Authors: Robert Ludlum
“Certainly,” agreed Evan, pushing up the tray table while handing ‘Joe’ his drink. “At least you were right about one thing, Junior,” he mumbled to the State Department man. “He said ‘sir.’ ”
“And I don’t
like
it,” rejoined “Joe,” quietly, intensely. “All communications involving you are to be funneled through
me
.”
“You want to make a scene?”
“Screw it. It’s an ego trip. He wants to get close to the special cargo.”
“The
what
?”
“Forget it, Dr.
Axelrod
. Just remember, there are to be no decisions without my approval.”
“You’re a tough kid.”
“The toughest, Congress— Dr. Axelrod. Also, I’m not ‘Junior.’ Not where you’re concerned.”
“Shall I convey your feelings to the pilot?”
“You can tell him I’ll cut both his wings and his balls off if he pulls this again.”
“Since I was the last on board, I didn’t meet him, but I gather he’s a brigadier general.”
“He’s brigadier-bullshit to me.”
“Good Lord,” said Kendrick, chuckling. “Interservice rivalry at forty thousand feet. I’m not sure I approve of that.”
“
Sir?
” The Air Force steward was anxious.
“Coming, Corporal.”
The compact flight deck of the F-106 Delta glowed with a profusion of tiny green and red lights, dials and numbers everywhere. The pilot and co-pilot were strapped in front, the navigator on the right, a cushioned earphone clipped to his left ear, his eyes on a gridded computer screen. Evan had to bend down to advance the several feet he could manage in the small enclosure.
“Yes, General?” he inquired. “You wanted to see me?”
“I don’t even want to
look
at you, Doctor,” answered the pilot, his attention on the panels in front of him. “I’m just going to read you a message from someone named
S
. You know someone named
S
?”
“I think I do,” replied Kendrick, assuming the message had been radioed by Swann at the Department of State. “What is it?”
“It’s a pain in the butt to this
bird
, is what it is!” cried the brigadier general. “I’ve never landed there! I don’t know the field, and I’m told those fucking
Eyetals
over in that wasteland are better at making spaghetti sauce than they are giving approach instructions!”
“It’s our own air base,” protested Evan.
“The
hell
it is!” countered the pilot as his co-pilot shook his head in an emphatic negative. “We’re changing course to Sardinia! Not Sicily but
Sardinia
! I’ll have to blow out my engines to contain us on that strip—if, for Christ’s sake, we can
find
it!”
“What’s the message, General?” asked Kendrick calmly. “There’s usually a reason for most things when plans are changed.”
“Then you explain it—no,
don’t
explain it. I’m hot and bothered enough. Goddamned spooks!”
“The message, please?”
“Here it is.” The angry pilot read from a perforated sheet of paper. “ ‘Switch necessary. Jiddah out. All M.A. where permitted under eyes—’ ”
“What does that mean?” interrupted Evan quickly. “The M.A. under eyes.”
“What it says.”
“In English, please.”
“Sorry, I forgot. Whoever you are you’re not what’s logged. It means all military aircraft in Sicily and Jiddah are under observation, as well as every field we land on. Those Arab bastards
expect something and they’ve got their filthy psychos in place, ready to relay
anything
or
anyone
unusual.”
“Not all Arabs are bastards or filthy or psychos, General.”
“They are in my book.”
“Then it’s unprintable.”
“What is?”
“Your book. The rest of the message, please.”
The pilot made an obscene gesture with his right arm, the perforated paper in his hand. “Read it yourself, Arab lover. But it doesn’t leave this deck.”
Kendrick took the paper, angled it toward the navigator’s light, and read the message.
Switch necessary. Jiddah out. All M.A. where permitted under eyes. Transfer to civilian subsidiary on south island. Routed through Cyprus, Riyadh, to target. Arrangements cleared. ETA is close to Second Pillar el Maghreb best timing possible. Sorry. S
. Evan reached out, holding the message over the brigadier general’s shoulder and dropped it. “I assume that ‘south island’ is Sardinia.”
“You got it.”
