“It was what she said about Feramo’s mother and the finger-sucking. There are no pictures of Attaf to go on, as you know, but everything else adds up. Pull her off the case. Bring her home. She’s not a professional. Where is she now? You can’t knowingly send her out to meet a psychopath.”
“A psychopath who is also a senior al-Qaeda strategist.”
Scott Rich lowered his eyelids. “You seem to view her as completely expendable.”
“My dear fellow, Ms. Joules is entirely capable of taking care of herself. We have all risked our necks in our time for the greater good. That,” said Widgett, “is the business we are in.”
* * *
Calm, don’t panic, breathe, calm don’t panic breathe. Does it really matter? Yes. Oh fuck yes. Olivia tried to keep her head together and think as the kidnappers’ car rattled through the blackness of the mazelike streets. They were Feramo’s people, that much was clear. She’d failed on the first bit of kidnap training by allowing them to get her into the car. The next thing she’d been taught was to “humanize the relationship with one’s captors.” Well, honestly, she’d thought at the time, how obvious could you get? She fumbled in her bag for the pack of Marlboros she’d been given and held them out to the young man who had bundled her into the car. “Cigarette?”
“No. No smoke. Very bad,” he said curtly.
“Quite right,” she said, nodding fervently. Idiotic. She was idiotic. They were probably devout Muslims. What next? Slug of whisky, Muhammad? Dirty video?
There was a change in the streets outside: more light, figures, a donkey, a bicycle. Suddenly they burst out of the dark streets into a brightly lit souk. There were crowds of people, sheep, strings of fairy lights, music and cafés. The car ground to a halt at the entrance to a dark alleyway. The driver turned round. She clenched her fist, the hook ring outwards, clutching the hatpin in her other hand.
“Carpet,” said the new driver. “You buy carpet? I give you good price, special for you.”
“Yes,” she whispered, slumping back against the seat, eyes closed, shaking with relief. “Very good. I buy carpet.”
* * *
It was deemed necessary, unfortunately, to buy quite a large carpet. As they roared up the approach to the airport thirty-five minutes before takeoff, the carpet protruded precariously from either side of the car boot. Olivia was so tense she was having to dig her fingernails into her palms in an attempt to stop herself yelling pointless things like, “For God’s sake, hurreeeeeeeee.”
Then there were flashing lights, sirens, police cars and barricades and a line of red taillights. It was a massive holdup. Her mouth was dry. She had escaped death but, as is the way of things, her relief had immediately been replaced by another worry: missing the plane and therefore screwing up the mission. She felt herself trying to speed up the car by physically leaning forward as they slowed to a snail’s pace. There’d been an accident, plainly. A man’s body was lying on the tarmac, a pool of dark blood flowing from his mouth, a policeman chalking an outline around it. The driver leaned out of the window and asked what had happened. “Shooting,” the driver yelled over his shoulder to Olivia. “Englishman.”
She tried not to think about it. As the car pulled up at Departures, she almost threw the agreed fare of fifty dollars at the driver, grabbed her bag, leapt out and charged into the terminal, heading for the desk. Unfortunately, the two youths started to follow her, carrying the carpet.
“I don’t want the carpet, thank you,” she called over her shoulder. “Take it back with you. You can keep the money.” She reached the Sudan Airways desk and flung her passport and ticket down. “My bag is already checked through. I just need a boarding pass.”
The youths triumphantly dropped the carpet onto the baggage scales.
“You want to check in this carpet?” said the Sudan Airways attendant. “It is too late. You will have to take this carpet as hand luggage.”
“No, I don’t want the carpet. Look,” said Olivia, turning to the youths, “you can take the carpet. No room on plane. You can keep the money.”
“You no like carpet?” The boy looked devastated.
“I love the carpet, but . . . look. All right. Thank you, very nice. Please, just go away.”
They didn’t go. She handed them each a five-dollar bill. They left.
The airline lady started typing into the computer in the way the ground staff do at airports when you’re late for a flight—rather as if writing a contemplative poem, pausing to stare at the screen searching for exactly the right word or phrase.
