My God, what a network he must have! she thought. A little over an hour ago he was apparently paralysed with alcohol, making an ass of himself in a hotel bar, and here he was at five o’clock in the morning following her in a large blacked-out car. One assumption was unavoidable: He had put her under twenty-four-hour surveillance and picked her up after she had driven out of the palace gate, which meant that his informers had unearthed her connection to the sultan of Oman. But for whom was the profoundly clever MacDonald playing out his charade, a cover that gave him access to an efficient Omani network of informers and drivers of powerful vehicles at any hour of the day and night in this besieged country where every foreigner was put under a microscope? Which side was he on, and if it was the wrong one, for how many years had the ubiquitous Tony MacDonald been playing his murderous game?
Who was behind him? Did this contradictory Englishman’s visit to Oman have anything to do with Evan Kendrick? Ahmat had spoken cautiously, abstractly, about the American congressman’s covert objective in Masqat but would not elaborate except to say that no theory should be overlooked no matter how implausible it seemed. He revealed only that the former construction engineer from Southwest Asia believed that the bloody seizure of the embassy might be traced to a man and an industrial conspiracy whose origins were perceived four years ago in Saudi Arabia—perceived, not proved. It was far more than she had been told by her own people. Yet an intelligent, successful American did not risk going under cover among terrorists without extraordinary convictions. For Ahmat, sultan of Oman and fan of the New England Patriots football team, this was enough. Apart from getting him here, Washington would not acknowledge him, would not help him. ‘But we can, I can!’ Ahmat had exclaimed. And now Anthony MacDonald was a profoundly disturbing factor in the terrorist equation.
Her professional instincts demanded that she walk away, race away, but Khalehla could not do that. Something had happened; someone had altered the delicate balances of past and impending violence. She would not call for a small jet to fly her out of an unknown, rock-based plateau to Cairo. Not yet. Not yet. Not now! There was too much to learn and so little time! She could not stop!
‘Don’t stop!’ roared the obese MacDonald, clutching the hand strap above his seat as he yanked his heavy body upright. ‘She was driving out here for a reason, certainly not for pleasure at this hour.’
‘She may have seen you, Effendi.’
‘Not likely, but if she did I’m merely a client tricked by a whore. Keep going and switch on your lights. Someone may be waiting for them and we have to know who it is.’
‘Whoever it is may be unfriendly, sir.’
‘In which case I’m just another drunken infidel you’ve been hired by the firm to protect from his own outrageous behaviour. No different from other times, old sport.’
‘As you wish, Effendi.’ The driver turned on the headlights.
‘What’s ahead?’ asked MacDonald.
‘Nothing, sir. Only an old road that leads down to the Jabal Sham.’
‘What the hell is that?’
‘The start of the desert. It ends with the far off mountains that are the Saudi borders.’
‘Are there other roads?’
‘A number of kilometers to the east and less passable, sir, very difficult.’
‘When you say there’s nothing ahead, exactly what do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I said, sir. Only the road to the Jabal Sham.’
‘But this road, the one we’re on,’ pressed the Englishman. ‘Where does it go?’
‘It does not, sir. It turns left into the road down to the—’
‘This Jabal-whatever,’ completed MacDonald, interrupting. ‘I see. So we’re not talking about two roads, but one that happens to head left down to your bloody desert.’
‘Yes, sir—’
‘A rendezvous,’ broke in the Mahdi’s conduit, whispering to himself. ‘I’ve changed my mind, old boy,’ he continued quickly. ‘Douse the damned headlights. There’s enough of a moon for you to see, isn’t there?’
‘Oh, yes!’ replied the driver in minor triumph, while turning off the lights. ‘I know this road very well. I know every road in Masqat and Matrah very, very well. Even the unpassable ones to the east and to the south. But I must say, Effendi, I do not understand.’
‘Quite simple, my boy. If our busy little whore didn’t head down to whatever and whomever she intended to reach, someone else will come up here—before the light does, I expect, which won’t be too long now.’
‘The sky brightens quickly, sir.’
‘Quite so.’ MacDonald placed his pistol on top of the dashboard, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a short pair of binoculars with bulging, thickly coated lenses. He brought them to his eyes and scanned the area ahead.
