Keys to the Kingdom (2 page)

‘Allah bless you, the satisfaction of knowing that the Holy Places are in the protective hands of a true believer will be payment enough for me.’

The Prince’s stern features relaxed. ‘I think you are the omen we have been waiting for, Abu Ma’aath. If you really are the ‘Father of Death’ then you have come to the right place. The enemies of God will not be able to hide from His wrath when it is unleashed. Now my friend, let us discuss this plan of yours in more detail.’

Abdallah clapped his hands and the door of the room opened. Two women entered carrying a huge platter containing the cooked remains of a sheep. The body had been roughly carved and the sheep’s innards had been placed on top of the heap of meat. The women placed the platter on the floor in the centre of the room.

‘The plan, Abu Ma’aath,’ Prince Kareem said ignoring the presence of the women and the platter from which Naim was picking the choicest pieces for his honoured guest. ‘Tell us about your plan.’ 

CHAPTER 3

Worley sipped his whiskey and soda and walked slowly around the edge of the crowd milling on the lawn of the British Ambassador’s Residence. It had been two days since he had seen Patrick Gallagher outside the main mosque and he had not stopped thinking about it since. Gallagher had disappeared into the maze of streets that was the Al Dirrah souk. Gallagher was older but it was the same man whose image had been burned into his mind during the year Worley had scoured Northern Ireland for him. Once the shock of seeing a supposedly dead man alive had worn off, Worley was faced with the million dollar question. If it was Gallagher that he had seen, what the hell was he doing in Riyadh? He continued to walk aimlessly around the edge of the crowd nodding occasionally to several Saudis and his colleagues from the other foreign delegations. He was so pre-occupied with his thoughts of Gallagher that he couldn’t face the prospect of small talk with any particular group assembled on the lawn. It was part of his job to mingle. Intelligence was an eye and ear job. If you hung around on the periphery there was little or no chance of picking up the jewel of gossip that might fall from a tongue loosened by too much Champagne or malt whisky. To-day Worley was there on sufferance. The cable he had fired off to London two days ago asking for information on any recent sightings of Patrick Joseph Gallagher had gone unanswered. Just that morning he had submitted a travel request to his Ambassador for a trip to London. If Gallagher was alive, he wanted to know about it and if he ever put his foot in Saudi Arabia again, Worley was going to make sure that he was picked up. He looked across the manicured lawns of the Residence. It was an oasis of green in a country where the dominant colour was a parched brown. The Diplomatic Quarter was a little piece of Europe in the middle of the desert waste that is Saudi Arabia. It was early evening and in a few hours time the green grass would be awash with Saudis as families from Riyadh descended on the greenery to hold their evening picnics.  His glance moved to the edge of the crowd and he stopped dead. Behind the last group standing directly in front of the Ambassador’s Residence he saw his brother Robert staring at him. He stopped dead and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his dead brother had disappeared.  

‘Arthur, old boy,’ Peter Ellis, the First Secretary of the Embassy, put his arm around Worley's shoulders and led him out of earshot of the nearest chattering group. ‘What the hell's the matter with you to-day, old man? This type of gathering should be right up your alley. Lots of squiffy Saudis sounding off and dropping secrets by the ton. Sir Richard watches the staff like a hawk during these events and I rather fancy he thinks that you're falling down on the job.’ Ellis stood back. ‘You don’t look terribly well, old fellow. Summer colds can play havoc with you in a place like this. Nothing like a blast of Arctic air to clean the tubes out.’

Worley sipped his drink. He switched his attention to Ellis and ignored the remark about the Ambassador but he did glance beyond the First Secretary and saw that Sir Richard was in deep conversation with several high ranking Saudis. There was a certain amount of rivalry between the Foreign Office and the Secret Service. Worley was nominally on the Embassy staff as a cultural attaché but in effect he was an independent operator. That fact rankled with Ellis. However, most of the Saudi establishment was well aware what he did for a living and they didn’t give a damn. Saudi Arabia was Britain’s biggest ally in the Gulf.

‘I suppose Sir Richard passed on this intelligence to you directly,’ Worley sipped his drink.

‘Not exactly but I can sense that he's getting a bit annoyed watching you skirt the crowd like a thirteen year old at his first dance.’

Worley looked directly into the wire connected bottle tops perched on Ellis’ nose and stared into the magnified eyes. He smiled. ‘If you ever leave the Foreign Service, Peter, you could develop a mind reading act and take it on the road. I'm sure that there are plenty of ex-Ambassadors or Principal Private Secretaries out there who’d be willing to play the straight man for you. Now why don’t you do what you’re good at and sell some witless Saudi another tank or fighter aircraft that they don’t need.’

