The Secret Soldier (A John Wells Novel) - Softcover

Berenson, Alex

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0515150347 ISBN 13: 9780515150346

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2012

Synopsis

In Saudi Arabia, a series of terrorist attacks has put the Kingdom on edge. King Abdullah is losing his hold, and his own secret police cannot be trusted. With nowhere to turn, the king asks for ex-CIA agent John Wells's help.

Reluctantly, and with the secret blessing of his former CIA boss, Wells begins to unravel the conspiracy, and realizes that there is more than one country at stake-because the plotters want more than the fall of a monarch. They want to start the final battle between America and Islam-with only themselves as the victors...

About this title

About the Author:

As a reporter for The New York Times, Alex Berenson has covered topics ranging from the occupation of Iraq to the flooding of New Orleans to the financial crimes of Bernie Madoff. His previous novels include The Faithful Spy, winner of the 2007 Edgar Award, and The Ghost War. He lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Praise for

THE SECRET SOLDIER

“The Secret Soldier luxuriates in violence, positively raging with Tarantino-style carnage.”

—The New York Times

“Terrific at creating tension...Top-flight.”

—Booklist

THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE

“Berenson combines his thorough knowledge of the Middle East with an acquired sense of corporate intrigue in this bullet-paced, psychologically engaging tale of torture and espionage.”

—The New York Times

“Berenson tells a fast-paced and riveting tale.”

—Booklist

“Ingeniously plotted and fast-paced...Arguably Berenson’s best thriller yet, this outstanding novel stands on the top rung of commercial spy fiction.”

—Library Journal

“John Wells is back, lean and just mean enough...Wells is a refreshing thriller hero, sort of the anti–Jack Bauer.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“A superbly crafted spy thriller that doubles as a gripping mystery; the reader has no idea who the killer is until Wells figures it out.”

—Kirkus Reviews

THE SILENT MAN

“The Silent Man succeeds in seizing the [reader’s] attention from the start and never letting go.”

—The New York Times

“John Wells saves the world for the third time in as many books, but we wouldn’t have it any other way...Keeps the reader caring, and guessing, until the end.”

—Booklist

“A remarkable novel of espionage based on real-world threats and a chillingly plausible scenario.”

—The Calgary Sun

“It’s an exciting story and a timely one...Superior entertainment.”

—The Washington Post

“Well-plotted and thoughtful...Fast and furious when it needs to be, this is a welcome addition to an excellent series.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A swift and gripping read reminiscent of David Stone’s thrillers.”

—Library Journal

“Action-packed, thrilling, and just credible enough.”

—Kirkus Reviews

THE GHOST WAR

“The authenticity Berenson brings to his ripped-from-the-headlines stories makes them seem as vividly real and scary as nonfiction or the nightly news.”

—Booklist

“Heart-pumping adventure.”

—USA Today

“Mesmerizing...an extraordinary achievement.”

—The (Raleigh, NC) News & Observer

“An engaging story that will have readers captivated...A fast-paced story of international intrigue and espionage...Wells is a fine character who will likely propel Berenson’s thrillers to success for some time to come.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“A very sophisticated vision...Geopolitically savvy.”

—The New York Times

“A novel that offers a thrill a page and delivers a terrific story.”

—The (Toronto) Globe and Mail

THE FAITHFUL SPY

Winner of the Edgar® Award

“A well-crafted page-turner that addresses the most important issue of our time. It will keep you reading well into the night.”

—Vince Flynn

“One of the best espionage books of all time.”

—William Stevenson, author of Spymistress

“An intriguing thriller studded with alarming possibilities.”

—New York Daily News

“The best spy thriller in a long, long while.”

—The Kansas City Star

“Berenson offers a very American story—a sort of terrorist High Noon...Exciting.”

—The New York Times

“A hold-your-breath thriller...a grabber.”

—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

TITLES BY ALEX BERENSON

THE SECRET SOLDIER

THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE

THE SILENT MAN

THE GHOST WAR

THE FAITHFULSPY

THE NUMBER (nonfiction)

THE SECRET SOLDIER

ALEX BERENSON

JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

FOR MY WIFE

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

MANAMA,  BAHRAIN

JJ’s HAD COLD CARLSBERG ON TAP AND A DOZEN flat-screen televisions on its dark wooden walls. It was an above-average bar, generic Irish, and it would have fit in fine in London or Chicago. Instead it occupied the ground floor of a low-rise building in downtown Manama, the capital of Bahrain, a small island in the Persian Gulf.

By eleven p.m., JJ’s would be packed with men and women pressing their bodies together in search of pleasures great and small. Now, at nine, the bar was crowded enough to have a vibe, not too crowded to move. A skinny kid with bleached-blond hair spun Lady Gaga and Jay-Z from his iPod as a dozen women danced badly but enthusiastically. The crowd was mostly European expatriate workers, along with American sailors from the Fifth Fleet, which was headquartered in Bahrain.

