The Killing Ground

KUWAIT
THE EMPTY QUARTER
LONDON
Chapter 5

KUWAIT WAS KUWAIT, THE OIL WELLS WORKING AWAY, the visible signs of war no longer in evidence. Desert Storm had been a long time ago. Hussein had checked on the satellite phone and before arrival had been given instructions to a part of the airport some distance away from the terminals used for Jumbos and other passenger planes.

The Land Rovers moved through a number of parked cargo planes and finally reached a place of separate hangars and private planes, parked with precision.

The one on the end was an old Hawk eight-seater and a man in stained overalls came down the steps from the interior. He was American from his accent.

“My name’s Grant. Mr. Rashid?”

“That’s me,” Rashid said.

“She’s all yours. Are you familiar with this aircraft?”

“I’m familiar with many aircraft types. Have I anything to sign?”

“No, everything’s taken care of.” He opened an envelope and took a document out. “I’ll return your pilot’s license.”

It was an excellent forgery, but Hussein made no comment on that. “My thanks. Flying down to Hazar, how long would it take in such a plane?”

“Two and a half hours, maybe three. How experienced are you at desert flying?”

“I’ve flown many times in Morocco and Algeria.”

“This is the Empty Quarter. Winds of great force can come out of nowhere, so be careful.”

“I have flown in the area south of here and I’m familiar with the landmarks and the airport.”

“Good. Anyway, I photocopied a section of the map for you, just in case you need it-the route there and the airport between Hazar town and the small coastal village of Kafkar on the bluff overlooking it.”

“Thank you. Right, let’s get on board,” Hussein ordered Jasmine and Sara. They went up the steps, followed by Khazid. Hamid and Hussein passed weaponry up to him, several AK rifles, some Uzi machine pistols and assault bags loaded with ammunition and grenades and three or four shoulder-fired missiles.

“Are you guys expecting a war or something?”

“I thought there was always a war of some kind in the Empty Quarter.”

“That’s true.”

“My family is Rashid Shipping. As I’m sure you know, piracy is not unheard of.”

“Tell me about it. If you’d just sign the manifest, you can be on your way.”

Hussein was the last to board, heaving up the steps and closing the hatch behind him.

Jasmine and Sara had already discovered a large basket and were examining it. “Plenty of food in here and good bread,” Jasmine said. Sara opened another one and took out a bottle. “You can tell he was American,” she said. “Wine, red and white, whiskey and brandy. Hardly what the Prophet, whose name be praised, would recommend.”

“I’ve always found the Prophet very understanding,” said young Hamid, who had been an artist before taking up the gun.

“Well, each man makes his own arrangements.” Hussein eased himself into the pilot’s seat. He unfolded the map Grant had given him and Sara said, “Can I get in the copilot’s seat?”

“Why not.”

She did and he said, “You can help navigate. Just follow the red line that the American, Grant, has drawn.”

“What’s this?” she asked and ran her finger a good hundred miles or more along the line.

“Saint Anthony’s Hospice. It’s a Christian monastery that’s served the trunk road across the desert since before Islam. There are only twenty or thirty men there now, Greek Orthodox in strange black robes. Fifty miles further on is the Oasis of Fuad with what’s called Saint Anthony’s Well. In ancient times, they served travelers of all religions.”

He pressed the starter and the engines rattled into life, first the port, then the starboard. “Fasten your seat belts,” he called, as he boosted speed and they roared down the runway. Sara was excited and grabbed his arm.

“Oh, this is so thrilling.” She stared out at great mountains of sand dunes extending into infinity.

“A bit different from Baghdad.”

“Oh yes, very different. No war.”

He leveled out at ten thousand feet and put the automatic pilot on. Although there was air conditioning, on such an old plane it was not perfect. Hussein was wearing dark aviator’s sunglasses and a tan suit of fine Egyptian linen. He removed the jacket and revealed a shoulder holster under his left armpit holding a Beretta pistol.

Sara looked upon him. Hussein had been very careful in his dealings with her during the months she had been at the villa. As far as he was concerned, she knew nothing of his background other than the fact that he’d attended Harvard to qualify as a doctor and the war had prevented it.

But she was a remarkably astute young lady, soon to be fourteen, as she was fond of pointing out to people, and could not fail to notice the enormous respect with which he was treated by other people, and not just at the villa. Even important politicians and imams treated him as special. The truth was that she loved her father very dearly and he had been the most important man in her life. He had strong principles; you somehow took it for granted that anything he did was exactly the right thing for you. No argument needed.

