devices, all of which had to be tripped before the master switch could be thrown.
The arming device was connected by a bolted-on housing to the control board of the barge. The arrangement would allow the barge pilot to arm the floating bomb as it made its final run.
Huygens stood on one knee on the floor, screwdriver in hand, tightening the connections from the pluglike end of the firing cable trunk to a socket set in the base of the arming device.
Ahmed and Rashid stood nearby, watching with interest. Ahmed, forty, was medium-sized, with close- cropped dark hair and a short black beard. Rashid, in his mid-twenties, was long and rangy, with warm, sympathetic brown eyes and a wispy mustache and beard. Ahmed spoke English and was the leader of the duo; Rashid, his backup and assistant, knew only a few words of the language and relied on him for translation.
Huygens continued to labor over the assembly, fresh sweat pouring from him with every breath. From time to time, he wiped his brow on the sleeve of his shortsleeved shirt, to keep the sweat from trickling into and stinging his eyes. He sweated not from fear but from the heat, even though the slightest fumbling of crossed wires at this point risked blowing them all sky-high. Bombs were his business and he didn't make those kind of mistakes.
He finished making a final adjustment and lowered the screwdriver. 'Done,' he said. Easing away from the mechanism, he straightened, standing up, groaning softly from the pain of moving after having knelt in one position for so long. He shook his leg to work out some of the kinks.
Vollard said, 'Bravo.'
Huygens lifted his shirt front, using it as a towel to wipe the sweat from his face. Fresh sweat instantly replaced it. Vollard padded into the cabin, eyeing the arming device.
Huygens said, 'It is a simple rig. Primitive, really. It has to be, to make it effective.'
Vollard said, 'It looks all right to me.'
'A tricky problem,' Huygens said, 'complicated by the storm. Everette could throw off the electronics. Too much electricity in the air. We cannot rely on a remote, wireless detonator to set it off from a distance. The storm force could glitch the signal, suppress it, canceling it out. It could happen. Wireless devices are too fragile for a big blow.
'So, we use a timing device which can be set from here in the wheelhouse. It all shall be done with wires, not wireless. The operator sets the timing device for say, five or ten minutes before final impact. At zero hour, an electrical impulse goes from here down the nerve net trunk, through the wires fanning out from here into the individual detonators of the bomb sub-clusters. Simplicity itself.'
Simple to Huygens, perhaps, but then he was the expert. Vollard turned to the senior boat pilot. 'What do you think, Ahmed? You're the one who has to ride the tiger.'
Ahmed stood with arms folded over his chest. He nodded, said, 'It is well.'
Vollard said, 'You'll run into some rough waters when the storm is rising.'
Ahmed bared teeth the color of old ivory in a half-sneer, half-grimace that might have been a smile. 'I have sailed wooden fishing boats in the Arabian Sea during monsoon season. A little wind and rain on this river is nothing.'
Huygens smirked, said, 'Make no mistake, my friend. An incoming hurricane is no joke.'
Ahmed said, 'Allah willing, Rashid and I will be in Paradise long before the storm reaches its height.'
Vollard said, 'May it be so.' Here was the variable in Vollard's plan, the unanticipated X-factor. The approach of Hurricane Everette presented threat and opportunity. According to his calculations, even if the storm did make landfall in New Orleans, it would not do so until some hours after the job was done. The mission would be accomplished well before the storm peaked. That said, it was still a risk, but he was used to taking risks and so were his men. That was one of the things they were paid for.
The storm cut two ways. The chaos it would produce was his ally; he and his men were trained professionals used to operating at peak efficiency while havoc reigned. It would confound and confuse the authorities and reduce their already modest level of competency to new lows. Once the mission was done, the storm would help thwart all pursuit and give the mercenary force a long lead time to make their getaway.
As for Ahmed and Rashid, they would make their getaway upon completion of their part of the mission. Final, earthly getaway.
8. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 P.M. AND 1 P.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
It was a scene that could have taken place a thousand years, back in the era of the Caliphate of Haroun al- Raschid, when the
The setting was a pleasure garden, a place designed to please the senses of desert-dwelling folk. At the middle of it stood an octagonal basin, whose centerpiece was a stepped pillar, rising to the height of a man.
The pillar contained a fountain, which continually sprayed jets of water from its top. The water cascaded down into a series of shell-shaped catch basins, each progressively wider than the one above it, finally spilling into the octagonal pool, where hidden pumps recirculated it, sucking it up a pipe in the center of the pillar, and resuming the process.
The waterfall effect was a thing of great beauty; fluid, ever-changing curtains of clear liquid tumbling from basin to basin into the eight-sided pool.
The fountain was faced with tiles, green tiles, in a range of color varying from pale green to dark green and all shades in between. They formed a mosaic, a pattern of intricate arabesques that spiraled and entwined around the fountain from top to bottom.
The garden floor was made of larger, hexagonal tiles of black and green, themselves forming dynamic geometric patterns. Grouped around the fountain were marble benches and rows of enormous reddish-brown ceramic planters holding orange, lemon, and apricot trees. Interspersed among them were rows of thick, dark hedges, seven feet tall, set in long, troughlike planters. Benches, fruit trees, and hedgerows broke up the garden space, creating a variety of nooks, alcoves, and arcades. The air was cool, moist, fragrant with the scents of flower beds and fruit trees.
The garden would have looked right at home in a fabulous storybook illustration, yet it was a reality that existed right in the heart of the futuropolis that is today's Riyadh.
It was indoors, located in an atrium of a house occupied by Imam Omar, the Smiling Cleric — who, with a piece of property like this, had much to smile about. The atrium was a central shaft, several stories tall, whose top was roofed over with a clear, Plexiglas bubble dome.
The palatial residence had been donated to the Imam by one of his followers who was a well-placed member of the House of Saud. It was one of several such houses, all equally magnificent, located in and about Riyadh, that belonged to the Imam.
Counterpointing the sounds of running water from the fountain came the rhythmic rise and fall of voices chanting prayers.
The praying took place in a room that served as a place of worship, located off the atrium. Entrance was obtained through a pointed archway. Posted outside it were two guards, trusted members of the mutawayin, the religious police.
The mutawayin was the militia of Imam Omar and his militant sect of ultrafundamentalist Wahabists.
Minister Fedallah had his own private army in the form of his Internal Special Squad. But Fedallah was only the steward of the corps, not its master. The section was the property of His Majesty the King, to whom all its members had pledged fealty.
Whereas the mutawayin's ultimate loyalty lay not with the King, but to God, who was represented on earth in the form of his servant and messenger, Imam Omar.
Fedallah — and for that matter, the King himself — would have given much to know what now transpired in the inner sanctum of the prayer room of the House of the Green Fountain.
