The Brotherhood Conspiracy (6 page)

“But—” Gideon Goldsmith tried to interject, but was immediately stopped by Orhlon’s raised hand.

“And you, Mr. Mayor, take care of your wounded, your homeless, your streets and houses. And leave the future of the Mount to those with a clearer, more complete vision.”

Damascus, Syria

King Abbudin of Saudi Arabia reluctantly yielded the floor to his wild-eyed adversary across the conference table. Even here, among the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood—the long-standing, but little-known, ruling body of global Islam—Abbudin no longer enjoyed his unquestioned leadership of the past, nor the ability to squash a dissenter like a ripe melon. Not any longer.

During most of his reign, Abbudin felt a match for any Arab usurper. Years earlier his influence withstood a challenge from President Baqir al-Musawi of Syria, that Alawi Shi’a dog who used fear and his secret police to suppress the Sunni majority of his country. Of course, to keep their two Sunni populations at peace, he needed to marry one of al-Musawi’s cousins, making her one of his thirty wives.

Abbudin was the sixth of the Saudi kings, all sons of Abdul Aziz al Saud, the first Saudi king. In 1902, twelve years after the Saud family was driven into exile by the Al Rashid dynasty, Abdul Aziz recaptured Riyadh with just twenty men. Raider, plunderer, and charismatic leader, Abdul Aziz overcame family feuds, tamed the nomads, and, in 1932, completed his unification of the Arabian peninsula into one Sunni nation—with the help of millions in British pounds sterling. Six years later, oil was discovered under the desert sands. And the House of Saud took permanent control of the Saudi throne—and its oil fields.

One of Abdul Aziz’s thirty-seven sons from sixteen wives, Abbudin officially succeeded his half-brother, King Fahd, in 2005. He was regent, and defacto ruler of Saudi Arabia since 1996, when Fahd was incapacitated by a major stroke. Thus it had been Abbudin who deftly maneuvered the Saudi kingdom through the rise of Islamic radicalism, the second Gulf War, and the emergence of domestic unrest that slithered unseen into the nation’s consciousness.

Round of cheek and jowl, wet sandbags under his dark, questioning eyes, Abbudin was unlike the four brothers who preceded him. He possessed neither the passion for financial and social reform of Faisal, the royal bearing and statesmanship of Khalid, nor the political deftness of Fahd, who supported both Palestinian and American interests in the Middle East. Where his predecessors were successful in maintaining Saudi wealth and power, Abbudin dealt with a changing world, one that consistently nibbled away at the edges of his kingdom.

Now eighty-four, still shrewd and calculating behind his rimless glasses, Abbudin bent with the winds of change, giving room but never giving way.
Soon, this Shi’ite anarchist sitting across the table would feel the sharpness of his teeth. But, today, in this council, he must yield. The time for revenge had not yet come.

Other than those around this table, King Abbudin knew that few in the world were aware that Imam Moussa al-Sadr was the true leader of Hezbollah, the deadly militia which now controlled not only the land but also the government of Lebanon. Fewer still were aware he was alive.

Imam Moussa al-Sadr was the founder of the first armed paramilitary force in Lebanon, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades Movement—or Amal—a lethal group of trained assassins. A member of a prominent family of Shi’ite theologians, Moussa al-Sadr was appointed the first head of the Supreme Islamic Shi’ite Council. The Resistance Brigades, and the Shi’ite Council, were the birthplaces of Hezbollah.

Al-Sadr mysteriously vanished in 1978 during a trip to Libya to meet with Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. His disappearance was a meticulously planned, flawlessly executed rescue, necessary to protect him from the Israeli spies who sought his life. Most of the watching world thought he had been assassinated by Qaddafi, his bitter enemy. The Islamic world mourned him as a martyr.

Now, after thirty years of leading Hezbollah from the shadows, al-Sadr stood before the leaders of Islam still fueled by the fires of religious fervor.

“My good friend,” al-Sadr said, slowly waving the back of his bronzed hand toward the Saudi king, “we are all aware of your inestimable wisdom and we are indebted to your thoughtful leadership through this dreadfully disorienting period in the history of Islam. The Arab world has benefited richly from the intelligent guidance of the House of Saud.”

