“Professor Widgett,” purred Hackford Litvak, “in November 2001, your British security services berated us for delay in reacting to intelligence that bin Laden was hiding in the southern Afghan mountains.”
“Quite right too,” said Widgett. “Bloody bunch of idiots. Our lot were ready to go in, but oh no, you had to do it. By the time you’d finished arguing about who was going to do the honors, bin Laden had buggered off.”
“Which is why, this time, we want to move in immediately.”
“What’s that English expression?” said Scott quietly on Widgett’s private channel. “Hoist with one’s own petard?”
“Oh, do shut up,” said Widgett.
“Professor Widgett?” said Hackford Litvak.
“Yes, I heard. This is a completely different scenario. We have an operative on the ground, trusted by the target with whom she has a rendezvous. She is our best chance not only of finding him, but of finding out what he’s up to. If you lot go barging in with all guns blazing, in this case I fear, quite literally, we’ll get nothing. Hold back. Give her a chance.”
“You are suggesting we give a chance to a dead operative?”
“Jesus Christ, Litvak, you sound like a machine.”
“What is your view, Rich?” said Litvak.
Scott Rich blinked. It was a long time since he had found himself incapacitated by his emotions. He leaned forward, his hand on the microphone switch and paused for a second, collecting his thoughts. “Sir, I think you should send the Navy Seals into the Suakin caves,” he said. “And get undercover operatives into the hills immediately to retrieve the GPS and”—a split-second pause—“the body.”
* * *
“Oh dear,” said Olivia, “I’ve lost my earring.”
Clutching her bare earlobe, she pulled hard on the reins to bring her stallion to a halt and looked down, appalled, at the sand.
The Rashaida behind her slowed his mount, shouting to his companion to stop. “There is problem?” he said, bringing his horse alongside hers.
“I lost my earring,” she said, pointing first to one ear, then the other, in helpful illustration.
“Oh,” said the tribesman, looking genuinely concerned. “You want I search?”
As the other Rashaida, who was riding ahead of them, pulled up his horse and started to trot back, Olivia and the first Rashaida looked back across the landscape of sand and scrub they had spent the last five hours traversing.
“I don’t think we’re going to find it,” she said.
“No,” he said. They continued to stare. “Much money, he cost?”
“Yes.” She nodded very hard then frowned. Oh dear. This was very bad. The GPS cost very, very much money. They were not going to be pleased about this. Nor were they going to be able to find her.
She thought for a moment. There was a chance she could turn on the transmitter in the short-wave radio. Her orders were not to waste the battery and to use it only when she was transmitting an important message, but surely this qualified as an important message? Her bag was on the horse of the other Rashaida. The scarier of the two, he was dressed in a red robe and black turban. He was Bad Rashaida Cop. The Good Rashaida Cop, despite his fierce appearance, was turning out to be a sweetie.
“Muhammad!” she shouted. Both men looked up. Unfortunately they were both called Muhammad. “Er, could I get into my bag?” she said, gesturing at the back of Bad Rashaida Cop’s horse. “I need to get something.”
He stared at her for a moment, flaring his nostrils. “No!” he said, turning his horse back to the path ahead. “We go.” He dug in his heels, cracked his whip and shot off, at which the other two horses whinnied excitably and shot off after him.
Olivia’s exposure to higher levels of horsemanship had, hitherto, been limited to the occasional two-minute canter during a pony trek. The insides of her thighs were so agonizingly bruised that she didn’t see how she could go on. She had tried every conceivable position: standing up, sitting down, sliding back and forth with the horse, sliding up and down with the horse, and had succeeded only in bruising herself from every possible angle so that there was no millimeter left of her legs which didn’t hurt. The Muhammads, camel-like, seemed to require neither food nor drink. She had eaten three muesli bars since dawn. Nevertheless, the whole thing still struck her as something of an adventure. When else would she get to gallop through the Sahara alone with two Rashaida, unencumbered by tour guides, jeeps from Abercrombie & Kent, overweight Germans and people trying to sell you gourds and getting you to pay them to do dances?
