by Jack Higgins
There was a murmur from some of the men as they drank, but otherwise silence, and then two riders appeared, spaced well apart, on the rim of a vast sand dune some two hundred yards away. They sat on their horses, surveying the convoy, and a third rider appeared between them.
He held a flag braced against his right foot, the black flag of al-Qaeda. The murmuring stopped in the Sand Cruiser, and there was a total stillness now.
“There is one God and Osama is his Prophet.”
The words echoed high above, and Holley dropped his binoculars, slipped the Lee Enfield from his shoulder, and aimed briefly, a perfect snap shot that caused the flag holder to lift from the saddle, drop the flag, and roll over and over down the side of the dune. The other two horses reared, and one of the riders leaned down to pick up the flag and waved it over his head as they rode away.
There was a roar of approval from the men in the Sand Cruisers, and Holley responded to it. “That’ll give these Protectors of the Faith people something to think about. So let’s get moving.”
The engines of the five vehicles roared into life and the convoy moved forward again.
* * *
It had all started a few weeks before Dillon and Sara Gideon’s eventful visit to Paris. Daniel Holley was at the controls of his Falcon jet, landing at the Algiers airport one late evening, with darkness starting to creep in as he taxied to the private facility.
He cut the engines, aware of the ground staff waiting, but rather more interesting, the black Mercedes and the young man in a tropical suit who leaned against it, smoking a cigarette. His name was Caspar Selim, a major in Army Intelligence at thirty, on secondment to the Foreign Minister’s Office.
Holley went down the airstair door and the ground staff brushed past him to secure the aircraft and retrieve his luggage. He approached the major, smiling.
“Caspar, what a surprise. To what do I owe the honor? Are you here to arrest me or what?”
“The foreign minister’s golden boy? You’ve got to be kidding. He wants to see you, it’s urgent, and that’s all I know.”
“Where to, the Foreign Office?”
“No, he’s waiting now at your partner’s villa.”
“Interesting.” Holley joined him in the back and, as the Mercedes pulled away, said, “Give me a cigarette.”
“I thought you’d stopped.”
“So did I, and then I went to Somalia.” Holley accepted the offered light. “Thousands of Kenyan troops are massed to attack Kismayu, the only large port that al-Qaeda still controls.”
“Sometimes I think you have a death wish, my friend,” Caspar Selim observed.
“I know,” Holley said. “And one day it will be the end of me, but not this time. I scraped out of Kismayu by the skin of my teeth, but with plenty of information about the city’s defenses. The Kenyans were quite happy to get it.”
“They’ll love you in Nairobi,” Caspar said. “But then, I suppose that was the real purpose of the trip all along.”
“To improve my business credentials in that fair city?” Holley shrugged. “No harm in that, but I’d also like to think that the information will save lives when the Kenyans launch their attack. Do you know the Roman saying ‘Life is short, art long, experiment perilous’?”
“What the hell is that pearl of wisdom supposed to mean?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea, Caspar. You went to the military academy at Sandhurst. Figure it out for yourself and give me another cigarette.”
* * *
They found the foreign minister in the huge sitting room of the villa of Holley’s partner, Hamid Malik. The minister’s chauffeur lurked discreetly at the back of the room, obviously with a gun in his pocket. Malik was uneasy in the great man’s presence, as they sipped fresh orange juice laced with champagne, and the relief on his face was palpable when Holley and Caspar Selim entered.
The foreign minister raised his voice, a smile on his face. “Here he is, the hero of the hour. I’ve had my opposite number on the line from Nairobi, Daniel. Our Kenyan friends are more than grateful to you.”
“Well, that’s nice to know.”
“The information you brought out of Kismayu will make all the difference when the Kenyan Army starts its invasion. We’ll drink to it.”
Malik was pouring, and Holley said, “Somehow it makes everything seem worthwhile.” He turned to Caspar, glass in hand. “Don’t you agree?”
