"Yes, that is very important, but if you want our plan to succeed, then we need to make sure the Americans don't find out what we're up to."

Grabbing his menu, Omar nodded with a frown of irritation on his face.

"Enough of this talk. I thought you were hungry." Omar gestured to the menu sitting untouched in front of David.

"We will eat and you will tell me about last night."

David grabbed the menu and glanced at the first page. Based on a conversation he had had with Omar some months earlier, he decided to make one more attempt at getting him to shut his mouth. Looking over the top of his menu David said, "Omar, trust no one completely, not me and most definitely not your family. You have said it yourself that you have relatives who are far too cozy with the Americans. You know as well as I that there are people in your family, pro-westerners, who are very jealous of your success. They would gladly sell you out to the Americans."

Omar slammed his menu down. The water glasses on the table jumped and the candle flickered.

"And what would the Americans do about it?" spat Omar.

"Kill a member of the Saudi royal family?

Never!"

David nodded, if for no other reason than to calm the Prince. His slight outburst had attracted some unwanted attention. Omar was probably right. The Americans were unlikely to assassinate him, but they might find someone else to do it. On the other hand, the Americans wouldn't think twice about killing David.

David looked over his menu and decided it was best to change the subject.

"How are things with the Ambassador?"

"Fine," snapped Omar.

" Devon has already wired him half the money and he will get the other half on Monday. We own him."

David was pleased to hear this. The Ambassador would be a vital part of their overall plan. Things were going exceedingly well but David knew he should temper his optimism. Hebron had worked out beyond David's wildest dreams. Freidman had overplayed his hand and now had a massacre to explain. Tomorrow he would fly to America to carry out the next phase of the operation.

it wasn't the Americans, the French or the Israelis who were currently on the job, but the British. Alan Church's sailboat was berthed in the harbor not far from the massive yacht he'd been following for weeks. His most recent report had stirred some guarded interest back at MI6 in London. His orders were to maintain surveillance, and see if he could identify the man who had met with Prince Omar. Apparently the photographs he had snapped in Monaco were either not good enough to get a positive identification, or the man was unknown.

Church had been sitting at the bar keeping an eye on the Prince and his guests when in walked the very man in whom headquarters had shown an interest. The handsome Arab spoke to the Prince in a manner that suggested he was more than just another one of Omar's abundant sycophants. After a brief exchange Prince Omar and the mysterious individual went unaccompanied to the dining room where they were seated at a remote table.

A longtime follower of the Saudi royal family, Church was more familiar than most with the turmoil and tumult that bubbled just beneath the calm veneer of the very private clan. The spoiled consortium of relatives numbering just over 5,000 sat atop a powder keg of some twenty-three million subjects who were growing increasingly impatient with the excesses of the ruling family.

For years, the House of Saud had tried to placate religious fanatics in their country by building them lavish mosques and madras as The ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi sect prospered more than any other group during this time, and now held great sway and power with an increasingly unruly populace.

Church was unsure if he would see it in his lifetime, but he was confident that the days of the Saudi monarchy were numbered. They had sowed the seeds of their own destruction by funding religious fanatics who would never tolerate their secular ways and gluttonous lifestyles. Omar was one such royal. Living in the lap of western luxury he tried to assuage his guilt by paying penance to the ultraconservatives of a faith that he was born into, but one that he had never seriously practiced or believed in.

Church informed the maitre d' that he was ready to be seated for dinner. Cannes was a town where people partied well into the night, and the evening dinner crowd was still light. The man escorted Church through the restaurant to a table that was surprisingly closer to the Prince than he would have liked. Church noticed the Prince's guest give him a suspicious glance.

Knowing the limitations of his listening device, and not wanting to raise undue suspicion, Church stopped the maitre d' and pointed to a table that was closer to the bar and farther away from the subjects. The two men reversed course and left Prince Omar and his guest to talk without fear of being heard.

Sitting with his back to the wall, the British agent now had a perfectly good view of both the bar and the Prince and his acquaintance. Personally, he was more interested in the four women the Prince had left in the bar, but duty was duty, so he turned his attention to the matter at hand.

He retrieved a case from the breast pocket of his suit coat and donned his reading glasses. After fumbling with the case for a second he placed it on the table with the open end pointed directly at the two men conversing in the far corner of the restaurant. With the tiny directional microphone and recorder now doing the tough work for him, Church opened the wine menu and began searching for a nice expensive bottle of Bordeaux, courtesy of the British government.

FORTY THREE.

Kennedy was back at Langley sitting in her large corner office on the seventh floor. It was nearing three in the afternoon, and on most Saturdays she would not be in the office this late, but it was pouring outside and her son Tommy was at a friend's house until five. Her seven-year-old was getting more and more independent, which to Kennedy was both good and bad. Good, because he was a little less demanding of her time, and bad, because he was a little less needy of her affection.

At seven, Tommy was coming out of his shell. His reserved manner had worried his teachers more than it had his mother. Others assumed it was the divorce that had caused young Thomas to be so shy, but Kennedy thought it had more to do with the fact that his mother didn't really speak for the first five years of her life, and to this day opened her mouth only when she really needed to.

Kennedy looked at her son's shy demeanor as a positive. Just like his mother he was very cautious around strangers, slow to anger and deeply introspective. The boy had a wonderful imagination, and was capable of playing by himself for hours on end. On the other hand, he was also capable of burying his mother under an avalanche of questions when it was least expected.

Now in the first grade he was making friends, playing sports and getting perfect marks, which was no surprise considering the IQ of his parents. While his father may not have been the most responsible and selfless man, he was nonetheless very smart. Fortunately, he didn't come around often. In Kennedy's mind he was a distraction from an otherwise tranquil and loving home.

There were other male role models around. Tommy adored Mitch and just so happened to have a crush on his new bride. Mitch constantly prodded her son to get involved in sports and loved to take him up to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles. Next summer Mitch had promised to teach Tommy how to water ski, and now that she and Anna had reached an understanding, it was likely that they would see more of each other.

There was also the quirky Frenchman a few doors down, Mr. Soucheray, who hung out in his garage all day listening to the radio, tinkering with an endless array of gadgets and pursuing his lifelong fascination with the internal combustion engine. Thanks to him, Tommy probably knew more about cars, motorcycles and anything that ran on gasoline, than probably any seven-year-old in the country.