The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 6

The robed figure raced down the middle of the wide avenue known as the Wadi Al Kabir. He had burst out of the darkness from beyond the massive Mathaib Gate several hundred yards from the waterfront west of the ancient Portuguese fortress called The Mirani. His robes were drenched with the oil and flotsam of the harbour, his headdress clinging to the back of his wet hair. To observers—and there were still many in the street at this late hour—the desperately running man was one more dog from the sea, an alien who had leaped from a ship to gain illegal entrance into this once-peaceful sultanate, a fugitive—or a terrorist.

Strident eruptions of a two-note siren grew louder as a patrol car careened around the corner from the Wadi Al Uwar into the Al Kabir. The chase was joined; a police informant had betrayed the point of entry, and the authorities were ready. These days they were always ready, ready and eager and frenzied. A blinding light split the dimly lit street, its beam coming from a movable lamp mounted on the patrol car. The powerful light caught the panicky illegal immigrant; he spun to his left facing a series of shops, their dark fronts protected by iron shutters, protection that had not been thought of barely three weeks ago. The man pivoted, lurching across the Al Kabir to his right. Suddenly he stopped, blocked by a number of late-night strollers who moved together, stood together, their stares not without fear but somehow collectively saying they had had enough. They wanted their city back. A short man in a business suit but in Arab headdress stepped forward—cautiously to be sure, but with purpose. Two larger men in robes, perhaps more cautiously but with equal purpose, joined him, followed hesitantly by others. Down the Al Kabir to the south a crowd had gathered; tentatively they formed a line, robed men and veiled women creating a human wall across the street, courage reluctantly summoned from both exasperation and fury. It all had to stop!

'Get away! Spread out! He may have grenades!' A police officer had jumped out of the patrol car and was racing forward, his automatic weapon levelled at the quarry.

'Disperse!' roared a second policeman, sprinting down the left side of the street. 'Don't get caught in our fire!'

The cautious strollers and the hesitant crowd beyond scattered in all directions, running for the protection of distance and the shelter of doorways. As if on cue, the fugitive grappled with his drenched robes, pulling them apart and menacingly reaching inside the folds of cloth. A rapid, staccato burst of gunfire shattered the Al Kabir; the fugitive screamed, calling on the powers of a furious Allah and a vengeful Al Fatah as he gripped his shoulder, arched his neck and dropped to the ground. He seemed to be dead, but in the dim light no one could determine the extent of his wounds. He screamed again, a roar summoning the furies of all Islam to descend on the hordes of impure unbelievers everywhere. The two police officers fell on him as the patrol car skidded to a stop, its tyres screeching; a third policeman leaped from the open rear door shouting orders.

'Disarm him! Search him!' His two subordinates had anticipated both commands. 'It could be he!' added the superior officer, crouching to examine the fugitive more closely, his voice even louder than before. 'There!' he continued, still shouting. 'Strapped to his thigh. A packet. Give it to me!'

The onlookers slowly rose in the semidarkness, curiosity drawing them back to the furious activity taking place in the middle of the Al Kabir under the dim wash of the streetlights.

'I believe you are right, sir!' yelled the policeman on the prisoner's left. 'Here, this mark! It could be what remains of the scar across his neck.'

'Bahrudi!' roared the ranking police officer in triumph as he studied the papers ripped from the oil cloth packet. 'Amal Bahrudi! The trusted one! He was last seen in East Berlin and, by Allah, we have him!'

'All of you!' yelled the policeman, kneeling to the right of the fugitive, addressing the mesmerized crowd. 'Leave! Get away! This pig may have protectors—he is the infamous Bahrudi, the Eastern European terrorist! We have radioed for soldiers from the sultan's garrison—get away, don't be killed!'

The witnesses fled, a disjointed stampede racing south on the Al Kabir. They had summoned up courage but the prospect of a gun battle panicked them. All was uncertainty, punctuated by death; the only thing the crowd was certain of was that a notorious international terrorist named Amal Bahrudi had been captured.

