Death In Oslo

XXI

Abdallah al-Rahman was hungry, but he still had a couple of things to do before he could have his evening meal. First he wanted to see his youngest son.

Rashid was fast asleep, with a soft horse under his arm. The boy had eventually been allowed to watch the film he had gone on about so much, and was now lying on his back with his legs wide open, his face the picture of peace. He had kicked off his blanket some time ago. His jet-black hair was getting too long. His curls lay like rivers of oil against the white silk.

Abdallah sank down on his knees and spread the blanket carefully over the boy again. He kissed him on the forehead and adjusted the horse so it would be more comfortable.

They had watched Die Hard with Bruce Willis.

The nearly twenty-year-old American film was Rashid’s favourite. None of his older brothers could understand why. For them, Die Hard was incredibly old-fashioned, with hopelessly out-of-date special effects and a hero who wasn’t even tough. But for six-year-old Rashid, the action scenes were perfect: cartoon-like and unreal and therefore not frightening. Another bonus was that in 1988, terrorists were Eastern European. They hadn’t yet become Arabs.

Abdallah looked up at the old film poster hanging above Rashid’s bed. The night light, which the boy was still allowed to keep on because he was scared of the dark, cast a reddish glow over Bruce Willis’ bruised face. It was partially covered by Nakatomi Plaza, an explosive tower of fire. The actor’s mouth was open, almost aghast, and his eyes were fixed on the unthinkable: a terrorist attack on a skyscraper.

Abdallah got up to leave. He stood for a while in the doorway. Bruce Willis’ mouth was a gaping black hole in the semi-dark. Abdallah thought he could see a yellowish-red reflection of the massive explosion in his eyes; a nascent fury.

That’s how they reacted, he thought to himself. Just like that. Thirteen years after the film was made. Shock and disbelief, helplessness and fear. And then came the anger, when American society realised that the unthinkable was now reality.

The terrorist attack on the 11th of September 2001 had been the work of madmen. Abdallah had seen that immediately. He got a distraught phone call from one of his contacts in Europe and managed to turn on the television in time to see United Airlines Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower. The North Tower was already in flames. It was just after four in the afternoon in Riyadh, and Abdallah had not been able to sit down.

For two hours he stood in front of the TV screen. When he finally pulled himself away from the news to answer some of the telephone messages that had been streaming in, he realised that the attack on the World Trade Center would be as fatal for the Arabic world as the attack on Pearl Harbor had been for the Japanese.

Abdallah closed the door to his son’s room. There was more to do before he could eat. He started to walk towards the part of the palace where his offices were, towards the east wing, where the morning sun was allowed to stream in at the start of the working day, before it got too hot.

The building was now quiet and dark. The few employees that he felt it was necessary to have out here lived in a small complex he had had built two kilometres closer to Riyadh. Only the private servants stayed in the palace after office hours. And even they had their sleeping quarters some distance from the main buildings, in the low sand-coloured houses by the gate.

Abdallah crossed the square between the two wings. The night was clear, and as always, he took time to stop by the carp pond and look at the stars. The palace was situated far enough from the city lights for the sky to look like it had been perforated by millions of white dots; some were small and sparkling, others big shining stars. He sat down on one of the low benches and felt the evening breeze against his cheeks.

Abdallah was a pragmatist when it came to religion. His family upheld the Muslim traditions, and he made sure that his sons received instruction in the Koran, as well as a rigorous academic training. He believed in the Prophet’s word; he had done his hajj and paid zakah with pride. But for him the relationship between himself and Allah was personal. He said his prayers five times a day, but not if time was short. Which it was more and more frequently, but he didn’t let it bother him. Abdallah al-Rahman was convinced that Allah, to the extent that He was bothered by such things, would have the greatest understanding of the importance of taking care of his affairs, over and above following the salah rules down to a T.

And he was strongly opposed to mixing politics and religion. To worship Allah as the only God and acknowledge the prophet Mohammad as His messenger was a spiritual matter. Politics, on the other hand – and therefore business – was not about the spirit, but about reality. In Abdallah’s opinion, the split between politics and religion was not only necessary from the point of view of politics. It was equally important, if not more so, to protect what was pure and sublime about faith from the cynical, often brutal, processes required by politics.

