the advantage of superior knowledge on your side.”
The crown prince’s smile hardened into a grimace. The insult in Henry’s remark was plain for everyone to understand, as well as the threat behind it. That it came from such a small man, who was neither rich nor royal, who was noticeably crooked in his stance, made Henry’s remarks all the more galling. The king suddenly awakened from his trance and looked directly at Henry. The wrath in the old man’s face was plain.
“The world is going to experience a major pandemic,” Henry continued. “We can’t stop it. As of now, we have been able to contain it in Indonesia. Mecca is different. No doubt many Saudis have already traveled to Mecca on their daily business, possibly carrying the disease into the rest of the kingdom. We will soon know. We can be certain that many of the three million pilgrims are infected, and they will take this disease back to their own countries. No one will be able to stop its advance. What I’m asking you for is time. By quarantining the pilgrims, you can slow the progress of the disease and perhaps give scientists a head start to find a vaccine, or even a cure. At least, it would give governments a bit of time to prepare for what is about to happen.”
“How much time are you suggesting?”
“One month.”
The crown prince laughed. “But this is the flu!” he said. “We have the flu every year! We all get the flu, even the royal family!”
“This flu is more like a modern plague. The kingdom will be the first to feel the full force of this disease the moment you allow the pilgrims to leave the holy city. And as you say, even the royal family is not immune.”
For the first time, the crown prince looked at his advisers, apparently at a loss.
Then the blind cleric spoke, his milky eyes directed toward the king. He made some pronouncement that Majid had to translate. “The grand mufti, he says that Iran has done this to us.”
“If someone did this, they are not attacking Saudi Arabia, they are attacking humanity,” Henry said.
“This is what you say,” one of the shura councilors said. “But how can we know this is not a conspiracy of Iran to attack the kingdom? They want to strip us of our legitimacy. They accuse us of not being a proper custodian of the holy places. This is the agenda of the Shiite autocrats in Tehran. They are willing to destroy Islam to achieve their wicked goal. So when you tell us that a plague is among the pilgrims, we ask ourselves, ‘Who benefits from this?’ And we know the answer.”
A different councilor added, “The West would also like to destroy us.”
The mufti made another utterance.
“He says the proof is whether the Shiites are also affected by this disease,” Majid said. “I told him we will check on this.” Seeing the look in Henry’s eyes, he muttered, “I’m sorry, but we have to deal with this.”
One of the military men, whom Majid identified as the head of the National Guard, General al-Homayed, asked Henry how he imagined such a quarantine would be enforced. “There are many more pilgrims than we have police or soldiers,” he said. “And it is not a walled city. People can walk out in any direction. Are we to surround our holy city with tanks and troops and shoot any Muslim who tries to escape?”
“Obviously, I’m not a military man,” Henry said. “You can think of every person inside the city as being a suicide bomber. They don’t know that their bodies have been turned into weapons. No doubt they’re terrified. I wouldn’t blame them for wanting to flee. But anyone who leaves the city takes death with them. It would be your job to protect the people outside Mecca from being exposed.”
“And just let everybody inside fall ill to this disease? In a strange land, without their families? How many people will die if we impose this quarantine?”
“Hundreds of thousands,” Henry said. “Maybe as many as a million people.”
The princes and the courtiers and the king looked at Henry as if he were insane.
“A million Muslims,” the mufti impatiently burst out in English, as if his suspicions had been confirmed.
“A small number compared to those who will follow if this disease remains as virulent as it is now,” Henry said. “I cannot exaggerate how dangerous this may be. We have no medicines to alleviate the symptoms,