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  As she made her way to the round table in the middle of the room, everyone admired her athletic body and unflawed features. No one knew how old she was, and no one would ask, but she didn’t look a day older than forty. Graziella Marie Nabati’s life, filled with the privileges of money, not only granted her an extended middle age, it also gave her the best possible education and a healthy lifestyle. It was not arrogance that she radiated, it was confidence — the absolute conviction that the world around her had been organized exactly the way she wanted it. It bestowed on her a graceful sang-froid that made her peers pale by comparison. Her dark-brown eyes were sharp and piercing, and her dark hair was cut in a voguish bob that dropped to her strong jawline.

  She was beautiful — very beautiful — in the same way an iceberg is beautiful, and equally forbidding.

  When she arrived, the eleven people already seated at the enormous round oak table in the middle of the chamber all stood, bowed to her, and in chorus said, “Behold the daughter of Hagar of whom God said, ‘I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.’ The mother of Ishmael of whom God said, ‘I will make him into a great nation.’”

  Graziella bowed in acknowledgment and took her seat. Everyone followed suit. Her smile was as cold as it was seductive.

  In the center of the table was a small gold monument, about ten inches high —a miniature roundtable with three gold swords as legs. Atop rested a small wooden chest roughly the size of a modern-day shoebox.

  The chamber was circular, about ten yards in diameter. The four pillars looking as if they held the ceiling up were covered with inscribed gold plates. The floor was covered with a made-to-specifications Isfahan rug, the elite of Persian carpets, with silk foundations and silk inlaid kourk wool pile, displaying a Garden of Paradise pattern in the center. The paintings on the walls continued the Garden of Paradise theme of the floor rug with a lavish display of water features — canals, ponds, fountains, and waterfalls. There was a particularly striking painting of a bottlenose dolphin surrounded by other marine mammals of the Cetacean order, including porpoises, whales, and dolphins.

  The chamber below Graziella’s house was part of les carrières de Paris, better known as the Paris Catacombs — also at times referred to as “The World's Largest Grave” because of the more than six million bodies that have been buried there over the ages.

  The catacombs were created when rich limestone deposits were discovered below the Left Bank many centuries ago, and the limestone was excavated and used to build the city. In some places, the diggers delved up to ten stories underground, etching out massive cavities and tangled tunnels spreading over more than two hundred miles.

  In ancient times, these quarries were on the outskirts of the city. But over time, as the city of Paris expanded, it eventually covered the top of the old labyrinth, until almost half of the modern-day metropolis was located above the mines.

  During the eighteenth century, when Parisians had a problem with overcrowded cemeteries, the authorities ordered all city graveyards be dug up and the skeletons dumped in the underground tunnels. Millions of skeletons were moved, broken up, and stacked there like firewood.

  In 1788, after the riots in the Place de Grève, the Hôtel de Brienne, and Rue Meslée, the bodies of those dead were also dumped in the catacombs. In 1871, communards, members of the Paris Commune, killed a group of monarchists there. The French Resistance used the tunnel system during World War II. The Nazis established an underground bunker below Lycée Montaigne.

  In 2004, police found a movie theater in one of the caverns. It was fully equipped with a huge viewing screen and seating for an audience. There was projection equipment, film reels, a fully stocked bar, and a restaurant with tables and chairs to cater to the attending people. Who was responsible for it and how it was powered remains a mystery.

  To this day, large parts of the elaborate labyrinth remain unexplored, unmapped, and mysterious.

  Chapter 1 -

  Judicial processes

  Saudi Justice

  The Minister of Interior of Saudi Arabia’s stomach roiled as he listened to the voice of the Director of the Mabahith.

  “Yes, Minister, that’s correct. American Special Forces raided the compound of the Institute of Scientific Research and Development in Mecca two hours ago.”

  “Where precisely in Mecca did this happen?”

  “It is on the south side of Mecca, sir. About six miles from the city center in the mountains of Jabal Thawr.”

  The Minister sighed. The Mabahith, the Arabic word for intelligence, also known as the General Investigation Directorate, was the secret police agency of the Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia — his responsibility. And they were responsible for domestic security and counter-intelligence.

  “Make sure you keep me posted as more information comes to hand,” the Minister said as he put the phone down.

  The Minister was tense — although this attack came from a foreign power and, therefore, was not his bailiwick, he still couldn’t shake the uneasy sensation that one way or another this was going to land in his lap. He got out of bed, dressed, and as best he could, tried to prepare himself for a long, arduous day.

  It was a few minutes past eight a.m. when the Minister bowed before King al Saud.

  Ex officio, the Minister, was in regular consultation with the King, and he knew the monarch’s moods and mannerisms. The King was a man with unadulterated natural authority — the sort of man who could shout a person, even a group of people, down with a whisper.

  One look at the King, and the Minister had no reservations — the King was in a foul mood.

  It did not escape the Minister that the King didn’t invite him to sit down as he usually did. Neither did he address him by his name or title as he usually did.

  “I received a very perturbing telephone call from the President of the United States a short while ago,” he started.

  The Minister felt his blood run cold as the King relayed the information he received from the President and the Secretary of State of the United States of America.

