‘Get up!’
Broken, accented English. Ethan staggered upright and swayed as stars of light sparkled in the darkness before his eyes.
‘This way!’
A hand shoved him and he stumbled blindly forwards, colliding with the walls of a corridor. Footfalls around him suggested two men, one in front of him and the other behind.
He was shoved into what sounded, from the echoes and timbre of the sounds from outside, like a larger room and a hand grabbed his shoulder, turned him around and shoved him down. Ethan thumped into a wooden chair. Before he could react he felt himself being tied to the chair. Something wrenched at the hood over his face and a harsh white light burst into his eyes. He blinked away from it, squinting and struggling to focus on his surroundings.
A bare room, one shuttered window facing out across the city, bright sunlight outside and blue sky. Heat, close and oppressive, the stench of old tobacco heavy in the room.
‘Welcome.’
Ethan squinted up and to his right to see a pair of dark eyes observing him. The man was young and fuelled with the arrogance of that youth, perhaps twenty — five years old, his hair thick and black, coarse stubble darkening his jaw.
‘Who are you?’ Ethan asked.
‘What does it matter?’
Ethan managed to hold the man’s gaze with a thin veneer of bravado.
‘It matters to me, I’m the one tied to a chair.’
The man leaned close to him. ‘You’re an American. You deserve to be tied to a chair.’
‘Where is the woman I was brought here with?’
The features creased into a smile poisoned with brutal delight. ‘She is safe, in a manner of speaking.’
‘I need to see her.’
The man whirled and ploughed his fist deep into Ethan’s stomach. Ethan’s eyes almost burst from their sockets as he bolted forward over the blow.
‘Who sent you here?’ his captor demanded.
Ethan sucked in a pained lungful of air, waves of nausea flushing through his guts.
‘We’re looking for somebody.’
The militant sighed and shook his head.
‘You were inside the Seavers compound, talking with the American oil man.’
Ethan shook his head, slowly gaining control of his breathing.
‘We came here looking for a man named Stanley Meyer. We think that Seavers may have abducted him.’
The militant looked across at his companion, whose face was almost completely concealed behind a thick beard.
‘That would seem highly unlikely,’ Ethan’s interrogator leaned close to him, the smell of tobacco thick on his breath. ‘Why would an American abduct an American? That’s our job.’
Ethan looked at the man and performed a swift mental calculation. Keep telling the truth. Don’t get caught in a lie or they’ll cut your throat and feed what’s left to the carrion birds.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ he said. ‘Stanley Meyer is who they’re looking for too.’
A cruel smile creased the man’s features. ‘Yes, so I keep hearing.’
He raised a hand and clicked his fingers. Instantly the bearded militant grabbed something from inside one of the nearby crates. The man reached inside and produced a series of images, handing them to his companion.
The militant held the images out one by one to Ethan, shots taken from a parked car of armed police guards beating a Saudi protester, of the water cannons hosing them down in droves, and of Ethan and Lopez fleeing the scene in the stolen truck.
‘You’re a servant of the Great Satan, are you not?’ he hissed. ‘And now you’re here, seeking to conspire with the oil men in their compounds.’
‘Where is Lopez?’ Ethan demanded.
‘Your friend, the woman?’ the militant asked. ‘Where she ends up depends very much on what you do next.’
XVII
‘Let Lopez go,’ Ethan recalled, staring at the photographs. ‘We’ve already lost track of Amber.’
‘The younger woman who was with you,’ the militant said. ‘How tragic.’
‘She’s just a child,’ Ethan said quickly, aware of the sweat soaking his skin. ‘Are you going to just let her die at the hands of people like Huck Seavers?!’
The militant’s features tightened as sheet lightning danced behind his dark eyes.
‘Die?’ he snarled with a wide grin of fury. ‘She’s been taken to Huck Seaver’s personal home in a gated compound in the city, in a limousine, no less. She will be sipping fine wine as we sit out here in the baking desert searching for scraps to feed our children.’
‘Her father is on the run,’ Ethan snapped back. ‘This is about things far bigger than you can possibly imagine!’
‘Enlighten me.’
Ethan shook his head as he closed his eyes and spoke almost mechanically as he recounted what had happened and why they had travelled to Saudi Arabia. The militant listened for a long time, watching Ethan with his dark eyes and his arms folded until, finally, Ethan finished and the militant looked at Ethan for a long moment.
The man’s jaw creased in a broad smile and he glanced at his companion.
‘So, you are the victim of a conspiracy by corporate leaders of, what was it, MJ–12? And they are here to kill you, and your friends, all because this Stanley Meyer invented a device that makes oil useless?’
Ethan nodded, and the militant looked over his shoulder at his bearded companion and smiled broadly.
‘I think he’s been watching too much Hollywood films, no?’
The bearded militant smiled as Ethan’s interrogator turned back to him and produced an elegantly carved blade that he examined as he spoke.
‘Americans,’ he uttered. ‘Your presidents demand from the world honourable leadership, the dignity of your people, justice and liberty for all, and yet they then smile and shake hands with Saudi princes who take our country’s money and spend it on luxury yachts and cars and private jets while we sweat in poverty. You rally against terrorism and yet supply Israel with arms with which to subjugate and torture Palestine. You decry injustice, yet prop up a corrupt House of Saud that is stealing our wealth from beneath our deserts and punishes, brutally, anybody who dares demand equality in this land.’
Ethan managed to drag his eyes away from the blade, looking instead at his captor.
‘I don’t make or agree with United States foreign policy.’
‘I believe you,’ the militant said. ‘But it matters little. You see, my brother was a journalist who tried to expose the rotten core of our beloved House of Saud. When he was arrested, he was tried without jury in a court and sentenced to life imprisonment and one thousand lashes. I’m told he made it to about three hundred before his heart gave out. Where was your country’s liberty and justice then? We sent images of his body to your news networks, but they wouldn’t show the pictures of his remains on your western television networks because it might offend.’ The militant suddenly grabbed Ethan’s hair, yanked it back until it hurt and pressed the blade against his throat. Ethan felt the cold steel touch his skin, felt his pulse throbbing against the blade. ‘Are you offended, right now?’
Ethan peered at the man and his voice sounded thin in his own ears.
‘I was asked to search for Meyer by the Defense Intelligence Agency.’
‘Why did they ask you?!’ the militant shouted, spittle flying into Ethan’s face. ‘Why would you care?!’
‘Why wouldn’t I?!’ Ethan snapped back. ‘Show me a country where the leaders follow the will of their people! It never happens! Half of America would like to see Israel out of Palestine and who knows what else, just the same as you! We’re people, not politicians, and killing me or any number of Americans won’t change the ways of any member of Congress or the Senate because they don’t damned well care! They’re all making too much money to give a damn about you, me or anybody else! So go ahead, kill me, blow some more innocent people into oblivion, because the only damned thing that’s for sure is that it’ll never fix any of our countries problems, idiot!’