The Deceiver (40 page)

“I don’t understand what is wrong,” said Rowse. “My visa was issued yesterday by your People’s Bureau in Valletta. Surely it is in order?”

The officer simply made a gesture with one languid hand to suggest that Rowse should be quiet. He was. A fly buzzed. Five minutes elapsed.

From behind him, Rowse heard the door open. The young officer glanced up, shot to his feet, and saluted. Then without a word, he left the room.

“So, Mr. Rowse, here you are at last.”

The voice was deep and modulated, the English of a kind that can only be learned in one of Britain’s better public schools. Rowse turned. He allowed no trace of recognition to cross his face, but he had studied pictures of this man for hours in McCready’s briefing sessions.

“He’s slick and highly educated—by us,” McCready had said. “He’s also utterly ruthless and quite deadly. Be careful of Hakim al-Mansour.”

The Libyan head of external intelligence was more youthful than his pictures had suggested, barely older than Rowse himself. Thirty-three, the dossier had said.

In 1969, Hakim al-Mansour had been a fifteen-year-old schoolboy attending Harrow public school outside London, the son and heir of an extremely wealthy courtier and close confidant of Libyan King Idris.

It was in that year that a group of radical young officers headed by an unknown colonel of Bedouin origin called Qaddafi had carried out a coup d’état while the King was abroad, and had toppled him. They immediately announced the formation of the People’s Jamahariyah, the socialist republic. The King and his court took refuge with their considerable wealth in Geneva and appealed to the West for help in their own restoration. None came.

Unknown to his father, the young Hakim was entranced by the turn of events in his own country. He had already repudiated his father and all his politics, for only a year earlier his young imagination had been fired by the riots and near-revolution of the radical students and workers in Paris. It is not unknown for the impassioned young to turn to radical politics, and the Harrow schoolboy had converted in body and soul. Rashly, he bombarded the Libyan Embassy in London with requests to be allowed to leave Harrow and return to his homeland to join the socialist revolution.

His letters were noted and rejected. But one diplomat, a supporter of the old regime, tipped off al-Mansour Senior in Geneva. There was a blazing row between father and son. The boy refused to recant. At seventeen, his funds cut off, Hakim al-Mansour left Harrow prematurely. For a year he moved around Europe, trying to persuade Tripoli of his loyalty and always rejected. In 1972 he pretended to reform his views, made peace with his father, and joined the court-in-exile in Geneva.

While he was there, he learned details of a plot by a number of former British Special Forces officers, funded by King Idris’s financial chancellor, to create a countercoup against Qaddafi. They intended to mount a commando raid against the Libyan coastline in a ship called the
Leonardo da Vinci
, out of Genoa. The aim was to break open Tripoli’s main jail, the so-called Tripoli Hilton, and release all the desert clan chiefs who supported King Idris and detested Muammar Qaddafi. They would then scatter, raise the tribes, and topple the usurper. Hakim al-Mansour immediately revealed the entire plan to the Libyan Embassy in Paris.

In fact, the plan had already been “blown away” by the CIA, who later regretted it, and it was dismantled by the Italian security forces at America’s request. But al-Mansour’s gesture earned him a long interview at the Paris embassy.

He had already memorized most of Qaddafi’s rambling speeches and zany ideas, and his enthusiasm impressed the interviewing officer enough to earn the young firebrand a journey home. Two years after he was seconded to the Intelligence Corps, the Mukhabarat.

Qaddafi himself met and took to the younger man, promoting him beyond his years. Between 1974 and 1984, al-Mansour carried out a series of “wet affairs” for Qaddafi abroad, passing effortlessly through Britain, America, and France, where his fluency and urbanity were much appreciated, and through the terrorist nests of the Middle East, where he could become totally Arab. He carried out three personal assassinations of Qaddafi’s political opponents abroad, and he liaised extensively with the PLO, becoming a close friend and admirer of the Black September planner and mastermind Abu Hassan Salameh, whom he much resembled.

Only a head cold had prevented him from joining Salameh for his dawn game of squash that day in 1979, when the Israeli Mossad finally closed on the man who had planned the butchery of their athletes at the Munich Olympics and blown him to bits. Tel Aviv’s
kidon
team never knew how close they had come to taking two similar birds with one bomb.

