Whatever the Cost

1

Dan Chadwick wasn’t looking forward to this. The flight from Dallas/Fort Worth International was nearly nineteen hours, and his destination wasn’t exactly the Caribbean.

He’d never been to Dhahran before, and yet the thrill of discovery was noticeably absent. It was, after all, in Saudi Arabia — an Islamic country still ruled by a monarchy with its strict shariah law, and not one he had ever had a desire to travel to. And yet Dhahran was the seat of Saudi National Oil, the world’s largest oil company, and was therefore a very common destination for executives from his own company.

Chadwick had only joined Texas Mainline Oil last year, and this was to be his first meeting with his opposite number at Saudi National Oil. But the unexpected call from Ezzard Kaplan, TMO’s chief executive, had been unequivocal; Chadwick was to drop everything and make his way to the airport for the flight to Dhahran that very evening.

His meeting was to be with Abdullah Al-Zayani, Senior Vice President of Finance, Strategy and Development; a potential investment deal was in the offing between Saudi National Oil and Texas Mainline Oil, and Kaplan wanted Chadwick — as TMO’s Vice President of Finance — to start discussing the money. Chadwick could see why Kaplan was keen — the deal could potentially be worth over a billion dollars a year to the American company.

It did mean, however, that the pressure would be on right from the start, and Chadwick knew that the nineteen hours aboard the plane would be spent in harassed preparation for the endless meetings ahead.

At least he would have the comfort of the executive lounge before setting off, he considered as he stepped out of the company limousine, into the baking Texan heat, right outside the terminal’s entrance. Maybe he could start the day off with a nice martini to steady his nerves.

Jim Yancy watched the limousine pull up to the main airport entrance, coming to a smooth stop right outside the door. The trunk was popped open and the bags whisked away even before the passenger had been let out by the uniformed driver.

It was definitely him — Dan Chadwick of Texas Mainline Oil.

Right on time.

Yancy nodded at the man opposite him, who held up the hypodermic needle and nodded back.

He then checked out of the van’s blackened windows once more, turned to the man next to him and nodded again.

The van’s side door was immediately slid open, and Yancy burst into action.

Chadwick watched as assistants came to take care of his bags, and started to move slowly towards the electrically sliding doors of the airport terminal.

He was still thinking about that dry martini when everything changed.

The first thing he heard was the noise of a vehicle pulling up behind him; then a door sliding open; and then the he felt arms reaching out for him, a sharp stabbing sensation in the side of his neck; and then there was nothing at all.

Lt. Commander Nelson Iboria nodded to Lieutenant Yancy, who held the unconscious body of Dan Chadwick, and banged hard on the partition to the van’s cabin, alerting the driver. The van pulled away immediately, heading for the airport exit.

From Chadwick stepping out of the limousine, to being drugged and unconscious in the moving van, had taken no longer than four seconds — a short enough period of time for any witnesses to doubt the possibility of what they had seen. It had been like a magician’s illusion, a trick which nobody would be able to fathom. And now Chadwick was safely in the van, the next part of the plan could commence.

The operation had been planned by Commander Treyborne with incredible speed, but time was definitely of the essence and Iboria was just glad that he’d got to play a part in it. After all, it wasn’t strictly speaking an authorized mission.

But, as Treyborne had explained to all the men, it was absolutely vital to American interests that Chadwick be intercepted at the airport; and that was good enough for Iboria. Let the politicians play their little games in their ivory towers, but when there was work to be done, Iboria was the man to do it.

And — authorized or not — Dan Chadwick of Texas Mainline Oil was now in the custody of SEAL Team Six.

Mark Cole strolled through the gates of Dallas/Fort Worth International, his passport bearing up to the scrutiny of two independent sets of airline security.

He was now travelling as Daniel Jordan Chadwick of Dallas, Texas; the real man would soon be comfortably ensconced in the nearby Hyatt Regency for the duration of the operation, courtesy of Commander Treyborne’s Red Squadron SEALs.

Back in Sumatra, Treyborne had been all set to arrest Cole; but when Cole had told him who he really was, Treyborne’s old friend Mark Kowalski, the SEAL commander had been so surprised that he had listened to Cole’s entire story — his recruitment into the SRG, his time in prison, his rescue by Charles Hansard and his new identity.

Treyborne had known Cole was on the level; after all, he’d been the best man the commander had ever worked with. And so he had continued to listen as Cole explained what they needed to do.

It was clear that the hijacking wasn’t all it seemed, but it was also equally — and unfortunately — true that certain people at the White House didn’t want to know about it, and would make any further operations difficult to get off the ground. Plans probably would get made, but not rapidly enough to deal with the situation effectively.

Cole’s name was muddied by the accusations, and — despite the safe retrieval of the Fu Yu Shan and its crew — anything he said was going to be regarded as tainted. In fact, it seemed that some elements on the National Security Council were questioning how Cole had managed to find the pirate lair in the first place, insinuating that perhaps he was involved in the enterprise somehow himself.

But no matter what the politicians said, Cole was happy that Treyborne still trusted him. The SEAL commander believed what his old colleague told him about Arief Suprapto’s information, and — to Cole’s delight — was willing to stand by what he’d told President Abrams; the leads to both Jemaah Islamiyah and North Korea should be followed up.

Cole knew that the NSC would be slow to follow up on the first; after all, the only evidence to link the hijacking to Jemaah Islamiyah had been Suprapto, who was now dead. And so Cole had suggested that he follow up the lead himself; he could do so quickly, and such undercover work was his specialty.

The connection to North Korea was easier to sell to the men higher up the chain, and Treyborne had managed to convince first Scott Murphy, the DEVGRU commander, then General Cooper, and finally General Olsen, that he should be allowed to assign some of his men to an investigation.

And so — to both Cole and Treyborne’s immense relief — DEVGRU’s Red Squadron had received unofficial authorization from General Olsen to follow-up on the leads stemming from the container which had been taken on at Dalian, and the two mysterious sailors who had boarded with it.

But for Cole to pursue the leads to Jemaah Islamiyah, he was going to have to avoid being arrested by the SEALs; and it had therefore been agreed that he would manage to ‘escape’ the island and go on the run.

Cole was immensely grateful to Treyborne; he knew any help he received with this part of the mission — such as the abduction of the real Dan Chadwick — would be completely unauthorized, and potentially illegal. It was a big ask, but Treyborne was a patriot first and foremost, and understood that something big was about to happen; and if he could help, then he would, and hang the consequences.

And so Cole had ‘fought’ his way off the small island and escaped the SEALs who were supposed to arrest him.

He had immediately started making his enquiries, checking out local airports and downloading flight plans and logs while also scouring intelligence databases around the world for information on Umar Shibab, Suprapto’s alleged Jemaah Islamiyah contact.

