Two aces net $30 million reward

MOSUL, Iraq — All day, glaziers from Sheik Nawaf al-Zaydan Muhhmad’s contracting firm had been working on the windows of their employer’s ornate, three-story villa on the boulevard of Al Falaha in Mosul.

Mukhlis Jubori, Mr. al-Zaydan’s next-door neighbor and closest friend, was curious. The windows did not need replacing and glass has been scarce since the war. Where was Mr. al-Zaydan, he wondered? He had not seen him for almost three weeks.

That Sunday a week ago, as he watched the house, Mr. al-Zaydan finally appeared in his garden, and Mr. Jubori beckoned him to his porch.

“I offered him tea, and I saw how his hands shook as he reached out to accept the glass. I remember thinking how pale and frightened he seemed,” he says, recalling what was to be his last proper talk with Mr. al-Zaydan.

“He looked at me for a long time, and told me he was having bullet-proof glass installed. Then he told me why. He was trembling so hard his legs seemed to give way. He had to squat down on the steps of my house,” he said.

Mr. al-Zaydan’s confession shocked Mr. Jubori. It explained, too, why his neighbor had been so elusive of late. Until a few weeks ago, it had been Mr. al-Zaydan’s habit to take plastic chairs from his home and place then on the pavement outside his house each evening. Neighbors would wander by and drink Pepsi and sweet tea with him, discussing events.

Mr. al-Zaydan had money, standing and, most importantly, powerful connections. He was, in Western parlance, “nouveau riche” — his house was expensive, yet his furnishings, in keeping with his humble background, lacked taste.

That said, he also had the patronage of Saddam Hussein before the war, and his status in the town still commanded prestige. His walls were adorned with pictures of himself with the Husseins.

But the casual neighborly meetings on the pavement had ended abruptly. Hardly anyone now saw Mr. al-Zaydan or Shalan, his 19-year-old son, his wife and five daughters. What neighbors had noticed, however, was a new BMW parked at the side of his house.

Five days after his last conversation with Mr. al-Zaydan, Mr. Jubori sits again on his porch and smiles broadly, showing a mouthful of gold fillings.

Mr. al-Zaydan’s “eyes were full of fear,” says Mr. Jubori. “He said to me: ‘They asked to stay with me in my house, and how could I refuse? But I knew this would be a disaster for me.’

“He might have been frightened then, but I knew he would weasel his way out,” Mr. Jubori continues. “I know al-Zaydan, he is a schemer. Always he plots. He thinks, ‘What can I get out of this?’ That is his reaction to everything. al-Zaydan did, in the end, what he always does. He made money out of Saddam Hussein. A lot of it this time. The jackpot.”

This weekend, seven days after confessing to Mr. Jubori that Uday and Qusai, Saddam’s infamous, sadistic sons were holed up in his luxurious villa, Mr. al-Zaydan is a fugitive. His home is in ruins, he and his family are living in protective custody with the U.S. military, and he has been denounced as a dishonorable outcast by his former friends.

He is, however, an extremely wealthy fugitive. In their lifetime, Saddam’s sons may have showered him with money, land and favors, but, unwittingly, in death, they bequeathed him much more: $30 million, the price President Bush put on the heads of the Ace of Hearts and the Ace of Clubs in the coalition’s deck of most-wanted “cards.”

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