Hussein was exactly the same. By religion, she had been baptized and raised as a Christian. She had no intention of changing that, although she had never argued about it with her grandfather, being perceptive enough to realize it would get her nowhere, and intelligent enough to understand she was embroiled in a complicated problem. She liked Hussein very much as her cousin, but the idea that at an appropriate age it would lead to marriage was something she had no intention of taking seriously. Her father would find a solution; all she had to do was wait.

The war, of course, was the war, but she was in a strange position. It was on the television every time you turned it on and it was also on the streets, very real, and it wouldn’t go away. Even the death of her grandfather had failed to shock her. Many members of the household staff had been killed on the streets one way or another during her time in Baghdad.

The young men were already sampling wine behind her. When they offered a glass to Hussein, he refused, pointing out that he was flying, but he accepted salad sandwiches in leavened bread and sat eating a couple with Sara, who noticed that when his right trouser leg slid up a little it disclosed an ankle holster containing a Colt pistol. When she asked what it was for, he made light of it, stressing that though it was hardly likely that anything would go wrong, there were Arabs down there whose lives were hardly formal.

On the other hand, he omitted to mention that an ankle holster was the mark of the true professional.

For the moment, she was content and quite thrilled, and gradually, her head went back and she dozed.

CHARLES FERGUSON’S COUSIN, Professor Hal Stone, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Hoxley Professor of Marine Archaeology, had what was common to most academics in his profession: an almost total lack of money with which to conduct any kind of significant research.

At Hazar, a diving operation on a World War II freighter had disclosed beneath it a Phoenician trading ship of Hannibal ’s era. He could afford only one or two annual visits using local Arab divers operating from an ancient boat called the Sultan. On a previous visit, Dillon and Billy, both expert divers, had been able to render him some assistance.

The phone call from Ferguson had sent the good professor into a frenzy of delight. When he wasn’t there, he employed his Arab foreman, a man named Selim, as caretaker. He phoned him with the news that he would be arriving and packed hurriedly.

He hadn’t felt so cheerful in a long time and it wasn’t only because of the prospect of diving. His dark secret was that as a young man, he had worked for the Secret Security Services, and was well aware of the kind of thing Ferguson and his minions got up to. To be involved delighted him.

“Transport provided?” he asked Ferguson.

“Of course. We’ve got a Gulfstream these days. The boys will have to get rid of the RAF rondels. We’ll call it…a United Nations Ocean Survey. That sounds good.”

“Absolutely. So… the reason your people are going there. What is it this time?”

“Come by my flat and I’ll fill you in.”

Stone hung up and checked himself in the wardrobe mirror. The man who looked out at him was in his sixties, tanned, white-bearded, wearing a khaki bush jacket, khaki shirt and slacks and a crumpled bush hat. He produced a pair of dark Ray-Ban sunglasses.

“That’s better,” he said. “Not exactly Indiana Jones, but not bad. Here we go again then.”

He opened the door to his rooms, got a bag in each hand and left.

ROPER HAD HAD A FEW PROBLEMS running to earth the details of the charter plane flying from Kuwait with Hussein and party. The American, Grant, found himself visited by a Captain Jackson of Military Intelligence at the British Embassy, who was delighted to do Charles Ferguson the favor. The fact that just on the corner of the hangar was a security camera, which on inspection proved to have taken several photos of the entire party, brought Jackson ’s visit to a more than satisfactory conclusion. In no time at all, everyone interested was able to examine them as much as they liked.

“The photos of Hussein Rashid are a real bonus,” Ferguson said.

“What do you think of the girl?” Roper asked.

“Typical of these cases, making the girl dress in that way. What about you?”

Roper poured a whiskey. “She has a calm sort of face, a face that doesn’t give a great deal away.”

“I’m not sure it resembles the father to any great degree.”

At that moment, Caspar Rashid hurried in with Sergeant Doyle. “What’s all this about photos?”

“Here they are,” Roper told him. “Fresh in from our contact in Kuwait.”

Caspar examined them carefully, shuffling the photos several times.

Finally, he said, “It’s amazing to actually have photos taken such a short time ago.”

“How do you think she looks?” Ferguson asked.

“I don’t know, I really don’t. I know I might sound strange saying this, but it’s the clothes she’s wearing. They change her personality so much, or so it seems. Can my wife see these?”

“Good heavens, yes. It’s a real stroke of luck getting such excellent photos of Hussein and his merry men.”

