'All right, all right.' With enormous effort, Evan sat forward and picked up the phone which was still on the bed. 'It's direct dialling here in Bahrain. I forgot. What's the code for Masqat?'
'Nine-six-eight,' replied Khalehla. 'Dial zero-zero-one first.'
'I should reverse the goddamned charges,' said Kendrick, dialling, barely able to see the numbers.
'When did you last sleep?' asked Khalehla.
'Two—three days ago.'
'When did you eat last?'
'Can't remember… How about you? You've been pretty busy yourself, Madame Not-Such-Butterfly.'
'I can't remember, either… Oh, yes, I did eat. When I left the el Shari el Mish kwayis I stopped at that awful bakery in the square and got some orange baklava. More to find out who was there than anything—'
Evan held up his hand; the sultan's buried private line was ringing.
'Iwah?'
'Ahmat, it's Kendrick.'
'I'm relieved!'
'I'm pissed off.'
'What? What are you talking about?'
'Why didn't you tell me about her?'
'Her? Who?'
Evan handed the phone to a startled Khalehla.
'It's me, Ahmat,' she said, embarrassed. Eight seconds later, during which the voice of the perplexed and angry young sultan could be heard across the room, Khalehla continued. 'It was either this or having the press learn that an American congressman, armed and with fifty thousand dollars on him, had flown into Bahrain without going through customs. How long would it be before it was learned that he flew in on a plane ordered by the royal house of Oman? And how soon after that would there be speculation about his mission in Masqat?… I used your name with a brother of the Emir I've known for years and he arranged a place for us… Thank you, Ahmat. Here he is.'
Kendrick took the phone. 'She's a biscuit, my old-young friend, but I suppose I'm better off here than where I might be. Just don't give me any more surprises, okay?… Why are you so quiet?… Forget it, here's the schedule and, remember, no interference unless I ask for it! I've got our boy from the embassy at the Aradous Hotel; and the MacDonald situation, which I assume you know about—' Khalehla nodded, and Evan continued rapidly, 'I gather you do. He's being monitored at the Tylos; we'll be given a list of the calls he's been making when he stops making them. Incidentally, they're both armed.' Exhausted, Kendrick then described the specifics of the meeting ground as they had been relayed to the agents of the Mahdi. 'We only need one, Ahmat, one man who can lead us to him. I'll personally turn the rack until we get the information because I wouldn't have it any other way.'
Kendrick hung up the phone and fell back on to the pillows.
'You need food,' said Khalehla.
'Send out for Chinese,' said Evan. 'You've got the fifty thousand, not me.'
'I'll get the kitchen to prepare you something.'
'Me?' His lids half closed, Kendrick looked at the olive-skinned woman in the ridiculously rococo gold-rimmed chair. The whites of her dark brown eyes were bloodshot, the sockets blue from exhaustion, the lines of her striking face far more pronounced than her age called for. 'What about you?'
'I don't matter. You do.'
'You're about to fall out of that Lilliputian throne of yours, Queen Mother.'
'I'll handle it, thank you,' said Khalehla, sitting upright, blinking in defiance.
'Since you won't give me my watch, what time is it?'
'Ten minutes past four.'