But then, Bad Cop Rashaida ordered them to stop. He trotted a little distance ahead and vanished behind an outcrop of rocks. When he returned, he ordered Olivia to dismount and blindfolded her with a rough, evil-smelling black cloth.
* * *
Back on the USS Ardèche, Scott Rich was directing the onshore team towards the GPS. Three separate operatives, dressed as Beja, were approaching on horseback in a pincer movement. The line from Widgett in the UK crackled into life.
“Rich?”
“What?” said Scott Rich, eyelids lowering dangerously.
“Agent Steele, Suraya?”
“Yes?”
“She’s working for Feramo.”
“The source?”
“A Deniable in Tegucigalpa. He was taken in on another count. The poor half-witted fellow tried to claim diplomatic immunity by saying he was working for us. He told them he’d planted a bag of the white stuff in Joules’s room at our behest, then alerted the local police. The consular people got their local guys on the trail and it led straight to Suraya Steele.”
“Where is she now?”
“In custody. Debriefing. She spoke to Feramo late last night, it would seem. Maybe it was all for the best, eh?” said Widgett. “They bumped Agent Joules off pretty quickly, it would seem. No time for Feramo to, you know, get—”
Scott brought his fist down on the switch, cutting Widgett off in midflow.
* * *
Olivia spent the last stretch of the journey clinging to Good Cop Muhammad on the back of his horse. Once they had left the flat sandy base of the desert floor and turned into the hills, the route had become steep and was pitted with rocks. Olivia, on her own horse but blindfolded, had become a danger to herself and everyone around her. Good Cop Muhammad was being very sweet and gentle, though, encouraging her, telling her that Meester Feramo was waiting to greet her, that all would be good and that there would be treats when she arrived.
Hours later, Olivia was to remember that even at this point, blindfolded and captive, she was idiotically oblivious to the gravity of her situation. Had she been less carried away by adventure, she might have tried to press her advantage with Good Muhammad, squeezing her arms a little more tightly around his waist, leaning in a little closer, playing on the Rashaida’s gleeful lust for high-priced goodies by offering him the gold coins from her D&G belt. But she was light-headed from the heat and the jet lag, dehydrated, becoming delirious. Her imagination was full of the welcome ahead: Feramo with a bottle of chilled Cristal and a Bedouin treat prepared for the end of her journey—perhaps a torchlit feast with dancers, fragrant rice and three separate French vintages—in tented surroundings reminiscent of the trendier Marrakech holiday haunts featured in Condé Nast Traveller.
When she felt herself pass from sun to shadow, it was with relief. When Good Cop Muhammad dismounted and helped her down, even though her legs would barely straighten or bear her weight and her inner thighs were so bruised they were going to be black, she beamed with pleasure. She heard voices, both male and female. She smelled musk and felt a woman’s hand slip into hers. The hand was guiding her forward. Olivia felt the brush of soft garments against her arm. The woman put her hand on the back of her neck, forcing her to bend it as Olivia caught her head against rock. There were hands behind her, pressing her forward. She was moving through a narrow, jagged entrance. She staggered unsteadily ahead, feeling the ground moving steeply downwards and
realizing, even through the blindfold, that she was in blackness. The air was cool and damp. It smelled stale and musty. The woman removed her hand from Olivia’s neck. As Olivia stood to her full height, the woman’s light tread retreated. It was only as Olivia heard the groan and crunch of a heavy object being moved behind her that she realized what was happening.
For once in her life, stop, breathe, think was of no use at all. Her bag was with the Muhammads. As she started to yell and grab at her blindfold, a hand caught her viciously across the face, flinging her against the rock. She was trapped underground without food or water, in the company of a madman.
52
Well, at least I’m not alone, she thought, forcing herself to look on the bright side as she lay in the dirt, struggling to get up, checking with her tongue to see if her teeth were still there. She fumbled at the blindfold.