And it was the confluence of these two factors which had led him to Abdullah al-Zayani and Saudi National Oil, and his current task of impersonating Dan Chadwick.

Decryption and translation of Shibab’s recent emails by the NSA showed several messages regarding financial transactions between Shibab and Dhahran Mainframes, an engineering subsidiary of Saudi National Oil. And at the same time, Cole’s research into recent flights from the Sumatran mainland to places of interest revealed that a private jet had left Kuala Namu International Airport, in nearby Medan, for Saudi Arabia just two days after the Fu Yu Shan had been hijacked. And what was especially interesting about the plane was that it was registered to the Orex Chemical Company which — like Dhahran Mainframes — was also a subsidiary of Saudi National Oil.

Further digging revealed that — after all the cut-outs — the man who’d signed off both the transactions through Dhahran Mainframes and the private flight by the plane owned by the Orex Chemical Company was Abdullah al-Zayani, Senior Vice President of Finance, Strategy and Development at Saudi National Oil.

Cole immediately realized that this al-Zayani could potentially be a chief financier of terrorism; perhaps embezzling funds from the fabulously wealthy oil company to fund an extremist group of some kind or another. After all, when a company was valued at over a trillion dollars, and made a further billion dollars every single day, who was going to miss a measly twenty million here or there? And the Senior Vice President of Finance, Strategy and Development was the perfect man to siphon off funds and make sure the crime was never discovered.

The only problem was finding out which group al-Zayani was financing; if Cole could find that out, he would be one step closer to locating whatever weapon had been stolen from the Fu Yu Shan.

He had been in touch with his old friend Ike Treyborne, and together they had hatched a plot to get Cole into a meeting with al-Zayani. It had been complicated, but they had discovered a potential business venture between Saudi National Oil and a relatively young US company called Texas Mainline Oil. Seeing the opportunity, an urgent meeting had been arranged for Chadwick to meet his opposite number to discuss numbers. Both sides thought that the meeting had been the idea of the other; the reality was that Treyborne’s men had arranged the whole thing. And because Chadwick was new to the company and had never been to Dhahran before, Cole would be able to assume his place with nobody ever the wiser.

He hadn’t even had to disguise himself too much; his own photograph had been put on the expertly forged passport, and there weren’t any photos of Chadwick on the internet that anyone could check anyway. The fight with the Korean agent had left him with broken cartilage in his nose, but he’d managed to reset it by hand and it now looked as good as new; perhaps, he thought, even straighter than before.

And so it was that Cole boarded the eleven o’clock flight to Saudi Arabia, and his meeting with the suspected terrorist financier known as Abdullah al-Zayani.

If the man knew anything at all about the cargo of the Fu Yu Shan, who had it, and what they were planning on doing with it, Cole would do everything in his power to find out.

2

Abd al-Aziz Quraishi had to force himself to keep his eyes open; horrific though the sight was, he owed it to his sacred volunteers to witness firsthand what they would have to go through.

He was in the small underground laboratory underneath the compound which was serving as the base of operations for this latest mission, being taken through the effects of the product by his team of doctors.

The screams of the victims on the other side of the glass wall — people of no consequence found on the streets or in local jails and brought to the compound by Amir al-Hazmi — were enough to turn Quraishi’s iron stomach; they were worse than anything he’d ever heard in the torture cells of the Mabahith.

Quraishi turned to the nearest doctor when — at last — there was nothing left to see behind the glass. ‘So you are satisfied you can control it for optimum effect?’

‘Yes,’ the medical professional replied. ‘It is everything you said it would be, and more. We can manipulate several variables, just as you wanted.’

‘Chance of detection?’

The doctor smiled. ‘Zero. There is no chance at all.’

Quraishi grunted in satisfaction and turned to al-Hazmi, who had also forced himself to watch the grisly spectacle. ‘Get me the martyrs,’ he said. ‘Bring them to the courtyard and I will speak to them all before they venture out on their blessed pilgrimage.’

Al-Hazmi nodded. ‘Yes sir,’ he said. ‘They will appreciate that you have come here.’

Quraishi smiled. Of course they would; he was their spiritual leader, their inspiration. It was he who would unite them with Allah, blessed as martyrs with seventy-two vestal virgins and an eternity of happiness.

As al-Hazmi ran off to gather the volunteers, Quraishi pulled out his cell phone and dialed a secure number, the call made to a man several thousand miles away.

‘I need to see you,’ Quraishi announced. ‘As soon as possible.’

Jake Navarone was nervous. Excited, but nervous. As the leader of Bravo Troop, he had just received the green light for a reconnaissance mission into North Korea.

Navarone hadn’t batted an eyelid when they had let the agent known as the Asset ‘escape’; if that’s what Treyborne wanted, then that’s what he would get. And the agent had proved his mettle in battle, which was good enough for Navarone; what other measure of a man was there?

And so while the Asset — whoever he was — had been off investigating the Jemaah Islamiyah connection, Navarone and his men had been following up on the North Korea angle.

They had started with the two men listed on the crew manifest as Xiao Tong and Yan Yanzhi — the sailors who had been taken on at Dalian. The PLA special ops officers who had been seconded to the SEAL team were of enormous use here, using their contacts back in China to quickly establish that such men did not actually exist. There was no record of them anywhere, which lent credence to the fact that they were foreign agents, possibly brought on board to help protect the mysterious cargo which was also taken aboard at Dalian.

Records at the port of Dalian indicated that the crate in question was registered to a Chinese company called Shou Zhing Electrical and apparently consisted of spare computer parts. And yet further checks by the Chinese also revealed that — like the sailors — the company didn’t actually exist at all.

The investigation — authorized by General Olsen after receiving the unofficial green light by President Abrams — had continued quickly, Commander Treyborne getting a great deal of cooperation from Chinese intelligence.

It was the Chinese who had managed to trace the arrival of the crate in Dalian as air freight from Pyongyang, and had therefore confirmed the North Korean connection.

Treyborne had been appalled that this was still not enough for full approval by the National Security Council — apparently engaging with North Korea was diplomatically very dangerous, and a formal cross-border incursion was strongly discouraged in some quarters due to the possibility of military reprisals — but the president and the chairman of the joint chiefs were both adamant in their desire to find out what had been in the crate, and what the ramifications were of its theft.

And so when deep-cover Chinese agents within the North Korean capital had managed to track the crate even further back to its point of origin — a political prison camp hidden in the remote northern mountains known only by its number, Camp 14 — Treyborne had pushed for a recon mission and finally been granted his wish.

It wasn’t entirely official — there was still plausible deniability should anything go wrong — but Jake Navarone and his men had been tasked with penetrating the security of Camp 14 and finding out what sort of weapons were being made there.