“Er, excuse me,” said Olivia. “It’s very important that I don’t miss the flight. I don’t actually want the carpet. I don’t need to check it in.”
“You wait here,” said the woman, who walked off and disappeared.
Olivia felt like swallowing her own fist. It was ten past nine. The departures screen for the delayed SA245 to Port Sudan said DEP 21:30. BOARDING GATE 4A. LAST CALL.
She was on the point of making a run for it and blagging her way through without a boarding pass when the woman returned wearing a sepulchral expression and accompanied by a man in a suit.
“All right, Ms. Joules?” said the man in a slight East London twang. “I’ll see you through to the flight. Is this yours?” he asked, picking up the carpet.
Olivia started to protest, then gave up and just nodded her head wearily. The man rushed Olivia and the carpet past the queues and through security, taking her into an office a little way from the gate. He closed the door behind him.
“My name’s Brown. I’m from the Embassy here. Professor Widgett wants to speak to you.”
Her heart sank. He had found out. She had fallen at the first hurdle. Brown dialed a number and handed her the phone.
“Where the hell have you been?” bellowed Widgett. “Buying carpets?”
“I’m sorry, sir. It was a dreadful mistake.”
“Never mind now. Never mind. Forget it. A man who never makes a mistake never makes anything.”
“I promise it won’t happen again.”
“All right. If it makes you feel better, a certain unpredictability of movement is no bad thing. The agent we had lined up to meet you just got himself shot.”
Oh my God. Oh my God. “Was that his body I just saw on the way into the airport? Was it my fault? Were they trying to get me?”
A dispatcher in a luminous yellow jacket put his head round the door.
“No, no, nothing to do with you,” said Widgett.
“Better ring off,” mouthed Brown. “They’re about to shut the doors.”
“Professor Widgett, the plane’s about to leave.”
“All right, jolly good. Off you go now,” said Widgett. “Don’t miss the flight after all this. Good luck and oh, er, with, er, Feramo . . . Probably best to play along with this little fantasy he has about you as long as you can.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know . . . these types that build a girl up, put her on a pedestal, are inclined to turn a bit nasty when the imaginary edifice crumbles. Just, er, keep him where you want him. Keep your wits about you. And, remember, Rich is just a shout away in the Red Sea.”
Olivia rushed onto the plane, finding the carpet thrust into her arms as the doors closed. She tried vainly to shove it into the overhead locker under the baleful stare of the stewardess. It was only as the captain turned off the FASTENSEATBELT signs and they were leaving the lights of Cairo behind, as she looked down at the vast, empty darkness of the Sahara, that she had time to digest what Widgett had said. She realized that the wiser course might have been not to get onboard the plane at all.
50 PORT SUDAN,
RED SEA COAST,
EASTERN SUDAN
Scott Rich stood on the deck of the CIA dive ship USS Ardèche waiting for the lights of Olivia’s approaching flight to appear in the night sky. The shoreline of the Sudan, dotted with the flickering red lights of fires in the desert, was a black shape against the darkn
ess of the sky. The sea was utterly calm. There was no moon, but the sky was bursting with stars.
He heard the roar of the jet engine before the lights appeared, as the plane began its descent over Port Sudan. He slipped back belowdeck and flicked switches, the control deck before him humming into life. In a few minutes’ time, the GPS would pick up the signal from Olivia’s earring. Abdul Obeid, CIA agent, holding a Hilton sign, would pick her up in Arrivals and bring her to the harbor and a waiting launch. Before the first light of dawn, she would be aboard the USS Ardèche and out of reach of Feramo.
Scott Rich’s face broke into a rare smile as a red light flashed up on the screen. He pressed a switch. “We’ve got her,” he said. “She’s at the airport.”