Caspar mouthed bastard and then raised his glass. “A wonderful effort.”
“I agree,” the minister said. “But now to business. Algiers has been good to you, Daniel, I’m sure you would agree. Twenty-five years ago, you turned up from Ireland with a price on your head, to be trained as a soldier of the IRA at the camp at Shabwa, deep in the desert, kept solvent by the generosity of Colonel Gadhafi.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Daniel said.
“And now here you are, joint owner with Malik of one of the biggest shipping lines out of Algiers, a business founded on your ability to sell arms to every country in the Middle East.”
Malik, a businessman to the last, said, “I can assure you, Minister, that our books are completely in order.”
“So you perform miracles now?” The foreign minister laughed and turned back to Holley. “Granting you Algerian nationality was one thing, but then I made you a special envoy of my department. That diplomatic passport gets you waved through airports worldwide.”
“For which I am immensely grateful,” Holley told him.
“Yes, well, now it must be paid for. I have a task for which I believe you are uniquely fitted. Is it true that for some years you have sold arms to Tuareg tribes rebelling in the north of Mali?”
Holley didn’t hesitate. “On occasion, I did, but I’m not going to apologize. I thought they had a point.”
“I tend to agree, not that it matters. They are just the kind of recruits I have in mind for the task I am going to give you. Timbuktu has been invaded by rebels calling themselves Protectors of the Faith. But they operate under the black flag of al-Qaeda.”
“Just how bad is it?” Holley asked.
“Government troops have cleared off; also any police. Timbuktu has been a center of Islamic learning since the sixteenth century. Priceless books and documents, including some of the very rarest copies of the Koran, are there. The invaders are like mindless savages, destroying what they do not understand. They’ve even ordered locals to stop worshipping at the tombs of saints.”
“And those who refuse to obey are slaughtered, I presume?” Holley asked.
“So we understand. Many local people have managed to conceal the treasures in one way or another, but information is scant. It’s hopeless to expect help from the UN in these troubled times, but our President has placed this matter in my hands to find a solution. It’s one of the worst attacks on Islamic culture for centuries. We must do something.” There was a pause. Malik looked hunted at such a prospect, but Holley simply nodded. “So what you’re saying is you want me to act completely unofficially, recruit a band of Tuareg bandits, go down to Timbuktu, and save as many of the priceless artifacts as we can?”
The foreign minister nodded. “That sums it up. The Algerian government can’t be seen to be using the army or the air force in any way. It might give the wrong impression.”
“So I’d have a free hand to take care of it whatever way I want?”
“I’m not even offering to pay you, Daniel. I’m well aware you and Malik are multimillionaires anyway. Look upon it as a good deed in a naughty world.” The foreign minister stood up. “Your country will be immensely grateful.” He smiled. “Especially if you can achieve our aim with a minimum of publicity.”
“Of course, Excellency.” Holley shook hands. “Go with God.”
“And you, Daniel.” The minister turned and went, and Malik hurried after to see him out.
Holley poured himself a whiskey and stepped out onto the terrace to find a full moon, the vast harbor below uniquely beau
tiful. He stood there, thinking about Timbuktu, and Malik returned, immensely excited.
“Can you do it?”
“I think so. Recruiting the Tuaregs will be no problem at all. They put themselves out as mercenaries these days, and once they’ve taken the blood money, they’re yours. A matter of honor. There are plenty hanging round Algiers, some of the guys whom Colonel Gadhafi recruited. We’ve got several Sand Cruisers in the holding depot doing nothing. There’s no problem tooling them up with the right weaponry. Twenty-five to thirty good men should be enough. They can drive down through the Sahara. I’ll go with them.”
“So, no helicopter?”
“Terrible sandstorms this time of year. The Dakota will do just fine, and it has lots of room for the rare manuscripts and books we’ll be looking for. There’s an old airstrip at Fuad ten miles out of Timbuktu, left over from French Foreign Legion days. I’ll need another pilot, but Caspar Selim has his wings and he can’t say no. The foreign minister won’t hear of it.”
