The Killing Ground

good to see you, Sara.” He kissed her lightly on the head.

“It is good to see you, Uncle.” She took his hand and kissed it. “I regret the passing of my aunt last year before I could have the privilege of knowing her.”

“A fault not of your making, but of your father’s, but we will say no more of that sorry affair. Come-walk with me in the garden and tell me how it is in Baghdad.”

He pushed himself up on his stick and gave her his arm and they moved along the path, stopping now and then for him to speak to gardeners. Hussein watched them go. She was a clever girl and would soon learn to handle the old man. He lit a cigarette and leaned back, looking a mile out to sea at the Sultan. It was all so beautiful and he felt a drowsiness. But not for long. There was, after all, work to be done. His satellite phone rang. It was the Broker.

“Have you arrived? Are you settled?”

“Yes, thanks be to Allah.”

“Good. Now I said, Hussein, we have need of you.”

“I know-I know. Give me some time.”

“That is what we do not have.” There was a pause. “A week, then- one week and I need you in London.”

“For a purpose?” Hussein shook his head. “Ten days.”

“All right. There is a man who handles the British Prime Minister’s personal security, General Charles Ferguson. I need to do the Russians a favor and they want him dead. Can you do it?”

“If the will is there, it is possible to kill anyone.”

“Excellent. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. If you check on the computer there, you will find everything you need to know. I’ll be in touch.”

* * * *

THE BROKER POURED a cup of green tea and leaned back in his chair. Every so often, things came together. The will of Allah actually existed. Take this present business. Ferguson and the Prime Minister, Blake Johnson and President Cazalet, Volkov and Putin. Hussein Rashid and the whole nonsense of Sara Rashid. Dillon and Salter, Flynn in Dublin, Levin, Chomsky and Popov.

There wasn’t one of them he didn’t have a hand on. It was all very satisfactory.

LONDON HAZAR Chapter 6

AT HOLLAND PARK, THEY ALL MET FOR A FINAL BRIEFING: the Rashids, Harry and Billy Salter, Ferguson and Hal Stone, Dillon, Greta, Roper, Boyd and Henderson, Lacey and Parry.

“I’ll turn you over to Roper,” Ferguson said. “He’s worked everything out.” Roper swung round his wheelchair. “If this is going to work, the greatest thing in our favor is speed. You all know about what happened in Hazar, the narrow escape with the plane and so on. Computer records indicate that a Learjet for Rashid Shipping has been booked in exactly seven days. I think it’s a reasonable assumption it’s for Hussein Rashid.”

“How can you be sure? It could have something to do with Sara,” Molly said.

“Not likely, my dear,” Ferguson told her. “They’ve gone to such trouble to get her to a place of safety. Why would they disturb things now?”

“But such thinking works in our favor,” Roper said. “She’s only just got there. Who in their right mind would imagine her spirited away so soon?”

“So why are we wasting our time talking when we should be there?” Caspar Rashid demanded.

He was restless, sweating a little.

Roper said, “Our plane leaves at five in the morning. The flight takes ten hours.”

“And you would rather I didn’t come?”

Ferguson cut in. “On the contrary. Having the girl recognize her own father in the midst of the confusion when we snatch her back has considerable merit to it.”

“And your suggestion that you could wear robes, a fold of cloth across your face, to pass as a desert Bedouin speaks for itself,” Roper put in.

“Obviously, Professor Stone has to go. After all, it’s his gig. Billy and Dillon will pose as divers to explain their presence and give credibility to him. The two pilots will pretend to attend to maintenance on the aircraft.”

“What about me?” Greta asked.

“Continue to act as minder to Dr. Molly, if you would, Greta.”

“Fine.”

Ferguson said to Rashid, “Satisfied?”

Rashid, perhaps understandably, still appeared nervous.

Roper said, “Let’s examine the situation calmly. You aren’t going to get your daughter back by presenting yourself at your uncle’s house and asking for her. Frankly, getting our hands on her is likely to be completely opportunistic: walking in a garden, walking in the street, swimming off a beach. Who knows?”

“I suppose so,” Rashid said reluctantly.

“He’s right, darling,” Molly told him.

“All I can tell you is that when it does happen, it will have to be damn quick. That’s why we’ll have the pilots hanging round the plane for a quick departure.”

“That’s about it then,” Ferguson told them. “Now our new cook has promised an early dinner, so let’s get on with it.”

Roper said, “Just one thing. Something I want to show you.” They all turned. “I hope we’re successful-I hope like hell-but the one unproven quantity is the Hammer of God himself, Hussein Rashid. Here he is.”

On a screen appeared a photo of Hussein taken from the security camera at Kuwait Airport. In this one he’d taken off his black Ray-Ban sunglasses for a moment and his bearded face was on show. He had, in a strange way, the look of a young Che Guevara.

“What’s your point?” Ferguson said.

“It’s this. The moment the Gulfstream leaves the ground at Hazar, we release to the press this portrait of Hussein Rashid, Hammer of God, known associate of Osama bin Laden. Rumor has it he could be in Britain. It’ll make it very difficult for him to follow us.”

“My God, you wonderful bastard,” Ferguson said. “How in the hell could he cope with that?” He turned to Molly Rashid. “And they may just be the end of your problem.”

The dinner bell sounded and he offered her his arm. “Shall we go in?”

* * * *

IN HAZAR the heat of the day was intense and Sara was not happy. If things had been difficult at her grandfather’s villa in Iraq, they were infinitely worse at the great house at Kafkar. To start with, her uncle had stipulated that not only Jasmine would have a bed in her room, but also two older family widows. Armed guards on the terraces made things no better.

“It’s intolerable,” she told Hussein. “I feel as if I’m being swallowed whole.”

“Let things settle down,” he urged her. “After everything that’s happened, he’s feeling a bit paranoid.”

“I’m not even allowed to eat with you. I’m consigned to the women, and most of them are old enough to be my grandmother. I can’t go for a swim in the pool unless I dress for it the way Muslim girls do. It’s like going swimming at Brighton in Edwardian times.”

“But you are a Muslim girl, and before you waste my time arguing the point, I will remind you that your uncle is very old-fashioned.”