book.”
Gavallan studied her. “Well, Italian girls generally have something extra special about them, but that young lady… she’s not a stunner like Sharazad, and doesn’t have Azadeh’s exotic mystery, but I agree, Paula’s something else.”
Along with everyone else, they watched her walk through the tables, lust following, envy following, until she had vanished into the vast hotel lobby. They were all having dinner later, Paula, Genny, Manuela, Scragger, Gavallan, Sandor Petrofi, and John Hogg. Paula’s Alitalia jumbo was again at Dubai, a few miles down the highway, waiting for clearance to go to Tehran for another load of Italian nationals, and Genny McIver had met her by chance shopping.
Scragger sighed. “Andy, old chap, I’d certainly like to give her one, no doubt about it!”
“Wouldn’t do you a bit of good, Scrag.” Gavallan chuckled and ordered another whisky and soda from a crisply dressed, smiling Pakistani waiter who came instantly, some of the other guests already elegantly and expensively dressed for a lovely evening, latest Paris fashions, much decolletage, starched white dinner jackets - along with the expensive casual. Gavallan wore well-cut tan tropicals, Scragger regulation uniform, short-sleeved white shirt with epaulets and bars, black trousers and shoes. “Beer, Scrag?” “No, thanks, mate. I’ll nurse this and get ready for Pulsating Paula.” “Dreamer!” Gavallan turned back to the sunset, feeling better, put back together by his old friend. The sun was almost under the horizon, never more beautiful, reminding him of sunsets in China in the old days, sweeping him back to Hong Kong and Kathy and Ian, laughter in the Great House on the Peak, all the family fine and strong, their own house on a promontory at Shek-o - when they were young and together, Melinda and Scot still children, amahs padding about, sampans and junks and ships of all sizes far below in the sunset on a safe sea.
The tip of the sun went under the sea. With great solemnity, Gavallan quietly clapped his hands.
“Wot’s that for, Andy?”
“Urn? Oh, sorry, Scrag. In the old days we used to applaud the sun, Kathy and I, the very second after it disappeared. To thank the sun for being there and for the unique performance and for being alive to be able to enjoy it - the last time ever you’d see that particular sunset. Like tonight. You’ll never see that one again.” Gavallan sipped his whisky, watching the afterglow. “The first person who introduced me to the idea was a wonderful fellow, we became good friends - still are. Great man, his wife’s crackerjack, too. I’ll tell you about them sometime.” He turned his back to the west and leaned forward and said softly, “Lengeh. You think it’s possible?”
“Oh, yes - if it was just us at Lengeh. We’d still have to plan very careful, Kish radar’s more itchy than ever, but we could slip under her on the right day. Big problem’s that our Iranian ground crew and staff, along with our presently friendly but zealous komiteh and our new unfriendly IranOil joker, would know within minutes we’d done a bunk, they’d have to with all birds up and away. At once they’d holler to IATC and they’d radio an all-points alert to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, here - in fact from Oman through Saudi and Kuwait up to Baghdad - telling them to impound us on arrival. Even if we all got here… well, the old sheik’s a great guy, liberal and a friend, but hell, he couldn’t go against Iran ATC when they were right - even if they were wrong. He couldn’t pick a fight with Iran, he’s got a good percentage of Shi’as among his Sunnis, not as bad as some on the Gulf, worse’n others.”
Gavallan got up and walked to the edge of the terrace and looked down at the old city - once a great pearling port, pirate stronghold, and slave market, trading center and, like Sohar in Oman, called the Port of China. Since ancient times the Gulf was the golden sea link between the Mediterranean - then center of the world - and Asia. Seafaring Phoenician traders, who came from Oman originally, dominated this incredibly wealthy trade route, landing the goods of Asia and India at Shatt-al-Arab, thence by short caravan routes to their markets, eventually to carve their own seaborne Mediterranean empire, founding city-states like Carthage to threaten even Rome herself. The old walled city was beautiful in the dying light, flat roofs, unspoiled and protected from modem buildings, the sheik’s fort dominating it. Over the years Gavallan had come to know the old sheik and to admire him. The sheikdom was surrounded by the Emirates but was an independent, sovereign enclave barely twenty miles deep with seven miles of coastline. But inland and out to sea for a hundred miles up to Iranian waters, within easy drilling, was a pool of oil many billion barrels thick. So Al Shargaz had the old city and a separate new city with a dozen modern hotels and skyscrapers, and an airport that could just handle a jumbo. In riches nothing to compare with the Emirates, or Saudi, or Kuwait but enough for abundance in everything, if chosen wisely. The sheik was as wise as his Phoenician ancestors were worldly-wise, as fiercely independent, and though he himself could not read or write, his sons were graduates from the best universities on earth. He and his family and his tribe owned everything, his word was law, he was Sunni, not a fundamentalist, and tolerant with his foreign subjects and guests, provided they behaved.
