She grabbed the handbag at her side and slipped it out of sight.
'Khalehla!' shouted an obese, wide-eyed, bald-headed man running towards her, pronouncing the name in Arabic, 'Ka-lay-la.' He was awkwardly carrying two suitcases, the sweat drenching his shirt and penetrating even the black, pinstripe suit styled in Savile Row. 'For God's sake, why did you drift off?
'That dreadful queue was simply too boring, darling,' replied the woman, her accent an unfathomable mixture of British and Italian or perhaps Greek. 'I thought I'd stroll around.'
'Good Christ, Khalehla, you can't do that, can't you understand? This place is a veritable hell on earth right now!' The Englishman stood before her, his jowled face flushed, dripping with perspiration. 'I was the very next in line for that Immigration imbecile, and I looked around and you weren't there! And when I started rushing about to find you, three lunatics with guns—guns!—stopped me and took me into a room and searched our luggage!'
'I hope you were clean, Tony.'
'The bastards confiscated my whisky!'
'Oh, the sacrifices of being such a successful man. Never mind, darling, I'll have it replaced.'
The British businessman's eyes roved over the face and figure of Khalehla. 'Well, it's past, isn't it? We'll go back now and get it over with.' The obese man winked—one eye after the other. 'I've got us splendid accommodation. You'll be very pleased, my dear.'
'Accommodation? With you, darling?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Oh, I really couldn't do that.'
'What? You said-'
'I said?' Khalehla broke in, her dark brows arched above her sunglasses.
'Well, you implied, rather emphatically, I might add, that if I could get you on that plane we might have a rather sporting time of it in Masqat.'
'Sporting, of course. Drinks on the Gulf, perhaps the races, dinner at El Quaman—yes, all of those things. But in your room?'
'Well, well… well, certain things shouldn't have to be—specified.'
'Oh, my sweet Tony. How can I apologize for such a misunderstanding? My old English tutor at the Cairo University suggested I contact you. She's one of your wife's dearest friends. Oh, no, I couldn't really.'
'Shit!' exploded the highly successful businessman named Tony.
'Miraya!' shouted Kendrick over the deafening sounds of the dilapidated truck as it bounced over a back road into Masqat.
'You did not request a mirror, ya Shaikh,' yelled the Arab in the rear of the trailer, his English heavily accented but understandable enough.
'Rip out one of the sideview mirrors on the doors, then. Tell the driver.'
'He cannot hear me, ya Shaikh. Like so many others, this is an old vehicle, one that will not be noticed. I cannot reach the driver.'
'Goddamn it!' exclaimed Evan, the tube of gel in his hand. 'Then you be my eyes, ya sahbee,' he said, calling the man his friend. 'Come closer to me and watch. Tell me when it's right. Open the canvas.'
The Arab folded back part of the rear covering, letting the sunlight into the darkened trailer. Cautiously, holding on to the straps, he moved forward until he was barely a foot away from Kendrick. 'This is the id-dawa, sir?' he asked, referring to the tube.
'Iwah,' said Evan, when he saw that the gel was indeed the medicine he needed. He began spreading it first on his hands; both men watched; the waiting-time was less than three minutes.
'Anna!' shouted the Arab, holding out his right hand; the colour of the skin nearly matched his own.
'Kwayis,' agreed Kendrick, trying to approximate the amount of gel he had applied to his hands so as to equal the proportion for his face. There was nothing for it but to do it. He did, and anxiously watched the Arab's eyes.
'Ma'ool!' cried his newest companion, grinning the grin of significant triumph. 'Delwatee anzur!'
He had done it. His exposed flesh was now the colour of a sun-drenched Arab. 'Help me into the thob and the aba, please,' Evan asked as he started to disrobe in the violently shaking truck.
'I will, of course,' said the Arab, suddenly in much clearer English than he had employed before. 'But now we are finished with each other. Forgive me for playing the naïf with you but no one is to be trusted here; the American State Department not exempted. You are taking risks, ya Shaikh, far more than I, as the father of my children would take, but that is your business, not mine. You will be dropped off in the centre of Masqat and you will then be on your own.'
