'I think perhaps you did also, ya Shaikh ya Amreekdnee.'
'Maybe I did. Maybe I just want to blame it on someone else. I don't fit into this mould.'
'Then something inside is propelling you, re-shaping the man who was. It happens.'
Kendrick looked into the soft brown eyes of the Omani doctor. 'It happens,' agreed Evan. Suddenly his mind was filled with the outlines of a murky silhouette; the figure of a man emerged from the raging fires of an earth-bound hell. Whirlwinds of smoke enveloped the apparition as cascading rubble fell all around it, muting the screams of victims. The Mahdi. Killer of women and children, of friends dear to him, partners in a vision—his family, the only family he ever wanted. All gone, all dead, the vision joining the smoke of destruction, disappearing in the rising vapours until nothing was left but the cold and the darkness. The Mahdi! 'It happens,' repeated Kendrick softly, rubbing his forehead. 'Get me the photographs and call Ahmat. I want to be back in that compound in twenty minutes, and I want to be taken out ten minutes later. For God's sake, move!'
Ahmat, sultan of Oman, still in slacks and his New England Patriots T-shirt, sat in the high-backed chair, the red light of his private, secure telephone glowing below on the right leg of his desk. With the instrument next to his ear he was listening intensely.
'So it happened, Faisal,' he spoke quietly. 'Praise be to Allah, it happened.'
'He told me you expected it,' said the doctor over the line, his tone questioning.
'“Expected” is too strong, old friend. Hoped is more appropriate.'
'I removed your tonsils, great sultan, and I attended you over the years for minor illnesses including a great fear you had that proved groundless.'
Ahmat laughed, more to himself than into the phone. 'A wild week in Los Angeles, Amal. Who knew what I might have contracted?'
'We had a pact. I never told your father.'
'Which means you think I'm not telling you something now.'
'The thought occurred to me.'
'Very well, old friend—' Suddenly, the young sultan snapped his head up as the door of his royal office was opened. Two women entered; the first was obviously pregnant, an Occidental from New Bedford, Massachusetts, blonde and wearing a bathrobe. His wife. Next to appear was an olive-skinned, dark-haired female dressed fashionably in street clothes. She was known to the household simply as Khalehla. 'Apart from common sense, good Doctor,' continued Ahmat into the phone, 'I have certain sources. Our mutual acquaintance needed assistance, and who better to provide it than the ruler of Oman? We leaked information to the animals at the embassy. Prisoners were being held somewhere, subjected to brutal interrogation. Someone had to be sent there to maintain discipline, order—and Kendrick found him… Give our American anything he wants, but delay his schedule by fifteen or twenty minutes, until my two police officers arrive.'
'The Al Kabir? Your cousins?'
'Two special police will suffice, my friend.'
There was a brief silence, a voice searching for words. 'The rumours are true, aren't they, Ahmat?'
'I have no idea what you mean. Rumours are gossip and neither interests me.'
'They say you are so much wiser than your years—’
'That's sophomoric,' broke in the sultan.
'He said you had to be to—“run this place”, he said. It's difficult for one who treated you for mumps.'
'Don't dwell on it, Doctor. Just keep me informed.' Ahmat reached into the drawer where the base of the private telephone lay and punched a series of numbers. Within seconds, he spoke. 'I'm sorry, my family, I know you're asleep, but I must again bother you. Go to the compound at once. Amal Bahrudi wants to escape. With fish.' He hung up.
'What's happened?' asked the young sultan's wife as she rapidly walked forward.
'Please,' said Ahmat, his eyes on the stomach of his waddling spouse. 'You have only six weeks to go, Bobbie. Move slowly.'
'He's too much,' said Roberta Aldridge Yamenni, turning her head and addressing Khalehla at her side. This jock of mine came in around two thousand in the Boston marathon and he's telling me how to carry a baby. Is that too much?'
'The royal seed, Bobbie,' replied Khalehla, smiling.
'Royal, my foot! Diapers are one hell of an equalizer. Ask my mother, she had four of us in six years. Really, darling, what happened?'
'Our American congressman made contact in the compound. We're mocking up an escape.'
'It worked!' cried Khalehla, approaching the desk.
'It was your idea,' said Ahmat.
'Please, forget it. I'm way out of line here.'