'The word will spread quickly in our small city,' said the sergeant-of-police in fluent English, helping the 'prisoner' to his feet. 'We will help, of course, if it is necessary.'

'I've got a question or two—maybe three!' Evan untied the headdress, removing it over his head and stared at the police officer. 'What the hell was all that stuff about “the trusted one”, the “Islamic leader” of East European whatever-it-was?'

'Apparently the truth, sir.'

I'm way behind you.'

'In the car, please. Time is vital. We must leave here.'

'I want answers!' The two other policemen walked up beside the congressman from Colorado, gripped his arms and escorted him to the back door of the patrol car. 'I played that little charade the way I was told to play it,' continued Evan climbing into the green police car, 'but someone forgot to mention that this real person whose name I'm assuming is some killer who's throwing bombs around Europe!'

'I can only tell you what I've been told to tell you, which, truthfully, is all I know,' replied the sergeant, settling his uniformed figure beside Kendrick. 'Everything will be explained to you at the laboratory in the compound headquarters.'

'I know about the laboratory. I don't know about this Bahrudi.'

'He exists, sir.'

'I know that but not the rest of it—’

'Hurry, driver!' said the police officer. 'The other two will remain here.' The green car lurched in reverse, made a U-turn and sped back towards the Wadi Al Uwar.

'All right, he's real, I understand that,' pressed Kendrick rapidly, breathlessly. 'But I repeat. No one said anything about his being a terrorist!'

'At the headquarters laboratory, sir.' The police sergeant lit a brown Arabian cigarette, inhaled deeply and expunged the smoke through his nostrils in relief. His part of the strange assignment was over.

'There was a great deal that El-Baz's computer did not print out for your eyes,' said the Omani doctor, studying Evan's bare shoulder. They were alone in the laboratory-examining room, Kendrick sitting on the elongated hard-cushioned table, his feet resting on a footstool, his money belt beside him. 'As Ahmat's—forgive me—the great sultan's personal physician—which I have been since he was eight years old, I am now your only contact to him in the event you cannot for whatever reason reach him yourself. Is that understood?'

'How do I reach you?

'The hospital or my private number, which I will give you when we are finished. You must remove your trousers and undergarment and apply the dye, ya Shaikh. Strip searches are a daily, often hourly, occurrence in that compound. You must be all one flesh colour, and certainly no canvas belt filled with money.'

'You'll hold it for me?'

'Certainly.'

'Back to this Bahrudi, please,' said Kendrick, applying the skin-darkening gel to his thighs and lower regions as the Omani physician did the same to his arms, chest and back. 'Why didn't El-Baz tell me?'

'Ahmat's instructions. He thought you might object so he wished to explain it to you himself.'

'I spoke to him less than an hour ago. He didn't say anything except he wanted to talk about this Bahrudi, that's all.'

'You were also in a great hurry and he had much to organize in order to bring about your so-called capture.

Therefore he left the explanation to me. Lift your arm up higher, please.'

'What's the explanation?' asked Evan, less angry now.

'Quite simply, if you were taken by the terrorists you'd have a fall-back position, at least for a while, with luck providing enough time to help you—if help was at all possible.'

'What fall-back position?'

'You'd be considered one of them. Until they learned otherwise.'

'Bahrudi's dead—’

'His corpse is in the hands of the KGB,' added the doctor instantly, overriding Kendrick's words. 'The Komitet is notoriously indecisive, afraid of embarrassment.'

'El-Baz mentioned something about that.'

'If anyone in Masqat would know, it is El-Baz.'

'So if Bahrudi is accepted here in Oman, if I'm accepted as this Bahrudi, I might have some leverage. If the Soviets don't blow the whistle and tell what they know.'

'They will exhaustively examine the whistle before bringing it near their lips. They can't be certain; they will fear a trap, a trap of embarrassment, of course, and wait for developments. Your other arm, please. Lift it straight up, please.'

'Question,' said Evan, firmly. 'If Amal Bahrudi supposedly went through your immigration, why wasn't he picked up? You've got one hell of a security force out there these days.'