Robby Duke had gotten to JJ’s early. The best girls were taken by midnight. Robby was twenty-eight, built like a rugby player, squat and wide, with long blond hair and an easy smile. Plenty of girls liked him, and he liked plenty of girls. Expat birds were all more or less the same. British, European, whatever, they came to the Gulf for adventure, and adventure usually meant a few easy nights.

Dwight Gasser was Robby’s wingman. He was soft-spoken, almost shy. He wasn’t much use as a wingman, but some women liked his curly hair and sleepy eyes. “Them two,” he said, nudging Robby toward the corner. A blonde with a round face and nice thick lips. The other, skinnier and darker. Spanish maybe. They sat side by side, facing a table with two empty seats.

“Yes, Your Highness.” Robby squared up and headed for them. Once he’d decided to go for it, he didn’t see the sense in mucking about.

“Room for two more?”

The blonde sipped her drink and looked at him like a copper who’d caught him pissing in an alley and wasn’t sure whether to give him a ticket or wave him on.

“All yours,” she finally said.

Robby extended a hand. “I’m Robby Duke.”

“Josephine.”

They shook. Robby sat. Robby looked around for Dwight, but he’d disappeared, as he sometimes did when an introduction didn’t seem to be going well. Annoying bastard. Though he’d be back soon enough, might even have a beer for Robby by way of apology.

“Josephine. A fellow commoner. Where you from? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“London.”

“The center of the universe.” He’d bet his right leg that she didn’t live in London.

“Slough, really.”

Slough was a suburb west of London, just past Heathrow Airport. Slough was more like it, Robby thought. He could line Slough up and send it into the right corner, and the keeper wouldn’t do anything but wave.

“Slough sounds like London to a Manchester boy like me.” He turned to the dark-haired girl. “You from London, too?”

“Rome.”

“Rome. The city of—” Robby couldn’t remember what Rome was the city of. “Anyhow, the plot thickens. What brings you ladies to JJ’s?”

“We’re cabin crew,” the Italian girl said. “For Emirates”—the biggest airline in the Middle East, known for its shiny new planes and equally shiny flight attendants.

“Emirates. Have you flown the A-three-eighty, then?”

“It’s a beast,” Josephine said. “Who thought a plane with eight hundred seats was a good idea?”

“Not glamorous, then?”

“About as glamorous as the Tube.”

“I like it,” the Italian said. “I know it’s stupid, but still, there’s something amazing about it. How something so big can fly.”

Robby turned to face the Italian. She had a big nose, but she wasn’t bad. Those dark eyes and that long black hair. And the accent. Most important, she looked happy to talk to him, unlike Josephine.“What’s your name, Italiano?”

“Cinzia.” Beside her, Josephine sighed. Have fun with Dwight, Robby almost said. You two will get along great. Instead, he raised his glass. “Here’s to Italy.”

“To Italy.”

“And to Bahrain on a Thursday night.” He took a long swallow of his beer. And we’re off.

THE BLACK MERCEDES E190 rolled down the King Fahad Causeway, the ten-mile bridge between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Below the asphalt was the water of the Persian Gulf, warm as a bathtub and nearly as flat.

Omar al-Rashid sat behind the wheel. His younger brother, Fakir, slept beside him in the passenger seat. A line of drool curled into Fakir’s pure white thobe, the long gown that Saudi men wore. Fakir had the soft bulk of a high school nose tackle. His thobe draped his round stomach like a pillowcase. He was eighteen, two years younger than Omar.

“Fakir.”

Fakir grunted irritably. “Let me sleep.”

“You’ve been asleep since the Eastern Province. And you’re drooling.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“You’re as stupid as a donkey.”

“Better to be stupid than scared.”

“I’m not scared.” Omar punched Fakir, his fist thumping against Fakir’s biceps. And then, wished he hadn’t, for Fakir didn’t complain, didn’t even rub his arm.

“It’s all right, brother, if you want to back out. We can do it without you.”

“I’m not scared.” For the first time in his life, Omar hated his brother. He was scared. Anyone would be scared. Anyone but a donkey like Fakir. But now he’d gone too far. The humiliation of quitting outweighed the fear of death. And maybe the imams were right. Maybe virgins and endless treasures awaited them on the other end.

Though he didn’t see the imams lining up to find out.

Three minutes later they reached the tiny barrier island that marked the border of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. A bored guard checked the Mercedes’s registration. A hundred meters on, an immigration agent swiped their passports and waved them through without asking their plans. Everyone knew why Saudis went to Bahrain. They went for a drink, or two, or ten. They went to hang out with their girlfriends without being hassled by the muttawa, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The Saudi religious police. They went to watch movies in public, movie theaters being another pleasure forbidden in the Kingdom.

