‘We will call in soldiers to help the search,’ he replied. ‘You may not think so, but we do know what we are doing. We have dealt with threats to the Hajj before. Now that we know what he looks like, we have very good spotters, facial recognition systems… If he is in the Grand Mosque, we will find him, I promise you.’
‘Let’s hope.’ The Saudi seemed confident in his security forces, which improved the Englishman’s mood slightly — and then prompted a thought. ‘The security at the mosque — is it visible? Are the guards out in the open?’
‘At the entrances, yes. We want visitors to feel safe, and it also helps us control the crowds. There are other guards inside, though they are more discreet. And there are undercover men also, but we do not tell that to the public,’ he added with a sly smile.
‘Simeon would know about them, though,’ said Eddie, ‘because Cross would know. He was in the CIA; intel’s his business. So it’s got high security?’
‘As high as any place that is open to the public, yes.’ The security official recognised the growing concern on the other man’s face. ‘What is it, Mr Chase?’
‘Something’s wrong, but I’m not sure what…’ He slowly paced across the room, trying to collate his thoughts. ‘Even if he thinks that me and Nina are dead, Cross would still know that after what happened in Antigua, people would be looking for him — and his Witnesses. So if the security at the Grand Mosque is as good as you reckon, Simeon would be taking a big risk by going in there. He might get caught before he can release the gas, and that’d wreck Cross’s plan.’
‘So you think he might attack a different target?’
‘What else is there, though? Where else could he…’ Eddie stopped as an answer came. He tipped his head to look upwards — not at the ceiling itself, but to take in the hulking structure beyond. ‘The clock tower’s got an observation deck, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes…’
‘Open-air?’ Their eyes widened simultaneously. ‘Shit! He’s not going to release the gas from the ground — he’s going to drop it from the roof!’
‘He may be up there already,’ Rajhi said in alarm.
They hurried for the exit, as did the two hotel representatives. There were still some uniformed police officers nearby; Rajhi summoned them, and the group ran through the corridors, eventually descending into the mall at the clock tower’s base to reach the elevators serving the observation deck. There was a long line of tourists waiting; the arrival of the cops aroused consternation.
There was no sign of Simeon amongst the waiting visitors, though. ‘Give security down here his picture, just in case he hasn’t turned up yet,’ Eddie told Essa and Nadhar. The hotel manager scurried away to the ticket booth.
An elevator disgorged returning tourists, who were startled to find several armed policemen waiting for them. A quick check that none was their target, then they boarded. Nadhar gave Eddie a dubious look as the elevator set off. ‘It is not safe for civilians to come with us.’
‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing,’ the Yorkshireman replied. ‘And I’ve seen the guy in person, not just photos.’
‘He has seen you too,’ Rajhi pointed out.
‘Yeah, I know. And he’s not a fan!’
The ascent in the high-speed elevator did not take long. ‘Where will he be?’ asked Nadhar as the doors opened.
‘He’ll be on the side facing the mosque to make the attack,’ Eddie said, ‘but he might stay out of the way until it’s time. Does the deck go all the way around the clock?’ The answer was in the affirmative. ‘We’ll need to spread out.’
He made his way through a doorway into a covered gallery, to be met first by a rush of wind, then the glare of the desert sun.
But no desert. It was not until he passed through one of a line of arches and into the open air that the horizon came into view beyond the edge of the observation deck. All that stood between him and a very long drop was an ornate balustrade, a covering of netting supported by large metal hoops along the balcony’s length preventing anyone from climbing over it.
The holes in the net were easily large enough to fit a hand through, however. And as Eddie squeezed between the tourists for a closer look, he saw that it was made from a nylon mesh. The lines were thick enough to resist being torn by hand, but would offer almost no resistance to a blade. It would only take Simeon seconds to cut a larger hole through which he could throw the statue.
If he was here. He turned away from the dizzying view of Mecca to the people staring down at it. The vast majority were of Arab descent, but with other ethnicities among them — Persian, African, South East Asian, Caucasian. He focused on the black faces. None were Simeon. ‘I don’t see him here,’ he told Rajhi as he rejoined him.
‘The men are moving around the balcony,’ the Saudi replied. ‘I have told one to watch the elevators, in case he tries to escape.’
Eddie glanced up, seeing one of the colossal clock faces, a hundred and fifty feet across, looming above the balcony. Its massive hands now read 11.36. There was still time to stop Simeon before the call to prayer. ‘We should go around too,’ he said. ‘I’ll go that way.’ He pointed clockwise around the balcony. ‘You go the other, and we’ll meet on the far side.’
‘Mr Chase,’ said Rajhi as Eddie turned away.
‘Yeah?’
A faint smile. ‘Please do not cause a diplomatic incident.’
Eddie grinned. ‘Who, me?’
He set off through the crowd. Most people were jostling for the best view, though quite a few visitors had been struck by vertigo and retreated back under cover through the archways. That meant the searchers would have to check more than just the balcony; Simeon could be lurking inside. Eddie looked back for Rajhi to make the suggestion, but the security official was already lost amongst the throng.
Hoping the idea had also occurred to his guide, he continued along the walkway. The clock tower was rectangular rather than square, its northern and southern sides considerably longer than the east and west. It took him a couple of minutes to reach the first corner, surreptitiously checking every dark-skinned face he passed.
Still no sign of the American. Was he even here? Maybe he was in the Grand Mosque after all…
He went through a covered section topped by a golden minaret at the observation deck’s corner, then started along the eastern balcony. The crowd here was thinner — the view across Mecca’s hotels and residential areas was far less impressive than the mosque.
Ahead, he saw one of the cops. The man was only giving the visitors the most cursory checks, Eddie realised. ‘Slow down, you daft sod,’ he muttered. Shalit, the Mossad spymaster, had been right: for most people, identifying someone in the flesh from only a photograph was surprisingly hard — and that was assuming the subject hadn’t changed their appearance. If Simeon had disguised himself, the cop might have walked right past him…
The thought brought him to a sudden halt. What if the cop had missed Simeon? He looked more closely at every potential suspect nearby. Still no sign of him. Maybe he was just being paranoid—
An internal warning bell sounded.
A black man dressed in a colourful striped robe and matching hat was crouched near the outer wall. He appeared to be changing a camera’s battery or memory card… but it was not what he was doing, rather the way he was doing it, that caught the former SAS soldier’s attention. He had served in Afghanistan, and seen first-hand the various ways that insurgents attempted to camouflage their preparations for an ambush or placing an IED by pretending to do something innocuous. But however hard they tried, it was almost impossible for them to conceal their tension, their rising adrenalin…
The robed man had betrayed that tension. Only for an instant, a twitch of the head to check that the policeman had gone by — but that was enough to tell Eddie he had something to hide.