'How many John Smiths are there in your country, ya Shaikh'

'So?'

'Bahrudi is a fairly common Arabic name, more so perhaps in Cairo than Riyadh but nevertheless not unusual. Amal is the equivalent of your “Joe” or “Bill” or, of course, “John”.'

'Still, El-Baz entered him in the immigration computers. Flags would leap up—’

'And rapidly return to their recesses,' broke in the Omani, 'the officials satisfied by observation and harsh, if routine, questioning.'

'Because there's no scar on my neck?' asked Evan quickly.

'One of the police in the Al Kabir made a point of a scar across my neck—Bahrudi's neck.'

'That is information I know nothing about, but I suppose it's possible; you have no such scar. But there are more fundamental reasons.'

'Such as?'

'A terrorist does not announce his arrival in a foreign land, much less a troubled one. He uses false papers. That's what the authorities look for, not the coincidence of one John W. Booth, a pharmacist from Philadelphia, who was cursed with the same name as the assassin from Ford's theatre.'

'You're pretty well versed in things American, aren't you?'

'Johns Hopkins Medical School, Mr. Bahrudi. Courtesy of our sultan's father who found a Bedouin child eager for more than a wandering tribal existence.'

'How did that happen?'

'It is another story. You may lower your arm now.'

Evan looked at the doctor. 'You're very fond of the sultan, I gather.'

The Omani physician returned Kendrick's gaze. 'I would kill for the family, ya Shaikh,' he said softly. 'Of course the method would be nonviolent. Perhaps poison or a misdiagnosed medical crisis or a reckless scalpel—something to repay my debt in kind—but I would do it.'

'I'm sure you would. And by extension then, you're on my side.'

'Obviously. The proof I am to give you and which was previously unknown to me comes numerically. Five, five, five—zero, zero, zero, five.'

'That's good enough. What's your name?'

'Faisal. Dr Amal Faisal.'

'I see what you mean—“John Smith”.' Kendrick got off the examining table and walked naked to a small sink across the room. He washed his hands, kneading them with strong soap to remove the excess stains from his fingers, and studied his body in the mirror above the basin. The undarkened white flesh was turning brown; in moments it would be dark enough for the terrorist compound. He looked at the doctor reflected in the glass. 'How is it in there?' he said.

'It is no place for you.'

'That's not what I asked. I want to know what it's like. Are there rites of passage, any rituals they go through with new prisoners? You must have the place wired—you'd be fools if you don't.'

'It's wired and we have to assume they know it; they crowd around the door where the main taps are and make a great deal of noise. The ceiling is too high for audible transmission and the remaining taps are in the flushing mechanisms of the toilets—a civilizing reform instituted by Ahmat several years ago, replacing the floor holes. Those microphones have been useless, as if the inmates had discovered them also—we don't know this, of course. However, what little we hear is not pleasant. The prisoners, like all extremists, continuously vie for who is the most zealous, and as there are constant newcomers, many do not know each other. As a result, the questions are severe and pointed, the methods of interrogation often brutal. They're fanatics, but not fools in the accepted sense, ya Shaikh. Vigilance is their credo, infiltration a constant threat to them.'

Then it'll be my credo.' Kendrick crossed back to the examining table and the neat pile of prison clothes provided for him. 'My vigilance,' he continued. 'As fanatical as anyone's in there.' He turned to the Omani. 'I need the names of the leaders inside the embassy. I wasn't permitted to make any notes from the briefing papers, but I memorized two because they were repeated several times. One was Abu Nassir; the other, Abbas Zaher. Do you have any more?'

'Nassir hasn't been seen for over a week; they believe he's gone, and Zaher is not considered a leader, merely a show-off. Recently the most prominent appears to be a woman named Zaya Yateem. She's fluent in English and reads the televised bulletins.'

'What does she look like?'

'Who can tell? She wears a veil.'

'Anyone else?'

'A young man who's usually behind her; he seems to be her companion and carries a Russian weapon—I don't know what kind.'

'His name?'

'He is called simply Azra.'

'Blue? The colour blue?'