‘It is still too dark to see, Effendi,’ said the driver.
‘Not for these little dears,’ explained the Englishman as they approached another curve in the dim moonlight. ‘Black out the entire sky and I’ll count you the number of those stubby trees a thousand metres away.’ They rounded the sharp curve, the driver squinting and braking the large car. The road was now straight and flat, disappearing into the darkness ahead.
‘Another two kilometers and we reach the descent into the Jabal Sham, sir. I will have to go very slowly as there are many turns, many rocks—’
‘Good Christ!’ roared MacDonald, peering through the infrared binoculars. ‘Get off the road! Quickly!’
‘What, sir?’
‘Do as I say! Cut your engine!’
‘Sir?’
‘Turn it off! Coast as far as you can into the sand grass!’
The driver swung the car to the right, lurching over the hard, rutted ground, gripping the wheel and spinning it repeatedly to avoid the scattered squat trees barely seen in the night light. Seventy-odd feet into the grass the car came to a jolting stop; an unseen, gnarled tree close to the ground had been caught in the undercarriage.
‘Sir…?’
‘Be quiet whispered the obese Englishman, replacing the binoculars in his pocket and reaching for his weapon above the dashboard. With his free hand he grabbed the door handle, then abruptly stopped. ‘Do the lights go on when the door is opened?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered the driver, pointing to the roof of the car. ‘The overhead light, sir.’
MacDonald smashed the barrel of his pistol up into the glass of the ceiling light. ‘I’m going outside,’ he said, again whispering. ‘Stay here, stay still and stay the hell away from the damned horn, If I hear a sound you’re a dead man, do you understand me?’
‘Clearly, sir. In case of emergency, however, may I ask why?’
‘There are men on the road up ahead—I couldn’t say whether three or four; they were just specks—but they’re coming this way and they’re running.’ Silently, the Englishman opened the door and rapidly, uncomfortably, climbed out. Staying as close to the ground as possible, he made his way swiftly across the sand grass to within twenty feet of the road. In his dark suit and black silk shirt, he lowered his bulk beside the stub of a dwarfed tree, put his weapon to the right of the twisted trunk and took the infrared binoculars out of his pocket. He trained them on the road, in the path of the approaching figures. Suddenly they were there.
Blue! It was Azra. Without his beard but unmistakable! The junior member of the council, brother of Zaya Yateem, the only set of brains on that council. And the man on his left… MacDonald could not recall the name but he had studied the photographs as though they were his passage to infinite wealth—which they were—and he knew it was he. A Jewish name, an older man, a terrorist for nearly twenty years… Yosef? Yes, Yosef! Trained in the Libyan forces after fleeing the Golan Heights… But the man on Azra’s left was puzzling; because of his appearance the Englishman felt he should know him. Focusing the infrared lenses on the bouncing, rushing face, MacDonald was perplexed. The running man was nearly as old as Yosef, and the few people in the embassy over thirty years of age were generally there for a reason known to Bahrain; the remainder were imbeciles and hot-heads—fundamentalist zealots easily manipulated. Then MacDonald noticed what he should have seen at first: The three men were in prison clothes. They were escaped prisoners. Nothing made sense! Were these the men the whore, Khalehla, was racing to meet? If so, everything was doubly incomprehensible. The bitch-whore was working for the enemy in Cairo. The information was confirmed in Bahrain; it was irrefutable! It was why he had cultivated her, repeatedly telling her of his firm’s interests in Oman and how frightened he was to go there under the circumstances and how grateful he would be for a knowledgeable companion. She had swallowed the bait, accepting his offer, even to the point of insisting that she could not leave Cairo until a specific day, a specific time which meant a very specific flight, of which there was only one a day. He had phoned Bahrain and was told to comply. And watch her! which he did. There was no meeting with anyone, no hint of eye contact whatsoever. But in the chaos of Masqat’s security-conscious immigration she had strayed away. Damn! Damn! She had wandered—wandered—out to the air freight warehouse, and when he found her she was alone by her petulant self. Had she made contact with someone there, passed instructions to the enemy? And if she had, did either have anything to do with the escaped prisoners now racing up the road?