“Leave it!”
Her heart started to beat frantically in her chest, her breath coming in short, ragged bursts. It was Feramo’s voice, and yet it didn’t sound like Feramo.
“Pierre?” she said, trying to sit up.
“Putain!” came the chilling voice again. “Salope.” He brought his hand down on her cheek again.
That did it. “Ow!” she said, pulling off her blindfold and blinking furiously in the darkness. “What on earth do you think you’re doing? What’s the matter with you? How dare you? How would you like it if I hit you?”
She pulled the hatpin out of her chinos and was almost on her feet when there was the crack of a whip and she felt the sting of leather across her arm.
“Stoppit!” she yelled and rushed at the dim figure in the darkness, sinking the hatpin into flesh, grabbing for the whip before retreating a few feet.
Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark now. Feramo was crouched before her, clad in the colored robes of the Rashaida. His face was horrible, mouth working and twisted, eyes crazy.
“Are you all right?” Her words came out, quite unexpectedly, with tenderness. Olivia always had a problem, close up, with divorcing herself from the humanity of another person. “What’s wrong? You look terrible.” She reached out gently and touched his face. She felt him grow calmer as she stroked his cheek. He reached his hand up to hers, took hold of it, moved it towards his mouth and started to suck.
“Er, Pierre,” she said, after a few moments, “I think that’s enough now. Pierre? Pierre? What do you think you’re doing?” She wrenched her finger out of his mouth and began nursing her hand.
His expression changed dangerously. He stood up, towering over her.
“Lie down, lie down flat, on your face. Your hands behind your back.”
He tied her hands with rope. There was a beeping sound. “Sit up.”
He was sweeping her with a plastic detector stick. He took the hatpin, the belt and the bum bag containing the torch and the survival tin. He grabbed the remaining earring, the one containing the cyanide pill, from her ear, then twisted the hook ring from her hand and tossed it to the ground. He took hold of her blouse and ripped it, so that the circular-saw buttons fell to the ground, rolling in all directions.
“Where is the GPS?” he said.
“What?”
“The GPS. The tracking device. What are your people using to follow you? Do not feign innocence. You have betrayed me.”
She shrank back, cowering. How did he know?
“Your mistake, Olivia,” he said, “was to believe that all beautiful women are as treacherous and disingenuous as you.”
Suraya. It had to be her. Undercover Bitch: undercover double agent.
“And now it is time for you to give us some information.”
* * *
Feramo dragged Olivia behind him for a long time through a low, narrow tunnel, shining his torch ahead. Whenever she stumbled, he jerked on the rope as if she were a donkey. She tried to detach herself from the situation and observe it. She tried to remember her training at the manor, but instead she saw Suraya instructing her sneeringly in tradecraft—the art of dead-drops, hiding film in lavatory cisterns, swapping briefcases with strangers, giving secret signals by leaving windows half open and displaying vases of flowers. She must have been really enjoying herself. Olivia turned her mind, instead, to the Rules for Living.
Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. Look on the bright side and, if that doesn’t work, look on the funny side. She thought back to telling Scott Rich she was Feramo’s falcon and imagined his amused reaction if he could see her now—Feramo’s mule or tethered goat. She still had a chance. She wasn’t dead yet. Feramo was nuts and unstable and therefore things could change. If he wanted to kill her he would have killed her in the cave. Maybe she would kill him first, she thought, as he jerked on her rope again. She had plenty of weaponry in the Wonderbra.
The next moment she hit rock head-on. Feramo cursed and jerked at the rope. The tunnel had turned a sharp corner. There was light and a change in the air. She could smell the sea! As her eyes adjusted to the new light, she saw that the tunnel was widening into a cavern. There was scuba gear neatly stacked on racks and hooks: tanks, wetsuits, BCDs.
* * *
On the USS Ardèche, Scott Rich was watching the radar, monitoring the approach of a motor launch.
