Page 77 of The New Girl

“I said he was obliged to.”

“Because Khalid’s daughter might be killed?”

She nodded. “And because, despite all his faults and failings, Khalid was better than the alternative.”

“I take it Omar disagreed.”

“He said it would be journalistically unethical for him to tell Khalid what he’d learned.”

“What did he do?”

“He went back to the Middle East to try to turn a rumor into an actual news story.”

“And you?”

“I pretended to be Omar.”

“How?”

She created a Yahoo account with an address that was a play on Omar’s name: [email protected]. Then she sent a series of e-mails to the Saudi Ministry of Media requesting an interview with His Royal Highness Prince Khalid bin Mohammed. There was no reply—not unusual where the Saudis were concerned—so she dispatched a warning to an address she found in Omar’s contacts. It was someone close to KBM, a senior man in his royal court.

“You told him about the plot?”

“Not in any detail.”

“Did you mention Reema?”

“No.”

A few days later Hanifa received an e-mail from the Saudi Embassy in Berlin. Khalid wanted Omar to return to Riyadh so they could meet. Hanifa’s response made it clear Omar would never set foot in the Kingdom again. A week passed. Then she received a final e-mail from the address of the senior man in Khalid’s court. He wanted Omar to come to the consulate in Istanbul the following Tuesday at one fifteen in the afternoon. Khalid would be waiting.

45

Berlin

When Omar returnedto Berlin, Hanifa told him what she had done in his name. Once again, they spoke in the Tiergarten, no phones, but this time it was obvious they were being followed. Omar was furious with her, though he hid his anger from the watching Saudi agents. His reporting trip to the Middle East had borne fruit. He had confirmed everything he had been told by his source in Cairo, including the involvement of a foreign power in the plot against Khalid. Omar now faced a difficult choice. If he wrote what he knew in the pages ofDer Spiegel, Khalid would use the information to crush the coup and consolidate his grip on power. But if Omar allowed the conspiracy to unfold as planned, an innocent child might be harmed, or even killed.

“And the invitation to come to Istanbul?” asked Gabriel.

“Omar thought it was a trap.”

“So why did he agree to go?”

“Because I convinced him.” Hanifa was silent for a moment. “I’m to blame for Omar’s death. He would have never walked into that consulate were it not for me.”

“How did you change his mind?”

“By telling him he was going to be a father.”

“You’re pregnant?”

“Iwaspregnant. I’m not anymore.”

Their conversation in the Tiergarten occurred on the Friday. Hanifa sent an e-mail to the address of Khalid’s aide and informed him that Omar would arrive at the consulate the following Tuesday, as requested, at 1:15 p.m. He spent Saturday and Sunday turning his recordings and notes into a coherent story forDer Spiegel, and on Monday he and Hanifa flew to Istanbul and checked into the InterContinental Hotel. That evening, as they strolled along the Bosporus, they were followed by both Saudi and Turkish surveillance teams.

“On Tuesday morning, Omar was so nervous I was afraid he might have a heart attack. I managed to calm him down. ‘If they’re going to kill you,’ I said, ‘the last place on earth they would do it is inside one of their consulates.’ We left the hotel at twelve thirty. The traffic was so terrible we barely made it on time. At the security barricades, Omar gave me his phone. Then he kissed me and went inside.”

It was 1:14 p.m. Shortly after three, Hanifa rang the consulate’s main number and asked if Omar was there. The man who answered said Omar had never arrived for his appointment. And when Hanifa called back an hour later, a different man said Omar had already left. At four fifteen she saw several men walk out of the building with large pieces of luggage. His Royal Highness Prince Khalid bin Mohammed was not one of them.