'Yes. And speaking of colours, there's another, a man with premature grey streaks in his hair—quite unusual for one of us. He is called Ahbyahd.'

'White,' said Evan.

'Yes. He's been identified as one of the hijackers of the TWA plane in Beirut. Only by photographs, however, no name was uncovered.'

'Nassir, the woman Yateem, Blue and White. That should be enough.'

'For what?" asked the doctor.

'For what I'm going to do.'

'Think about what you're doing,' said the doctor softly, watching Evan draw up the loose-fitting prison trousers with the elastic waistband. 'Ahmat is torn, for we might learn a great deal by your sacrifice—but you must understand, it could well be your sacrifice. He wants you to know that.'

I'm no fool, either.' Kendrick put on the grey prison shirt and slipped into the hard leather sandals common to Arab jails. 'If I feel threatened, I'll yell for help.'

'You do and they'll be on you like crazed animals. You wouldn't survive ten seconds; no one could reach you in time.'

'All right, a code.' Evan buttoned the coarse shirt while looking around the police laboratory; his eyes fell on several X-rays suspended on a string. 'If your people monitoring the taps hear me say that films were smuggled out of the embassy, move in and get me out. Understood?'

'“Films smuggled out of the embassy—”'

'That's it. I won't say it, or shout it, unless I think they're closing in on me… Now, let the word go inside. Tell the guards to taunt the prisoners. Amal Bahrudi, leader of the Islamic terrorists in East Europe, has been captured here in Oman. Your bright young sultan's strategy for my temporary protection can make a big leap forward. It's my passport into their rotten world.'

'It was not designed for that.'

'But it's damn convenient, isn't it? Almost as though Ahmat had it in mind before I did. Come to think of it, he might have. Why not?'

'That's ridiculous!' protested the doctor, both palms raised towards Evan. 'Listen to me. We can all theorize and postulate as much as we like, but we cannot guarantee. That compound is guarded by soldiers and we cannot see into the soul of each man. Suppose there are sympathizers? Look at the streets. Crazed animals awaiting the next execution, wagering bets! America is not loved by every citizen in an aba or conscript in uniform; there are too many stories, too much talk of anti-Arab bias over there.'

'Ahmat said the same thing about his own garrison here in Masqat. Only he called it looking into their eyes.'

'The eyes hold the secrets of the soul, ya Shaikh, and the sultan was right. We live in constant fear of weakness and betrayal here within. These soldiers are young, impressionable, quick to make judgments about real or imagined insults. Suppose, just suppose, the KGB decides to send in a message to further destabilize the situation. “Amal Bahrudi is dead, the man claiming to be him is an impostor!” There would be no time for codes or cries for help. And the manner of your death should not be contemplated lightly.'

'Ahmat should have thought of that—’

'Unfair!' cried Faisal. 'You ascribe to him things he never dreamed of! The Bahrudi alias was to be used only as a diversionary tactic in the last extremity, not for anything else! The fact that ordinary citizens could publicly state that they witnessed the capture of a terrorist, even to the point of naming him, would create confusion, that was the strategy. Confusion, bewilderment, indecision. If only to delay your execution for a few hours—whatever time might be used to extricate you, a single individual—that was Ahmat's intention. Not infiltration.'

Evan leaned against the table, his arms folded, studying the Omani. 'Then I don't understand, and I mean that, Doctor. I'm not looking for demons, but I think there's a lapse in your explanation.'

'What is it?'

'If finding me the name of a terrorist—an unaccounted-for, dead terrorist—was to be my fall-back position, as you called it—'

'Your temporary protection, as you so rightfully called it,' interrupted Faisal.

'Then suppose—just suppose—I hadn't been around to act in that little melodrama on the Al Kabir tonight?'

'You were never meant to,' replied the doctor calmly. 'You simply moved up the schedule. It was to take place not at midnight but in the early morning hours, just before the prayers, near the mosque of Khor. The word of Bahrudi's capture would have spread through the markets like the news of a shipment of cheap contraband on the waterfront. Another would have posed as the impostor you are. That was the plan, nothing else.'

