Payback (11 page)

Carole-Anne Jackson was nodding, and even Caxton now looked less incredulous.

‘Perhaps you’re right. The question, I suppose, is what we should do about it. What do you suggest, Bill?’

‘We have to check out this Sheikh Rashid, and that’s not going to be easy. Mazen has already tried through the hospital administration and got nowhere. He has no other sources he can
tap and he’s reluctant to involve the police in case it’s all a big mistake. Bursting into the hospital with a SWAT team, if the target really
is
an important Arab sheikh, would
be a very good way to lose goodwill and attract some extremely unwelcome attention. Mazen thinks, and I agree with him, that the only way to be certain about this man’s identity is to get
somebody onto the ward with a camera.

‘The problem, I suppose, is who gets to carry the Kodak. We’re not supposed to be active here, and Vauxhall Cross wouldn’t be too impressed if one of us got arrested for
crashing Sheikh Rashid’s party. I suggest we tell London what we know and let them decide what to do. That way, if we’re ordered to investigate and the shit hits the fan, at least
we’ve got ourselves top cover.’

Caxton looked somewhat pained at Evans’s turn of phrase. ‘Carole?’ he asked.

‘I agree with Bill. I think you should tell London and wait for a direct instruction. If it was my problem, I’d let Langley make the decision for me.’

‘Right,’ Caxton said. ‘I’ll talk to Vauxhall Cross. Bill, keep Mazen in the loop, and if you hear anything else about this Sheikh Rashid make sure I’m the first to
know about it.’

Al-Shahrood Stables, Ad Dahnā, Saudi Arabia

Saadi started one of the farm Range Rovers and drove it into the courtyard. Massood had already loaded the Bobcat on the trailer and was inside the stable office, sorting
out the documentation for the journey to Dubai. Bashar was waiting by Shaf’s stall, ready to open the door once the horsebox was safely in position. The stables owned half a dozen specialized
trailers, and Saadi’s men were now manhandling the biggest one they’d found into the courtyard. Saadi carefully manoeuvred the big four-wheel-drive vehicle, and moments later the
horsebox was attached to the towing hitch.

The Al-Shahrood horsebox would more properly be called a horse transporter. It was a large vehicle, supported by three pairs of wheels, with a separate storage compartment at the front for
saddles, boots, helmets, whips and everything else that might be needed during a race meeting. Behind was the equine passenger’s accommodation – though in fact it could carry two
horses, side-by-side, with a central partition separating them – and also included a storage area for hay and a large water tank supplying a steel drinking trough.

Saadi supervised the loading of the bales, each requiring two men to carry it, and they were careful to ensure that the opened ends were placed against the sides of the trailer, just in case
anyone did inspect their cargo. When they’d finished that, Saadi dropped the steel shutter that screened off the storage area – the last thing he wanted was for the horse to eat its way
through the hay and expose the packages concealed inside.

He ordered one of his men to fill the water-supply tank and bring in more hay to ensure that Shaf would become neither thirsty nor hungry on the journey. Personally, he cared not one jot for the
horse’s comfort, health or welfare, but he didn’t want a ton or so of angry thoroughbred to try kicking its way out of the trailer when they got a few hours down the road.

And, besides, the water tank was the ideal place to secrete the three Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifles and three pistols they would be taking with them. Saadi had a watertight black rubber bag
that he would stash them in well before they reached the airport.

He ordered portable fencing to be erected between the stable and the transporter but needn’t have bothered: without fuss Shaf walked up into the trailer and immediately began eating the
hay. Bashar carefully secured the animal’s bridle, stepped out of the transporter and closed the rear door.

‘You found everything?’ Saadi asked Massood, more a statement than a question.

‘Yes. All the documentation was ready, including the tickets and passports. Four people were scheduled to accompany the horse.’

‘We’ll have to explain that one was taken ill. Did you reschedule the flight?’

‘Yes, exactly as you instructed.’

‘Excellent. Then we’re ready to go.’

Massood climbed into the passenger seat of the Range Rover while Bashar made himself comfortable in the back. Saadi took a final look around the vehicle, checking the coupling and the rear door,
then climbed in and drove out of the courtyard, heading towards the house. When he reached the driveway he stopped and all three got out.