Due to the ambiguous nature of the mission’s legitimacy, back-up was thin on the ground; and yet General Olsen had promised Treyborne the use of any vehicles and equipment his men needed for the insertion and extraction, and China had agreed to the use of its much closer airfields.

Jake Navarone looked across at his men, sitting in silence as they checked their personal weapons and equipment in the back of the stealthy Black Hawk helicopter. Yes, he thought as it rose slowly into the air above the Chinese military airfield that was nestled into the foothills of the Yalu River, the narrow stretch of water which separated China from North Korea; he was nervous.

He and his men had to penetrate the most secure country in the world, find a remote and secretive prison camp with next to no intelligence on the place, make their way inside without detection, and find something that might be of use to the American government. And then they would have to extract covertly, while not engaging any enemy personnel.

Navarone sighed as he considered the mission ahead.

It was going to be one tough son of a bitch.

‘So do I take it that you can assure us that no military action is currently being taken?’ Clark Mason asked with a raised eyebrow.

Jeb Richards watched as Pete Olsen shifted uncomfortably in his chair, finally raising his eyes and locking them firmly onto Mason’s.

‘I can assure you,’ the general said in his deep voice, ‘that you have been made aware of everything you should have been made aware of.’

Mason smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said, hands up, ‘spoken like a true politician. Let me put it another way — is there any truth in the rumor that helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment have relocated to Dulong Airbase in China, right on the North Korean border?’

‘China is a security partner of the United States, Mr. Mason,’ Olsen said reasonably. ‘We are engaged in joint training exercises at all times. And the location of our assets, especially those involved in special operations is — if you’ll excuse me — none of your damned business, and even hinting at such a thing might well be regarded as a violation of national security.’

‘A violation of —!’ Mason’s face went red instantly. ‘How dare you! I —’

‘Clark,’ Abrams interjected, ‘Pete’s right on this, I’m afraid. The location of our special operations units — even in training — isn’t something to be discussed lightly. I would advise you to move on.’

Mason grunted. ‘And if some intelligence miraculously becomes available in the near future?’

Abrams smiled back at her secretary of state. ‘Then we shall all be very happy with our good fortune, won’t we?’

There was a mixture of stifled laughter and suspicious mutterings around the table, and Richards wondered whether he should bring up the matter of Mark Cole once again. He still couldn’t quite believe the story about the man simply escaping from an island full of Navy SEALs, but Commander Treyborne had been adamant that this was exactly what had happened. He said that he would have given orders for Cole to be pursued further, but with the limited men at his disposal he had apparently decided that securing the pirate hideout was his number one priority.

And now the Asset — this damned secret agent Mark Cole — was out there somewhere. What else would he find out? And how quickly? He had just decided to get back onto the issue of Cole’s arrest when he checked his watch and thought better of it; he had to be leaving soon, and wouldn’t have the time to be drawn into a protracted argument.

President Abrams noticed Richards checking his watch and turned to him. ‘Jeb,’ she said, ‘when’s your flight?’

‘About three hours,’ he said. ‘I should probably be on my way, actually.’

Abrams nodded. ‘Of course, and good luck with your meeting. Have you met this minister before?’

Richards nodded; there was no point lying about it. ‘Yes, I met Quraishi when he was living in the United States. He’s a good man; if anyone can help us find out more information about this Arabian Islamic Jihad, it’s him.’

With all the recent furor about the cargo ship hijacking, the potential threat of this new terrorist group had been somewhat overlooked. But Richards’ opposite number in Saudi Arabia, Assistant Minister for Security Affairs Abd al-Aziz Quraishi, had recently been in touch asking for a meeting; ostensibly he had some information on the group behind the beheading of Brad Butler that he wished to share.

Richards was glad to be leaving the rat’s nest of Washington, and the utter banality of these NSC meetings. But as he packed up his things from the conference table, he couldn’t help but wonder what Quraishi really wanted with him.

3

Although the exterior of the Saudi National Oil headquarters building in Dhahran was an unappealing mass of concrete, much like office blocks all over the world, inside was a different story altogether.

Cole entered the magnificent lobby, with its marble floors, priceless artworks and sweet-smelling orchids, and stopped to take it all in.

On the one hand, stopping to admire the foyer was probably what most first-time visitors would do; and on the other, it allowed him to assess the building’s security, its entrances and exits, and the staff who worked there.

He was dressed in an expensive Brioni suit, a gold Rolex on his wrist; he didn’t even have to guess what Dan Chadwick would wear, as he had all of the man’s clothes from his suitcases.

A smiling executive appeared instantly by his side. ‘Mr. Chadwick?’ he said in perfect, unaccented English.

Cole held out his hand and shook the man’s firmly, Texas-style. He was impressed by the strength of the man; under his tailored suit, the executive was built like a gorilla. ‘Mornin’,’ Cole said in a southern drawl. ‘How you doin’ today?’

‘I’m doing well thank you sir,’ the executive said. ‘My name is Abu. Please follow me, and I will take you to your meeting. Would you like something to drink?’

Abu was already walking, and Cole followed, leather heels clicking on the marble floor. ‘Black coffee,’ he said, and watched as the man spoke into a microphone at his lapel, putting the order through.

Abu made small talk with Cole about the flight and his hotel as they entered an elevator, which whisked them upwards to the finance department on the third floor.

Cole was impressed with the place; everything was smart, clean, efficient. Still, he considered as the elevator doors opened to an even more splendid lobby, if a trillion-dollar company couldn’t get it right, then who could?

Abu led Cole down a corridor which reminded him of the interior of a sultan’s palace, until they arrived in a private reception room. Cole took a seat on a leather couch which had an intricately carved wooden frame, and noticed that there was a black coffee waiting for him on the table.

‘Mr. al-Zayani will be with you shortly,’ Abu said, giving Cole another smile before turning on his heel and marching off back down the long marble corridor.

No sooner had the man disappeared than a large wooden door opened behind Cole, a middle-aged, well-dressed spectacled man standing there with his arms open.

‘Mr. Chadwick,’ he said welcomingly, ‘how lovely to meet you at last.’ Al-Zayani embraced Cole, and then shook his hand as they parted. ‘Your trip was good, I trust?’ he continued, ushering Cole into his office.

‘Very good, thank you,’ Cole said as he passed through the doorway. ‘Your country is as beautiful as everyone says.’

Cole knew that the size of the office shouldn’t surprise him, and yet it still did; the place was immense, and as highly decorated as the lobby outside. It was like the presidential suite at the Four Seasons.

