The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 8

The four terrorist prisoners were shackled, two sitting on the right side of the speeding, violently shaking police van, the other two opposite them on the left. As arranged, Kendrick sat with the young, wild-eyed fanatic whose harelip impeded his screeching pronouncements; Azra was across the way with the gruff, older killer who had challenged and attacked Evan, the man he thought of as a sergeant-foreman. By the rattling steel door of the van stood a police guard, his left hand gripping a crossbar on the roof, trying to keep himself upright. In his right, held in place by a taut leather shoulder strap, was a MAC-10 machine pistol. A single scatter-shot burst would turn the four breathing prisoners into bloodied, breathless corpses pinned to the walls of the racing van. Yet, also—as arranged—a ring of keys was hooked to the guard's belt, the same keys that had secured the prisoners' shackles. Everything had been a race against time, precious time. Minutes became hours and hours brought about another day.

'You're insane, you know that, don't you?'

'Doctor, we don't have a choice! That man is Azra—colour him Blue.'

'Wrong, wrong, wrong! Azra has a beard and long hair—we've all seen him on television—'

'He shaved off his beard and cut his hair.'

'I ask you. Are you Amal Bahrudi?'

'I am now.'

'No, you're not! Any more than he is Azra! That man was brought in here five hours ago from a bazaar in the Waljat. He's a drunken imbecile, a swaggering clown, nothing more. His fellow pig slashed his own throat with a policeman's knife!'

'I was there, Faisal. He is Azra, brother of Zaya Yateem.'

'Because he tells you so?'

'No. Because I talked to him, listened to him. His holy war isn't for or against Allah, Abraham or Christ. It's for survival in this life, on this earth.'

'Madness! All around us, madness!'

'What did Ahmat say?'

'To do as you say, but you must wait until his special police arrive. They are two men he trusts completely—your instructions, I believe.'

'Tweedledum and Tweedledee? The two uniforms who've been with me from the bazaar to the Al Kabir?'

'They are special. One will drive the police vehicle, the other will act as your guard.'

'Good thinking. I'm really playing out Ahmat's scenario, aren't I?'

'You're unfair, Mr. Kendrick.'

'He's not too shabby himself… Here are the other two prisoners I want in the transfer, in the truck with Azra and me.'

'Why? Who are they?'

'One's a lunatic who'd curse at his own firing squad, but the other… the other is Azra's beard. He does whatever colour-me-Blue tells him. Take those two away and there's no one to hold the fort together.'

'You're being cryptic.'

'The rest are breakable, Doctor. They don't really know anything but they're breakable. I suggest you take three or four out at a time, put them into smaller cells and then shoot off some rifles into the back wall of this compound. You might find a few fanatics who aren't so crazy about their own executions.'

'You are shedding your true skin, Shaikh Kendrick. You're going into a world of which you know nothing.'

'I'll learn, Doctor. That's why I'm here.'

The sign came! The guard by the van's door steadied himself, briefly lowering his left hand; he shook it to restore circulation and immediately reached up to grip the crossbar again. He would repeat the action in less than a minute and then it would be the moment for Evan to make his move. The choreography had been created quickly in the compound's laboratory; the attack was to be swift and simple. The guard's reaction was the key to its success. Twenty-two seconds later, the guard's left hand plummeted down again in a gesture of weariness.

Kendrick sprang off the bench, his body a compact missile hammering into the guard whose head crashed against the door with such force that the man's suddenly hysterical expression became instantly passive as he collapsed.

'Quickly!' commanded Evan, turning to Azra. 'Help me! Get his keys!'

The Palestinian leaped forward, followed by the sergeant-foreman. All together, their shackled hands threw the MAC-10 machine pistol out of the way and ripped the keys from the guard's belt.

'I'll kill him now!' shrieked the harelipped zealot, grabbing the weapon and lurching forward in the swaying truck, the gun aimed at the guard's head.

'Stop him!' ordered Azra.

'Fool!' roared the sergeant-foreman wrestling the weapon away from the young fanatic. 'The driver will hear the shots!'

'He is our holy enemy!'

'He is our holy way out of here, you miserable idiot!' said Azra, unlocking Kendrick's shackles and handing Evan the key to do the same for him. The congressman from Colorado did so, then turned to the extended wrists of the sergeant-foreman.

'My name is Yosef,' said the older man. 'It is a Hebrew name for my mother was Hebrew, but we are not part of the Jews of Israel—and you are a brave man, Amal Bahrudi.'

