The Widow's Son

by Daniel Kemp

  “The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs wants to know if it's anything to worry about, sir.”

  I wasn't sure if there was anything to worry about, but I was certainly worried. In particular I was worried about what was in the five large oblong boxes that were lifted ashore and placed under hastily erected camouflage netting beside three field artillery pieces. I instructed Hannah to send a Watching signal in reply. With half a smile on his face Liam suggested the two of us take a Land Rover and drive the six hundred odd kilometres, take a boat to the island and see for ourselves what was in the mysterious boxes. It held appeal if only to get more from him on what Fraser planned for the future.

  “If I was going on my own I'd go through Jordan and stay well clear of Israel. You can get lost in Jordan whereas in Israel there's someone every mile wanting to see your papers and check you're not a Hezbollah terrorist. I'd go as far south as Saudi Arabia, hire a fishing boat and then work out how to get on the island.” It was Hannah who replied as I sat contemplating his suggestion.

  “It sounds a little stupid to go all the way there without having a plan of how to land on the island. Surely it would be tons better to have a couple of ideas how that could be accomplished.”

  “She's got a point, Liam,” I expressed in agreement.

  “She has, but more to the point have you still got the balls, Webby, or is your bum glued to a chair nowadays?” Liam asked with a huge smile plastered across his face.

  “I saw the name Jack Webb on the passport you gave me when I ordered the flight tickets, sir, and wondered who he was.”

  “Someone I thought I'd left in Ireland, Hannah.”

  “I don't think you should go, sir. I think we will all better served come the third of January if you are reading the situation from Whitehall, not here in the middle of it.”

  “What's the third of January got to do with anything, Webby?” Liam replied.

  “I'll tell you when you're driving me across the desert. Could you ask our smiling friend here to write you up a list of supplies he'll think we will need to get us to that port in Saudi Arabia, Hannah, and then ask the ambassador to find a Land Rover with some suspension for my aged bum, please? I'm off to Tiran.”

  * * *

  Fraser must have been reading my mind as it was his call I received on one of the satellite phones. We also carried three handguns, although I would have been the first to admit that if I was caught in a fire-fight I did not believe I would have fared well, but as I was often told in more circumstances than I care to recall—some precaution is better than none. A good many years had passed since I had come to know of Fraser's connection to Egypt. How he had studied Egyptology at Oxford and then, after he joined the Special Operations Branch of a fledgling MI6, spent time behind the Egyptian military lines during the Suez Crisis in 1957. He and three others were what remained of the British legation in Cairo from 1958 onwards until things became more regulated in the 60s. Fraser had expressed his dislike of how the American government had pressurised Great Britain to end the Suez Crises by blocking oil from the region and imposing a threat of bankrupting the Bank of England by selling British government stocks. It was his view that the British, French and Israeli attempt to seize the Canal was justified and should have been permitted to continue to completion. If not, then the three allies would have been vindicated in invading Qatar and Kuwait to safeguard their oil supplies. He said Eisenhower had bottled it when Khrushchev threatened a nuclear attack that would never have happened. Must I take his jaundiced opinion on America into consideration with the current circumstances?

  “The American support of her NATO allies during those times was non-existent, laddie, and believe me had it come to a real dogfight with the Russians the Americans would have stayed at home.”

  I had listened avidly to his description of events in Egypt during the Suez Crises and at no time in my memory had he openly condemned the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser's decision to privatise it, even though he thought we had a just claim. He praised Nasser for his courage of conviction. Fraser was similar in that respect; a man of firm beliefs.

  His original reason for calling me was he wanted advice as to whether to take a flight to Boston and drive closer to Mount Desert Island to pay his respects to Suzanna, but when he found out I was in Syria he put that aside, wanting to know why I was not in Whitehall. I advised him not to go to America whilst at the same time admitting my hypocrisy in wanting to put myself in danger, but I argued that it would not be the FBI staring at me and recognising my face. Mine would belong to just be another European poking his nose around in Arabia.

