‘Your gestures are as pathetic as your words,’ said the Mahdi, rising from behind the desk. ‘We are well on our way to building a kingdom here and there’s nothing the paralysed West can do about it. We set people against people with forces they cannot control; we divide thoroughly and conquer completely without ourselves firing a shot. And you, Evan Kendrick, have been of great service to us. We have photographs of you taken at the airport when you flew in from Oman; also of your weapons, your false papers and your money belt, the latter showing what appears to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. We have documented proof that you, an American congressman using the name of Amal Bahrudi, managed to get inside the embassy in Masqat where you killed an eloquent gentle leader named Nassir and later a young freedom fighter called Azra—all during the days of precious truce agreed by everyone. Were you an agent of your brutal government? How could it be otherwise? A wave of revulsion will spread over the so-called democracies—the fumbling warlike giant has done it again without regard for the lives of its own.’
‘You—’ Evan leaped up, grabbing the wrist that held the knife, wrenching his head away from the hand that gripped his hair. He was struck in the back of the neck, pummelled again to the floor.
‘The executions have been moved forward,’ continued the Mahdi. ‘They will resume tomorrow morning—provoked by your insidious activities, which will be made public. Chaos and bloodshed will result because of the rash, contemptible Americans, until a solution is found, our solution—my solution. But none of this will concern you, Congressman. You will have vanished from the face of the earth, thanks no doubt to your terribly embarrassed government, which is not above punishing traceable failure while issuing feverish denials. There’ll be no corpus delicti, no inkling of your whereabouts whatsoever. Tomorrow, with first light, you’ll be flown out to sea, a bleeding, skinned pig strapped to your naked body, and dropped into the shark-infested shoals of Qatar.’
* * *
Chapter 15
‘There’s nothing here!’ shouted Weingrass, standing and poring over the papers on the table in the dining room of a Bahrainian official he had known since the Kendrick Group had built an island country club on the archipelago years before. ‘After all I did for you, Hassan, all the little and not so little fees I passed your way, this is what you give me?’
‘More is coming, Emmanuel,’ replied the nervous Arab, nervous because Weingrass’s words were heard by Ben-Ami and the four commandos sitting twenty feet away in the Westernized living room on the outskirts of the city. A doctor had been summoned to stitch and bandage Yaakov, who refused to lie down; instead, he sat up in an armchair. The man named Hassan glanced at him, mentioning, if only to change the subject of his past with the old architect: ‘The boy doesn’t look well, Manny.’
‘He gets in scraps, what can I tell you? Someone tried to steal his roller skates. What’s coming and when? These are companies, and the products or services they sell. I have to see names, people!’
‘That’s what’s coming. It’s not easy to persuade the Minister of Industrial Regulations to leave his house at two o’clock in the morning and go down to his office to commit an illegal act.’
‘Industrial and regulations in Bahrain are mutually exclusive words.’
‘Those are secret papers!’
‘A Bahrainian imperative.’
‘That’s not true, Manny!’
‘Oh, shut up and get me a whisky.”
‘You’re incorrigible, my old friend.’
‘Tell me about it.’ The voice of code Grey drifted out from the living room. He had returned from the telephone which he had been using with permission but without being questioned every fifteen minutes.
‘May I get you something, gentlemen?’ asked Hassan, walking through the dining room arch.
‘The cardamom coffee is more than sufficient,’ answered the older Ben-Ami. ‘It’s also delicious.’
‘There are spirits, if you wish—as, of course, you’ve just gathered from Mr. Weingrass. This is a religious house but we do not impose our beliefs on others.’
‘Would you put that in writing, sir?’ said code Black, chuckling. ‘I’ll deliver it to my wife and tell her you’re a mullah. I have to go across the city to get bacon with my eggs–‘
‘Thank you, but no spirits, Mr. Hassan,’ added Grey, slapping Black’s knee, ‘With luck we’ll have work to do tonight.’
‘With greater luck my hands will not be cut off,’ said the Arab quietly, heading towards the kitchen. He stopped, interrupted by the sound of the front door chimes. The high-placed courier had arrived.
