“Actually, I agree with Scott,” said Suraya, putting her long jean-clad legs up on the desk.
“If he doesn’t call, then there’s no point in my calling him because it means he has lost interest.”
“Honestly,” laughed Suraya, “this isn’t Blind Date. You’re just being insecure. He really likes you. Pierre prefers a strong woman. She should definitely call him.”
Scott Rich leaned forward, elbows on his knees, chin resting on his thumbs, and looked at Widgett with the same intense focus which had first startled Olivia in the bar in Honduras.
“So what do you think?” he said to Widgett.
Widgett scratched the back of his neck and sucked air through his teeth. “There’s an old Sudanese saying, ‘Wherever man and woman are present, the devil is the third.’ The Arab’s stereotype image of a woman is almost as an animal: highly sexed and willing to have intercourse with any man, as if that is all they think about.”
“Really?” said Scott Rich, leaning back, glancing at Olivia.
“The feeling persists even today in some quarters that a man and woman alone together will inevitably engage in sexual intercourse.”
Olivia, distractingly, found herself flashing back to the night on Bell Key: Morton C. kissing her, pressing against her, slipping his hand into her jeans. She caught his eye for a second and had the disconcerting impression that he was thinking about the same thing.
“There was a survey not long ago,” Widgett went on. “A group of Sudanese Arabs were asked, ‘If you came home and found a strange man in your house, what would you do?’ The answer came back almost unanimously: ‘Kill him.’ ”
“Christ,” said Scott Rich. “Remind me not to go out there disguised as a plumber.”
“Thus the obsession, in some Arab cultures, with chastity—the veils, the burkas, the clitoridectomies. The woman is wholly eroticized: an object to be protected if she is one of your own, and pursued and conquered if she is not.”
“Okay, so if in Feramo’s eyes Olivia is an insatiable love beast anyway, why can’t she just call?” said Scott Rich. “But, wait, how does sex outside marriage work with Islam?”
“Ah! Well! This is where it gets interesting,” said Widgett. “Particularly with Feramo and all this Bedouin romanticism—wanting to sweep her onto a horse and gallop off into the desert sunset. The Bedouin ethos predates Islam. It’s fundamental to the psyche. If you look at The Arabian Nights, you see that that way of thought, Bedouin desert-nomad mentality, overrides morality. When a hero’s sexual conquests are the results of his courage, cunning or good luck, they are viewed not as immoral, but heroic.”
“Exactly. So he needs to break down my will and overwhelm me,” said Olivia. “He’s not exactly going to feel heroic if I phone and give him my flight number.”
Scott Rich handed her the phone. “Call him.”
“Er, so the discussion we’ve just been having was meaningless?”
“Call him. Don’t say anything about flying out there, or falcons. Just tell him you’ve got back safely and thank him for the fine wines and free hotel suite.”
“Hmm,” said Widgett, looking at Scott with cold blue eyes and chewing his toast.
“He’s not going to call her,” said Scott Rich tersely. “He’s not going to ask her out to the Sudan, and we don’t need her to go out to the Sudan. It’s ridiculous. I just need to know where he is. Call him,” he said, holding out the phone.
“Of course,” said Olivia sweetly. “Do I just dial?”
“No, I’ll do it for you,” he said gruffly, turning back to the lines of screens and keyboards, giving a quick, disconcerted glance over his shoulder before going off with the tech op into some electronic zone-out, pressing and checking things and exchanging knowing looks. Scott Rich, for all his cool exterior, was a closet grungy techie. She tried to imagine him with a paunch and a big yellow T-shirt with something stupid written on it, drinking real ale with his mates.
He spun round on his chair. “You ready?”
“Sure,” she said cheerily, putting the phone to her ear. “Say when!”
Buttons were pressed. The phone started ringing. Olivia felt a rising flutter of panic.
“Hello?” she said, her voice quavering.