* * *
As Olivia followed the line of somnambulant passengers into the scruffy Customs hall, she found herself drifting into her usual African-airport, hibernating-tortoise mode. She saw the passport control guys in their brown Formica booths, drowning in bits of paper. It always baffled her how they kept track of anything without computers, but somehow they did. The one time she’d tried to enter Khartoum without the correct visa she had found herself spending twelve hours in custody in the airport. And the next time she had arrived, they somehow remembered and shoved her in the cage again. As she reached the front of the queue and handed over her papers, the man behind the desk stared at them, apparently blankly, and said, “One moment please.”
Bugger, she thought, trying to maintain a pleasantly bland expression. There was no more stupid thing you could do than lose your temper with an official in Africa. A few minutes later the man reappeared, accompanied by a stout official in khaki military uniform, the belt squeezed far too tightly around his gut.
“Come with me please, Ms. Joules,” said the stout man, flashing white teeth. “Welcome to Sudan. Our honored friends are expecting you.”
Good old MI6, she thought, as the portly officer ushered her into a private office.
A man dressed in a white djellaba and turban appeared at the door and introduced himself as Abdul Obeid. She gave him a quiet nod of complicity. It was all going to plan. This was the CIA local agent. He would take her to the Hilton, providing her on the way with a gun (which she had resolved to lose as soon as possible), and give her an up-to-date briefing incorporating any changes of plan. She would call Feramo, take a night to rest at the Hilton and prepare her kit and meet him in the morning. Abdul Obeid escorted her to a car park at the side of the office, where a smart four-wheel drive was waiting, a driver at the open door.
“You heard that Manchester won the Cup?” she said, settling into the backseat as the vehicle roared out of the car park. Abdul was supposed to reply, “Do not speak to me of that because I am a supporter of Arsenal,” but he said nothing.
She felt a slight twinge of unease. “Is it far to the hotel?” she said. It was still dark. They were passing corrugated-iron shanties. There were figures sleeping by the roadside, goats and stray dogs picking at garbage. The Hilton was close to the sea and the port, but they were heading towards the hills.
“Is this the best way to the Hilton?” she ventured.
“No,” said Abdul Obeid abruptly, turning to fix her with a terrifying stare. “And now you must be silent.”
* * *
Eighty miles east, in the Red Sea midway between Port Sudan and Mecca, the full might of the American, British and French Intelligence services and special forces was gathered on the aircraft carrier USS Condor, focused on the whereabouts of Zaccharias Attaf and Agent Olivia Joules.
In the control room of the dive ship USS Ardèche, Scott Rich was staring, expressionless, at the small red light on his screen. He pressed a button and leaned forward to the microphone.
“Ardèche to Condor, we have a problem. Agent Obeid has failed to make contact at the airport. Agent Joules is traveling at sixty miles per hour in a southwesterly direction towards the Red Sea hills. We need ground forces to intercept. Repeat: ground forces to intercept.”
* * *
Olivia calculated that they were about forty miles south of Port Sudan and somewhat inland, following the line of the hills which ran parallel to the sea. They had long ago left the road behind, and she was conscious of rough terrain, land rising sharply to their left and desert scents. She had made several attempts to extract weaponry from her bag until Abdul Obeid had caught her at it and flung the bag into the back. She had weighed up the possible benefits of trying to kill or stun the driver and decided there was little to be gained. Better let them lead her to Feramo, if that was where they were going. Scott Rich would be on her trail.
The vehicle screeched to a halt. Abdul opened the door and pulled her out roughly. The driver took her bag out of the back and threw it to the ground, followed by the carpet, which seemed to have become even more unwieldy and landed with a heavy thud.
“Abdul, why are you doing this?” she said.
“I am not Abdul.”
“Then where is Abdul?”
“In the carpet,” he said, climbing back into the car with the driver and slamming the door. “Mr. Feramo will meet you here at his convenience.”
“Wait,” said Olivia, staring horrified at the carpet. “Wait. You’re not going to leave me here with a body?”