“Then, I gather, I’m to spend roughly ten more hours on a plane, or planes, through Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and finally to Masqat.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, Arab lover,” continued the pilot. “I’m glad it’s you flying on those Minnie Mouse aircraft and not me. A word of advice: Grab a seat near an emergency exit, and if you can buy a chute, spend the money. Also a gas mask. I’m told those planes stink.”
“I’ll try to remember your generous advice.”
“Now you tell
me
something,” said the general. “What the hell is that ‘Second Pillar’ Arab stuff?”
“Do you go to church?” asked Evan.
“You’re damned right I do. When I’m home I make the whole damn family go—no welching on that, by Christ. At least once a month, it’s a rule.”
“So do the Arabs, but not once a month. Five times a day. They believe as strongly as you do, at
least
as strongly, wouldn’t you say? The Second Pillar of el Maghreb refers to the Islamic prayers at sundown. Hell of an inconvenience, isn’t it? They work their Arab asses off all day long, mostly for nothing, and then it’s sundown. No cocktails, just prayers to their God. Maybe it’s all they’ve got. Like the old plantation spirituals.”
The pilot turned slowly in his seat. His face in the shadows
of the flight deck startled Kendrick. The brigadier general was black. “You set me up,” said the pilot flatly.
“I’m sorry. I mean that; I didn’t realize. On the other hand, you said it. You called me an Arab lover.”
Sundown. Masqat, Oman. The ancient turbojet bounced onto the runway with such force that some of the passengers screamed, their desert instincts alert to the possibility of their fiery oblivion. Then with the realization that they had arrived, that they were safe, and that there were jobs for the having, they began chanting excitedly. Thanks be to Allah for His benevolence! They had been promised rials for servitude the Omanis would not accept. So be it. It was far better than what they had left behind.
The suited businessmen in the front of the aircraft, handkerchiefs held to their noses, rushed to the exit door, gripping their briefcases, all too anxious to swallow the air of Oman. Kendrick stood in the aisle, the last in line, wondering what the State Department’s Swann had in mind when he said in his message that “arrangements” had been cleared.
“Come with me!” cried a berobed Arab from the crowd forming outside the terminal for immigration. “We have another exit, Dr. Axelrod.”
“My passport doesn’t say anything about
Axelrod
.”
“Precisely. That is why you are coming with me.”
“What about immigration?”
“Keep your papers in your pocket. No one wants to
see
them.
I
do not want to see them!”
“Then how—”
“Enough,
ya Shaikh
. Give me your luggage and stay ten feet behind me. Come!”
Evan handed his soft carry-on suitcase to the excited contact and followed him. They walked to the right, past the end of the one-story brown-and-white terminal, and headed immediately to the left toward the tall Cyclone fence beyond which the fumes from dozens of taxis, buses and trucks tinted the burning air. The crowds outside the airport fence were racing back and forth amid the congested vehicles, their robes flowing, shrieking admonishments and screeching for attention. Along the fence for perhaps seventy-five to a hundred feet, scores of other Arabs pressed their faces against the metal links, peering into an alien world of smooth asphalt runways and sleek aircraft that was no part of their lives, giving birth to fantasies beyond their understanding.
Up ahead, Kendrick could see a metal building the size of ten Quonset huts. It was the airfield warehouse he remembered so well, recalling the hours he and Manny Weingrass had spent inside waiting for long-overdue equipment promised on one flight or another, often furious with the customs officials who frequently could not understand the forms they had to fill out that would release the equipment—if indeed the equipment had arrived.
The gate in front of the warehouse’s hangarlike doors was open, accommodating the line of freight containers, their deep wells filled with crates disgorged from the various aircraft. Guards with attack dogs on leashes flanked the customs conveyor belt that carried the freight inside to anxious suppliers and retailers and the ever-present, ever-frustrated foremen of construction teams. The guards’ eyes constantly roamed the frenzied activity, repeating machine pistols in their hands. They were there not merely to maintain a semblance of order amid the chaos and to back up the customs officials in the event of violent disputes, but essentially to be on the lookout for weapons and narcotics being smuggled into the sultanate. Each crate and thickly layered box was examined by the snarling, yelping dogs as it was lifted onto the belt.
Evan’s contact stopped; he did the same. The Arab turned and nodded at a small side gate with a sign in Arabic above it.