“He also detests Khomeini and all fundamentalists, Scrag.” “Yes. But he still daren’t pick a fight with Khomeini - that won’t help us.” “It won’t hurt us.” Gavallan felt cleansed by the sunset. “I plan to hire a couple of jumbo freighters, get them here, and when our choppers arrive we strip rotors, stuff their bellies full, and blast off. Speed’s the key - and planning.”
Scragger whistled. “You really mean to do it?”
“I really mean to see if we can do it, Scrag, and what the odds are. This’s the big one, if we lose all our Iranian choppers, equipment, and spares, we close. No insurance covers us and we’re still liable to pay what we owe. You’re a partner, you can see the figures tonight. I brought them for you - and for Mac.”
Scragger thought about his stake in the company, all the stake he had, and about Nell and his kids and their kids back in Sydney, and the station of Baldoon that had been the family sheep and cattle station for a century but was lost in the great drought, that he had had his eyes on for years and years and years to repossess for them.
“No need for me t’look at figures, Andy. If you say it’s that bad, it’s that bad.” He was watching the patterns of the sky. “Tell you what, I’ll take care of Lengeh if you can figure a plan and if the others’re in. After dinner maybe we could talk logistics for an hour, and finish up over breakfast. Kasigi won’t be back from Kuwait until 9:00 A.M. We’ll figure her out.”
“Thanks, Scrag.” Gavallan clapped him on the shoulder, towering over him. “I’m damned glad you were here, damned glad you’ve been with us all these years. For the first time I think we’ve a chance and I’m not dreaming.” “One condition, old sport,” Scragger added.
Gavallan was instantly on guard. “I can’t square your medical if it’s not up to scratch. There’s no way th - ”
“Do you mind?” Scragger was pained. “It’s nothing to do with Dirty Duncan and my medical - that’s going to be good till I’m seventy-three. No, the condition is at dinner you sit me next to Pulsating Paula, Genny on her other side, Manuela beside me, and that horny Hungarian Sandor way down the other end along with Johnny Hogg.”
“Done!”
“Bonzer! Now don’t you worry, mate, I’ve been sodded about by enough generals in five wars to’ve learned something. Time to change for dinner. Lengeh was getting boring and no doubt about it.” He walked off, thin, straight, and sprightly.
Gavallan gave over his credit card to the smiling Pakistani waiter. “No need for that, sahib, please just sign the bill,” the man said. Then added softly, “If I might suggest, Effendi, when you pay, don’t use American Express, it is the most expensive for the management.”
Bemused, Gavallan left a tip and walked off.
On the other side of the terrace two men watched him leave. Both were well dressed and in their forties, one American, the other Middle Eastern. Both wore tiny hearing aids. The man who was Middle Eastern was toying with an old-fashioned fountain pen, and as Gavallan passed a well-dressed Arab and a very attractive young European girl in deep conversation, the man with the fountain pen became curious, pointed it at them and steadied it. At once both men could hear the voices in their earphones; “my dear, $500 U.S. is much more than market price,” the man was saying.
“It depends what market forces concern you, my dear,” she replied, her Middle-European accent pleasing, and they saw her smile gently. “The fee includes the very best silk underwear you wish to rip to pieces and the probe you require inserted at your moment of truth. Expertise is expertise and special services require special handling and if your schedule only permits between six and eight tomorrow evening - ”
The voices vanished as the man turned the cap and put the pen on the tabletop with a wry smile. He was handsome and olive-skinned, an importer-exporter of fine carpets like generations of his forebears, American educated, his name Aaron ben Aaron - his main occupation major, Israeli Special Intelligence. “I’d never have figured Abu bin Talak as kinky,” he said dryly.
