against guarded and near impossible targets. I doubt they were drugged, they just weren't scared. For two hundred years the Assassins, the living cult of political murder, created terror from
Syria down through Lebanon and Palestine and into old Persia because they had no fear of death, and worshipped the notion of martyrdom. He goes there, to what is now a few stones on a mountainside, unrecognizable as a fortress, to gain the courage that will push him forward. Pretty damn easy to guard against a killer who's looking to keep the skin intact on his back but pretty hard, Mr. Markham, to block the killer who has no concern for his own survival and he's coming after your Juliet Seven. Maybe you don't believe me, maybe you need the Alamut case histories to crank up my credibility…'
Markham hated himself for saying it, but said it anyway.
'Don't think I'm being rude, Mr. Littelbaum, but I really do have to go.'
He was skilled at finding cover.
It was the skill that had dictated his survival in the flood plains around the Faw peninsula and the water channels between the reeds of the Haur-al-Hawizeh marshlands, and in the mountains of Afghanistan, and in the desert wilderness of the Empty Quarter, and in the forest near to the village in southern Austria. He could find cover and use it.
At the edge of a small group of trees was dense, thorned scrub. He had gone so quietly into the trees that he had not disturbed the roosting pheasants, and then crawled on his stomach into the depth of the scrub. A rat had passed within three metres of him and not seen him. If a farmer came into the field he would find no trace of him. The rain dripped rhythmically down on him from the thorn branches of the scrub. Beside him was the sausage bag. In it was what he had thought he could carry across country and still retain the speed of movement.
The cover was well chosen. He had a clear view across a hundred metres of grassland field to an open gateway, and through the gateway to the signpost at the crossroads. He waited. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but a few hours without food did not concern him: food was for sustenance, not for enjoyment. He waited.
He had seen a police car come down the road with a blue light flashing in the dawn, then an ambulance. His driver's pulse had been faint, the breathing erratic and gasping, the head wound bleeding. It had not been necessary to finish the man's life. He would not regain consciousness, would be dead by the end of the day. He had thought the man foolish, and had then corrected himself, because the man had achieved the state of martyrdom in the service of the Faith. He should not think badly of him. The ambulance had come back through the crossroads with the bell going and the light brilliant against the dark rain clouds Later he had seen a towing truck pull away the wrecked car.
There were only bruises and small scratches on his own body and he took that as a sign. His life was in God's hands. His work was God's work. God watched for him. There had been setbacks before, however thorough the planning, and he had overcome them. He would do so again.
He had waited three hours and fifty-one minutes when the car finally came.
It was a small car, old. He could not see the driver at that distance. It drove past the signpost and disappeared behind the hedgerow, then reversed back into his vision. The car stopped in the field gate. The brake- lights flashed twice.
He breathed hard. There were times in the life of Vahid Hossein when his safety, his life and his freedom rested in his own hands only, and God's. There were times, also, when he must give his trust to the intelligence officers who controlled him.
It had been written, 'Once you engage in battle it is inexcusable to display sloth or hesitation.'
He crawled from the thorn scrub.
'Take no precautions for your own life.'
He hurried through the trees and the pheasants clattered in flight above him.
'He that is destined to sleep in the grave will never again sleep at home.'
He ran along the hedgerow towards the gate. He reached the small car. He flung open the door and heaved the weight of the bag into the back. The engine was turning. He dived for the seat, slammed the door shut, and the car jerked forward. He swivelled in his seat.
He sat beside a woman.
He sat beside a woman with the skin of her face exposed, and her forearms, and the skin of her thighs above her knees and below her tight skirt.
He sat beside a woman whose body was scented with soap and lotion.
She said, 'It's what they told me to do. They told me I should give up the clothing of decency. I'm sorry to offend you.'
He stood on the pavement and looked around him. There were no concrete posts outside the building to prevent a car bomb being left under the facade. The building was glass-fronted, not heavy stone, with small, laminated windows.
He went inside and a pleasant young woman directed him to the lift. She had no guards beside her and there would not have been hidden guns within reach under her desk.
He came out of the lift and pushed through an unlocked door. There was no requirement for a personal security card.
It was what Geoff Markham wanted.
Long after the ambulance had gone, and after the recovery vehicle had towed away the wreck, the two traffic policemen worked with their cameras and tape measures. From what they'd seen it would go to the coroner's court and an inquest, and there were a hell of a number of questions to be answered a young black paying cash for the hire of a 13MW 5-series and not being able to handle it, writing it off and himself and the technical investigation looked to be the best last chance of finding the answers.
The two traffic policemen stopped work for a sandwich lunch. One, after he'd eaten, the elder one, complained of his bladder and slipped through a hedge hole.
He didn't notice the canvas sack, rammed down into the base of the hedge, until he'd finished and was shaking himself. He would not have seen it if he hadn't been standing almost on top of it. He bent and pulled it open.
The traffic policeman shouted to his colleague to come, and bloody fast, and showed him a black rubber wet suit, a pair of trainer shoes, and some squashed sales dockets, before pointing down into the bag at the hand grenades.
She drove well, confidently. She was not intimidated by the heavy lorries. His own wife, Barzin, did not drive. He admired the way she drove, but he was ashamed that each time she punched her foot on the brake or the accelerator he could not keep his eyes from the smooth whitened skin of her thighs. She would have seen him flinch and flush.
'They called me when I was asleep, told me it was urgent. I just took the first clothes that came to hand I didn't find any stockings. I suppose it's what you'd call bad he jab yes?'
There was a mullah, he had heard, who had stayed inside his house for thirty years, never gone outside his house, never dared to, for fear that he would see a woman improperly dressed, bad he jab and be corrupted… She kept in the slow lane of the wide motorway skirting London. Never in his life had he been driven by a woman. The diesel fumes of the lorries came and went, but constant in the car was the soft scent of soap and lotion.
She saw the twitch of his nostrils.
'I went out last night with some girls from work. One of them's getting married next weekend. We went out for some drinks no, I don't drink alcohol, but I can't tell them it's for my belief. I have to tell a little lie, I say I don't drink for a medical condition. They've told me to be like everyone else, and that way I can better serve my Faith and the revolution of Iran. I have to use women's soap and eau-de-toilette if I'm to be like everyone else. They tell me that God forgives little lies.'
Because of the persecution of his Faith, throughout history, her Faith, it was acceptable for the Shi'a peoples to tell the khod'eh, the half-truth, in defence of the true religion… He believed, as did his wife, so Barzin told him, that the place for a woman was in the home and rearing children. She would be in their home, cleaning it, always cleaning it because they had no children to divert her. His mother had been different: dressed in good he jab she had come out of her home to help his father on his sick visits. His wife, Barzin, only undressed in his presence if the room were darkened.
When she changed the gears, her body shook and her breasts swung loosely, and he had flushed the most when he had seen the cherrystone shape of her nipple he would have picked the fruit from a tree in the Albourz hills