Caspar examined a couple of them more closely. “You know, I barely recognize him. It’s been several years, and then there were those six months in that American prison. I recall him as a very nice boy when young.”

Dillon, who had come in quietly and was looking at the photos, said, “People change and circumstances change them even more. His mother and father killed in a bombing raid, that six months in jail. It must have seemed cruel and heartless.” He helped himself to a shot of Roper’s whiskey. “God knows, I had enough experience in Ireland during the Troubles to see how people can change fundamentally.”

“Well, you would know, Sean,” Roper said. “This Hussein, though, he’s no ordinary one. Judging by his score, he’s almost as good as you.”

There was a heavy silence, for there was not much left for anyone else to say.

SARA, ENGROSSED WITH HER MAP READING and following the red line, saw the palm trees and the buildings that were St. Anthony’s Hospice before anybody else. She pointed and called out, and Jasmine and the boys stood up and crowded to the windows to see. Hussein went down lower and lower to no more than two thousand feet.

He circled. There was a parapet, several monks on it in black hats and black robes. They waved. Hussein waggled his wings and turned south.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that their luck ran out. Quite suddenly, smoke, black and oily, started to come out of the port engine. Jasmine saw it first and cried out and there was a general disturbance, but no sign of flames, just that heavy black plume of smoke.

Sara, who’d dozed off again, came awake with a start to hear him say, “Calm down, all of you.”

He switched off the engine and turned on the extinguisher for the port engine. Spray mingled with the smoke, but there were still no flames. “I think I know what it is. The oil seals have gone, leaking oil over the hot engine and creating all that black smoke. Everybody fasten their seat belts and we’ll go down.” He said to Sara, “Follow Grant’s line on the map. We must be close to the oasis at Fuad and Saint Anthony’s Well.”

He went down fast, the black plume of smoke flaring out from the wing, and Sara said calmly, “Over there on the right,” and she pointed through the windscreen.

“Good girl.”

They went down lower and lower until they were only a few hundred feet above the sand, and the oasis seemed to be coming toward them fast. Sara saw a clump of palm trees, a small, flat-roofed building to go with it, the clearly defined line of the road marked by the feet of countless travelers over the centuries.

There was a large pool of water, six horses drinking from it, Bedouins in robes beside a cooking fire gazing up, hands raised to shade their eyes from the sun.

Of further interest was a man in black robes, his wrists tied above him as he hung from a pole beside the house.

Hussein dropped the Hawk down on the road and rolled to a halt some distance from the oasis. He said to his three men, “Out you go. Rifles at the ready.”

One of the men by the pool was holding a riding whip. He turned as if ignoring them and slashed it across the monk’s back. The monk’s robe had slipped from his shoulders and they were already bloody.

Sara said, “They can’t do that, he’s a priest.”

“Calm yourself.” Hussein reached for his phone, which rang as his men disembarked, and discovered it was the Broker. “Good,” Hussein said. “I was hoping you’d be available.” He explained the situation with the plane and detailed their position.

“I’ll contact the airport at Hazar and arrange a recovery,” said the Broker. “Probably by helicopter. I’ll call you back when I know more.”

Hussein said, “Let’s get moving, ladies.” He smiled at Sara. “Pass me my jacket, will you?”

As she handed it to him, she saw the maker’s label inside and it said Armani, and she thought it was the most beautiful jacket she’d ever seen and suited him completely.

“Be ready for anything, boys,” he said. “Some bad bastards here, I think. Remember your blood, Rashid, before anything else.”

“As one, cousin, we are with you,” Khazid said, and they started forward, Hussein with Jasmine on one arm and Sara on the other.

THE SIX MEN by the pool watched them approach, cradling their rifles, wearing black robes and black-and-white head scarves. The leader, tall and bearded, waited, the whip dangling from his right hand.

“And who have we here?” he demanded.

“Who asks?” Hussein asked, and moved to the right where a pole protruded from a wooden fence, and sat on it.

“Mind your manners, pretty boy,” the man said. “I am Ali ben Levi. I say who comes and goes here. I claim the well and this one cannot gainsay me.”

He turned and slashed the priest across the shoulders again, and Sara cried out, “No.”

“Learn your place, girl. He is only a Christian.”

“And I am Christian, too,” she said in Arabic. “Would you lash me?”

She ran at him, and he grabbed her wrist and laughed. “To do so would give me great pleasure.” He flung her to the ground and raised the whip, and Hussein’s hand fastened on the Colt.25 in the ankle holster and he drew it and fired, catching ben Levi between the eyes, the hollow-point cartridge propelling him backward into the pool and blowing away the back of his skull.

