‘Just get me to that airport by noon,’ replied Kendrick, no warmth in his voice. ‘Frankly, I want to get back to Germany as soon as possible.’
‘By noon,’ agreed the female terrorist.
‘Weingrass will be here by noon!’ exclaimed the Mossad officer to Ben-Ami and the five-man unit from the Masada Brigade. They were in the cellar of a house in the Jabal Sa’ali, minutes from the rows of English graves where scores of privateers were buried centuries before. The primitive stone basement had been converted into a control centre for Israeli intelligence.
‘How will he get here?’ asked Ben-Ami, who had taken the ghotra off his head, the blue jeans and loose dark shirt far more natural to him. ‘His passport was issued in Jerusalem, not the most welcome of documents.’
‘One does not question Emmanuel Weingrass. He undoubtedly has more passports than there are bagels in Tel Aviv’s Jabotinsky Square. He says we are to do nothing until he arrives. “Absolutely nothing”, were his exact words.’
‘You don’t sound so disapproving of him as you did before,’ said Yaakov, code name Blue, son of a hostage and leader of the Masada unit.
‘Because I will not have to sign his expense vouchers! There’ll be none. All I had to do was mention Kendrick’s name and he said he was on his way.’
‘That hardly means he won’t submit his expenses,’ countered Ben-Ami, chuckling.
‘Oh, no, I was very specific. I asked him how much would it cost us for his assistance and he replied unequivocally, “Up yours, this is on me!” It’s an American expression that absolves us from payment.’
‘We’re wasting time!’ cried Yaakov. ‘We should be scouting the embassy. We’ve studied the plans; there are a half-dozen ways we might enter and get out with my father!’
Heads snapped and eyes widened at the young leader called Blue. ‘We understand,’ said the Mossad officer.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.’
‘You of all people have every right to say it,’ said Ben-Ami.
‘I shouldn’t have. I apologize again. But why should we wait for this Weingrass?’
‘Because he delivers, my friend, and without him we may not.’
‘I see! You people in the Mossad turn flip-flops. Now it’s the American you want to help, not our original objective! Damn it, yes, my father!’
‘The result could be one and the same, Yaakov—’
‘I’m not Yaakov!’ roared the young leader. ‘To you I am only Blue—the son of a father who watched his own father and mother pulled apart in Auschwitz as they clung to each other before each was driven into the showers of gas. I want my father out and safe and I can do it! How much more can that man suffer? A childhood of horror, watching while children his own age were hanged for stealing garbage to eat, sodomized by Wehrmacht pigs, hiding, starving in forests all over Poland until the Allies came. Then later blessed with three sons, only to have two of them killed, my brothers killed, butchered in Sidon by filthy pig-terrorist Arabs! Now I should care about one American cowboy, a politician who wants to be a hero so he can act in films and have his picture on cereal boxes?’
‘From what I’ve been told,’ said Ben-Ami calmly, ‘none of that is true. This American risks his life without help from his own people, without the prospect of future rewards if he lives. As our friend here tells us, he does what he’s doing for a reason not very much different from yours. To right a terrible wrong that was done to him, to his family, as it were.’
‘To hell with him! That was a family, not a people! I say we go to the embassy!’
‘I say you don’t,’ said the officer, placing his pistol slowly on the table. ‘You are now under the command of the Mossad and you will follow our orders.’
‘Pigs!’ screamed Yaakov. ‘You’re pigs, all of you!’
‘Ever so,’ said Ben-Ami. ‘All of us.’
10:48 am. Oman time. The controlled press conference was over. The reporters and television crews were securing their notebooks and equipment, prepared to be ushered out through the embassy halls to the outside gates, patrolled by a hundred young men and veiled women marching back and forth with weapons at ready-fire. Inside the conference hall, however, a fat man broke through the guards with unctuous words and approached the table where Zaya Yateem sat. Rifles at his head, he spoke.
‘I come from the Mahdi,’ he whispered, ‘who pays every shilling you owe.’
‘You too? The emergency in Bahrain must be serious indeed.’
