Chapter 17
Paris
“Excellency. A pleasure to see you again.”
“Save it, Paul,” said TNT. “It’s me. Not my father.”
“You’re looking well,” said Paul Sassoon. “My son relies on you for his fashion advice. You’re costing me quite a lot of money.”
“I’m paying you quite a lot of money,” said Tariq. “But I’m happy that your son has such good taste.”
“God forbid he wants one of your cars.”
“If all goes according to plan,” said Tariq, “one day very soon you will be able to give him one.”
Paul Sassoon was the family banker. Half Swiss, half Qatari. Fifty years old. Elegant. Monied. It was after midnight, and he looked like he’d just stepped out of a board meeting. Not a hair out of place, his tie just so, his three-piece suit absent a wrinkle.
Tariq plopped down on a sofa and kicked his feet onto a low table.
No suit for him. A flowing white thobe (to please his father) and vintage Adidas Robert Haillets straight out of the box, circa 1978, the year they started being known as “Stan Smiths.” He snapped a selfie of his shoes and posted it.
“Sorry, Paul,” he said, putting away the phone. “Have to keep the public happy.” He cracked a bottle of Pellegrino. “So then, what do the jackals want now?”
A new day. Tariq’s preferred time for business.
When others were asleep. When eyes were closed.
They sat together in the study on the fourth floor.
Bookshelves filled with leather-bound classics lined the walls, floor to ceiling.
Dumas, Hugo, Proust. All first editions.
There was a German globe dating from the seventeenth century and a Rembrandt self-portrait and a Tiffany lamp from the old New York Public Library.
“Lean times,” said Paul Sassoon. “Funding is drying up.”
“They lost a war,” said Tariq. “No one wants a repeat performance.”
“Their view is that with additional funding, a different outcome was possible.”
Tariq’s laugh was a cry of outrage. It was always the same. More money was the answer. When the intifada failed, it was for lack of money. When Hezbollah’s rockets missed their targets . . . lack of money. When October 7 brought down the wrath of God . . . lack of money.
In every instance, Tariq and his family had stepped up. Fifty million. One hundred. Two hundred. And for what? Tunnels. He was not paying them to build a subway system. He was paying them to kill Jews.
The problem, Tariq reasoned, was scale. Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS . . . none of them thought big enough. All suffered from the same limited perspective, the same lack of vision. It was up to Tariq to show them.
He rolled up his sleeves, and as he did most nights, when executing his responsibilities, he reflected on how he had arrived here, especially on the most recent part.
It had been a pleasant childhood. School in Doha, Amman, then in England.
Eton, of course. Then college in the States.
California. The Golden State. He was an adequate student, not an outstanding one.
Tariq was one of twenty children; he had one older brother, two younger sisters, and too many half brothers and sisters to count.
The cousins numbered in the hundreds. A veritable menagerie of Al-Sabahs.
In such an environment, it had been ingrained in him not to stand out.
To go along. To be one of many . . . and to please keep his voice down while he was at it.
He came to see that it was not just as an Al-Sabah but as a Qatari that he’d been taught not to seek an identity.
Everyone knew the Saudis. They had a brand.
Saudis were too often seen as loud and brash and vulgar and threw their money around for everyone to admire.
There was the story about a Saudi royal taking over the tenth floor of the Dorchester hotel, one of London’s finest, and making a fire in the hall to roast a lamb.
A sheikh straight out of the desert. This was an Arab, one step removed from a barbarian; a far cry from the media-savvy, progressive scion who ruled the country today—Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as “MBS”—yet only sixty years separated the two men.
The Emiratis came to prominence in the nineties, a country of seven tiny states ruled by the Maktoum family.
Smart, forceful, elegant, and disciplined.
Abu Dhabi had oil. Dubai didn’t. But Dubai did have warm weather, an attractive geographic location, a liberal tax code, and, not to be forgotten, alcohol, all under the guidance of a farseeing leader. Behold the miracle on the Gulf.
But what was Qatar’s identity? It was a small thumb sticking into the Persian Gulf, blessed with abundant natural gas, plenty of sand, three million natives all on the national dole, and the soccer World Cup, already forgotten. Qatar had no reputation, good or bad.
Growing up, Tariq decided that anonymity didn’t suit him.
Maybe it was because he’d spent too much time in the West. Maybe it was just how he was made.