Stop. Authorized Personnel Only. Violators Will Be Shot
. It was an exit for the guards and other officials of the government. The gate also had a large metal plate where a lock would normally be placed. And it
was
a lock, thought Kendrick, a lock electronically released from somewhere inside the warehouse. The contact nodded twice more, indicating that with a signal Evan was to head for the gate where “violators will be shot.” Kendrick frowned questioningly, a hollow pain forming in his stomach. With Masqat under a state of siege, it would not take much for someone to start firing. The Arab read the doubt in his eyes and nodded for a fourth time, slowly, reassuringly. The contact turned and looked to his right down the line of freight containers. Almost imperceptibly he raised his right hand.
Suddenly, a fight broke out beside one of the containers. Curses were shrieked as arms swung violently and fists pounded.
“
Contraband!
”
“
Liar!
”
“
Your mother is a goat, a filthy she-goat!
”
“
Your father lies with whores! You are a product!
”
Dust flew as the grappling bodies fell to the ground, joined by others who took sides. The dogs began barking viciously, straining at their leashes, their handlers carried forward toward the melee—all but one handler, one guard; and the signal was given by Evan’s contact. Together they ran to the deserted personnel exit.
“Good fortune, sir,” said the lone guard, his attack dog sniffing menacingly at Kendrick’s trousers as the man tapped the metal plate in a rapid code with his weapon. A buzzer sounded and the gate swung back. Kendrick and his contact ran through, racing along the metal wall of the warehouse.
In the parking lot beyond stood a broken-down truck, the tires seemingly only half inflated. The engine roared as loud reports came from a worn exhaust pipe. “
Besuraa!
” cried the Arab contact, telling Evan to hurry. “There is your transport.”
“I hope,” mumbled Kendrick, his voice laced with doubt.
“Welcome to Masqat,
Shaikh
-whoever.”
“You
know
who I am,” said Evan angrily. “You picked me out in the crowd! How many
others
can do that?”
“Very few, sir. And I do
not
know who you are, I swear by Allah.”
“Then I have to believe you, don’t I?” asked Kendrick, staring at the man.
“I would not use the name of Allah if it were not so. Please.
Besuraa!
”
“Thanks,” said Evan, grabbing his carryon and running toward the truck’s cab. Suddenly, the driver was gesturing out the window for him to climb into the back under the canvas that covered the bed of the ancient vehicle. The truck lurched forward as a pair of hands pulled him up inside.
Stretched out on the floorboards, Kendrick raised his eyes to the Arab above him. The man smiled and pointed to the long robes of an
aba
and the ankle-length shirt known as a
thobe
that were suspended on a hanger in the front of the canvas-topped trailer; beside it, hanging on a nail was the
ghotra
headdress and a pair of white balloon trousers, the street clothes of an Arab and the last items Evan had requested of the State Department’s Frank Swann. These and one other small but vital catalyst.
The Arab held it up. It was a tube of skin-darkening gel, which when generously applied turned the face and hands of a white Occidental into those of a Mideastern Semite whose skin had been permanently burnished by the hot, blistering, near-equatorial sun. The dyed pigment would stay darkened for a
period of ten days before fading. Ten days. A lifetime—for him or for the monster who called himself the Mahdi.
The woman stood inside the airport fence inches from the metal links. She wore slightly flared white slacks and a tapered dark green silk blouse, the blouse creased by the leather strap of her handbag. Long dark hair framed her face; her sharp, attractive features were obscured by a pair of large designer sunglasses, her head covered by a wide-brimmed white sun hat, the crown circled by a ribbon of green silk. At first she seemed to be yet another traveler from wealthy Rome or Paris, London or New York. But a closer look revealed a subtle difference from the stereotype; it was her skin. Its olive tones, neither black nor white, suggested northern Africa. What confirmed the difference was what she held in her hands, and only seconds before had pressed against the fence: a miniature camera, barely two inches long and with a tiny bulging, convex, prismatic lens engineered for telescopic photography, equipment associated with intelligence personnel. The seedy, run-down truck had swerved out of the warehouse parking lot; the camera was no longer necessary. She grabbed the handbag at her side and slipped it out of sight.