Dhar would serve as a distraction.
‘The local airline filed a false flightplan,’ Denton said. ‘All we know is that the plane has a very limited range.’
‘Find Spiro and bring him back here. And if he complains, tell him we’ve decided to go public about Dhar.’
25
Marchant felt a new pulse of pain overload his nervous system as the drill began to work its way deep into his molar. He remembered the power surges they used to have in Delhi. Every room in the house would suddenly become unnaturally bright, then there would be the sound of popping lightbulbs, followed by the tinkle of glass. Bright lights were flashing across his vision now, and it felt as if synapses, rather than bulbs, were exploding in his brain, their sharp-edged debris falling across raw pathways.
He should have been unconscious, but Aziz would kill him if he passed out. Besides, the sustained eye contact had started to get to the Moroccan, breaking up his routine, causing his hands to shake. The turbulence didn’t help either. Occasionally, the drill would slip away from the tooth and cut into Marchant’s gum. He tried to focus on his teeth, their impregnability, the fact that they were the only body parts that survived intense fires. They were stronger than bones, weren’t they? His molar wasn’t going to split. It was too strong, too durable. He thought back to biology classes at school, labelled drawings of teeth: enamel, dentine, pulp, gum. Weren’t strontium isotopes found in enamel?
Marchant was screaming now, deep guttural roars. Aziz covered Marchant’s eyes with a scarf, but for some reason that interrupted his stride even more. Perhaps he needed to see his victim’s eyes, open or shut. Would Meena have looked him in the eye if she were here? For a few brief moments, he had liked her at the
But amongst all the pain and anger, a crude plan had crystallised, forged from a visceral survival instinct. As far as Marchant could tell, the pilot had made no contact with Aziz since they had taken off. Marchant presumed he had been told by Meena to circle until he was ordered to land again. No questions, no reassuring chit-chat over the intercom. Which meant that it was just Aziz and him. When the clamp was in his mouth, Marchant was powerless, but Aziz would be removing it again in a moment to ask more questions. At least, he hoped he would. That had been the routine so far: questions, answers, clamp in, clamp out, more questions, more answers, clamp in…His only chance was at the point when the clamp was being unscrewed. Aziz was vulnerable then, leaning in close, inches from Marchant’s face.
The plastic tie on his right wrist was still not broken, and it would take time before his hand was free. He also knew that he would need something to attack Aziz with. As he sat there strapped into a dentist’s chair, only one course of action presented itself. The thought appalled him, but he was beyond caring now. Aziz was the one behaving like an animal. Marchant was simply responding in kind: a tooth for a tooth…It didn’t get much more primitive, but Marchant had run out of options.
Aziz stepped away from him into the aisle and shook his head like a disappointed school teacher. He hadn’t been able to get a clean run at the molar with his drill. He looked at Marchant for a moment, and then leaned across to unscrew the clamp in his mouth. His left hand was just above Marchant’s open lips as his fingers loosened the screws on his right jaw. Marchant closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to acquaint himself with the scent of Aziz’s skin: the sweet musk of his aftershave. Then, as Aziz lifted the clamp out of his jaw, Marchant opened his eyes and stared at his torturer, holding his gaze. It was enough to distract Aziz. Marchant’s right hand broke free.
His arm flew upwards in a sweeping arc, clubbing the back of Aziz’s head. Grabbing at his hair, Marchant pulled him down onto the brace that was holding his own head in position. Aziz grunted as his face crumpled against the steel frame. But the pain of the impact was nothing compared to the agony that started to shock-wave out from his right cheek. Marchant tried to put the taste of warm salt out of his mind as his front teeth closed, locking their two heads together.
With his right hand Marchant thrashed around for one of the tools on the fold-down table in front of him. He found one, and slashed at the tie holding his left hand, cutting his own wrist as he did so. Aziz’s body made it hard to see what he was doing. When both hands were free, he held Aziz’s head on either side as if he was kissing him, removed his teeth from the Moroccan’s cheek and pulled him down hard into the steel frame again, bracing himself against the impact that shuddered through his spine. This time Aziz slumped to the floor in the aisle.
Marchant spat out whatever was in his mouth. It seemed to halt his rising nausea, so he spat again, and then again, purging his body of Aziz, expressing his disgust, at Aziz, at himself, at Meena. He knew that he was about to collapse. The adrenaline was draining away from his body like bath water, leaving his raw pain exposed. He unscrewed the steel head brace, then freed his legs. Next he lifted Aziz into the chair and secured his legs and arms, using the remains of the ties. He didn’t bother with the brace, but he put the clamp in Aziz’s bloodied mouth and jacked it open as far as it would go. At least he would be able to breathe.
26
Spiro was in no rush to call off the dogs, but he phoned Meena as he crossed Horse Guards Road and walked into St James’s Park. He needed to take some air after the meeting.
‘What do you mean you can’t contact him?’ he said, drawing hard on a cigarette as a gaggle of Japanese tourists cycled past him on hired bikes.
‘He’s with Aziz, as you ordered.’
‘And where’s Aziz?’
‘Twenty-five thousand feet above the Mediterranean.’
‘Christ, can’t you get ATC to contact the pilot?’
There was a pause. Spiro knew it would take time. Meena had refused to contact Aziz earlier, but he guessed she would be more cooperative now that he was calling time on the dentist.
‘Has something happened, sir?’
Spiro drew hard on his cigarette again, watching the flamingos. His hand was shaking.
‘Dhar’s not dead. He set us up, fooled Fort Meade, fooled fucking all of us, including six dead US Marines.’
He had been looking forward to disciplining Meena for her insubordination, but that would have to wait now. He was no longer in a position of strength. All he could ask of her was to clean up the mess.
‘And you think Marchant knows where Dhar is?’ she asked.
‘Don’t go dumb on me, Lakshmi. Of course not. But the British are holding all the cards right now, and if they find out Aziz is pulling Marchant’s molars, we’ll all have toothache. Get him off the plane, away from Aziz. And dump him somewhere nice, where he can recover. We might need him.’
He hung up just as Ian Denton appeared out of nowhere next to him. Spiro didn’t know where to place Denton. The Vicar was easy: he was an upper-class, suspiciously unmarried academic with a bad back and too much sympathy for Arabia. Denton was more complicated. In theory, he should have been an ally: a grammar- school kid from Hull who had risen through the ranks because of hard graft and dirty tricks in the SovBloc, rather than old-school favours and fair play in London. But Spiro remained wary of him. There was something reptilian about Denton’s body, lean and sinewy like a long-distance runner’s. He also had an unnerving ability to be present in a room without appearing to have entered it. And that quiet voice.
‘Daniel Marchant’s missing,’ Denton said, cutting straight to the chase.
‘It’s OK. He’s fine. A little misunderstanding with our station in Rabat.’
‘We had an agreement,’ Denton said, surprising Spiro with the suddenness of his attack. Denton usually stayed in the long grass.
‘Did we?’
