leap down and race toward him. I’m expecting Razz’s men to tear them apart. But when we look up, they’re gone. It’s the most amazing fucking thing I ever saw.”
The room is silent as el-Masri finishes. He is shaking his head, remembering.
“But this is not the end of the story, brothers. Gent hauls Salter to safety behind our Humvee. Salter is bleeding from everywhere, but he won’t go down. The Humvee is up front at the T-end of theambush, with Chutes and the others rushing toward us. I look up the hill and there is fucking Razz—fifty feet above us with a dozen Houthis and AQ motherfuckers. All I see is RPGs and AKs. It is that moment when you say to yourself, ‘So this is how it ends.’ Our guys are all looking up too. We are dead meat and we know it.
“Then Razz sees me. His eyes get big. I’m thinking, I got one-tenth of a second to come up with something. I raise my arm and point straight at him. ‘You owe me,’ I say. I don’t know where the fuck this comes from. It is like somebody else is saying it. And I don’t shout it neither. I just say it calm, like I’m speaking here right now.
“Razz looks at me. He looks at Salter. He has no clue who Salter is, but he knows he’s somebody big because he’s fifty fucking years old. All this is happening in slow motion. I see Razz raise his hands. The Houthi put up their guns. In the distance we can hear the sound of Black Hawks approaching. Razz makes a sign; his guys melt away up the slope. He looks at me and says, in English, ‘This is a card you can play only one time.’ Then he vanishes too.”
Two in the morning: I’m in el-Masri’s kitchen, washing my face in the sink, when he comes downstairs, carrying his holdall. The plane is waiting. We’re ready to roll.
“Gent,” he says, “we must ask for more money.”
He wants the code to contact Salter. This is business, he says.
I balk. My compensation, I tell el-Masri, is more than generous. I’m not in this to milk Salter. “Besides,” I say, “how do you know he’ll pay it?”
“Because you and me are indispensable to his enterprise.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he is telling us
bubkes
. In my business when we keep someone in the dark, it is so he can’t talk if he’s captured. And why don’t we want him to talk? Because whatever he’s doing for us is sofucking important we can’t take a chance. That’s you and me, my friend. I’m asking for double.”
I tell him to include me out.
“Gent, my friend. With that attitude, you will never get ahead in life.”
I won’t give him Salter’s code. El-Masri gets through anyway. Later, on the plane, he tells me. I ask if he got the money he wanted. He winks. “I always get it.”
While we’re at it, I ask el-Masri for his take on the attempted coup in Saudi Arabia. If anyone can dope out the inside story, it’s him.
“Let me tell you something, my friend. The Saudi royal family exists in a state of nonstop terror. They are sitting on the wealth of the world and they have no balls. They pay off everyone not to murder them in their sleep; this is how they live. Well, now King Nayif and his brothers have grown a sack. They won’t beg no more, not to the U.S.—and not to the Chinese or the Russians. Who started this uprising? They did. Why? To clean house in the army. And to throw a world-class scare into the oil markets.”
To what end, I ask. Gas in the States is already eight bucks a gallon. Prices can’t go any higher without the global economy collapsing.
“I don’t know, my friend, but I will tell you this. Whatever pie these princes are baking, if you lift the crust, you will find our benefactor.”
“You mean Salter?
El-Masri smiles. “Grinning like a fox.”
BOOK
THREE
THE EMPTY QUARTER
7
PSAB
WE ARE BOUND—EL-MASRI and I—for an area in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province called the Empty Quarter. It’s noon; the Egyptian and I are the only passengers on the Gulfstream 450. Conrad
The room is silent as el-Masri finishes. He is shaking his head, remembering.
“But this is not the end of the story, brothers. Gent hauls Salter to safety behind our Humvee. Salter is bleeding from everywhere, but he won’t go down. The Humvee is up front at the T-end of theambush, with Chutes and the others rushing toward us. I look up the hill and there is fucking Razz—fifty feet above us with a dozen Houthis and AQ motherfuckers. All I see is RPGs and AKs. It is that moment when you say to yourself, ‘So this is how it ends.’ Our guys are all looking up too. We are dead meat and we know it.
“Then Razz sees me. His eyes get big. I’m thinking, I got one-tenth of a second to come up with something. I raise my arm and point straight at him. ‘You owe me,’ I say. I don’t know where the fuck this comes from. It is like somebody else is saying it. And I don’t shout it neither. I just say it calm, like I’m speaking here right now.
“Razz looks at me. He looks at Salter. He has no clue who Salter is, but he knows he’s somebody big because he’s fifty fucking years old. All this is happening in slow motion. I see Razz raise his hands. The Houthi put up their guns. In the distance we can hear the sound of Black Hawks approaching. Razz makes a sign; his guys melt away up the slope. He looks at me and says, in English, ‘This is a card you can play only one time.’ Then he vanishes too.”
Two in the morning: I’m in el-Masri’s kitchen, washing my face in the sink, when he comes downstairs, carrying his holdall. The plane is waiting. We’re ready to roll.
“Gent,” he says, “we must ask for more money.”
He wants the code to contact Salter. This is business, he says.
I balk. My compensation, I tell el-Masri, is more than generous. I’m not in this to milk Salter. “Besides,” I say, “how do you know he’ll pay it?”
“Because you and me are indispensable to his enterprise.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he is telling us
bubkes
. In my business when we keep someone in the dark, it is so he can’t talk if he’s captured. And why don’t we want him to talk? Because whatever he’s doing for us is sofucking important we can’t take a chance. That’s you and me, my friend. I’m asking for double.”
I tell him to include me out.
“Gent, my friend. With that attitude, you will never get ahead in life.”
I won’t give him Salter’s code. El-Masri gets through anyway. Later, on the plane, he tells me. I ask if he got the money he wanted. He winks. “I always get it.”
While we’re at it, I ask el-Masri for his take on the attempted coup in Saudi Arabia. If anyone can dope out the inside story, it’s him.
“Let me tell you something, my friend. The Saudi royal family exists in a state of nonstop terror. They are sitting on the wealth of the world and they have no balls. They pay off everyone not to murder them in their sleep; this is how they live. Well, now King Nayif and his brothers have grown a sack. They won’t beg no more, not to the U.S.—and not to the Chinese or the Russians. Who started this uprising? They did. Why? To clean house in the army. And to throw a world-class scare into the oil markets.”
To what end, I ask. Gas in the States is already eight bucks a gallon. Prices can’t go any higher without the global economy collapsing.
“I don’t know, my friend, but I will tell you this. Whatever pie these princes are baking, if you lift the crust, you will find our benefactor.”
“You mean Salter?
El-Masri smiles. “Grinning like a fox.”
BOOK
THREE
THE EMPTY QUARTER
7
PSAB
WE ARE BOUND—EL-MASRI and I—for an area in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province called the Empty Quarter. It’s noon; the Egyptian and I are the only passengers on the Gulfstream 450. Conrad
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