‘The palace…?’ whispered the businessman hoarsely as he slowly stood up. ‘Incredible!’
‘It is true, sir. My information is accurate or I would not deliver it to such an august personage as yourself… In truth, Effendi, I shall praise Allah with all my heart in my every prayer for having met a true disciple of the Mahdi.’
The Englishman’s eyes snapped up at the figure of the messenger. ‘Yes, you’ve been told that, haven’t you?’ he said softly.
‘I was blessed with this gift of knowledge, singled out among my brothers for the privilege.’
‘Who else knows?’
‘On my life, no one, sir! Yours is a sacred privilege to be made in silence and invisibly. I shall go to my grave with the secret of your presence in Masqat!’
‘Splendid idea,’ said the large man in shadows as he raised the pistol.
The two gunshots were like rapid, muted coughs but their power belied the sound. Across the room the Arab was blown into the wall, his spotless robes suddenly drenched with blood.
The hotel’s American Bar was dark except for the dull glow of fluorescent tubes from under the counter. The aproned bartender slouched in a corner of his domain, every now and then glancing wearily at the two figures sitting in a booth by a front window, the view outside partially blocked by the lowered, half-closed blinds. The Englishmen were fools, thought the bartender. Not that they should disregard their fears—who lived without them in these mad-dog days, foreigner and sane Omani alike? But these two would be safer from a mad-dog assault behind the locked doors of hotel rooms, unnoticed, unseen… Or would they? mused the bartender, reconsidering. He, himself, had told the management that they insisted on remaining where they were, and the management, not knowing what the foreigners carried on their persons or who else might know and be looking for them, had stationed three armed guards in the lobby near the American Bar’s only entrance. In any case, the bartender concluded, yawning, wise or unwise, dull-witted or very clever, the Englishmen were extremely generous, that was all that mattered. That and the sight of his own weapon covered by a towel under the bar. Ironically, it was a lethal Israeli submachine gun he had bought from an accommodating Jew on the waterfront. Hah! Now the Jews were really clever. Since the madness began, they were arming half of Masqat.
‘Dickie, look!’ whispered the more tolerant of the two Englishmen, his right hand separating a pair of slats in the lowered blind covering the window.
‘What, Jack…?’ Dickie jerked his head up, blinking his eyes; he had been dozing.
‘Isn’t that our squiffed countryman out there?’
‘Who? Where…? My God, you’re right!’
Outside in the deserted, dimly lit street, the heavyset man—upright, agitated, pacing the curb while rapidly looking back and forth—suddenly struck several matches, one after the other. He appeared to raise and lower the flames, snapping each match angrily down on the pavement before lighting the next. Within ninety seconds a dark car appeared racing down the street; as it abruptly stopped the headlights were extinguished. Astonished, Dickie and his companion watched through the slats of the blind as the fat man, with startling agility and purpose, strode around the bonnet of the vehicle. As he approached the passenger door, an Arab wearing a headdress but otherwise in a dark Western suit leaped out. Instantly, the heavy Britisher began speaking rapidly, repeatedly jabbing his index finger into the face of the man in front of him. Finally he heaved his large torso around, spun his jowled head and pointed at an area in the upper floors of the hotel; the Arab turned and raced across the pavement. Then, in clear view, the obese businessman pulled a large weapon from his belt as he opened the car door farther and quickly, again angrily, lowered himself inside.
‘My God, did you see that?’ cried Dickie.
‘Yes. He’s changed his clothes.’
‘His clothes?’
‘Of course. The light’s poor but not for the practised eye. The white shirt’s gone and so are the pinstripes. He’s wearing a dark shirt now and his jacket and trousers are a dull black, coarse-woven wool, I should think, hardly suitable for the climate.’
‘What are you talking about?’ exclaimed the astounded Dickie. ‘I meant the gun!’
‘Well, yes, old chap. You’re in ferrous metals and I’m in textiles.’
