Zara's Game

by Jo Black

  31

  The single storey concrete, wood, steel and glass villa was set amidst a peaceful and tranquil garden of exotic flowers, birds sang from the trees as bees busily flitted from flower to flower. As Alex stepped out of the back of the Mercedes he sensed the calm holiness enshrined within the compound walls. He followed Devreaux and Nish towards the house where a pair of black Armani suited guards greeted them. No weapons had been brought to the meeting out of respect for the host, but none were needed. Jordan was not a place The Guild members ever feared to tread, but a sanctuary where their centuries of service was still highly respected.

  The head of the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate greeted his guests, kissing them on each cheek. ‘Welcome to my home my friends, it is good to see you.’

  ‘Thank you for arranging your hospitality for us at such short notice Hani, we are as always in your debt,’ Devreaux said with a gracious smile.

  ‘Please. There is no debt to be paid. You are soldiers of Allah; all of Jordan is your home. The king sends his apologies, foreign commitments prevent him from meeting with you during your visit, but he hopes you will return soon and let him grace you with his hospitality.’

  ‘We are at the king’s service, Hani,’ Devreaux replied

  ‘And the king is at yours, as am I.’ Hani gestured for one of the house servants to serve tea from an ornate silver pot. She poured the tea into the silver decorated glasses, served Russian and Arabic style, not the more customary English. As was custom they drank tea before business. ‘So it saddens my heart this is not merely a social call.’

  ‘I’m sure you are aware of brother Alex’s current predicaments.’

  ‘I would be of no service to my king as the head of his Intelligence Directorate if I was not aware of such events with catastrophic political significance, not just for The Guild but for us all. Tell me my friends, before our Zionist guest arrives. What troubles have brought your involvement into this?’

  ‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ Alex said.

  ‘I can share with you what I know, gladly. But I fear even I am blinded to what goes on outside the lands we have sight over. I must admit, I am curious as to what the Russian’s involvement in this political theatre is. Saddam does not threaten them, far from it; he has been a valued client to their arms traders for many years. We know they care little for the harshness of his regime’s social policy.’

  ‘I wish I could give you an insight Hani,’ Alex said. ‘The inner workings of the Kremlin have become more clandestine of late, shared only within the St Petersburg power circle. Whatever motivations they have for involvement, I’m not privy to them, and neither is the Russia House.’

  ‘Then we must wait and see what is revealed. In matters of intelligence, patience is the ultimate tool.’

  ‘And what of Jordan’s involvement?’

  ‘Of course I knew you would ask. And of course you knew I would tell you for we have no secrets amongst the oldest of alliances and most blessed by Allah’s favour. Jordan finds herself caught as usual in her desire to maintain peace and harmony between the objects of others with less worthy desires. Saddam, maybe he threatens us, who can tell the mind of such a man, however it is not a justification to bring war to his people who are equally victimised. The king shares this view, but is forced by pragmatism to choose a side, as we all are. The Americans have been very generous to the Jordanian people. The king likes his F16’s and he likes his M4’s, given the choice he will side with those who wish to co-exist.’

  ‘That’s a little broad, we were hoping for a little more detail.’

  ‘No doubt Gilad will arrive to spin you a delightful tale of missile defence systems, the security of Israel, and other such fanciful fabrications and fictions. But you know these not to be true, they have the same Patriot system we have. There is never a problem to buy defensive systems, only offensive. So the question you must ask yourselves, what could possibly be bought that the Americans would not supply openly, using money that could not be traced other than to those that can easily be disposed of? Who has need of such things? What purpose do they serve? Why is so much secrecy involved?’

  ‘Do you have answers to those questions?’ Alex asked.

  ‘I have speculations. In my business speculations are usually the only answers. It is the business Zara, your beloved wife, peace be upon her, knows to her cost where answers can be more costly than speculations.’

  ‘Let us indulge in speculation then. Give us the benefit of your wisdom Hani, assume we are just humble soldiers and folks of simple thinking.’

  Hani smiled wryly. ‘You flatter me very well Gabriel, as always. We both know you are anything but mere humble foot soldiers, and your thinking is far greater than mine or anyone in this business.’

  ‘Now who is the flatterer,’ Devreaux replied.

  ‘It does no harm to ensure you overlook my minor transgressions in the pursuit of Jordan’s protection.’

  ‘We always turn a blind eye to those true of heart.’

  ‘So I will share with you these speculations, since you flatter my ego so well, I will satisfy your curiosity as to our thinking. It seems to me that these new kings suffer more from public opinion deficit than the old kings suffered from lack of oversight. The actions of such kings is determined not by fealty to God, but to their subjects whims to judge them, via their puppet media interpretations, as to carrying out actions that are in their best interests. As many wars that serve no purpose, this is a mere war of economics. America has been too indulgent. The king has fed his children until all the chickens are in the pot and there are no more eggs to be had. Now she looks, where she always looks, to the wealth of the Arabs to sate her need to keep feeding her fat children. The children of Iraq will be starved so the children of Washington can stuff their faces. Such blatant lootery of sovereign wealth was much easier when the king simply announced a dislike for his second cousin and went to war to raid his treasury. The court of public opinion is driven by entirely selfish whims. As the King of the West’s men have grown fatter, they have lost their taste for war and now desire only to fight under the most threatened of circumstances. A threat so dire as to unsettle the comforted existences far from the battlefield must be created to justify, to the court of public opinion, that the King of the West is merely acting in the interests of keeping his fat children from being consumed by the wolves, and they will grant him all the means of war he desires. Politics may have changed my dear friends, human nature has not.’