There was a huge leather-inlaid mahogany desk in one corner, but Al-Zayani led Cole to a more comfortable living area and offered him a seat on another leather couch. Cole smiled as the man took a seat opposite him. ‘This is an incredible place you have here,’ he said honestly.

Al-Zayani shrugged his slim shoulders. ‘We do what we can,’ he said modestly. ‘It is better than sitting in the heat of the desert at any rate, eh?’

Cole laughed. ‘You got that right.’ The temperature outside had been over a hundred degrees even though it was still only morning, and the air-conditioned sanctuary of the Saudi National Oil headquarters offered wonderful relief. ‘But I’m from Texas, so I guess you learn to live with it.’

Al-Zayani nodded his head. ‘Yes,’ he said as a handsome young man appeared, carrying a tray which he set down on the table. ‘I suppose that is true. Humans are amazingly adaptable, aren’t they? It is incredible what one can get used to.’ The man poured black coffee for both of them into the small and intricately designed cups. Cole remembered the coffee on the table outside; he’d not even had a chance to pick it up.

His hand moved to the cup straight away, and he smiled at the man. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and watched as al-Zayani merely nodded his head, excusing him from the room.

Was al-Zayani a terrorist financier? The money trail seemed to lead to him, but on the face of it, he didn’t seem the type. Too cultured, too refined; and he seemed to enjoy the luxuries of his position a little too much to lead a second life as a believer of extremist ideals. But then you could never be sure about anyone, Cole knew; he himself was hardly what he seemed, after all.

Cole’s plan was simple; he had gained access to al-Zayani’s office, and would now try and engineer a situation where the man would have to leave him alone, giving Cole access to his computer. He hoped to find evidence there of who al-Zayani was linked to, and where the money was going.

‘Do you play golf?’ al-Zayani asked when the assistant had gone.

‘Golf?’ Cole asked, caught off-guard. He’d been mentally rehearsing the hundreds of facts and figures he had memorized for the business deal they would be discussing, and looking for a way of being left alone in the office, and wasn’t sure where al-Zayani was leading the conversation.

‘Yes,’ al-Zayani said with a big smile. ‘Golf. It is the national sport of businessmen in your country, no? Don’t they say that more deals are done on the fairways than in all the boardrooms of America?’

Cole laughed. ‘They do say that,’ he said. ‘And it’s true. Yes, I admit we’re guilty of that at Texas Mainline too.’

Al-Zayani’s smile beamed even wider. ‘Excellent,’ he said happily. ‘Have you ever played at the Colonial Country Club?’

Cole nodded. If he remembered correctly, Dan Chadwick had a much-valued membership there. Cole had learnt the game during his semi-retirement in the Caribbean, and had enjoyed it. It had been Sarah who had taught him initially, coming as she did from a moneyed family for whom golf was a way of life; but he cut off his thoughts about her immediately, before they rose too far to the surface and put him off his game.

He hadn’t ever played at the Colonial himself, but knew enough about the place to be able to lie effectively if he needed to. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘in fact I play there regularly, I’m a member there.’

Al-Zayani looked impressed. ‘I love that course,’ he said. ‘I’ve played there myself when I’ve visited other companies. A wonderful place,’ he said wistfully. ‘We have a course here,’ he continued after taking a sip of his coffee. He replaced the cup on its tiny saucer and held out his hands apologetically. ‘Nothing like the Colonial of course, but we get by.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘So,’ al-Zayani said with a raised eyebrow. ‘Shall we?’

‘Shall we…?‘ Cole asked, raising an eyebrow of his own.

‘Have a game?’ al-Zayani asked, Abu coming through the door at the same time, as if linked psychically to his boss. ‘Abu here will escort you back to your hotel to change, and we will meet at the course in’ — he checked his watch — ‘shall we say one hour?’

Obviously, al-Zayani wasn’t about to take ‘no’ for an answer, and so — with a last longing look out of the corner of his eye at the computer which lay on the huge desk behind them, just out of reach — he nodded his head in confirmation. ‘Sounds like a great idea,’ he said happily, rising from the couch and allowing Abu to guide him out of the office. ‘I’ll see you there.’

‘I am looking forward to it,’ al-Zayani said, and Cole couldn’t tell if the man suspected something and wanted Cole out of his office, out of Saudi National Oil headquarters altogether, or if he actually did just want a game of golf.

But either way, Cole knew he was going to have to change his plans.

The wind whipped through the Black Hawk’s open doors, the sky dark and the mountain forests below even darker.

Jake Navarone nodded to his men, who stood ready by the jump doors. This was it; soon there would be no going back. It was into the lion’s den, the forbidding mountain fortresses of North Korea.

The chopper’s infiltration of the paranoid nation had gone well so far, or at least it had appeared to; the stealthy bird with its reflective black paint and its muffled rotors hadn’t been picked up by radar or human eyesight, and it had followed its winding, circuitous, nauseating route through valleys and canyons at a height the SEALs could scarcely believe; it was literally hugging the tree-tops, and Navarone was sure he’d heard the scrape of branches on the undercarriage more than once.

Navarone had to trust that they were unobserved, that the North Koreans weren’t tracking them in order to arrest them as soon as they made it to the ground.

But now they were approaching the drop-zone, and Navarone had to ignore such feelings as he and his men got on with the job at hand.

Instead of parachute insertion, they were going low enough to use fast-ropes, abseiling down to the forest floor at high speed.

He looked towards the jumpmaster, who held up a hand, fingers spread.

Five.

One finger went down.

Four.

Another finger, and Navarone did a last minute visual check of his equipment to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind.

Three.

Two.

One.

The men in front of him stepped out of the now hovering helicopter, and Navarone watched as they disappeared into the darkness.

And then he felt the jumpmaster’s hand clapping him on the back, and he launched himself out of the Black Hawk, holding the rope with his thick gloves, and rappelling at high speed down to the enemy country below.

He could see nothing below him, only a few feet of rope before it was swallowed in the dark, but had to trust the pilots had stopped at the correct place — a small clearing in the forest identified by satellite reconnaissance.

If they’d got it wrong, he would know about it when he hit the tops of the trees instead; his legs would be broken, and the mission would be over before it had even begun.

But an instant later, his descent slowed and his boots hit the ground. He instantly moved off to let the Chinese liaison officers behind him land safely, and took out his night vision goggles.

In the eerie green light of the device Navarone saw his men already making a security perimeter, their own goggles on, weapons aimed out at the surrounding forest. And then the last two men landed, and Navarone watched as the helicopter — near silent — lifted off and disappeared into the night.

Navarone did a quick count of his men, and gave a hand signal to Frank Jaffett, the team’s lead scout.

Without a word, Jaffett checked his compass and headed off noiselessly into the forest, the rest of the covert SEAL team slipping into the tree-line behind him like silent wraiths.