“Hi”—a woman’s voice—“my name is Berneen Neerkin. I’m calling from MCI Worldcom. We’d like the opportunity to introduce you to our new airtime package . . .”
Telemarketers! Olivia tried to compose her features. The infallible techno-god Scott Rich had got his wires crossed. She felt a giggle-bubble rising up as she caught a glimpse of his face. She tried to think of serious things, like death or getting a really bad haircut, but nothing worked. She started to shake and couldn’t remember what position was normal for her own face.
Scott Rich got to his feet. He looked down at her very seriously, like a schoolmaster with a recalcitrant pupil. Noticing Widgett’s shoulders shaking too, he shook his head and turned back to the computer.
“I’ll just get a glass of water,” choked Olivia, beetroot-red, and she staggered out into the corridor, where she leaned against the wall, shaking with laughter, wiping her eyes. As she made her way to the bathroom, the amusingness of the whole thing kept overcoming her. It wasn’t until she’d splashed her face with water and stayed there a few minutes that she felt she had exorcised the last of the giggle-bubbles, and even then she didn’t feel entirely safe.
As she made her way back along the corridor, she heard raised voices coming from the Tech Op Room.
“Look, we cannot shut down the whole of the state of California. We have C4, we have ricin, we have a possible commercial diving connection. Where does that take us? California is three times as big as your small, dark, benighted land.”
“Yes, all right, all right,” came Widgett’s voice.
“Where do we start? In southern California alone we have major shipping ports in the Bay Area, Ventura, Los Angeles and San Diego. We have four nuclear-power sites and hundreds of miles of wide-bore tunnel water systems, sewage systems and drainage systems under every major city. We have aqueducts, bridges, reservoirs, dams and military bases. What do you propose we do? Evacuate the state? It’s a needle in a haystack. Our only chance is to bust this Takfiri cell wide open and find out what they’re up to. Now.”
“Listen, young man, if you bust the cell, the danger is that the plan or device, whatever and wherever it is, is already in place; they’ll know they’re rumbled and they’ll detonate early. My hunch is that you won’t get anything out of them anyway because none of them is party to the whole scheme of things. The only person who might know more is Feramo, and that’s why the powers that be got him the hell out of Honduras at the first whiff of trouble. If I were you, I’d get your people on shutting down any nonessential underwater maintenance and repair projects right away, and get your chaps down there to check out employees, commercial diving schools, anything suspicious.”
“Have you any idea of the scale of that operation? All we need to do is find Feramo. If we find him, we can see into his freakin’ laptop. We don’t need Olivia.”
“Listen, Rich, if we can work out what the bastards are up to without spending thirty million dollars reducing the whole of eastern Sudan to a pile of smoldering rubble and at the cost of one girl, we should get on with it.”
No one heard Olivia slip back into the room
“Sir, she’s a civilian. This is not an ethical path.”
“She’s an agent and she’s willing to go. Sharp as a tack, that one. Going to snap her up for the Service when this is over, if . . .”
“If she’s still alive?”
Olivia gave a slight cough. Four pairs of eyes turned to stare at her. A split second later the phone rang.
“Jesus! Jesus!” Dodd the tech op started panicking, flapping around, trying to find buttons. “It’s him. It’s Feramo.”
45
Scott crouched beside her, listening through his earphones. He held her gaze, steady,
reassuring, just as he had in the underwater tunnel, then cued her to go.
“Hello?”
“Olivia?”
“Yes, it’s me,” she said. There was frantic activity as Scott Rich and the technician attempted to trace the call. She closed her eyes and swung the chair so she had her back to them. She had to relate to Feramo as she had before, or it wouldn’t work.
“Where are you?” she said, to save them the trouble. “Are you still on the island?”
“No, no. I am en route for the Sudan.”
Olivia blinked, confused. Why was he telling her this on a mobile? Surely he couldn’t be that much of an idiot. The old doubts returned. Maybe he wasn’t a terrorist at all.
“Actually I cannot talk for long because my flight is departing soon.”