'Then, as the lawyers would say, there's a convenient convergence of objectives, rearranged in time and purpose so as to accommodate all parties without conflict. I hear phrases like that in Washington all the time. Very sharp.'

'I am a doctor, ya Shaikh, not a lawyer.'

'To be sure,' agreed Evan, smiling faintly. 'But I wonder about our young friend in the palace. He wanted to “discuss” Amal Bahrudi. I wonder where that discussion would have led us.'

'He's not a lawyer, either.'

'He has to be everything to run this place,' said Kendrick sharply. 'He has to think. Especially now… We're wasting time, Doctor. Mess me up a bit. Not the eyes or the mouth, but around the cheeks and the chin. Then cut into my shoulder and bandage it but don't dry the blood.'

'I beg your pardon!'

'For Christ's sake, I'm not going to do it myself!'

The heavy steel door sprang back, yanked by two soldiers who instantly placed their arms against the exterior iron plate as if expecting an assault on the exit. A third guard hurled the wounded, still bleeding prisoner into the huge concrete hall that served as a mass cell; what light there was was subdued, provided by low-wattage bulbs encased in wire mesh and bolted to the ceiling. A group of inmates instantly converged on the new entry, several gripping the shoulders of the bloody, disfigured man awkwardly trying to rise from his knees. Others huddled around the imposing metal door chattering loudly among themselves—half shrieking, actually—apparently to drown out whatever was being said inside the compound.

'Khalee balak!' roared the newcomer, his right arm lashing upward to free itself, then with a tight fist pummelling the face of a young prisoner whose grimace revealed rotted teeth. 'By Allah, I'll break the head of any imbecile here who touches me!' continued Kendrick, screaming in Arabic and rising to his full height which was several inches taller than the tallest man around him.

'We are many and you are one!' hissed the offended youngster, pinching his nose to stop the bleeding.

'You may be many but you are lovers of she-goats! You are stupid! Get away from me! I must think!' With his last explosive remark, Evan slammed his left arm against those holding it, then instantly pulled it back and thrust his elbow into the throat of the nearest prisoner holding him. With his still-clenched right fist, he swung around and hammered his knuckles into the man's unsuspecting eyes.

He could not remember when he had last hit another person, physically attacked another human being. If his flashing memories were correct, it went back to junior school. A boy named Peter Somebody-or-Other had hidden his best friend's lunch-box—a tin box with Walt Disney characters on it—and because his friend was small and Peter Somebody-or-Other was bigger than his best friend, he had challenged the bully. Unfortunately, in his anger, he had beaten the boy named Peter so severely that the principal called his father and both adults told him he was terribly wrong. A young man of his size did not pick fights. It wasn't fair… But, sir! Dad!… No appeal. He had to accept twenty demerit points. But then his father said, if it happens again, son, do it again.

It happened again! Someone grabbed his neck from behind! Life-saving procedure. Why did it come to mind? Pinch the nerve under the elbow! It releases the grip of a drowning man! Red Cross—Senior Life-Saving Certificate. Summer money on the lake. In panic, he slid his hand down the exposed arm, reached the soft flesh under the elbow and pressed with all the strength that was in him. The terrorist screamed; it was enough. Kendrick hunched his shoulders and threw the man over his back, slamming him down on to the cement floor.

'Do any of you want more?' whispered the newest prisoner harshly, crouching, turning, his height still apparent. 'You are fools! If it weren't for you idiots, I would not have been taken! I despise all of you! Now, leave me alone! I told you, I must think!'

'Who are you to insult us and give us orders?' screeched a wild-eyed post-adolescent, a harelip impeding his diction. It was all a scene out of Kafka—half-crazed prisoners prone to instant violence, yet nervously aware of more brutal punishment from the guards. Whispers became harsh commands, suppressed insults screams of defiance, while those who spoke looked continuously towards the door, making sure the babble beyond covered whatever they said, keeping it from eavesdropping enemy ears.

