‘You’re drawing some kind of parallel between Khomeini and this Mahdi I’ve described, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know, I suppose so, if your Mahdi exists, which I doubt. But if you’re right and he does exist, he’s coming from the opposite pole, a very practical, non-religious pole. Still, anybody who feels he has to spread the spectre of the Mahdi in these times has a few dangerous screws loose… I’m still not convinced, Evan, but you’re persuasive, and I’ll do everything I can to help you, help all of us. But it’s got to be from a distance, an untraceable distance. I’ll give you a telephone number to call; it’s buried—non-existent, in fact—I and only two other people have it. You’ll be able to reach me, but only me. You see, Shaikh Kendrick, I can’t afford to know you.’
‘I’m very popular. Washington doesn’t want to know me, either.’
‘Of course not. Neither of us wants the blood of American hostages on our hands.’
I’ll need papers for myself and probably lists of air and sea shippers from areas I’ll pinpoint.’
‘Spoken, nothing written down, except for the papers. A name and an address will be delivered to you; pick up the papers from that man.’
‘Thank you. Incidentally, the State Department said the same thing. Nothing they gave me could be written down.’
‘For the same reasons.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Everything coincides with what I’ve got in mind. You see, Ahmat, I don’t want to know you either.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s the deal I’ve cut with State. I’m a non person in their books and I want to be the same in yours.’
The young sultan frowned pensively, his eyes locked with Evan’s. ‘I accept what you say but I can’t pretend to understand. You lose your life, that’s one thing, but if you have any measure of success, that’s another. Why? I’m told you’re a politician now. A congressman.’
‘Because I’m getting out of politics and coming back here, Ahmat. I’m picking up the pieces and going back to work where I worked best, but I don’t want any excess baggage with me that might make me a target. Or anyone with me.’
‘All right, I’ll accept that, gratefully on both counts. My father claimed that you and your people were the best. I remember, he once said to me, “Those retarded camels never over-run on cost.” He meant it kindly, of course.’
‘And, of course, we usually got the next project, so we weren’t so retarded, were we? Our idea was to work on reasonable margins, and we were pretty good at controlling costs… Ahmat, we have only four days left before the executions start again. I had to know that if I needed help I could go to you, and now I do know it. I accept your conditions and you accept mine. Now, please, I haven’t an hour to waste. What’s the number where I can reach you?’
‘It can’t be written down.’
‘Understood.’
The sultan gave Kendrick the number. Instead of the usual Masqat prefix of 745, it was 555, followed by three zeros and a fourth five. ‘Can you remember that?’
‘It’s not difficult,’ answered Kendrick. ‘Is it routed through a palace switchboard?’
‘No. It’s a direct line to two telephones, both locked in steel drawers, one in my office, the other in the bedroom. Instead of ringing, small red lights flash on; in the office the light is built into the right rear leg of my desk, and in the bedroom it’s recessed in the bedside table. Both phones become answering machines after the tenth ring.’
‘The tenth?’
‘To give me the time to get rid of people and talk privately. When I travel outside the palace, I carry a beeper that tells me when that phone has been called. At an appropriate time, I use the remote control and hear the message—over a scrambler, of course.’
‘You mentioned that only two other people had the number. Should I know who they are or isn’t it any of my business?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ replied Ahmat, his dark brown eyes riveted on the American. ‘One is my minister of security, and the other is my wife.’
Thanks for that kind of trust.’
His gaze still rigid on Kendrick, the young sultan continued. ‘A terrible thing happened to you here in our part of the world, Evan. So many dead, so many close friends, a horrible senseless tragedy, far more so for the greed that was behind it. I must ask you. Has this madness in Masqat dredged up such painful memories that you delude yourself, reaching for implausible theories if only to strike out at phantoms?’
‘No phantoms, Ahmat. I hope to prove that to you.’
‘Perhaps you will—if you live.’
“I’ll tell you what I told the State Department. I have no intention of mounting a one-man assault on the embassy.’
‘If you did something like that you could be considered enough of a lunatic to be spared. Lunacy recognizes its own.’
‘Now you’re the one being implausible.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ agreed the sultan of Oman, his eyes still levelled at the congressman from Colorado. ‘Have you considered what might happen—not if you’re discovered and taken by the terrorists; you wouldn’t live long enough to speculate—but if the very people you say you wanted to meet with actually confronted you and demanded to know your purpose here? What would you tell them?’
‘Essentially the truth—as close to it as possible. I’m acting on my own, as a private citizen, with no connection to my government, which can be substantiated. I made a great deal of money over here and I’m coming back. If I can help in any way, it’s in my own best interests.’
‘So the bottom line is self-serving. You intend to return here and if this insane killing can be stopped, it will be infinitely more profitable for you. Also, if it isn’t stopped, you have no business to return to.’
‘That’s about it.’
‘Be careful, Evan. Few people will believe you, and if the fear you spoke of is as pervasive among your friends as you say, it may not be the enemy who tries to kill you.’
I’ve already been warned,’ said Kendrick.
‘What?’
‘A man in a truck, a sahbee who helped me.’
Kendrick lay on the bed, his eyes wide, his thoughts churning, turning from one possibility to another, one vaguely remembered name to another, a face, another face, an office, a street… the harbour, the waterfront. He kept going back to the waterfront, to the docks—from Masqat south to Al Qurayyat and Ra’s al Hadd. Why?
Then his memory was jogged and he knew why. How many times had he and Manny Weingrass made arrangements for equipment to be brought in by purchasable surplus space on freighters from Bahrain and the Emirates in the north? So many they were uncountable. That hundred-mile stretch of coastline south of Masqat and its sister port of Matrah was open territory, even more so beyond Ra’s al Hadd. But from there until one reached the short Strait of Masirah, the roads were worse than primitive, and travellers heading into the interior risked being attacked by haraamiya on horseback—mounted thieves looking for prey… usually other thieves transporting contraband. Still, considering the numbers and depth of the combined intelligence efforts of at least six Western nations concentrating on Masqat, the southern coastline of Oman was a logical area to examine intensively. This was not to say that the Americans, British, French, Italians, West Germans and whoever else were co-operating in the effort to analyze and resolve the hostage crisis in Masqat had overlooked that stretch of Oman’s coast, but the reality was that few American patrol boats, those swift, penetrating bullets on the water, were in the Gulf. Those which were there would not shirk their duties, but they did not possess that certain fury that grips men in the heat of the search when they know their own are being slaughtered. There might even be a degree of reluctance to engage terrorists for fear of being held responsible for additional executions. The southern coast of Oman could bear some scrutiny.
The sound erupted as harshly as if a siren had split the hot, dry air of the hotel room. The telephone screamed; he picked it up. ‘Yes?’
‘Get out of your hotel,’ said the quiet, strained voice on the line.
‘Ahmat?’ Evan swung his legs on to the floor.
‘Yes! We’re on a direct scrambler. If you’re bugged, all they’ll hear me say is gibberish.’
‘I just said your name.’
‘There are thousands like it.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Mustapha. Because of the children you spoke of, I called him and ordered him to come immediately to the palace. Unfortunately in my anger I mentioned my concern. He must have phoned someone, said something to someone else.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘On his way here he was gunned down in his car.’
‘My God!’