In 1984, Qaddafi had promoted him to direct all foreign terror operations. Two years later, Qaddafi was reduced to a nervous wreck by American bombs and rockets. He wanted revenge, and it was al-Mansour’s job to deliver it—quickly. The British angle was not a problem—the men of the IRA, whom al-Mansour privately regarded as animals, would leave a trail of blood and death across Britain if they were given the wherewithal. The problem was finding a group that would do the same thing inside America. And here was this young Britisher, who might or might not be a renegade. …

“My visa, I repeat, is in perfect order,” Rowse said indignantly. “So may I ask what is going on?”

“Certainly, Mr. Rowse. The answer is simple. You are being denied entry into Libya.”

Al-Mansour strolled across the room to stare out of the windows at the airline-maintenance hangars beyond.

“But why?” asked Rowse. “My visa was issued in Valletta yesterday. It is in order. All I want to do is try to research some passages for my next novel.”

“Please, Mr. Rowse, spare me the bewildered innocence. You are a former soldier of the British Special Forces, apparently turned novelist. Now you turn up here saying you want to describe our country in your next book. Frankly, I doubt that your description of my country would be particularly flattering, and the Libyan people, alas, do not share your British taste for self-mockery. No, Mr. Rowse, you cannot stay. Come, I will escort you back to the plane to Malta.”

He called an order in Arabic, and the door opened. The two soldiers entered. One took Rowse’s grip. Al-Mansour picked up the passport from the table. The other soldier stood aside to let the two civilians pass.

Al-Mansour led Rowse down a different passage and out into the sunlight. The Libyan airliner stood ready for takeoff.

“My suitcase,” said Rowse.

“Already back onboard, Mr. Rowse.”

“May I know who I have been speaking to?” asked Rowse.

“Not for the moment, my dear fellow. Just call me … Mr. Aziz. Now, where will you go from here for your research?”

“I don’t know,” said Rowse. “I seem to have reached the end of the line.”

“Then take a break,” said al-Mansour. “Have a brief holiday. Why not fly on to Cyprus? A lovely island. Personally, I always favor the cool air of the Troodos Mountains at this time of year. Just outside Pedhoulas in the Marathassa Valley is a charming old hostelry called the Apollonia. I recommend it. Such interesting people tend to stay there. Safe journey, Mr. Rowse.”

*   *   *

It was a lucky coincidence that one of the SAS sergeants spotted Rowse coming through the Valletta airport. They had not expected him back so soon. Both men were sharing a room at the airport hotel, spelling each other in the Arrivals hall on a four-hours-on, four-hours-off basis. The duty man was reading a sports magazine when he spotted Rowse emerging from customs, his suitcase in one hand and his grip in the other. Without raising his head, he let Rowse pass and watched him approach the desk beneath the logo for Cyprus Airways. Then he used a wall phone to rouse his colleague in the hotel. The colleague raised McCready in central Valletta.

“Damn,” swore McCready. “What the hell’s he doing back so fast?”

“Dunno, boss,” said the sergeant, “but according to Danny, he’s inquiring at the Cyprus Airways desk.”

McCready thought furiously. He had hoped Rowse would stay in Tripoli for several days and that his cover story of seeking sophisticated weaponry for a bunch of fictional American terrorists would eventually lead to his arrest and interrogation by al-Mansour himself. Now it looked as if he had been thrown out. But why Cyprus? Had Rowse gone out of control?

McCready needed to get to him and find out what had happened in Tripoli. But Rowse was not checking into a hotel, where he could be covertly approached for a situation report. He was moving on. Perhaps he thought he was now under surveillance by the bad guys.

“Bill,” he said down the line, “tell Danny to stay with him. When the coast is clear, get to the Cyprus Airways desk and try to find where they went. Then book us two on the same flight, and two more on the next flight, in case I can’t get there on time. I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”

The traffic in downtown Valletta is fierce at sundown, and by the time McCready reached the airport, the evening flight for Nicosia had gone—with Rowse and Danny onboard. The next flight was not till the following day.

McCready checked into the airport hotel. At midnight, a call came in from Danny.

“Hallo, Uncle. I’m at the Nicosia airport hotel. Auntie’s gone to bed.”

“She must be tired,” said McCready. “Is it a nice hotel?”

“Yes, it’s lovely. We’ve got a super room. Six ten.”

