'“Equipment evaluation”; that's to be read as espionage. He wouldn't say much on the phone, of course, but he did remark that we'd be astonished at the suspect. “A bloated sot of an Englishman working in Cairo” or words to that effect. Could this be the man?'
'Still,' continued Dickie. 'I urged Jack to follow it up, not to hold back!'
'Now, really, old chap, you weren't all that enthusiastic. You know, we still might make that plane you were so worried about.'
'What happened at the meeting?' asked the attache , leaning forward, his eyes riveted on the second man from MI-6.
'It never took place. Our military man was killed on the waterfront, his throat slit outside a warehouse. They called it a robbery as nothing was left in his pockets.'
'I do think we should catch that plane, Jack.'
'The Mahdi?' exclaimed Zaya Yateem, sitting behind the desk in what three weeks before had been the American ambassador's office. 'You are to take one of us to him in Bahrain? Tonight?'
'As I told your brother.' Kendrick sat in a chair next to Ahbyahd and facing the woman. 'The instructions were probably in the letter I was to deliver to you—’
'Yes, yes.' Zaya spoke rapidly, impatiently. 'He explained it to me during our few moments together. But you're wrong, Bahrudi. I have no way of directly reaching the Mahdi—no one knows who he is.'
'I assume you contact someone who in turn reaches him.'
'Naturally, but it could take a day or possibly two days. The avenues to him are complicated. Five calls are made and ten times five are relayed to unlisted numbers in Bahrain, and only one of them can reach the Mahdi.'
'What happens in an emergency?'
'They're not permitted,' interrupted Azra, who was leaning against the wall by a tall sunlit window. 'I told you that.'
'And that, my young friend, is ridiculous. We can't do what we do effectively without considering the unexpected.'
'Granted.' Zaya Yateem nodded her head, then shook it slowly. 'However, my brother has a point. We are expected to carry on in any emergency for weeks, if we must. Otherwise, as leaders, we would not be given our assignments.'
'Very well,' said the congressman from the ninth district of Colorado, feeling the sweat rolling down his neck despite the cool morning breezes sweeping through the open windows. 'Then you explain to the Mahdi why we're not in Bahrain tonight. I've done my part, including, I believe, saving your brother's life.'
'He's right about that, Zaya,' agreed Azra, pushing himself away from the wall. 'I'd be a corpse in the desert by now.'
'For which I'm grateful, Bahrudi, but I can't do the impossible.'
'I think you'd better try.' Kendrick glanced at Ahbyahd beside him, then turned back to the sister. 'Your Mahdi went to a great deal of trouble and expense to get me here, which I assume means he has an emergency.'
'The news of your capture would explain what happened,' said Ahbyahd,
'Do you really think Oman's security forces will put out the word that they caught me only to admit I escaped?'
'Of course not,' answered Zaya Yateem.
'The Mahdi holds your purse strings,' added Kendrick. 'And he could influence mine, which I don't like.'
'Our supplies are low,' broke in Ahbyahd. 'We need the fast boats from the Emirates or everything we've done will be for nothing. Instead of besieging, we ourselves will be in a state of siege.'
'There may be a way,' said Zaya, suddenly getting out of the chair, her hands on the desk, her dark eyes above the veil gazing aimlessly in thought. 'We've scheduled a press conference this morning; it will be watched everywhere and certainly by the Mahdi himself. At some point in my talk I'll mention that we are sending out an urgent message to our friends. A message that requires an immediate response.'
