‘I don’t know how you feel about it, but back at the Colonial we normally have some sort of wager on a game,’ he said with a smile that was both friendly and challenging at the same time.
Al-Zayani nodded. ‘Yes, you Americans like to gamble, don’t you?’ he said chidingly. ‘Of course, gambling is ithm al-kabir, Mr. Chadwick, what we regard in Islam as a very great sin.’
Damn. Cole had hoped that al-Zayani was so westernized that he wouldn’t mind engaging in a sporting wager. Back to the drawing board, it would seem. ‘I’m very sorry Mr. al-Zayani,’ he said, shielding his eyes from the intense glare of the sun, ‘I didn’t mean any offence.’
Al-Zayani smiled. ‘No need to be sorry,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I don’t really perceive sporting wagers as gambling, you see. For the Holy Qur’an forbids only games of chance.’ The meaning was clear, and the twinkling of the eyes turned to challenge. Al-Zayani felt there was no chance involved when he played golf, it seemed; only reliance on his own skill.
Cole nodded his head. ‘Excellent,’ he said in reply, breathing a mental sigh of relief. ‘But let’s keep it low key, shall we? Whoever loses can take the winner out to dinner tonight at a place of the winner’s choice.’
Cole had scouted out possible locations for an abduction of al-Zayani, and had highlighted the nearby yacht club as the best place to get him; under cover of darkness, he could have al-Zayani out of the restaurant and into the privacy of one of the private yachts before anyone had any idea that they had gone. And then Cole could bypass al-Zayani’s computers and go straight for a good old tactical interrogation with the man himself. He would make him talk, and find out what he knew.
But for the plan to have any chance of coming off, he had to have control over their location that evening. He just hoped he was a good enough golfer to guarantee it.
‘An excellent idea,’ al-Zayani agreed. ‘I am sure you will like the place I am going to choose.’
Despite himself, Cole found that he was starting to like the self-confidence of this bespectacled little man, and allowed himself to laugh of al-Zayani’s teasing.
‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?’ he said as he signaled for the caddy, who withdrew a driver and handed it over to Cole. ‘I’ve already researched the most expensive restaurants in the area, and I’ve got a little place in mind which I think I’m really going to like.’
Al-Zayani laughed out loud. ‘Perhaps it will be so, eh?’ he said in reply, even as he called for his own driver, placed his ball on its tee and settled into position.
Cole watched carefully as the man’s shoulders relaxed, he took the club back and, initiating the drive with his hips, smoothly completed the most perfect swing Cole had ever seen.
Al-Zayani didn’t even watch the ball as it flew over three hundred yards straight onto the green; instead, he turned to Cole and smiled. ‘But perhaps not,’ he said with a knowing look, and Cole was forced to admit that the man might well be right.
The two men chatted as they played; sometimes about Texas, sometimes about Dhahran, but mostly about the upcoming business deal between Texas Mainline and Saudi National. The man’s knowledge was vast, and — although Cole had done his best to get to grips with the mechanics of the deal, and the requisite terminology and insider information of both the finance and oil industries — he felt like a minnow going up against a shark.
But Cole said what he could with confidence and bluster, the kind that al-Zayani would probably expect from an American, and hoped that he was getting away with it.
What was more troubling was the fact that al-Zayani was very good at golf. By the ninth hole, the man had opened up a twelve point advantage over Cole, and was beginning to gloat.
‘I might even give lunch a miss today,’ al-Zayani announced as Cole teed up. ‘Save myself for the big dinner you’ll be buying me tonight, eh?’
The remark was amusing, and yet Cole tensed, unhappy to be losing and unhappier still that his plans for the evening might be ruined. No. He had to beat al-Zayani; but how would he do it? Cheating immediately came to mind, but the problems that would occur if he was caught ruled it out just as quickly.
He had played the game regularly in Grand Cayman, and had even travelled to the Bahamas and Miami to try the courses there. He was good, but al-Zayani was excellent. As Cole waited at the tee, staring off at the green in the distance, he thought about the problem.
It was in his mind, he decided. It was all in his mind.
When he fired a pistol, a rifle, a bow and arrow; when he threw a knife, when he targeted the tiny pressure points of a man’s body; when he did anything he was used to, anything in which he was totally confident, his mind was completely at peace. There was a Zen-like state that he accessed, where everything came together with no conscious thought at all. The Japanese knew it as mushin — the concept of ‘no mind’ that was so important to the exponents of its martial arts.
He was thinking too much, that was the problem; thinking about his grip, his technique, where the ball was, where it was going to end up.
He had to clear his mind, think about nothing at all, just experience the sensations as they occurred. He would be a passenger as the rest of the game was played, allowing his body to do the work with no conscious input whatsoever.
Ignoring al-Zayani, he observed himself as he put the ball on the tee, took up his position and unleashed his swing, the contact perfect; and continued to passively observe as the ball sailed over four hundred yards through the clear blue sky until it finally came to a rest right near the tenth hole.
He turned back to al-Zayani and smiled. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, echoing al-Zayani’s earlier words. ‘Perhaps not.’
Cole found himself impressed with al-Zayani’s own competitive spirit as the morning turned to afternoon, the searing midday sun clearing the course of most other players, until only Cole and al-Zayani remained. Each refused to show any sign of weakness, and al-Zayani was forced to conceal his anger as Cole narrowed the gap to one single point by the final hole.
They stood there at the tee of the eighteenth hole, sweat pouring from their faces as they regarded each other through eyes half-closed in the glare of the sun.
And then al-Zayani pushed forward to take his shot first, brushing past Cole and placing his ball on the tee. Cole waited anxiously for al-Zayani’s final drive, which came only moments later; perfect technique and a beautiful contact launching the ball in a wide arc over the fairway until it landed just off the green.
Cole sighed. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still good enough to win if Cole didn’t match it. He’d been playing his best game ever since the tenth hole, but now the pressure was back on and he found himself allowing his doubts to once again enter his mind and threaten to drag him back down.
He approached the tee and placed his ball there, concentrating on his breathing instead of the shot itself. He drew the warm air gently through his nose as he counted to four, held his breath for another four-count, and then exhaled through barely open lips for the same time; repeating this simple routine over and over, his mind gradually calmed until he no longer saw the ball or the club. Instead, he could just feel the sensations in his own body as it moved in perfect coordination.
The swing stopped in mid-air as Cole sensed something behind him, an imperceptible movement of al-Zayani’s head; and an instant later it was followed by al-Zayani’s golf bag falling with a clatter off his caddy’s shoulder to the grassy bank below, clubs scattering everywhere.