Forty-eight minutes later, with computer print-outs scattered over the dining room table, Weingrass studied two specific pages, going back and forth from one to the other. ‘Tell me about this Zareeba Limited.’
‘The name comes from the Sudanese language,’ replied the robed official who had refused to be introduced to anyone. ‘Roughly, it translates as a protected encampment surrounded by rock or dense foliage.’
‘The Sudan…?’
‘It’s a nation in Africa—’
‘I know what it is. Khartoum.’
That’s the capital—’
‘Heavens, I thought it was Buffalo!’ interrupted Weingrass curtly. ‘How come they list so many subsidiaries?’
‘It’s a holding company; their interests are extensive. If a company needs government licences for multiple export and import, they’re more easily expedited under the corporate umbrella of a very solid firm.’
‘Horseshit.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s Bronx for “Oh, good gracious.” Who runs it?’
‘There’s a board of directors—’
‘There’s always a board of directors. I asked you who runs it.’
‘No one really knows, frankly. The chief executive is an amiable fellow—I’ve had coffee with him—but he doesn’t appear to be a particularly aggressive man, if you know what I mean.’
‘So there’s someone else.’
‘I wouldn’t know—’
‘Where’s the list of directors?’
‘Right in front of you. It’s beneath the page on your right.’
Weingrass lifted the page and picked up the one underneath. For the first time in two hours he sat down in a chair, his eyes roaming the list of names over and over again. ‘Zareeba… Khartoum,’ he kept saying quietly, every now and then shutting his eyes tightly, his lined face wrinkled by repeated grimaces as if he was trying desperately to recall something he had forgotten. Finally, he picked up a pencil and circled a name; then pushed the page across the table to the still standing, rigid Bahrainian official.
‘He’s a black man,’ said the high-placed courier.
‘Who’s white and who’s black over here?’
‘One tells by the features usually. Of course, centuries of Afro-Arab intermingling often obscure the issue.’
‘Is it an issue?’
‘To some, not most.’
‘Where did he come from?’
‘If he’s an immigrant, his country of origin is listed there. ‘
‘It says “concealed”.’
‘That generally means the person has fled from an authoritarian regime, usually Fascist or Communist. We protect such people if they contribute to our society. Obviously, he does.’
‘Sahibe al Farrahkhaliffe,’ said Weingrass, emphasizing each part of the name. ‘What nationality is that?’
‘I’ve no idea. Part African, obviously; part Arab, more obviously. It’s consistent.’
‘Wrongo, Buster!’ exclaimed Manny, startling everyone in both rooms. ‘It’s pure American alias-fraud! If this is who I think he is, he’s a black son of a bitch from Chicago who was heaved out by his own people! They got crapped on because he’d banked their money—some twenty million, incidentally—in accommodating banks on this side of the Atlantic. Some eighteen, twenty years ago he was a steamrolling, fire and brimstone fanatic called Al Farrah—his fucking ego wouldn’t let him drop that part of his past, the hallelujah chorus part. We knew the big gloxinia was on the board of directors of some fat corporation but we didn’t know which one. Besides, we were looking in the wrong direction. Khartoum? Hell! South Side Chicago! Here’s your Mahdi.’
‘Are you certain? asked Hassan, standing in the archway. ‘The accusation is inflammatory!’
‘I’m certain,’ said Weingrass quietly. ‘I should have shot the bastard in that tent in Basrah.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ The Bahrainian official was visibly shaken.
‘Never mind—’
‘No one has left the Sahalhuddin building!’ said code Grey, walking forward into the archway.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I paid a taxi driver who was very willing to accept a considerable sum of money with a great deal more to come if he did my bidding. I call him every few minutes at a public phone. Their two cars are still there.’
‘Can you trust him?’ asked Yaakov from the chair.
‘I have his name and licence number.’
‘Doesn’t mean a damned thing!’ protested Manny.
‘I told him that if he lied, I’d find him and kill him.’
‘I withdraw the statement, Tinker Bell.’
‘Will you–‘
‘Shut up. What part of the Sahalhuddin does the Zareeba company occupy?’
‘The top two floors, if I’m not mistaken. The lower floors are leased by its subsidiaries. Zareeba owns the building.’