Damn. Cole had hoped that al-Zayani was so westernized that he wouldn’t mind engaging in a sporting wager. Back to the drawing board, it would seem. ‘I’m very sorry Mr. al-Zayani,’ he said, shielding his eyes from the intense glare of the sun, ‘I didn’t mean any offence.’
Al-Zayani smiled. ‘No need to be sorry,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I don’t really perceive sporting wagers as gambling, you see. For the Holy Qur’an forbids only games of chance.’ The meaning was clear, and the twinkling of the eyes turned to challenge. Al-Zayani felt there was no chance involved when he played golf, it seemed; only reliance on his own skill.
Cole nodded his head. ‘Excellent,’ he said in reply, breathing a mental sigh of relief. ‘But let’s keep it low key, shall we? Whoever loses can take the winner out to dinner tonight at a place of the winner’s choice.’
Cole had scouted out possible locations for an abduction of al-Zayani, and had highlighted the nearby yacht club as the best place to get him; under cover of darkness, he could have al-Zayani out of the restaurant and into the privacy of one of the private yachts before anyone had any idea that they had gone. And then Cole could bypass al-Zayani’s computers and go straight for a good old tactical interrogation with the man himself. He would make him talk, and find out what he knew.
But for the plan to have any chance of coming off, he had to have control over their location that evening. He just hoped he was a good enough golfer to guarantee it.
‘An excellent idea,’ al-Zayani agreed. ‘I am sure you will like the place I am going to choose.’
Despite himself, Cole found that he was starting to like the self-confidence of this bespectacled little man, and allowed himself to laugh of al-Zayani’s teasing.
‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?’ he said as he signaled for the caddy, who withdrew a driver and handed it over to Cole. ‘I’ve already researched the most expensive restaurants in the area, and I’ve got a little place in mind which I think I’m really going to like.’
Al-Zayani laughed out loud. ‘Perhaps it will be so, eh?’ he said in reply, even as he called for his own driver, placed his ball on its tee and settled into position.
Cole watched carefully as the man’s shoulders relaxed, he took the club back and, initiating the drive with his hips, smoothly completed the most perfect swing Cole had ever seen.
Al-Zayani didn’t even watch the ball as it flew over three hundred yards straight onto the green; instead, he turned to Cole and smiled. ‘But perhaps not,’ he said with a knowing look, and Cole was forced to admit that the man might well be right.
The two men chatted as they played; sometimes about Texas, sometimes about Dhahran, but mostly about the upcoming business deal between Texas Mainline and Saudi National. The man’s knowledge was vast, and – although Cole had done his best to get to grips with the mechanics of the deal, and the requisite terminology and insider information of both the finance and oil industries – he felt like a minnow going up against a shark.
But Cole said what he could with confidence and bluster, the kind that al-Zayani would probably expect from an American, and hoped that he was getting away with it.
What was more troubling was the fact that al-Zayani was very good at golf. By the ninth hole, the man had opened up a twelve point advantage over Cole, and was beginning to gloat.
‘I might even give lunch a miss today,’ al-Zayani announced as Cole teed up. ‘Save myself for the big dinner you’ll be buying me tonight, eh?’
The remark was amusing, and yet Cole tensed, unhappy to be losing and unhappier still that his plans for the evening might be ruined. No. He had to beat al-Zayani; but how would he do it? Cheating immediately came to mind, but the problems that would occur if he was caught ruled it out just as quickly.
He had played the game regularly in Grand Cayman, and had even travelled to the Bahamas and Miami to try the courses there. He was good, but al-Zayani was excellent. As Cole waited at the tee, staring off at the green in the distance, he thought about the problem.
It was in his mind, he decided. It was all in his mind.
When he fired a pistol, a rifle, a bow and arrow; when he threw a knife, when he targeted the tiny pressure points of a man’s body; when he did anything he was used to, anything in which he was totally confident, his mind was completely at peace. There was a Zen-like state that he accessed, where everything came together with no conscious thought at all. The Japanese knew it as mushin –the concept of ‘no mind’ that was so important to the exponents of its martial arts.
He was thinking too much, that was the problem; thinking about his grip, his technique, where the ball was, where it was going to end up.
He had to clear his mind, think about nothing at all, just experience the sensations as they occurred. He would be a passenger as the rest of the game was played, allowing his body to do the work with no conscious input whatsoever.
Ignoring al-Zayani, he observed himself as he put the ball on the tee, took up his position and unleashed his swing, the contact perfect; and continued to passively observe as the ball sailed over four hundred yards through the clear blue sky until it finally came to a rest right near the tenth hole.
He turned back to al-Zayani and smiled. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, echoing al-Zayani’s earlier words. ‘Perhaps not.’
Cole found himself impressed with al-Zayani’s own competitive spirit as the morning turned to afternoon, the searing midday sun clearing the course of most other players, until only Cole and al-Zayani remained. Each refused to show any sign of weakness, and al-Zayani was forced to conceal his anger as Cole narrowed the gap to one single point by the final hole.
They stood there at the tee of the eighteenth hole, sweat pouring from their faces as they regarded each other through eyes half-closed in the glare of the sun.