Malik shook his head. “All you see is another adventure, Daniel. You never change.”
“As the foreign minister said, Algeria has been good to me. It’s a chance to do something worthwhile in her name, but if al-Qaeda makes this a major campaign the French might have to intervene, and certainly Algerian Special Forces. Time will tell.”
* * *
A month later, unaware of any of this, Dillon and Sara Gideon found the weather in London just as rain-soaked as the city they’d left, Paris. Billy Salter, waiting for them under an umbrella beside his Alfa Romeo, greeted them cheerfully.
“Taxi, lady?”
“How nice,” Sara said as he opened the rear door for her. “Highfield Court, please.”
“You’ll have to make do with Holland Park,” he told her. “Ferguson wants to get straight down to business.”
“Sure, and doesn’t he always,” Dillon said. “How’s Harry?”
“Busy with the restaurant. There’ll be Roper and the general and we three, but what it’s all about, I’ve no idea.”
“And Daniel?” Sara asked. “Still no news?”
“A month now,” Billy said, “and not a word. But I wouldn’t worry. Anyone who’s been sentenced to life imprisonment in Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison and yet walks out in five years has got to have a bit of luck on his side. You must know Daniel Holley by now. He’s up to his neck in a lot of things we aren’t.”
“He’s right,” Dillon said. “The shipping line takes him all over the place, and his arms-dealing must be bigger than it’s ever been. It’s a sign of the times.”
“Come off it, Sean,” she said. “Somebody should have told him of a brilliant new invention, the mobile phone. If he’s too busy to call, I can only draw my own conclusions,” and she folded her arms and sat back in the corner, miserably angry.
* * *
Well, I must say you look better than I thought you would,” Ferguson told Sara when she and Dillon joined him and Roper in the computer room.
“It could have been worse,” she said. “But I’m sorry about the woman, Fatima.”
“You should have reported her confession straightaway, to me or Claude Duval, but I believe you were giving her a chance to get away. That was very wrong. Did I make a mistake in recruiting you?”
“That’s interesting. Declan Rashid told me that’s how you would see it.”
“You discussed it with him?”
“Of course. I did tell Claude what she had confessed to me, but he didn’t tell Declan and Khan that she was targeting me under direct orders from al-Qaeda.” Sara was perfectly calm. “Declan says I’m a wild card and that you won’t want to use me again.”
“I like the colonel,” Dillon cut in. “But if that were true, the general would have sacked me years ago.”
“And me, come to think of it,” Roper said. “By the way, and just for the record, as you seem to have got rather intimate with the colonel, what’s his attitude to al-Qaeda? Did you ask?”
“I didn’t need to. He told me that he didn’t buy the Osama message, but then wondered why I should believe him.”
“My goodness, you did get close,” Ferguson said.
“No cheap cracks, please. That was when I told him Fatima had confessed about her order to assassinate me. It was the first he’d heard about it, since Claude hadn’t mentioned the fact, and he wasn’t pleased.”
“No, he wouldn’t be, any more than he’ll be pleased at being posted back to Tehran for a while. It’s just been announced at the Iranian Embassy.”
Amazing the sudden sense of loss. Sara pulled herself together and said, “So what happens now? Am I returned to unit? If so, that’s fine. With my languages and experience, there’s still plenty for me to do in Afghanistan.”
“And a damn sight more here. To be frank, this relationship with Colonel Declan Rashid may be worth a great deal in the right circumstances,” Ferguson said.
Before she could reply, Dillon cut in, “I’ve said it before, but you have to be one of the most devious bastards of all time.”
“I’ll second that,” Roper said. “So having established that Sara is still a prime mover and shaker round here, can I put a question her way?”
“Of course.”
“What did you say to Husseini, Sara?”