  ‘So they’re framing Saddam for war in Iraq?’

  ‘Iraq holds vast reserves of oil wealth. He has made the mistake of believing that the west was incapable of waging the wars of old, and dared to thumb his nose at them in Kuwait. They have seethed for many years to exact their price for this slight by the silly Arab in the hat. Now the son is in office, and he is a retarded idiot. He simply sees an opportunity to use a former enemy to make him seem less of an idiot. The enemy poses no threat, he is already broken, but he sits atop his treasury and this puppet man-child has but to topple him off it and all his problems will seemingly be solved.’

  ‘So what is it, what are they buying?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Truthfully I cannot tell you. But I believe it is the thing big enough that if they merely whisper it everyone fears it, sadly for them, the court of international opinion demands some degree of evidence. I believe they are buying evidence, so after the event they can hold it up and say. Here, we have saved you all. Now pay us.’ Hani drank his tea. ‘But it is merely speculation. This plan seems to be so tightly held all we hear is whispers. Not in my career, my father’s career or my father’s father’s career in the service of this Directorate has such an event of magnitude been planned without us learning of it. If I knew for certainty the truth of it, I would gladly tell you that you might stop it. But alas, like the rest of us, Jordan is a mere passenger on this voyage into uncharted seas of madness at the hands of the most powerful man in the world, who hap
pens to be an idiot of unprecedented stupidity in matters of state. I can think of a few past kings of old, but their excuse was generally syphilis or dementia, this appears to merely be resulting from poor breeding and drug abuse.’

  Hani’s attaché walked over and spoke in his ear. Hani nodded. ‘You may show him in.’ The attaché departed again. ‘Our guest has arrived. We must now all guard our tongues, or the Zionist’s ears will surely betray us with them. I have no dislike in my heart for the men of the book, but this is not such a man, and his control over The Holy Land is an insult to Allah. But like my king, he is my neighbour and I must show hospitality, even though I would gladly shit on his lawn.’ Hani stood up and walked over with a smile. ‘Gilad, it is always a pleasure to see you. You are most welcome.’

  Gilad shook Hani’s hand. ‘Hani.’

  ‘Please be seated. You will drink tea.’

  ‘No, I’ll pass thank you.’

  ‘Come, I insist. To not drink tea in my house is an insult to my hospitality. If you make this insult I’ll be forced to have the Air Force bomb a few villages of settlers in response.’ Gilad looked disdainfully at Hani. Hani smiled at his other guests. ‘Sadly Gilad does not appreciate my humour, he, like most of his kind, believe all Arabs to be murderous barbarians who eat Jewish babies and drink their daughters’ blood.’

  ‘Shall we get down to business?’ Gilad asked.

  ‘Nice to see you too Gilad,’ Devreaux said somewhat sarcastically.

  ‘I don’t have time for small talk.’ Gilad looked at Alex. ‘Your response has been noted Aleksei.’

  ‘I’m glad you and your friends got the message Gilad. I wanted to make it clear so there was no ambiguity.’

  ‘The message was clear. You’ll forgive my somewhat brusque mood, only it seems your guests Hani are tenants of a particularly disagreeable landlord. You’ll understand if I don’t drink your tea when I find it repugnant to sit at the table with the men who, not two days previously, took the hospitality of a man who would gladly see Israel removed from the map, and its people cast into the sea to drown like rats.’

  ‘To be fair he did mention you more than once,’ Alex replied. ‘But if he had sent me to kill you, you could hardly blame him. It’s not like you haven’t sent plenty of assassins the other way.’

  ‘With good cause.’

  ‘He’s acting, he believes, in the interest of the Libyan people and the Arabs. You act, in the interest of Israelis and the Zionists.’

  ‘I act for the Jewish people.’

  ‘That is an argument we are not here to discuss Gentlemen, in acting as facilitator and arbitrator I would ask you keep matters to that which concern your present business, we are not here to preside over religious and political brawls,’ Hani interjected.

  ‘I assume you know why we are here. I spoke to Hunter,’ Nish said. ‘Mentioned your name.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘In the abduction of the British Secret Intelligence Service employee Zara Scott capacity.’

  ‘And what interest is that to the Russians?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Then what are we here to discuss?’

  ‘It is of interest to me. Personally. And you know damn well why Gilad so don’t play me for a fool,’ Alex said with a scowl.

  ‘I heard you were estranged. When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘I’m sure you could tell me the time, date, and location.’

  ‘I’m sure I could. So that begs the question, why the sudden renewal in interest? The guarantees that were given to The Guild long since expired along with your separation.’

  ‘She’s still my wife. I expect those guarantees to be upheld. We’re not divorced, nor will we ever be.’

