The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 7

Kendrick stared at the Palestinian as if, indeed, the eyes held the meaning of a man's soul, although Evan's own eyes were too swollen to betray anything other than overwhelming physical pain… The remaining taps are in the flushing mechanisms of the toilets: Dr Amal Faisal, contact to the sultan.

'I was sent here to tell you that among your people in the embassy there are traitors.'

'Traitors?' The terrorist remained motionless in his crouching position in front of Evan; beyond a slight frown there was no reaction whatsoever. 'That's impossible,' he said after several moments of intensely studying 'Amal Bahrudi's' face.

'I'm afraid it's not,' contradicted Kendrick. 'I saw the proof.'

'Consisting of what?'

Evan suddenly winced, grabbing his wounded shoulder, his hand instantly covered with blood. 'If you won't stop this bleeding, I will!' He started to push himself up against the stone wall.

'Stay put!' commanded the young killer.

'Why? Why should I? How do I know you're not part of the treason—making money out of our work?'

'Money…? What money?'

'You won't know that until I know you have the right to be told.' Again Evan pressed himself against the wall, his hands on the floor, trying to rise. 'You talk like a man but you're a boy.'

'I grew up quickly,' said the terrorist, shoving his strange prisoner down again. 'Most of us have over here.'

'Grow up now. My bleeding to death will tell neither of us anything.' Kendrick ripped the blood-soaked shirt away from his shoulder. 'It's filthy,' he said, nodding at the wound. 'It's filled with dirt and slime, thanks to your animal friends.'

'They're not animals and they're not friends. They are my brothers.'

'Write poetry in your own time, mine's too valuable. Is there any water in here—clean water?'

'The toilets,' answered the Palestinian. 'There's a sink on the right.'

'Help me up.'

'No. What proof? Who were you sent to find?'

'Fool!' exploded Evan. 'All right. Where is Nassir? Everyone asks, Where is Nassir?'

'Dead,' replied the young man, his expression without comment.

'What?'

'A marine guard jumped him, took his weapon and shot him. The marine was killed instantly.'

'Nothing was said—'

'What could be said that was productive?' countered the terrorist. 'Make a martyr out of a single American guard? Show one of our own to have been overcome? We don't parade weakness.'

'Nassir?' asked Kendrick, hearing a rueful note in the young killer's voice. 'Nassir was weak?'

'He was a theoretician and not suited to this work.'

'A theoretician?' Evan arched his brows. 'Our student is an analyst?'

'This student can determine those moments when active involvement must replace passive debate, when force takes over from words. Nassir talked too much, justified too much.'

'And you don't?'

'I'm not the issue, you are. What proof of treason do you have?'

'The woman, Yateem,' replied Kendrick, answering the former question not the current one. 'Zaya Yateem. I was told she was—’

'Yateem a traitor?' cried the terrorist, his eyes furious.

'I didn't say that—’

'What did you say?'

'She was reliable—'

'Far more than that, Amal Bahrudi!' The young man grabbed the remaining cloth of Evan's shirt. 'She is devoted to our cause, a tireless worker who exhausts herself beyond any of us at the embassy!'

'She also speaks English,' said Kendrick, hearing still another note in the terrorist's voice.

'So do I!' shot back the angry, self-proclaimed student, releasing his prisoner within their prison.

'I do, too,' said Evan quietly, glancing over at the numerous groups of inmates, many of whom were looking at them. 'May we speak English now?' he asked, once more studying his bleeding shoulder. 'You say you want proof, which, of course, is beyond my providing, but I can tell you what I've seen with my own eyes—in Berlin. You yourself can determine whether or not I'm telling you the truth—since you're so adept at determining things. But I don't want any of your brother animals understanding what I say.'

'You're an arrogant man under circumstances that do not call for arrogance.'

'I am who I am—’

'You've said that.' The terrorist nodded. 'English,' he agreed, switching from Arabic. 'You spoke of Yateem. What about her?'

'You assumed I meant she was the traitor.'