“I asked what his attitude would be to an attempt by the SAS to snatch him and his mother and daughter. He said that the idea of them being out of Tehran and living the good life in Hampstead had a certain appeal, but he didn’t feel there was much hope of such a venture succeeding. So under the circumstances, he had no option but to accept the current situation.”
“Very frustrating,” Ferguson said. “I can see that. What else did he have to say?”
Which was when Sara started to lie. “Oh, he was terribly pleased to see me, wanted to know all about my grandfather. He has a genuine affection for him and follows his academic career online. He’s kept quiet about their relationship all those years ago.”
“And what did he think about you?”
“Fascinated by my military career, Afghanistan and so forth. I told him I worked for you, no reason not to, and I felt it was necessary to establish my good faith, if that’s the right way to put it.”
Ferguson nodded. “You’ve done well.”
Billy Salter, who had been sitting beside Dillon, taking it all in, said, “Considering what she and Dillon went through the other night here and then in Paris, I reckon she’s been bloody marvelous.”
“Yes, you could put it that way,” Ferguson said. “Well, let me think about it. In the meantime, there’s another matter which’ll interest you. Daniel Holley dropped out of sight just about a month ago. Roper said he could be in Algeria or in the depths of the Sahara, and he was closer than he knew. Timbuktu, a center of Islamic leaning for at least five hundred years, is being pillaged by barbarians in the name of al-Qaeda. Rare books, artifacts, manuscripts, an entire culture being destroyed.”
Sara said, “But what’s Daniel doing down there?”
“We have a short film, shot on the move and pretty rough, but it will give you the idea,” Ferguson said.
Roper put it on his largest screen and it was as if they were right there: crowds of people surging through alleyways, smoke, flames, men on horseback galloping around, trucks and the occasional jeep with general-purpose machine guns mounted, and then the Sand Cruisers charging in, Tuaregs standing behind their machine guns and firing.
There was footage of the Dakota at the old airfield at Fuad, trucks drawing up, delivering cargo to the plane. Caspar Selim, in khaki uniform, was supervising the loading. A Tuareg galloped up, dismounted to talk to him, then turned to look into the camera, and it was Daniel Holley.
“Oh my God,” Sara said.
“Yes, he does look rather dashing,” Ferguson said. “All that’s missing are Beau Geste, his two brothers, and the Foreign Legion at Fort Zinderneuf.”
Holley was suddenly closer to the camera, smiling and
nodding, and then there was a loud explosion and the screen went dark.
Roper said, “Don’t get alarmed, that was nothing serious. We’ve talked to him several times since.”
Ferguson said to Sara, “He’s calling my office on Skype an hour and a half from now. You can take it first and have a chat. I’ll speak to him after.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“Good. Now allow me to explain what Holley is doing running this affair. Then we’ll see what Maggie Hall has to offer for lunch.”
* * *
Holley talked to her from the back of a Sand Cruiser, using a highly sophisticated laptop.
“You’re looking good,” he said. “It was impossible to keep in touch. The Algerians want a low profile on this for obvious reasons. It’s lucky that Timbuktu is such a vast distance from the real world, a dot on the horizon of one of the greatest deserts on earth.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” she said.
“It’s just that what we are saving is so remarkable. Centuries-old copies of the Koran, manuscripts produced by master painters, precious things of every description. You don’t have to be a Muslim to recognize wonderful works of art. These savages we’re fighting, the vandals operating under al-Qaeda’s leadership, would destroy these amazing things because they don’t fit in with their own vision of Islam.”
“Well, take care.” She tried to sound jolly. “We’d hate to lose you.”
“What about you and Dillon? Roper was telling me. The car chase in London, the two al-Qaeda hit men. What was that all about?”
“They just want revenge.”
“And Paris and the Ritz?”
“It’s the beast stirring, they want payback for past hurts.”
“Well, you take care.”
“Will I see you soon?”