“To Khartoum?”
“No, to Cairo.”
“How fantastic. Are you going to look at the pyramids?”
“There will not be time. I will simply visit some business associates and then take a plane to Port Sudan. But, Olivia, you will visit me there, as we agreed?”
The quickening of attention behind her was almost tangible.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “I’d really like to come. I talked to Sally Hawkins, and she was keen, but I really need to get some more commissions to split the—”
“But that does not matter, Olivia. You will come as my guest. I will make the arrangements.”
“No, no. You can’t do that, I told you. Oh, and thank you so much for your hospitality in Honduras.”
“Even though I had to kidnap you to force you to partake of it?”
“Well . . .”
“Olivia, my flight is about to depart. I must go, but I will call you from Cairo. You will be at this number tomorrow at around the same time?”
“Yes.”
“But wait. I will give you a number. These are the agents in Germany of my diving operation. They will organize your flights to Port Sudan and visas. You have a pen?”
Four separate writing devices shot out in front of her. She selected Professor Widgett’s ancient gold Parker.
“I must go. Good-bye, saqr.”
Scott Rich was gesturing at her to keep him talking.
“Hang on. When are you actually arriving in Sudan? I don’t want to arrive and find you not there.”
“I will be in Port Sudan the day after tomorrow. There is a flight from London on Tuesday via Cairo. You will take it?”
“I’ll look into it.” Olivia laughed. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Good-bye, saqr.”
The phone clicked off.
* * *
She turned to the rest of the group, trying not to smirk.
Scott and the technician were still pressing things. Widgett gave her a fleeting, approving and vaguely lecherous smile.
“Rich?” he roared. “Apologize.”
“Sorry,” said Scott Rich without looking up. Then he finished what he was doing, spun round on his chair and looked at her seriously.
“Sorry, Olivia.”
“Thank you,” she said. Then, feeling a rush of warmth and release from tension, she expanded. “I like people who apologize straight like that, instead of that sort of double-talking, passive-aggressive ‘I’m sorry that you felt that . . .’ fingers-crossed-behind-the-back non-apology which puts the blame on your own inaccurate understanding of the situation.”
“Right,” said Scott Rich, looking baffled. “What a saqr?”
“Falcon, you fool,” said Widgett. “Now—and this is number one spook question at all times, Olivia—is he for real? Is it for real?”
“I know,” said Olivia. “Why would he call from a mobile phone to say he’s going to the Sudan if he’s for real—I mean a real terrorist?”
“Well, I’ve always said he isn’t,” said Suraya. “He’s a playboy who dabbles in smuggling, but he’s not a terrorist.”
“Did you get any further with those photo fits?” Widgett said to Scott.
“No. Nothing. No al-Qaeda fit.”
“There is one thing that I didn’t say,” Olivia ventured hesitantly.
The cool gray eyes met hers. “Yes?”
“Yes. It’s just—You could check out his mother. I think he might have had a European mother, maybe someone vaguely connected with Hollywood. You know, a Sudanese or Egyptian father and a European mother, and I think she might have died when he was young.”
“Why do you say that, Olivia?”
“Well, he mentioned his mother, and it’s just—he reacts in an odd way to me sometimes, as though I remind him of someone. And then, when he said good-bye at Roatán, he . . .” She screwed up her face. “He shoved my finger in his mouth and sucked it, but manically, as if it was a teat and he was a piglet.”
“Oh Christ,” said Scott Rich.
“Anything else?” said Widgett.
“Well, yes. There is just one thing. He’s an alcoholic.”
“What?”
Four pairs of eyes were staring at her again.
“He’s an alcoholic. He doesn’t know he is, but he is.”
“But he’s a Muslim,” said Scott Rich.
“He’s a Takfiri,” said Olivia.
* * *
They broke for dinner. As everyone was packing up and leaving, Olivia sat slumped at the table, thinking about the phone call. Widgett sat down opposite her, his mouth slightly twisted. He had an air of permanent disgust with the world which Olivia found refreshing.