'Who dares—’

'I meant quite the opposite,' insisted Kendrick, wincing, and gripping his shoulder with greater force. 'She's trusted, even extolled; she's doing her job brilliantly. After Nassir, she was the one I was to find.' Evan gasped in pain, an all too easy reflex, and coughed out his next words. 'If she had been killed… I was to look for a man who's called Azra—if he was gone, another with grey streaks in his hair known as Ahbyahd.'

'I am Azra! cried the dark-eyed student. 'I am the one called Blue!'

Bingo, thought Kendrick, staring hard at the young terrorist, his eyes questioning. 'But you're here in this compound, not at the embassy—’

'A decision of our operations council,' broke in Azra. 'Headed by Yateem.'

'I don't understand.'

'Word reached us. Prisoners had been taken and held in isolation—tortured, bribed, broken one way or another into revealing information. It was decided that the strongest among us on the council should also be taken—to provide leadership, resistance!'

'And they chose you? She chose you?'

'Zaya knew whereof she spoke. She is my sister, I her blood brother. She is as certain of my dedication as I am of hers. We fight together to our deaths, for death is our past.'

Jackpot! Evan arched his neck, his head falling against the hard concrete wall, his pained eyes roaming across the ceiling with the naked bulbs encased in wire. 'So I meet my vital contact in the most impossible place possible. Allah may have deserted us after all.'

'To hell with Allah!' exclaimed Azra, astonishing Kendrick. 'You'll be released in the morning. There is no scar across your throat. You'll be free.'

'Don't be so sure of that,' said Evan, wincing again and again grabbing his shoulder. 'To put it plainly, that photograph of me was traced to a jihad cell in Rome and the scar is now questioned. They're searching Riyadh and Manamah for my early dental and medical records. If any were overlooked, if any are found, I'll be facing an Israeli hangman… However, that's not your concern, nor mine at the moment, frankly.'

'At least your courage matches your arrogance.'

'I told you before,' snapped Kendrick, 'write poems in your own time. If you are Azra, brother of Yateem, you need information. You have to know what I saw in Berlin.'

'The evidence of treason?'

'If not treason, utter stupidity, and if not stupidity, unforgivable greed which is no less than treason.' Evan started once more to rise, pressing his back against the wall, his hands against the floor. This time the terrorist did not stop him. 'Damn you, help me!' he cried. 'I can't think like this. I have to wash away the blood, clear my eyes.'

'Very well," said the man called Azra haltingly, his expression conveying his intense curiosity. 'Lean on me,' he added without enthusiasm.

'I only meant you to help me up,' said Kendrick, yanking his arm away once he was on his feet. 'I'll walk by myself, thank you. I don't need assistance from ignorant children.'

'You may need more assistance than I'm prepared to offer—’

'I forgot,' interrupted Evan, lurching, making his way awkwardly towards the row of four toilets and the sink. 'The student is both judge and jury, as well as the right hand of Allah whom he sends to the devil!'

'Understand this, man of faith,' said Azra firmly, staying close to the arrogant, insulting stranger. 'My war is not for or against Allah, Abraham or Christ. It is a struggle to survive and live like a human being despite those who would destroy me with their bullets and their laws. I speak for many when I say, Enjoy your faith, practise it, but do not burden me with it. I have enough to contend with just trying to stay alive if only to fight one more day.'

Kendrick glanced at the angry young killer as they neared the sink. 'I wonder if I should be talking to you,' he said, narrowing his swollen eyes. 'I wonder if perhaps you are not the Azra I was sent to find.'

'Believe it,' replied the terrorist. 'In this work, accommodations are made between people of many stripes, many different purposes, all taking from each other for very selfish reasons. Together we can accomplish more for our individual causes than we can separately.'

'We understand each other,' said Kendrick, no comment in his voice.

They reached the rusted metal sink. Evan turned on the single tap of cold water at full force, then, conscious of the noise, reduced the flow as he plunged his hands and face into the stream. He splashed the water everywhere over his upper body, dousing his head and chest and repeatedly around the bleeding wound in his shoulder. He prolonged the bathing, sensing Azra's growing impatience as the Palestinian shifted his weight from foot to foot, knowing that the moment would come. The remaining taps are in the flushing mechanisms of the toilets. The moment came.

