But it was just months later when he was with Shakira in her private quarters. They were both nude and covered in a thin sheen of sweat; around them the Egyptian cotton bedsheets were twisted and balled and damp, pillows strewn about the floor.
Drexler was deep in the aftereffects of postcoital calm, and not in the mood for a serious talk, but while Drexler had been in charge during their lovemaking, the second the sex was over, she reacquired her air of authority and detachment.
As a complete non sequitur Shakira sat up in the bed. “I’ve heard a rumor, Sebastian, and I need you to find out if it’s true.”
“Any chance I can take a shower first?”
When Shakira told him that she had learned Bianca was pregnant, Drexler was incredulous. He could envision no scenario where Ahmed would allow a mistress to have his baby.
But Shakira felt differently. She worried that a boy was on the way, and a boy was a threat to her children, to her own power in the nation.
If Drexler had been uncomfortable earlier with the prospect of informing on the president to his wife about an affair, now he was out of his mind with the quandary he found himself in.
He was in a corner, but he went to work. He began digging, hoping like hell there was no pregnancy, no child, but after a time he found, to his horror, that the mistress had indeed given Azzam a son. And, in the worst news of all, the boy was named after Ahmed’s father, the man who’d ruled Syria for thirty-five years. Instantly Drexler knew for certain he had information that Ahmed al-Azzam would kill to keep under wraps.
He worried about telling Shakira, but she demanded information, and he knew she could make things difficult at Meier if he did not reveal what he knew.
Drexler found himself once again in the center of a very dangerous game, so he did what he had to do. He picked a side. He knew that telling Shakira about baby Jamal would not give her reason to kill him, but if he told Ahmed Azzam about his discovery, the Syrian president might just kill him for finding out.
When he told her the news, she took it stoically, then said, “The only reason Ahmed has kept me around is because of my relationship in the Sunni community. When the war is over, when the Russians and Iranians have pushed out all the foreign threats, then he won’t need the help of the Sunni groups any longer. Think about it, Sebastian. If he starts a new family with his young Alawi concubine and his new child . . . what do you suppose he will do with me? And if something happens to me, what will happen to you? You know too much.”
Only because you made me an accessory after the fact, Drexler raged inside.
Shakira continued, thinking about all aspects of her and Drexler’s shared predicament. “And what of the money at Meier Privatbank? After all, it was you—their agent—who found out about the affair. Do you think Ahmed will leave the hundred million euros in Switzerland, knowing that they have this information about him? He will kill me, take the money from your bank, and you will be here in Syria with no benefactor at home or abroad. You will be a loose end.”
It occurred to Drexler that if he could only get away with strangling Shakira Azzam to death right then and there, it would solve a lot of his problems.
But it wouldn’t solve all of them and he would not get far, certainly not out of Syria. Drexler understood that for now, at least, his own personal fortunes were inexorably tied to the continued good health and good standing of the first lady.
“What do you propose we do?” he asked.
“Stopping this woman is the only way to safeguard the account at Meier, and that is your job, is it not?”
He shrugged. Despondent now.
She leaned forward to him with a conspiratorial look. “We’re in this together, Sebastian. We need to find a way to get rid of Bianca.”
The Swiss man looked at her like she was crazy. “How does that help you? If you kill his lover, you think that will make you safe?”
“He can’t know I did it, but once she’s gone, then I’ll be secure. You don’t know Ahmed. He is in love with this girl. Foolish, reckless love. He is too insulated now to ever find anyone else. The Russians want stability in his regime, and that means me in the palace, smoothing things over with the Sunnis. Ahmed will fight the Russians over his infatuation with that Spanish bitch, but he won’t go back to the drawing board if something happens to her.”
Drexler, resigned to his fate, began working for Shakira Azzam. But try as he might, he was not able to discover the location of the child. Bianca owned a home in Mezzeh 86, directly south of the palace, but it was locked and darkened now. Wherever she and her child were being kept, it was likely someplace ultra secret Azzam had set up for her.
And for Shakira’s part, she knew she could never kill Medina in Syria. Ahmed would learn of her involvement, and that would spell disaster for her. But when Drexler found out that Ahmed Azzam’s lover would be traveling to France, he helped Shakira concoct a scheme to co-opt ISIS into killing her, by framing her as the concubine of the emir of Kuwait, sworn enemies of the Islamic State.
* * *
? ? ?
Drexler had been sitting in his palace office, brooding over the events of the past two years, when the encrypted voice app on his mobile phone rang. He snatched it up, although he knew what he would hear.
“Oui?”
As expected, it was Henri Sauvage on the other line. “Eric? Something’s happened.”
Drexler listened to the police captain for several minutes without reply as he reported the deaths of Allard and Foss.
Sauvage closed his report by saying, “No video of the incident, but the police officers on the scene say this man, this American . . . he’s something else.”
“Keep working on finding Medina,” Drexler instructed.
“Dammit, man! This is big. Two of my men are dead, and French intelligence is working with the FSEU!”
“Wait. French intelligence? What do you mean by that?”
“A guy was rooting around the Thirty-Six this afternoon, asking questions about Foss and Allard. I didn’t know who he was, but my superiors gave him the run of the place. After he left I found out he was a recently retired internal security spook.”
“Name?” Drexler asked.
“Guys like that don’t drop names, Eric.”
Drexler thought a moment. “Answer me this. Was he midsixties, short with wavy silver hair, a faux highborn act but chewed fingernails?”
A pause. “You know him?”
“His name is Vincent Voland. I’ve never met him . . . but I know him well.”
“Listen,” Sauvage replied. “I didn’t sign on for street battles and dead cops and old spymasters rooting around my office. I don’t want any part of any of this anymore.”
Neither did Drexler. But although he found himself sympathetic to Sauvage’s sentiment, he knew he needed the man’s compliance.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Henri, and we both know why.” Just as Shakira had something on Drexler that she could use to doom him, Drexler had something on Sauvage. Evidence of all the crimes he’d committed on Syria’s behalf. The little stuff at first, the bigger stuff in the middle . . . and then the events of the past twenty-four hours.
No . . . Drexler knew Sauvage was in his back pocket. The Swiss agent said, “I’m coming up. Find Bianca Medina before I get there.”
“But—”
Drexler hung up the phone. Just then his assistant spoke over the speakerphone on his desk.
“Mr. Drexler?”
“Yes?”
“Sir . . . the president’s office called. President Azzam would like to speak with you privately this evening. Eleven p.m. in his office.”
Although his heart began hammering inside his chest, for the first time that day, Sebastian Drexler smiled.
CHAPTER 19