The other seven men were standing beside their own vehicles. Saadi walked across and, as if by common consent, they clustered around him. He solemnly embraced each of them – for he knew
they would never see him alive again – then stood back and bowed his head.

‘
Ma’assalama
, my friends,’ Saadi murmured solemnly. ‘Go in peace.’

For a moment nobody responded, then one man took a step forward, as if acting as a spokesman for his comrades. ‘
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatulahi wa barakatuhu
.’

‘
Walaikum assalam
,’ Saadi replied formally. And then, louder: ‘
Abdu-baha.
’

His seven companions then walked back to their vehicles, and within minutes all four jeeps had departed. Saadi’s instructions had been most specific: the Bobcat and trailer were to be
returned to the hire company; the weapons, magazines and ammunition would be buried in a location specified by the mission planners, being far too valuable to simply discard; and they were to
return the four-by-fours to the various companies from which they’d been hired.

Saadi, Massood and Bashar were faced with the longest journey, but it was still early morning and he hoped they’d complete the first leg, two hundred kilometres back to Buraydah, by noon
and the second leg, to Riyadh Airport – which meant another four hundred kilometres – by late afternoon. They were booked on a flight to Dubai that same evening, and Saadi had every
intention of catching it.

Kondal, Russia

Litvinoff’s attitude had changed completely. He’d suspected that the administrator was involved in some kind of treachery – serious enough in itself to
warrant a full investigation – but Borisov’s revelation that a suitcase nuclear bomb had been spirited out of Zarechnyy had changed everything. The investigation of the plant
administrator could wait. Litvinoff’s first priority was to track down the missing weapon.

‘These two Americans,’ he demanded, ‘where did you meet them?’

‘I saw them only once, when I followed Devenko and Nabov to their meeting. It was there one of the Americans gave me the bank passbook. They’d already agreed, through Nabov, to pay
me the money to buy my silence.’

That simply didn’t ring true, and Litvinoff guessed that Borisov had been much more deeply involved than he was admitting. If he had literally stumbled upon the plot to steal the weapon,
the Americans would probably have just killed him out of hand – a far more effective way of ensuring his silence than buying him off. And, anyway, the Swiss account would have taken time to
set up. Borisov had to have been an integral part of the conspiracy from the beginning. Once the immediate situation had been resolved, Litvinoff would dig deeper, until he found the truth.

‘How were these Americans going to get out of Russia?’

‘They told me they would be driving the truck straight down to the Turkish border at Leninakan, in Azerbaijan, but I don’t know if that’s what they really intended to
do.’

‘If that’s what they told you,’ Litvinoff snorted, ‘you can be quite certain that’s the only route we needn’t bother checking. They’re definitely going
to take another way out. Did they say anything else to you?’

When Borisov shook his head, Litvinoff pressed a buzzer on the wall. The door opened and a police officer escorted the prisoner back to his cell. Once he again had the room to himself. The
investigator opened up a map of south-western Russia, and began studying it closely.

Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

‘Just before noon last Friday,’ David Stevenson began, ‘an eighteen-year-old Arab boy named Saadallah Assad walked into the Al-Hamidieh
souk
in
the centre of Damascus and blew himself up.’ Stevenson was a short, slightly overweight – he normally described himself as ‘under-tall’ – fair-haired desk jockey, and
was one of the case officers on the Operations staff, with particular responsibility for the Middle East.

Five men looked back at him with varying degrees of interest, though only four of them were being tasked. The fifth man, sitting at the far end of the table, was John Westwood, the Company Head
of Espionage, who was present purely as an observer.

‘Initial reports from the local news media, and from our own people in Syria, suggest that he used around three kilos of plastic, probably C4, triggered by a handheld detonator. This
estimate has been confirmed by the Syrian intelligence service, the
Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya
, following its own analysis.

