Ludlum, Robert - The Icarus Agenda

'The Al Kabir? Your cousins?'

'Two special police will suffice, my friend.'

There was a brief silence, a voice searching for words. 'The rumours are true, aren't they, Ahmat?'

'I have no idea what you mean. Rumours are gossip and neither interests me.'

'They say you are so much wiser than your years—’

'That's sophomoric,' broke in the sultan.

'He said you had to be to—“run this place”, he said. It's difficult for one who treated you for mumps.'

'Don't dwell on it, Doctor. Just keep me informed.' Ahmat reached into the drawer where the base of the private telephone lay and punched a series of numbers. Within seconds, he spoke. 'I'm sorry, my family, I know you're asleep, but I must again bother you. Go to the compound at once. Amal Bahrudi wants to escape. With fish.' He hung up.

'What's happened?' asked the young sultan's wife as she rapidly walked forward.

'Please,' said Ahmat, his eyes on the stomach of his waddling spouse. 'You have only six weeks to go, Bobbie. Move slowly.'

'He's too much,' said Roberta Aldridge Yamenni, turning her head and addressing Khalehla at her side. This jock of mine came in around two thousand in the Boston marathon and he's telling me how to carry a baby. Is that too much?'

'The royal seed, Bobbie,' replied Khalehla, smiling.

'Royal, my foot! Diapers are one hell of an equalizer. Ask my mother, she had four of us in six years. Really, darling, what happened?'

'Our American congressman made contact in the compound. We're mocking up an escape.'

'It worked!' cried Khalehla, approaching the desk.

'It was your idea,' said Ahmat.

'Please, forget it. I'm way out of line here.'

'Nothing's out of line,' the youthful sultan said firmly. 'Appearances notwithstanding, risks notwithstanding, we need all the help we can get, all the advice we can gather… I apologize, Khalehla. I haven't even said hello. As with my cousins, my lowly policemen, I'm sorry to drag you out at this hour, but I knew you'd want to be here.'

'Nowhere else.'

'How did you manage it? I mean leaving the hotel at four in the morning.'

'Thank Bobbie. I add, however, Ahmat, that neither of our reputations has been enhanced.'

'Oh?' The sultan looked at his wife.

'Great Lord,' intoned Bobbie, her palms together, bowing and speaking in her Boston accent. 'This lovely lady is a courtesan from Cairo—nice ring to it, huh? Under the circumstances—' Here the royal wife outlined her swollen stomach with her hands and continued, 'The privilege of rank has its goodies. Speaking as one of Radcliffe's history graduates, which my former roommate here will attest, Henry the Eighth called it “riding in the saddle”. It happened when Anne Boleyn was too indisposed to accommodate her monarch.'

'For God's sake, Roberta, this isn't The King and I and I'm not Yul Brynner.'

'You are now, pal!' Laughing, Ahmat's wife looked at Khalehla. 'Of course, if you touch him, I'll scratch your eyes out.'

'Not to fear, my dear,' said Khalehla in mock seriousness. 'Not after what you've told me.'

'All right, you two,' Ahmat interrupted. His brief look expressed the gratitude he felt towards both women.

'We have to laugh now and then,' said his wife. 'Otherwise I think we'd go stark raving mad.'

'Raving as in mad,' agreed Ahmat quietly, settling his eyes on the woman from Cairo. 'How's your British businessman friend?'

'Raving as in drunk,' answered Khalehla. 'He was last seen half upright in the hotel's American Bar still calling me names.'

'It's not the worst thing that could happen to your cover.'

'Certainly not. I obviously go to the highest bidder.'

'What about our super patriots, the elder merchant princes who'd just as soon see me flee to the West in frustration as stay here? They still believe you're working with them, don't they?'

'Yes. My “friend” in the Sabat Aynub market told me that they're convinced you met with Kendrick. His logic was such that I had to go along with him and agree that you were a damn fool; you were asking for the worst kind of trouble. Sorry.'

'What logic?'

'They know that a garrison car picked up the American a few blocks away from his hotel. I couldn't argue, I was there.'

'Then they were looking for that car. Garrison vehicles are all over Masqat.'

'Sorry, again, it was a wrong move, Ahmat. I could have told you that if I'd have been able to reach you. You see, the circle was broken; they knew Kendrick was here—'

'Mustapha,' interrupted the young sultan angrily. 'I mourn his death but not the closing of his big mouth.'

'Perhaps it was he, perhaps not,' said Khalehla. 'Washington itself could be responsible. Too many people were involved in Kendrick's arrival, I saw that also. As I understand, it was a State Department operation; there are others who do these things better.'

'We don't know who the enemy is or where to look!'

Ahmat clenched his fist, bringing his knuckles to his teeth. 'It could be anyone, anywhere—right in front of our eyes. Goddamn it, what do we do?'

'Do as he's told you,' said the woman from Cairo. 'Let him go in under deep cover. He's made contact; wait for him to reach you.'

'Is that all I can do? Wait?'

'No, there's something else,' added Khalehla. 'Give me the escape route and one of your fast cars. I brought along my courtesan's equipment—it's in a suitcase outside in the hall—and while I change clothes you coordinate the details with your cousins and that doctor you call an old friend.'

'Hey, come on!' protested Ahmat. 'I know you and Bobbie go back a long time but that doesn't give you the right to order me to endanger your life! No way, Jose.'

'We're not talking about my life,' said Khalehla icily, her brown eyes staring at Ahmat. 'Or yours, frankly. We're talking about raw terrorism and the survival of Southwest Asia. Nothing may come of tonight, but it's my job to try to find out, and it's your job to permit me. Isn't that what we've both been trained for?'

'And also give her the number where she can reach you,' said Roberta Yamenni calmly. 'Reach us.'

'Go change your clothes,' said the young sultan of Oman, shaking his head, his eyes closed.

'Thank you, Ahmat. I'll hurry but first I have to speak to my people. I don't have much to say so it'll be quick.'

The drunken bald-headed man in the dishevelled Savile Row pinstripes was escorted out of the elevator by two countrymen. The girth and weight of their inebriated charge were such that each struggled to uphold his part of the body.

'Bloody disgrace, is what he is!' said the man on the left, awkwardly glancing at a hotel key dangling from the fingers of his right hand, which was even more awkwardly shoved up under the drunk's armpit.

'Come now, Dickie,' retorted his companion, 'we've all swigged our several-too-many on occasion.'

'Not in a goddamned country going up in flames fuelled by nigger barbarians! He could start a bloody brawl and we'd be hanged by our necks from two lamp posts! Where's the damned room?'

'Down the hall. Heavy bugger, isn't he?'

'All lard and straight whisky is my guess.'

'I don't know about that. He seemed like a pleasant enough chap who got taken by a fast-talking whore. That sort of thing makes anyone pissed, you know. Did you get whom he worked for?'

'Some textile firm in Manchester. Twillingame or Burlingame, something like that.'

'Never heard of it,' said the man on the right, arching his brows in surprise. 'Here, give me the key; there's the door.'

'We'll just throw him on the bed, no courtesies beyond that, I tell you.'

'Do you think that fellow will keep the bar open for us? I mean, while we're doing our Christian duty the bugger could lock the doors, you know.'

'The bastard had better not!' exclaimed the man named Dickie as the three figures lurched into the darkened room, the light from the hallway outlining the bed. 'I gave him twenty pounds to keep the place open, if only for us. If you think I'm shutting my eyes for a single second until I'm on that plane tomorrow, you're ready for the twit farm! I'll not have my throat slit by some wog with a messianic complex, I tell you that, too! Come on, heave!'