'I don't like firing squads in the desert,' said Kendrick, throwing his shackles on the floor and turning to the young terrorist who would have killed the unconscious guard. 'I don't know whether to let you free or not.'

'Why?' shrieked the boy. 'Because I will kill for our holy war, die for our cause?'

'No, young man, because you might kill us and we're more valuable than you.'

'Amal!' cried Azra, gripping Evan's arm as much to steady himself as to compel Kendrick's attention. 'I agree he's an idiot but there are special circumstances. Settlers in the West Bank blew up his family's house and his father's clothing store. His father died in the explosion and Israel's Custodial Commission sold both properties to new settlers for next to nothing.' Blue lowered his voice, speaking into Kendrick's ear. 'He's a mental case but he had no one to turn to but us. Yosef and I will control him. Let him free.'

'On your head, poet,' answered Evan gruffly, unlocking the young terrorist's wrist irons.

'Why do you say a desert execution?' asked Yosef.

'Because the road beneath us is half sand, can't you feel it?' said Kendrick, knowing the route they were taking. 'We just disappear, burned or buried in the desert.'

'Why us?' pressed the older terrorist.

'I can explain me better than I can you: They don't know what to do with me, so why not just kill me. If I'm dangerous or influential, both the danger and the influence go with me.' Evan paused, then nodded his head. 'Come to think of it,' he added, 'that probably explains Yosef and the boy; they were the loudest prisoners in there and their voices were probably identified—both are easily distinguishable.'

'And me?' asked Azra, staring at Kendrick.

'I should think you could answer that without my help,' replied Kendrick returning the Palestinian's look, a degree of contempt in his eyes. 'I tried to break away from you when they came after me by the toilets, but you were too slow.'

'You mean they saw us together?'

'The student gets a barely passing grade. Not only together but away from everyone else. It was your conference, big shot.'

'The truck's slowing down!' exclaimed Yosef as the van braked slightly, heading into a descending curve.

'We have to get out,' said Evan. 'Now. If he's going down into a valley there'll be soldiers. Quickly! We want the high ground. We need it; we'd never climb back up.'

'The door!' cried Azra. 'It must be padlocked on the outside.'

'I have no idea,' Kendrick lied, following the scenario as it had been rapidly drawn up in the compound's laboratory. Rivets had been removed and loosened in two panels. 'I've never been taken prisoner here. But it doesn't matter. It's as heet-steel alloy with seams. The four of us rushing together can smash out a partition. The centre. It's the weakest.' Evan grabbed the harelipped boy by the shoulder, pulling him to his left. 'All right, wild man. Hit it like you're breaking down the Wailing Wall. The four of us! Now!'

'Wait!' Azra lurched across the van. 'The weapon!' he exclaimed, picking up the MAC-10 machine pistol and looping the strap over his shoulder, the barrel directed downward. 'All right,' he said, rejoining the others.

'Go!' shouted Kendrick.

The four prisoners crashed into the centre panel of the door as the van lurched over the rocks in the downhill curve. The metal partition gave way, bulging at the seams, moonlight protruding through the wide separations.

'Once more!' roared Yosef, his eyes on fire.

'Remember!' commanded the man now accepted as Amal Bahrudi. 'If we break through, tuck into your knees when you hit the ground. We don't need anyone hurt.'

Again they rushed the half-collapsed panel. The bottom rivets snapped; the metal flew up in the moonlight and the four figures bolted out on the twisting road that led to a desert valley. Inside the van the guard rolled forward with the pitch of the vehicle's descent, his face streaked with perspiration brought about by fear of his own death. He crawled to his knees and hammered repeatedly on the wall of the driver's carriage. A single thud was heard in response. Their assignment for the night was half finished.

The fugitives also rolled, but against the descent, their movements abruptly halted, reversed by gravity, each straining to regain his balance. Azra and Yosef rose first to their feet, swivelling their necks and shaking their heads, instinctively checking their bruises for signs of anything worse. Kendrick followed, his shoulder on fire, his legs in momentary agony and his hands scraped, but all in all, he was grateful for the harsh requirements of backpacking through the mountains and riding the white water; he hurt but he was not hurt. The harelipped Palestinian had fared the worst; he moaned on the stony earth with its pattern of desert grass beneath the road, writhing in fury as he tried to rise but could not. Yosef ran to him, and as Evan and Azra studied the valley below the gruff older man made his pronouncement. 'This child has broken his leg,' he called over to his two superiors.

Then kill me now!' shrieked the youngster. 'I go to Allah and you go on to fight!'

