desk and smoking a cigarette was the one familiar face in the room. The handsome mustachioed face grinned up at Hawke from out of the black cowl that covered his head.
It was Harry Brock’s old chum from Muscat, Ahmed Badur, favored architect of sultans and beloved friend of princes, the great provider himself.
“Your sense of loyalty is remarkable, Ahmed,” Hawke said. “Frankly, I’m relieved.”
Ahmed smiled. “You thought the traitor might be Brock?”
“I did.”
“You should have known better, m’lord. Oh, we tried to buy him, believe me. But old Harry is just what he appears to be. A good soldier. And so brave. Look at him now. Awaiting his fate without so much as a whimper.”
Ahmed kicked the kneeling Harry viciously in the ribs. The strength of the blow was sufficient to lift the man from the floor. Stokely made a move toward the desk, saw Hawke’s look, and stopped in midstride.
“You do that to my friend again and you’re dead,” Hawke said to Ahmed, his eyes as cold as his voice.
Ahmed laughed, showing his white teeth. “What do you care? He’s already dead. So are you, my esteemed friend.”
“Ah, Ahmed!” Major Tang said, striding across the room, “I see you’ve renewed your acquaintance with your former shipmates. Lord Hawke, I’m sure Mr. Badur would appreciate being treated in accordance with his new rank of general. General Badur is a newly minted officer in the Omani Liberation Army. In his forthcoming television address, the sultan will name him interim president of the new government. Now, I think the camera crew is ready, if you are, gentlemen?”
“Camera crew?” Stoke said, as the French civilians in jeans and T-shirts approached, equipment in hand. “What the hell you people doing here?”
A grinning Ahmed hopped off the desk and withdrew a long, curved sword from the folds of his hooded black djellaba cloak. He said, “A new reality show.”
“Riveting,” Hawke said, edging closer to the sultan.
“Isn’t it? It’s called ‘Invitation to a Beheading,’” Ahmed said, flashing the sword before Hawke’s eyes, taunting him, disappointed when he got no reaction from the cold eyes at all. He spun and whipped the hood off the man on the floor. It was indeed Harry Brock. Ahmed placed the blade of the sword gently across Harry’s bare neck. A thin line of blood appeared.
“Just do it,” Harry Brock said, his voice devoid of any discernible emotion. Ahmed raised the blade.
“This ain’t happening, Ahmed,” Stoke said, lunging for the traitor and stopping his arm as it came down. The sword clattered on the stone floor. Instantly, four heavyset Arab guards grabbed Stoke from behind and wrestled him facedown to the ground. Stoke managed to fling two away, but one of them pinned his legs and the other had his left forearm jammed up between his shoulder blades. The guy seemed to think he had Stoke in a tough spot.
Stoke craned his head around and smiled at the snarling gorilla on his back.
“Rock me, baby, rock me like my back ain’t got no bone,” Stokely said.
Then, with his right hand, Stoke casually got the man by the throat and dug his fingers into the larynx. The guard’s face was turning blue. Ahmed stuck the tip of his scimitar an inch into Stokely’s shoulder joint.
“You cut my arm off,” Stoke said softly, “I swear I’ll beat you to death with it.”
“Stoke,” Hawke said. “Relax. Let him go. Let’s be gentlemen about this.”
“I’ll let him go soon as they let Brock go…”
Ahmed lifted Harry Brock to his feet and said, “All right, then. You gentlemen are all going straight to Paradise as soon as we have completed filming your heartfelt pleas for mercy. A casual observer will think you ran into some very nasty terrorists on your way to rescue the sultan.”
Stoke got to his feet, glaring at the traitor. “Hey, Ahmed. You familiar with that old American expression, ‘Go fuck yourself’?”
The mercenaries and Chinese guards had the guns leveled on them now. Stoke knew there was little he could do now but wait. Wait and pray Hawke knew what the hell he was doing. He saw Alex look down at his watch and relaxed a little. Hawke was playing for time, all right, and it might just work.