Navarone’s nerves buzzed within him, senses so alert, so completely involved in the moment that — despite the danger — there was nowhere else on earth he would have rather been.

4

The heat was intense, although Abdullah al-Zayani tried to assure Cole that it wasn’t yet the hottest part of the day. But it was a dry heat at least, and was more tolerable than the incredibly close humid atmosphere of Southeast Asia where he’d spent the past few months.

The course itself was nice, huge rolling green lawns at once out of place in the desert which made up the majority of the country, and yet at the same time very much in-keeping with the decidedly western Dhahran community.

It was obvious that al-Zayani had no wish to conduct business in his office, and so Cole had used the time back at his hotel to come up with a new plan. And as al-Zayani signed him in and they strolled onto the fairway, Cole made a start with it.

‘I don’t know how you feel about it, but back at the Colonial we normally have some sort of wager on a game,’ he said with a smile that was both friendly and challenging at the same time.

Al-Zayani nodded. ‘Yes, you Americans like to gamble, don’t you?’ he said chidingly. ‘Of course, gambling is ithm al-kabir, Mr. Chadwick, what we regard in Islam as a very great sin.’

Damn. Cole had hoped that al-Zayani was so westernized that he wouldn’t mind engaging in a sporting wager. Back to the drawing board, it would seem. ‘I’m very sorry Mr. al-Zayani,’ he said, shielding his eyes from the intense glare of the sun, ‘I didn’t mean any offence.’

Al-Zayani smiled. ‘No need to be sorry,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I don’t really perceive sporting wagers as gambling, you see. For the Holy Qur’an forbids only games of chance.’ The meaning was clear, and the twinkling of the eyes turned to challenge. Al-Zayani felt there was no chance involved when he played golf, it seemed; only reliance on his own skill.

Cole nodded his head. ‘Excellent,’ he said in reply, breathing a mental sigh of relief. ‘But let’s keep it low key, shall we? Whoever loses can take the winner out to dinner tonight at a place of the winner’s choice.’

Cole had scouted out possible locations for an abduction of al-Zayani, and had highlighted the nearby yacht club as the best place to get him; under cover of darkness, he could have al-Zayani out of the restaurant and into the privacy of one of the private yachts before anyone had any idea that they had gone. And then Cole could bypass al-Zayani’s computers and go straight for a good old tactical interrogation with the man himself. He would make him talk, and find out what he knew.

But for the plan to have any chance of coming off, he had to have control over their location that evening. He just hoped he was a good enough golfer to guarantee it.

‘An excellent idea,’ al-Zayani agreed. ‘I am sure you will like the place I am going to choose.’

Despite himself, Cole found that he was starting to like the self-confidence of this bespectacled little man, and allowed himself to laugh of al-Zayani’s teasing.

‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?’ he said as he signaled for the caddy, who withdrew a driver and handed it over to Cole. ‘I’ve already researched the most expensive restaurants in the area, and I’ve got a little place in mind which I think I’m really going to like.’

Al-Zayani laughed out loud. ‘Perhaps it will be so, eh?’ he said in reply, even as he called for his own driver, placed his ball on its tee and settled into position.

Cole watched carefully as the man’s shoulders relaxed, he took the club back and, initiating the drive with his hips, smoothly completed the most perfect swing Cole had ever seen.

Al-Zayani didn’t even watch the ball as it flew over three hundred yards straight onto the green; instead, he turned to Cole and smiled. ‘But perhaps not,’ he said with a knowing look, and Cole was forced to admit that the man might well be right.

The two men chatted as they played; sometimes about Texas, sometimes about Dhahran, but mostly about the upcoming business deal between Texas Mainline and Saudi National. The man’s knowledge was vast, and — although Cole had done his best to get to grips with the mechanics of the deal, and the requisite terminology and insider information of both the finance and oil industries — he felt like a minnow going up against a shark.

But Cole said what he could with confidence and bluster, the kind that al-Zayani would probably expect from an American, and hoped that he was getting away with it.

What was more troubling was the fact that al-Zayani was very good at golf. By the ninth hole, the man had opened up a twelve point advantage over Cole, and was beginning to gloat.

‘I might even give lunch a miss today,’ al-Zayani announced as Cole teed up. ‘Save myself for the big dinner you’ll be buying me tonight, eh?’

The remark was amusing, and yet Cole tensed, unhappy to be losing and unhappier still that his plans for the evening might be ruined. No. He had to beat al-Zayani; but how would he do it? Cheating immediately came to mind, but the problems that would occur if he was caught ruled it out just as quickly.

He had played the game regularly in Grand Cayman, and had even travelled to the Bahamas and Miami to try the courses there. He was good, but al-Zayani was excellent. As Cole waited at the tee, staring off at the green in the distance, he thought about the problem.

It was in his mind, he decided. It was all in his mind.

When he fired a pistol, a rifle, a bow and arrow; when he threw a knife, when he targeted the tiny pressure points of a man’s body; when he did anything he was used to, anything in which he was totally confident, his mind was completely at peace. There was a Zen-like state that he accessed, where everything came together with no conscious thought at all. The Japanese knew it as mushin — the concept of ‘no mind’ that was so important to the exponents of its martial arts.

He was thinking too much, that was the problem; thinking about his grip, his technique, where the ball was, where it was going to end up.

He had to clear his mind, think about nothing at all, just experience the sensations as they occurred. He would be a passenger as the rest of the game was played, allowing his body to do the work with no conscious input whatsoever.

Ignoring al-Zayani, he observed himself as he put the ball on the tee, took up his position and unleashed his swing, the contact perfect; and continued to passively observe as the ball sailed over four hundred yards through the clear blue sky until it finally came to a rest right near the tenth hole.

He turned back to al-Zayani and smiled. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, echoing al-Zayani’s earlier words. ‘Perhaps not.’

Cole found himself impressed with al-Zayani’s own competitive spirit as the morning turned to afternoon, the searing midday sun clearing the course of most other players, until only Cole and al-Zayani remained. Each refused to show any sign of weakness, and al-Zayani was forced to conceal his anger as Cole narrowed the gap to one single point by the final hole.

They stood there at the tee of the eighteenth hole, sweat pouring from their faces as they regarded each other through eyes half-closed in the glare of the sun.

And then al-Zayani pushed forward to take his shot first, brushing past Cole and placing his ball on the tee. Cole waited anxiously for al-Zayani’s final drive, which came only moments later; perfect technique and a beautiful contact launching the ball in a wide arc over the fairway until it landed just off the green.

Cole sighed. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still good enough to win if Cole didn’t match it. He’d been playing his best game ever since the tenth hole, but now the pressure was back on and he found himself allowing his doubts to once again enter his mind and threaten to drag him back down.