'Thanks for getting me there,' said Evan.
'Thank you for coming, ya Shaikh. But do not try to trace those of us who helped you. In truth, we would kill you before the enemy had a chance to schedule your execution. We are quiet, but we are alive.'
'Who are you?'
'Believers, ya Shaikh. That is enough for you to know.'
'Alfshukr,' said Evan, thanking the clerk and tipping him for the confidentiality he had been guaranteed. He signed the hotel register with a false Arabic name and was given the key to his suite. He did not require a bellboy. Kendrick took the elevator to a wrong floor and waited at the end of a corridor to see if he had been followed. He had not, so he walked down the staircase to his proper floor and went to his suite.
Time. Time's valuable, every minute. Frank Swann, Department of State. The evening prayers of el Maghreb were over; darkness descended and the madness at the embassy could be heard in the distance. Evan threw his small case into a corner of the living room, took out his wallet from under his robes, and withdrew a folded sheet of paper on which he had written the names and telephone numbers—numbers that were by now almost five years old—of the people he wanted to contact. He went to the desk and the telephone, sat down and unfolded the paper.
Thirty-five minutes later, after the effusive yet strangely awkward greetings of three friends from the past, the meeting was arranged. He had chosen seven names, each among the most influential men he remembered from his days in Masqat. Two had died; one was out of the country; the fourth told him quite frankly that the climate was not right for an Omani to meet with an American. The three who had agreed to see him, with varying degrees of reluctance, would arrive separately within the hour. Each would go directly to his suite without troubling the front desk.
Thirty-eight minutes passed, during which time Kendrick unpacked the few items of clothing he had brought and ordered specific brands of whisky from room service. The abstinence demanded by Islamic tradition was more honoured in the breach, and beside each name was the libation each guest favoured; it was a lesson Evan had learned from the irascible Emmanuel Weingrass. An industrial lubricant, my son. You remember the name of a man's wife, he's pleased. You remember the brand of whisky he drinks, now that's something else. Now you care!
The soft knocking at the door broke the silence of the room like cracks of lightning. Kendrick took several deep breaths, walked across the room, and admitted his first visitor.
'It is you, Evan? My God, you haven't converted, have you?'
'Come in, Mustapha. It's good to see you again.'
'But am I seeing you? said the man named Mustapha who was dressed in a dark brown business suit. 'And your skin! You are as dark as I am if not darker.'
'I want you to understand everything.' Kendrick closed the door, gesturing for his friend from the past to choose a place to sit. 'I've got your brand of Scotch. Care for a drink?'
'Oh, that Manny Weingrass is never far away, is he?' said Mustapha, walking to the long, brocade-covered sofa and sitting down. 'The old thief.'
'Hey, come on, Musty,' protested Evan, laughing and heading for the bar. 'He never short-changed you.'
'No, he didn't. Neither he nor you nor your other partners ever short-changed any of us… How has it been with you without them, my friend? Many of us talk about it even after all these years.'
'Sometimes not easy,' said Kendrick honestly, pouring drinks. 'But you accept it. You cope.' He brought Mustapha his Scotch and sat down in one of the three chairs opposite the sofa. 'The best, Musty.' He rai
sed his glass.
'No, old friend, it is the worst—the worst of times as the English Dickens wrote.'
'Let's wait till the others get here.'
'They're not coming.' Mustapha drank his Scotch.
'What?'
'We talked. I am, as is said in so many business conferences, the representative of certain interests. Also, as the only minister of the sultan's cabinet, it was felt that I could convey the government's consensus.'
'About what? You're jumping way the hell ahead of me.'
'You jumped ahead of us, Evan, by simply coming here and calling us. One of us; two, perhaps; even in the extreme, three—but seven. No, that was reckless of you, old friend, and dangerous for everyone.'
'Why?'
'Did you think for a minute,' continued the Arab, overriding Kendrick, ‘that even three recognizable men of standing—say nothing of seven—would converge on a hotel within minutes of each other to meet with a stranger without the management hearing about it? Ridiculous.'
