The unprepossing Al-Kous Whisper was clearly reserved for tourists. Omanis weren’t allowed to drink alcohol, and he wasn’t even sure whether they were allowed to eat. No hootch, no maps. It was a very strict country. The sultan ran a tight ship. The Al-Kous had a flat roof and was built of concrete block. There were a few houses scattered nearby, looking abandoned and empty. These were older buildings constructed of wood and palm thatch.
Omanis clearly didn’t believe in renovation or gentrification. When a town got old, they simply packed up and left. En masse. The townspeople moved further into the mountains or the desert and built a new town.
They passed through the portal into the withered garden. There was an old well just outside the restaurant and someone had left a noisy goat tied to it. Harry patted the dehydrated creature on the head as they walked past it up the path of crushed stone.
“Four stars in the Zagat,” Brock said to Hawke, swatting at the buzzing flies and sidestepping dogshit. “Amazing wine cellar. They’ve apparently got a specialty dish the chef prepares, sautéed lightly in a sort of pine nut sauce, that is out of this world. Fresh goat, so they say. Isn’t that right, little fella?”
“Is it always this bloody hot?” Hawke said, mounting the mercifully covered steps and ignoring both Brock and the goat. He was tired and thirsty. He hated dry heat and he felt as if he were being roasted alive in the sun. The white linen shirt he was wearing was plastered to his skin. He was tempted to have his meeting with Brock in the Toyota with the AC blasting. Would have, in fact, but he was hungry, too.
“Oman is actually the hottest place on earth,” Brock said. “No lie. Pretty mild right now, though. At eight this morning it was 120 in the shade.”
“But there is no shade.”
“Bingo.”
Harry followed Hawke through the open door. It was dark and cool inside, comparatively speaking. It was also empty, which was good. He was sure Brock had scoped the place out pretty well before suggesting it as a rendezvous. The two men mounted the narrow stairway and took an empty table by one of the open windows on the second floor. Brock ordered two cold beers. It was a local brew called Gulf and it was nonalcoholic. According to Harry it was liquid and it was cold and that was good enough.
A timid, giggling girl in a black chador delivered the beer. There were only two employees, the girl waiting tables and an old man behind the bar. The man was more sensibly dressed in the manner of most of the male population. Loose white garments and a turban. Like most Omanis Hawke had seen since touching down at Seeb International, he was on his cell phone.
The fact that Brock seemed unconcerned about this meant the proprietor was probably already on Harry’s payroll. Boots on the ground, the CIA called it.
Brock rocked his chair back on two legs and smiled at Hawke. “You look like shit,” he said, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“Thanks,” Hawke replied, studying the flimsy mimeographed menu. He opened his bottle and took a swig of beer. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Believed what?”
“Oh, come on.”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about, Brock?”
Hawke didn’t bother to hide his irritation. He knew Brock would bring up the incident as soon as they met. He supposed he’d have to tell him about it sometime, but not now. His aching and bruised body had been jammed into a cramped cockpit all day and every bone in his body ached. If the sadist who designed the F-16 seat were ever allowed to design prison furniture for Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo, the hue and cry from the world media would be deafening.
What Hawke did not need at the moment was an American with a sense of humor. But Brock wouldn’t let go.
“Your little mishap on the Lincoln?”
“You mean the incident,” Hawke said, and cut his angry eyes to the window.
“Yeah.”
“It could have been worse.”
“How’s that?”
Hawke said, “Old pilots say it’s better to die than to look bad, but it is possible to do both.”
Brock thought about that a second, saw the hard cast of Hawke’s eyes, and decided to shut up.
Neither man said anything else for a few minutes. They sat and sipped their pseudobeer in silence, both of them looking out the window. Hawke imagined Brock was probably having the same misgivings about this mission that he was. These things were all about team. This team had been thrown together without their knowledge or consent. They’d been asked, told, to conduct a critically important operation. Like most hostage rescue ops, it promised to be very dangerous. And they were going in blind. Neither man knew what to make of the other. Hawke knew why he’d been chosen. He was pretty good at this stuff.
What he still didn’t know was why the hell Kelly had chosen Harry Brock.
Hawke sipped his beer and stared morosely out the window, trying to adjust to his new environment. A bloody wasteland. A school bus went by, jouncing along the rocky road, a cloud of dust trailing behind it. There were curtains in all the windows and they were tightly drawn. So the little boys outside couldn’t see the little girls inside. Or vice-versa. He was sure someone could offer a good explanation for this bizarre custom, but to Hawke it just seemed unnatural and cruel.
I am definitely the stranger in the strange land, he thought, suspiciously eyeing the goat tied to the well. He’d never eaten goat. He wasn’t about to start now. Goats were bad luck. There was a reason why when things in the military went to hell they called it a goat-fuck. The shy girl in the black chador returned for their order. Brock ordered lamb kebobs. He ordered the fish and rice. The nondescript CIA briefing book lay on the table unopened. Hawke didn’t have the energy to break the seal.
“Somebody’s meeting us here in about twenty minutes,” Brock finally said. He opened the brief and started flipping through the pages.
“Yeah? Who might that be?”
“A friend of the family. Name’s Ahmed. Great guy. You’ll like him.”
“A friend of whose family? Yours?”
“The sultan’s.”
“Two more boots on the ground.”
“Bingo.”
“That’s convenient,” Hawke said, trying to be pleasant, “Where’d you bump into him?”
“Let’s just say we’ve done business before. He’s the one who found me the Enfield. Name’s Ahmed Badur. He is wired in this country, I gotta tell you.”
“Is he the one who’s going to help us find the sultan and his family?”
“Bingo,” Brock said.
“If you say that word again, I’m going to kill you,” Hawke told him.
At that moment, hot, exhausted, and miserable as he was, he almost meant it. Yeah, he’d cracked up a very expensive airplane. Until he was completely cleared of pilot error, there was going to be a little black cloud following him around. But it wasn’t his fault, goddamnit. And he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life taking heat for it. From anybody.
Hawke added, “And guess what, Brock. Because you’re a NOC? I’m going to get away with it.”
“Listen, pal, you might be a big effing whoop in jolly old England, but—”
A loud ah-oogah sound from the street below broke the moment between the two of them. Hawke looked out of the window and was surprised to see a 1927 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost arriving in a billow of dust. On the louvered bonnet behind the famous “Flying Lady” atop the radiator was a small triangular pennant. Orange, white, and green, the national flag of the Kingdom of Oman.
When the dust had finally settled, a nattily dressed man with slicked-back black hair, a full black mustache, and gold aviator sunglasses was revealed, sitting behind the wheel of the open car. He turned and grinned up at Hawke, who was looking at him through the window. He was wearing Western clothing, a white linen suit. He looked, Hawke thought, like a tango instructor.