but no one is to be trusted here; the American State Department not exempted. You are taking risks, ya Shaikh, far more than I, as the father of my children would take, but that is your business, not mine. You will be dropped off in the centre of Masqat and you will then be on your own.'
'Thanks for getting me there,' said Evan.
'Thank you for coming, ya Shaikh. But do not try to trace those of us who helped you. In truth, we would kill you before the enemy had a chance to schedule your execution. We are quiet, but we are alive.'
'Who are you?'
'Believers, ya Shaikh. That is enough for you to know.'
'Alfshukr,' said Evan, thanking the clerk and tipping him for the confidentiality he had been guaranteed. He signed the hotel register with a false Arabic name and was given the key to his suite. He did not require a bellboy. Kendrick took the elevator to a wrong floor and waited at the end of a corridor to see if he had been followed. He had not, so he walked down the staircase to his proper floor and went to his suite.
Time. Time's valuable, every minute. Frank Swann, Department of State. The evening prayers of el Maghreb were over; darkness descended and the madness at the embassy could be heard in the distance. Evan threw his small case into a corner of the living room, took out his wallet from under his robes, and withdrew a folded sheet of paper on which he had written the names and telephone numbers—numbers that were by now almost five years old—of the people he wanted to contact. He went to the desk and the telephone, sat down and unfolded the paper.
Thirty-five minutes later, after the effusive yet strangely awkward greetings of three friends from the past, the meeting was arranged. He had chosen seven names, each among the most influential men he remembered from his days in Masqat. Two had died; one was out of the country; the fourth told him quite frankly that the climate was not right for an Omani to meet with an American. The three who had agreed to see him, with varying degrees of reluctance, would arrive separately within the hour. Each would go directly to his suite without troubling the front desk.
Thirty-eight minutes passed, during which time Kendrick unpacked the few items of clothing he had brought and ordered specific brands of whisky from room service. The abstinence demanded by Islamic tradition was more honoured in the breach, and beside each name was the libation each guest favoured; it was a lesson Evan had learned from the irascible Emmanuel Weingrass. An industrial lubricant, my son. You remember the name of a man's wife, he's pleased. You remember the brand of whisky he drinks, now that's something else. Now you care!
The soft knocking at the door broke the silence of the room like cracks of lightning. Kendrick took several deep breaths, walked across the room, and admitted his first visitor.
'It is you, Evan? My God, you haven't converted, have you?'
'Come in, Mustapha. It's good to see you again.'
'But am I seeing you? said the man named Mustapha who was dressed in a dark brown business suit. 'And your skin! You are as dark as I am if not darker.'
'I want you to understand everything.' Kendrick closed the door, gesturing for his friend from the past to choose a place to sit. 'I've got your brand of Scotch. Care for a drink?'
'Oh, that Manny Weingrass is never far away, is he?' said Mustapha, walking to the long, brocade-covered sofa and sitting down. 'The old thief.'
'Hey, come on, Musty,' protested Evan, laughing and heading for the bar. 'He never short-changed you.'
'No, he didn't. Neither he nor you nor your other partners ever short-changed any of us… How has it been with you without them, my friend? Many of us talk about it even after all these years.'
'Sometimes not easy,' said Kendrick honestly, pouring drinks. 'But you accept it. You cope.' He brought Mustapha his Scotch and sat down in one of the three chairs opposite the sofa. 'The best, Musty.' He raised his glass.
'No, old friend, it is the worst—the worst of times as the English Dickens wrote.'
'Let's wait till the others get here.'
'They're not coming.' Mustapha drank his Scotch.
'What?'