  “I'm coming with you,” Hannah announced as I was speaking to Fraser. “I've looked on a map and I have the semblance of a plan.” I put the phone on speaker.

  “We will want some diving equipment to be loaded and we won't need to beg, steal, or borrow a boat. We'll take our own inflatable and then you and I, sir, can pose as a couple taking a winter's break to go coral diving. I'm a diving instructor, you see. I've dived all over the world, sir.”

  “I told you she was a special personal assistant, Patrick, just don't let her die the same way as Suzanna.” The connection was lost from his end.

  * * *

  As the winter night closed in on Damascus we left the city with the specialist supplies Hannah had requested tied conspicuously to the roof. We carried cans of spare fuel, two spare tyres along with a suitable amount of grub to eat with what would pass as Arab cooking utensils. The idea was to resemble just another pair of Western tourists on a diving expedition in the Mediterranean with Liam as our Bedouin guide.

  Once into Jordan, Catlin drove across desert tracks to avoid the metalled roads around the capital of Amman then once clear he re-joined the main highway due south to Saudi Arabia. Taking full advantage of the conditions we made good headway on a calm but cold night. As the sun was coming up we skirted a small settlement at a place called Hamid to find a deserted coastline bordering the Gulf of Aqaba about 8 kilometres from the island. Roughly twenty-four hours after taking possession of the Island of Tiran the occupying forces were met by a different personality; me dressed in a scuba diving wetsuit.

  In our rubber inflatable boat we pulled alongside the same jetty from where the Egyptian military had vacated the island and with the Arabic shouted invitation of the sentry ringing in my ears I disembarked, leaving a much curvier Hannah than myself as the visual entertainment for the nine soldiers gathered around us. The shabbily dressed sentry took me to a hut where his equally unkempt commander was. In broken English he asked what I was doing on his island. I told him we hoped to dive the coral and having seen the signs announcing the island's military status had come to ask permission. He was as loud and obnoxious as his sentry had been, telling me to take our boat as far away as possible and not to return. As I started the boat's engine it seemed to me that Hannah's departing wave to the men on the wooden jetty appeared to have more expressiveness than simply a gesture of goodbye. I wasn't wrong.

  “Were you successful, Jack Webb?” she asked, her eyes as large as saucers and a smile a country-mile wide as soon as we were a fair distance away.

  “Are you being cheeky for the sake of it, Hannah, or are you flirting with me with a particular motive in mind?”

  For some time we could hear the crude remarks from the bawdy soldiers as the boat rose and fell across the waves with the rudder secured and our naked bodies engaged under the warm sun. For those pleasurable moments in time my mind was totally removed from the scene on Tiran Island, and as much as I wished pleasure could last for an eternity I was not powerful enough to ensure that truth could be concealed for long.

  * * *

  Over coffee that our Bedouin Liam Catlin poured in the cool shade of the towering cliffs, I told how I had seen one of the oblong boxes stencilled with gas mask symbols on the sides, and on another of the blue spray painted boxes I made out the undeniable outline of a skull and crossbones not fully camouflaged by the p
aint. The boxes could, in my opinion, contain artillery ammunition to fit the howitzers pointing out to sea, but I was not an expert. For the late Razin's scenario of exploding anthrax shells I needed analysis of what calibre those howitzers on the island were. If they were capable of firing the missing Russian M107 shells where was the target? Tuesday night whilst I lay beside Hannah in the apartment in Whitehall, the officer commanding the Marines from the Special Boat Service despatched from Cyprus confirmed my worst fears; the guns were American ex-army artillery of the correct calibre to fire the shells.