  The Mabahith’s mandate was to deal with domestic security and counter-intelligence. For that reason, this was information the Minister was supposed to bring to the King, not the other way around. In fact, the Minister was expected to have already dealt with it by the time he spoke to the King.

  At the end of the disquieting chronicle, the King looked at the Minister with lifeless eyes and whispered only one question: “Why did I have to learn about this from the President of the United States and not from you as the Minister in charge of the Mabahith?”

  The Minister knew he was as good as dead if he showed any hesitation. If he tried any excuse, he would not exit the palace alive. In ancient times, this would have been the moment to fall on his knees in front of the King, begging for his life.

  He swallowed. “Your Majesty, I have no excuse. I beseech your mercy and your forgiveness. I am dumbfounded as to how this abhorrent plot could have been going on without the Mabahith’s knowledge. Your Majesty, all I can ask is that your divine authority will grant me the opportunity to deal with this wickedness at once.”

  The King half-lifted his index finger and said, “I want progress reports three times a day.”

  The Minister jumped up, bowed, and left in haste. He was on his cell phone by the time the door closed behind him. He already knew his political career had ended a moment ago. What was at stake now was his life.

  Within three hours, the Minister was pleased to inform the King that the three primary malefactors, Xavier Algosaibi, Ibrahimi El Fadl, Deputy Director of the General Intelligence Presidency, and Daiyan Nasser, Director of the Institute of Scientific Research and Development, were in custody, and interrogations were in progress.

  Over the next few days, several things worked in the Minister’s favor to get to the root of this evil cabal quickly.

  First, the Mabahith — a law unto itself — ran its own prisons,
its agents operated with impunity. Enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, denailing, flagellation, beatings, sleep deprivation, starvation, and the old favorite, electrocution, were standard operating procedures.

  Second was the fact that judicial proceedings in Saudi Arabia were conducted in secret. Witnesses, lawyers, juries, and evidence was a waste of time in a legal system dependent almost exclusively upon signed confessions obtained by the police.

  In the event where an accused appeared before a judge and repudiated the signed confession, the judge would refer the matter back to the police for further investigation. Rumor had it no one had ever gone before a judge for a second time to revoke their declaration of guilt — a testimony to the efficiency of the Mabahith and their enhanced interrogation techniques.

  All of this ensured a swift judicial process.

  Xavier Algosaibi, Ibrahimi El Fadl, and Daiyan Nasser’s judicial process commenced at eight thirty a.m. on the morning of the Wolves of Freydís’ raid on the Institute of Scientific Research and Development.

  Algosaibi had been weighing his options since two a.m., when he received the telephone call from Ibrahimi El Fadl. In his younger days, Algosaibi was the deputy director of the General Intelligence Presidency, where he had often worked closely with the Mabahith; he understood their modus operandi. So, when the news about the raid on the ISRD reached him, he had a few options — run and hide, suicide, or surrender.

  The Koran strictly forbade suicide, and he was still convinced he was doing the work of Allah — therefore suicide was out.

  Run and hide? I am an old man. Where can I go? I know how the King and the House of Saud operate — there is no place on the planet where they cannot reach me. The price on my head would lure the world’s assassins, bounty hunters, and opportunists. They would hunt me down like a dog, and if I am lucky, kill me. If I am not that lucky, they will bring me back here.

  First, he called his two children — his son, Mayon, and his daughter, Aisha — and while he was waiting for them, he made a few more phone calls to different contacts and friends to make final arrangements. Xavier Algosaibi was a prominent and revered member of the Wahhabi sect; he had many very loyal, affluent, and influential friends amongst them. Many of them owed him favors, and he was now calling in some of those. It was three a.m. when his children arrived at his house. He took them to his study, and for the next four and a half hours, he imparted to them their almost six thousand-year-old family history. The two of them left at seven-thirty a.m.

  When Hamza Kouri, the Director of Mabahith, and his agents, dressed in their notorious white tunics with red-and-white checkered headdresses, turned up at Algosaibi’s house shortly after nine a.m. and showed their identity cards to his security guards, he was already waiting for them.

  “Hamza, I have been expecting you and your men,” Algosaibi said.

  If Hamza Kouri was surprised by the almost cordial reception, he didn’t show it. “Mr. Algosaibi, I assume then you know why we are here?”

  “Yes, I know,” Algosaibi replied. “And I am ready to go with you. Insha-Allah, this will all be over soon.”

  “I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Algosaibi.” Hamza nodded to his men. Three of them came forward and placed handcuffs on the old man’s wrists, which he had already extended to them. He didn’t argue or resist. In fact, he didn’t say much further. There was going to be plenty of time for him to talk — he understood the Saudi justice system. He didn’t attempt to hide or destroy any evidence. That would only prolong the process. No, he gave his full cooperation and dutifully handed the agents everything they would need for their investigation.

  Ibrahimi El Fadl was the incumbent deputy director of the General Intelligence Presidency and was among the first to hear the news of the raid on the ISRD. He’d passed it on to his benefactor and counselor, Xavier Algosaibi, shortly after two a.m.