'Oh, shut up,' said Azra, gripping the MAC-10 weapon in his hand and walking with Kendrick to the injured boy. 'Your compulsion to die becomes boring and your grating voice will kill us instead. Tear his shirt in strips, Yosef. Tie his hands and feet and put him in the road. That truck will race back up the minute it reaches the camp below and those fools realize what's happened. They'll find him.'

'You deliver me to my enemies?' screamed the teenager.

'Be quiet!' replied Azra angrily, strapping the machine pistol to his shoulder. 'We're delivering you to a hospital where you'll be taken care of. Children aren't executed except by bombs and missiles—all too frequently, but that's neither here nor there.'

'I will reveal nothing!'

'You don't know anything,' said the man called Blue. 'Tie him up, Yosef. Make the leg as comfortable as possible.' Azra bent over the youngster. 'There are better ways to fight than dying needlessly. Let the enemy heal you so you can fight again. Come back to us, my stubborn freedom fighter. We need you… Yosef, hurry!'

As the older terrorist carried out his orders, Azra and Kendrick walked back to the road hewn from rock. Far below the white sands began, stretching endlessly in the moonlight, a vast alabaster floor, its roof the dark sky above. In the distance, intruding on the blanket of white, was a small, pulsating eruption of yellow. It was a desert fire, the rendezvous that was an intrinsic part of the 'escape'. It was too far away for the figures to be seen clearly but they were there and rightly assumed to be Omani soldiers or police. But they were not the executioners Amal Bahrudi's companions imagined.

'You're much more familiar with the terrain than I am," said Evan in English. 'How far do you judge the camp to be?'

Ten kilometers, perhaps twelve, no more than that. The road straightens out below; they'll be there soon.'

'Then let's go.' Kendrick turned, watching the older Yosef carrying the injured teenager to the road. He started towards them.

Azra, however, did not move. 'Where, Amal Bahrudi?' he called out. 'Where should we go?'

Evan snapped his head back. 'Where?' he repeated contemptuously. 'To begin with, away from here. It'll be light soon, and if I know what I'm talking about, which I do, there'll be a dozen helicopters criss-crossing at low altitude looking for us. We can melt in the city, not here.'

'Then what do we do? Where do we go?'

Kendrick could not see clearly in the dim moonlight, but felt the intense, questioning stare levelled at him. He was being tested. 'We get word to the embassy. To your sister, Yateem, or the one named Ahbyahd. Stop the photographs and kill the ones involved.'

'How do we do that? Get word into the embassy? Did your people tell you that, Amal Bahrudi?'

Evan was prepared; it was the inevitable question. 'Frankly, they weren't sure where the pipeline was and they assumed if any of you had any brains it would change daily. I was to pass a note through the gates directed to your operations council to let me through—through the pipeline wherever it was at the moment.'

'Many such notes could be passed as a trap. Why would yours be accepted?'

Kendrick paused; when he answered his voice was low and calm and laced with meaning. 'Because it was signed by the Mahdi.'

Azra's eyes widened. He nodded, slowly and held up his hand. 'Who?' he asked.

'The envelope was sealed with wax and not to be broken. It was an insult I found hard to accept, but even I follow orders from those who pay the freight, if you know what I mean.'

'Those who give us the money to do what we do—’

'If there was a code signifying authenticity, it was for one or all of you on the council to know, not I.'

'Give me the note,' said Azra.

'Idiot!' yelled the congressman from Colorado's ninth district, exasperated. 'When I saw the police closing in on me, I tore it to shreds and scattered it through the Al Kabir! Would you have done otherwise?'

The Palestinian remained motionless. 'No, obviously not,' he replied. 'At any rate we won't need it. I'll get us into the embassy. The pipeline, as you call it, is well regulated both inside and out.'

'It's so well regulated that films are slipped out under the noses of your well-regulated guards. Send word in to your sister. Change them, every one of them, and start a search immediately for the camera. When it's found, kill the owner and anyone who seems to be a friend. Kill them all.'

'On such surface observation?' protested Azra. 'We risk wasting innocent lives, valuable fighters.'

'Let's not be hypocritical,' laughed Amal Bahrudi. 'We have no such hesitations with the enemy. We're not killing “valuable fighters”, we're killing innocent people quite properly to make the world listen, a world that's blind and deaf to our struggles, our very survival.'

