Evans glanced at Caxton. ‘Perhaps our friend Holden can help find out what happened to Shaf,’ he suggested with a smile.
‘Shaf? Who’s Shaf?’ Richter asked, puzzled.
‘It’s not a “who”, more a “what”,’ Caxton explained. ‘Just a little local happening that doesn’t seem to make much sense. Shaf’s a prize racehorse, entered for the Godolphin Mile event and… do you know anything about horse racing?’
‘The square root of sod-all,’ Richter replied. ‘I’ve got no interest whatsoever in any form of organized sport.’
‘Not even cricket?’
‘Especially not cricket,’ he said firmly.
‘Right, then. The World Cup was first run in ’96 at the Nad Al-Sheba track in Dubai. It’s now the world’s richest horse race, with prize money totalling six million US dollars. The Godolphin Mile is itself worth a million. The money’s one thing, of course, but the World Cup’s as much a social event as sport. The locals are mad about horse racing, and most of the nobility of the Arab world turn up there.’
‘And Shaf?’ Richter demanded. Caxton seemed to have drifted somewhat from the point.
The SIS officer explained what the police had found at the Al-Shahrood stables.
‘There doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery,’ Richter said finally. ‘It sounds to me like a straightforward theft. OK, the missing item’s a bit unusual, but my guess is that there’ll be a ransom demand in the post any time now.’
The smile hadn’t left Evans’s face yet. ‘That isn’t the mystery. What nobody can work out is why Shaf is at this very moment scoffing hay in his pre-booked stables over in Dubai.’
‘Say again?’
‘The mystery is why Shaf was apparently kidnapped — or whatever the correct term is for a stolen horse — and then delivered to his stable in Dubai about twenty-four hours earlier than originally planned. Vets there have checked the horse for drugs, but found nothing, and there’ve been no unusually large bets placed on him for the race.’
‘You’re right,’ Richter said. ‘That doesn’t make any sense at all. What about the missing people from the stables in Saudi — have any of them turned up so far?’
‘Not one,’ Caxton replied, ‘and yet there were no signs of violence. The men who delivered Shaf to Dubai never checked in to their pre-booked hotel in the city, and nobody has any clue where they are, or even who they are. Sheikh Qabandi, the horse’s owner, is a powerful man, and he hasn’t been reticent in driving the police investigation. I think they would have been happy enough to file it as a missing persons report, and just wait until one of the stable staff eventually turned up. As the police see it, there’s no evidence that a crime has been committed, but Qabandi won’t let them drop it. He’s insisted on area-wide coverage, which is why we know about it here in Bahrain.’
‘Forensic scientists have been all over the stables back in Saudi,’ Evans explained, ‘and the only thing to raise a question mark was a small patch of dried fluid in the entrance hall of the main house. When they analysed it, they found it was urine, human in origin. Anyway, perhaps Holden can sleep on it and then let us know what really happened.’
After two hours of checking, Saadi and his colleagues had identified three points along the boundary fence where they believed they could effect an entry without being detected.
‘You’ve seen enough?’
Massood glanced down at his pages of notes and nodded. Saadi eased the Renault away from the kerb, heading back towards Dubai city.
‘We must plan this final phase with great care,’ Massood remarked. ‘I don’t think we’ll have time to make all our preparations today. We’ve a lot to do, so we’ll have to position the device tomorrow night. But that will still leave enough time.’
‘I told you I’d see you again,’ Carole-Anne Jackson said cheerfully, as Richter climbed into her BMW outside the Sheraton.
‘I don’t think you driving me to the airport counts as a date.’
His cases were already in the boot, and he had a reservation on the next flight to Dubai, scheduled to depart in about three hours.
Jackson smiled at him. ‘What’s your plan now?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to talk to this Holden guy, and tell my boss what I think. Then I’ll book a flight back to Heathrow and try to get through Dubai International without getting sucked in to any of the duty-free shops. My credit card can’t take too much of a pounding right now.’
Jackson smiled at him again as she started the engine. ‘And would you be interested in having a personal guide to the sights of Dubai before you head back to London — where it’s raining at the moment? That’s according to Bill Evans, who monitors the World Service for coded messages all the time.’
‘You have someone in mind?’
‘Yes, me, obviously. I’ve got a couple of days’ leave due, so I could nip over tomorrow afternoon, say, which would give you time to sort out Holden during the morning. If you booked your flight back on Monday, that would give us most of Saturday together and all day Sunday. No strings, just a bit of sightseeing, some decent food and anything else you fancy.’
‘Anything?’
Carole-Anne glanced across at him. ‘Almost anything. I don’t do whips and chains, latex or leather, but I’ll consider pretty much anything else.’
‘You know something?’ Richter said, settling back in the seat. ‘This might turn out to be the most entertaining trip I’ve been on for a long time. You’ve got my number. Give me a call when you’re on your way, and I’ll come and meet you at the airport.’
They were crossing the Sheikh Hamad Causeway when Jackson’s mobile rang. She pulled the BMW over to the side of the road as soon as she could, and answered it. Her face clouded immediately and she spoke mostly in monosyllables, then ended the call abruptly.
She put the mobile back in its cradle, slipped the BMW into gear and accelerated hard. ‘We’ll have to scratch the Dubai interlude,’ she said, ‘and you’ll have to change your flight.’
‘Why?’
‘Holden’s been back to the embassy there, and now he claims he can see a car bomb exploding imminently — maybe today, tomorrow at the latest. He gave a lot of precise details and the Six people in Dubai believe the location is probably Bahrain itself. Right here in Manama, in fact.’
‘And?’
‘And Julian Caxton has talked to your Mr Simpson and you’ve been reassigned. The Six office will keep tabs on Holden until you eventually get back to Dubai, but in the meantime you’re temporarily attached to us here in Bahrain, to help us find this bomb before it goes off.’
‘Stuff a stoat,’ Richter muttered.
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Jackson replied, turning the BMW to head back towards Manama.
‘What exactly did he say this time?’ Richter asked.
Bill Evans consulted the printout of an encrypted email sent from SIS Dubai less than an hour earlier.
‘It’s a car bomb that’s already been positioned by two men wearing traditional Arab clothing. The vehicle’s a big saloon, possibly American, and it’s been left on a long straight road that either points towards the sea, or runs parallel with the seafront. That description, of course, could include most of the cars in Bahrain, and almost every street in Manama.’
‘Or just about any other Gulf State town or city,’ Richter pointed out. ‘So why is SIS Dubai convinced the device is here?’
‘Holden claims that when he dreams these events he sees them from above, so they asked him if he’d noticed anything else distinctive. The only thing he came up with was a civilian aircraft — or, at least, a big white jet which doesn’t sound too military — landing on a nearby island.’