Evan studied Mustapha before speaking, their eyes locked. 'What is it, Musty? What are you trying to tell me? This isn't the embassy, and that obscene mess over there hasn't anything to do with the businessmen or the government of Oman.'
'No, it obviously does not,' agreed the Arab firmly. 'But what I'm trying to tell you is that things have changed here—in ways many of us do not understand.'
'That's also obvious,' interrupted Kendrick. 'You're not terrorists.'
'No, we're not, but would you care to hear what people—responsible people—are saying?'
'Go ahead.'
'“It will pass,” they say. “Don't interfere; it would only inflame them further.”'
'Don't interfere?' repeated Evan incredulously.
'And “Let the politicians settle it.”'
'The politicians can't settle it!'
'Oh, there's more, Evan. “There's a certain basis for their anger,” they say. “Not the killing of course, but within the context of certain events,” et cetera, et cetera. I've heard that, too.'
'Context of certain events? What events?'
'Current history, old friend. “They're reacting to a very uneven Middle East policy on the part of the United States.” That's the catch-phrase, Evan. “The Israelis get everything and they get nothing,” people say. “They, are driven from their lands and their homes and forced to live in crowded, filthy refugee camps, while in the West Bank the Jews spit on them.” These are the things I hear.'
'That's bullshit!' exploded Kendrick. 'Beyond the fact that there's another, equally painful, side to that bigoted coin, it has nothing to do with those two hundred and thirty-six hostages or the eleven who've already been butchered! They don't make policy, uneven or otherwise. They're innocent human beings, brutalized and terrified and driven to exhaustion by goddamned animals! How the hell can responsible people say those things? That's not the President's cabinet over there, or hawks from the Knesset. They're civil service employees and tourists and construction families. I repeat. Bullshit!'
The man named Mustapha sat rigidly on the sofa, his eyes still levelled at Evan. 'I know that and you know that,' he said quietly. 'And they know that, my friend.'
'Then why?
'The truth then,' continued the Arab, his voice no louder than before. 'Two incidents that forged a dreadful consensus, if I may use the word somewhat differently from before… The reason these things are said is that none of us cares to create targets of our own flesh.'
'Targets? Your… flesh?'
'Two men, one I shall call Mahmoud, the other Abdul—not their real names, of course, for it's better that you not know them. Mahmoud's daughter—raped, her face slashed. Abdul's son, his throat slit in an alley below his father's office on the piers. “Criminals, rapists, murderers!” the authorities say. But we all know better. It was Abdul and Mahmoud who tried to rally an opposition. “Guns!” they cried. “Storm the embassy ourselves,” they insisted. “Do not let Masqat become another Tehran!”… But it was not they who suffered. It was those close to them, their most precious possessions… These are the warnings, Evan. Forgive me, but if you had a wife and children would you subject them to such risks? I think not. The most precious jewels are not made of stone, but of flesh. Our families. A true hero will overcome his fear and risk his life for what he believes, but he will balk when the price is the lives of his loved ones. Is it not so, old friend?'
'My God,' whispered Evan. 'You won't help—you can't.'
'There is someone, however, who will see you and hear what you have to say. But the meeting must take place with extraordinary caution, miles away in the desert before the mountains of Jabal Sham.'
'Who is it?'
'The sultan.'
Kendrick was silent. He looked at his glass. After a prolonged moment he raised his eyes to Mustapha. 'I'm not to have any official linkage,' he said, 'and the sultan's pretty official. I don't speak for my government, that's got to be clear.'
'You mean you don't want to meet with him?'
'On the contrary, I want to very much. I just need to make my position clear. I have nothing to do with the intelligence community, the State Department or the White House—God knows not the White House.'
'I think that's patently clear; your robes and the colour of your skin confirm it. And the sultan wants no connection with you, as emphatically as Washington wants no connection.'
'I'm rusty,' said Evan, drinking. 'The old man died a year or so after I left, didn't he? I'm afraid I didn't keep up with things over here—a natural aversion, I think.'