'I am who I am! And that is enough for she-goat fools—’

'The guards told us your name!' stammered another inmate, this one perhaps thirty, with an unkempt beard and long, filthy hair; he cupped his lips with his hands as though they would stifle his words. '“Amal Bahrudil” they yelled. “The trusted one from East Berlin and we've caught him!”… So what? Who are you to us? I don't even like the way you look. You look very odd to me! What is an Amal Bahrudi? Why should we care?'

Kendrick glanced over at the door and the agitated group of prisoners talking excitedly. He took a step forward, again whispering harshly. 'Because I was sent by others much higher than anyone here or in the embassy. Much, much higher. Now, I'm telling you for the last time, let me think! I have to get information out—'

'You try and you'll put us all in front of a firing squad!' exclaimed another prisoner through his teeth; he was short and strangely well groomed, except for unaccountable splotches of urine staining his prison trousers.

'That bothers you?' replied Evan, staring at the terrorist, his voice low and filled with loathing. It was the moment to establish his credo further. 'Tell me, pretty little boy, are you afraid to die?'

'Only because I could no longer serve our cause!' gushed the boy-man defensively, his eyes darting about, seeking justification. A few in the crowd agreed; there were emotional, knee-jerk nods from those close enough to hear him, swept up in his fears. Kendrick wondered how pervasive was this deviation from zealotry.

'Keep your voice down, you fool!' said Evan icily. 'Your martyrdom is service enough.' He turned and walked through the hesitantly parting bodies to the stone wall of the immense cell where there was an open rectangular window with iron bars embedded in the concrete.

'Not so fast, odd-looking one!' The rough voice, barely heard above the noise, came from the outer fringes of the crowd. A stocky, bearded man stepped forward. Those in front of him gave way as men casually do in the presence of a noncommissioned superior—a sergeant or a foreman, perhaps; not a colonel or a corporate vice president. Was there someone with more authority in that compound? wondered Evan. Someone else watching closely; someone else giving orders?

'What is it?' asked Kendrick quietly, abrasively.

'I also don't like the way you look! I don't like your face. That's enough for me.'

'Enough for what?' said Evan contemptuously, dismissing the man with a shrug of his head as he leaned into the wall, his hands gripping the iron bars of the small cell window, his gaze on the floodlit grounds outside.

'Turn around!' ordered the surrogate foreman or sergeant, in a harsh voice directly behind him.

'I'll turn when I care to,' said Kendrick, wondering if he was heard.

'Now,' rejoined the man in a voice no louder than Evan's—a quiet prelude to his strong hand suddenly crashing down on Kendrick's right shoulder, gripping the flesh around the bleeding wound.

'Don't touch me, that's an order!' Evan shouted, holding his ground, his hands gripping the iron bars so as not to betray the pain he felt, his antennae alert for what he wanted to learn… It came. The fingers clenching his shoulder spastically separated; the hand fell away on Evan's command, but tentatively returned a moment later. It revealed enough: The noncom gave orders bluntly, yet he received and executed them with alacrity when they were given by an authoritative voice. Enough. He was not the man here in the compound. He was high on the totem pole but not high enough. Was there really another? A further test was called for.

Kendrick stood rigid, then without motion or warning swung swiftly around to his right, ignominiously dislodging the hand as the stocky man was thrown off balance by the clockwise movement. 'All right!' he spat out, his sharp whisper not a statement but an accusation. 'What is it about me you don't like? I'll convey your judgment to others. I'm sure they'll be interested for they would like to know who's making judgments here in Masqat!' Evan again paused, then abruptly continued, his voice rising in a one-on-one challenge. 'Those judgments are considered by many to be curdled in ass's milk. What is it, imbecile? What don't you like about me?'

'I do not make judgments!' shouted the muscular terrorist as defensively as the boy-man who feared a firing squad. Then just as quickly as his outburst had erupted, the wary sergeant-foreman, momentarily frightened that his words might have been heard above the babble, regained his suspicious composure. 'You're free with words,' he whispered hoarsely, squinting his eyes, 'but they mean nothing to us. How do we know who you are or where you come from? You don't even look like one of us. You look different.'

