Death In Oslo

FRIDAY 20 MAY 2005

When the news that President Bentley was still alive had made its way round the world on Thursday evening, European time, Abdallah al-Rahman had stopped all his usual activities and locked himself away in his office in the east wing.

It was now nearly six in the morning. He didn’t feel particularly tired, despite having been awake all night. He had tried to take a nap several times, on the low divan in front of the plasma screen, but a growing unease had kept him awake.

The President was about to land at an unspecified military base in the US. The CNN reporters were all talking over each other in their eagerness to guess where it was. The US Air Force photographers and cameramen who sent the images to TV channels all over the world, were extremely careful to avoid showing any of the surroundings or buildings that might indicate where the President was to touch American soil again.

It wasn’t over yet.

Without turning off the television, Abdallah sat down in front of his computer.

He typed in a number of search words, for the sixth time in six hours. Several thousand hits came up on the screen, so he narrowed down the search, which meant that he only got a few hundred. He was uncertain, but then he added yet another word in the search field.

Five articles.

He scrolled quickly through four of them. Nothing of interest there.

The fifth told him that the Trojan Horse attack would never take place.

He realised that after scanning only the first few lines, but forced himself to read the whole article three times before logging out and turning off the computer.

He went back to the divan, lay down and closed his eyes.

The FBI had swooped on a small town in Maine, with helicopters and lots of men. Local reporters had made a speculative link between the operation and the Helen Bentley case, and within the hour, the place was surrounded by journalists from all over the state. However, the local police soon assured people that the incident was in no way related. They had been working with the FBI for some time now, trying to catch a gang who were trapping endangered birds for sale on the black market. A local vet had been very helpful to the investigation. Unfortunately, one of the gang had been killed during the raid, but the police now had everything under control. The article included a photograph of the vet, who was so like Fayed that only the moustache would distinguish them.

Fayed had let him down.

Fayed was supposed to launch the attack, following the instructions in the coded letters that Abdallah had had to sacrifice three couriers to send.

Fayed was dead and Madam President was back in place.

Abdallah al-Rahman opened his eyes and got up from the divan. He started methodically to pull the pins out of the map. He sorted them by colour. They could be used again later.

There was a knock on the door.

He was surprised, given what time it was. But he opened the door. His youngest son was standing outside, dressed in his riding clothes. He was inconsolable.

‘Father,’ Rashid cried. ‘I was going to go with the others for a morning ride. But then I fell off and the others just rode on. They say I’m too little, and…’

The boy sobbed and showed his father a graze above his elbow.

‘There, there,’ Abdallah said, and hunkered down in front of his son. ‘You’ll just have to try again, that’s all. You’ll never manage to do anything if you don’t try and try again. I’ll come with you. Let’s go for a ride together.

‘Yes, but… I’m bleeding, Daddy!’

‘Rashid,’ Abdallah said, blowing on the wound. ‘We don’t give up just because we’ve had a minor defeat. It hurts for a while, but then we try again. Until we succeed. Do you understand?’

The boy nodded and dried his tears.

Abdallah took his son by the hand. As he was about to shut the door behind them, his eyes fell on the big map of America. The odd coloured pinhead could still be seen, stuck in at an angle, in a webbed pattern with no system or structure.

He stood there, wondering about dates. 2010, he thought to himself. By then I’ll be strong enough to try again. By 2010.

‘What did you say, Father?’

‘Nothing. Come, let’s go.’

He had already decided.