Abbudin’s jaw clenched, causing a momentary thrust of the dark beard perched at the end of his chin. But Abbudin bided his time. He would wait for his moment of revenge for these barely veiled insults that slipped so softly from al-Sadr’s lips.

“I, for one, refuse to believe that any true Muslim would fail to join in the call to jihad. Perhaps,” al-Sadr insinuated, inclining his kaffiyeh ever so slightly in the Saudi king’s direction, “in the past, there may have been economic or political or religious differences that kept us divided. But now . . . now . . . how can we be anything but united?”

Al-Sadr’s burning gaze swept around the table.

“The Haram al-Sharif has been desecrated, the beautiful Dome has been
destroyed. Our Al-Aqsa Mosque no longer exists. And the Zionists refuse to allow us access to either bury our dead or save our holy sites. Who knows what rape they are perpetrating within the Haram.”

Moussa al-Sadr’s power and influence within the Muslim Brotherhood grew exponentially when Hezbollah’s heavily armed and well-trained militia humbled the vaunted armies of Israel, forcing the Jews to scramble back across their fortified borders after an ill-advised invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

But it was the Americans who had led Abbudin to this precipice. Foolishly, he believed the younger Bush would be as wise as his father. Abbudin lived with deep regret for the younger Bush’s weakness, his hatred for that madman in Baghdad, hatred that absorbed his good sense and blinded him to prudence. There had been no weapons of mass destruction. But misguided and misdirected intelligence had led the West into an endless land war in Asia.

As a result, America reinforced its image in the Arab world as the Great Satan, the Shi’a religious fanatics in Tehran were racing joyously toward nuclear war, and King Abbudin, the once undisputed leader of the Arab world, felt as if he no longer led anyone. This was a world which had no place for Abbudin’s calculated, self-serving version of moderation.

“As Protector of the Two Temples, the family Saud is also dedicated to protecting Islam’s revered al-Haram al-Sharif,” Abbudin said to the assembled members of the Brotherhood. “But, what can be protected that has already been destroyed? This earthquake was an act of God. The Israelis are only trying to stabilize a dangerous situation. An act of God is no reason to call for jihad.”

Abbudin remained regal in bearing, the power of his wealth radiating through his long, embroidered robes. But few around the table appeared to be impressed.

“Your esteemed majesty must be correct.” Al-Sadr’s words slithered across the table like a viper on the prowl. “The Zionist pigs would never do anything to benefit themselves at the expense of their Arab brothers. As the king of the Saud claims, we can all put our trust in Israel’s protection of Islam’s shrines.”

Silence filled the spacious room.

“Fool!” Imam al-Sadr leapt to his feet. “Puppet! You have placed your trust in the Americans rather than your own people, and what have you reaped? Personal wealth, and the enmity of all true Muslims. We have already waited too long.”

Abbudin watched as others got to their feet. “The Zionists continue their
aggression—Gaza, West Bank, Jerusalem, and now the Haram al-Sharif itself,” al-Sadr raged. “Arabs must no longer bow to the yoke of Zion. And we must no longer wait for the weak to find their strength.”

Al-Sadr’s right arm rose, a specter in black, a gnarled finger pointing at King Abbudin. “It is time we wipe the world clean of Zion,” he shouted, as those around him pounded the table with their fists. “And all those who give succor to the pigs of Israel. It is jihad, and nothing less, that will restore the Haram and the holy city into our hands.”

Jerusalem

Style eluded him, no matter how hard he tried. Keeping up with the example set by the prime minister was beyond his level of competence.

Chaim Shomsky purchased only expensive suits. All his shirts were handmade, his ties from Venice.

Yet he always looked like a schlump.

Shomsky spilled over the edges of the leather chair in the prime minister’s makeshift office, trying to find the crease that once defined his pants. His clothes were disheveled, as always, but his mind was precisely tuned to the times.

Eliazar Baruk’s chief of staff since the early days of Baruk’s first campaign, Shomsky held the pulse of the prime minister’s office firmly in his flabby hand, another of the misleading dichotomies that populated Shomsky’s life and work.