“Your integrity—that’s the fly in the ointment,” he rasped. The blue eyes were cold, like a fish. Suddenly they flashed into life. “That’s why you’re a good spy,” he said, leaning across the table, wrinkling his nose. “People trust you, which means you can betray them.”
“I don’t feel good,” she said.
“Bloody good thing too,” he said. “Never feel good. The corruption of the good by the belief in their own infallible goodness is the most bloody dangerous pitfall in the human spectrum. Once you have conquered all your sins, pride is the one which will conquer you. A man starts off deciding he is a good man because he makes good decisions. Next thing, he’s convinced that whatever decision he makes must be good because he’s a good man. Most of the wars in the world are caused by people who think they have God on their side. Always stick with people who know they are flawed and ridiculous.”
46
The clock was ticking now. Suddenly there was high-level involvement on both sides of the Atlantic, and a new air of gravity permeated the operation. Olivia had three days to prepare for her departure. She was being rushed through an intense program of training in tradecraft, weaponry, desert survival and specialist equipment.
* * *
They were in what had been the servants’ dining room, the full range of Olivia’s equipment laid out on a long refectory table. She was inspecting a travel hair dryer, which had been doctored with ampoules containing a nerve agent attached to the front of the heating element.
“What about my real hair dryer?”
Professor Widgett sighed.
“I know you’ve gone to a lot of trouble, Professor,” she said, “but the problem is, what am I going to actually dry my hair with?”
“Hmm. I see what you’re saying. Is it conceivable that you might travel with two hair dryers?”
Olivia looked doubtful. “Not really. Couldn’t you make the nerve-gas thing be curling tongs? Or maybe a perfume spray?”
There was a snort. She looked up defensively. Scott Rich was leaning against the doorframe, smirking.
“My dear Olivia,” said Widgett, ignoring Scott, “we’re trying to get the whole female thing right and so on, but this is a desert operation. Surely on such an expedition one would normally manage without a hair dryer?”
“Well, yes, but not if I’m supposed to be seducing the head of an al-Qaeda cell,” she explained patiently.
“You’re crazy,” said Scott, straightening up from his leaning pose and joining the
discussion.
“Well, it’s all right for you two to say,” she said, looking at Widgett’s bald pate and the cropped head of the smirking Scott Rich.
“Guys like women to look natural.”
“Wrong,” said Olivia. “They want women to look how they do when they’ve finished doing their hair and makeup to look natural. I really think in this situation the hair dryer is a more important tool than the nerve-agent dispenser.”
“Take your point, Olivia. We’ll look into some alternative,” said Widgett hurriedly. She had the feeling he was being soft with her because he felt guilty about sacrificing her, which was not an encouraging thought.
“Now,” said Widgett, “I’ve got the list of your usual equipment, and we’ve tried to stick to it as closely as we can.” He cleared his throat. “Cosmetics: lip gloss, lip pencil, lip balm, eye shadow, eyeliner pencil, brushes, blusher, concealer, powder: matte, powder”—he paused slightly—“ ‘illuminating shine,’ mascara: ‘radiant touch,’ eyelash curler.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Scott.
“It’s all in very small containers,” said Olivia defensively.
“Yes, though actually that’s rather a pity,” said Widgett. “We’re trying to keep your normal kit externally identical because his people undoubtedly checked it out in the Americas, but we would actually do much better with normal sizes of all these things. Anyway: perfume, body lotion, mousse, shampoo, conditioner.”
“They’ll have those in the hotel,” said Scott Rich.
“Hotel shampoos make your hair go funny. And, anyway, I’m not going to a hotel. I’m going to a bedouin tent.”
“Then use asses’ milk.”
“Mechanical items,” Widgett continued. “Survival items, short-wave radio, digital micro-camera, spyglass and the usual clothing: footwear, swimwear and—Rich, no contribution required, thank you so much—underwear.”