He approached the tee and placed his ball there, concentrating on his breathing instead of the shot itself. He drew the warm air gently through his nose as he counted to four, held his breath for another four-count, and then exhaled through barely open lips for the same time; repeating this simple routine over and over, his mind gradually calmed until he no longer saw the ball or the club. Instead, he could just feel the sensations in his own body as it moved in perfect coordination.

The swing stopped in mid-air as Cole sensed something behind him, an imperceptible movement of al-Zayani’s head; and an instant later it was followed by al-Zayani’s golf bag falling with a clatter off his caddy’s shoulder to the grassy bank below, clubs scattering everywhere.

Cole turned from the tee to watch al-Zayani shouting at his caddy in furious Arabic, but the charade didn’t fool Cole for one second; al-Zayani had wanted his caddy to cause a distraction so that Cole would make a bad shot. It was only his shift of mental focus away from the ball which had allowed him to see al-Zayani’s nod and had saved him from following through with the swing.

Al-Zayani turned to Cole, his face aghast. ‘I am so sorry my friend, that was an unforgivable error. I will have Ahmed fired from the club immediately.’ He turned again, shouting more insults to the shame-faced caddy.

‘That’s alright,’ Cole said, ‘really. Don’t fire him, these things happen. I’m sure he’s very good at doing what he’s told.’

Al-Zayani’s eyes narrowed at the implication, but he said no more on the subject, just gestured with his hand for Cole to play the shot again.

Cole returned to his position, already steadying his breath, once again entering the zone he needed to be in. His mind was so clear, so focused, and yet he was thinking of nothing at all as the driver swept through the air in a perfect arc, the titanium head striking the ball with a satisfying thwack which sent it soaring over the path of al-Zayani’s ball to land just a dozen yards from the eighteenth hole.

Cole turned to al-Zayani and smiled. ‘I’ll have to ask for your caddy next time,’ he said amicably. ‘Must be my good luck charm.’

Al-Zayani ignored Cole completely, grunting as he strode past him towards his ball.

Cole watched al-Zayani as he went, having learnt something about the man’s character. He was a cheat and a bad loser, but did that mean he was involved in terrorism?

Cole followed al-Zayani onto the fairway, content that he would soon be finding out.

5

The Saudi National Oil Beach was on the eastern side of Half Moon Bay, a journey which took Cole just over half an hour in one of the company limousines.

As he was escorted to the front door of the yacht club, he looked around to verify that nothing obvious had changed since his visit earlier that day. Pleased that everything was still the same, Cole strolled through into the club, wandering to the bar where he ordered a black coffee.

Cole had eventually won the game by a single point, managing to sink the ball on his first putt. Al-Zayani, to his horror, had taken three shots after his initial drive to put the ball away, leaving Cole able to choose the location for dinner.

Al-Zayani had been visibly frustrated by his loss, and Cole saw a violent temper flaring behind the genteel façade; but he had nevertheless accepted the situation and agreed to take Cole to the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club for dinner that evening. There were to be no more business talks for the day, al-Zayani claiming he had urgent appointments to keep. But like the caddy ‘accidentally’ dropping his clubs, Cole saw through the lie straight away; al-Zayani was just too upset over his loss to spend any more time with Cole.

As a man responsible for the finance, strategy and development of a trillion dollar company, Cole saw the move as a sign of weakness; he had let personal feelings get in the way of business, something that should never happen at this level. He sipped his black coffee as he considered the fact that Dan Chadwick would probably have let al-Zayani win; after all, it was Texas Mainline that stood to make the most from the proposed deal.

But Cole’s agenda was somewhat different to Chadwick’s; and after tonight, a potential business deal with Texas Mainline would be the last thing on al-Zayani’s mind.

The camp loomed before them in the green half-light of their night-vision binoculars, hidden deep in a mountain crevasse.

Navarone estimated the camp to cover at least a hundred acres, roughly a thousand yards long by four hundred wide, occupying the great majority of the narrow valley. It was bordered by two sets of huge barbed wire fences, undoubtedly mined down the strip which separated them, and concrete guard towers overlooked everything from all four corners.

Inside the camp, there were four single-story concrete buildings which he assumed were where the prisoners were held, and Navarone estimated that they probably contained upwards of a hundred people in each one.

Details were scarce on the ground about the North Korean political prison system, and Camp 14 was especially secretive; Chinese intelligence believed that it was here that the regime’s most feared enemies were taken for interrogation and ‘realignment’ with the republic’s ideology. It wasn’t known how many people were held here, but Navarone could see that it must number in the hundreds.

There were other buildings that he could make out through his binoculars; barracks for the soldiers, which he saw coming and going at changes of shift; a wooden structure that could have been a cookhouse and canteen; another four-story concrete structure that was probably the camp’s administrative headquarters; and several other smaller buildings which were scattered around the compound.

A man came out of one of the barrack buildings and lit a cigarette. The uniform caught Navarone’s eye, and he zoomed in. It was a major, and Navarone wondered if he was the camp commandant. He gestured to his men, and they all took note.

Navarone’s attention moved away, to other structures that he could make out beyond the camp, hidden further down the valley. Some were military checkpoints and sentry shacks, but there were other buildings fenced off away from the others which Navarone found it harder to identify. There was no activity there at this time of night, but the vast network of metal piping on the outside seemed to indicate some sort of industrial use.

Navarone tried to focus his binoculars for a better look, but it was no use; the mystery buildings were beyond the far side of the camp, and no more detail could be made out.

‘Tony, Liu,’ he breathed quietly over his throat mike, ‘let’s move around the valley to check out those buildings over on the east side.’ There were double clicks of affirmation over the radio, and Navarone spoke again. ‘Frank,’ he said to Jaffett, ‘you’ve got control here until we get back.’

There was a double click to confirm the order, and Navarone rose silently, slipping off through the dark forest with Tony Devine of SEAL Team Six and Liu Yingchao of the People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Force right behind him.

For some reason, his gut told him that whatever they were looking for would be found in those strange industrial buildings fenced off outside the main camp, and he wanted to be in position for reconnaissance before first light.

Whatever was stolen from this camp was now out in the open, in the hands of an unknown enemy, and Navarone knew they might not have much time left.

Major Ho Sang-ok smoked a cigarette and sighed. He was a long way from home, and a very long way from the relative luxuries of Pyongyang.

It sickened him that he was here at this forsaken prison camp in the remote northern wilds but, he considered as he took in a deep lungful of delightfully warming smoke, at least he wasn’t dead.

Not yet anyway.

His last meeting at the headquarters of the RGB had not gone well; Lieutenant General U Chun-su had been furious about the situation in Jakarta, and unsurprisingly so. U had had to report his bureau’s failings directly to the Minister of State Security himself, which must have been no easy feat.

