Ludlum, Robert - The Icarus Agenda

'All right, a code.' Evan buttoned the coarse shirt while looking around the police laboratory; his eyes fell on several X-rays suspended on a string. 'If your people monitoring the taps hear me say that films were smuggled out of the embassy, move in and get me out. Understood?'

'“Films smuggled out of the embassy—”'

'That's it. I won't say it, or shout it, unless I think they're closing in on me… Now, let the word go inside. Tell the guards to taunt the prisoners. Amal Bahrudi, leader of the Islamic terrorists in East Europe, has been captured here in Oman. Your bright young sultan's strategy for my temporary protection can make a big leap forward. It's my passport into their rotten world.'

'It was not designed for that.'

'But it's damn convenient, isn't it? Almost as though Ahmat had it in mind before I did. Come to think of it, he might have. Why not?'

'That's ridiculous!' protested the doctor, both palms raised towards Evan. 'Listen to me. We can all theorize and postulate as much as we like, but we cannot guarantee. That compound is guarded by soldiers and we cannot see into the soul of each man. Suppose there are sympathizers? Look at the streets. Crazed animals awaiting the next execution, wagering bets! America is not loved by every citizen in an aba or conscript in uniform; there are too many stories, too much talk of anti-Arab bias over there.'

'Ahmat said the same thing about his own garrison here in Masqat. Only he called it looking into their eyes.'

'The eyes hold the secrets of the soul, ya Shaikh, and the sultan was right. We live in constant fear of weakness and betrayal here within. These soldiers are young, impressionable, quick to make judgments about real or imagined insults. Suppose, just suppose, the KGB decides to send in a message to further destabilize the situation. “Amal Bahrudi is dead, the man claiming to be him is an impostor!” There would be no time for codes or cries for help. And the manner of your death should not be contemplated lightly.'

'Ahmat should have thought of that—’

'Unfair!' cried Faisal. 'You ascribe to him things he never dreamed of! The Bahrudi alias was to be used only as a diversionary tactic in the last extremity, not for anything else! The fact that ordinary citizens could publicly state that they witnessed the capture of a terrorist, even to the point of naming him, would create confusion, that was the strategy. Confusion, bewilderment, indecision. If only to delay your execution for a few hours—whatever time might be used to extricate you, a single individual—that was Ahmat's intention. Not infiltration.'

Evan leaned against the table, his arms folded, studying the Omani. 'Then I don't understand, and I mean that, Doctor. I'm not looking for demons, but I think there's a lapse in your explanation.'

'What is it?'

'If finding me the name of a terrorist—an unaccounted-for, dead terrorist—was to be my fall-back position, as you called it—'

'Your temporary protection, as you so rightfully called it,' interrupted Faisal.

'Then suppose—just suppose—I hadn't been around to act in that little melodrama on the Al Kabir tonight?'

'You were never meant to,' replied the doctor calmly. 'You simply moved up the schedule. It was to take place not at midnight but in the early morning hours, just before the prayers, near the mosque of Khor. The word of Bahrudi's capture would have spread through the markets like the news of a shipment of cheap contraband on the waterfront. Another would have posed as the impostor you are. That was the plan, nothing else.'

'Then, as the lawyers would say, there's a convenient convergence of objectives, rearranged in time and purpose so as to accommodate all parties without conflict. I hear phrases like that in Washington all the time. Very sharp.'

'I am a doctor, ya Shaikh, not a lawyer.'

'To be sure,' agreed Evan, smiling faintly. 'But I wonder about our young friend in the palace. He wanted to “discuss” Amal Bahrudi. I wonder where that discussion would have led us.'

'He's not a lawyer, either.'

'He has to be everything to run this place,' said Kendrick sharply. 'He has to think. Especially now… We're wasting time, Doctor. Mess me up a bit. Not the eyes or the mouth, but around the cheeks and the chin. Then cut into my shoulder and bandage it but don't dry the blood.'

'I beg your pardon!'

'For Christ's sake, I'm not going to do it myself!'

The heavy steel door sprang back, yanked by two soldiers who instantly placed their arms against the exterior iron plate as if expecting an assault on the exit. A third guard hurled the wounded, still bleeding prisoner into the huge concrete hall that served as a mass cell; what light there was was subdued, provided by low-wattage bulbs encased in wire mesh and bolted to the ceiling. A group of inmates instantly converged on the new entry, several gripping the shoulders of the bloody, disfigured man awkwardly trying to rise from his knees. Others huddled around the imposing metal door chattering loudly among themselves—half shrieking, actually—apparently to drown out whatever was being said inside the compound.

'Khalee balak!' roared the newcomer, his right arm lashing upward to free itself, then with a tight fist pummelling the face of a young prisoner whose grimace revealed rotted teeth. 'By Allah, I'll break the head of any imbecile here who touches me!' continued Kendrick, screaming in Arabic and rising to his full height which was several inches taller than the tallest man around him.

'We are many and you are one!' hissed the offended youngster, pinching his nose to stop the bleeding.

'You may be many but you are lovers of she-goats! You are stupid! Get away from me! I must think!' With his last explosive remark, Evan slammed his left arm against those holding it, then instantly pulled it back and thrust his elbow into the throat of the nearest prisoner holding him. With his still-clenched right fist, he swung around and hammered his knuckles into the man's unsuspecting eyes.

He could not remember when he had last hit another person, physically attacked another human being. If his flashing memories were correct, it went back to junior school. A boy named Peter Somebody-or-Other had hidden his best friend's lunch-box—a tin box with Walt Disney characters on it—and because his friend was small and Peter Somebody-or-Other was bigger than his best friend, he had challenged the bully. Unfortunately, in his anger, he had beaten the boy named Peter so severely that the principal called his father and both adults told him he was terribly wrong. A young man of his size did not pick fights. It wasn't fair… But, sir! Dad!… No appeal. He had to accept twenty demerit points. But then his father said, if it happens again, son, do it again.

It happened again! Someone grabbed his neck from behind! Life-saving procedure. Why did it come to mind? Pinch the nerve under the elbow! It releases the grip of a drowning man! Red Cross—Senior Life-Saving Certificate. Summer money on the lake. In panic, he slid his hand down the exposed arm, reached the soft flesh under the elbow and pressed with all the strength that was in him. The terrorist screamed; it was enough. Kendrick hunched his shoulders and threw the man over his back, slamming him down on to the cement floor.

'Do any of you want more?' whispered the newest prisoner harshly, crouching, turning, his height still apparent. 'You are fools! If it weren't for you idiots, I would not have been taken! I despise all of you! Now, leave me alone! I told you, I must think!'

'Who are you to insult us and give us orders?' screeched a wild-eyed post-adolescent, a harelip impeding his diction. It was all a scene out of Kafka—half-crazed prisoners prone to instant violence, yet nervously aware of more brutal punishment from the guards. Whispers became harsh commands, suppressed insults screams of defiance, while those who spoke looked continuously towards the door, making sure the babble beyond covered whatever they said, keeping it from eavesdropping enemy ears.