“I’m so glad. I’ll probably stay there myself when I arrive. How’s the holiday so far?”

“Great. Auntie’s rented a car for tomorrow. I think we’re going up into the mountains.”

“That’ll be lovely,” McCready said jovially to his “nephew” across the eastern Mediterranean. “Why don’t you reserve that room for me? I’ll join you and Auntie as soon as I can. Good night, dear boy.”

He put the phone down. “Bugger’s going up into the mountains tomorrow,” he said gloomily. “What the hell did he learn in that stopover in Tripoli?”

“We’ll know tomorrow, boss,” said Bill. “Danny’ll leave a message in the usual place.”

Never seeing the point of wasting good sleeping time, Bill rolled over, and in thirty seconds he was fast asleep. In his profession, one never knew when one would sleep next.

McCready’s plane from Valletta touched down at the airport of the Cypriot capital just after eleven, having lost an hour because of the change of time zone. He was well separated from Bill, although they emerged from the same plane and took the same courtesy shuttle to the airport hotel. McCready settled into the lobby bar while Bill went up to room 610.

There was a maid cleaning it. Bill nodded and smiled, explained he had forgotten his razor, and went into the bathroom. Danny had left his situation report taped to the underside of the lavatory cistern lid. He emerged from the bathroom, nodded again to the maid, held up the razor he had produced from his pocket, was rewarded with an answering smile, and went back downstairs.

They made the exchange in the men’s toilet off the lobby. McCready retired to a cubicle and read the sitrep.

It was just as well that Rowse had not tried to make contact. According to Danny, shortly after Rowse had appeared from the customs hall at Valletta, his tail had followed, a sallow young man in a fawn suit. The Libyan agent had shadowed Rowse until the Cyprus Airways plane took off for Nicosia, but he had not joined the flight. Another tail, presumably called up from the Libyan People’s Bureau in Nicosia, had been waiting at the Nicosia airport and had shadowed Rowse to the hotel, where he had spent the night in the lobby. Rowse might have spotted either man, but he had given no sign. Danny had spotted both and stayed well back.

Rowse had asked the reception desk to order him a hired car for seven the following morning. Much later, Danny had done the same. Rowse had also asked for a map of the island and had consulted the reception manager on the best route to the Troodos Mountains.

In the last passage of the sitrep, Danny had said he would leave the hotel at five, park at a place where he could see the only route out of the car park, and wait for Rowse to emerge. He could not know whether the resident Libyan would follow Rowse all the way into the mountains or just see him off. He, Danny, would stay as close as he could and would call the hotel lobby when he had run Rowse to earth and could find a public phone. He would ask for Mr. Meldrum.

McCready returned to the lobby and made a brief call from one of the public phones to the British Embassy. Minutes later, he was speaking to the SIS Head of Station, an important post, bearing in mind Britain’s bases on Cyprus and its proximity to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and the Palestinian strongholds across the sea. McCready knew his colleague from their days in London, and he soon got what he wanted— an unmarked car with a driver who spoke fluent Greek. It would arrive within the hour.

The call for Mr. Meldrum came at ten past two. McCready took the phone from the hand of the reception manager. Once again it was the uncle-and-nephew routine.

“Hallo, dear boy. How are you? How nice to hear from you.”

“Hallo, Uncle. Auntie and I have stopped for lunch at a lovely hotel high in the mountains outside the village of Pedhoulas. It’s called the Apollonia. I think she may stay here, it’s so lovely. The car gave a bit of problem at the end, so I’ve brought it to a garage in Pedhoulas run by a Mr. Demetriou.”

“Never mind. How are the olives?”

“There are no olives up here, Uncle. Just apple and cherry orchards. Olives only grow down in the plain.”

McCready put the phone down and headed for the men’s room. Bill followed him. They waited till the only other occupant had left, checked the cubicles, and talked.

“Is Danny all right, boss?”

“Sure. He tailed Rowse to a hotel high in the Troodos Mountains. Seems Rowse has checked in. Danny’s in the village at a garage called Demetriou’s. He’ll wait for us there. The Libyan tail, the olive-skinned one, remained down here, apparently satisfied that Rowse would go where he was supposed to go.

“The car will be here shortly. I want you to take your grip and leave. Wait for us half a mile down the road.”