money.'
'OK, I understand the position you're in, and I'm sorry. But I told you I don't pay for failure.'
Dexter shifted slightly in his seat, as if preparing to stand up and leave, but Zebari stilled him with a gesture.
'We did get something,' he said. 'A piece of card.'
'Is that all?'
'Yes, but it has a good picture of the tablet on it, and the story of its origins. Does your client want the tablet itself, or just a copy of the inscription that's on it?'
Dexter looked at him appraisingly. 'What do you mean?'
'What I say. Some people talk, other people listen. The word is that this clay tablet is worthless, but the inscription on it is priceless. It's a kind of treasure map, or a part of one, anyway. Now, if your client really just wants this lump of fired clay for his collection of relics, our conversation here is probably over. But if all he wants is a picture of the inscription – a much better picture than the one you sent me – then I hope he has deep pockets, because it's going to cost him plenty to get his hands on the card.'
Dexter sighed. 'OK, let's cut to the chase. How much do you want?'
Zebari took a slip of paper out of his pocket and passed it across the table.
Dexter picked it up and looked at the number written on it. 'Ten thousand? Ten thousand pounds?' he asked, keeping his voice low, and Zebari nodded. 'You have just
'Then neither you nor your client will ever see the card. It's your choice, Dexter. I've given you my first, last and totally non-negotiable offer. If you don't agree, I'll walk out of here and you'll never see me again. I have friends who'll help me.'
For a few seconds the two men stared at each other, then Dexter nodded. 'Wait here. I'll call my client and see what he wants to do. I'll need a few minutes.'
'Make it quick, Dexter. I'm running out of time.'
Dexter left the hotel, walked a short distance down the street, then pulled out his mobile phone. He relayed to Charlie Hoxton what Zebari had told him, and finished by telling him the price the Moroccan was demanding. Or, to be completely accurate, he told him Zebari wanted ?15,000 for the card – he had his commission to think of, after all.
When he told Hoxton the price, Dexter held the phone away from his ear, which was just as well. The stream of invective being emitted at full volume from the earpiece might have damaged his hearing. When the tirade had diminished, he cautiously replaced the phone.
'So I'll tell him it's no deal then?'
'I didn't say that, Dexter. Will he negotiate?'
'He told me he wouldn't, and I believe him. He's deep in the shit because of what happened, and selling this picture of the tablet is about the only way he has of getting out. And he wants to know right now. When I go back into the hotel, either it's a deal at fifteen or he walks. Those are our choices.'
'Thieving bastard,' Hoxton said angrily. 'He does know the price he's demanding is totally bloody extortionate, doesn't he?'
'Oh, yes, definitely. He also told me that the inscription on the tablet appeared to be part of a treasure map.'
Hoxton was quiet for a few seconds, then spoke again. 'OK. Tell him it's a deal. I've already wired money to the account we arranged in Rabat. I'll authorize you to draw fifteen grand from it tomorrow.'
Slightly surprised by Hoxton's response, Dexter slipped the phone into his pocket and walked back into the hotel lounge.
'Will you take eight?' he asked. There was no harm in trying a little haggling.
Zebari shook his head and stood up.
'OK, OK,' Dexter said. 'We'll buy the card for ten. The money will be in Rabat tomorrow. I presume you'll want it in cash? In dirhams?'
'Of course I want it in dirhams. Do you think I'm some kind of idiot? Call me on this after nine tomorrow' – he wrote a mobile number on the piece of paper he'd given to Dexter – 'when you've got the money. Then we'll meet somewhere and do the exchange.'
Without another word, Zebari stood up and walked out of the hotel.
32
At eight thirty the next morning Dexter walked through the doors of the Bank Al-Maghrib on Avenue Mohammed V in Rabat. Fifteen minutes later he left the premises, his transactions concluded. Five thousand pounds of the money Charlie Hoxton had wired to Morocco was on its way to a numbered account in a small and discreet bank in Lichtenstein, where it would earn minimal interest for him but be entirely safe.
The previously smooth line of Dexter's tweed jacket was now marred by two bulges. The wads of dirham notes in his inside pockets – each the equivalent of ?5,000 sterling – were bulky, and he wanted to get the meeting with Zebari over with as quickly as possible and get home to the calm and safety of his antique shop in Petworth. He'd never liked Morocco as a country; he liked its inhabitants even less.
He walked briskly along Avenue Mohammed V until he found a cafe that looked reasonably clean, pulled out a chair from a vacant table and ordered mint tea – Arabic coffee was far too strong and bitter for his taste. He checked his watch: eight fifty.
At nine exactly he pulled out his mobile and dialled the number Zebari had given him.
The Moroccan answered almost at once. 'Dexter?'
'Yes. I've got what you wanted.'
'You're in Rabat?'
'Yes.'
'Get yourself onto Avenue Hassan II and go east along it, heading towards the estuary. When you get almost to the end, just before it bends to the south-east, turn right into the Rue de Sebta. Walk down there and take a seat in the first cafe you come to on the right-hand side of the road. Sit outside, where I'll be able to see you. Got that?'
'Yes.' Dexter studied his street map of Rabat. Avenue Hassan II actually crossed Avenue Mohammed V, and the rendezvous Zebari had specified was only about a mile away. 'I'll be there in twenty minutes,' he said.
Half a mile away, Izzat Zebari snapped his mobile closed and nodded to himself in satisfaction. He trusted Dexter about as far as he could throw him, but he had the Englishman over a barrel, and both of them knew it. Dexter's client was obviously desperate to get his hands on anything relating to the clay tablet and Zebari was fairly sure he wouldn't try anything underhand. But if Dexter did try to gain possession of the card without handing over the money, Zebari guessed that his Walther PPK automatic pistol would provide all the additional persuasion he'd need to complete the transaction.
Zebari glanced around him as he stood up in the hotel lobby where he'd been waiting. Satisfied, he walked out of the building, squinting in the sudden glare of the sunshine.
He glanced up and down Rue Abd el Myumen before pulling a pair of sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and striding away towards the Rue de Sebta.
About fifty yards behind Zebari, two men dressed in jeans and T-shirts stood up from the cafe table where they'd been sitting and began to follow him, chatting to each other as they walked. One man held a small mobile phone close to his right ear.
In the back seat of a black Mercedes saloon that was even then cutting through the traffic towards the Rue Abd el Myumen from the south side of Rabat, the tall man with the frozen face was urging his driver to go ever faster. He listened on his phone to the reports from his two men. It wouldn't be long now before he recovered what was rightfully his.
The traffic along Avenue Hassan II, which was also the main N1 road that laterally bisected Rabat, wasn't anything like as bad as Dexter had anticipated. That, and the fact that he managed to flag down a cab within seconds of leaving the cafe, meant it took him less than ten minutes to reach the rendezvous.
