“Yes, great sir. All the alarms have been disengaged and the room restored exactly as it was … before that terrible morning. Also, as instructed, the item you requested has been brought up; it was in the cellars. You may be aware, sir, that the authorities tore the room apart, then sealed it for many months. We could not understand, great sir.”
“It wasn’t necessary that you did.… You will alert us if anyone seeks entrance into the building or even approaches the doors.”
“With the eyes of a hawk, great sir!”
“Try the telephone, please.” The two men reached the elevators and the taller subordinate pressed the button; a panel opened immediately. They walked inside and the door closed. “Is that man competent?” asked the shorter Arab as the machinery whirred and the elevator began its ascent.
“He does what he is told to do and what he has been told is not complicated.… Why was the Mahdi’s office sealed for so many months?”
“Because the authorities were looking for men like us, waiting for men like us.”
“They tore the room apart …?” said the subordinate hesitantly, questioningly.
“As with us, they did not know where to look.” The elevator slowed down, then stopped and the panel opened. With quickening steps the two visitors walked to the staircase that led to the Mahdi’s floor and former “temple.” They reached the office door and the shorter man stopped, his hand on the knob. “I’ve waited over a year for this moment,” he said, breathing deeply. “Now that it’s arrived, I’m trembling.”
Inside the huge, strange mosquelike room with its high domed ceiling filled with brilliantly colored mosaic tiles, the two intruders stood in silence, as if in the presence of some awesome spirit. The sparse furniture of dark burnished wood was in place like ancient statues of ferocious soldiers guarding the inner tomb of a great pharaoh; the outsized desk was symbolic of the sarcophagus of a dead revered ruler. And standing against the far right wall, in clashing contradiction, was a modern metal scaffold rising to a height of eight feet, side bars permitting access to the top. The taller Arab spoke.
“This could be Allah’s resting place—may His will be done.”
“You didn’t know the Mahdi, my innocent friend, on both counts,” replied the associate’s superior. “Try the Phrygian Midas.… Quickly now, we waste time. Move the scaffold to where I tell you, then climb above.” The subordinate walked rapidly to the raised platform and looked back at his companion. “To the left,” continued the leader. “Just beyond the second slit of the window.”
“I don’t understand you,” said the tall man, stepping on the slip clamps and climbing to the top of the scaffold.
“There are many things you don’t understand and there’s no reason why you should.… Now, count to the left, six tiles from the window seam, and then five above.”
“Yes, yes … it is a stretch for me and I am not short.”
“The Mahdi was far taller, far more impressive—but not without his faults.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No matter.… Press the four corners of the tile at the very edges, then force the palm of your hand with all your strength into the center. Now!”
The mosaic tile literally burst from its recess; it was all the tall Arab could do to hold on to it without falling. “Beloved Allah!” he exclaimed.
“Simple suction balanced by weights,” said the shorter man below without elaboration. “Now reach inside and withdraw the papers; they should all be together.” The subordinate did as he was told, pulling out layered sheets of an extensive computer printout held together by two rubber bands. “Drop them to me,” continued the leader, “and replace the tile exactly as you removed it, starting first with pressure in the center.”
The tall Arab awkwardly carried out his orders, then climbed down the scaffold’s crossbars onto the floor. He approached his superior, who had unfolded several sheets of the printout and was scanning them intensely. “This was the treasure you spoke of?” he asked softly.
“From the Persian Gulf to the western shores of the Mediterranean, there is no greater,” answered the younger man, his eyes racing across the papers. “They executed the Mahdi, but they could not destroy what he created. Retreat was necessary, retrenchment demanded—but not dismemberment. The myriad branches of the enterprise were neither crushed nor even exposed. They merely fell away and returned to the earth, ready to sprout trunks of their own one day.”
“Those odd-looking pages tell you that?” The superior nodded, still reading. “What in Allah’s name do they say?”
The shorter man looked curiously up at his taller companion. “Why not?” he said, smiling. “These are the lists of every man, every woman, every firm, company and corporation, every contact and conduit to the terrorists ever reached by the Mahdi. It will take months, perhaps several years, to put everything back together again, but it will be done. You see, they’re waiting. For ultimately the Mahdi was right: this is our world. We will surrender it to no one.”
“The word will spread, my friend!” cried the older, taller subordinate. “It will, will it not?”
“Very carefully,” replied the young leader. “We live in different times,” he added enigmatically. “Last week’s equipment is obsolete.”
“I cannot pretend to understand you.”
“Again it’s not necessary.”
“Where do you come from?” asked the bewildered subordinate. “We are told to obey you, that you know things that men like me are not privileged to know. But how, from where?”
“From thousands of miles away, preparing for years for this moment.… Leave me now. Quickly. Go downstairs and tell the guard to have the scaffold removed to the cellars, then flag the car as it circles the street. The driver will take you home; we’ll meet tomorrow. Same time, same place.”
“May Allah and the Mahdi be with you,” said the tall Arab, bowing and rushing out the door, closing it behind him.
The young man watched his companion leave, then reached under his robes and pulled out a small hand-held radio. He pressed a button and spoke. “He’ll be outside in two or three minutes. Pick him up and drive to the rocks of the south coast. Kill him, strip him, and throw the gun into the sea.”
