embassy, and others, always others, take their places!'
'Where?'
The officer stared at Evan and shook his head. 'No, ya Shaikh, sir, that I will not tell you. Go!'
'I understand. Thanks.' The congressman from Colorado gripped the cloth of his aba and raced down the alley towards the exit, turning his face away as he ran past the dead terrorist whose streaming blood now filled the crevices between the cobblestones.
He emerged on the street, looked up at the sky and determined his direction. To the sea, to the ruins of the ancient fortress on the south shore of the harbour. He would find the man named El-Baz and arrange for the proper papers, but his mind was not on that negotiation. Instead, he was consumed by information he had heard only moments ago: thirty, forty, perhaps fifty by now. Between thirty and fifty terrorists were being held in some isolated compound in or outside the city, being interrogated with varying degrees of force by combined intelligence units. Yet if his theory was correct, that these child-butchers were the maniacal dregs of Islam, manipulated by an overlord of financial crime in Bahrain, all the interrogation techniques from the pharaohs to the Inquisition to the camps in Hoa Binh would be useless.
Unless—unless—a name that conjured up a zealot's most fanatical passions was delivered to one of the prisoners, persuading him to divulge what he would normally take his own life before revealing. It would mean finding a very special fanatic, of course, but it was possible. Evan had said to Frank Swann that perhaps one in twenty of the terrorists might be intelligent enough to fit this description—one out of twenty, roughly ten or twelve in the entire contingent of killers at the embassy—if he was right. Could one of them be among the thirty to fifty prisoners in that isolated, secret compound? The odds were slim but a few hours inside, at most a night, would tell him. The time was worth spending if he could be allowed to spend it. To begin his hunt he needed a few words; a name, a place—a location on the coastline, an access code that led back to Bahrain. Something! He had to get inside that compound tonight. The executions were to be resumed three days from tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning.
First the papers from a man called El-Baz.
The ruins of the old Portuguese fortress rose eerily into the dark sky, a jagged silhouette that bespoke the strength and resolve of sea-going adventurers of centuries past. Evan walked rapidly through the area of the city known as Harat Waljat towards the market of Sabat Aynub, the name translated freely as the basket of grapes, a marketplace far more structured than a bazaar, with well-kept shops lining the square, the architecture bewildering for it was an amalgam of early Arabic, Persian, Indian and the most modern of Western influences. All these, thought Kendrick, would fade one day; an Omani presence to be restored, once again confirming the impermanence of conquerors—military, political or terrorist. It was the last that concerned him now. The Mahdi.
He entered the large square. A Roman fountain was sending sprays of water above a dark, circular pool in whose centre stood a statue of some Italian sculptor's concept of a desert sheik striding forward, robes flowing, going nowhere. But it was the crowds that stole Evan's attention. Most were male Arabs, merchants catering for the rich and foolhardy Europeans, tourists indifferent to the chaos at the embassy, marked by their Western clothes and profusion of gold bracelets and chains, glistening symbols of defiance in a city gone mad. The Omanis, however, were like animated robots, forcing themselves to concentrate on the inconsequential, their ears blocking out the constant gunfire from the American Embassy less than a half-mile away. Everywhere, their eyes blinked and squinted incessantly, brows frowning in disbelief and disassociation. What was happening in their peaceful Masqat was beyond their understanding; they were no part of the madness, no part at all, so they did their best to shut it out.
He saw it. Balawa bohrtooan. 'Orange baklava,' the specialty of the bakery. The Turkish-style small brown shop with a succession of minarets painted above the glass of the shopfront was sandwiched between a large, brightly lit jewelry store and an equally fashionable boutique devoted to leather goods, the name Paris scattered in black and gold signs beyond the glass in front of ascending blocks of luggage and accessories. Kendrick walked diagonally across the square, past the fountain, and approached the door of the bakery.
'Your people were right,' said the dark-haired woman in the tailored black suit walking out of the shadows of the Harat Waljat, the miniature camera in her hand. She raised it and pressed the shutter-release; the automatic advance took successive photographs as Evan Kendrick entered the bakery shop in the market of Sabat Aynub. 'Was he noticed in the bazaar?' she asked, replacing the camera in her bag, addressing the short, robed, middle-aged Arab who cautiously stood behind her.