'I move in circles you don't move in—can't move in. I can.'

'He has light-coloured eyes!' The stifled cry came from the older, bearded prisoner with the long filthy hair who was peering forward. 'He's a spy! He's come to spy on us!' Others crowded in studying the suddenly more menacing stranger.

Kendrick slowly turned his head towards his accuser. 'So might you have these eyes if your grandfather was European. If I cared to change them for your grossly stupid benefit, a few drops of fluid would have been sufficient for a week. Naturally, you're not aware of such techniques.'

'You have words for everything, don't you?' said the sergeant-foreman. 'Liars are free with words for they cost nothing.'

'Except one's life,' replied Evan, moving his eyes, staring at individual faces. 'Which I have no intention of losing.'

'You are afraid to die then?' challenged the well-groomed youngster with the soiled trousers.

'You yourself answered that question for me. I have no fear of death—none of us should have—but I do fear not accomplishing what I've been sent here to accomplish. I fear that greatly—for our most holy cause.'

'Words again!' choked the stocky would-be leader, annoyed that a number of the prisoners were listening to the strange-looking Euro-Arab with the fluid tongue. 'What is this thing you are to accomplish here in Masqat? If we are so stupid, why don't you tell us, enlighten us!'

'I will speak only to those I was told to find. No one else.'

'I think you should speak to me,' said the sergeant—now more sergeant than foreman—as he took a menacing step towards the rigid American congressman. 'We do not know you but you may know us. That gives you an advantage I don't like.'

'And I don't like your stupidity,' said Kendrick, immediately gesturing with both hands, one pointing to his right ear, the other at the moving, chattering crowd by the door. 'Can't you understand?' he exclaimed, his whisper a shout into the man's face. 'You could be heard! You must admit you are stupid.'

'Oh, yes, we are that, sir.' The sergeant—definitely a sergeant—turned his head, looking at an unseen figure, somewhere in the huge concrete cell. Evan tried to follow the man's gaze; with his height he saw a row of open toilets at the end of the hall; several were in use, each occupant's eyes watching the excitement. Other inmates, curious, many frantic, rushed alternately between the loud group by the heavy door and the crowd around the new prisoner. 'But then, sir, great sir,' continued the heavyset terrorist mockingly, 'we have methods to overcome our stupidity. You should give inferior people credit for such things.'

'I give credit when it is due—’

'Our account is due now!' Suddenly, the muscular fanatic shot up his left arm. It was a cue, and with the signal voices swelled, raised in an Islamic chant followed instantly by a dozen others, and then more, until the entire compound was filled with the reverberating echoes of fifty-odd zealots shrieking the praises of the obscure stations leading into the arms of Allah. And then it happened. A sacrifice was in the making.

Bodies fell on him; fists crashed into his abdomen and face. He could not scream—his lips were clamped by strong clawlike fingers, the flesh stretched until he thought his mouth would be torn away. The pain was excruciating. And then abruptly, his lips were free, his mouth halfway in place.

'Tell us!' screamed the sergeant-terrorist into Kendrick's ear, his words lost to the wiretaps by the wildly accelerating Islamic chanting. 'Who are you? What place in hell do you come from?'

'I am who I am!' shouted Evan, grimacing and holding on as long as he could manage, convinced he knew the Arabic mind, believing a moment would come when respect for an enemy's death would induce a few seconds of silence before the blow was administered; it would be enough. Death was revered in Islam, by friend and adversary alike. He needed those seconds! He had to let the guards know! Oh, Christ, he was being killed! A clenched fist hammered down on his testicles—when, when would it stop for those few, precious moments?

A blurred figure was suddenly above him, bending over, studying him. Another fist crashed into his left kidney; the inward scream did not emerge from his mouth. He could not permit it.

'Stop!' cried the voice of the blurred outline above. 'Tear off his shirt. Let me see his neck. It is said there is a mark he can't wash away.'

Evan felt the cloth being ripped from his chest, his breath sinking, knowing the worst was about to be revealed. There was no scar on his neck.

