The Fusion Cage

XXI

‘This way, please.’

Assim Khan walked slowly, his shoes making no sound on the thick carpets. The interior of the palace was as hushed as the empty deserts and yet as cool as the breath of the clearest morning. His chest ached and twinged where the bullet had passed through it, and he knew that it was no more than luck and Allah’s guidance that had spared his life: an inch to the left and he would have been dead. Now, heavily dressed in bandages beneath his shirt, Assim mastered the pain and observed his unfamiliar surroundings.

Assim knew little of the residence in which he walked, led by two young manservants immaculately dressed and groomed. The palace was sand colored on the outside and had been built at a cost of some three hundred million dollars, that much he did know, but the rest was rumour. It was said to contain over three hundred rooms and one and a half thousand tons of Italian marble, with gold plated faucets and oriental silk carpets. He had heard it even had its own cinema and no less than five kitchens, each specializing in different cultural cuisines.

Assim was led through the cavernous interior to a plush waiting room adorned with some of the carpets he had heard about, great canvasses adorning the walls depicting members of the House of Saud and historical battle victories, epic desert scenes filled with war horses and flashing cutlasses.

Assim did not have to wait long before a tall man approached him from a side room, dressed in a designer suit. As was befitting Muslim dress codes, he wore no tie around the collar of his silk shirt, and his hair was immaculately parted as though painted upon his scalp. Assim noted the scent of a cologne likely more expensive than some cars, and a thick gold ring on the man’s finger encrusted with diamonds.

‘Assim,’ the man greeted him warmly. ‘I have heard much about you. My name is Rasheed, and I will not take too much of your time.’

‘It is my honor to be here,’ Assim replied, shaking his host’s firm, dry hand.

‘I apologize for not being able to bring you before the prince himself, but matters beyond the Kingdom keep him long overdue.’

Yemen, Assim recalled briefly, another uprising.

‘It is not a problem. What can I do for you, Rasheed?’

‘You have been working for an American, Huck Seavers, on our behalf.’

‘Yes, escort duties, some investigatory work.’

‘We have some further tasks for you to complete but now you will work for us directly, if that is okay with you?’

Assim shook himself out of the spell that Rasheed and this immaculate palace had put him under. This was business, and despite being made to feel as though he should do anything these people asked, he was not about to be manipulated.

‘That would depend on the terms,’ he said in a reasonable tone.

‘Of course,’ Rasheed smiled. ‘Perhaps your payment from Seavers Incorporated, multiplied by eight, would be satisfactory?’

Assim forced himself not to smile. ‘That would be perfectly acceptable.’

Rasheed smiled that perfect smile and produced five black and white photographs which he handed to Assim.

‘The payment will be made, in full, immediately. Please feel free to add any costs incurred to you between now and completion of the task. I take it you are familiar with the individuals in these images?’

Assim looked down at the pictures and he nodded. ‘I am. What would you have me do?’

Rasheed smiled and his voice dropped lower.

‘Find all of them and make them disappear. Permanently.’

Assim forced himself once again to nod, to not show any unwillingness to perform the actions required or to hesitate and cause doubt in his new employer.

‘It will be done,’ he said. ‘Do we have any idea where they are heading at this time?’

‘They were last seen fleeing for Damman and it is believed that they are Americans. We have solid evidence, intercepted from Mossad, that they and another American operative are at large in the Kingdom and are pursuing a man named Stanley Meyer.’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ Assim confirmed.

‘Remove them all,’ Rasheed said again. ‘No questions asked.’

Assim nodded as he scanned the images. ‘I have no questions. I will send word privately when the task is completed.’

‘Your professionalism precedes you,’ Rasheed said. ‘Good luck, Assim.’

Rasheed shook his hand once more, then turned and walked casually away having just condemned three men and two women to death. Assim looked down at the images and allowed a grim smile to spread upon his features, the pain in his chest forgotten now.

Ethan Warner, Nicola Lopez, Stanley Meyer and Amber Ryan were all to die. He had only to learn the name of the dark, tall American photographed leaving a private jet in Riyadh, the tail code clear in the background. Whoever he was, Assim thought to himself as he walked toward the palace exits, he was not long for this world.

