Commander-in-Chief

26

The prince sat in his Mercedes limousine, idly looking out the window at the tourists and the shoppers strolling by on Rodeo Drive, many of whom were staring back at his vehicle and the smoked-glass windows. He imagined they were wondering if some sort of a movie star was sitting inside, and this made him chuckle.

He was no actor, but there wasn’t an actor on this planet with a portfolio a tenth the size of his. The prince was Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of petroleum and mineral resources, which meant he was second in line to one of the highest positions in the nation. He was also from the House of Saud, the royal family, which meant his personal wealth was all but incalculable.

The prince enjoyed his visits to the West, but not quite so much as his wife did. She loved to shop and he loved to make her happy, or at least he understood the benefit to him if she remained happy, so he placated her with a little time in which to shop, and a lot of money to spend while she did it.

Every time they left the kingdom he gave her at least a full day of roaming the stores, and she had become an expert at taking advantage of these days. In Milan, in Paris, in Monaco, in Singapore, luxury boutiques had been raided by the prince’s wife, and usually the prince felt like the getaway driver, because he preferred to wait outside in the car.

His security detail preferred it as well.

He’d met his wife at a Formula One race in Abu Dhabi eight years ago; she was a Czech national and a model. Since the day they met she’d done her best to spend his money. He didn’t care, she treated him well in the process, and she couldn’t possibly put a dent in his riches, no matter how many bags, necklaces, shoes, and designer pedigree dogs she purchased.

And as much as she loved to shop, she loved to get out of the kingdom even more. This trip to California had a business component to it, of course. The prince was being courted by the American government. It was known to all that the current minister of petroleum and mineral resources, the prince’s uncle, was suffering from inoperable bowel cancer. He did not have long, and the Americans hoped relations on the energy-trading front would remain the same or even improve when the younger man took over. To that end, they brought him over as often as they could and did their best to show him and his wife that America was a friend to the Saudis — especially the Saudi oil industry.

But the prince wasn’t thinking about work now, he was thinking about his wife. He sat in the backseat of a Mercedes-Benz S-Guard, one of the most expensive armored cars on earth, and he looked out the window onto Rodeo Drive. His wife was in the Bulgari store with one of their bodyguards, and he was outside with two more, plus his driver and a personal assistant.

He considered asking his PA to text her and demand she hurry it up — it was nearly lunchtime, after all. But just as he turned to give the command, his phone chirped and he answered it.

“Can you come in?”

“Why?”

A pause. “I need you to see something.”

The prince sighed to the others in the Mercedes. “I’ll be right back.”

His close protection agent called back from the front seat, “I’ll go with you.”

“No need.”

But the guard insisted and climbed out and opened the door for the prince, and the two men crossed the sidewalk.

The prince pressed the button for the door to be unlocked, and he entered the exclusive shop when he heard the click of the lock disengaging. With no attempt to hide his impatience, he climbed the steps up to the sales floor, his bodyguard at his side, and looked around for his wife.

Quickly he realized the little store was empty other than his wife, a single doorman in a dark suit, and a tall, attractive salesclerk standing on the other side of a glass counter from his wife.

The two Saudis passed the security guard standing along the wall.

The prince said, “I told you to get whatever you wanted. Why do I have to see it?”

She stood over a case of necklaces, so his eyes scanned down the merchandise.

Next to him, his guard spoke to his wife as well. “Where is Faisal?”

When she did not immediately answer either man, the prince looked up at her for the first time, and he noticed the terror in her eyes.

“What is it?”

Braam Jaeger drew his silenced .22-caliber pistol and shot the prince’s bodyguard in the back of the head, just behind the ear, at a distance of three feet. The big man pitched forward along with the snap of the round, and he dropped to his knees. Braam stepped closer behind him and shot him execution-style where he knelt, and by the time he lifted his weapon to train it on the prince, he saw the prince was already beginning to run in his direction, back toward the door.

The prince lurched forward, stumbling as he passed by Braam, and slid across the cold marble floor.

Martina Jaeger stood behind the counter, and she held out her own silenced .22. She had shot the man between the shoulder blades from behind.

Braam fired his weapon twice more at the man writhing on the ground at his feet, then he turned and left the showroom, heading down to cover the entrance in case more of the prince’s guards tried to enter. As he walked he holstered his pistol, and from a shoulder holster he drew a Brügger & Thomet machine pistol. It was not a suppressed weapon like the .22, but was fully automatic, fired a larger, heavier nine-millimeter round, and was much more suitable for a real gunfight with multiple attackers than the little .22.

The prince’s wife had dropped to the floor the moment the shooting began, and now she cowered there. “Please! No!”

Martina walked around the showcase slowly, taking her time, her high heels rhythmic on the marble. She stood over the trembling ex-model from the Czech Republic for several seconds, enjoying her fear.

“If you are a smart woman, then you know that I must kill you.”

“No!”

“Yes. We just spent ten minutes talking about platinum bracelets. I have a striking face, perhaps not as beautiful as your own, but certainly you will be able to provide a detailed description of me if I let you walk out of here.”

“I swear to you. I will say nothing!”

“And I saw the way you looked at my brother when you came in. You wanted him for yourself. Pity that won’t happen.” She smiled. “It would be something to see.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Martina pushed the muzzle of the .22 into the woman’s blond hair. “Stop lying! Stop sniveling! Can’t you die with dignity?”

The Czech woman began to sob loudly.

Martina said, “When I die, I will make my death as graceful as my life. I have self-respect. Honor.”

Just then, Braam Jaeger called out in Dutch from the stairs. “They are coming!”

Martina cleared her head quickly, and she took two steps back from the woman on her knees in front of her.

She was thinking about the inevitable splatter and her ivory blouse.

Just as the prince’s wife looked up at the movement, Martina Jaeger fired four times into her heart. The Czech woman cried out, grabbed at the wounds for an instant, then slumped over dead.

Martina knelt and picked up her tiny hot brass, giving no more thought to the dead bodies lying around her.

Braam walked up to the counter next to Martina and shattered the glass with the butt of his pistol. He and Martina pulled out several trays of rings and necklaces, taking no real time to distinguish specific pieces.

The pair left via the rear of the boutique seconds later, stowing their weapons out of sight and stepping over the two employees of the store and the wife’s bodyguard, all of whom were piled on the floor behind the counter. Even before the Saudi guards were able to break down the front door and rush onto the small sales floor, Braam was behind the wheel of an Aston Martin, and he and his sister were pulling out of the loading area, heading toward Wilshire Boulevard.

Within an hour they would be in the air, leaving Van Nuys Airport, and within fifteen hours they would be back in Holland, waiting for their next operation. They doubted they had long to wait, because it sure seemed like the Russians were really picking up the intensity of their operations.