Keys to the Kingdom Read Free

of the traditional Saudi dress. Gallagher looked into their eyes and saw that either would cut his throat without hesitation. If things went wrong, maybe it would be he who would not get out alive.
    Abdallah ushered his honoured guest to the place beside him. The other men sat only when the new arrival was seated.  Immediately all the men had taken their places, the woman re-entered and poured tea.
    ‘This is Prince Kareem al Aziz,’ Abdallah said introducing the man sitting to his right.
    Prince Kareem ignored the introduction and picked up his teacup with his right hand. ‘May Allah bless this house,’ he said in Arabic letting the words roll off his tongue while staring into Gallagher’s face. ‘So you are the great Abu Ma’aath,’ the Prince’s English had an American twang. ‘I’ve heard many things about you. You are a very famous man.’ The dark eyes embedded in the copra coloured face bore suspiciously into Gallagher’s face. ‘I am told that you are a Muslim and loyal only to Allah. I am also told that you have come to Saudi Arabia to do Allah’s work and for that you are welcome. I hope that I have been told the truth because the wrath of Allah is swift for those who transgress him.’ He glanced theatrically at his two companions.
    ‘May you have long life, Highness,’ Gallagher replied in Arabic putting on his most obsequious manner. ‘I too have heard many things concerning you.’ On the flight from Belize to Europe he had devoured the dossier prepared for him on his future partner-in-crime. Kareem al Aziz was the forty-third and last son of Abdul Aziz. He wasn’t exactly the runt of the litter but in the Al Saud family lineage was everything and Kareem was right at the end of the food chain. Like many other of the minor princes he was frustrated by the fact that a small coterie of Abdul Aziz’s sons, the so-called Saudieri seven, held complete control of the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia was in no way a democracy. The Royal Family currently numbered some 4000 Princes and 30,000 other souls and that was a hungry beast to feed. The minor princes, like Kareem, were bought off with stipends from the Saudi state or by allowing them to claim ‘commissions’ on the vast amounts of money flowing through the Saudi economic system. Kareem wanted power and if that meant that his brother Princes would have to go under the chopper then so be it. There was a strain of butchery in the Al Sauds that hadn’t entirely disappeared when they had stuffed Abdul Aziz into a hole in the ground. The Prince shuffled on his cushion and Gallagher caught a glimpse of his left hand. The fingers were stiff and wrapped in the shape of a claw. No sooner had the hand appeared than it disappeared into the folds of Kareem’s thobe . Gallagher had heard about the deformities typifying the members of the Al Saud family. Several generations of intermarriage had produced a series of consanguineous deformities. Kareem’s hand was simply the tip of the iceberg. He wondered what maggots might be floating around in the Prince’s brain cells.
    Prince Kareem put down his teacup carefully and looked pointedly at Abdallah. ‘They have told me that you wish to help us change the way my country is governed. You have come highly recommended but I am wondering why we should trust you.’
    ‘In the name of Allah the most merciful,’ Gallagher began remaining totally cool. ‘I converted to Islam twenty-five years ago and since that date I have devoted myself to doing the work of God. I have fought the Israelis in Lebanon and throughout the world so that this boil on the behind of Islam could be lanced. And while I have been trying to remove one boil a second and more dangerous sore has been festering. The winds of revisionism have been blowing at the very heart of Islam. Those entrusted with the protection of the Holy Places have been straying from their sacred duty. They have given themselves over to fornication and the search for material