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Chapter 60
DEMYAN NOTICED THEM AS soon as he walked through the revolving doors of the Ritz Carlton. They were different from the Mukhābarāt intelligence officers whose sole purpose was the gathering, distillation, and repurposing of information.
Dressed in all black, they were stationed at the hotels most critical points. The entrances and exits. They were what used to be referred to as mercenaries. These days better known as private protection forces. They were highly trained. Specializing in protection.
Demyan had gotten two-feet inside the Lobby of the Ritz Carlton when he was waylaid, by one of them – The Crown Prince’s personal bodyguards known as the P-Guards – over to the Ritz Carlton’s Lounge Bar that offered a spectacular view of the Grand Canal.
Demyan Zakharov, the son of a German Russian farmer stiffened his back and prepared himself to meet one of the richest men in the world.
But mostly, he was also about to meet one of the only two men in the world that he actually feared. There was no place on earth that they couldn’t get to him.
The man he was about to meet now, the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, was a man born into and raised in the full knowledge and traditions of the Sunni Arab world and all of its customs including Qiṣāṣ .
Demyan feared him more than he feared Spiridon. On the surface a quiet soft-spoken man. But Demyan knew a dangerous man when he met one.
The other man was Spiridon Ivanovich. But, lucky for Demyan, Spiridon was back in Moscow, unaware that he’d leveraged his reputation, as a soldier who could get things done, for a chance at real freedom and a new life.
Demyan stuck his left hand into his upper right coat pocket, assuring himself that the gold wrapped package containing the USB drive, he’d taken from Noah Daniels’ safe, was still in it as he walked slowly and deliberately into the Lounge Bar that had been cleared of the everyday ordinary man.
Sitting in a darkened corner of the bar, near the floor to ceiling windows was a tall, slim young man wearing the traditional Arab white thawb, along with the white keffiyeh or shemagh of piety. His Saudi counterpart always wore the red and white checked keffiyeh or shemagh that represented Hamas.
The young man looked up when Demyan and the P-Guardsman entered. He smiled slightly, but did not rise from his seat.
Demyan knew that because he wasn’t royal, wealthy, or famous, it was he who had to humble himself. He walked within three feet of the young man sitting in the chair and bowed. He then, raised his right hand, slowly, as not to antagonize the young man’s protective guards, and opened his coat. At that point, he waited. The young man nodded his head, giving Demyan permission to remove the unopened gold wrapped package containing the USB drive al-Utaybah had given him, from his coat pocket.
Demyan reached out his hand to give the Crown Prince the USB drive, but the P-Guard who’d escorted him into the bar stepped between him and the Prince. He took the drive and examined it, before handing it to the Prince, who examined it skeptically.
“It’s the real thing,” Demyan said, in English.
The Prince raised his eyes to meet Demyan’s and said, “It had better be. Your life depends on it.”
“You have my word.”
“And you have twenty-four hours.”
Demyan’s shoulders tensed.
“Madison and his team’s plane will be in the air shortly,” the Crown Prince answered in perfect English. “I have been assured by Ambassador al-Utaybah that they will be on their way within the next twenty-four hours. First to Syria, in order to rescue Former President Zakaria Khamis. Then, they’ll turn and head here, secretly of course, in an attempt to recover the woman and her secrets. You have until then to obtain the information we wish. Otherwise, I’ll allow my people to attempt to get the information; by whatever means necessary,” smiled a confident young Crown Prince.
Demyan backed up the three feet he’d advance before turning and leaving.
Mr. President 2016 