‘Hey, come on, Musty,’ protested Evan, laughing and heading for the bar. ‘He never short-changed you.’
‘No, he didn’t. Neither he nor you nor your other partners ever short-changed any of us… How has it been with you without them, my friend? Many of us talk about it even after all these years.’
‘Sometimes not easy,’ said Kendrick honestly, pouring drinks. ‘But you accept it. You cope.’ He brought Mustapha his Scotch and sat down in one of the three chairs opposite the sofa. ‘The best, Musty.’ He raised his glass.
‘No, old friend, it is the worst—the worst of times as the English Dickens wrote.’
‘Let’s wait till the others get here.’
‘They’re not coming.’ Mustapha drank his Scotch.
‘What?’
‘We talked. I am, as is said in so many business conferences, the representative of certain interests. Also, as the only minister of the sultan’s cabinet, it was felt that I could convey the government’s consensus.’
‘About what? You’re jumping way the hell ahead of me.’
‘You jumped ahead of us, Evan, by simply coming here and calling us. One of us; two, perhaps; even in the extreme, three—but seven. No, that was reckless of you, old friend, and dangerous for everyone.’
‘Why?’
‘Did you think for a minute,’ continued the Arab, overriding Kendrick, ‘that even three recognizable men of standing—say nothing of seven—would converge on a hotel within minutes of each other to meet with a stranger without the management hearing about it? Ridiculous.’
Evan studied Mustapha before speaking, their eyes locked. ‘What is it, Musty? What are you trying to tell me? This isn’t the embassy, and that obscene mess over there hasn’t anything to do with the businessmen or the government of Oman.’
‘No, it obviously does not,’ agreed the Arab firmly. ‘But what I’m trying to tell you is that things have changed here—in ways many of us do not understand.’
‘That’s also obvious,’ interrupted Kendrick. ‘You’re not terrorists.’
‘No, we’re not, but would you care to hear what people—responsible people—are saying?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘”It will pass,” they say. “Don’t interfere; it would only inflame them further.”‘
‘Don’t interfere?’ repeated Evan incredulously.
‘And “Let the politicians settle it.”‘
‘The politicians can’t settle it!’
‘Oh, there’s more, Evan. “There’s a certain basis for their anger,” they say. “Not the killing of course, but within the context of certain events,” et cetera, et cetera. I’ve heard that, too.’
‘Context of certain events? What events?’
‘Current history, old friend. “They’re reacting to a very uneven Middle East policy on the part of the United States.” That’s the catch-phrase, Evan. “The Israelis get everything and they get nothing,” people say. “They, are driven from their lands and their homes and forced to live in crowded, filthy refugee camps, while in the West Bank the Jews spit on them.” These are the things I hear.’
‘That’s bullshit!’ exploded Kendrick. ‘Beyond the fact that there’s another, equally painful, side to that bigoted coin, it has nothing to do with those two hundred and thirty-six hostages or the eleven who’ve already been butchered! They don’t make policy, uneven or otherwise. They’re innocent human beings, brutalized and terrified and driven to exhaustion by goddamned animals! How the hell can responsible people say those things? That’s not the President’s cabinet over there, or hawks from the Knesset. They’re civil service employees and tourists and construction families. I repeat. Bullshit!’
The man named Mustapha sat rigidly on the sofa, his eyes still levelled at Evan. ‘I know that and you know that,’ he said quietly. ‘And they know that, my friend.’
‘Then why?
‘The truth then,’ continued the Arab, his voice no louder than before. ‘Two incidents that forged a dreadful consensus, if I may use the word somewhat differently from before… The reason these things are said is that none of us cares to create targets of our own flesh.’
‘Targets? Your… flesh?’
‘Two men, one I shall call Mahmoud, the other Abdul—not their real names, of course, for it’s better that you not know them. Mahmoud’s daughter—raped, her face slashed. Abdul’s son, his throat slit in an alley below his father’s office on the piers. “Criminals, rapists, murderers!” the authorities say. But we all know better. It was Abdul and Mahmoud who tried to rally an opposition. “Guns!” they cried. “Storm the embassy ourselves,” they insisted. “Do not let Masqat become another Tehran!”… But it was not they who suffered. It was those close to them, their most precious possessions… These are the warnings, Evan. Forgive me, but if you had a wife and children would you subject them to such risks? I think not. The most precious jewels are not made of stone, but of flesh. Our families. A true hero will overcome his fear and risk his life for what he believes, but he will balk when the price is the lives of his loved ones. Is it not so, old friend?’