‘Really, you leave me dumbfounded! We both see a twenty-stone bugger, who, fifteen minutes ago, was so squiffed we had to carry him upstairs, suddenly running around cold sober in the street, issuing orders to some bloke and brandishing a gun while he jumps into a madly driven car he obviously had signalled—and all you see are his clothes.’
‘Well, actually, there’s more to it than that, old boy. I saw the gun, of course, and the jack-rabbit Arab, and that car—obviously driven by a maniac—and the contrariness of it all was why the clothes struck me as odd, don’t you see?’
‘Not a ha’penny worth!’
‘Perhaps “odd” is the wrong choice of word—’
‘Try the right one, Jack.’
‘All right, I’ll try… That fat bugger may or may not have been squiffed but he was a dandy of the first water. Best featherweight worsted stripe, an Angelo shirt, the finest pure silk tie, and Benedictine shoes—leather from the veldt and sewn to order in Italy. He’s dressed to kill, I thought to myself, and everything right for the climate.’
‘So?’ asked the exasperated Dickie.
‘So out there in the street just now, he’s in a jacket and trousers of quite ordinary quality, ill-fitting and far too heavy for this blasted weather, and certainly not the sort of outfit that would stand out in a crowd, much less appropriate for a dawn social or an Ascot breakfast. And while I’m at it, there isn’t a textile firm in Manchester I’m not familiar with, and there’s no Twillingame or Burlingame or any name remotely similar.’
‘You don’t say?’
‘I do say.’
‘That’s a wicket, isn’t it?’
‘I also say we shouldn’t take that plane this morning.’
‘My God, why?’
‘I think we should go over to our embassy and wake someone up.’
‘What… ?’
‘Dickie, suppose that bugger is dressed to kill?’
Ultra Maximum Secure
No Existing Intercepts
Proceed
The journal continued.
The latest report is troubling and insofar as my appliances haven’t broken Langley’s access codes, I don’t even know whether data was withheld or not. The subject has made contact. The shadow speaks of a high-risk option that was ‘inevitable’—inevitable!—but extremely dangerous.
What is he doing and how is he doing it? What are his methods and who are his contacts? I must have specifics! If he survives, I will need every detail, for it is the details that lend credence to any extraordinary action, and it is the action that will propel the subject into the conscience of the nation.
But will he survive or will he be yet another buried statistic in an unrevealed series of events? My appliances cannot tell me, they can only attest to his potential which means nothing if he’s dead. Then all my work will have been for nothing.
* * *
Chapter 8
The four terrorist prisoners were shackled, two sitting on the right side of the speeding, violently shaking police van, the other two opposite them on the left. As arranged, Kendrick sat with the young, wild-eyed fanatic whose harelip impeded his screeching pronouncements; Azra was across the way with the gruff, older killer who had challenged and attacked Evan, the man he thought of as a sergeant-foreman. By the rattling steel door of the van stood a police guard, his left hand gripping a crossbar on the roof, trying to keep himself upright. In his right, held in place by a taut leather shoulder strap, was a MAC-10 machine pistol. A single scatter-shot burst would turn the four breathing prisoners into bloodied, breathless corpses pinned to the walls of the racing van. Yet, also—as arranged—a ring of keys was hooked to the guard’s belt, the same keys that had secured the prisoners’ shackles. Everything had been a race against time, precious time. Minutes became hours and hours brought about another day.
‘You’re insane, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Doctor, we don’t have a choice! That man is Azra—colour him Blue.’
‘Wrong, wrong, wrong! Azra has a beard and long hair—we’ve all seen him on television—’
‘He shaved off his beard and cut his hair.’
‘I ask you. Are you Amal Bahrudi?’
‘I am now.’
‘No, you’re not! Any more than he is Azra! That man was brought in here five hours ago from a bazaar in the Waljat. He’s a drunken imbecile, a swaggering clown, nothing more. His fellow pig slashed his own throat with a policeman’s knife!’
‘I was there, Faisal. He is Azra, brother of Zaya Yateem.’
‘Because he tells you so?’
‘No. Because I talked to him, listened to him. His holy war isn’t for or against Allah, Abraham or Christ. It’s for survival in this life, on this earth.’