In fact, Quinn was counting on it.
When no guards approached him by the paddocks, he decided to explore the barns. In the shade and relative comfort of the alleyway, Quinn found a red Farmall tractor. It was old, flaking with rust, and had been repainted with several cans of spray paint. A quick check behind the tractor revealed a storage closet with another small acetylene cutting torch and several sacks of grass seed. Bags of fertilizer — their main ingredient ammonium nitrate — were stacked head high against the back wall. Quinn grinned at that, thinking of the iodine crystals in the pocket of his dishdasha. Al-Hofuf was situated on the Al-Ahsa oasis, the largest in the world. Though the King Faisal campus itself was dry and dusty, lush fields sprawled for acres to the north and east. The sweet scent of timothy hay and ripening wheat hung heavy on the superheated air.
Jericho had his head in the doorway of the storage room when the first guard approached him from behind.
“I do not know you,” the man challenged, ordering Quinn to back out of the room. He was young, no older than thirty, and wore a wrinkled white shirt and khaki pants instead of the traditional thobe. “What is your business here?”
“I have come to purchase a horse for my farm near Kuwait City,” Quinn said, the Arabic rolling off his tongue like a native. He reached into the pocket of his dishdasha. “I have a letter of introduction from Mr. Othman.”
“Stop!” The guard raised a stubby revolver that looked as if it hadn’t been fired or cleaned for some years. Still, Quinn saw no reason to test it — for the moment.
“Please forgive me if I have done something wrong.” He let his eyes play up and down the shadowed barn, acting frightened to put the young guard at ease. He was certain the man wasn’t alone. See one; think two—the mantra had kept him alive more than once over the years.
Moments later another guard stepped from the shadows of a nearby stall, proving Quinn’s suspicions correct. This was the senior of the two, pushing fifty with salt-and-pepper hair, a bulbous, sneering nose and deep-set eyes that challenged and accused everything before them. He wore the same uniform of his partner but appeared to have little of his patience.
“Your name?” he shouted in a tight-throated squawk. Flecks of spit popped from chapped lips at each word. This man had a pistol of his own, a black semiauto Jericho recognized as a Beretta nine millimeter. It looked to be in much more functional condition than the revolver. “Tell me your name!”
If he was to be shot, this would be the one to shoot him. Quinn had no doubt about that. But his demeanor was jumpy, weak. An overly loud voice said he was unsure of himself. That made him at once dangerous and vulnerable. In any battle situation, Quinn subconsciously sorted adversaries in order of possible lethality and weakness — a kind of target progression. The yelling spitter had just earned the number-one spot.
“I am from Kuwait City,” Quinn stammered in halting Arabic, hoping it made him sound more frightened than foreign. “My name is Al Dashti. I have a letter from Mr. Othman to look at your horses—”
“I know of no Othman,” the spitter said.
The younger guard looked at his partner. “Ramzi Othman,” he said. “He sees to the stables for the university.”
Quinn nodded. “As I said.” He pointed to his pocket. “I have a letter.”
“Shut up. You are not in the university stables. You are on private property. We have nothing to do with any Othman or the school. We have no horses to sell to anyone from Kuwait and have no need of any letter.”
“Very well.” Quinn began to lower his hands. “I apologize for my stupidity and will be on my way.”
The older guard motioned with his shiny Beretta, shoving it forward to make a point. “Keep your hands raised.” A radio at his side broke squelch. He looked at his partner. “Answer that,” he said, apparently not trusting the younger man or his rusty revolver to cover the intruder.
The young guard took the radio from his own belt and checked in. “Shako mako?” It was the Arabic equivalent of What’s up?
“Apologize and bring him inside,” a disembodied voice said. “I would like to see his letter.”
The guards looked at each other and shrugged. They started to put away their weapons, but the radios squawked again. “Apologize, but do not trust him!”
The older guard frowned at the chiding. He pointed his pistol toward the sunlit opening at the end of the barn’s alley. Quinn smiled faintly to himself. Guns or no guns, these men had solved his number-one problem. They were taking him past any security systems and inside the building — right where he wanted to be.
CHAPTER 27
Past the double steel doors, a lone security guard kept watch at a simple wooden desk. He was middle-aged with a neatly trimmed goatee and dressed in the same khaki pants and open-collared white shirt as the two others. Quinn could see no weapon, but assumed he had one tucked away somewhere.
The desk guard glanced up from a crumpled copy of an Al Jazeera newspaper and acknowledged the other men with a grunt. Dark eyes played over Quinn with unconcealed disgust. As Saudis, it was a good bet these men all harbored decades-old tribal grudges against Kuwaitis. Fortunately, they didn’t know who Quinn really was. Their grudges against Irish American Apaches were sure to run even deeper.
Fluorescent lights threw a strident glare on the waxed white tile of the hallway. Twenty feet beyond the guard was another set of heavy doors, ornately carved from fine, polished wood. They had no handles and appeared to swing freely.
Other than these and the way he’d come in, the only other exit off the wide hallway was a gray metal door to the left, just past the desk guard. To find out what was on the other side of the blank wall to the right, Quinn would have to make it through the double wooden doors.
“In there.” The older, jumpy guard prodded Quinn over the kidney with the muzzle of his pistol, shoving him toward the left.
Quinn took a deep breath to keep from smiling. This one was truly an amateur. No real operator would get close enough to touch him with a weapon.
The professional arrived a moment later as Quinn’s captors prodded him into the vacant concrete-block room. Quinn recognized him for what he was immediately — not the top boss, but someone with the authority to make decisions on the spot. He was mature, but not old — maybe in his late thirties — with the confident air that made him keep his chin tilted slightly toward the ceiling and hung a constant half grin on his angular face. His dazzling white cotton robe blended with the whitewashed walls. A red checked ghutra only half hid a thick head of curly black hair. A gold Rolex Explorer hung from his bronze wrist.
The man looked down his nose at Quinn with the kind of bored indifference he might reserve for a stray dog.
“Hello, Mr. Al Dashi—”
“Al Dashti,” Quinn corrected.
“Yes,” the man said. “Of course, Mr. Al Dashti. I am Dr. Suleiman, the chief veterinarian here.” He held out a manicured right hand, all but snapping his fingers. “Please, the letter of which you spoke.”