As the waiter appeared from the butler’s closet with another round, Douglas seemed somewhat less gung-ho than he had in the presence of Sir Dennis. “These trips don’t always work, of course. There was another Travellers Club member, fellow named Tomkison, went to Socotra, island off the Yemen, to do research for a treatise on the strange accent and ancient version of Arabic he was told was spoken on that lovely isle.”
“What happened?” MacIntyre asked. “They behead him?”
“No.” Douglas smiled, tasting the Scotch. “None of them said anything — not one single word — till he left.”
“Something tells me you will do better than Tom-whatever,” MacIntyre said, toasting his new acquaintance’s prospective travel.
“It will be a quick trip. Has to be. Can’t give them time to recall my face from dusty bins. And the source will either talk or not. Either be alive or not. No need to wait around a week to find out,” Douglas said, more to himself than to MacIntyre. “I’m coming back through Dubai, allegedly to change planes for Durban. Could we meet there to compare notes on the tenth at eight, in the old city? It’s a very small curry place,” Douglas said, passing a small card across the table. “I will have to prepare a report for Sir Dennis and Sol on what I found and what you were able to pick up.”
“Of course I’ll be there. I go to Kuwait first, but by then I will just have wrapped up in Bahrain and need to stop in the Emirates anyway,” MacIntyre said, and then he paused, picking up on what had just been said. “You report directly to Sir Dennis? You’re an SIS station chief; he’s Cabinet Office. And you say your report isn’t just going to be for Sir Dennis but for my boss as well? What gives?”
Brian Douglas rose and emptied his glass. “Well, SIS has its wiring diagrams and Sir Dennis has his. As you might suspect from looking around this place, there are old-boy networks. Dennis and Sol are two of a loose club of intellocrats. Despite his bitching, Sir Dennis has just eagerly gone off to meet one of the better members of that club at the Australian ambassador’s house. He’s supposed to get a report on planned Chinese naval activities in the Indian Ocean, a gem that Canberra collected from a source so good that they are unwilling to risk it by sharing the information with London. But tonight they’ll give it to Dennis,” Brian said, replacing the empty glass on the tray. “Shall we go down for dinner? There’s a lot I want to go over with you.”
Looking up at a bust of the Greek god Hermes, Russell MacIntyre was feeling the way he had the first night he’d applied for membership at the Magic Castle. He had thought he knew something about prestidigitation, until he had seen the members there perform for one another. And here…He shook his head.
As MacIntyre and Douglas left the library, the false bookcase slid back into place. The Balvenie and the empty glasses had disappeared.
6
“Dr. Ahmed bin Rashid,” the Bahraini border police officer said, reading Ahmed’s new Islamyah passport at the entrance to the causeway leading from Bahrain. Ahmed remembered when there had hardly been any formalities at the causeway at all. The revolution that had thrown out the al Sauds had changed all of that. “How long will you be gone, Doctor, and what is the purpose of your trip?” the border guard asked in Arabic while eyeing the dashboard computer screen on the new BMW.
“Back tomorrow. Family emergency, Officer,” Ahmed replied courteously. The officer scanned the passport into a computer. Ahmed noticed in his rearview mirror that a television camera was pivoting to image the rear license plate of the BMW. Another camera was looking at him through the windshield. The officer waited a moment. The computer in the gatehouse booth beeped, and the officer then pressed a button on a handheld device. The V barrier, a metal plate that had been raised in front of the car, dropped, a green light flashed on, and Ahmed was on his way for the 16-mile drive across the causeway.
Border control at the Islamyah checkpoint was much swifter. Here he flashed the special green-and-gold passport that his brother had given him and was waved through. After arriving back on dry land, he turned east and drove fifteen minutes to the al Khobar Corniche and the Golden Tulip, the hotel next to the Aramco building.
Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, now totally owned by the Islamyah government, had not changed its name. Everything else, he noticed, seemed to have new designations. The signs saying King Fahd Causeway, King Khalid Street, Prince Turki Street, had all been removed or painted over. He could see the new pattern. They were being named after the early caliphs, who had succeeded one another as leader of the Umma after the death of the Prophet. It was now the Abu Bakr Khalifa Causeway, Umar I Street, Muawiyah Abu Sufyan Street, and Yazid I Street. There would be no roads named after the early Shi’a caliphs, like al Hasan and al Husayn, he thought, even though the local residents here in the Eastern Province were overwhelmingly Shiites.
The encrypted e-mail from his brother had said that he would be at Aramco most of the day, reviewing security for the massive oil infrastructure, but would join him at the Golden Tulip for an early dinner. At six o’clock, one of Abdullah’s bodyguards came to Ahmed’s room to escort him to a private patio off the pool barbecue area.
As the waiters were setting a small mezza for two, Abdullah strode in. “My heroic doctor,” he said, grabbing his younger brother. Ahmed lightly kissed each of his brother’s cheeks in a sign of friendship and respect. Four of Abdullah’s bodyguards moved into positions around the patio, their backs to Abdullah, looking out.
“Even the troublesome ones on the Shura Council agreed that I should congratulate you for your hand in uncovering the Persian plot to blow up the American base. We would certainly have been blamed. Now even the White House spokesman admits that those on board were Iraqis.” Abdullah scooped up some baba ghanouj. “So which Iraqis were these, do you know yet?”
“What I think and what I can prove are two different things,” Ahmed began. “The instinct in me says they were from the martyr brigade that the Iranian Rev Guards have been training, but we do not yet have the proof. The Iranians involved left Bahrain on several small boats and left no trace that they had ever been there. Abdullah, these Iranian Qods Force people are very good at what they do.”
“Yes, yes, they are. And for now it is in our interest to make sure they do not succeed. We must keep the King on the throne in Bahrain,” Abdullah confided. “Yes, yes, I know he is from a royal house, but he has been fighting corruption, bringing the people into the decision making. If he were thrown off the throne, what would replace him, Ahmed? Just another Iranian puppet government like Baghdad, no friends of ours,” the Islamyah security chief said, jabbing the table with his index finger. “We voted this morning to resume secret funds transfers to the Bahraini government, for social projects and jobs in the poorest Shi’a communities.”
The sun had set and a slight cool breeze blew in from the north. Two waiters lit heating lamps and then withdrew to leave the sheik alone with his guest. “Then the Shura is better behaved than last we talked?” Ahmed asked.
“Seldom.” The waiters now brought the entrée of grilled hammour, grouper fish. Abdullah slowly cut the fillet with a fork. “There is a strong faction, led by Zubair bin Tayer, who want strict enforcement of Sharia rules, and to keep all women in their homes, you know the list, and then,” Abdullah said, throwing his fork on the table, “then they also want us to export the revolution, bring Wahhabism to all Islam, grow strong enough to confront the infidels. These are the ones who pushed to complete the Chinese missile project. Now they say we should have nuclears for the missiles. From China, Korea, or Pakistan, or build our own.”