'Nothing's out of line,' the youthful sultan said firmly. 'Appearances notwithstanding, risks notwithstanding, we need all the help we can get, all the advice we can gather… I apologize, Khalehla. I haven't even said hello. As with my cousins, my lowly policemen, I'm sorry to drag you out at this hour, but I knew you'd want to be here.'
'Nowhere else.'
'How did you manage it? I mean leaving the hotel at four in the morning.'
'Thank Bobbie. I add, however, Ahmat, that neither of our reputations has been enhanced.'
'Oh?' The sultan looked at his wife.
'Great Lord,' intoned Bobbie, her palms together, bowing and speaking in her Boston accent. 'This lovely lady is a courtesan from Cairo—nice ring to it, huh? Under the circumstances—' Here the royal wife outlined her swollen stomach with her hands and continued, 'The privilege of rank has its goodies. Speaking as one of Radcliffe's history graduates, which my former roommate here will attest, Henry the Eighth called it “riding in the saddle”. It happened when Anne Boleyn was too indisposed to accommodate her monarch.'
'For God's sake, Roberta, this isn't The King and I and I'm not Yul Brynner.'
'You are now, pal!' Laughing, Ahmat's wife looked at Khalehla. 'Of course, if you touch him, I'll scratch your eyes out.'
'Not to fear, my dear,' said Khalehla in mock seriousness. 'Not after what you've told me.'
'All right, you two,' Ahmat interrupted. His brief look expressed the gratitude he felt towards both women.
'We have to laugh now and then,' said his wife. 'Otherwise I think we'd go stark raving mad.'
'Raving as in mad,' agreed Ahmat quietly, settling his eyes on the woman from Cairo. 'How's your British businessman friend?'
'Raving as in drunk,' answered Khalehla. 'He was last seen half upright in the hotel's American Bar still calling me names.'
'It's not the worst thing that could happen to your cover.'
'Certainly not. I obviously go to the highest bidder.'
'What about our super patriots, the elder merchant princes who'd just as soon see me flee to the West in frustration as stay here? They still believe you're working with them, don't they?'
'Yes. My “friend” in the Sabat Aynub market told me that they're convinced you met with Kendrick. His logic was such that I had to go along with him and agree that you were a damn fool; you were asking for the worst kind of trouble. Sorry.'
'What logic?'
'They know that a garrison car picked up the American a few blocks away from his hotel. I couldn't argue, I was there.'
'Then they were looking for that car. Garrison vehicles are all over Masqat.'
'Sorry, again, it was a wrong move, Ahmat. I could have told you that if I'd have been able to reach you. You see, the circle was broken; they knew Kendrick was here—'
'Mustapha,' interrupted the young sultan angrily. 'I mourn his death but not the closing of his big mouth.'
'Perhaps it was he, perhaps not,' said Khalehla. 'Washington itself could be responsible. Too many people were involved in Kendrick's arrival, I saw that also. As I understand, it was a State Department operation; there are others who do these things better.'
'We don't know who the enemy is or where to look!'
Ahmat clenched his fist, bringing his knuckles to his teeth. 'It could be anyone, anywhere—right in front of our eyes. Goddamn it, what do we do?'
'Do as he's told you,' said the woman from Cairo. 'Let him go in under deep cover. He's made contact; wait for him to reach you.'
'Is that all I can do? Wait?'
'No, there's something else,' added Khalehla. 'Give me the escape route and one of your fast cars. I brought along my courtesan's equipment—it's in a suitcase outside in the hall—and while I change clothes you coordinate the details with your cousins and that doctor you call an old friend.'
'Hey, come on!' protested Ahmat. 'I know you and Bobbie go back a long time but that doesn't give you the right to order me to endanger your life! No way, Jose.'
'We're not talking about my life,' said Khalehla icily, her brown eyes staring at Ahmat. 'Or yours, frankly. We're talking about raw terrorism and the survival of Southwest Asia. Nothing may come of tonight, but it's my job to try to find out, and it's your job to permit me. Isn't that what we've both been trained for?'
'And also give her the number where she can reach you,' said Roberta Yamenni calmly. 'Reach us.'
'Go change your clothes,' said the young sultan of Oman, shaking his head, his eyes closed.
