The Negotiator - Page 7
Scanlon sighed and flicked open the file. The title page read simply:
THE DESTRUCTION AND FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SA’UD
“Holy shit,” said Scanlon.
“No,” said Miller calmly. “Holy Terror. Read on.”
Islam: The religion of Islam was established through the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed around A.D. 622 and today encompasses between 800 million and 1 billion people. Unlike Christianity it has no consecrated priests; its religious leaders are laymen respected for their moral or intellectual qualities. The doctrines of Mohammed are laid down in the Koran.
Sects: Ninety percent of Moslems are of the Sunni (orthodox) branch. The most important minority is the Shi’ah (partisan) sect. The crucial difference is that the Sunnis follow the recorded statements of the Prophet, known as the Hadith (traditions), while the Shi’ites follow and accord divine infallibility to whoever is their current leader, or Imam. The strongholds of Shi’ism are Iran (93 percent) and Iraq (55 percent). Six percent of Saudi Arabians are Shi’ites, a persecuted, hate-filled minority whose leader is in hiding and who work mainly around the Hasa oil fields.
Fundamentalism: While Sunni fundamentalists do exist, the true home of fundamentalism is within the Shi’ah sect. This sect-within-a-sect predicates absolute adherence to the Koran as interpreted by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, who has not been replaced.
Hezb Allah: Within Iran, the true and ultimate fundamentalist creed is contained within the army of fanatics who style themselves the Party of God, or Hezb Allah. Elsewhere, fundamentalists operate under different names, but for the purposes of this report, Hezb Allah will do.
Aims and Creeds: The basic philosophy is that all of Islam should be brought back to, and eventually all the world brought to, the submission to the will of Allah interpreted by and demanded by Khomeini. On that road there are a number of prerequisites, three of which are of interest: All existing Moslem governments are illegitimate because they are not founded on unconditional submission to Allah—i.e., Khomeini; any coexistence between Hezb Allah and a secular Moslem government is inconceivable; it is the divine duty of Hezb Allah to punish with death all wrongdoers against Islam throughout the world, but especially heretics within Islam.
Methods
: The Hezb Allah has long decreed that in accomplishing this last aim there shall be no mercy, no compassion, no pity, no restraint, and no flinching—even to the point of self-martyrdom. They call this Holy Terror.
Proposal: To inspire, rally, activate, organize, and assist the Shi’ah zealots to massacre the six hundred leading and controlling members of the House of Sa’ud, thus destroying the dynasty and with it the government in Riyadh, which would then be replaced by a princeling prepared to accept an ongoing American military occupation of the Hasa fields and peg the price of crude at a level “suggested” by the U.S.A.
“Who the hell wrote this?” asked Scanlon as he put down the report, of which he had read only the first half.
“A man I’ve been using as a consultant these past twelve months,” said Miller. “Do you want to meet him?”
“He’s here?”
“Outside. He arrived ten minutes ago.”
“Sure,” said Scanlon. “Let’s take a look at this maniac.”
“In a moment,” said Miller.
The Cormack family, long before Professor John Cormack left academe to enter politics as a congressman from the state of Connecticut, had always had a summer vacation home on the island of Nantucket. He had come there first as a young teacher with his new bride thirty years earlier, before Nantucket became fashionable like Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod, and had been entranced by the clean-air simplicity of life there.
Lying due east of Martha’s Vineyard, off the Massachusetts coast, Nantucket then had its traditional fishing village, its Indian burial ground, its bracing winds and golden beaches, a few vacation homes, and not much else. Land was available and the young couple had scrimped and saved to purchase a four-acre plot at Shawkemo, along the strand from Children’s Beach and on the edge of the near-landlocked lagoon called simply the Harbor. There John Cormack had built his frame house, clad in overlapping weathered-gray boards, with wooden shingles on the roof and rough-hewn furniture, hooked rugs, and patchwork quilts inside.
Later there was more money, and improvements were made and some extensions added. When he first came to the White House and said he wished to spend his vacations at Nantucket, a minor hurricane descended on the old home. Experts arrived from Washington, looked in horror at the lack of space, the lack of security, of communications. ... They came back and said yes, Mr. President, that would be fine; they would just have to build quarters for a hundred Secret Service men, fix a helicopter pad, several cottages for visitors, secretaries, and household staff—there was no way Myra Cormack could continue to make the beds herself—oh, and maybe a satellite dish or two for the communications people. ... President Cormack had called the whole thing off.
Then, that November, he had taken a gamble with the man from Moscow, inviting Mikhail Gorbachev up to Nantucket for a long weekend. And the Russian had loved it.
His KGB heavies had been as distraught as the Secret Service men, but both leaders were adamant. The two men, wrapped against the knifing wind off Nantucket Sound (the Russian had brought a sable fur shapka for the American), took long walks along the beaches while KGB and Secret Service men plodded after them, others hid in the sere grass and muttered into communicators, a helicopter clawed its way through the winds above them, and a Coast Guard cutter pitched and plunged offshore.
No one tried to kill anybody. The two men strolled into Nantucket town unannounced and the fishermen at Straight Wharf showed them their fresh-caught lobsters and scallops. Gorbachev admired the catch and twinkled and beamed, and then they had a beer together at a dockside bar and walked back to Shawkemo, looking side by side like a bulldog and a stork.
At night, after steamed lobsters in the frame house, the defense experts from each side joined them and the interpreters, and they worked out the last points of principle and drafted their communiqué.
On Tuesday the press was allowed in—there had always been a token force pooling pictures and words, for after all this was America, but on Tuesday the massed battalions arrived. At noon the two men emerged onto the wooden veranda and the President read the communiqué. It announced the firm intention to put before the Central Committee and the Senate a wide-ranging and radical agreement to cut back conventional forces across the board and across the world. There were still some verification problems to be ironed out, a job for the technicians, and the specific details of what types of weaponry and how much were to be decommissioned, mothballed, scrapped, or aborted would be announced later. President Cormack spoke of peace with honor, peace with security, and peace with good will. Secretary Gorbachev nodded vigorously as the translation came through. No one mentioned then, though the press did later and at great length, that with the U.S. budget deficit, the Soviet economic chaos, and a looming oil crisis, neither superpower could finally afford a continuing arms race.
Two thousand miles away in Houston, Cyrus V. Miller switched off the television and stared at Scanlon.
“That man is going to strip us naked,” he said with quiet venom. “That man is dangerous. That man is a traitor.”
He recovered himself and strode to the desk intercom.
“Louise, would you send in Colonel Easterhouse now, please.”
Source: readsnovelonline.net