'Enough!' exploded the frustrated terrorist, gripping Kendrick's unharmed shoulder and spinning him away from the sink. 'Give me your information, what you saw in Berlin! Now! What is this proof of treason… or stupidity… or greed? What is it?'

'There has to be more than one person involved,' began Evan coughing, each cough more pronounced, more violent, his whole body trembling. 'As people leave they take them out—' Suddenly, Kendrick bent over, clutching his throat, lurching for the first toilet to the left of the filthy sink. 'I'm retching!' he cried, grabbing the edges of the bowl with both hands.

'Take what out?'

'Films!' spat out Evan, his voice directed towards the area around the toilet's handle. 'Films smuggled out of the embassy!… For sale!'

'Films? Photographs?'

'Two rolls. I intercepted them, bought them both! Identities, methods—'

Nothing further could be heard in the enormous concrete terrorist cell. Ear-shattering bells erupted; deafening sounds signalling an emergency reverberated off the walls as a group of uniformed guards rushed in, weapons levelled, eyes frantically searching. In seconds they spotted the object of their search; six soldiers bolted forward towards the row of toilets.

'Never!' screamed the prisoner known as Amal Bahrudi. 'Kill me, if you wish, but you will learn nothing, for you are nothing!'

The first two guards approached. Kendrick lunged at them, hurling his body at the stunned soldiers, who thought they were rescuing an infiltrator about to be killed. He swung his arms and smashed his fists into the confused faces.

Mercifully, a third soldier hammered the stock of his rifle into the skull of Amal Bahrudi.

All was darkness but he knew he was on the examining table in the prison laboratory. He could feel the cold compresses on his eyes and ice packs over various parts of his body; he reached up and removed the thick, wet compresses. Faces above him came into focus—bewildered faces, angry faces. He had no time for them!

'Faisal!' he choked, speaking Arabic. 'Where is Faisal, the doctor?'

'I am down here by your left foot,' answered the Omani physician in English. 'I'm sponging out a rather strange puncture wound. Someone bit you, I'm afraid.'

'I can see his teeth,' said Evan, now also speaking English. 'They were like those of a saw-toothed fish only yellow.'

'Proper diets are lacking in this part of the world.'

'Get everyone out, Doctor,' interrupted Kendrick. 'Now. We've got to talk—now!'

'After what you did in there I doubt they'd leave and I'm not even sure I'd let them. Are you crazy? They came to save your life and you tore into them, fracturing one man's nose and breaking apart another's bridgework.'

'I had to be convincing, tell them that—no, don't. Not yet. Get them out. Tell them anything you like but we've got to talk. Then you have to reach Ahmat for me… How long have I been here?'

'Nearly an hour—’

'Christ! What time is it?'

'Four-fifteen in the morning.'

'Hurry! For God's sake, hurry!'

Faisal dismissed the soldiers with calming words, reassuring them, explaining that there were things he could not explain. As the last guard went out of the door, he paused, removed his automatic from its holster and handed it to the doctor. 'Should I aim this at you while we talk?' asked the Omani after the soldier had left.

'Before sunrise,' said Kendrick, pushing away the ice packs and sitting up, painfully swinging his legs over the table. 'I want a number of guns aimed at me. But not as accurately as they might be.'

'What are you saying? You can't be serious.'

'Escape. Ahmat has to arrange an escape.'

'What? You are crazy!'

'Never saner, Doctor, and never more serious. Pick two or three of your best men, which means men you completely trust, and set up some kind of transfer—’

'Transfer?'

Evan shook his head and blinked his eyes, the swelling still apparent although reduced by the cold compresses. He tried to find the words he needed for the astonished doctor. 'Let me put it this way. Somebody's decided to move a few prisoners from here to somewhere else.'

'Who would do that? Why?'

'Nobody! You make it up and do it, don't explain. Do you have photographs of the men inside?'

'Of course. It's normal arrest procedure, although the names are meaningless. When they're given, they're always false.'

'Let me have them, all of them. I'll tell you whom to choose.'

'Choose for what?'