  El Fadl also had a few hours to weigh his options. Like Algosaibi, El Fadl had no misconceptions about his future — short and long-term. He also had three options — run and hide, surrender, or suicide.

  When the Mabahith agents opened his office door, he pulled the trigger. The agents were just in time to see his brains bespatter the wall behind his chair. It is possible the 9mm bullet that went through his brain at the time could have prevented the answer to the question How did it happen?

  Daiyan Nasser was in the hospital when the agents turned up. They ordered his family members out of the room, unceremoniously pulled him out of his bed, handcuffed him, and dragged him away.

  Nasser was a scientist; he didn’t understand the intricacies of the Saudi judicial system as well as his fellow perpetrators did. He had no political affiliations or ambitions. As far as he was concerned, he’d been hired to do a job, and he’d done it. He was a victim, not a criminal; therefore, he had nothing to fear.

  What Nasser didn’t know, and was about to find out, was the power of persuasion wielded by a heavy-duty truck battery fitted with a few lengths of electric wire, ending in alligator clamps clipped onto the genitals and nipples.

  Getting signed confessions from Algosaibi and Nasser about their guilt was a walk in the park for the experienced Mabahith interrogators. What took a bit more time was to extract all the information about their co-conspirators and their plans.

  The Minister, wanting to make absolutely sure this was a comprehensive inquiry, gave orders that all family and friends of the accused be included in the Mabahith’s investigation.

  Xavier Algosaibi’s purpose-built laptop, which he trusted to be absolutely one hundred percent secure, was saturated with the most intimate and elaborate material about the Foundation of the Real Princes of Saud. This proved to be the most valuable source of information. The heavy-duty truck batteries with alligator clamps helped to double-check specifics, refresh memories, and corroborate all the facts.

  By nightfall of the first day, all five members of the Foundation of the Real Princes of Saud with all their family members and friends, numbering more than four hundred, were in custody.

  The only two family members at-large were Algosaibi’s son and daughter, Mayon and Aisha. Hamza Kouri had already ordered an unprecedented massive manhunt to find them and assured the Minister their apprehension was imminent.

  USA Justice

  While Saudi Arabia had its own brand of justice, the American justice system, where the primary rule was the presumption of innocence, operated very differently. Presumption of innocence meant a person was assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. The prosecution had the burden of proof. In other words, the accused was not required to prove his or her innocence. Instead, it was the job of the prosecution to prove his or her guilt.

  Furthermore, the American interpretation of the dictum “justice must be seen to be done” guaranteed the entire judicial process was conducted in public. The accused’s right to legal representation, as well as independent, unbiased, and uncoerced evidence was a fundamental part of the process. If at any time during the trial process it was discovered that the accused was intimidated into making an incriminating confession, it would almost certainly guarantee the accused’s acquittal. Therefore, signed confessions of guilt were not as common in the American judicial system as in Saudi Arabia. And heavy-duty truck batteries fitted with alligator clamps — never.

  The American legal process was designed to protect the individual’s right to freedom. It was open to public scrutiny, and although it was thorough and fair, most of the time it was a very slow process.

  Similar to the situation in Saudi Arabia, on the American side of the investigations, there were also three prime suspects. They were Dwayne Miller, CEO of Competitive Response Solutions, Nate Gordon, one of the directors of Competitive Response Solutions, and George Robertson, the incumbent Vice President of the United States.

  In compliance with the laws of the United States, Gordon and Miller were brought before a judge within 48 hours of their arrest, which happened a few days afte
r the President had authorized Operation Freydís to extract Mackenzie and Liam from the facility in Saudi Arabia. The accused were duly informed of the pending legal charges, their right to retain counsel, and that they would be remanded in custody, which meant bail would be denied. They were not required to plead at the first appearance so they would have the opportunity to seek legal counsel and prepare their defense.

  In the months leading up to his arrest, Dwayne Miller had become disgruntled with his job as CEO of Competitive Response Solutions. He had made up his mind to abandon his position, not resign. He couldn’t. The reason being that his resignation would not be accepted because of his firsthand knowledge of the nature of CRS’s activities. It was an until-death-do-us-part, or more accurately, an only-over-your-dead-body situation.

  Miller had been looking for a way out of this quagmire, and although his arrest was not exactly how he would have wanted to get out of it, it was still better than being assassinated.

  Therefore, Dwayne Miller offered his full cooperation to the investigators and prosecutors. In exchange for his cooperation and testimony against the directors of CRS, he hoped to, first, stay alive. And second, he hoped to get away with a lighter sentence than anyone else.

  Miller’s cooperation ensured the speedy arrest and arraignment of the remaining CRS directors as well as many officials of CRS client organizations and other businesses that had provided services to CRS in the past.

  As the senior director and founding member of CRS, Nate Gordon didn’t have as many options as Dwayne Miller. He, Gordon, was right at the top of the pyramid of perpetrators, one of those who would have to face the consequences.

  Miller’s statements and the information collected from the CRS servers produced evidence against Gordon so overwhelming the prosecutors had absolutely no incentive to plea-bargain with him.