Page 166 of Enemy Within
And then, they’d been summoned to Riyadh.
Faisal’s hand shook, trembling as he paced. Adam grabbed him and pulled him close, threaded their fingers together. They stood in the center of King Faisal al-Saud’s palace, waiting in the jeweled gardens for their summons to the terrace. Sapphires and rubies and emeralds inlaid in mosaics twinkled overhead and beneath their feet, scattering rainbows across tiles of white marble and turquoise waters, and the palms that shaded the garden. Roses burst in wild bloom, and bees buzzed from flower to flower.
Anyone could see them embracing. Anyone could see as Adam cradled Faisal’s face in his hands and stroked his cheeks.
“I am afraid,” Faisal whispered. “I don’t want to be banished. I don’t want to lose the last of my family.”
“You will always have me.” Adam tried to smile, but a part of him squirmed, his mind screaming that Faisal would only lose his family because of him. Because of what he’d done.
What if the worst happened? What if the king annulled their marriage, or declared it invalid in the eyes of Allah? What if they brought in an imam to rip apart the whole thing, and then arrest them both? Or, more likely, arrest Adam. He could disappear into the Saudi judicial system, die in some dank, dark dungeon, and no one would ever know. Maybe Faisal would one day receive a bill for his death.
Or maybe he’d just disappear.
What if there was a woman, some bride the king had picked out for Faisal? They could shred his marriage to Faisal and remarry him to their handpicked bride in one fell swoop.
Adam closed his eyes. Should they have even come back?
Faisal pressed his trembling lips to Adam’s. Now they were in truly dangerous territory. Anyone could be, and probably was, watching. They could explain away the closeness, the touching. But not a kiss.
He kissed him back, wrapping his arms around Faisal’s waist. If this was the last kiss, then he wanted it to be good.
Footsteps padded whisper-soft across the marble. A low cough broke them apart, sent them scattering like lightning had struck. A thin aide to the king stared at them both. “The king will see you now.”
Walking through the garden felt like he was walking to his death. Did death smell so sweet? Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, but it wasn’t from the heat anymore. His sweat was ice-cold and stank with fear. He’d faced terrorists, traitors to his nation, and torture, but facing Faisal’s family was what was going to do him in.
Faisal’s hand slipped into his. He laced their fingers together.
Ahead, King Faisal sat on a divan, an aubergine pillow dusted with gold thread. Lilies floated in a pond beside him, shaded by a thick palm. Tulips grew in clumps, a rainbow of grid squares interspersed with white marble tiles, like a checkerboard of flowers and negative space. Beyond, more roses grew, thickets of sunset orange and blood red next to royal purple and delicate peach.
Uncle Abdul knelt on a hand-woven rug in front of the king. He stared at them, his expression betraying nothing.
King Faisal motioned to twin rugs laid before him, next to Abdul. He spoke in Arabic. “Join us.”
Faisal bowed low, and then folded himself down before the king, sitting beside his uncle. Adam copied his movements, doing what he and Faisal had practiced. He wasn’t as smooth as Faisal, but he didn’t fall on his face, either.
The king peered at them both, silent. He was old, weathered from years in the desert, a long life in Riyadh. Flypaper-thin skin seemed painted on his bony hands, protruding from beneath his thick robes. When he finally spoke, his voice was rich and deep, melodious in a way that made Adam want to weep. “HafeedFaisal.” Even though Faisal wasn’t his direct grandson, he used the honorific. “My namesake. I have watched you grow from a boy to a man. My pride in you rose like the sun climbing over the desert. I chose your uncle to succeed me as king, and he tells me he has chosen you, out of all of his children, to succeed him as well. Do you know why this is?”
“No, Your Royal Highness,” Faisal whispered. “I never wanted to become king.”
King Faisal smiled. Wide gaps stretched between his square teeth. “One reason why it should be you. No one should want to be Saudi Arabia’s king. It is a thankless job, and more difficult every day. I am old and weary of this role.”
Adam tried to glance sidelong at Faisal, but Faisal’s eyes remained fixed on the rug threads.
“I am old,hafeed. Your uncle, even, is old. We are old men in a young world.” King Faisal sighed, his breath like desert wind. “Do you know our history,hafeed?”
Faisal nodded.
“Allow me to share a different telling of our tale. Two hundred years ago, our family made a deal withShaytan. We gained power over these lands, but looked the other way as the Wahhabis seized control of our dynasty’s mosques and education. Strict devotion to Allah. What could be the problem? A simple life of prayer and supplication. We were a finger of sand the world had forgotten, and our grandfathers could not see the future.”
Faisal shifted, his spine curling forward.
“There is nothing more dangerous to this Kingdom than the Wahhabi and Salafi clergy,hafeed.”
Adam stopped breathing. He looked up, breaking protocol, as his jaw dropped.
The king kept speaking. “Yallah, I have tried, Faisal, to pry free the claws of the Wahhabis. They are like raptors who have dug into their kill. They are not easily broken. Their rabid fundamentalism is no longer quaint. Salafi and Wahhabi leaders push for generations of our young Saudi men and women to become extremists. To embrace hatred and division, and reject the world. The Caliphate was born of these beliefs. Of desperate men yearning to return to the dark ages.
“A life of prayer and supplication is no longer what the Kingdom needs. We need a strong people. Educated. Our graduates can read the Quran, but cannot compute. We train no engineers. No scientists. These clerics, they try to block all of my education reforms. They do not reform their curriculum. They twist our sacred texts into hate. I sack them as fast as I can, but new clerics rise. They are a cancer in this Kingdom.” King Faisal shook his head. “Our Kingdom is changing,hafeed.The Middle East is changing, faster than we can keep up with. Our people hunger for more engagement with the world. We need a stronger, diversified economy. Private investment. Flow of ideas. We import workers, but not their ideas. We must be more open. Women must be offered the choice to learn, and to work, or our economy will collapse without the input of our whole population. We hover on a precipice. We must strengthen our Kingdom… before we are gone.”
