female flesh, even if it was only a bare lower leg, pale with winter, viewed through the tinted window of a speeding limousine.
He went into the changing room, switched on the steam bath, and shed his vestments. Disrobed, he contemplated his reflection in the full-length mirror. The sight depressed him. Whatever muscle he had acquired after puberty had long ago run to fat. His pectorals dangled like an old woman’s breasts over his colossal abdomen. His legs, spindly and hairless, seemed to strain under the burden. Only his hair saved him from incontestable hideousness. It was rich and thick and only slightly gray.
He eased into the pool and, manatee-like, swam several lengths. Afterward, standing before the mirror once more, he thought he detected a slight improvement in his muscle tone. In his wardrobe was a change of clothing: woolen trousers, a blazer, a striped dress shirt, undergarments, loafers, a belt. After deodorizing his armpits and running a comb through his hair, he dressed.
The heavy glass door of the steam bath was now opaque with condensation. No one, not even the cloying al-Omari, would dare look inside. Abdullah locked the outer door of the dressing room before opening what was once a storage closet for robes and pool towels. It was now a vestibule of sorts. Inside was another door. On the wall was a keypad. Abdullah entered the four-digit code. The lock snapped open with a gentle thud.