‘Nineteen people died immediately, eight of whom were American tourists. The rest were Syrian nationals, three of whom have yet to be formally identified simply because there’s
virtually nothing left of them
to
identify. Seven others suffered such severe wounds that they died later, and there are nearly ninety victims still hospitalized in Damascus, receiving
treatment for everything from burns to head injuries caused by flying debris. It’s likely that some of these will also die, so the death toll could rise to around thirty. That makes it one of
the most destructive solo suicide bomber attacks ever.’

He paused to observe their reactions, then continued. ‘The damage to the
souk
was considerable. The blast blew out part of a wall on one side, causing a major collapse. Half the
souk
’s been closed while repairs are carried out, and it will take at least a month before it reopens.’

He glanced at his notes. ‘A videotape was received at the Al-Jazeera television station in Qatar. On it was a fairly typical pre-attack speech delivered by the suicide bomber. He was
sitting in front of a defaced Syrian flag, holding a copy of the
Qur’án
and claimed that he was carrying out the attack in support of the
Jamiat Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun
– the Society of Muslim Brothers or Muslim Brotherhood.

‘To remind you, that’s an old organization and an ideological forerunner of Al-Qaeda. It reached the height of its power at the end of the seventies, but it was virtually destroyed
on the instructions of President Hafez Assad. In 1982 he ordered the Syrian army to shell the Brotherhood’s stronghold at Hama, roughly halfway between Aleppo and Damascus. The organization
was outnumbered and outgunned and by the end of the action, at least ten thousand – some estimates suggest twenty thousand – members of the Brotherhood, as well as a lot of
camp-followers and innocent civilians, lay dead, and virtually all those that survived finished up rotting in jail. That purged the Brotherhood within Syria, but the appalling brutality of the
government’s response virtually ensured that the organization would endure, albeit in a shadowy form.’

By now he had their full attention.

‘Once the tape was broadcast, the Syrian authorities investigated Assad immediately. Like a lot of the
shuhada
– the Muslims refer to suicide bombers as “martyrs”,
the singular being
shahid
– he came from a good family, and was apparently well liked and respected, with no strong political leanings. His family insisted that they had no prior
knowledge of his intentions. It’s worth explaining a little about suicide bombers. First of all, they’re volunteers. As far as I’m aware, nobody has ever been coerced into acting
as a
shahid.
For some it’s a quick route to instant immortality. As you know, according to a verse in the
Qur’án,
a martyr never dies—’

‘If I’m not mistaken, the
Qur’án
also says that you should not take life,’ John Baxter interjected. He was a short, slim, dark-haired junior agent, sitting
immediately on Westwood’s right.

‘That’s quite true, but irrelevant. The
Qur’án,
like all religious tracts, can be “interpreted” to suit whatever purpose some fanatic requires. For a
shahid,
the usual interpretation is that he will immediately enter paradise, meet the Prophet Muhammad, be in the presence of Allah, and spend the rest of eternity with the
chouriyat
,
the seventy-two heavenly virgins. As a bonus, the
shahid
’s immediate family can look forward to enjoying the same fringe benefits in the future.’

‘Not so much life insurance as a kind of a death insurance policy?’ Baxter suggested.

‘That’s one way of looking at it, I guess. The
shahid’
s families are usually proud of them, and of what they’ve done, and their standing in their local community
is greatly enhanced. It’s considered a religious obligation to admire and honour the family of a
shahid
. They even get paid for it.’

‘Jesus,’ Baxter muttered. ‘You mean they do it for money?’

‘Absolutely not.’ Stevenson shook his head. ‘One of the most important elements in becoming a
shahid
is
niyya
– purity of motive – the concept of
imposing the will of Allah. No true
shahid
would ever act out of any kind of self-interest or personal glory. The payments their families receive are just intended to provide support for the
loss of a breadwinner, not as a reward for what he has done.’

‘Who pays them?’ asked Grant Hutchings. He was tall, blond, with a face just the wrong side of being handsome and was the senior agent being briefed. He had a reputation within the
Company for clear thinking, direct action and a very low bullshit-tolerance threshold. This latter characteristic was the reason why, at the age of forty-three, his career was generally considered
to be over. Everyone knew that to reach the higher echelons at Langley, you didn’t merely have to tolerate bullshit: you had to be adept at shovelling large quantities of it around.