'That's a mouthful, young fellow. How do I recognize this problem?'
'I hope there'll be no cause for you to. She's hidden in the pilot's cabin, which will remain locked until they reach Bahrain.'
That's all you'll tell me?'
'About her, yes.'
'I've got to move. What can you do for me?'
'Send you on another plane. As soon as he can, our friend will call and tell me what's happening. When you get there, contact me; here's how.' Ahmat gave his private, scrambled telephone number to Weingrass.
'Must be a new exchange,' said Manny.
'It's no exchange,' said the young sultan. 'Will you be at this number?'
'Yes.'
'I'll call you back with the arrangements. If there's a commercial flight leaving soon, it would be easier all around to get you on it.'
'Sorry, can't do that.'
'Why not?'
'Everything has to be blind and deaf. I've got seven peacocks with me.'
'Seven…?'
'Yes, and if you think there'd be trouble—like catastrophes—try those highly intelligent birds feathered in blue and white.'
Ahmat, sultan of Oman, gasped. 'The Mossad?' he whispered.
'That's about it.'
'Holy shit!' exclaimed Ahmat.
The small six-passenger Rockwell jet flew northwest at thirty-four thousand feet over the United Arab Emirates and into the Persian Gulf on its eight-hundred-mile course to the sheikdom of Bahrain. A disturbingly quiet, confident Anthony MacDonald sat alone in the first row of two seats, Azra and Kendrick in the last row together. The door to the pilot's cabin was shut, and according to the man who had met them in the ‘stolen' garrison car and ushered them through the cargo area to the far end of Masqat's airfield and the plane, that door would remain shut until the passengers left the aircraft. No one was to see them; they would be met at Bahrain's International Airport in Muharraq by someone who would escort them through immigration.
Evan and Azra had gone over the schedule several times, and as the terrorist had never been to Bahrain, he took notes—primarily locations and their spellings. It was imperative to Kendrick that he and Azra separate, at least for an hour or so. The reason was Anthony MacDonald, the most unlikely of the Mahdi's agents. The Englishman might be a short cut to the Mahdi, and if he was, Evan would abandon the crown prince of terrorists.
'Remember, we escaped together from the Jabal Sham, and when you consider Interpol, to say nothing of the combined intelligence units from Europe and America, there'll be alerts out for us everywhere and with our photographs. We can't take the chance of being spotted together in daylight. After sundown the risk is less, but even then we must take precautions.'
'What precautions?'
'Buy different clothes to begin with; these have the mark of lower-class roughnecks, all right for the conditions in Masqat but not here. Take a taxi to Manamah, that's the city across the causeway on the big island, and get a room at the Aradous Hotel on the Wadi Al Ahd. There's a men's shop in the lobby; buy yourself a Western business suit and get a haircut at the barber's. Write it all down!'
'I am.' Azra wrote faster.
'Register under the name of—come to think of it, Yateem is a common name in Bahrain, but let's not take the chance.'
'My mother's name, Ishaad?'
'Their computers are too full. Use Farouk, everyone else does. T. Farouk. I'll reach you in an hour or two.'