'Thank you, Ahmat. I'll hurry but first I have to speak to my people. I don't have much to say so it'll be quick.'
The drunken bald-headed man in the dishevelled Savile Row pinstripes was escorted out of the elevator by two countrymen. The girth and weight of their inebriated charge were such that each struggled to uphold his part of the body.
'Bloody disgrace, is what he is!' said the man on the left, awkwardly glancing at a hotel key dangling from the fingers of his right hand, which was even more awkwardly shoved up under the drunk's armpit.
'Come now, Dickie,' retorted his companion, 'we've all swigged our several-too-many on occasion.'
'Not in a goddamned country going up in flames fuelled by nigger barbarians! He could start a bloody brawl and we'd be hanged by our necks from two lamp posts! Where's the damned room?'
'Down the hall. Heavy bugger, isn't he?'
'All lard and straight whisky is my guess.'
'I don't know about that. He seemed like a pleasant enough chap who got taken by a fast-talking whore. That sort of thing makes anyone pissed, you know. Did you get whom he worked for?'
'Some textile firm in Manchester. Twillingame or Burlingame, something like that.'
'Never heard of it,' said the man on the right, arching his brows in surprise. 'Here, give me the key; there's the door.'
'We'll just throw him on the bed, no courtesies beyond that, I tell you.'
'Do you think that fellow will keep the bar open for us? I mean, while we're doing our Christian duty the bugger could lock the doors, you know.'
'The bastard had better not!' exclaimed the man named Dickie as the three figures lurched into the darkened room, the light from the hallway outlining the bed. 'I gave him twenty pounds to keep the place open, if only for us. If you think I'm shutting my eyes for a single second until I'm on that plane tomorrow, you're ready for the twit farm! I'll not have my throat slit by some wog with a messianic complex, I tell you that, too! Come on, heave!'
'Good night, fat prince,' said the companion. 'And may all kinds of black bats carry you to wherever.'
The heavyset man in the pinstriped suit raised his head from the bed and turned his face towards the door. The footsteps in the hallway receded; inelegantly he rolled his bulk over and got to his feet. In the shadowed light provided by the dull streetlamps below outside the window, he removed his jacket and trousers, hanging them carefully in the open closet, smoothing out the wrinkles. He proceeded to undo his regimental tie, slipping it off his neck. He then unbuttoned his soiled shirt reeking of whisky, removed it also and threw it into a wastebasket. He went into the bathroom, turned on both taps and sponged his upper torso; satisfied, he picked up a bottle of cologne and splashed it generously over his skin. Drying himself, he walked back into the bedroom to his suitcase on a luggage rack in the corner. He opened it, selected black trousers and a black silk shirt, and put them on. As he buttoned the shirt and tucked it under the belt around his thick stomach, he walked over to a window, taking out a book of matches from his trouser pocket. He struck a match, let the flame settle and made three semicircles in front of the large glass pane. He waited ten seconds then crossed to the desk in the centre of the left wall and switched on the lamp. He went to the door, unlatched the automatic lock and returned to the bed where he meticulously removed the two pillows from under the spread, fluffed both up for a backrest and lowered his large frame. He looked at his watch and waited.
The scratching at the door made three distinct eruptions, each semicircular, on the wood, if one listened. 'Come in,' said the man on the bed in the black silk shirt.
A dark-skinned Arab entered hesitantly, in apparent awe of his surroundings and the person within those surroundings. His robes were clean, if not brand new, and his headdress spotless; his was a privileged mission. He spoke in a quiet, reverent voice. 'You made the holy sign of the crescent, sir, and I am here.'
'Much thanks,' said the Englishman. 'Come in and close the door, please.'
'Of course, Effendi.' The man did as he was told, holding his position of distance.
'Did you bring me what I need?'
'Yes, sir. Both the equipment and the information.'
'The equipment first, please.'
'Indeed.' The Arab reached under his robes and withdrew a large pistol, its outsize appearance due to a perforated cylinder attached to the barrel; it was a silencer. With his other hand the messenger pulled out a small grey box; it contained twenty-seven rounds of ammunition. He walked dutifully forward to the bed, extending the handle of the weapon. 'The gun is fully loaded, sir. Nine shells. Thirty-six shells in all.'