  Chapter Thirty-Two: The Levant

  “Okay, if I may I will start with a huge thank you to our new Director in the chair of the JIC on finding the anthrax shells. However, that leaves the phosphorous ammunition. We need the location of those shells fast, Mr Chairman.” It was Air Chief Marshal Sir Graham Overton who spoke first after I had finished giving my findings on the Island of Tiran to the three representatives from the Defence Staff in the lounge area of my office in Whitehall. It was he who continued—

  “The Prime Minister is to meet the President in Washington tomorrow afternoon on a flying visit and Iraq is on the agenda. He has a two-hour turn around. My estimation of the situation has not changed. He will sign on with Bush if, as seems highly likely, Bush ignores the UN and cranks it up into invasion mode. But, and it's a big but, our PM is after any crumb to justify Britain being loyal to an ally who can handle an invasion perfectly well themselves. Yes, it's true, we would provide vital support to ease their way in if he gives the order, but candidly I think the PM's backbone is aching under his own prevarication. He needs us, Mr Chairman, to provide the basis to start the train in motion.

  “The guns were originally positioned on the Island to defend the Straits of Tiran from the Israeli navy threatening the Red Sea coastline of Egypt. It's true the guns could be targeted on parts of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but they could not reach Israel, which surely would be the target of a terrorist aggressor? Therefore I for one can't see the point of weaponised anthrax being used from that position,” Overton continued.

  “What's our political policy towards neutralising the weapons on the Island?” This time it was Field Marshal Sir James Phillips who asked me.

  “There is none, gentlemen, and nor will there be for the foreseeable future. The political situations is delicate at best with neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia recognised as sovereign owners of the Island of Tiran. Plus I have advised the Prime Minister that is not in the UK's interest to alert either of those nations to our surveillance capabilities in their region. I have conveyed my thoughts to him and he is in complete agreement that for the time being our knowledge of a possible attack is not to be shared. We are maintaining satellite imaging and I have a contingent of Special Boat Service Marines nearby.”

  “Are you sure it was a global hazard symbol that you saw, Mr Chairman? Could it possibly have been something else?”

  “I only wish it could have been, but I'm afraid it could not, Admiral. It is the anthrax that our Russian source mentioned.”

  “Then what is the target?” he asked.

  I had one possible answer but if I was right then now was not time to reveal it. I needed time to further Britain's ascendancy in the clandestine world which was my home. I played for time.

  “From what my people have gathered we're saying that it's likely to be an attack on the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, or the Mosque at Nebk further north along the Egyptian coastline. If either of those targets are correct it will set tourism back a hundred years in that part of the world.”

  * * *

  “Why did you not mention Henry Mayler's birth date being what you consider to be the axis around which any action in the area will take place, Patrick?” Hannah asked when we were alone.

  “Because if I'd said anything about that to the Prime Minister or the Defence Chiefs then I think I would have been marched to the nearest lunatic asylum. That's something we only discuss with Fraser Ughert.”

  * * *

  Within the not so secret government compound that is named Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks in Kent, there were several areas of rocket and projectile technology, which although dealing with some secrets of value were allowed to be known to exist. However, under the original defensive structure there are miles of underground connecting tunnels, most of which go to extremely sensitive areas dealing with top secret developments in specialist fields of explosives. When I'd heard of Razin's missing ordinance it was to the experts in the tunnels of the fort that I first turned and tasked them with finding the Russian phosphorous shells. Those experts, working with the Middle East desk at the Vauxhall Box of MI6 who had protected assets inside the Ba'ath Party, were instructed to find Colonel Antolov Puskin, the escapee from Dagestan who had a violent dislike of American tourists near his home town of Listvyanka in the mountains of Siberia. By various means far beyond my mental capacity, along with the expertise of two covert Special Air Service soldiers from B Squadron, both targets were to be found in a place called Paprok, in the north-east corner of Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. As of Christmas Day further members from B Squadron, 21st Artist Regiment, arrived in Kabul and started to monitor the camp at Paprok. Three members of the team penetrated the camp and found the ten cases of M549 phosphorous shells reported as missing from the Aral Sea depot. The cases were divided between the two well concealed American army M114 155mm howitzers pointed at a town called Kamdeish where a heavy concentration from an American Army Rangers Regiment were stationed. Colonel Antolov Puskin had been seen in the camp but on the night it was penetrated by the SAS he was in Islamabad drinking vodka with a Pakistani lieutenant general at the headquarters of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

  * * *

  I received that information on my return from Syria and added it to the file I placed on the Prime Minister's desk at the meeting I shared with him and his three aides. As far as I was concerned the matter of Razin's banned, unaccountable ammunition had been solved and was no longer my responsibility. I had loaded it onto the shoulders of others to deal with. But Fraser wanted to know more when he phoned.

