They still believe you're working with them, don't they?'
'Yes. My “friend” in the Sabat Aynub market told me that they're convinced you met with Kendrick. His logic was such that I had to go along with him and agree that you were a damn fool; you were asking for the worst kind of trouble. Sorry.'
'What logic?'
'They know that a garrison car picked up the American a few blocks away from his hotel. I couldn't argue, I was there.'
'Then they were looking for that car. Garrison vehicles are all over Masqat.'
'Sorry, again, it was a wrong move, Ahmat. I could have told you that if I'd have been able to reach you. You see, the circle was broken; they knew Kendrick was here—'
'Mustapha,' interrupted the young sultan angrily. 'I mourn his death but not the closing of his big mouth.'
'Perhaps it was he, perhaps not,' said Khalehla. 'Washington itself could be responsible. Too many people were involved in Kendrick's arrival, I saw that also. As I understand, it was a State Department operation; there are others who do these things better.'
'We don't know who the enemy is or where to look!'
Ahmat clenched his fist, bringing his knuckles to his teeth. 'It could be anyone, anywhere—right in front of our eyes. Goddamn it, what do we do?'
'Do as he's told you,' said the woman from Cairo. 'Let him go in under deep cover. He's made contact; wait for him to reach you.'
'Is that all I can do? Wait?'
'No, there's something else,' added Khalehla. 'Give me the escape route and one of your fast cars. I brought along my courtesan's equipment—it's in a suitcase outside in the hall—and while I change clothes you coordinate the details with your cousins and that doctor you call an old friend.'
'Hey, come on!' protested Ahmat. 'I know you and Bobbie go back a long time but that doesn't give you the right to order me to endanger your life! No way, Jose.'
'We're not talking about my life,' said Khalehla icily, her brown eyes staring at Ahmat. 'Or yours, frankly. We're talking about raw terrorism and the survival of Southwest Asia. Nothing may come of tonight, but it's my job to try to find out, and it's your job to permit me. Isn't that what we've both been trained for?'
'And also give her the number where she can reach you,' said Roberta Yamenni calmly. 'Reach us.'
'Go change your clothes,' said the young sultan of Oman, shaking his head, his eyes closed.
'Thank you, Ahmat. I'll hurry but first I have to speak to my people. I don't have much to say so it'll be quick.'
The drunken bald-headed man in the dishevelled Savile Row pinstripes was escorted out of the elevator by two countrymen. The girth and weight of their inebriated charge were such that each struggled to uphold his part of the body.
'Bloody disgrace, is what he is!' said the man on the left, awkwardly glancing at a hotel key dangling from the fingers of his right hand, which was even more awkwardly shoved up under the drunk's armpit.
'Come now, Dickie,' retorted his companion, 'we've all swigged our several-too-many on occasion.'
'Not in a goddamned country going up in flames fuelled by nigger barbarians! He could start a bloody brawl and we'd be hanged by our necks from two lamp posts! Where's the damned room?'
'Down the hall. Heavy bugger, isn't he?'
'All lard and straight whisky is my guess.'
'I don't know about that. He seemed like a pleasant enough chap who got taken by a fast-talking whore. That sort of thing makes anyone pissed, you know. Did you get whom he worked for?'
'Some textile firm in Manchester. Twillingame or Burlingame, something like that.'
'Never heard of it,' said the man on the right, arching his brows in surprise. 'Here, give me the key; there's the door.'
'We'll just throw him on the bed, no courtesies beyond that, I tell you.'
