that his services were not required.
“Why not?”
“Because His Royal Highness told my minister that his daughter’s abduction was not the work of terrorists.”
“How could he have known that so quickly?”
“You’d have to ask him. But the logical explanation is—”
“He already knew who was behind it.”
They were gathered around a stack of files piled on Rousseau’s conference table. He opened one and removed a single photograph, which he placed before Gabriel and Sarah. A Range Rover riddled with bullet holes, a smashed Mercedes Maybach, a crumbled Citroën estate car. The corpses of the dead Saudi bodyguards had been removed. Their blood, however, was spattered over the interior of the Range Rover and the Maybach. There was a lot of blood, thought Gabriel, especially in the backseat of the limousine. He wondered whether some of it had been shed by the princess.
“There was at least one other vehicle involved, a Ford Transit van.” Rousseau pointed toward the grassy verge along the D14. “It was parked right here. Maybe the driver was looking under the hood or pretending to change a tire when the motorcade approached. Or maybe he didn’t bother.”
“How do you know it was a Ford Transit?”
“In a minute.” Rousseau pointed toward the smashed front end of the Citroën. “There were no witnesses, but the tire marks and the collision damage paint an accurate picture of what happened. The motorcade was heading west on the D14 toward the crown prince’s château. The Citroën was headed north on the D38. Obviously, it didn’t stop at the intersection. Based on the tire marks, the driver of the Maybach swerved to avoid the collision, but the Citroën struck the driver’s side of the limousine with enough force to damage the armor plating and force it off the road. The driver of the Range Rover slammed on his brakes and came to a stop behind the Maybach. In all likelihood, the four bodyguards were killed instantly. The ballistics and forensic analysis indicate the gunshots came from the direction of both the Citroën and the Ford Transit.”
“How did they get the girl out of an armor-plated car with bulletproof windows?”
Rousseau removed a second photograph from the file. It showed the passenger side of the Maybach. The armor-plated doors had been blown open—rather expertly, thought Gabriel. The Office could not have done it any better.
“I assume your forensics experts analyzed the blood inside the Maybach.”
“It came from two people, the male driver and the female bodyguard. Like the four bodyguards from the Range Rover, they were killed by nine-millimeter rounds. The markings on the shell casings are consistent with an HK MP5 or one of its variants.”
Rousseau produced another photograph. A Ford Transit, light gray. The photograph had been taken at night. The flash of the camera had illuminated a small patch of dry, rocky earth. It was not, thought Gabriel, the soil of the north of France.
“Where did they find it?”
“On a deserted road outside the village of Vielle-Aure. It’s—”
“In the Pyrenees a few miles from the Spanish border.”
“Sometimes I forget how well you know our country.” Rousseau pointed at one of the van’s tires. “It was a perfect match for the tracks found at the scene of the kidnapping.”
Gabriel studied the photograph of the van. “I assume it was stolen.”
“Of course. So was the Citroën.”
“Was there any blood in the storage compartment?”
Rousseau shook his head.
“What about DNA?”
“A great deal.”
“Any of it belong to Princess Reema?”
“We asked for a sample and were told in no uncertain terms we couldn’t have one.”
“By Khalid?”
Rousseau shook his head. “We’ve had no direct contact with the crown prince since he left France. All communication now flows through a certain Monsieur al-Madani of the Saudi Embassy in Paris.”
Sarah looked up suddenly. “Rafiq al-Madani?”
“You know him?”
Sarah made no reply.
“It is my assumption, Miss Bancroft, that you are either a current or former officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. Needless to say, your secrets are safe within these walls.”
“Rafiq al-Madani served at the Saudi Embassy in Washington for several years as the representative of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. It’s one of the official conduits the House of Saud uses to spread Wahhabism around the globe.”
Rousseau smiled charitably. “Yes, I know.”
“The FBI didn’t care much for al-Madani,” said Sarah. “And neither did the Counterterrorism Center at Langley. We didn’t like the company he’d kept before coming to Washington. And the FBI didn’t like some of the projects he was funding in America. The State Department quietly asked Riyadh to find work for him elsewhere. And much to our surprise, the Saudis agreed to our request.”
“Unfortunately,” said Rousseau, “they sent him to Paris. From the moment he arrived, he’s been funneling Saudi money and support to some of the most radical mosques in France. In our opinion, Rafiq al-Madani is a hard-liner and a true believer. He is also quite close to His Royal Highness. He is a frequent visitor to the prince’s château, and last summer he spent several days aboard his new yacht.”
“I take it al-Madani is a target of DGSI surveillance,” said Gabriel.
“Intermittent.”
“Do you suppose he knew Khalid’s daughter was going to school across the border in Geneva?”
Rousseau shrugged. “It’s hard to say. The crown prince told almost no one, and security at the school was very tight. It was handled by a man named Lucien Villard. He’s French, not Swiss. He used to work for the Service de la Protection.”
“Why was a veteran of an elite unit like the SDLP running security at a private school in Geneva?”
“Villard didn’t leave the service on the best of terms. There were rumors he was having an affair with the president’s wife. When the president found out about it, he had him fired. Apparently, Villard took the girl’s abduction quite hard. He resigned his post a few days later.”
“Where is he now?”
“Still in Geneva, I suppose. I can get you an address if you—”
“Don’t bother.” Gabriel contemplated the three photographs arrayed on the table.
“What are you thinking?” asked Rousseau.
“I’m wondering how many operatives it took to pull off something like
