Sharif stopped leafing through the family tree and walked around his hotel room to gather his thoughts, calling for room service to bring up a second breakfast with plenty of coffee. So shouldn’t Luke Gibson be a Brit? He took a short bathroom break and hurried back to the next chapter.
Nicky Marks reached the rendezvous point first, with time to spare, and was greeted warmly by the elderly couple who kept the hideaway ready for visitors. They had been expecting him, so the generator was on and providing electrical current. He gave the shabby place a quick walkthrough inspection. Everything was in order. The woman prepared a small meal for him, then she and her husband chuffed away in an old Fiat to spend the next several days with the man’s family. It was understood that anyone staying at the house was a guest of the Prince and was not to be bothered. Patrols of Taliban fighters often came by to ensure security.
It was a small, square place girdled by a head-high adobe wall that was almost concealed by a grove of hardy junipers and wild-olive and pine trees. There was a narrow bedroom, a large main room, a kitchen, and a bath; the high windows in each room were curtained. A scatter of cheap rugs and pillows gave color to the wooden floor. The building plan was the most common in the community of Girdiwal, a village of about a thousand souls.
Once the old couple left, Marks pushed aside the rugs in the main room to find a metal handle that was set into the floor. Beneath the trapdoor was a small cache of weapons and explosives, and he picked out what he anticipated he would need for the coming night. One flash-bang grenade, a Glock handgun, a compact Israeli Tavor bullpup 5.56 rifle for close-quarters firepower. He didn’t stack up extra magazines, because whatever happened here tonight was going to be over in a hurry. He turned the lights off and settled down to wait in the gathering gloom.
What happened next? There was a time gap in the King family tree, and Sharif burned up Google and the FBI’s private databases hunting it.
Brigadier Sir Horatio had been in the British Army at its zenith, when the nation was rich and influential and ruled the oceans, with colonies around the globe. The bloodbath of World War I ended that marvelous era, and Kingsley could see over the time horizon that Britain was in decline and the United States was ascending. So the old boy adjusted the family’s gears accordingly and did not send his son to Sandhurst to learn soldiering. Horace came back to Egypt from Oxford as a businessman, and shrewd Arab traders replaced the university dons at just about the time oil was discovered in Arabia by another Englishman, who had been hired to look for gold. He started a family of his own, with a proper British wife, a daughter and a son.
Lucky thought that was interesting but still couldn’t see how or why they jumped the pond when they were doing so well in the Middle East, where ARAMCO was leading the oil boom. Oil didn’t just spring from the ground; it had to be pumped and refined and transported, which meant that roads and infrastructure and entire new cities were going to be built. The Kingsleys got rich, but not sweaty, by being go-betweens who could connect the eager buyers with willing sellers.
That was where the veil was drawn. Horace and his own father, the brigadier, saw war clouds gathering again over Europe as Hitler took over Germany. It was time to shift to a safer base. Horace’s daughter Margaret was already in the United States, married to a Boston banker. The son, Royce, who had grown up among Egyptian aristocracy, was dispatched to attend Harvard and live with Margaret. The brigadier died when a U-boat torpedoed the passenger liner Athenia in 1939. Horace remained in Egypt as an allied intelligence officer and vanished behind the iron walls of British official secrets.
So, then, on to Royce. How did a young man in his prime get out of serving in World War II, since he graduated in 1945? And why was there no Royce Kingsley listed in the graduating class? Sharif needed another bathroom break and a talk with Janna.
Swanson and Gibson unbuckled and stood up in the noisy, quivering cave of the C-130 cargo hold. The jumpmasters swarmed around them like seamstresses attending a couple of debutantes, studying even the smallest details. Missing something could cost a jumper his life. The two snipers swayed with the rhythm of the plane as the Ram Air Parachute Systems were fitted and tightened and checked and rechecked until the fussy jumpmasters were satisfied.
“You guys are good to go,” said the leader after he went over the work done by his assistants. He had the power to terminate the mission but, after a final discussion with the pilot, declared that the conditions were acceptable. “You hop-and-pop at ten thousand feet, so you won’t need helmets or air cans. Your altimeters will be recalibrated in thirty minutes. Green light in about forty. Any questions?”
The two operators nodded. “Any messages from home?” Gibson asked. The senior jumpmaster said there had been no radio traffic concerning them since takeoff.
Swanson took firm hold of the cargo webbing and started to loosen up. No traffic from anybody. Nothing was a good thing at this point. He glanced at his partner and saw that Gibson was doing similar stretching exercises, his face calm and expressionless.
Congresswoman Veronica Keenan of Nebraska had been expecting some pressure for rolling out the CIA scandal in the name of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It was pleasant to discover that things were smooth in her office on Wednesday morning. Requests for press interviews were coming in, and she would pick and choose among them, because a national cable television news show would reach more voters back home than any New York Times ink.
The CIA was stonewalling under the pretext of national security. The Englishman who was president of Excalibur Enterprises had been dismissive with his one-word reaction that her charges were “rubbish.” Keenan made a note to remind the reporters that she had proof to back up her charges. Of course, the CIA and Excalibur would deny it all, just as tobacco-company executives once pledged that their products weren’t poison. A congressional committee would get to the truth.
Keenan’s administrative assistant rapped on the door and entered with a smile. “Get your lipstick on straight, girlfriend. You’ve been summoned by the House leadership.”
“That would be the White House checking in to assess damage control,” Keenan said.
“Right. You can say that to the media, too. If there’s nothing to this, why is the president meddling?” The assistant studied her smartphone. “Call from the State Department, too.”
“More administration interference in the overwatch role of Congress?” Keenan cocked an eyebrow.