In response, the vehicle started to reverse, executed a dramatic hand-brake turn and roared off back the way it had come. If she had had a gun, she could have shot out the tires. As it was, she gave in, sank down on her bag and watched the taillights of the four-wheel drive until they disappeared, and the roar of the engine faded into nothing. There was the cry of a hyena, then only the vast ringing silence of the desert. She found herself thinking of Widgett talking about the terrorists’ war on the West, and how it was rooted in deserts and history and real and imagined slights which couldn’t be eradicated by armies or bluster; and she felt helpless. She glanced at her watch. The local time was 3:30 A.M. Dawn would come within the hour, followed by twelve hours of unforgiving blistering African sun. She had better get busy.
* * *
As the first rays of the sun crept over the red rocks behind her, Olivia regarded her handiwork wearily. Abdul was buried under a thin covering of sand. Initially she had placed a cross of sticks at the head because that was what seemed normal on a grave; then she realized that this was a pretty major faux pas in these parts and changed it to a crescent made out of stones. She wasn’t sure if that was right either, but at least it was something.
She had carried her belongings a good distance away, trying to escape from the smell and the aura of death. Her sarong was stretched between two boulders to make some shade. The plastic sheet was spread out on the rocky earth below, and on it was a chair made out of her bag and bundled sweatshirt. The embers of a small fire were burning beside it. Olivia was tending to her water-collection point: a plastic carrier bag stretched above a hole she’d dug in the sand, pebbles weighting it in the center. She lifted it, carefully shaking down the last drops of water, and took out the survival tin from underneath. There was half an inch of cold water in the bottom. She drank it slowly, with pride. With the supplies she had in her bag she could survive here for days. Suddenly she heard hoofbeats in the distance. She scrambled to her feet and hurried to the shelter, rummaged in the bag and found her spyglass at the bottom. Looking through it, she saw two horsemen, maybe three, in colored clothing. Rashaida, not Beja.
I hope it’s Feramo, she thought to herself in denial, turning him back into a romantic hero, because that was the best shot at mental comfort she’d got. I hope he’s coming to get me. I hope it’s him.
She ran a brush through her hair and checked her equipment. Fearing separation from her kit, she had stashed as much weaponry as possibly on her person—behind the booster pads in her bra, in the lining of her hat and the pockets in her shirt and chinos. The absolute essentials were in the bra—the dagger and tranquilizer syringe acting as underwiring. The flower in the center hid another tiny circular saw and in t
he booster pad she had concealed the digital micro-camera, the blusher-ball gas diffuser, a waterproof lighter and the lip salve, which was actually a flash.
She ate one muesli bar, slipped another two into her chinos and checked the contents of her bum bag: Maglite torch, Swiss Army knife, compass. Hurriedly, she dismantled the water-collecting device, repacked her survival tin and shoved that in the bum bag too, with the carrier bag.
As the sound of hooves grew louder, she focused hard on her training—keep your spirits up by looking on the bright side; keep your mind alert and the adrenaline pumping by preparing for the worst—when she heard a single gunshot. She didn’t have time to look, or think, as she flung herself flat on the ground.
51
At a little after 9:00 A.M. the heat was still bearable. The Red Sea was glassily flat, the red rocks of the shore reflecting in the blue water. In the operations room of the USS Ardèche, the smell of frying bacon drifted over from the galley. Scott Rich sat slumped over the desk as the sibilant voice of Hackford Litvak, the head of the US military operation, oozed over the system.
“We have had no movement whatsoever within the last four hours. The possibility of finding her alive is rapidly decreasing. What is your view, Rich?”
“Affirmative. In all likelihood she is dead,” he said, without moving from his slump.
“Oh, don’t be so bloody dramatic.” Widgett’s camp bellow burst out from the desk. “Dead? It’s only nine o’clock in the morning. She’s never been an early riser. Probably fast asleep with a Beja.”
Scott Rich straightened up, a flicker of life returning to his expression. “This particular GPS is sensitive to an unprecedented degree. It picks up movements during sleep and at certain ranges can detect breathing.”
“Oh la-di-da-di-da. You sure the bloody thing isn’t broken?”