'By your almighty Allah, now you're the one who's blind and deaf!' spat out Azra. 'You believe the Western press; it's not to be questioned! Of the eleven corpses, four were already dead including two of the women—one by her own hand for she was paranoid about rape, Arab rape; the other, a much stronger woman not unlike the marine who attacked Nassir, threw herself on a young imbecile whose only reaction was to fire his weapon. The two men were old and infirm and died of heart failure. It does not absolve us from causing innocent death, but no guns were raised against them. All this was explained by Zaya and no one believed us. They never will!'

'Not that it matters, but what about the others? Seven, I believe.'

'Condemned by our council and rightly so. Intelligence officers building networks against us throughout the Gulf and the Mediterranean; members of the infamous Consular Operations—even two Arabs—who sold their souls to sell us into oblivion, paid by the Zionists and their American puppets. They deserved death, for they would have seen us all die, but not before we were dishonoured, made caricatures of evil when there is no evil in us—only the desire to live in our own lands—’

'That's enough, poet,' broke in Kendrick, looking over at Yosef and the boy terrorist who longed for the arms of Allah. 'There's no time for your sermons; we have to get out of here.'

'To the embassy,' agreed Azra. 'Through the pipeline.'

Kendrick walked back to the Palestinian, approaching him slowly. 'To the embassy, yes,' he said. 'But not through the pipeline, just to the gates. There you'll send in the message to your sister spelling everything out for her. With those orders my job is finished here and so is yours—yours at least for a day or two.'

'What are you talking about?' asked the bewildered Blue.

'My instructions are to take one of you to Bahrain as soon as possible. It will only be for a short time, but it's urgent.'

'Bahrain?'

'To the Mahdi. He has new orders for you, orders he won't trust to anyone but a member of the council.'

'The airport's watched,' said Azra firmly. 'It's patrolled by guards and attack dogs; no one can get in or out except by passing through interrogation. We'd never make it. It's the same on the waterfront. Every boat is flagged down and searched or blown out of the water if it does not comply.'

'None of that has stopped your people from coming and going through the pipeline. I saw the results in Berlin.'

'But you said “urgent”, and the pipeline is a twenty-four to forty-eight-hour process.'

'Why so long?'

'We travel south only at night and in the uniforms of the Yemen border garrisons. If we're stopped, we say we're patrolling the coastline. We then rendezvous with the fast, deepwater boats—supplied by Bahrain, of course.'

'Of course.' He had been right, thought Evan. The southern coast as far as Ra's al Hadd and beyond to the Strait of Masirah was open territory, a cruel wasteland of rock-filled shores and inhospitable interiors, heaven-sent for thieves and smugglers and above all for terrorists. And what better protection than the uniforms of the border garrisons, those soldiers chosen for both their loyalty and especially their brutality that equalled or bettered that of the international desperadoes given sanctuary in Yemen? 'That's very good,' continued Amal Bahrudi, his tone professional. 'How in Allah's name did you get hold of the uniforms? I understand they're unusual; a lighter colour, different epaulettes, boots designed for desert and water—’

'I had them made,' interrupted Azra, his eyes on the valley below. 'In Bahrain, of course. Each is accounted for and locked up when not in use… You're right, we must go. That truck will reach the camp in less than two minutes. We'll talk along the way. Come!'

Yosef had placed the bound, injured young terrorist across the road, calming him and giving him quiet but firm instructions. Azra and Kendrick approached; Evan spoke. 'We'll make better time here on the road,' he said. 'We'll stay on it until we see the headlights coming up from the valley. Hurry.'

Final words of encouragement given to their fallen colleague, the three fugitives started running up the curving ascent to the flat ground several hundred feet above. The terrain was a combination of dry, scrubby brush weaving over the mostly arid earth and short, gnarled trees encouraged by the night moisture blown in from the sea only to be dwarfed by the windless, blistering heat of day. For as far as their eyes could see in the moon's dull wash, the road was straight. Breathing hard, his barrel-chest heaving, Yosef spoke. 'Three or four kilometers north there are more trees, taller trees, much more foliage to hide in.'

'You know that?' asked Kendrick, unpleasantly surprised, thinking he was the only one who knew where they were.

'Not this exact road, perhaps, although there are only a few,' answered the blunt, older terrorist, 'but they are the same. From the sands towards the Gulf the earth changes. Everything is greener and there are small hills. Suddenly, one is in Masqat. It happens quickly.'

'Yosef was part of the scouting team under Ahbyahd's command,' explained Azra. 'They came here five days before we captured the embassy.'

