is a mark he can't wash away.'
Evan felt the cloth being ripped from his chest, his breath sinking, knowing the worst was about to be revealed. There was no scar on his neck.
'It is Amal Bahrudi,' intoned the man above. The barely conscious Kendrick heard the words and was stunned.
'What do you look for?' asked the bewildered sergeant-foreman, furious.
'What is not there,' said the echoing voice. 'Throughout Europe, Amal Bahrudi is marked by the scar on his throat. A photograph was circulated to the authorities that was confirmed to be of him, a picture obscuring the face but not the bare neck where the scar of a knife wound was in clear focus. It had been his best cover, an ingenious device of concealment.'
'You confuse me!' shouted the squatting, stocky man, his words nearly drowned out by the cacophonous chanting. 'What concealment? What scar!'
'A scar that never was, a mark that never existed. They all look for a lie. This is Bahrudi, the blue-eyed man who can take pain with silence, the trusted one who moves about Western capitals unnoticed because of the genes of a European grandfather. Word must have reached Oman that he was reported to be on his way here, but even so he'll be released in the morning, no doubt with great apologies. You see, there is no scar on his throat.'
Through the haze and the terrible pain, Evan knew it was the moment to react. He forced a smile across his burning lips, his light blue eyes centering on the blurred figure above. 'A sane man,' he coughed in agony. 'Please, get me up, get them away from me before I see them all in hell.'
'Amal Bahrudi speaks?' asked the unknown man, reaching out with his hand. 'Let him up.'
'No!' roared the sergeant-terrorist, plunging down and pinning Kendrick's shoulders. 'There's no sense in what you say! He is who he says he is because of a scar that does not exist? Where's the sense in that, I ask you?'
'I will know if he lies,' replied the figure above, slowly coming into focus for Kendrick. The gaunt face was that of a man in his early twenties, with high cheekbones and intense, dark, intelligent eyes flanking a sharp, straight nose. The body was slender, bordering on thin, but there was a supple strength in the way he crouched and held his head. The muscles of his neck stood out. 'Let him up,' repeated the younger terrorist, his voice casual but no less a command for that. 'And instruct the others to gradually stop their chanting—gradually, you understand—but then keep talking among themselves. All must appear normal, including the incessant arguing, which you don't have to encourage.'
The angry subordinate gave Evan a last shove into the floor, widening the cut in his shoulder so severely that new blood burst out on to the concrete. Then the surly man got to his feet, turning to the crowd to carry out his orders.
'Thank you,' said Evan, breathless, trembling and getting to his knees, wincing at the pain he felt everywhere, conscious of the bruises on his face and body, aware of the hot lacerations where his flesh had been punctured—again seemingly everywhere. 'I would have joined Allah in a minute.'
'You still may, which is why I won't bother to stem your bleeding.' The young Palestinian shoved Kendrick against the wall, into a sitting position, his legs stretched out on the floor. 'You see, I have no idea whether you're really Amal Bahrudi or not. I acted on instinct. From the descriptions I've heard, you could be he, and you speak an educated Arabic, which also fits. In addition, you withstood extreme punishment when a gesture of submission on your part would have meant you were prepared to deliver the information demanded of you. Instead, you reacted with defiance, and you must have known that at any moment you could have been strangled… That is not the way of an infiltrator who values his life here on earth. It is the way of one of us who will not harm the cause for, as you remarked, it's a holy cause. And it is. Most holy.'
Good God! thought Kendrick, assuming the cold expression of a dedicated partisan. How wrong you are! If I had thought—if I'd been able to think… Forget it! 'What will finally convince you? I tell you now I shall not reveal things I shouldn't.' Evan paused, his hand covering the swallow in his throat. 'Even to the point where you may resume the punishment and strangle me, if you like.'
'Both are statements I would expect,' said the intense slender terrorist, lowering himself to crouch in front of Evan. 'You can, however, tell me what it is you came here for. Why were you sent to Masqat? Whom were you told to find? Your life depends on your answers, Amal Bahrudi, and I'm the only one who can make that decision.'