After Bahraini immigration, they were waved into a shed for a customs inspection. An officer nodded toward the blue travel bag in the backseat. “Open it, please.” Omar unzipped the bag, revealing jeans, boots, and black T-shirts. The clothes were hardly suspicious. Saudi men often changed into Western-style clothes in Bahrain. “Enjoy your visit,” the officer said, and waved them on.

“We will,” Fakir said.

AT JJ’s, ROBBY WAS off his game. Dwight had won Cinzia’s attention, leaving Robby with Josephine. He decided to go the tried-and-true route of getting her drunk.

“Time for another round. What’s your pleasure?”

Josephine raised her glass, still half full. “No thanks, Frodo.”

“Frodo!” Robby said, in what he hoped sounded like mock horror. In reality the joke cut a bit close. “Hope I’m bigger than he is.”

“I hope so, too. For your sake.” She glanced at Cinzia.

“Figuring the odds you’ll be stuck with me?”

“Exactly.” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “All right, then. Vodka and tonic. Grey Goose.”

Of course, Grey Goose, Robbie thought. Top-shelf all the way, this one. And thin odds I’ll get more than a peck on the cheek. “One Grey Goose and tonic coming up.”

Five minutes later, he was back with fresh glasses. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

“What about you? Live here?”

“Indeed.” Even this one would melt a bit when she heard his next line. “I teach.” Robby grinned. “I know what you’re thinking. How could I teach? You probably think I barely made my O-levels”—the basic British high school graduation exams. “But these kids are special.”

“Special how?”

“Autistic. Developmentally disabled, we call it.”

“That must be hard.”

“I feel lucky every day.” Robby wasn’t lying. He did feel lucky. Lucky he wasn’t one of the monsters. Half of them spent their days spinning and screaming whop-whop-whop every ten seconds like they were getting paid to imitate helicopters. The other half punched you when you asked them to look you in the eyes like they were actual human beings. Once in a while, Robby felt he was getting through. Mostly he could have been playing video games in the corner for the good he did. Lucky, indeed.

“My cousin’s son, he’s autistic.” Josephine’s mouth curled into a smile Robby couldn’t read.

“Are you close with him?”

“Hah. Real little bugger, inn’t he? Talk to him, he runs off and bangs his head against the wall. Pick him up, he claws at you like you’re about to toss him out the window. Six months of his mum telling him, ‘Pick up the spoon, Jimmy, pick up the spoon.’ And he picks up a bloody spoon. And we’re supposed to pretend he’s solved cancer or some such. But come on, the kid’s basically a vegetable with arms and legs and a mouth for screaming. Pick up the spoon already and be done with it.”

Robby was speechless. Of course, what she’d said wasn’t that different from what he’d been thinking, but you weren’t supposed to say it. It wasn’t civilized.

“I wish you could see the look on your face. Like I’d suggested putting the darlings in the incinerator.”

“Is that what you think we should do?”

“Only if they misbehave.” She smiled. “My. I’ve shocked you again. I’m pulling your leg, Robby. Honest to God, I don’t have any idea what to do with them. Do you?”

“They’re people. Could have been any of us.”

Josephine took another sip of her Grey Goose. “Could have been, but it warn’t. Why should we all run around and pretend that the facts of life aren’t so?”

“Maybe sometimes pretending is the only way to get by.”

OMAR AND FAKIR HAD grown up in Majmaah, a desert town in north-central Saudi Arabia. Omar’s father, Faisal, was a big man who wore a red-and-white head scarf and kept his thobe short around his thick calves, the practice followed by conservative Muslims. He saw Omar and Fakir—the youngest sons of his third wife—only rarely.

By the time Omar reached puberty he understood that he was a spare, to be watered and fed in case his older brothers died. The knowledge hollowed his insides, but he never complained. His brother was simpler and happier than he. They were best friends, their strengths complementary. Omar helped Fakir with his lessons, and Fakir pulled Omar out of his doldrums. They spent their teens in a madrassa, a religious school, where they learned to recite the Quran by heart.

When Omar was seventeen and Fakir was fifteen, the madrassa’s imam brought the boys into his office to watch mujahid videos. Helicopters crashed into mountains, and Humvees exploded on desert roads. “One day you’ll have the chance to fight,” the imam said. “And you may give your life. But you needn’t fear. You will be remembered forever. In this world and the next.”

The imam couldn’t have chosen a better pitch for a boy who hardly believed he existed. Omar offered himself to the cause, and Fakir followed. A few months later, they were blindfolded and taken to a date farm tucked in a wadi—a desert valley whose low hills offered faint protection from the sun. A man who called himself Nawif trained them and two other teenagers for months, teaching them how to shoot and take cover. How to clean and strip assault rifles, to wire the fuses on a...

About this edition

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0515150347
• ISBN 13: 9780515150346
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528