‘My, but we are testy today,’ a practised half smile flicked across Ellis' lips. ‘It's my job to mingle and make sure that the Ambassador and the rest of the staff don't make gaffs. Your job is to ferret out information and make some sense out of it. I suggested to the Ambassador that considering your recent performance we might reconsider completely whether we really have a requirement for a Service person at all.’ The half-smile reappeared.

‘Have it your own way, Peter.’ Worley said looking away towards the Jeddah Road.

‘By the way,’ Ellis was smiling openly now. ‘I received your travel request for your trip to London. I’m afraid that the Embassy travel budget is under a bit of pressure at the moment so I’m going to have to refuse it. You’re free to pay out of your own pocket, of course.’

‘Did you attend some Foreign Office course to become a despicable little prick or were you born into it?’

‘Now now,’ Ellis kept the smile pasted to his face. ‘You chaps from the Service are generally good sports.’

‘I can see at least two important Saudis who are just panting to have their arses licked by a senior British diplomat. Hop to it, Peter. And yes, I will be paying for my trip to London myself.’

Ellis opened his mouth and immediately closed it again. He turned on his heel and made in the direction of a fat Saudi Prince known for his predilection for blond thirteen year old girls and his ability to skim millions from arms deals.

Democracy makes strange bedfellows, Worley thought as he watched the upper class British diplomat embrace the fat Saudi pederast. He removed his handkerchief and wiped away yet another film of sweat. A spasm of fever ran through him. Perhaps Ellis was right and he had picked up a cold. He pushed this thought from his mind and turned his back on the party. Only a short nine hours ago he had run ten kilometres around the perimeter of the quarter but right now he felt that if he walked one more step he would fall down. He pulled in deep breaths of the hot desert air and told himself to calm down. He was letting this Gallagher business get to him and that was plain bloody stupid. Maybe it hadn’t been Gallagher he’d seen at all. Perhaps the whole incident had been nothing but an illusion. Slowly he got his breathing under control. It was all right. He had just picked up a chill. Probably on his morning run. It would pass. He looked over his shoulder at the Saudis and diplomats as they went through the ritual of exchanging gossip. How many garden parties had he attended in the past twenty years? He was beginning to think that the answer was too many.

‘How’s it goin’, Artie?’

Worley turned around slowly. There was only one person in Riyadh who called him ‘Artie’.

‘Clark,’ Worley said extending his hand. ‘Good to see you.’ Clark Gilman was the CIA’s station chief in Riyadh. He stood fully six feet three in his stocking feet and had a full head of jet black hair above a tanned craggy face. People asked to pick out the senator in a crowd at a cocktail party generally plumped for Gilman.

‘Nice threads,’ Gilman said fingering the lapel of Worley’s suit jacket. ‘Armani?’

‘Louis Feraud,’ Worley replied and smiled. Gilman wore a light grey silk suit that must have set him back something in the region of £2000. The suit was perfectly tailored to conceal the fact that Gilman was at least fifty pounds overweight. He held in his left hand a Scotch and soda and the sleeve of his suit was raised just enough to expose a chunky solid gold Rolex watch. You didn’t have to be a genius to work out that Clark Gilman had developed a method of supplementing his ‘Company’ salary.

‘You’re the only man in this Goddamned compound who’s got a bit of style, Artie. You on a diet or somethin’? You lost a couple of pounds since I seen you last.’

‘Trying to stay fit,’ Worley ushered Gilman away from the main clutch of people. ‘I’m glad I bumped into you, Clark. The Ambassador has been on my back for a report on the happenings at the last Consultative Council Meeting. My sources don’t seem to be in talking humour at the moment and I was wondering whether you’d heard what the powers that be were discussing.’

‘Just the usual shit,’ Gilman said taking a slug of his drink. ‘You know them boys just like I do. They’re somethin’ like your Royal Family when it comes to brains so they confine their discussions to the camel races and where to get the best fuck in Europe.’

‘I hope you wouldn’t be trying to keep something from me.’ An uneasy feeling crept up Worley’s back. This was the first time that he had failed to obtain a full report on the discussions of the Consultative Council within a few days of it taking place.

‘Scout’s honour,’ Gilman said raising the index and second finger of his left hand.