And then al-Zayani pushed forward to take his shot first, brushing past Cole and placing his ball on the tee. Cole waited anxiously for al-Zayani’s final drive, which came only moments later; perfect technique and a beautiful contact launching the ball in a wide arc over the fairway until it landed just off the green.
Cole sighed. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still good enough to win if Cole didn’t match it. He’d been playing his best game ever since the tenth hole, but now the pressure was back on and he found himself allowing his doubts to once again enter his mind and threaten to drag him back down.
He approached the tee and placed his ball there, concentrating on his breathing instead of the shot itself. He drew the warm air gently through his nose as he counted to four, held his breath for another four-count, and then exhaled through barely open lips for the same time; repeating this simple routine over and over, his mind gradually calmed until he no longer saw the ball or the club. Instead, he could just feel the sensations in his own body as it moved in perfect coordination.
The swing stopped in mid-air as Cole sensed something behind him, an imperceptible movement of al-Zayani’s head; and an instant later it was followed by al-Zayani’s golf bag falling with a clatter off his caddy’s shoulder to the grassy bank below, clubs scattering everywhere.
Cole turned from the tee to watch al-Zayani shouting at his caddy in furious Arabic, but the charade didn’t fool Cole for one second; al-Zayani had wanted his caddy to cause a distraction so that Cole would make a bad shot. It was only his shift of mental focus away from the ball which had allowed him to see al-Zayani’s nod and had saved him from following through with the swing.
Al-Zayani turned to Cole, his face aghast. ‘I am so sorry my friend, that was an unforgivable error. I will have Ahmed fired from the club immediately.’ He turned again, shouting more insults to the shame-faced caddy.
‘That’s alright,’ Cole said, ‘really. Don’t fire him, these things happen. I’m sure he’s very good at doing what he’s told.’
Al-Zayani’s eyes narrowed at the implication, but he said no more on the subject, just gestured with his hand for Cole to pl
ay the shot again.
Cole returned to his position, already steadying his breath, once again entering the zone he needed to be in. His mind was so clear, so focused, and yet he was thinking of nothing at all as the driver swept through the air in a perfect arc, the titanium head striking the ball with a satisfying thwack which sent it soaring over the path of al-Zayani’s ball to land just a dozen yards from the eighteenth hole.
Cole turned to al-Zayani and smiled. ‘I’ll have to ask for your caddy next time,’ he said amicably. ‘Must be my good luck charm.’
Al-Zayani ignored Cole completely, grunting as he strode past him towards his ball.
Cole watched al-Zayani as he went, having learnt something about the man’s character. He was a cheat and a bad loser, but did that mean he was involved in terrorism?
Cole followed al-Zayani onto the fairway, content that he would soon be finding out.
5
The Saudi National Oil Beach was on the eastern side of Half Moon Bay, a journey which took Cole just over half an hour in one of the company limousines.
As he was escorted to the front door of the yacht club, he looked around to verify that nothing obvious had changed since his visit earlier that day. Pleased that everything was still the same, Cole strolled through into the club, wandering to the bar where he ordered a black coffee.
Cole had eventually won the game by a single point, managing to sink the ball on his first putt. Al-Zayani, to his horror, had taken three shots after his initial drive to put the ball away, leaving Cole able to choose the location for dinner.
Al-Zayani had been visibly frustrated by his loss, and Cole saw a violent temper flaring behind the genteel façade; but he had nevertheless accepted the situation and agreed to take Cole to the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club for dinner that evening. There were to be no more business talks for the day, al-Zayani claiming he had urgent appointments to keep. But like the caddy ‘accidentally’ dropping his clubs, Cole saw through the lie straight away; al-Zayani was just too upset over his loss to spend any more time with Cole.
As a man responsible for the finance, strategy and development of a trillion dollar company, Cole saw the move as a sign of weakness; he had let personal feelings get in the way of business, something that should never happen at this level. He sipped his black coffee as he considered the fact that Dan Chadwick would probably have let al-Zayani win; after all, it was Texas Mainline that stood to make the most from the proposed deal.
But Cole’s agenda was somewhat different to Chadwick’s; and after tonight, a potential business deal with Texas Mainline would be the last thing on al-Zayani’s mind.
The camp loomed before them in the green half-light of their night-vision binoculars, hidden deep in a mountain crevasse.
Navarone estimated the camp to cover at least a hundred acres, roughly a thousand yards long by four hundred wide, occupying the great majority of the narrow valley. It was bordered by two sets of huge barbed wire fences, undoubtedly mined down the strip which separated them, and concrete guard towers overlooked everything from all four corners.
Inside the camp, there were four single-story concrete buildings which he assumed were where the prisoners were held, and Navarone estimated that they probably contained upwards of a hundred people in each one.
Details were scarce on the ground about the North Korean political prison system, and Camp 14 was especially secretive; Chinese intelligence believed that it was here that the regime’s most feared enemies were taken for interrogation and ‘realignment’ with the republic’s ideology. It wasn’t known how many people were held here, but Navarone could see that it must number in the hundreds.