He was a cynic when it came to business, with no other god than himself.

When al-Qaeda launched its devastating attack on the US on the 11th of September 2001, he was just as horrified as most of the world’s six billion inhabitants.

He was appalled by the attack.

Abdallah al-Rahman saw himself as a warrior. His contempt for the US was just as potent as a terrorist’s hate for that country. And killing was a means that Abdallah accepted, and at times used. But it was to be used with precision, and only when necessary.

Arbitrary violence was always evil. He had in fact known several of those who died in Manhattan. Three of them were on his pay roll. Without knowing it, of course. Most of his American companies were owned by holding companies that in turn were affiliated with international conglomerates, which effectively concealed the actual ownership. Via the usual routes, Abdallah made sure that the families of those killed would not suffer financially. They were Americans, all of them, and they had no idea that the generous cheques they received from the deceaseds’ employers actually came from a man who was from the same country as Osama bin Laden.

Arbitrary violence was not only evil; it was also inconceivably stupid.

Abdallah had problems understanding why such an intelligent and well-educated man had become involved in such banal terrorism.

Abdallah knew the al-Qaeda leader well. They were about the same age and were both born in Riyadh. They moved in the same circles when they were young; a group of rich men’s sons who mixed with the innumerable princes of the house of Saud. Abdallah liked Osama. He was a friendly boy, gentle and attentive, and far less flashy than a lot of the other boys, who wallowed in their wealth and did little to look after their family fortunes that welled up in the country’s vast desert. Osama was academically gifted and bright and the two boys had often ended up in a corner having quiet discussions about philosophy and politics, religion and history.

When Abdallah’s brother died and his carefree life as the younger son was over, he lost contact with Osama. But that was probably a good thing. The man who was later to become a terrorist leader experienced a political-religious awakening towards the end of the 1970s, a process that was speeded up when the Soviet Union decided to invade Afghanistan.

They had gone their separate ways and had not seen each other since.

Abdallah got up from the bench. He stretched his arms up towards the stars and felt his muscles being fully extended. The cool evening breeze was soothing.

He wandered slowly over to the east wing.

He believed that al-Qaeda’s attack on the US was driven by pure hate, which always made him puzzle at his childhood friend’s lack of insight into the Western psyche.

Abdallah knew the limitations of hate. During his convalescence in Switzerland, following his brother’s death, he had come to understand that hate was an emotion he must never indulge in. Already then, as a sixteen-year-old, he recognised that rationality was a warrior’s most important tool, and that reason was irreconcilable with hate.

Hate only reproduced itself.

The destruction of three buildings and four planes, and the deaths of around three thousand people had unleashed a hate and fear so great that the people accepted gross misconduct on the part of their authorities.

In Abdallah’s view, the American people had willingly compromised their constitution in the hope that they would not be attacked again. They accepted tapping and arbitrary arrests, raids and surveillance to a degree that would have been unthinkable a hundred years earlier.

The Americans had closed ranks, Abdallah mused, in the way that people always close ranks against an external enemy.

He opened the big, beautiful carved door to his office. The lamp on his desk was on, and bathed the many carpets that lay on the floor in a golden light. There was a faint humming from the computer and a fragrant smell of cinnamon made him open a cupboard by the window. Here he found a newly made pot of tea, ready on a stand. The last servant always made sure that this was done before leaving the office wing so that Abdallah could complete his evening duties in peace. He poured himself a glass.

This time they would not close ranks.

The thought made him smile. He drank half a glass of tea before sitting down at the computer. It took him a matter of seconds to pull up the ColonelCars’ website. There he read that it was with great sadness that the management had to announce the death of the company’s CEO, Tom Patrick O’Reilly, in a tragic accident. The management expressed their deepest sympathies to the director’s family and reassured their clients that their extensive international operations would continue to be run in the spirit of the deceased, and that 2005 already looked set to be a record year.

Abdallah had his confirmation and logged out.

He would never again think of his old university friend Tom O’Reilly.