The sun was high in the sky when Aaron Mitchell stepped out of the air — conditioned interior of the sedan and out onto the scorched asphalt of the metalled road. The heat of the lonely desert cloaked Mitchell, and for once he was dressed simply in slacks and a loose shirt, his sunglasses reflecting the barren wastes as he observed the oily pall of smoke spiralling up into the hard blue sky.

The wreckage of the Apache gunship was shielded from the view of any passing traffic by a series of white canvass walls that rumbled in the wind, erected by soldiers who now stood guard, assault rifles at the ready as Aaron was waved through by a senior officer.

‘The event has been presented as a militant action,’ the officer reported brusquely, clearly displeased with the overt American presence at the scene of Saudi deaths, ‘despite my own personal preferences.’

Aaron did not respond as he strode down the embankment and across the dusty plain to the canvass barriers and walked past them.

The Apache was a twisted, blackened mass of smouldering metal and glass that seemed to still be baking beneath the desert sun. Aaron could smell aviation fuel and the acrid stench of burned plastics and other chemicals staining the wind. He removed his sunglasses for a moment as he searched the deserts around them and saw more troops gathered near the entrance to a distant wadi.

Nearby, more troops guarded a hastily — erected field hospital around which worked a group of nurses. Aaron strode across to them, and as he reached the side of the hospital he saw a raggedly dressed man lying on a gurney beneath a sunshield, his legs stained with blood and an intravenous line in his arm.

Aaron paced closer to him, saw a wedge of bone protruding from a tear in his thigh, the broken leg the subject of the nurse’s hurried ministrations. The man turned his head at Aaron’s approach, dark eyes aflame with pain and eternal rage. As if sensing Satan close by, the man scowled and turned his head away.

‘A moment,’ Aaron said to the nurses.

His words were almost quiet in the desert wind, but they were deep enough to cause every one of the nurses to look at him and back away. The phalanx of armed guards accompanying Aaron ushered the nurses away, beyond the canvass shields as Aaron approached the gurney and looked down at the wounded militant.

‘Where did they go?’ he demanded, his Arabic broken and accented but easily understandable.

The militant looked up at Aaron, confusion in his eyes.

‘My brothers and sisters of the resistance will already be in Paradise,’ he seethed, ‘a place of greater glory that you will never know.’

‘If it’s the place where terrorists and the murderers of innocent Americans go after they die, the only reason I’d travel there is to destroy it,’ Aaron rumbled back. ‘Last chance: where did they go, the Americans who were with you?’

The militants smiled through his pain, gritted white teeth bright against his dark skin, and he shook his head. Aaron regarded the man for a moment and then he reached down and with one hand wrenched the bone protruding from the militant’s shattered thigh.

A wretched, keening scream echoed out across the desert above the rumbling wind and the militant writhed against his restraints as Aaron twisted and shoved the bone. Aaron heard the weeping of the horrified nurses nearby competing with the injured militant’s agonised screams.

He released the damaged bone and the militant sagged onto the gurney, his chest heaving and sobs of pain spilling like poison from his mouth onto the hot air.

‘There are many drugs here,’ Aaron rumbled softly. ‘I can keep you alive for many hours, and if you do not tell me what I need to know, I will have you buried alive in these deserts. It will take the animals a long time to kill you, the birds of prey to peck out your eyes, the rodents to scour the flesh from your face. Likewise, you could also be released without harm and nobody would know any the wiser.’

The militant stared up helplessly at Aaron through eyes swimming with torment, and he shook his head as beads of sweat spilled to dampen his hair.

‘Never,’ he rasped.

Aaron reached out for the ragged chunk of bone once more, when from behind him one of his men spoke.

‘We have them,’ he said. ‘Communications channel intercept, they’re heading for Al Qatif seaport.’

Aaron saw the grief twisting the militant’s features as he realized that his courage and fortitude had all been for nothing. Aaron smiled down at him.

‘Bury him in the desert, far from here,’ he ordered his men.

‘Murderer!’ the militant spat at Aaron. ‘This is what you truly are!’

‘I’m doing you a favour,’ Aaron replied as he turned to leave. ‘What could you possibly be afraid of, when paradise is awaiting you?’