'The transfer. The ones you're moving out of here to some place else.'

'To where? Really, you're not making sense.'

'You're not listening. Somewhere along the way, a back street or a dark road outside the city, we'll overpower the guards and escape.'

'Overpower…? We?'

'I'm part of the group, part of the escape. I'm going back in there.'

'Complete madness!' exclaimed Faisal.

'Complete sanity,' countered Evan. 'There's a man inside who can take me where I want to go. Take us where we have to go! Get me the police photographs and then reach Ahmat on the triple-five number. Tell him what I've told you, he'll understand… Understand, hell! It's what that Ivy League juvenile delinquent had in mind from the beginning!'

'I think perhaps you did also, ya Shaikh ya Amreekdnee.'

'Maybe I did. Maybe I just want to blame it on someone else. I don't fit into this mould.'

'Then something inside is propelling you, re-shaping the man who was. It happens.'

Kendrick looked into the soft brown eyes of the Omani doctor. 'It happens,' agreed Evan. Suddenly his mind was filled with the outlines of a murky silhouette; the figure of a man emerged from the raging fires of an earth-bound hell. Whirlwinds of smoke enveloped the apparition as cascading rubble fell all around it, muting the screams of victims. The Mahdi. Killer of women and children, of friends dear to him, partners in a vision—his family, the only family he ever wanted. All gone, all dead, the vision joining the smoke of destruction, disappearing in the rising vapours until nothing was left but the cold and the darkness. The Mahdi! 'It happens,' repeated Kendrick softly, rubbing his forehead. 'Get me the photographs and call Ahmat. I want to be back in that compound in twenty minutes, and I want to be taken out ten minutes later. For God's sake, move!'

Ahmat, sultan of Oman, still in slacks and his New England Patriots T-shirt, sat in the high-backed chair, the red light of his private, secure telephone glowing below on the right leg of his desk. With the instrument next to his ear he was listening intensely.

'So it happened, Faisal,' he spoke quietly. 'Praise be to Allah, it happened.'

'He told me you expected it,' said the doctor over the line, his tone questioning.

'“Expected” is too strong, old friend. Hoped is more appropriate.'

'I removed your tonsils, great sultan, and I attended you over the years for minor illnesses including a great fear you had that proved groundless.'

Ahmat laughed, more to himself than into the phone. 'A wild week in Los Angeles, Amal. Who knew what I might have contracted?'

'We had a pact. I never told your father.'

'Which means you think I'm not telling you something now.'

'The thought occurred to me.'

'Very well, old friend—' Suddenly, the young sultan snapped his head up as the door of his royal office was opened. Two women entered; the first was obviously pregnant, an Occidental from New Bedford, Massachusetts, blonde and wearing a bathrobe. His wife. Next to appear was an olive-skinned, dark-haired female dressed fashionably in street clothes. She was known to the household simply as Khalehla. 'Apart from common sense, good Doctor,' continued Ahmat into the phone, 'I have certain sources. Our mutual acquaintance needed assistance, and who better to provide it than the ruler of Oman? We leaked information to the animals at the embassy. Prisoners were being held somewhere, subjected to brutal interrogation. Someone had to be sent there to maintain discipline, order—and Kendrick found him… Give our American anything he wants, but delay his schedule by fifteen or twenty minutes, until my two police officers arrive.'

'The Al Kabir? Your cousins?'

'Two special police will suffice, my friend.'

There was a brief silence, a voice searching for words. 'The rumours are true, aren't they, Ahmat?'

'I have no idea what you mean. Rumours are gossip and neither interests me.'

'They say you are so much wiser than your years—’

'That's sophomoric,' broke in the sultan.

'He said you had to be to—“run this place”, he said. It's difficult for one who treated you for mumps.'

'Don't dwell on it, Doctor. Just keep me informed.' Ahmat reached into the drawer where the base of the private telephone lay and punched a series of numbers. Within seconds, he spoke. 'I'm sorry, my family, I know you're asleep, but I must again bother you. Go to the compound at once. Amal Bahrudi wants to escape. With fish.' He hung up.

'What's happened?' asked the young sultan's wife as she rapidly walked forward.

