A Gentleman's Game

15

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, Residence of Prince Salih bin Muhammad bin Sultan 3 September 1404 Local (GMT+3.00) For Sinan, it had been two-plus weeks of growing disgust and frustration, watching the Prince pay lip service to everything they believed, everything they had been taught, only to swiftly pivot and shamelessly bury himself in behavior that should have cost him his head, literally. That Abdul Aziz had condemned both Matteen and him to bear witness made him feel further betrayed, and bewildered.

Had he not proven himself in the West Bank? Had he not gone to act with Hamas as ordered, and had he not further culled the weak from their pack with the removal of Aamil? Abdul Aziz had told him, in front of the camp, that he had done well, that he had acted as a jihadi should. He had, in front of the camp, declared Sinan bin al-Baari a True Warrior in the name of Allah, all mercies upon him.

Had Abdul Aziz lied? Was he still condemned as an outsider-a Muslim, yes, even a Wahhabist, yes, but not an Arab-and therefore never to be fully trusted?

It had occurred to Sinan that this might be a test. If so, he reflected, it was a particularly grueling one. The Prince seemed eager to violate every prohibition in Islam short of eating pork, and Sinan suspected that, at some point, the Prince had probably violated that prohibition as well.

After Abdul Aziz had departed with the others from the camp, the Prince had ordered Hazim to show Sinan and Matteen to their rooms, wishing them both a good night and a pleasant rest under Allah's watchful gaze and inviting them to join him for breakfast the next morning. Hazim had guided them to "modest guest rooms," which had been anything but. Sinan's bed had been the largest he had ever seen, and with a water-filled mattress, to boot. The bathroom had been larger than the admittedly small house he'd been raised in near Sheffield, and after enjoying the luxury of a shower, he had tried to sleep for the few hours that remained of the night. After months of his cot in the camp, the bed had seemed a tempting proposition.

A false temptation, much to his surprise. He'd ultimately wrapped himself in a blanket on the carpeted floor, sleeping in that fashion until he'd been woken by the muezzin's call to prayer, played through speakers outside the mansion. He had roused himself, dressed, and prayed toward Mekkah, then donned his Kalashnikov and cautiously emerged from his room.

Matteen had emerged at the same time, and together the two men had gone in search of their breakfast, not wishing to insult the Prince by appearing tardy. Hazim was nowhere to be found, but another servant, Hazim's age and just as attentive, had offered to guide them. While the boy led them through the maze of the house, Sinan and Matteen had talked of how they would approach their duty.

"We are not guards," Sinan had muttered. "This is not our work."

"I don't believe we'll have to worry about that," Matteen had replied. • Matteen had been correct.

From the moment they sat down to dine on a breakfast of dates, figs, pastries, and tea with the Prince, the Prince made it clear what he wanted from them.

"Your battles! Tell me everything," he said. "I want to hear it all, every detail! I want to hear your stories as if I was there, beside you. I want to hear them so that your memories become my own. So that we will be brothers, truly."

Matteen and Sinan had exchanged looks then, and Sinan had known they both thought the same thing. Sinan was proud, very proud, of what he had done, and had hopes for what more he would do. But what he had done, he had done in the name of jihad, to fight for tawhid, for the belief in the Oneness of God, as Wahhabism required.

It was not done for bragging rights, for gloating, for anyone or anything. It was done for Allah, praise Him, and that any man, beggar or Prince of the House of Saud, would want to lay claim to it as well bordered on blasphemy.

He was relieved when, at the Prince's insistence, Matteen began telling him some of what had happened in Tora-Bora.

"You saw the picture?" the Prince interrupted. "In the study?"

Both men knew exactly the one the Prince meant, and Matteen nodded.

"That was in '98," the Prince said, and the practiced nonchalance with which he said it made Sinan want to spit out his meal and toss the mess across the table. "I brought Usama a check, stayed with him at the camp outside Asadabad, in Kunar province. We flew falcons together. He's a gifted falconer."

The Prince smiled at them, waited for an acknowledgment.

"I didn't know that," Sinan said.

"Oh, yes. Loves falcons, ever since he was a boy."

"Do you keep falcons, Your Highness?" Matteen asked after another painful pause.

"I do. Would you like to see them?"

"If it wouldn't interfere with our duties for you, yes, please."

"No, no, don't worry about that. I have bodyguards, they are the best, you know. No, that's not why you're here. You're here so we may get to know one another, so that we may become friends, brothers in arms."

Sinan had nodded, finishing his tea, and thinking that if Allah were truly merciful, he would strike the Prince down very soon indeed. • So for two-plus weeks, Sinan and Matteen had been the Prince's friends. They had stayed with him in his palace. They had enjoyed his hospitality at royal insistence, sharing their stories again and again. Sinan discovered that the Prince seemed never to tire of hearing about Ma'le Efraim. They prayed five times a day, dined on lavish meals, played football on the remarkably green lawn in the incredible heat of the afternoon, accompanied the Prince as he flew his falcons, and watched sports and movies in the Prince's study.

Sinan hated all of it, but especially the time in the study, and the films. Action films with explosions and gun battles and special effects, where American heroes laid low all who opposed them, then returned home to sleep with some eager whore who had spent most of the movie half-dressed at the most.

But the Prince had other films as well, and after their first week, he broke those out. These were home movies, videos shot in Monaco and Beverly Hills and Marbella, where the Prince and other members of the royal family went to pursue all those things forbidden at home. That the Prince would show these films to them troubled Sinan, until he realized the Prince's thinking.

Sinan and Matteen were not Saudi, after all. Sinan, in particular, had come from the West. Whether the Prince mistakenly took that to mean that Sinan had shared in the things he was showing them, Sinan didn't know, but it was clear that the Prince felt that not just he but they, Sinan and Matteen too, were held to a different standard.

In the home movies, the Prince rode Jet-Skis and played roulette and purchased Rolexes and danced with blondes who wore little more than the jewels the Prince himself had given them. So did the other princes and their families. One of the videotapes was nothing but footage of the women the Prince had taken to his bed in these places, alone or two or three at a time.

Sinan knew the Prince was married, and had three wives, and ten children by those wives. He knew that the Prince believed himself to be righteous, even as he showed them these movies, twisting in his leather chair to hide his erection.

If Allah were merciful, Sinan vowed again. • In early September-Sinan wasn't sure of the date-the Prince presented Matteen and Sinan with gifts. This wasn't new. He had already given them new Kalashnikovs, and new pistols, too, Glocks that could weather almost anything the desert would throw at them. But this time he presented them each with a small white box, not much larger than Sinan's hand, nor much thicker, and wrapped with a green silk bow.

Inside, each of them discovered a passport for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The documents were real, not forgeries, and Sinan's had his name, his true name of al-Baari, and the surge of gratitude he felt when he saw that confounded him. That the Prince would do this for him, after all he had thought of the man, gave him guilt.

"We are taking a trip," the Prince told them. "We are going to Yemen."