the blues, R &B and Afro-Caribbean. Journalism is a commonly used cover for intelligence agents; it gives credence to their frequent travelling, often to hotspots and the less-savoury places of the world. Leiter was fortunate in that the best covers are those that mirror an agent’s actual interests, since an assignment may require the operative to be undercover for weeks or months at a time. The filmmaker Alexander Korda – recruited by the famed British spymaster Sir Claude Dansey – reportedly used location scouting expeditions as a cover to photograph off-limits areas in the run-up to the Second World War. Bond’s bland official cover, a security and integrity analyst for the Overseas Development Group, subjected him to excruciatingly boring stints when he was on assignment. On a particularly bad day he would long for an official cover as a skiing or SCUBA instructor.
Bond sat forward and Leiter followed his gaze. They watched two men come out of the front door of the Intercontinental and walk towards a black Lincoln Town Car.
‘It’s Hydt. And the Irishman.’
Leiter sent Nasad to fetch his vehicle, then pointed to a dusty old Alfa Romeo in a nearby car park, whispering to Bond, ‘Over there. My wheels. Let’s go.’
27
The Lincoln carrying Severan Hydt and Niall Dunne eased east through the haze and heat, paralleling the massive power lines conducting electricity to the outer regions of the city-state. Nearby was the Persian Gulf, the rich blue muted nearly to beige by the dust in the air and the glare of the low but unrelenting sun.
They were taking a convoluted route through Dubai, cruising past the indoor ski complex, the striking Burj Al-Arab hotel, which resembled a sail and was nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and the luxurious Palm Jumeirah – the sculpted development of shops, homes and hotels extending far into the Gulf and fashioned, as the name suggested, in the likeness of an indigenous tree. These areas of glistening beauty upset Severan Hydt: the new, the unblemished. He felt much more comfortable when the vehicle slipped into the older Satwa neighbourhood, densely populated by thousands upon thousands of working-class folk – mostly immigrants.
The time was nearly five thirty. An hour and a half before the event. It was also, Hydt had noted, with irony, an hour and a half until sunset.
Curious coincidence, he reflected. A good sign. His ancestors – his spiritual, if not necessarily genetic forebears – had believed in omens and portents and he allowed himself to do so as well; yes, he was a practical, hard-headed businessman… but he had his
He thought again about tonight.
They continued to cruise along the roads in a complicated fashion. The purpose of this dizzying tour wasn’t to sightsee. No, taking the roundabout route to get to a spot merely five miles from the Intercontinental had been Dunne’s idea of security.
But the driver – a mercenary with experience in Afghanistan and Syria – reported, ‘I thought we were being followed, an Alfa and possibly a Ford. But if so, we’ve lost them, I’m sure.’
Dunne looked back, then said, ‘Good. Go to the works.’
They circled back to the city. In ten minutes they were at an industrial complex in the Deira, the cluttered and colourful area in the centre of town nestled along Dubai Creek and the Gulf. This was another place in which Hydt felt immediately comfortable. To enter the neighbourhood was to take a step back in time: its uneven houses, traditional markets and the rustic port along the Creek, whose docks teemed with dhows and other small vessels, might have been the backdrop to a 1930s adventure film. The ships were piled impossibly high with stacks of cargo lashed into place. The driver found the destination, a good-sized factory and warehouse, with attached offices, one storey, the shabby beige paint peeling. Razor wire, rare in low-crime Dubai, topped the chain-link fence surrounding the place. The driver pulled up to an intercom and spoke in Arabic. The gate slowly swung open. The Town Car eased into the car park and stopped.
The two men climbed out. With an hour and fifteen minutes to sunset, the air was cooling, even as the ground radiated heat banked during the day.
Hydt heard a voice, carried on the dusty wind. ‘Please! My friend, please come in!’ The man waving his hand was in a white
Mahdi al-Fulan strode over sprays of red sand, which drifted along the tarmac and sloped against the kerb, the walkways and the sides of buildings. The Arab’s eyes were bright, as if he were a schoolboy about to show off a treasured project. Which wasn’t far from the truth, Hydt reflected. A black beard framed his smile; Hydt had been amused to learn that, while hair colouring was not a good product to market in a land where both male and female heads were usually covered, beard dye was a bestseller.
Hands were gripped. ‘My friend.’ Hydt didn’t try to offer an Arabic greeting. He had no talent for languages and believed it a weakness to attempt anything you were not skilled at.
Niall Dunne stepped forward, his shoulders bouncing as they always did in his gangling walk, and also greeted the man, but the pale eyes were gazing past the Arab. For once, they were not searching for threats. He was staring raptly at the bounty that the warehouse held, which could be seen through the open door: perhaps fifty or so machines, in every shape a geometrician could name, made of raw and painted steel, iron, aluminium, carbon fibre… who knew what else? Pipes protruded, wires, control panels, lights, switches, chutes and belts. If robots had pleasant dreams, they would be set in this room.
They entered the warehouse, which was devoid of workers. Dunne paused to study and occasionally even caress some device or other.
Mahdi al-Fulan was an industrial product designer, MIT educated. He shunned the kind of high-profile entrepreneurship that gets you on the cover of business magazines – and often into the bankruptcy court – and specialised instead in designing functional industrial equipment and control systems for which there was a consistent market. He was one of Severan Hydt’s main suppliers. Hydt had met him at a recycling-equipment conference. Once he’d learnt about certain trips the Arab took abroad and about the dangerous men to whom he sold his wares, they’d become partners. Al-Fulan was a clever scientist, an innovative engineer, a man with ideas and inventions important to Gehenna.
And with other connections too.
At that thought, Hydt involuntarily consulted his watch. Nearly six.
‘Follow me, please, Severan, Niall.’ Al-Fulan had caught Hydt’s glance. The Arab led them through the various rooms, dim and still. Dunne again slowed his step to examine some machinery or a control panel. He’d nod approvingly or frown, perhaps trying to understand how a system worked.
Leaving behind the machines with their scent of oil, paint and the unique metallic, almost blood-like odour of high-powered electrical systems, they entered the offices. At the end of a dim corridor al-Fulan used a computer key to open an unmarked door and they stepped into a work area, which was large and cluttered with thousands of sheets of paper, blueprints and other documents on which were words, graphs and diagrams, many of them incomprehensible to Hydt.
The atmosphere was eerie, to say the least, both because of the dimness and the clutter… and because of what decorated the walls.
Images of eyes.
Eyes of all sorts – human, fish, canine, feline and insect – photos, computerised three- dimensional renderings, medical drawings from the 1800s. Particularly unsettling was a fanciful, detailed blueprint of a human eye, as if a modern-day Dr Frankenstein had used current engineering techniques to construct his monster.
In front of one of the dozens of large computer monitors sat an attractive woman, a brunette, in her late twenties. She stood up, strode to Hydt and shook his hand vigorously. ‘Stella Kirkpatrick. I’m Mahdi’s research assistant.’ She greeted Dunne too.