'Please,' said Ahmat, his eyes on the stomach of his waddling spouse. 'You have only six weeks to go, Bobbie. Move slowly.'

'He's too much,' said Roberta Aldridge Yamenni, turning her head and addressing Khalehla at her side. This jock of mine came in around two thousand in the Boston marathon and he's telling me how to carry a baby. Is that too much?'

'The royal seed, Bobbie,' replied Khalehla, smiling.

'Royal, my foot! Diapers are one hell of an equalizer. Ask my mother, she had four of us in six years. Really, darling, what happened?'

'Our American congressman made contact in the compound. We're mocking up an escape.'

'It worked!' cried Khalehla, approaching the desk.

'It was your idea,' said Ahmat.

'Please, forget it. I'm way out of line here.'

'Nothing's out of line,' the youthful sultan said firmly. 'Appearances notwithstanding, risks notwithstanding, we need all the help we can get, all the advice we can gather… I apologize, Khalehla. I haven't even said hello. As with my cousins, my lowly policemen, I'm sorry to drag you out at this hour, but I knew you'd want to be here.'

'Nowhere else.'

'How did you manage it? I mean leaving the hotel at four in the morning.'

'Thank Bobbie. I add, however, Ahmat, that neither of our reputations has been enhanced.'

'Oh?' The sultan looked at his wife.

'Great Lord,' intoned Bobbie, her palms together, bowing and speaking in her Boston accent. 'This lovely lady is a courtesan from Cairo—nice ring to it, huh? Under the circumstances—' Here the royal wife outlined her swollen stomach with her hands and continued, 'The privilege of rank has its goodies. Speaking as one of Radcliffe's history graduates, which my former roommate here will attest, Henry the Eighth called it “riding in the saddle”. It happened when Anne Boleyn was too indisposed to accommodate her monarch.'

'For God's sake, Roberta, this isn't The King and I and I'm not Yul Brynner.'

'You are now, pal!' Laughing, Ahmat's wife looked at Khalehla. 'Of course, if you touch him, I'll scratch your eyes out.'

'Not to fear, my dear,' said Khalehla in mock seriousness. 'Not after what you've told me.'

'All right, you two,' Ahmat interrupted. His brief look expressed the gratitude he felt towards both women.

'We have to laugh now and then,' said his wife. 'Otherwise I think we'd go stark raving mad.'

'Raving as in mad,' agreed Ahmat quietly, settling his eyes on the woman from Cairo. 'How's your British businessman friend?'

'Raving as in drunk,' answered Khalehla. 'He was last seen half upright in the hotel's American Bar still calling me names.'

'It's not the worst thing that could happen to your cover.'

'Certainly not. I obviously go to the highest bidder.'

'What about our super patriots, the elder merchant princes who'd just as soon see me flee to the West in frustration as stay here? They still believe you're working with them, don't they?'

'Yes. My “friend” in the Sabat Aynub market told me that they're convinced you met with Kendrick. His logic was such that I had to go along with him and agree that you were a damn fool; you were asking for the worst kind of trouble. Sorry.'

'What logic?'

'They know that a garrison car picked up the American a few blocks away from his hotel. I couldn't argue, I was there.'

'Then they were looking for that car. Garrison vehicles are all over Masqat.'

'Sorry, again, it was a wrong move, Ahmat. I could have told you that if I'd have been able to reach you. You see, the circle was broken; they knew Kendrick was here—'

'Mustapha,' interrupted the young sultan angrily. 'I mourn his death but not the closing of his big mouth.'

'Perhaps it was he, perhaps not,' said Khalehla. 'Washington itself could be responsible. Too many people were involved in Kendrick's arrival, I saw that also. As I understand, it was a State Department operation; there are others who do these things better.'

'We don't know who the enemy is or where to look!'

Ahmat clenched his fist, bringing his knuckles to his teeth. 'It could be anyone, anywhere—right in front of our eyes. Goddamn it, what do we do?'

'Do as he's told you,' said the woman from Cairo. 'Let him go in under deep cover. He's made contact; wait for him to reach you.'

'Is that all I can do? Wait?'