'Certainly understandable. Our current sultan is his son; he's nearer your age than mine, even younger than you. After school in England, he completed his studies in your country. Dartmouth and Harvard, to be exact.'
'His name's Ahmat,' broke in Kendrick, remembering. 'I met him a couple of times.' Evan frowned. 'Economics and international relations,' he added.
'What?'
'Those were the degrees he was after. Graduate and postgraduate.'
'He's educated and bright, but he's young. Very young for the tasks facing him.'
'When can I see him?'
'Tonight. Before others become aware of your presence here.' Mustapha looked at his watch. 'In thirty minutes leave the hotel and walk four blocks north. A military vehicle will be at the corner. Get in and it will take you to the sands of Jabal Sham.'
The slender Arab in the soiled aba ducked into the shadows of the darkened shopfront opposite the hotel. He stood silently next to the woman called Khalehla, now dressed in a tailored black suit, the kind favoured by women executives and indistinct in the dim light. She was awkwardly securing a lens into the mount of her small camera. Suddenly, two sharp, high-pitched beeps sounded out.
'Hurry,' said the Arab. 'He's on his way. He's reached the lobby.'
'As fast as I can,' replied the woman, swearing under her breath as she manipulated the lens. 'I ask little of my superiors but decent, functioning equipment is one of them… There. It's on.'
'Here he comes!'
Khalehla raised her camera with the telescopic, infra-red lens for night photographs. She rapidly snapped three pictures of the robed Evan Kendrick. 'I wonder how long they'll let him live,' she said. 'I have to reach a telephone.'
Ultra Maximum Secure
No Existing Intercepts
Proceed
The journal was continued.
Reports from Masqat are astonishing. The subject has transformed himself into an Omani complete with Arab dress and darkened skin. He moves about the city like a native apparently contacting old friends and acquaintances from his previous life. The reports, however, are also sketchy as the subject's shadow routes everything through Langley and as yet I haven't been able to invade the CIA access codes from the Gulf nations. Who knows what Langley conceals? I've instructed my appliances to work harder! The State Department, naturally, is duck soup. And why not?
The Icarus Agenda
Chapter 4
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The vast, arid desert appeared endless in the night, the sporadic moonlight outlining the mountains of Jabal Sham in the distance—an unreachable, menacing border towering on the dark horizon. Everywhere the flat surface seemed to be a dry mixture of earth and sand, the windless plain devoid of those swelling, impermanent hills of windblown dunes one conjures up with images of the great Sahara. The hard, winding road beneath was barely passable; the brown military vehicle lurched and skidded around the sandy curves on its way to the royal meeting ground. Kendrick, as instructed, sat beside the armed, uniformed driver; in the back was a second man, an officer and also armed. Security started at the pickup; a perceived wrong move on Evan's part and he was flanked. Apart from polite greetings neither soldier spoke.
'This is desert country,' said Kendrick in Arabic. 'Why are there so many turns?'
'There are many off-shoot roads, sir,' answered the officer from the back seat. 'A straight lane in these sands would mark them too clearly.'
Royal security, thought Evan without comment.
They took an 'off-shoot road' after twenty-five minutes of speeding due west. Several miles beyond, a campfire glowed on the right. As they drew near, Kendrick saw a platoon of uniformed guards circling the fire, facing out, all points of the compass covered; the dark silhouettes of two military trucks loomed in the distance. The car stopped; the officer leaped out and opened the door for the American.
'Precede me, sir,' he said in English.
'Certainly,' replied Evan, trying to spot the young sultan in the light of the fire. There was no sign of him, nor of anyone not in uniform. Evan tried to recall the face of the boy-man he had met over four years ago, the student who had come home to Oman during a Christmas or a spring break, he could not remember which, only that the son of the sultan was an amiable young man, as knowledgeable as—he was enthusiastic about American sports. But that was all Evan could recall; no face came to him, only the name, Ahmat, which Mustapha had confirmed. Three soldiers in front of him gave way; they walked through the protective ring.
The Icarus Agenda Page 5