There were other buildings that he could make out through his binoculars; barracks for the soldiers, which he saw coming and going at changes of shift; a wooden structure that could have been a cookhouse and canteen; another four-story concrete structure that was probably the camp’s administrative headquarters; and several other smaller buildings which were scattered around the compound.
A man came out of one of the barrack buildings and lit a cigarette. The uniform caught Navarone’s eye, and he zoomed in. It was a major, and Navarone wondered if he was the camp commandant. He gestured to his men, and they all took note.
Navarone’s attention moved away, to other structures that he could make out beyond the camp, hidden further down the valley. Some were military checkpoints and sentry shacks, but there were other buildings fenced off away from the others which Navarone found it harder to identify. There was no activity there at this time of night, but the vast network of metal piping on the outside seemed to indicate some sort of industrial use.
Navarone tried to focus his binoculars for a better look, but it was no use; the mystery buildings were beyond the far side of the camp, and no more detail could be made out.
‘Tony, Liu,’ he breathed quietly over his throat mike, ‘let’s move around the valley to check out those buildings over on the east side.’ There were double clicks of affirmation over the radio, and Navarone spoke again. ‘Frank,’ he said to Jaffett, ‘you’ve got control here until we get back.’
There was a double click to confirm the order, and Navarone rose silently, slipping off through the dark forest with Tony Devine of SEAL Team Six and Liu Yingchao of the People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Force right behind him.
For some reason, his gut told him that whatever they were looking for would be found in those strange industrial buildings fenced off outside the main camp, and he wanted to be in position for reconnaissance before first light.
Whatever was stolen from this camp was now out in the open, in the hands of an unknown enemy, and Navarone knew they might not have much time left.
Major Ho Sang-ok smoked a cigarette and sighed. He was a long way from home, and a very long way from the relative luxuries of Pyongyang.
It sickened him that he was here at this forsaken prison camp in the remote northern wilds but, he considered as he took in a deep lungful of delightfully warming smoke, at least he wasn’t dead.
Not yet anyway.
His last meeting at the headquarters of the RGB had not gone well; Lieutenant General U Chun-su had been furious about the situation in Jakarta, and unsurprisingly so. U had had to report his bureau’s failings directly to the Minister of State Security himself, which must have been no easy feat.
But U had survived too, and Ho soon found out why; the RGB was being given one last chance to make this mission a success. President Kim had not yet been informed of the details, and there was still a chance that his ultimate order – the arranged reunification of Korea – could still be carried out.
The details would have to change, of course – the package had never been received by their Middle Eastern contacts, which precluded their original plan and meant they would have to quickly engineer somebody else to blame.
But U had not risen to such prominence without being able to think on his feet, and had called Ho into his office not long after his meeting with the minister.
U had come up with another mechanism of transporting the weapon, which had been developed in Camp 14, over the DMZ into South Korea. It was a lot more direct – and therefore much more likely that the North’s role would be discovered as a result – but it made sense given their current situation, and would just have to do.
Ho had been entrusted with making the arrangements, but – as he stood outside smoking, staring through the barbed wire at the separate facility fenced off in its own compound outside the main camp – he thought about the horrors within, and hung his head in shame.
It was one thing to make plans and issue orders from a plush office in Pyongyang; it was quite another to see the effects of this weapon up close and know that it was going to be used in earnest.
But, he sighed to himself as he dropped the butt of his cigarette to the floor and crushed it underneath his boot, he had been given his orders, and he would carry them out to the letter.
6
‘You play a good game, my friend,’ Abdullah al-Zayani said to Cole when they were finally seated, at a private table overlooking the marina.
Dusk was arriving, and the last rays of the dying sun cast a warm glow over the yachts and boats moored there. The place was as impressive as Cole would have expected; it was, after all, reserved only for the most senior of Saudi National Oil’s executives.
‘You too,’ Cole said. ‘On another day, the outcome might have been different.’
Al-Zayani nodded his head. ‘Yes, I think you are right.’
Cole waited for more, but there was nothing. The man was arrogant, and was probably not used to losing; Cole suspected that the people under him often let him win.
‘The club’s nice,’ Cole said to break the ice. ‘Beautiful view.’
‘You are right again,’ al-Zayani said. ‘This is a beautiful country, no?’
‘Oh, definitely,’ Cole agreed. ‘It’s very appealing.’
Al-Zayani smiled. ‘Even though you cannot drink here?’ He tutted and wagged his finger. ‘I know you Americans, you like a drink, yes? But that is something else which is ithm al-kabir here. I know of many of your countrymen who have simply not been able to cope. They come here for work, eager to have our money, but they do not respect our principles.’
Cole could see that the man was still smarting from his defeat, he was trying to ruffle Cole’s feathers. But in the man’s eyes Cole could see the feeling of hatred as he mentioned Americans, his cool façade slipping ever so slightly; and for the first time, Cole believe that al-Zayani really could be the man he was looking for.
‘Well, I like a drink as much as the next American,’ Cole said, ‘but when in Rome, right? The people who can’t follow rules probably aren’t welcome anywhere.’
Al-Zayani merely grunted and picked up his menu. He studied it for only a few moments before snapping his fingers at a waiter.
WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller Page 19
