'Hurry up!' she called to the pilot, who was talking to a mechanic by the starboard wing. 'Let's go!'
The pilot nodded, briefly throwing his arms up in despair, and the two of them headed towards the exit reserved for flight personnel. Ahmat, the youthful sultan of Oman, had pushed all the buttons at his considerable command. The three passengers on the jet were to be led to a stretch of the airport's lower-level concourse far behind the main terminal's taxi line where temporary taxi signs had been mounted on the pavement, each cab driven by a member of the Bahrainian secret police. None had been given any information, only a single order: Report the destination of each passenger.
Khalehla and the pilot said their brief goodbyes and both went their separate ways, he to the Flight Control Centre for his return-to-Masqat instructions, she to the designated area of the concourse where she would pick up the American and follow him. It would call for all the skill she had to stay out of sight while she followed Kendrick and MacDonald. Tony would spot her in an instant, and the obviously alert American might look twice and remember a dark, filthy street in the el Shari el Mish kwayis and a woman who held a gun in her hand. The fact that it had not been pointed at him but, instead, at four people in that street of garbage who had tried to rob her or worse, would not be readily believed by a man living on the edge of very real peril. Purpose and paranoia converged in the infinite reaches of a mind under severe stress. He was armed, and one exploding image could trigger a violent response. Khalehla did not fear for her life; eight years of training, including four years in the violent Middle East, had taught her to anticipate, to kill before she was killed. What saddened her was not only that this decent man should have to die for what he was doing but it was entirely possible that she could be his executioner. It was growing more possible by the minute.
She reached the area before the passengers from the Oman jet. The traffic on the Arrivals level was horrendous: cars with tinted windows; taxis; ordinary, nondescript vehicles; pickup trucks of all descriptions. The noise and the fumes were overpowering, the cacophony deafening under the low concrete ceiling. Khalehla found a shadowed enclave between two cargo bins and waited.
The first to emerge was the terrorist called Azra, accompanied by a uniformed official. The latter flagged a taxi, which sped up to the coarsely-dressed young man at the curb. He stepped inside and read from a piece of paper in his hand, giving the driver instructions.
Several minutes later the strange American and the unbelievable Anthony MacDonald walked out on the pavement.
Something was wrong! thought Khalehla instantly, without really thinking, merely observing. Tony was behaving like his once and former Cairo self! There was agitation in every movement of his huge body, wasted energy craving attention, his eyes bulging, his constantly changing facial expressions those of a drunk pleading for respect—all in counterpoint to the superb control necessary to a deep cover operator with a network of informers in a world-class volatile situation. It was all wrong!
And then it happened! As the taxi sped up to the curb, MacDonald suddenly rammed his enormous torso against the American, sending him out into the covered street in front of the rushing cab. Kendrick bounced off the bonnet, his body flung in mid-air into the racing traffic of the tunnel-like concourse. Brakes screeched, whistles blew, and the congressman from the ninth district of Colorado was impaled, curved around the shattered windscreen of a small Japanese car. Good God, he's dead! thought Khalehla, running out on the pavement. And then he moved—both arms moved as the American tried to push himself up, collapsing as he did so.
Khalehla raced to the car, surging through a knot of police and Bahrain's secret police who had converged on the scene, rupturing one immovable man's spleen with a vicious, accurate fist. She threw her body over the spastically moving Kendrick while removing the gun from her flight jacket. She spoke to the nearest uniformed man, the weapon angled at his head.
'My name is Khalehla and that's all you have to know. This man is my property and he goes with me. Pass the word and get us out of here or I'll kill you.'
The figure raced into the sterile room so agitated that he slammed the door behind him, nearly tripping in the darkness on his way to his equipment. Hands trembling, he brought his appliance to life.
Ultra Maximum Secure
No Existing Intercepts
Proceed
Something's happened! Breakthrough or breakdown, the hunter or the hunted. The last report speaks of Bahrain but without specifics, only that the subject was in a state of extreme anxiety demanding to be flown there immediately. Of course that assumes he either escaped from the embassy, was taken out by subterfuge or never went inside at all. But why Bahrain? Everything is too incomplete, as if the subject's shadow was obscuring events for his own reasons—a not unlikely possibility considering everything that's happened during the past few years and the subpoena powers of Congress and various special prosecutors.
What has happened? What's happening now? My appliances scream for information but I can't give them anything! To factor in a name without specific reference only spews forth encyclopaedic historical data long since inserted—and updated—by photoscan. Sometimes I think my own talents defeat me, for I see beyond factors and equations and find visions.
Yet he is the man! My appliances tell me that and I trust them.
The Icarus Agenda
Chapter 13
Evan struggled against the constricting tape around his left shoulder and then was aware of a stinging sensation that extended throughout his upper chest accompanied by the sharp smell of rubbing alcohol. He opened his eyes, startled to find that he was sitting up in a bed, pillows supporting his back. He was in a woman's bedroom. A dressing table with a low, gold-rimmed chair against the wall stood on his left. A profusion of lotions and perfumes were in small ornate bottles in front of a large three-sided mirror bordered with tiny bulbs. Tall windows flanked the table, the cascading peach-coloured curtains made of a translucent material that virtually shouted—as did the rest of the rococo furniture—a hefty decorator's fee. A satin chaise-lounge was in front of the far window, beside it a small telephone table-cum-magazine rack with a top of rose marble. The wall directly in front of the bed, some twenty feet away, consisted of a long row of mirrored cupboards. On his right, beyond the bedside table, was an ivory-coloured writing desk with another gold-rimmed chair—and then the longest single bureau he had ever seen; it was lacquered peach—peche, as Manny Weingrass would insist upon—and extended the entire length of the wall. The floor was covered with soft thick white carpeting, the pile of which appeared capable of massaging the bare feet of anyone walking across it if he dared. The only item lacking was a mirror over the bed.
The sculptured door was closed, yet he could hear voices beyond it, a man's and a woman's. He turned his wrist to look at his watch; it was gone. Where was he? How did he get here? Oh, Christ! The airport concourse… He was slammed into a car—two rushing cars—and a crowd had gathered around him until, limping, he was led away. Azra! Azra was waiting for him at the Aradous Hotel!… And MacDonald! Gone! Oh, my God, everything's blown apart! Close to panic, only vaguely aware of the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows, he threw off the sheet and climbed out of bed, unsteady, wincing, gritting his teeth with each move he made, but he could move and that was all that mattered. He was also naked and suddenly the door opened.