‘I beg your pardon—’
‘He’s been searched?’ asked Zaya of the guards, who nodded. ‘Let him go.’
‘Thank you, madame—what emergency in Bahrain?’
‘Obviously we don’t know. One of our own is going there tonight to be told and will return to us with the news.’
MacDonald stared into the eyes above the veil, a sharp hollow pain forming in his enormous chest. What was happening? Why was Bahrain going around him? What decisions had been made that excluded him? Why? What had the filthy Arab whore done? ‘Madame,’ continued the Englishman slowly, his words measured, ‘The emergency in Bahrain is a new development, whereas I am concerned with another question equally serious. Our benefactor would like clarified—immediately clarified—the presence of the woman Khalehla here in Masqat.’
‘Khalehla? There’s no woman named Khalehla among us here, but then names are meaningless, aren’t they?’
‘Not here, not inside here, but outside and in contact with your people—your own brother, in fact.’
‘My brother?’
‘Precisely. Three escaped prisoners raced to meet her on the road to Jabal Sham, to meet with the enemy!’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m not saying, madame, I’m demanding. We are demanding an explanation. The Mahdi insists on it most emphatically.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about! It is true three prisoners escaped, one of them my brother along with Yosef and our benefactor’s other emissary, a man named Bahrudi from East Berlin.’
‘East—Madame, you’re too quick for me.’
‘If you’re really from the Mahdi, I’m astonished you’re not aware of him.’ Yateem stopped, her penetrating large eyes roaming over MacDonald’s face. ‘On the other hand, you could be from anyone, anywhere.’
‘While in Masqat I am the Mahdi’s only voice! Call Bahrain and hear it for yourself, madame.’
‘You know perfectly well such calls are not permitted.’ Zaya snapped her fingers for the guards; they rushed to the table. ‘Take this man and bring him to the council room. Then wake my brother and Yosef and find Amal Bahrudi. Another conference is called for. Now!’
The clothes Evan chose for himself were a blend of the terrorist dress code: unpressed khaki trousers, a soiled American-style field jacket and a dark shirt open to mid-chest.
Except for his age and his eyes, he was similar in appearance to the majority of the fanatic punks who had captured the embassy. Even the years were obscured by his darkened flesh, and his eyes were shaded by the visor of a cloth cap. To complete the image he wanted, a sheathed knife was attached to his jacket and the bulge of a revolver apparent in the right pocket. The ‘trusted one’ was trusted; he had saved the life of Azra, prince of terrorists, and moved freely about the seized embassy, from one sickening scene to another, one frightened, exhausted, hopeless group to another.
Hope. It was all he could give, knowing that in the final analysis it was probably false, but he had to give it, give them something to cling to, at least to think about in the darkest, most terrifying hours of the night.
‘I’m an American!’ he whispered to shocked hostages wherever he found three or more together, his eyes constantly glancing around at the roving punks who thought he was insulting their prisoners with sudden, audible bursts of anger. ‘Nobody’s forgotten you! We’re doing all we can! Don’t mind my shouting at you! I have to.’
‘Thank God!’ was the constant, initial reply, followed by tears and descriptions of horror that invariably included the public execution of the seven condemned hostages.
‘They’ll kill us all! They don’t care! The filthy animals don’t care about death—ours or theirs.’
‘Do your best to stay calm and I mean that! Try not to show fear, that’s very, very important. Don’t antagonize, but don’t crawl to them. Seeing you afraid is like a narcotic to them. Remember that.’
At one point Kendrick suddenly stood up and shouted abusively at a group of five Americans. His straying eyes had picked out one of Zaya Yateem’s personal guards; the man was walking rapidly towards him.
‘You! Bahrudi!’
‘Yes.’
‘Zaya must see you right away. Come, the council room!’
Evan followed the guard across the roof and down three flights of stairs into a long corridor. He removed his cap, now soaked with perspiration, and was led to the open door of a large embassy office. He walked inside, and four seconds later his world was shattered by the last words he could ever hope to hear, ‘Good Christ! You’re Evan Kendrick!’