But U had survived too, and Ho soon found out why; the RGB was being given one last chance to make this mission a success. President Kim had not yet been informed of the details, and there was still a chance that his ultimate order — the arranged reunification of Korea — could still be carried out.

The details would have to change, of course — the package had never been received by their Middle Eastern contacts, which precluded their original plan and meant they would have to quickly engineer somebody else to blame.

But U had not risen to such prominence without being able to think on his feet, and had called Ho into his office not long after his meeting with the minister.

U had come up with another mechanism of transporting the weapon, which had been developed in Camp 14, over the DMZ into South Korea. It was a lot more direct — and therefore much more likely that the North’s role would be discovered as a result — but it made sense given their current situation, and would just have to do.

Ho had been entrusted with making the arrangements, but — as he stood outside smoking, staring through the barbed wire at the separate facility fenced off in its own compound outside the main camp — he thought about the horrors within, and hung his head in shame.

It was one thing to make plans and issue orders from a plush office in Pyongyang; it was quite another to see the effects of this weapon up close and know that it was going to be used in earnest.

But, he sighed to himself as he dropped the butt of his cigarette to the floor and crushed it underneath his boot, he had been given his orders, and he would carry them out to the letter.

6

‘You play a good game, my friend,’ Abdullah al-Zayani said to Cole when they were finally seated, at a private table overlooking the marina.

Dusk was arriving, and the last rays of the dying sun cast a warm glow over the yachts and boats moored there. The place was as impressive as Cole would have expected; it was, after all, reserved only for the most senior of Saudi National Oil’s executives.

‘You too,’ Cole said. ‘On another day, the outcome might have been different.’

Al-Zayani nodded his head. ‘Yes, I think you are right.’

Cole waited for more, but there was nothing. The man was arrogant, and was probably not used to losing; Cole suspected that the people under him often let him win.

‘The club’s nice,’ Cole said to break the ice. ‘Beautiful view.’

‘You are right again,’ al-Zayani said. ‘This is a beautiful country, no?’

‘Oh, definitely,’ Cole agreed. ‘It’s very appealing.’

Al-Zayani smiled. ‘Even though you cannot drink here?’ He tutted and wagged his finger. ‘I know you Americans, you like a drink, yes? But that is something else which is ithm al-kabir here. I know of many of your countrymen who have simply not been able to cope. They come here for work, eager to have our money, but they do not respect our principles.’

Cole could see that the man was still smarting from his defeat, he was trying to ruffle Cole’s feathers. But in the man’s eyes Cole could see the feeling of hatred as he mentioned Americans, his cool façade slipping ever so slightly; and for the first time, Cole believe that al-Zayani really could be the man he was looking for.

‘Well, I like a drink as much as the next American,’ Cole said, ‘but when in Rome, right? The people who can’t follow rules probably aren’t welcome anywhere.’

Al-Zayani merely grunted and picked up his menu. He studied it for only a few moments before snapping his fingers at a waiter.

As his dining companion placed his order, Cole agreed to have the same; yet his mind was elsewhere, having just seen al-Zayani’s assistant Abu come through the front door with two other men.

It could have been a coincidence, but Cole was unsure what to think. The club was for level 11 executives only, and Abu was surely well below that. So what was he doing here? He didn’t seem to pay them any attention, which — given the fact that al-Zayani was his boss, and Cole was an honored guest — was strange in itself. He simply went to the bar with his colleagues, ordered black tea, and then led the group to a table in the corner.

Did al-Zayani suspect Cole was not who he said he was? Or was the man so upset over the loss of face he had suffered on the golf course that he was going to have Cole beaten up, and sacrifice a billion-dollar business deal? Or was Abu here just because he liked it, and had somehow bypassed the entry requirements?

It was going to make things more complicated, that much was certain; even if Abu wasn’t here at his boss’s request, he would probably still notice if the two men went missing suddenly.

Cole settled back into his wicker chair and sipped at his cardamom-scented coffee, trying to relax. After all, he had the whole of dinner in which to come up with something.

An hour later, Cole had managed to alleviate the mood and brought al-Zayani back onto his side; he had discussed the proposed oil deal over dinner, and had made certain concessions that had pleased the man immensely. It even seemed that his loss on the golf course had at last been forgotten, and al-Zayani was in a jovial mood by the time he’d finished his dessert of Baklava, freshly made on the premises by the resident pastry chef.

Abu had finally come over to their table to pay his respects as they were partway through their meal, and Cole reassessed his previous position; it was probably just a coincidence, and perhaps Abu was higher up the executive food chain than he’d first thought. But still Cole watched the group out of the corner of his eye, still not quite trusting the situation.

‘Ah,’ said al-Zayani as he pushed himself back into his chair with an air of deep satisfaction, ‘perhaps it is just as well that I lost today, eh? Otherwise we might never have enjoyed such a meal, or worked things out so agreeably.’

‘These things happen for a reason.’

‘Yes,’ al-Zayani agreed, ‘in sha’Allah.’

Okay, Cole thought, it’s time.

‘Do you have a boat in the marina?’ he asked, although of course he already knew the answer; he had found out earlier that al-Zayani owned a western forty-foot cruising yacht which was moored only a hundred feet down the dock.

Cole was glad when he saw the proud smile on the man’s face. ‘Yes I do,’ he said happily. ‘Do you like boats?’

‘Love ‘em,’ Cole replied honestly; he’d had his own yacht when he’d lived in the Caribbean. When he’d had a family.

No, he told himself firmly. Don’t think about them. Now wasn’t the time.

‘You have boats in Dallas?’ asked al-Zayani in surprise. ‘There is no sea.’

‘We have lakes,’ Cole answered. ‘The Dallas Yacht Club is on Lake Lewisville, I’ve got a small day sailing yacht there.’

Al-Zayani clapped his hands together. ‘Excellent! We will see my boat, yes?’

‘I’d love to,’ Cole said, already rising from his chair. He moved towards the bar to pay, and but al-Zayani waved his hand. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘They will add it to my account. Now come,’ he said, ushering Cole out of the sliding screen doors which led out towards the jetty.

Cole checked Abu and saw that he hadn’t moved at all, was still sat chatting animatedly to his friends, and decided that his plan might just work after all.

‘So what do you think?’ al-Zayani asked as they sat on the main deck of his yacht, staring back towards the marina at Half Moon Bay.

‘Very impressive,’ said Cole, meaning it; the yacht must have cost more than most people’s homes.

‘Some say that the Arab people are reluctant mariners,’ al-Zayani said, ‘but they forget about those who spread our faith to Africa, India and the Far East.’ He patted the teak woodwork which lined the entire deck. ‘I feel like that myself,’ he said. ‘A sailor blessed by Allah to spread His word.’