'No, there's something else,' added Khalehla. 'Give me the escape route and one of your fast cars. I brought along my courtesan's equipment—it's in a suitcase outside in the hall—and while I change clothes you coordinate the details with your cousins and that doctor you call an old friend.'

'Hey, come on!' protested Ahmat. 'I know you and Bobbie go back a long time but that doesn't give you the right to order me to endanger your life! No way, Jose.'

'We're not talking about my life,' said Khalehla icily, her brown eyes staring at Ahmat. 'Or yours, frankly. We're talking about raw terrorism and the survival of Southwest Asia. Nothing may come of tonight, but it's my job to try to find out, and it's your job to permit me. Isn't that what we've both been trained for?'

'And also give her the number where she can reach you,' said Roberta Yamenni calmly. 'Reach us.'

'Go change your clothes,' said the young sultan of Oman, shaking his head, his eyes closed.

'Thank you, Ahmat. I'll hurry but first I have to speak to my people. I don't have much to say so it'll be quick.'

The drunken bald-headed man in the dishevelled Savile Row pinstripes was escorted out of the elevator by two countrymen. The girth and weight of their inebriated charge were such that each struggled to uphold his part of the body.

'Bloody disgrace, is what he is!' said the man on the left, awkwardly glancing at a hotel key dangling from the fingers of his right hand, which was even more awkwardly shoved up under the drunk's armpit.

'Come now, Dickie,' retorted his companion, 'we've all swigged our several-too-many on occasion.'

'Not in a goddamned country going up in flames fuelled by nigger barbarians! He could start a bloody brawl and we'd be hanged by our necks from two lamp posts! Where's the damned room?'

'Down the hall. Heavy bugger, isn't he?'

'All lard and straight whisky is my guess.'

'I don't know about that. He seemed like a pleasant enough chap who got taken by a fast-talking whore. That sort of thing makes anyone pissed, you know. Did you get whom he worked for?'

'Some textile firm in Manchester. Twillingame or Burlingame, something like that.'

'Never heard of it,' said the man on the right, arching his brows in surprise. 'Here, give me the key; there's the door.'

'We'll just throw him on the bed, no courtesies beyond that, I tell you.'

'Do you think that fellow will keep the bar open for us? I mean, while we're doing our Christian duty the bugger could lock the doors, you know.'

'The bastard had better not!' exclaimed the man named Dickie as the three figures lurched into the darkened room, the light from the hallway outlining the bed. 'I gave him twenty pounds to keep the place open, if only for us. If you think I'm shutting my eyes for a single second until I'm on that plane tomorrow, you're ready for the twit farm! I'll not have my throat slit by some wog with a messianic complex, I tell you that, too! Come on, heave!'

'Good night, fat prince,' said the companion. 'And may all kinds of black bats carry you to wherever.'

The heavyset man in the pinstriped suit raised his head from the bed and turned his face towards the door. The footsteps in the hallway receded; inelegantly he rolled his bulk over and got to his feet. In the shadowed light provided by the dull streetlamps below outside the window, he removed his jacket and trousers, hanging them carefully in the open closet, smoothing out the wrinkles. He proceeded to undo his regimental tie, slipping it off his neck. He then unbuttoned his soiled shirt reeking of whisky, removed it also and threw it into a wastebasket. He went into the bathroom, turned on both taps and sponged his upper torso; satisfied, he picked up a bottle of cologne and splashed it generously over his skin. Drying himself, he walked back into the bedroom to his suitcase on a luggage rack in the corner. He opened it, selected black trousers and a black silk shirt, and put them on. As he buttoned the shirt and tucked it under the belt around his thick stomach, he walked over to a window, taking out a book of matches from his trouser pocket. He struck a match, let the flame settle and made three semicircles in front of the large glass pane. He waited ten seconds then crossed to the desk in the centre of the left wall and switched on the lamp. He went to the door, unlatched the automatic lock and returned to the bed where he meticulously removed the two pillows from under the spread, fluffed both up for a backrest and lowered his large frame. He looked at his watch and waited.