In virtually the same moment, one of the men opposite started to raise his rifle and Hassim shot him just with his AK. There was dead silence. Hussein gestured, the Colt still in his hand.

“On this occasion, I allow you to live,” he told the rest of ben Levi’s men. “So take your dead and go. Go now.”

Hurriedly, they collected their horses, tied the bodies of the two dead men over the saddles of two mares and mounted. They waited for a moment and Hussein spoke.

“I am Hussein Rashid. I am the Hammer of God. I welcome any man of the ben Levi tribe who seeks satisfaction.”

Which they did not, and left. Jasmine was trembling, but Sara was strangely calm. “I’ll see to the priest,” she said and went to him.

The satellite phone sounded, but there was heavy static. The Broker shouted, “It’s me. Is the static clearing?”

“I’m here.”

“They’re sending a helicopter. Is everything okay?”

“A minor problem. It’s been taken care of.”

“Good. We’ll be needing you soon, Hussein. There’s work to be done, you know that. Osama himself was inquiring about you when we last spoke. He sends you his blessing.”

“Tell him I thank him. Good-bye for now.”

By the pool, Sara and Jasmine tended the priest, Sara washing his back carefully with a cloth from the house.

“Are you truly a Christian, child?” he asked.

“My mother is English, my father Rashid. I am baptized.”

“And yet you wear the clothes of a Muslim woman.”

Hussein and his men sat smoking and listening, and heard her say, “In the whole of the Koran, there are only two mothers of prophets. The first, the mother of Mohammed, whose name be praised, and the second Mary, the mother of the prophet Jesus. There is good in all things. I think this is true of the Bible and the Koran.”

“So young and yet so wise.” He counted his beads and started to pray.

She stood up and went and sat on the ground beside Hussein, and the others stood up out of respect and moved away.

“I didn’t know,” she said in English. “About you.”

“Of course you didn’t. You weren’t meant to.”

“I thought I knew you. Now I see I never knew you at all. The Hammer of God.” She shook her head, repeating it in Arabic. “The servants would speak of you and sometimes you were mentioned in newspapers. Strange.” She shook her head again. “I read the news to improve my Arabic and didn’t realize I was sometimes reading about you and your doings.” She changed to Arabic. “The great warrior. Never your face on television, but when you spoke on radio, you always described yourself as the Hammer of God in English. Even the young children learned it that way, some of the T-shirts also were printed with the English phrase. Why did you allow this?”

“Personal arrogance-to mock my enemies. In the English papers, the wording would be rather different. Not great warrior, but terrorist, I think.”

“Yes, it’s amazing how much it’s a matter of the words one chooses.”

“How wise,” he said. “Such wisdom in one so young.” In the distance, a sound emerged, the unmistakable stutter of a helicopter. “So, another stage on our journey.” He pulled her up. “Say good-bye to the good father and we’ll be on our way.”

THE PORT OF HAZAR was small, with white buildings and narrow alleys, the vivid blue of the sea contrasting with the whiteness of the buildings. The harbor was well used, with coastal shipping of various kinds, fishing vessels, old-fashioned dhows and motor cruisers.

They came in from the sea in a half-circle, and about a mile out from the town Sara noticed a big dhow, very ancient from the look of it.

Sara said, “That looks interesting.”

Hussein said, “It is. It’s really being used as a diving platform. They call it the Sultan. Some years ago, marine archaeologists discovered the wreck of a freighter about ninety feet down that had been sunk by a U-boat in the Second World War. When they dived on it, they discovered Phoenician pottery from about two hundred B.C. The freighter’s been sitting on a much more interesting wreck.”

“Are they doing anything about it?”

“The Hazar government? They couldn’t care less. A few years ago, a professor from Cambridge University got a license to dive it. He came back occasionally, but he never had any money to speak of. As I recall, he used local divers and treated it like a holiday.”

“It sounds lovely. Have you ever dived?”

“Oh, yes, many times when I was younger. It’s a different world down there.”

They swung in across the town, circling the airfield complex to the left and beyond, and then they drifted to the right to what looked like a small village above a tiny port, and on the hillside above it was an extensive villa, obviously old and standing in gardens and terracing of great beauty.

“And this is the pride of the Rashid family. The great house that has stood here for three hundred years. This is Kafkar.”