'It is Amal Bahrudi,' intoned the man above. The barely conscious Kendrick heard the words and was stunned.

'What do you look for?' asked the bewildered sergeant-foreman, furious.

'What is not there,' said the echoing voice. 'Throughout Europe, Amal Bahrudi is marked by the scar on his throat. A photograph was circulated to the authorities that was confirmed to be of him, a picture obscuring the face but not the bare neck where the scar of a knife wound was in clear focus. It had been his best cover, an ingenious device of concealment.'

'You confuse me!' shouted the squatting, stocky man, his words nearly drowned out by the cacophonous chanting. 'What concealment? What scar!'

'A scar that never was, a mark that never existed. They all look for a lie. This is Bahrudi, the blue-eyed man who can take pain with silence, the trusted one who moves about Western capitals unnoticed because of the genes of a European grandfather. Word must have reached Oman that he was reported to be on his way here, but even so he'll be released in the morning, no doubt with great apologies. You see, there is no scar on his throat.'

Through the haze and the terrible pain, Evan knew it was the moment to react. He forced a smile across his burning lips, his light blue eyes centering on the blurred figure above. 'A sane man,' he coughed in agony. 'Please, get me up, get them away from me before I see them all in hell.'

'Amal Bahrudi speaks?' asked the unknown man, reaching out with his hand. 'Let him up.'

'No!' roared the sergeant-terrorist, plunging down and pinning Kendrick's shoulders. 'There's no sense in what you say! He is who he says he is because of a scar that does not exist? Where's the sense in that, I ask you?'

'I will know if he lies,' replied the figure above, slowly coming into focus for Kendrick. The gaunt face was that of a man in his early twenties, with high cheekbones and intense, dark, intelligent eyes flanking a sharp, straight nose. The body was slender, bordering on thin, but there was a supple strength in the way he crouched and held his head. The muscles of his neck stood out. 'Let him up,' repeated the younger terrorist, his voice casual but no less a command for that. 'And instruct the others to gradually stop their chanting—gradually, you understand—but then keep talking among themselves. All must appear normal, including the incessant arguing, which you don't have to encourage.'

The angry subordinate gave Evan a last shove into the floor, widening the cut in his shoulder so severely that new blood burst out on to the concrete. Then the surly man got to his feet, turning to the crowd to carry out his orders.

'Thank you,' said Evan, breathless, trembling and getting to his knees, wincing at the pain he felt everywhere, conscious of the bruises on his face and body, aware of the hot lacerations where his flesh had been punctured—again seemingly everywhere. 'I would have joined Allah in a minute.'

'You still may, which is why I won't bother to stem your bleeding.' The young Palestinian shoved Kendrick against the wall, into a sitting position, his legs stretched out on the floor. 'You see, I have no idea whether you're really Amal Bahrudi or not. I acted on instinct. From the descriptions I've heard, you could be he, and you speak an educated Arabic, which also fits. In addition, you withstood extreme punishment when a gesture of submission on your part would have meant you were prepared to deliver the information demanded of you. Instead, you reacted with defiance, and you must have known that at any moment you could have been strangled… That is not the way of an infiltrator who values his life here on earth. It is the way of one of us who will not harm the cause for, as you remarked, it's a holy cause. And it is. Most holy.'

Good God! thought Kendrick, assuming the cold expression of a dedicated partisan. How wrong you are! If I had thought—if I'd been able to think… Forget it! 'What will finally convince you? I tell you now I shall not reveal things I shouldn't.' Evan paused, his hand covering the swallow in his throat. 'Even to the point where you may resume the punishment and strangle me, if you like.'

'Both are statements I would expect,' said the intense slender terrorist, lowering himself to crouch in front of Evan. 'You can, however, tell me what it is you came here for. Why were you sent to Masqat? Whom were you told to find? Your life depends on your answers, Amal Bahrudi, and I'm the only one who can make that decision.'

He had been right. In spite of the odds he had been right!

Escape. He had to escape with this young killer in a holy cause.