Ludlum, Robert - The Icarus Agenda

'If you mean someone who would follow you into El-Baz's neighbourhood, absolutely no one. Why?'

'I think she meant to kill me.'

'What?'

'And a woman gave El-Baz the information about me–over a telephone, of course.'

'I know that.'

'Could there be a connection?'

'How?'

'Someone moving in, someone looking to steal false papers.'

'I hope not,' said Ahmat firmly. 'The woman who spoke to El-Baz was my wife. I would not trust your presence here with anyone else.'

'Thank you for that, but someone else knows I'm here.'

'You spoke to four men, Evan, and one of them, our mutual friend, Mustapha, was killed. I agree that someone else knows you're here. It's why the other three are under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Perhaps you should stay out of sight, in hiding, for at least a day. I can arrange it, and we might learn something. Also, I have something I must discuss with you. It concerns this Amal Bahrudi. Go in hiding for a day. I think that would be best, don't you?'

'No,' answered Kendrick, his voice hollow at what he was about to say. 'Out of sight, yes, but not in hiding.'

'I don't understand.'

'I want to be arrested, seized as a terrorist. I want to be thrown into that compound you've got somewhere. I've got to get in there tonight!'

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 6

The robed figure raced down the middle of the wide avenue known as the Wadi Al Kabir. He had burst out of the darkness from beyond the massive Mathaib Gate several hundred yards from the waterfront west of the ancient Portuguese fortress called The Mirani. His robes were drenched with the oil and flotsam of the harbour, his headdress clinging to the back of his wet hair. To observers—and there were still many in the street at this late hour—the desperately running man was one more dog from the sea, an alien who had leaped from a ship to gain illegal entrance into this once-peaceful sultanate, a fugitive—or a terrorist.

Strident eruptions of a two-note siren grew louder as a patrol car careened around the corner from the Wadi Al Uwar into the Al Kabir. The chase was joined; a police informant had betrayed the point of entry, and the authorities were ready. These days they were always ready, ready and eager and frenzied. A blinding light split the dimly lit street, its beam coming from a movable lamp mounted on the patrol car. The powerful light caught the panicky illegal immigrant; he spun to his left facing a series of shops, their dark fronts protected by iron shutters, protection that had not been thought of barely three weeks ago. The man pivoted, lurching across the Al Kabir to his right. Suddenly he stopped, blocked by a number of late-night strollers who moved together, stood together, their stares not without fear but somehow collectively saying they had had enough. They wanted their city back. A short man in a business suit but in Arab headdress stepped forward—cautiously to be sure, but with purpose. Two larger men in robes, perhaps more cautiously but with equal purpose, joined him, followed hesitantly by others. Down the Al Kabir to the south a crowd had gathered; tentatively they formed a line, robed men and veiled women creating a human wall across the street, courage reluctantly summoned from both exasperation and fury. It all had to stop!

'Get away! Spread out! He may have grenades!' A police officer had jumped out of the patrol car and was racing forward, his automatic weapon levelled at the quarry.

'Disperse!' roared a second policeman, sprinting down the left side of the street. 'Don't get caught in our fire!'

The cautious strollers and the hesitant crowd beyond scattered in all directions, running for the protection of distance and the shelter of doorways. As if on cue, the fugitive grappled with his drenched robes, pulling them apart and menacingly reaching inside the folds of cloth. A rapid, staccato burst of gunfire shattered the Al Kabir; the fugitive screamed, calling on the powers of a furious Allah and a vengeful Al Fatah as he gripped his shoulder, arched his neck and dropped to the ground. He seemed to be dead, but in the dim light no one could determine the extent of his wounds. He screamed again, a roar summoning the furies of all Islam to descend on the hordes of impure unbelievers everywhere. The two police officers fell on him as the patrol car skidded to a stop, its tyres screeching; a third policeman leaped from the open rear door shouting orders.

'Disarm him! Search him!' His two subordinates had anticipated both commands. 'It could be he!' added the superior officer, crouching to examine the fugitive more closely, his voice even louder than before. 'There!' he continued, still shouting. 'Strapped to his thigh. A packet. Give it to me!'

The onlookers slowly rose in the semidarkness, curiosity drawing them back to the furious activity taking place in the middle of the Al Kabir under the dim wash of the streetlights.

'I believe you are right, sir!' yelled the policeman on the prisoner's left. 'Here, this mark! It could be what remains of the scar across his neck.'

'Bahrudi!' roared the ranking police officer in triumph as he studied the papers ripped from the oil cloth packet. 'Amal Bahrudi! The trusted one! He was last seen in East Berlin and, by Allah, we have him!'

'All of you!' yelled the policeman, kneeling to the right of the fugitive, addressing the mesmerized crowd. 'Leave! Get away! This pig may have protectors—he is the infamous Bahrudi, the Eastern European terrorist! We have radioed for soldiers from the sultan's garrison—get away, don't be killed!'

The witnesses fled, a disjointed stampede racing south on the Al Kabir. They had summoned up courage but the prospect of a gun battle panicked them. All was uncertainty, punctuated by death; the only thing the crowd was certain of was that a notorious international terrorist named Amal Bahrudi had been captured.

'The word will spread quickly in our small city,' said the sergeant-of-police in fluent English, helping the 'prisoner' to his feet. 'We will help, of course, if it is necessary.'

'I've got a question or two—maybe three!' Evan untied the headdress, removing it over his head and stared at the police officer. 'What the hell was all that stuff about “the trusted one”, the “Islamic leader” of East European whatever-it-was?'

'Apparently the truth, sir.'

I'm way behind you.'

'In the car, please. Time is vital. We must leave here.'

'I want answers!' The two other policemen walked up beside the congressman from Colorado, gripped his arms and escorted him to the back door of the patrol car. 'I played that little charade the way I was told to play it,' continued Evan climbing into the green police car, 'but someone forgot to mention that this real person whose name I'm assuming is some killer who's throwing bombs around Europe!'

'I can only tell you what I've been told to tell you, which, truthfully, is all I know,' replied the sergeant, settling his uniformed figure beside Kendrick. 'Everything will be explained to you at the laboratory in the compound headquarters.'

'I know about the laboratory. I don't know about this Bahrudi.'

'He exists, sir.'

'I know that but not the rest of it—’

'Hurry, driver!' said the police officer. 'The other two will remain here.' The green car lurched in reverse, made a U-turn and sped back towards the Wadi Al Uwar.

'All right, he's real, I understand that,' pressed Kendrick rapidly, breathlessly. 'But I repeat. No one said anything about his being a terrorist!'

'At the headquarters laboratory, sir.' The police sergeant lit a brown Arabian cigarette, inhaled deeply and expunged the smoke through his nostrils in relief. His part of the strange assignment was over.

'There was a great deal that El-Baz's computer did not print out for your eyes,' said the Omani doctor, studying Evan's bare shoulder. They were alone in the laboratory-examining room, Kendrick sitting on the elongated hard-cushioned table, his feet resting on a footstool, his money belt beside him. 'As Ahmat's—forgive me—the great sultan's personal physician—which I have been since he was eight years old, I am now your only contact to him in the event you cannot for whatever reason reach him yourself. Is that understood?'