The scratching at the door made three distinct eruptions, each semicircular, on the wood, if one listened. 'Come in,' said the man on the bed in the black silk shirt.

A dark-skinned Arab entered hesitantly, in apparent awe of his surroundings and the person within those surroundings. His robes were clean, if not brand new, and his headdress spotless; his was a privileged mission. He spoke in a quiet, reverent voice. 'You made the holy sign of the crescent, sir, and I am here.'

'Much thanks,' said the Englishman. 'Come in and close the door, please.'

'Of course, Effendi.' The man did as he was told, holding his position of distance.

'Did you bring me what I need?'

'Yes, sir. Both the equipment and the information.'

'The equipment first, please.'

'Indeed.' The Arab reached under his robes and withdrew a large pistol, its outsize appearance due to a perforated cylinder attached to the barrel; it was a silencer. With his other hand the messenger pulled out a small grey box; it contained twenty-seven rounds of ammunition. He walked dutifully forward to the bed, extending the handle of the weapon. 'The gun is fully loaded, sir. Nine shells. Thirty-six shells in all.'

'Thank you,' said the obese Englishman, accepting the equipment. The Arab stepped back obsequiously. 'Now the information, if you please.'

'Yes, sir. But first I should tell you that the woman was recently driven to the palace from her hotel in the next street—’

'What?' Astonished, the British businessman bolted upright on the bed, his heavy legs swinging around, pounding the floor. 'Are you certain?'

'Yes, sir. A royal limousine picked her up.'

'When?'

'Roughly ten to twelve minutes ago. Naturally I was informed immediately. She is there by now.'

'But what about the old men, the merchants?' The fat man's voice was low and strained, as if he were doing his utmost to control himself. 'She made contact, didn't she?'

'Yes, sir,' answered the Arab tremulously as though he feared a beating if he replied in the negative. 'She had coffee with an importer named Hajazzi in the Dakhil, then much later met with him at the Sabat market. She was taking photographs, following someone—’

'Who?'

'I don't know, sir. The Sabat was crowded and she fled. I could not follow her.'

'The palace…?' whispered the businessman hoarsely as he slowly stood up. 'Incredible!'

'It is true, sir. My information is accurate or I would not deliver it to such an august personage as yourself… In truth, Effendi, I shall praise Allah with all my heart in my every prayer for having met a true disciple of the Mahdi.'

The Englishman's eyes snapped up at the figure of the messenger. 'Yes, you've been told that, haven't you?' he said softly.

'I was blessed with this gift of knowledge, singled out among my brothers for the privilege.'

'Who else knows?'

'On my life, no one, sir! Yours is a sacred privilege to be made in silence and invisibly. I shall go to my grave with the secret of your presence in Masqat!'

'Splendid idea,' said the large man in shadows as he raised the pistol.

The two gunshots were like rapid, muted coughs but their power belied the sound. Across the room the Arab was blown into the wall, his spotless robes suddenly drenched with blood.

The hotel's American Bar was dark except for the dull glow of fluorescent tubes from under the counter. The aproned bartender slouched in a corner of his domain, every now and then glancing wearily at the two figures sitting in a booth by a front window, the view outside partially blocked by the lowered, half-closed blinds. The Englishmen were fools, thought the bartender. Not that they should disregard their fears—who lived without them in these mad-dog days, foreigner and sane Omani alike? But these two would be safer from a mad-dog assault behind the locked doors of hotel rooms, unnoticed, unseen… Or would they? mused the bartender, reconsidering. He, himself, had told the management that they insisted on remaining where they were, and the management, not knowing what the foreigners carried on their persons or who else might know and be looking for them, had stationed three armed guards in the lobby near the American Bar's only entrance. In any case, the bartender concluded, yawning, wise or unwise, dull-witted or very clever, the Englishmen were extremely generous, that was all that mattered. That and the sight of his own weapon covered by a towel under the bar. Ironically, it was a lethal Israeli submachine gun he had bought from an accommodating Jew on the waterfront. Hah! Now the Jews were really clever. Since the madness began, they were arming half of Masqat.

'Dickie, look!' whispered the more tolerant of the two Englishmen, his right hand separating a pair of slats in the lowered blind covering the window.

