Payback (32 page)

After that, he lay down on his bed and for a few moments stared up at the ceiling. Two years of meticulous planning and scheming, and by Monday midday they would almost certainly have entered
the final phase. Nothing could stop them now – the endgame was so close he could almost taste the money.

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai

Richter waited until late that afternoon before he decided to call London, and walked outside the hotel to use his mobile. Local time in Dubai was four hours ahead of
London, making it early afternoon there, and he briefed the duty officer because he guessed Simpson probably wouldn’t be at Hammersmith over the weekend.

‘The James Holden thing was a red herring, and he was actually working with the terrorists,’ he began, then explained the situation to date.

‘So what was the point?’ the duty officer asked. ‘Why were they using him to leak information?’

‘We’ve no idea, but we do know that their next target is a hotel here in Dubai. What little we found on the cloned hard drive confirms that, and the fact that Holden’s killer
went to such lengths to destroy it suggests this information was genuine – not disinformation.’

But even as he spoke this last word, Richter suddenly thought he glimpsed something of the truth, or at least something that might make sense of the inconsistencies. He ended the call quickly
and returned to the hotel.

‘Carole, we need to talk,’ he began.

She looked puzzled, but nodded, and followed him to a couple of chairs in the far corner of the lobby. Richter leant forward and began speaking in a low voice. Four minutes later he sat back and
waited for Jackson’s response.

‘Yes,’ she conceded, ‘that makes a certain sense, but it’s still pretty unbelievable. Two bomb attacks set up in two different countries, just for this? I hear what you
say, but I’m not convinced.’

‘I don’t have any better ideas,’ Richter said, ‘so I’m going to have to try it out on Watkinson, and quickly, because the clock is running. You coming?’

‘Damn right I am. I’ll see you here in five.’

He ordered a taxi, then went back outside to call Watkinson’s mobile. ‘It’s Richter. I just might have worked out what’s going on. What time is the World Cup race
starting?’

‘This evening, in about four hours, in fact. Why?’

‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Can we meet at the embassy right now?’

‘Thirty minutes?’

‘I’ll be there,’ Richter said, then he called Hammersmith again. ‘You’ll need to kick Simpson awake and tell him I have to talk to him.’

‘I’ll need a good reason to disturb him on a Saturday afternoon.’ The duty officer sounded distinctly unenthusiastic at the prospect of calling his boss.

‘I’ve got a
very
good one,’ Richter replied, and told him what he’d worked out.

British Embassy, Dubai

‘It suddenly dawned on me that because Holden’s killer wiped the hard disk, we assumed the information contained on it was genuine. Then I realized that the
data probably
was
genuine, but our conclusions might be invalid because we’ve been looking at it from the wrong angle. This, in fact, could be exactly what we thought it wasn’t
– a deception operation – and we’ve been making far too many assumptions.’

Watkinson didn’t look convinced. ‘I think you need to explain that.’

‘It’s like the old Antony and Cleopatra story. Cleopatra is lying dead on the floor. Beside her is broken glass and some spilt liquid. Antony is standing over her, looking down. What
happened?’

‘Have we really got time for riddles?’

‘It’ll take ten seconds, so humour me.’

‘OK. Cleopatra has drunk poison and died. She dropped the glass, and the liquid on the floor is the rest of the poison. Antony’s just arrived and found her like that.’

‘Carole?’ Richter asked, turning to Jackson.

‘I’d assume pretty much the same, I guess.’

‘Exactly,’ Richter said. ‘If you ask a hundred people to explain the same riddle, almost all of them will say something like that, because they’re all making assumptions
that aren’t supported by the evidence. And all of them would be wrong.’

‘So what’s the real answer?’

‘It’s easy when you don’t assume
anything
and ask the right questions. Because I used the names Antony and Cleopatra, you assumed I meant the Roman general and the Queen
of Egypt, but that’s not actually what I said. I just gave you two names. If I tell you that Cleopatra is a goldfish and Antony’s a cat, absolutely everything about the scene changes.
Assumptions can be
really
dangerous.’

‘That’s just a word game,’ Watkinson objected.