'I see. I also see that the entire Black Forest couldn't help us when the light comes up, and Oman isn't the Schwarzwald. There'll be troops and police and helicopters combing every inch of ground. There's no place for us to hide except Masqat.' Evan directed his next words to the man called Blue. 'Certainly you have contacts in the city.'

'Numerous.'

'What does that mean?'

'Between ten and twenty, several highly placed. They fly in and out, of course.'

'Call them together in Masqat and bring me to them. I'll choose one.'

'You'll choose one—’

'All I need is one, but it must be the right one. He'll carry a message for me and I'll have you in Bahrain in three hours.'

To the Mahdi?'

'Yes.'

'But you said—you implied—that you don't know who he is.'

'I don't.'

'Still, you know how to reach him then?'

'No,' answered Kendrick, a sudden hollow pain in his chest. 'Another insult but more readily understood. My operations are in Europe, not here. I simply assumed that you knew where to find him in Bahrain.'

'Perhaps it was in the note you destroyed in the Al Kabir, a code—’

'There are always emergency procedures!' broke in Evan harshly, trying to control his anxiety.

'Yes, there are,' said Azra thoughtfully. 'But none that ever directly involve the Mahdi. As you must know, his name is spoken in whispers to only a few.'

'I don't know. I told you, I don't operate in this part of the world—which was why I was chosen… obviously.'

'Yes, obviously,' agreed Blue. 'You are far away from your base, the unexpected messenger.'

'I don't believe this!' exploded Kendrick. 'You receive instructions—no doubt daily, don't you?'

'We do.' Azra looked briefly at Yosef. 'But like yourself I am a messenger.'

'What?'

'I am a member of the council, and young and strong, and not a woman. But I am not a leader; my years do not permit it. Nassir, my sister Zaya, and Ahbyahd; they were appointed the leaders of the council. Until Nassir's death the three of them shared responsibility for the operation. When sealed instructions came, I delivered them but I did not break the seals. Only Zaya and Ahbyahd know how to reach the Mahdi—not personally, of course, but through a series of contacts that lead to him, get word to him.'

'Can you make radio contact with your sister—over a secure frequency or perhaps a sterile telephone? She'd give you the information.'

'Impossible. The enemy's scanning equipment is too good. We say nothing on the radio or the telephone that we would not say in public; we must assume it's one and the same.'

'Your people in Masqat!' continued Evan rapidly, emphatically, feeling the beads of perspiration on his hairline. 'Could one of them go inside and bring it out?'

'Information concerning the Mahdi, no matter how remote?' asked Azra. 'She'd execute the one who sought it.'

'We've got to have it! I'm to take you to Bahrain—to him—by tonight, and I won't risk our sources of operating funds in Europe because I'm held responsible for a failure here that isn't mine!'

'There is only one solution,' said Azra. 'The one I spoke of below. We go to the embassy, into the embassy.'

'There's no time for such complications,' insisted Kendrick desperately, terrified now of being discovered. 'I know Bahrain. I’ll choose a location and we'll call one of your people here to get the word inside to your sister. She or Ahbyahd will find a way to reach one of the Mahdi's contacts. There can't be any mention of either of us, of course—we'll have them say an emergency has arisen. That's it, an emergency; they'll know what it means! I'll fix the meeting ground. A street, a mosque, a section of the piers or the outskirts of the airport. Someone will come. Someone has to!'

The lean, muscular young terrorist once more was silent as he studied the face of the man he believed to be his counterpart in far off Europe. 'I ask you, Bahrudi,' he said after the better part of ten seconds. 'Would you be so free, so undisciplined, with your financial sources in Berlin? Would Moscow, or the Bulgarian banks in Sofia, or the unseen money in Zagreb tolerate such loose communications?'

'In an emergency they would understand.'

'If you allowed such an emergency, they would slit your throat with a shearing knife and replace you!'

'You take care of your sources and I'll take care of mine, Mr. Blue.'

'I will take care of mine. Here, now. We go to the embassy!'

The winds from the Gulf of Oman swept over the scrubby grass and the gnarled, dwarfed trees, but they could not prohibit the sound of the persistent two-note siren in the distance coming up from the desert valley. It was the signal. Conceal yourselves. Kendrick expected it.

'Run!' roared Yosef, grabbing Azra's shoulder and propelling his superior forward on the road. 'Run, my brothers, as you have never run before in your lives!'

'The embassy!' cried the man called Blue. 'Before the light comes up!'

For Evan Kendrick, congressman from the ninth district of Colorado, the nightmare that would live with him the rest of his life was about to begin.