'What, Jack…?' Dickie jerked his head up, blinking his eyes; he had been dozing.

'Isn't that our squiffed countryman out there?'

'Who? Where…? My God, you're right!'

Outside in the deserted, dimly lit street, the heavyset man—upright, agitated, pacing the curb while rapidly looking back and forth—suddenly struck several matches, one after the other. He appeared to raise and lower the flames, snapping each match angrily down on the pavement before lighting the next. Within ninety seconds a dark car appeared racing down the street; as it abruptly stopped the headlights were extinguished. Astonished, Dickie and his companion watched through the slats of the blind as the fat man, with startling agility and purpose, strode around the bonnet of the vehicle. As he approached the passenger door, an Arab wearing a headdress but otherwise in a dark Western suit leaped out. Instantly, the heavy Britisher began speaking rapidly, repeatedly jabbing his index finger into the face of the man in front of him. Finally he heaved his large torso around, spun his jowled head and pointed at an area in the upper floors of the hotel; the Arab turned and raced across the pavement. Then, in clear view, the obese businessman pulled a large weapon from his belt as he opened the car door farther and quickly, again angrily, lowered himself inside.

'My God, did you see that?' cried Dickie.

'Yes. He's changed his clothes.'

'His clothes?'

'Of course. The light's poor but not for the practised eye. The white shirt's gone and so are the pinstripes. He's wearing a dark shirt now and his jacket and trousers are a dull black, coarse-woven wool, I should think, hardly suitable for the climate.'

'What are you talking about?' exclaimed the astounded Dickie. 'I meant the gun!'

'Well, yes, old chap. You're in ferrous metals and I'm in textiles.'

'Really, you leave me dumbfounded! We both see a twenty-stone bugger, who, fifteen minutes ago, was so squiffed we had to carry him upstairs, suddenly running around cold sober in the street, issuing orders to some bloke and brandishing a gun while he jumps into a madly driven car he obviously had signalled—and all you see are his clothes.'

'Well, actually, there's more to it than that, old boy. I saw the gun, of course, and the jack-rabbit Arab, and that car—obviously driven by a maniac—and the contrariness of it all was why the clothes struck me as odd, don't you see?'

'Not a ha'penny worth!'

'Perhaps “odd” is the wrong choice of word—’

'Try the right one, Jack.'

'All right, I'll try… That fat bugger may or may not have been squiffed but he was a dandy of the first water. Best featherweight worsted stripe, an Angelo shirt, the finest pure silk tie, and Benedictine shoes—leather from the veldt and sewn to order in Italy. He's dressed to kill, I thought to myself, and everything right for the climate.'

'So?' asked the exasperated Dickie.

'So out there in the street just now, he's in a jacket and trousers of quite ordinary quality, ill-fitting and far too heavy for this blasted weather, and certainly not the sort of outfit that would stand out in a crowd, much less appropriate for a dawn social or an Ascot breakfast. And while I'm at it, there isn't a textile firm in Manchester I'm not familiar with, and there's no Twillingame or Burlingame or any name remotely similar.'

'You don't say?'

'I do say.'

'That's a wicket, isn't it?'

'I also say we shouldn't take that plane this morning.'

'My God, why?'

'I think we should go over to our embassy and wake someone up.'

'What… ?’

'Dickie, suppose that bugger is dressed to kill?'

Ultra Maximum Secure

No Existing Intercepts

Proceed

The journal continued.

The latest report is troubling and insofar as my appliances haven't broken Langley's access codes, I don't even know whether data was withheld or not. The subject has made contact. The shadow speaks of a high-risk option that was 'inevitable'—inevitable!—but extremely dangerous.

What is he doing and how is he doing it? What are his methods and who are his contacts? I must have specifics! If he survives, I will need every detail, for it is the details that lend credence to any extraordinary action, and it is the action that will propel the subject into the conscience of the nation.

But will he survive or will he be yet another buried statistic in an unrevealed series of events? My appliances cannot tell me, they can only attest to his potential which means nothing if he's dead. Then all my work will have been for nothing.