‘My God,’ whispered Evan. ‘You won’t help—you can’t.’
‘There is someone, however, who will see you and hear what you have to say. But the meeting must take place with extraordinary caution, miles away in the desert before the mountains of Jabal Sham.’
‘Who is it?’
‘The sultan.’
Kendrick was silent. He looked at his glass. After a prolonged moment he raised his eyes to Mustapha. ‘I’m not to have any official linkage,’ he said, ‘and the sultan’s pretty official. I don’t speak for my government, that’s got to be clear.’
‘You mean you don’t want to meet with him?’
‘On the contrary, I want to very much. I just need to make my position clear. I have nothing to do with the intelligence community, the State Department or the White House—God knows not the White House.’
‘I think that’s patently clear; your robes and the colour of your skin confirm it. And the sultan wants no connection with you, as emphatically as Washington wants no connection.’
‘I’m rusty,’ said Evan, drinking. ‘The old man died a year or so after I left, didn’t he? I’m afraid I didn’t keep up with things over here—a natural aversion, I think.’
‘Certainly understandable. Our current sultan is his son; he’s nearer your age than mine, even younger than you. After school in England, he completed his studies in your country. Dartmouth and Harvard, to be exact.’
‘His name’s Ahmat,’ broke in Kendrick, remembering. ‘I met him a couple of times.’ Evan frowned. ‘Economics and international relations,’ he added.
‘What?’
‘Those were the degrees he was after. Graduate and postgraduate.’
‘He’s educated and bright, but he’s young. Very young for the tasks facing him.’
‘When can I see him?’
‘Tonight. Before others become aware of your presence here.’ Mustapha looked at his watch. ‘In thirty minutes leave the hotel and walk four blocks north. A military vehicle will be at the corner. Get in and it will take you to the sands of Jabal Sham.’
The slender Arab in the soiled aba ducked into the shadows of the darkened shopfront opposite the hotel. He stood silently next to the woman called Khalehla, now dressed in a tailored black suit, the kind favoured by women executives and indistinct in the dim light. She was awkwardly securing a lens into the mount of her small camera. Suddenly, two sharp, high-pitched beeps sounded out.
‘Hurry,’ said the Arab. ‘He’s on his way. He’s reached the lobby.’
‘As fast as I can,’ replied the woman, swearing under her breath as she manipulated the lens. ‘I ask little of my superiors but decent, functioning equipment is one of them… There. It’s on.’
‘Here he comes!’
Khalehla raised her camera with the telescopic, infra-red lens for night photographs. She rapidly snapped three pictures of the robed Evan Kendrick. ‘I wonder how long they’ll let him live,’ she said. ‘I have to reach a telephone.’
Ultra Maximum Secure
No Existing Intercepts
Proceed
The journal was continued.
Reports from Masqat are astonishing. The subject has transformed himself into an Omani complete with Arab dress and darkened skin. He moves about the city like a native apparently contacting old friends and acquaintances from his previous life. The reports, however, are also sketchy as the subject’s shadow routes everything through Langley and as yet I haven’t been able to invade the CIA access codes from the Gulf nations. Who knows what Langley conceals? I’ve instructed my appliances to work harder! The State Department, naturally, is duck soup. And why not?
* * *
Chapter 4
The vast, arid desert appeared endless in the night, the sporadic moonlight outlining the mountains of Jabal Sham in the distance—an unreachable, menacing border towering on the dark horizon. Everywhere the flat surface seemed to be a dry mixture of earth and sand, the windless plain devoid of those swelling, impermanent hills of windblown dunes one conjures up with images of the great Sahara. The hard, winding road beneath was barely passable; the brown military vehicle lurched and skidded around the sandy curves on its way to the royal meeting ground. Kendrick, as instructed, sat beside the armed, uniformed driver; in the back was a second man, an officer and also armed. Security started at the pickup; a perceived wrong move on Evan’s part and he was flanked. Apart from polite greetings neither soldier spoke.