  “Did he not say he would forward your report on to the United Nations, laddie? Both the anthrax and the phosphorous shell are in direct violation of the Hague Convention, which prohibited the use of poison gas or poisoned weapons in warfare.”

  “The trouble with that is that they have not been used in any war, Fraser. One could make a case for both being in the hands of suspicious organisations, but again we have no knowledge who controls them. Do we tell the Russian we know where the biological weaponry they lost from the Aral Sea is? Because if we do we run the risk of exposing some agents to their Federal Security Services, don't we? I did not advise the PM to do that. It's an internal problem for whoever is in charge in Dagestan or some other region inside Russia. It is not my concern whilst sitting here in Whitehall supping a gorgeous Jura whisky chatting on the telephone with an old friend. The same argument about the onus of responsibility applies to the anthrax shells on Tiran. We own up to the Saudis or to the Egyptians and it will get back to Moscow Central quicker than a camel can lick its arse.”

  “What a very picturesque scene you do paint, Patrick. So appropriate for the Christmas period. Did you find that one in a cracker? I can never remember the quotes or jokes in them.” At least for a while he forgot about my earlier meeting with the PM.

  “Have you any news on Henry Mayler?” he asked.

  “Not yet, no, but I'm forever the optimist, Fraser.”

  “Bring Hannah with you and get here around seven, Patrick. I'll ask Molly to lay on some cold bites. We can have a chat about one thing or another and you never know, I might be of some help in that direction.”

  * * *

  “Our understanding of the world today is of states and countries defined by manmade borders and lines drawn on maps, but that was not always so, and in some people's minds it will never be again. Not all ancient races, along wit
h their religions, are archaic in the sense that they no longer exist. Some do exist, Patrick. Please, enjoy your drinks and my short story of the Levant and how that impacts on what we are dealing with.”

  And that was Fraser's opening address to Hannah and me when we were once again seated around his log fire, awaiting yet another of his tales of yesteryear delivered in his fine Scottish brogue enlivened by his fine Scottish whisky. As strange as it may sound I was positively looking forward to relaxing in his company, thinking of nothing else than a story of the past.

  “Let me get one simple thing out of the way before I begin with my main story.” It was my experience that whatever was to follow that throw-away remark of simplicity would be far from straightforward and simple.

  “All I have told you of Henry Mayler is true, however, he has a strong connection to the Levant that I have told you nothing of. That now being said I can begin.”

  I could feel the hair on the back of neck stand on end as a rush of adrenaline hit me at the same time as I caught Hannah staring at me in disbelief, of what I wasn't sure. Perhaps she knew what the Levant was, because I had no idea and what's more I was thinking I was about to regret the word existed.

  “To understand all that I'm going to tell you we must have a small amount of knowledge on what predates recorded history, but fear not, I'll keep that bit short. The earliest evidence of civilisation in Lebanon dates back more than seven thousand years. The region came under the rule of the Roman Empire, and eventually became one of the Empire's leading centres of Christianity. However other faiths and religions were born in and around that area, one being what was called the Druze faith. Its followers were an esoteric group originating from the east of Lebanon, who identified themselves as Unitarians. Another faith was the Maronite Church with followers who later identified themselves with the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. Next door to where all this was happening, in Syria, the Roman occupation was ended by the Arab Muslim conquest. From the outward spreading of these different religions came a church named The Church of The East and it's to this faith and following that Henry Mayler is affiliated within his Rosicrucian fellowship. I hope you are awake and following me, as there is more to come and I can assure you it will tie everything you know and have been told together, Patrick. Henry is following his interpretation of the Hebrew word—Jahbulon. To him it means freedom for his Rosicrucian fellowship and his Druze religion.