It was the eyes which did it; a slight glimmer, for just a fraction of a second.

Cole moved instinctively as an iron bar swung down towards his head from behind him. Turning quickly, he kicked the first of Abu’s friends in the gut. The second moved in with a knife, and Cole reached out for the knife arm, wrenching the man around and securing the attacker’s forehead with his arm as he slit the attacker’s throat with his own knife.

Blood spurted out onto the deck, showering al-Zayani as he ran for the steps down to the jetty, and Cole took off after him, stabbing the first man — just rising after the kick to his gut — through the chest as he went; but then the gorilla-sized form of Abu stepped between Cole and al-Zayani, handgun raised.

Cole’s hand snaked out to the side, ripping an oar from its place secured to the starboard wall, and in the same action slammed the heavy wood down onto Abu’s arm. He heard the arm crack and the man try and stifle the scream as the gun dropped to the ground. Cole moved forwards quickly, sweeping both of Abu’s legs out from under him with the oar and leaping over the falling body just as al-Zayani reached the steps.

Pulling the man around, Cole’s hand fired out in two rapid strikes to the man’s neck, rendering him instantly unconscious.

He turned to see Abu rising unsteadily back to his feet, hands groping about on the deck for the gun. Cole dropped al-Zayani’s body and shot forwards, cracking Abu across the head with the blade of the oar.

The big man staggered backwards, his eyes rolling back into his head, but miraculously he still remained standing and Cole rammed the point of the oar towards Abu’s throat.

With incredible speed, Abu caught the oar in mid-air and smashed the forearm of his other hand straight through it, coming back at Cole with the broken half.

Cole used his own half of the oar to block the attack, swinging it back round to slice across Abu’s cheek and ear, the broken wood splintering on his face.

His eyes filled with rage, Abu attacked again, but Cole sidestepped the giant and sent a kick into his knee which dropped him to the deck. And as the big man fell, Cole arm accelerated the broken oar outwards, the jagged end piercing the side of Abu’s thick neck, until it was buried up to Cole’s knuckles, blood spilling in thick gouts over his hand and arm.

Cole let the body drop to the deck all the way, and it landed with a loud thud.

Taking a few deep breaths, Cole surveyed the deck for any sign of more attackers; seeing none, he turned his gaze back to the yacht club. Nobody was coming to investigate, and presumably the action had gone mercifully unnoticed.

But, Cole decided, it was probably time to take the yacht out for a little sailing.

It was another hour later before al-Zayani regained consciousness; and when he did, it was clear to Cole that he wished he could have just stayed asleep.

Al-Zayani was upside down, hanging off the edge of the boat, head close to the water; to his right and left were the similarly inverted bodies of his colleagues — or at least what was left of them.

‘Bull sharks,’ Cole said from the deck, and he saw al-Zayani crane his head up to look at him, terror in his eyes. ‘Nasty little bastards. They enjoyed having your friends for dinner though,’ he said amiably, as if they were still talking business back at the yacht club.

Cole had sailed out into the waters of the Arabian Gulf, and although there were sharks out here, they hadn’t caused the horrific, bloody damage to the bodies strapped next to al-Zayani on the side of the boat; Cole had done it himself.

It had been a nasty job, but he needed al-Zayani to talk, and to talk honestly; and there weren’t many men who could overcome the fear of being eaten alive by a hungry shark. Even a man with a knife wasn’t as inherently terrifying as a shark; you could reason with a man, after all.

‘Attracted to blood in the water,’ Cole said casually, leaning down and stroking the blade of his knife across al-Zayani’s exposed belly.

‘No!’ al-Zayani screamed. ‘No, please! I’ll tell you everything! Please!’

‘Why did your men attack me?’ Cole asked.

‘They were only going to question you,’ al-Zayani sobbed, ‘I promise you! Please! I promise you! Pull me up! Pull me up!’

‘Question me about what?’ Cole asked as the ship bobbed up and down in the dark waters, the movement of the waves making al-Zayani scream again in terror, thinking that it was sharks approaching the boat.

‘About who you are,’ al-Zayani said weakly. ‘When you beat me at the club this morning, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I called the Colonial and asked about you, they were surprised, they said you weren’t that good, I should have beaten you easily! I asked what you looked like, and their description didn’t really match, I called Texas Mainline and they confirmed that it was you, but I just had to know!’

‘Do Saudi National Oil executives routinely ask questions with thugs, knives and guns?’ Cole asked, aware of the irony; al-Zayani had been trying to lure Cole to the boat in exactly the same way Cole had been trying to get him there.

‘No, I–I…’

‘Or is it that you were worried about something else?’ Cole asked, blade tickling al-Zayani’s ribs. ‘Maybe about something connected to a twenty million dollar payout to Jemaah Islamiyah for the hijacking of the Fu Yu Shan?’

There was a pause while al-Zayani weighed his options, hanging upside down between his three supposedly half-eaten colleagues, black waters below him threatening him with the same fate. In the end, it was no choice at all.

‘What else do you know?’ al-Zayani asked fearfully.

‘Let’s not get involved with what I know; I want you to tell me what you know. Now, what was in the crate that was so important?’

‘I don’t know!’ screamed al-Zayani. ‘Please, I don’t know!’

‘Wrong answer,’ Cole said coldly, drawing the knife across al-Zayani’s abdomen, opening up a thin cut which immediately started leaking blood down over his chest and face, until it dropped in small rivulets into the dark sea below.

‘No!’ al-Zayani screamed in unbridled terror. ‘No, please! Let me up! I will tell you everything!’ he shouted. ‘I will give you the Lion! It was the Lion! It was Abd al-Aziz Quraishi, the Assistant Minister for Security Affairs, it is his group, Arabian Islamic Jihad, he told me to do it! Please, let me up!’

The man was sobbing uncontrollably now, and Cole decided that the time had come to relent; he pulled the terrified man back up onto the yacht and let him fall to the teak deck, shaking with fear.

Abd al-Aziz Quraishi wasn’t a name he was familiar with, but Cole had recently heard news reports about this Arabian Islamic Jihad; wasn’t that the same group which had killed Brad Butler, the CNN correspondent? And hadn’t the man who’d beheaded Butler referred to himself as ‘the Lion’? The stories had also implicated the organization in the attacks on Riyadh, Muscat and Dubai; Arabian Islamic Jihad was obviously an emerging force. And if it had big oil money behind it, then the danger was increased exponentially.

Cole put a blanket around the shivering man and pulled him up, assisting him across the deck to the cabin.

He would get the man warm and comfortable, and would then learn everything he could about this man known as the Lion, and the terrorist group he commanded.