  ‘The good Catholic couple. That’s very convenient for Ms. Scott, should I say Mrs Green. Or is it just Zara Dragunova? Hard to know sometimes. She gets to operate in our world with a cast-iron guarantee of impunity backed by your Guild’s charter, which was written at a time when wives didn’t act as spies.’

  ‘Come now Gilad, when have wives not acted as spies for The Guild? They’re the best intelligence agents the world has ever seen,’ Devreaux replied.

  ‘Spies for The Guild we could tolerate, but for a state actor — that is clearly outside the spirit of The Guild’s charter, and I’ll make my protest known through our seat at the next meeting.’

  ‘You do that. In the meantime, without a vote mandate to clarify the intent, the charter stands and my actions are lawful.’

  ‘Your actions may be lawful Aleksei, but I hear they are becoming quite expensive.’

  ‘Which leads us to this meeting,’ Devreaux interjected before the argument escalated further. ‘We’re not interested in getting into a pissing contest between arms dealers. We clearly have a conflict of interests between related parties that needs to be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. A certain transgression has taking place and, rightly or wrongly, Alex feels he has been aggrieved. Now we can go through the ifs, buts, intents, and evidence all you like at a tribunal and apportion blame for this sorry mess, but that ain’t gonna get the chicken out the fire now is it? We’ve had a little bit of an opportunity to blow off some steam. Alex got to blow some shit up to save face, now’s the time to be pragmatic and come to the table and work out this situation to everyone’s satisfaction,’ Devreaux said.

  ‘It is Aleksei who interjected himself into the swift resolution of this problem. I made it quite clear to Hunter our interest was not with Zara, but the information she had passed to Bishop for safekeeping. Return the information and give The Guild’s guarantee the content will not be acted on or made public, and Zara will be returned. She is merely an insurance policy against any more...’ Gilad looked at Alex. ‘Accidents.’

  ‘What say you Alex? Are you prepared to parley?’ Devreaux asked.

  ‘I am, if Gilad gives his personal assurance, and that of his house at The Guild, that Zara has not been harmed in any way. And I do mean any way. Anything less than five star treatment and regardless of return of your information I shall be forced to act against all parties I deem to have had a hand in it.’

  ‘I would feel more concerned if you weren’t scrabbling about like a beggar in the desert,’ Gilad replied dismissively.

  ‘You don’t concern yourself Gilad. If we decide to burn your house down I’ve got a very willing sponsor.’

  ‘Let’s not go there...’ Devreaux said. ‘It would be better if you counsel your associates to not antagonise my brethren any further, whilst as the leader of the council of nine I’ll give certain assurances as to the manner of his conduct under the charter, there is a limit to restrain such a power if provoked.’

  ‘I’ll tell them. I’m not sure they are listening any more. As far as they are concerned you’re just a bunch of out-dated freemasons with guns. They don’t give a shit about your history. You don’t have a publicly traded stock ticker, you are as good as dinosaurs to these guys.’

  ‘But you do know our capability, so be mindful of who you choose to get into bed with Gilad. You are custodians of your lands, it would not be the first time you were dispossessed of them if you are found to be abusing your tenancy,’ Devreaux cautioned.

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘No. Just a friendly reminder from your landlord that it’s leasehold, not freehold. That’s God’s house son. You’re just renting it.’

  ‘I’ll pass the message on. So do we have a deal? It would better if we clarified the situation here so I can ensure Zara is kept in a condition that you find agreeable.’

  ‘One question,’ Alex asked.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why can’t you get Bishop? You’ve got The Agency, Six, Mossad, Smythe, god knows who else. Why don’t you have him?’

  ‘Because he’s on your house’s ground not ours. And the last time we tried a burglary it ended with the Cuban Missile Crisis and narrowly averting World War Three. With minds occupied towards the Middle-East nobody w
ants the Kremlin kicking Germany’s back door in whilst we’re away.’

  ‘So where is he?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Do we have a deal?’ Gilad replied.

  Hani took an ornate written contract out from a leather binder, he passed it over to the table to Alex and handed him a Mont Blanc fountain pen. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of providing a suitable agreement on neutral terms. We will act as mediators in the event of a dispute.’ Alex read through it before signing it. He passed it across to Gilad. Gilad read it and counter-signed it. He passed it to Devreaux who signed it on behalf of The Guild and passed it to Hani who signed it as mediator. ‘You’ll all be given copies before you leave,’ Hani said.

  ‘We have a deal,’ Alex said.

  ‘Bishop is in Cuba. He’s paid off the Castro regime for protection. Once you have the information from him then contact Hani and we’ll arrange the trade.’

  Gilad got up. Alex got up. Gilad buttoned his jacket. ‘I won’t shake the hand of the man who sits at Gadaffi’s table discussing the extermination of my people. You may have friends here Alex. I am not one of them.’ Gilad turned to Hani. ‘Good day to you Hani.’

  ‘Peace be upon you brother Gilad...’ Hani said, somewhat reluctantly but politely, as Gilad stormed for the door. They waited until he departed and sat down again. ‘Let us drink tea, and remove this bitter taste from our mouths so we can part with sweeter words,’ Hani said with a smile.