'Thank you,' said the obese Englishman, accepting the equipment. The Arab stepped back obsequiously. 'Now the information, if you please.'
'Yes, sir. But first I should tell you that the woman was recently driven to the palace from her hotel in the next street—’
'What?' Astonished, the British businessman bolted upright on the bed, his heavy legs swinging around, pounding the floor. 'Are you certain?'
'Yes, sir. A royal limousine picked her up.'
'When?'
'Roughly ten to twelve minutes ago. Naturally I was informed immediately. She is there by now.'
'But what about the old men, the merchants?' The fat man's voice was low and strained, as if he were doing his utmost to control himself. 'She made contact, didn't she?'
'Yes, sir,' answered the Arab tremulously as though he feared a beating if he replied in the negative. 'She had coffee with an importer named Hajazzi in the Dakhil, then much later met with him at the Sabat market. She was taking photographs, following someone—’
'Who?'
'I don't know, sir. The Sabat was crowded and she fled. I could not follow her.'
'The palace…?' whispered the businessman hoarsely as he slowly stood up. 'Incredible!'
'It is true, sir. My information is accurate or I would not deliver it to such an august personage as yourself… In truth, Effendi, I shall praise Allah with all my heart in my every prayer for having met a true disciple of the Mahdi.'
The Englishman's eyes snapped up at the figure of the messenger. 'Yes, you've been told that, haven't you?' he said softly.
'I was blessed with this gift of knowledge, singled out among my brothers for the privilege.'
'Who else knows?'
'On my life, no one, sir! Yours is a sacred privilege to be made in silence and invisibly. I shall go to my grave with the secret of your presence in Masqat!'
'Splendid idea,' said the large man in shadows as he raised the pistol.
The two gunshots were like rapid, muted coughs but their power belied the sound. Across the room the Arab was blown into the wall, his spotless robes suddenly drenched with blood.
The hotel's American Bar was dark except for the dull glow of fluorescent tubes from under the counter. The aproned bartender slouche
d in a corner of his domain, every now and then glancing wearily at the two figures sitting in a booth by a front window, the view outside partially blocked by the lowered, half-closed blinds. The Englishmen were fools, thought the bartender. Not that they should disregard their fears—who lived without them in these mad-dog days, foreigner and sane Omani alike? But these two would be safer from a mad-dog assault behind the locked doors of hotel rooms, unnoticed, unseen… Or would they? mused the bartender, reconsidering. He, himself, had told the management that they insisted on remaining where they were, and the management, not knowing what the foreigners carried on their persons or who else might know and be looking for them, had stationed three armed guards in the lobby near the American Bar's only entrance. In any case, the bartender concluded, yawning, wise or unwise, dull-witted or very clever, the Englishmen were extremely generous, that was all that mattered. That and the sight of his own weapon covered by a towel under the bar. Ironically, it was a lethal Israeli submachine gun he had bought from an accommodating Jew on the waterfront. Hah! Now the Jews were really clever. Since the madness began, they were arming half of Masqat.
'Dickie, look!' whispered the more tolerant of the two Englishmen, his right hand separating a pair of slats in the lowered blind covering the window.
'What, Jack…?' Dickie jerked his head up, blinking his eyes; he had been dozing.
'Isn't that our squiffed countryman out there?'
'Who? Where…? My God, you're right!'
Outside in the deserted, dimly lit street, the heavyset man—upright, agitated, pacing the curb while rapidly looking back and forth—suddenly struck several matches, one after the other. He appeared to raise and lower the flames, snapping each match angrily down on the pavement before lighting the next. Within ninety seconds a dark car appeared racing down the street; as it abruptly stopped the headlights were extinguished. Astonished, Dickie and his companion watched through the slats of the blind as the fat man, with startling agility and purpose, strode around the bonnet of the vehicle. As he approached the passenger door, an Arab wearing a headdress but otherwise in a dark Western suit leaped out. Instantly, the heavy Britisher began speaking rapidly, repeatedly jabbing his index finger into the face of the man in front of him. Finally he heaved his large torso around, spun his jowled head and pointed at an area in the upper floors of the hotel; the Arab turned and raced across the pavement. Then, in clear view, the obese businessman pulled a large weapon from his belt as he opened the car door farther and quickly, again angrily, lowered himself inside.
The Icarus Agenda Page 12