“So ordered,” replied the limousine’s driver several streets away.
The youthful leader replaced the radio inside his robes and crossed solemnly toward the huge ebony desk. He removed his ghotra, dropping it on the floor as he walked to the thronelike chair and sat down. He opened a tall wide drawer on his lower left and lifted out the jewel-encrusted headdress of the Mahdi. He placed it on his head and spoke softly to the mosaic ceiling.
“I thank you, my Father,” said the inheritor with a doctorate in computer sciences from the University of Chicago. “To be chosen among all your sons is both an honor and a challenge. My weak white mother will never understand, but as you incessantly made clear to me, she was merely a vessel.… However, I must tell you, Father, that things are different now. Subtlety and long-range objectives are the order of the times. We will employ your methods where they are called for—killing is no problem for us—but it is a far larger part of the globe that we seek than you ever sought. We will have cells in all of Europe and the Mediterranean, and we will communicate in ways you never thought of—secretly, by satellite, interception impossible. You see, my Father, the world no longer belongs to one race or another. It belongs to the young and the strong and the brilliant, and we are they.”
The new Mahdi stopped whispering and lowered his eyes to the top of the desk. Soon what he needed would be there. The greater son of the great Mahdi would continue the march.
We must control.
Everywhere!
BOOK THREE
45
It was the thirty-second day since the wild departure from the island of Passage to China, and Emmanuel Weingrass walked slowly into the enclosed veranda in Mesa Verde; his words, however, were rushed. “Where’s the bum?” he asked.
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“Jogging in the south forty,” replied Khalehla on the couch, having her morning coffee and reading the newspaper. “Or up in the mountains by now, who knows?”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon in Jerusalem,” said Manny.
“And four o’clock in Masqat,” added Rashad. “They’re all so clever over there.”
“My daughter, the smart-mouth.”
“Sit down, child,” said Khalehla, patting the cushion beside her.
“Smarter-mouth infant,” mumbled Weingrass, walking over and removing his short cylinder of oxygen to lower himself to the couch. “The bum looks good,” continued Manny, leaning back and breathing heavily.
“You’d think he was training for the Olympics.”
“Speaking of which, you got a cigarette?”
“You’re not supposed to have one.”
“So give.”
“You’re impossible.” Khalehla reached into her bathrobe pocket, withdrew a pack of cigarettes and shook one up while reaching for a ceramic lighter on the coffee table. She lit Weingrass’s cigarette and repeated, “You are impossible.”
“And you’re my Arab Mother Superior,” said Manny, inhaling as though he were a child wallowing in a forbidden third dessert. “How are things in Oman?”
“My old friend the sultan is a little confused, but my younger friend his wife will straighten him out.… Incidentally, Ahmat sends you his best.”
“He should. He owes me for his grades at Harvard, and he never paid me for the broads I got him in Los Angeles.”
“Somehow you always get to the heart of things.… How is everyone in Jerusalem?”
“Speaking of sending regards, Ben-Ami sends you his.”
“Benny?” cried Rashad, sitting forward. “Good Lord, I haven’t thought of him in years! Does he still wear those silly designer blue jeans and strap his weapon back over his tail?”
“He probably always will and charge the Mossad double for both.”
“He’s a good guy and one of the best control agents Israel’s ever had. We worked together in Damascus; he’s small and a little cynical, but a good man to have on your side. Tough as nails, actually.”
“As your bum would say, ‘Tell me about it.’ We were closing in on the hotel in Bahrain and all he did was give me lectures over the radio.”
“He’ll join us in Masqat?”
“He’ll join you, you not-very-nice person who has shut me out.”
“Come on, Manny—”
“I know, I know. I’m a burden.”
“What do you think?”
“All right, I’m a burden, but even burdens are kept informed.”
“At least twice a day. Where’s Ben-Ami going to meet us? And how? I can’t imagine that the Mossad wants any part of this.”
“After the Iranian mess the moon’s too close, especially with CIA input and banks in Switzerland. Ben will leave a telephone number at the palace switchboard for a Miss Adrienne—my idea.… Also, someone’s coming with him.”
“Who?”
“A lunatic.”
“That helps. Does he have a name?”
“Only one I knew was code Blue.”
“Azra!”
“No, that was the other one.”
“I know, but the Israeli killed Azra the Arabic Blue. Evan told me it sickened him, two kids with such hatred.”
“With the kids it’s all sickening. Instead of baseball bats, they carry repeating rifles and grenades.… Has Payton straightened out your transportation?”
“He worked it out with us yesterday. Air Force cargo to Frankfurt and on to Cairo, where we go under cover in small craft to Kuwait and Dubai, with the last leg by helicopter. We’ll reach Oman at night, landing in the Jabal Sham, where one of Ahmat’s unmarked cars will meet us and drive us to the palace.”
“That’s really underground,” said Weingrass, nodding, impressed.
“It has to be. Evan’s got to disappear while stories are planted that he was seen in Hawaii and is supposedly holed up at an estate on Maui. Graphics is working up some photos showing him over there and they’ll hit the newspapers.”