Either way, he liked attention. He found his way to social media naturally.
First Myspace, then Facebook, and on to Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, Twitter (or X), and all their varied cousins.
It was the type of celebrity that suited him best. Attention without the messy part, that being human interaction.
For that he had family and more family and more after that.
So, when exactly did two million likes stop being enough to satisfy his hungry, attention-seeking soul?
When did his desire—no, his addiction—for likes morph into something sharper and more fiery, something called “ambition”?
Tariq could give you the date. It was the night two years before, when he’d taken over responsibility for the funding of extranational organizations.
He called them “freedom fighters.” Others called them more pejorative names.
This, then, was power. People kowtowed to him, both as Tariq, or TNT, and as the secret representative of the Qatari government.
And not just random handles in the Twittersphere.
These were important people. Government ministers, heads of state, ranking executives.
Movers. Shakers. The Davos crowd. Their attentions gratified him in a way his vain, meretricious interactions on social media never could.
It was Paul Sassoon who fueled his ambitions, rightly recognizing his God-given talents.
Tariq was smart, and by that he meant smarter than his brother, Jabr.
His sisters didn’t count, and thank goodness for that.
He was handsome. He was charismatic. More than that, he was Western.
He passed for one of them. No hook nose, no hooded eyes.
No one could call him a caricature. He was, in Sassoon’s words, the “new face of Qatar.”
TNT was also a dreamer, a fantasist, and maybe a fabulist too.
He saw palaces where others saw windmills.
But Don Quixote was poor, and Tariq al-Sabah was fabulously wealthy, a member of the richest family on planet earth.
So maybe he didn’t have to be a dreamer or a fantasist, and maybe the stories he told himself weren’t so far fetched.
Maybe he was a brilliant, transformational leader on the cusp of helping his beloved country realize its destiny as a guiding light for the Arab world.
And so to the business at hand.
“What are they asking for now?” he asked, settling back on the sofa.
Sassoon consulted his tablet. “Fifty for Hamas.”
“Since when did they become reasonable?” Tariq’s surprise was genuine.
“They’re desperate,” said Sassoon. “Out of munitions and matériel.”
“All the money will go to the Iranians,” said Tariq. “I don’t like it.”
“My understanding is that Russia is the primary supplier.”
Russia through Belarus through the Chechens, that bastard Kadyrov always taking his piece. Baksheesh. Tariq hated it.
“And Hezbollah?” he asked. Despite the annihilation of their entire command, the Shia militia maintained a considerable fighting force on Israel’s northern border and in the occupied territories.
“Two hundred,” said Sassoon. “Rockets are expensive.”
“They need more than rockets,” said Tariq.
He was growing bored. He could feel the seconds ticking.
His mind went to the Bugatti. For the first time, he wondered if LeClerc, the upright inspector, had been wise to the plot.
Had Tariq seen something in his eyes? A knowing glint?
It didn’t matter. LeClerc was in the hospital with a cranial hematoma.
Fool that he was, Tariq had sent flowers and a get-well card.
“Give Hamas their fifty,” said Tariq. “But only a hundred for Hezbollah. And nothing for ISIS.”
Paul Sassoon frowned.
“Forget it,” said Tariq, throwing up his hands.
“You win. Give Hezbollah what they want. They can have two hundred. Take the money from our accounts in Luxembourg. Buy a tanker. LNGs are going for cheap these days. Inflate the purchase price. Siphon the money into their accounts in Egypt and Sudan. Christ, I hate these sanctions.”
A smile. Sassoon noted all the information on his tablet. “And ISIS, really nothing?”
“Not a penny,” said Tariq. “Do I look like an easy mark?”
Sassoon smiled. He was smart enough not to answer. “And our lovely friend from Tel Aviv?”
“Upstairs sleeping.”
“Be careful,” said Sassoon. “She is too smart to believe she can change your mind.”
“You don’t know her,” said Tariq. “That one has a strong will.”
“Remember where she comes from,” said Sassoon. “Dispose of her as quickly as possible.”
“That has been my plan all along,” said Tariq. “I need to speak with her first.”
“Whatever she says, don’t believe it.”
“I’m an Arab,” said Tariq. “I don’t believe anyone.”
“Well said.”
“Sunday,” said Tariq, as he left the room. “A palace fit for four kings.”
“We shall be ready, emir,” said Sassoon, bowing his head.