Shomsky was no schlump. He was the architect of Baruk’s surprising run to the prime minister’s office and was the glue that held Baruk’s ruling coalition together, although that unity was often purchased with promises yet to be repaid.

Shomsky rubbed a handkerchief over his perpetually perspiring bald head. The droplets ran alongside his eyes—black and lifeless like those of a shark—and over his round, reddened cheeks.

“Elie, you’ve got to get control of these situations, or they will destroy you,” said Shomsky, staring down Baruk. “The wolves are out for blood—and it’s your blood they want. Thank God the earthquake damage was limited to the area around the Mount. Still, you’ve got thousands of refugees living in tent cities out in the fields, hospitals are packed with the injured, hundreds of the buildings in the city need to be inspected to see if they are structurally sound, and the Arabs are apoplectic about the Temple Mount. All of that,” Shomsky said, waving his hands in the air, “and the newspapers are still running stories
about campaign financing. We have to get their attention off our contributors. And we must devise a solution to the Temple Mount.”

Baruk was no pushover. Shomsky learned that on the campaign trail. But Baruk had also evolved into a pragmatic politician, which gave Shomsky the edge he needed for manipulation. One of Baruk’s hot buttons—the prime minister’s fatal flaw—was his desire for a legacy of greatness.

Shomsky often played to that desire in order to exercise power.

“The prosecutor has interviewed Meyer Feldberg,” said Shomsky.

Baruk twisted uncomfortably in his chair, grimaced, and set his hands on the desk in front of him. “You said they would never get to Meyer.”

It was difficult to suppress the grin. Shomsky loved these moments when he could exert some control over the prime minister. Tall, thin, and unflappable, Eliazar Baruk had come to his position from an unusual direction, the first lawyer to serve as PM. Dean of the school of law at Tel Aviv University, Baruk projected a patrician’s disdain for the mundane. But, now, with the campaign finance investigators at his heels, the fastidiously polished exterior was beginning to show some cracks.

“The prosecutor I can’t control,” said Shomsky, shrugging his massive shoulders with a sigh, the movement bunching the expensive suit jacket into a ball behind his back. “And our friend the banker, I’m afraid, has left too many loose ends. Which is why you must act quickly on the Mount.”

Baruk picked up a pencil from his desktop and began absently chewing on the eraser.

Good, now I’ve got him worried.

Baruk took the pencil from his mouth and waved it vaguely toward the ceiling.

“There is no solution to the Mount,” said Baruk. His words had all the life of gray clouds.

Shomsky shifted himself closer to the desk, casting a glance over the top of wire-rimmed glasses that perched precariously on the down slope of his giant, splayed nose.

“Exactly,” said Shomsky, tapping a pudgy finger on the desktop to pierce Baruk’s growing anxiety. “There is no solution to the Mount. So we make a solution that solves our problems, as well.”

Baruk’s hand stopped in midair, the pencil failing to reach his mouth. “How?”

Shomsky smiled, and a chill entered the room.

“We make you a hero of Israel . . . and indispensable to the future safety of the nation.”

“Again . . . how?”

Shomsky had waited patiently for the past hour, waiting precisely for this moment. Now was the time to push the button.

“First, you announce that the Temple Mount will be rebuilt.”

“And then?”

“Then you tell the Arabs they’re not coming back.”

Baruk dropped the pencil and firmly grasped the edge of his desk. Shomsky felt the full weight of the prime minister’s formidable personality.

“That would mean war.”

Shomsky shrugged. “We could sneeze and it would mean war. We have fought them seven times, and we will fight them again. War with the Arabs is inevitable, someday. We just need to make it on our day. But no, Eliazar . . . denying the Arabs access to the Temple Mount would not mean war, at least not right away. The Arabs will erupt, yes. All of our enemies—Russia, Iran, North Korea—will scream threats. Even the Americans will be distressed. But it will buy us time, Elie. Time we desperately need to sweep away this investigation while the country, the world, looks elsewhere. Look, we tell the world that we’re just trying to make the Mount safe, stable once again. That’s where the earthquake did its worst damage. So, we’ll rebuild the Temple platform. But, for the time being, the Arabs are not coming back. Nobody builds anything on top of the Temple Mount until we are certain that it is safe. Who could fault us for that?”