‘No, it’s a useful example of what I mean. Look what we’ve got here. A man claims to have visions of terrorist bombings. When the devices explode we realize his information is
extraordinarily accurate, so when he predicts another bomb exploding in a Gulf hotel we believe him. But Arab terrorists never give warnings, because they always aim for the maximum damage and the
highest possible number of casualties, so this leaking of information through a man claiming to be psychic is entirely new.’

‘Maybe this group has a different agenda, and might not want to cause maximum casualties,’ Watkinson pointed out.

‘It
has
got a different agenda, I’m sure of that. I believe its target is a small but very important group of people in Dubai.’

The question was obvious. ‘Who?’

‘The royal House of Saud,’ Richter replied, and Wat-kinson’s jaw visibly dropped open.

Hammersmith, London

‘This had better be good,’ Simpson snapped, from the doorway of the room where the duty officer sat at a wide L-shaped desk facing a telephone console and a
bank of television sets displaying the principal real-time news channels, their audio outputs muted. On the other section of the desk were three computer monitors.

‘It’s Richter, sir.’ The duty officer stood up as the director entered, unshaven and wearing casual clothes. ‘He thinks he’s uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to
assassinate the Saudi Arabian royal family in Dubai.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Simpson muttered. ‘All he was supposed to be doing was interviewing a barmy Englishman. What’s his evidence?’

‘It’s mainly circumstantial, but what he told me does seem to make sense.’

‘It had better, for his sake. Tell me about it.’

British Embassy, Dubai

‘That’s a hell of a leap of logic,’ Watkinson said. ‘What are your reasons? And who is it down to?’

‘The second question is easier to answer. It’s probably Al-Qaeda, and I’ll explain why I think so in a minute. As for the leaks, that’s the real question, and until today
I had no idea of the answer. But it’s really simple and obvious when you ignore your assumptions and just look at the facts. Holden was the lynchpin of this entire scheme, and those two bombs
were detonated for one reason only – to establish his credibility, so that we would listen to what he said. Nothing else. Those incidents just proved Holden could “see” the
atrocities before they happened, so that when he announced that a device was going to be planted in a Gulf State hotel, we’d immediately believe him. We’d then concentrate all our
resources on trying to find which hotel the terrorists had picked, and ignore the real target.’

‘Which is?’

‘The VIP viewing stand at the racecourse, during the Dubai World Cup. That’s why I asked you when the race was being held.’

Watkinson shook his head. ‘I’m not following this. You said the target was the House of Saud. Now you’re telling me it’s a stand at Nad Al-Sheba.’

‘It’s both,’ Richter replied, with a trace of impatience. ‘Julian Caxton told me how the World Cup meeting attracts all the royalty and nobility of the Arab world.
I’ve no doubt they stay in the top hotels or local palaces, so trying to target them individually would be very difficult. But the one occasion when they’ll all be together in a single
location at a fixed time is during the World Cup. My guess is that the explosives smuggled here to Dubai inside Shaf’s trailer are already hidden under the VIP stand and attached to a timing
device. And this evening, when all the sheikhs and princes are cheering on their horses, there’ll be a sodding great bang and the entire stand will disappear in a cloud of dust. Unless we do
something to stop it.’

‘But why the House of Saud? Osama bin Laden
is
a Saudi by birth.’

‘Yes, but he’s had no love for the ruling family since they took away his passport and did their best to humiliate and disown him. And, if I
am
right, this isn’t exactly
a new plan. Back in 1991 bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia for plotting to replace the royals with an Islamic regime.’

‘You know there are nearly six thousand members of the Saudi ruling family? They certainly won’t all be at Nad Al-Sheba.’

‘No, but enough senior members will be there to make this operation feasible. And I’m pretty sure Al-Qaeda
is
behind this, just because of the callous nature of the operation.
Around thirty people died in Damascus, and another six or eight in Manama. That’s nearly forty deaths whose sole purpose was to establish the credentials of one man, James Holden. And then
they killed another dozen at the stables in Saudi Arabia to hide the fact that a horse had been stolen. They could have achieved the same objective by imprisoning the staff somewhere out of sight.
That ruthless disregard for human life is an Al-Qaeda trademark.’

‘But surely a mass killing here would just mean bin Laden becoming even more reviled than he is already, and ensure he could never return to his homeland.’

