She drew closer to the bed, aware of the man still watching her, still smiling. Then she swung round: ‘What is this? What are you doing here? Are you staying to watch?’
The man smirked, without sound. She turned again, her fear becoming confused by anger. ‘I did not agree to a ménage à trois!’
‘You did not agree to anything,’ the man beside her replied, pleasantly.
She took a closer look at the bed. The eyes were tiny slits and a small pool of yellow liquid had oozed out on the peacock-blue pillow under his ear. She felt the floor sway, and the outlines of the room became dim and fuzzy. She wanted to be sick, but her throat contracted. The man said, ‘You are too late, Mademoiselle Laval-Smith —’ and bowed — ‘but fortunately you come in excellent time for me!’ He spoke English in a deep sensual voice with a musical accent.
‘Who are you?’ she gasped.
‘My name is Colonel Tamat. You may have heard of me — I have a very bad reputation —’ he chuckled — ‘I am Chief of the Security Police, NAZAK. And what you see over there is the last vestige of the Tyrant of the Emerald Throne.’
His words faded with a singing in her ears; she grabbed the back of a chair and tried not to look at what lay on the bed. ‘What has happened? Oh God! Oh God, what’s happened?’
‘You are under arrest,’ Colonel Tamat replied in his friendly voice, and held up the lipstick. She saw now that it was one of the grey suppositories. ‘You are a very wicked girl, Mademoiselle Laval-Smith.’
She looked at him, her mouth hanging open, her face feeling swollen and lopsided. ‘What have I done?’ she moaned.
Colonel Tamat laughed heartily. ‘Young lady, you have just killed His Serene Imperial Highness. And what I have in my hand is the evidence.’
‘But I didn’t.’ Her mouth was dry and she forced her knuckles between her lips.
Colonel Tamat shook his head, his face suddenly grave. ‘It is foolish to protest, Mademoiselle.’ He lifted the lipstick to his nostrils. ‘This unpleasant little device contains cyanide, as you are no doubt aware. And you do not suppose that one of His Highness’s most loyal subjects would dare to commit such an outrage?’
She gave a choking gasp. ‘But that — that!’ She gestured towards the bed without looking at it — ‘I didn’t do that!’
‘What has been done to the body is immaterial. The fact is that you, and your Imperialist foreign masters, have murdered the Supreme Ruler of our country. As such, you will be subjected to the full rigours of the law.’
The room became blurred, then went black.
CHAPTER 39
The Fieseler Storch had been folded up and put in the back of the truck, which had then driven off with Ryderbeit and the rest of their reception party, leaving Packer alone with the man who had first come forward and spoken English. The rest of them had seemed in a hurry, and Packer and Ryderbeit scarcely had time to cross-check their plans and schedules for the rest of the night.
The plane was to be refuelled, brought back to the salt-pan and reassembled within one and a half hours: midnight plus thirty minutes. Ryderbeit had snarled something about waiting no more than ten minutes; and if Packer and his rich little dolly bird didn’t show up in that time, he’d take off. That was his contract, and he was sticking to it.
Packer thanked him, adding an ungracious epithet, and Ryderbeit cackled and waved goodbye. Packer watched the truck grind off into the night; he missed Ryderbeit, as much for his company as for his expertise with a gun.
He and his English-speaking guide now began to walk back along the metalled road. The man seemed to be unarmed and carried only a hurricane lamp. Neither of them spoke. The silence and darkness were broken only by the soft scuffing of their boots and the distant flare of burning gas from the oil wells of Barzak, twenty miles north-east of the capital.
After a few hundred yards the hurricane lamp picked out the dim silhouette of a Range Rover. As they reached it, Packer’s hands tightened instinctively round the MI6, which was still slung from his neck. His companion, who had a young clean-shaven face under a Castro-style forage cap, opened the door on the driver’s side, nodded to Packer to get in, then joined him in the passenger seat. The keys were in the ignition.
‘Start the engine, please,’ the young man said; ‘we do not have much time.’ He leaned over and switched on the lights. ‘You are familiar with the geography, yes?’
Packer nodded and slipped into gear. During his stay outside Beirut, Pol had given him a map of Mamounia, extending to the outer suburbs, with one-way streets marked by arrows in red crayon. Pol had also provided photographs and postcards of certain buildings, squares, and monuments.
Packer’s route was shown by a dotted green line which stopped at the corner of Passam Street, an intersection leading off the main avenue — a total distance of some 700 metres from the entrance to the Royal Palace. It was going to be a long, lonely walk for