‘I’ve got this really creepy feeling that something is going on.’ Worley was about to mention his sighting of Gallagher but reined himself in at the last moment. If Gallagher was still drawing a breath, he was going to be the one to nail him. Maybe there was such a thing as fate after all. What else could have put him and the man he had vowed to bring to justice in the same place at exactly the same time?  He put on his most puzzled look and saw that Gilman was watching him attentively.  ‘I can’t put my finger on the whys and the wherefores but there’s something in the air and I have this feeling that when it hits the fan everything is going to turn upside down.’

‘Jesus Christ, Artie, if I didn’t know you so well I’d say that you’d been out in the sun too much,’ Gilman took a gulp from his drink. ‘I fucking hate it when intelligence agents start goin’ into the crystal ball gazing business. You Brits worry too much. Every other Mickey Mouse country on this Goddamned peninsula could disappear up its anus to-morrow but this place is rock solid. The Al Sauds aren’t some bunch of ragheads that just rode out of the desert. They’ve got this place locked up tight and that’s the way they’re goin’ to keep it. Fifty percent of the Cabinet are members of the Royal Family. They hold all the provincial governorships and eleven deputy ministerships. They got generals in the Army, a Prince heads the National Guard, they got the intelligence apparatus in their pocket. I tell you, Artie, a flea don’t fart in Saudi that they don’t know about and that the King hasn’t sanctioned. The Sauds got the kind of control that them shitheads in Congress dream about. They’ve been livin’ high on the hog for a hellova long time and they ain’t about to give it up.’

‘Have you heard anything about a new subversive group?’

‘Aw come on Artie,’ Gilman put his arm around Worley’s shoulder. ‘You’re a Goddamned pro. You have a mint tea with some son-of-a-bitch in the souk and all you’re goin’ to hear about is the Hezbollah, the new Ikhwan, the Islamic Revolutionary Party, the Muslim Brotherhood and a half a dozen other dingbat groups. It’s a crock of shit. Don’t you think that they know about all these fundamentalist movements? Shit, I’d bet the shirt on my back they even started some of them.’ Gilman looked quizzically at Worley. ‘What’s on your mind, boy?’

‘Nothing,’ Worley said.

‘Don’t give me that shit,’ Gilman removed his arm and faced Worley. ‘Something has you spooked but good, Artie. I wouldn’t mind some of the other half asses in the compound wettin’ themselves but when I see you lookin’ peeked and worried lookin’ then I want to know why.’

‘Forget it Clark,’ Worley said. ‘I haven’t been feeling well lately, probably a spot of flu. I’ve been recalled to London for a conference with my chief and I’ll probably take the opportunity to see the family doctor.’

‘You are one major pain in the ass, Artie,’ Gilman finished his drink and pulled a huge cigar from his inside pocket. ‘It’s my worst fucking nightmare that something will go down here that we’re not in control of.’ He lit the cigar and began to puff vigorously. He sucked hungrily on the cigar.  ‘You’re being completely up-front with me aren’t you, Artie?’

‘Absolutely,’ Worley said. It was getting near time for him to make his excuses and disappear back to his bungalow. ‘Clark. Good to see you.’

Worley turned his head to his right just as a woman detached herself from a nearby group and came in their direction.

‘Ah Shit!’ Gilman said under his breath.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’ she said as she joined the two men.

‘Hey, Artie, you are one lucky sucker,’ Gilman blew a mouthful of smoke in the direction of the lady who stood in front of Worley. ‘You are just about to meet a legend in her own mind. This is Mizz Mary Jo Rosinski, super intelligence agent. Mary Jo, sweetheart, meet Arthur St John Worley, our man in Riyadh,’ Gilman smiled at his own joke. ‘That sweetheart remark wasn’t exactly PC. I hope it won’t be held against me in court.’

‘It’s pronounced ‘Sinjon’ not ‘Saint John’,’ Worley said quickly filling the silence.  He extended his hand towards Rosinski. ‘I’ve told Clark a million times but he insists on pronouncing it ‘Saint John’ as in the Bible.’

‘Nice to meet you finally,’ Rosinski’s bright hazel eyes examined the Englishman. She cast a withering look in the direction of Gilman. ‘Clark’s been keeping me so busy that I’ve hardly met anyone since I arrived.’

Worley noted the sharpness in her voice. It was a two-way no love lost situation.

‘Whatever,’ Gilman pulled on his cigar. ‘I gotta leave you folks. Don’t forget, Artie, I wouldn’t be too happy if you held out something important on me.’

‘No worries,’ Worley said forcing a smile. He watched Gilman stride away towards a group where Sir Richard was holding court.