The helicopter swung down toward a landing pad, and there were people waiting there, many people, all in traditional dress, and standing alone in front of them was a very old man in a white linen suit, a Bedouin burnoose on his head. From the look of him, he had once been a man of great power, but he was leaning on a stick now.

As the engine stopped, Hussein said, “Your great-uncle, Jemal. You go first.”

He opened the door, sent out the steps and she went down. There was silence. Then the old man beckoned to her. “Sara-come to me, child.”

She started forward and the crowd broke into spontaneous applause.

LATER THEY SAT on a wide terrace above the garden, palm trees and exotic plants on every side. The sound of water was everywhere as it channeled from terrace to terrace in small waterfalls, and Jemal and Hussein sat and smoked. News of the shooting at the oasis had spread.

Jemal said, “The ben Levi business is nothing. Ali was a bandit of low repute. There’ll be no question of an honor killing in revenge. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t,” Hussein said. “They needed a lesson, these people.”

“They received one. What of your plans?”

“I shall stay a few days, leave Sara in your hands and go. There is work for me to do-important work. I am in close touch with al-Qaeda; Osama himself sent me a message only today.”

“Of course, you have been picked for great things, the chosen of Allah. The child will be safe here. What happened in Baghdad was a terrible thing. My brother’s death was the Will of Allah and the work of Sunnis, but the presence of these devils from London who would steal Sara-this troubles me.”

“And me.”

“My brother was disturbed that she was not happy.”

“Certainly she attempted to run away at first, so they tell me,” Hussein said.

“My brother and I discussed it. We made a decision to chain her. I’m surprised to see this is not so now.”

“I put her on her honor and she gave me her word. The traveling would have been difficult.”

“She is not traveling now.”

Hussein was on dangerous ground, needed to proceed with caution and knew it.

“For a young woman to be shackled so is at best awkward and difficult.” He played on his uncle’s sense of what was fitting. “After all, she is Rashid. For the world to see her shackled would be a great shame. There is your authority to consider.”

“You are right. To see her in public thus would shame us all.”

“Also a particular shame to you, Uncle.” He played now on the old man’s vanity. “That she was seen so.”

“This is true. There can be no question of the shackles. The woman Jasmine will accompany her at all times when she is outside. Two armed guards.” He looked up at the house. “The blue room will be her living quarters. All the doors and shutters are fitted with keys. No telephone.”

“That should suffice.” Hussein inclined his head. “Your wisdom, as usual, is boundless.”

At that moment, Sara came down the steps with Jasmine behind her. They were both wearing fresh clothing.

“Ah, there you are, child, come to me.” Jemal put out his hand.

She glanced at Hussein, who gave her a hardly visible nod, so she went and knelt at the old man’s knee. “It is good to see you, Sara.” He kissed her lightly on the head.

“It is good to see you, Uncle.” She took his hand and kissed it. “I regret the passing of my aunt last year before I could have the privilege of knowing her.”

“A fault not of your making, but of your father’s, but we will say no more of that sorry affair. Come-walk with me in the garden and tell me how it is in Baghdad.”

He pushed himself up on his stick and gave her his arm and they moved along the path, stopping now and then for him to speak to gardeners. Hussein watched them go. She was a clever girl and would soon learn to handle the old man. He lit a cigarette and leaned back, looking a mile out to sea at the Sultan. It was all so beautiful and he felt a drowsiness. But not for long. There was, after all, work to be done. His satellite phone rang. It was the Broker.

“Have you arrived? Are you settled?”

“Yes, thanks be to Allah.”

“Good. Now I said, Hussein, we have need of you.”

“I know-I know. Give me some time.”

“That is what we do not have.” There was a pause. “A week, then- one week and I need you in London.”

“For a purpose?” Hussein shook his head. “Ten days.”

“All right. There is a man who handles the British Prime Minister’s personal security, General Charles Ferguson. I need to do the Russians a favor and they want him dead. Can you do it?”

“If the will is there, it is possible to kill anyone.”

“Excellent. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. If you check on the computer there, you will find everything you need to know. I’ll be in touch.”

THE BROKER POURED a cup of green tea and leaned back in his chair. Every so often, things came together. The will of Allah actually existed. Take this present business. Ferguson and the Prime Minister, Blake Johnson and President Cazalet, Volkov and Putin. Hussein Rashid and the whole nonsense of Sara Rashid. Dillon and Salter, Flynn in Dublin, Levin, Chomsky and Popov.

There wasn’t one of them he didn’t have a hand on. It was all very satisfactory.