“Mitchell’s imagination is improving.”
“There’s none better, Manny.”
“Maybe he should run the Agency.”
“No, he hates administrative work and he’s a terrible politician. If he doesn’t like someone or something, everybody knows it. He’s better off where he is.”
The sound of the front door opening and closing had an immediate effect on Weingrass. “Oy!” he cried, shoving his cigarette into the startled Khalehla’s mouth and blowing away the smoke above him, waving his hands to move the incriminating evidence toward Rashad. “Naughty shiksa!” he whispered. “Smoking in my presence!”
“Impossible,” said Khalehla softly, removing the cigarette and crushing it in an ashtray as Kendrick walked through the living room and onto the porch.
“She’d never smoke that close to you,” admonished Evan, dressed in a blue sweat suit, perspiration rolling down his face.
“Now you’ve got the ears of a Doberman?”
“And you’ve got the brains of a hooked snapper.”
“Very smart fish.”
“Sorry,” said Rashad calmly. “He can be terribly demanding.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What did I just say?” shouted Weingrass. “He says that all the time. It’s the sign of a highly developed, misplaced superiority complex and very irritating to really superior intellects.… Have a good workout, dummy?”
Kendrick smiled and walked to the bar, where there was a pitcher of orange juice. “I’m up to thirty minutes, heavy pace,” he answered, pouring himself a glass of juice.
“That’s very nice if you’re a cowboy’s quarter horse on a roundup.”
“He says things like that all the time,” protested Kendrick. “It’s aggravating.”
“Tell me about it,” Khalehla replied, drinking her coffee.
“Any calls?” asked Evan.
“It’s barely past seven, darling.”
“Not in Zurich. It’s past one in the afternoon over there. I was talking to them before I went out.”
“Talking to whom?” asked Rashad.
“Mainly to the director of the Gemeinschaft Bank. Mitch scared his bladder dry with the information we have and he’s trying to cooperate.… Wait a minute. Did anyone check the telex in the study?”
“No, but I heard the damn thing clacking away about twenty minutes ago,” said Weingrass.
Kendrick put down his glass and walked rapidly out of the porch and across the living room to a door beyond the stone hallway. Khalehla and Manny watched him, then looked at each and shrugged. Within moments the Congressman returned, gripping a telex sheet in his hand, his expression conveying his excitement. “They did it!” he exclaimed.
“Who did what?” asked Weingrass.
“The bank. You remember the fifty-million line of credit Grinell and his consortium of thieves in California set up for my buy-out?”
“My God,” exclaimed Khalehla. “They couldn’t have left it standing!”
“Of course not. It was canceled the moment Grinell got off the island.”
“So?” said Manny.
“In this age of complicated telecommunications, computer errors crop up now and then and a beaut was just made. There’s no record of the cancellation having been received. The credit’s on; only, it’s been transferred to a sister bank in Bern with a new, coded account number. It’s all there.”
“They’ll never pay!” Weingrass was emphatic.
“It’ll be charged against their reserves, which are ten times fifty million.”
“They’ll fight it, Evan,” insisted Khalehla, as emphatic as the old man.
“And parade themselves in the Swiss courts? Somehow I doubt it.”
The Cobra helicopter without markings stuttered across the desert at an altitude of less than five hundred feet. Evan and
Khalehla, exhausted from nearly twenty-six hours in the air and racing to covert connections on the ground, sat next to each other, Rashad’s head on Kendrick’s shoulder, his own slumped down into his chest; both were asleep. A man in belted khaki coveralls with no insignia walked out of the flight deck and down the fuselage. He shook Evan’s arm in the dim light.
“We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, sir.”
“Oh?” Kendrick snapped up his head, blinking his eyes and opening them wide to rid them of sleep. “Thanks. I’ll wake my friend here; they always do things before arriving anywhere, don’t they?”
“Not this ‘they,’ ” said Khalehla out loud without moving. “I sleep to the very last minute.”
“Well, forgive me, but I don’t. I can’t. Necessity calls.”
“Men,” remarked the agent from Cairo, removing her head from his shoulder and shifting to the other side of the seat and into the bulkhead. “No control,” she added, her eyes still closed.
“We’ll keep you posted,” said the Air Force flight officer, laughing quietly and returning to the deck.
Sixteen minutes passed and the pilot spoke over the intercom. “Flare spotted directly ahead. Buckle up for touchdown, please.” The helicopter decelerated and hovered over the ground, where the headlights of two automobiles facing each other had replaced the flare. Slowly, the chopper was lowered into its threshold. “Depart the aircraft as quickly as possible, please,” continued the pilot. “We have to get out of here fast, if you catch my drift.”
No sooner had they stepped down the metal ladder to the ground than the Cobra, its rotors thundering, rose in the night sky; it turned, stuttering in the desert moonlight, kicking up what sand there was, and headed north, accelerating rapidly, the noise receding in the darkness above. Walking into the beams of a car’s headlights was the young sultan of Oman. He was in slacks, an open white shirt replacing the New England Patriots jersey he had worn that first night he had met with Evan in the desert sixteen months ago.
“Let me talk first, okay?” he said as Kendrick and Rashad approached.