‘If the people of Saudi Arabia thought bin Laden had ordered the assassinations for his personal benefit, they might react like that. But if he claimed it was done for religious reasons,
he might be welcomed home to Riyadh. Don’t forget that the House of Saud is perceived by many Arabs to be corrupt, Westernized and blasphemous, and this bloodbath could lead to Al-Qaeda
establishing a firm base in Saudi Arabia, and maybe bin Laden even assuming power as the new religious leader of the holiest land in all Islam. That’s the real nightmare scenario, the thought
of Al-Qaeda controlling the Saudi oilfields, with everything that implies.’

‘Holy shit.’

‘Beautifully put. Now, what do we do about it? Who do you have to call?’

Nad Al-Sheba Racecourse, Dubai

Saadi had been right about the security: all bags were being carefully searched. The three men had no trouble, because they were carrying nothing but tickets. They arrived
separately, three anonymous
gellabbiya
-wearing Arabs in a cosmopolitan crowd of racing enthusiasts, and only acknowledged each other once they were inside.

‘We’ll meet where we agreed in forty-five minutes exactly,’ Saadi instructed. ‘Meanwhile, do nothing to attract attention, just enjoy the racing and merge with the crowd.
But do
not
be late.’ Saadi looked closely at the two men who’d been his almost constant companions for the last week. ‘Remember the importance of our mission. We will
strike at the very heart of the sickness that infects the palaces of Riyadh. We are the cleansing wind of pure Islam that will rid the holy land of the corrupt and blasphemous House of
Saud.’

The three men walked away, their paths diverging almost immediately.

British Embassy, Dubai

Richter’s Enigma phone rang.

‘Why is it that every time I send you off to do a simple job of investigation you end up trying to start World War Three?’ Simpson demanded.

‘Not my choice,’ Richter replied, ‘and I’m not trying to start anything here. I’m trying to stop it.’

‘How certain are you?’

‘Right now I’m not sure of anything, but what’s been happening out here seems to make sense only in one context – an attempt to mislead us into looking for a terrorist
bomb in the wrong place. While we’re all poncing about looking for a pile of Semtex in some fancy hotel, the terrorists will be out at Nad Al-Sheba assassinating the senior Saudi royals as
they sit watching their horses go by. And this does pretty much tie up with what Salah Khatid learned in Germany. It’s a relatively small target, but with obvious economic consequences that
would affect almost every nation on earth.’

‘I’ve talked to the Intelligence Director,’ Simpson said, ‘and he thinks it’s possible you’re right. And if you are, there’s a clear threat to the Saudi
oilfields.’

‘The ID always did like to hedge his bets,’ Richter remarked.

‘Don’t be impertinent. What steps are you taking locally?’

‘I’m at the embassy with the local Six man, and we’re just about to contact the Dubai police and tell them what we think we know, or rather what we believe we
suspect.’

Simpson’s snort of disgust was clearly audible. ‘And what will
they
do? Issue a parking ticket for the terrorists’ van, or whatever else they’re driving around in?
Don’t they have any paramilitary forces out there? Something like the SAS or GSG-9?’

‘I don’t know, to be honest.’

‘Well, I suggest you find out, and quickly. In the meantime, tell the plods by all means, but this looks like your problem, and now I expect you to solve it. Use whatever local resources
the Six office has got, starting with getting yourself a personal weapon. You say you’ve got the local Head of Station with you now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. Put him on.’

Richter passed the phone to Watkinson and watched with interest, not to mention a certain weary sense of inevitability. Several times Watkinson started to speak, but was cut off on each
occasion, and he finally handed the back the phone without another word.

‘Richter.’

‘Right, you’ll get whatever help the local Six people can give you, not that it’ll do you much good because I don’t think they’ve got much to offer. But you
have
to sort this out. The Saudi oilfields are far too important to the West for us to risk any chance of losing them.’

Suddenly his tone became less hectoring and more serious. ‘This is the formal bit, so listen carefully. Your original tasking is now cancelled. You’re hereby authorized to take any
and all measures necessary to prevent any acts of terrorism from occurring in Dubai. Once I’ve finished this conversation, I’ll be contacting Vauxhall Cross and the FCO to ensure that
the Dubai Government is made fully aware of your presence, and to ensure that you get all the assistance they can provide. All this will be put in writing, with copies for you, so you’ll have
all the backing you need. When’s this race taking place? When do you think the attempt will be made?’