“Rich?” Litvak’s pureed tones oozed over the speaker. “I had a message. What’s the problem?”
“They’ve found the GPS twenty miles west of Suakin. Plus a Rashaida acting friendly who says he’ll take them to Olivia on horseback for fifty K.”
“Fifty K?”
“She’s with Feramo. I’ve authorized it. I’m going in.”
“You need to stay on the Ardèche. You’re commanding the intelligence operation.”
“Exactly. I’m commanding the intelligence operation. We need human beings on the ground. I’m going in.”
“Knew you’d come round to my point of view eventually,” came Widgett’s voice.
“Shut up,” said Scott Rich. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
* * *
Feramo had Olivia tethered to him twenty feet underwater with no air. She was reminded of a crocodile which weighs down its prey below the surface and comes back when it’s ready to eat it. Feramo was making her breathe from his spare regulator—when he chose to let her. It was crazy, but good. It took all her mental energy to control her breath, to let it out slowly and not hold it. It slowed her into a rhythm and cleared her mind of panic. She allowed herself a moment to take in the extraordinary beauty surrounding her. Feramo was right. It was the best underwater landscape she had ever seen. The water was blue and crystalline, the visibility astonishing. Even this far down the rocks were red, and towards the open sea she saw coral pinnacles rising from the abyss. She caught Feramo watching her and smiled, making her thumb and first finger into an O to show her approval. There was a look of warmth in his eyes. He held out the spare regulator and gave her more air. He gestured to her to keep it, and they swam forward together, sharing air, following the line of the cliffs, for all the world like a couple on a honeymoon trip in the Maldives. Maybe it’ll be all right, she told herself. Maybe I can turn him round.
A massive coral pedestal rock protruded from the shore supported by a low, narrow stalk, eaten away by the current. Feramo gestured to her to descend and swim underneath the rock. It was unnerving: there were only three or four feet between the rock and the seabed. Feramo swam ahead of her, jerking the spare regulator from her grasp, and suddenly stood up on the seabed, the top of his torso apparently melting into the rock. Olivia looked up and stared, wide-eyed. Above her was a square opening and a white room, lit by electric light.
Feramo was lifting himself up into the room. Olivia felt for the bottom with her fins, straightened up and broke the surface, pulling off her mask, shaking back her hair, gasping in the air.
There was an Arab boy dressed in swimming trunks whom she recognized from the Isla Bonita. He took the diving equipment from Feramo, and handed them towels.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “What is this place?”
Feramo flashed his white teeth proudly. “The air pressure is kept at exactly the same level as the water pressure, and therefore the water will never rise above this point. It is perfectly safe.”
And easy to escape, she thought, until he led her through a solid-steel sliding door, opened by a punched-in code, and then through another and into a shower room. He left her alone to shower, telling her to change into the white djellaba she would find inside.
* * *
He was waiting for her when she emerged. His face was angry again. “And now, Olivia, it is time for me to leave you for a while. My people have some questions for you. I advise you to supply them with whatever information they need without resistance. And then you will be brought to me to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” she said. “Where am I going?”
“You betrayed my trust, saqr,” he said, refusing to meet her eye. “And therefore we must say good-bye.”
53
Olivia felt as though she’d been asleep for a long time. Initially, it was a woozy, not-unpleasant feeling, but as she regained consciousness sensation returned. The burnt spots on her hand were agonizing and there was new bruising on her back. She felt as though she had spent a night in a tumble dryer. There was a sack over her head. It smelled of farmyards and barns, incongruously comforting. Her hands were tied, but, hey, she thought, quickly remembering there was a mini circular saw behind the flower on her bra fastener. I’m going to get out of this, she told herself. I’m going to survive.
She made a few attempts to get at the bra with her teeth, realizing how ludicrous she must look, a white-robed creature with a bag on its head trying to eat its own bosom. She gave up and flopped back against the wall. There were voices not far off and the loud hum of the pressurized air supply. She strained to hear the voices. They were talking in Arabic.