The French camera crew positioned the digital video camera on a tripod a foot away from the desk. Two floodlights also on tripods were similarly positioned and turned on. In the stark white light, the figure behind the desk, a pale shadow of the man who had appeared before the cameras in Paris just three short weeks earlier, was trembling visibly. On the desk in front of him, some kind of documents. A formal agreement, it looked like. Ahmed stepped behind the man and pulled the cloak from his head.
“State your name,” Major Tang said from behind the camera. The man at the desk was red-eyed with fear and exhaustion. On either side of him, out of camera range, stood two men with ugly black automatic pistols aimed at his head.
“I am Sultan Aji Abbas.”
“Your Highness,” Tang said, “our first order of business. If you’ll please sign the agreement?”
The sultan picked up the gold pen with palsied fingers and dipped it into the inkwell. With great difficulty, he inscribed his name in the place indicated.
“What’s he signing, Harry?” Hawke said. Tang smiled and made a sweeping gesture to Brock. Go right ahead, why not?
“That’s the Muscat Agreement,” Brock said, shaking his head to clear out the cobwebs. “Big bad secret. The French government agrees to supply five hundred thousand tons of tanker shipping toward the establishment of the Omani Maritime Company. OMCO will be exempted from Omani taxes. Ships will fly the Omani flag and the officers will be drawn from an Omani maritime college established and funded by Bonaparte himself. OMCO gets priority rights on all oil shipped to China. Bonaparte gets an initial guaranteed 10 percent of the country’s annual output.”
“Good idea,” Hawke said.
“Yeah. Gives France the monopoly on about fifty million tons of Omani oil shipped to China. But Bonaparte knew it couldn’t be implemented without a royal decree. He couldn’t make this fly legally without the sovereign’s signature.”
“So, now, everybody’s happy,” Hawke said.
“Yeah. And if this little beauty works, China takes this show on the road. Replicate this scenario in other Gulf States. That’s the plan, anyway.”
“That’s the plan,” Major Tang said, smiling at Hawke. “Now, if you’d please be so kind, Sultan Abbas, we’ll begin taping your broadcast.”
The sultan gathered himself and, his voice strong and unwavering, spoke directly into the camera.
“Tonight, I wish to address the brave people of Oman. As you know, a grave crisis looms over our small nation. Insurgents and insurrectionists are at our back door. In this dire time of our peril and need, I turned to my good friend, President Bonaparte of France. A man whose love for our country knows no bounds. Even now, French troop ships are steaming toward our shores. They will help us repel the barbarians and save us from—”
The heavy doors were blown off the hinges by the force of the explosion outside. The sound of shouting and automatic weapons fire could be heard just outside the entrance. Stun grenades, both flash-bangs and smoke, were lobbed into the room and immediately exploded, creating deafening, mind-numbing noise and a roiling white fog that obscured everything.
A momentary smile crossed Hawke’s face as he saw Thunder and Lightning come through the door.
“Fitz!” Hawke cried, “Over here! I’ve got the sultan!”
Hawke was trying to pull the old man to the floor and out of harm’s way. Rounds were sizzling overhead, fired randomly in every direction. He’d seen the yellow twinkle of muzzle flames in the smoke not six feet away. It was Major Tang, firing his pistol blindly in their direction, hoping to take out the sultan with a lucky shot. Ahmed, who was barely three feet away, instantly saw what was happening.
“Death to tyrants! Death to America!” Ahmed cried, slashing downward with the curved blade as he fell, wounded, to the floor. Hawke felt a gush of the sultan’s hot blood splash against his face and the old Arab crumpled in his arms. The sultan was breathing, but his right leg was hemorrhaging horribly. Ahmed had left his blade buried in the man’s thigh. The femoral artery lies deep within the thigh, but if a blade can find it, the chances of stopping mortal blood flow are almost nil.
