When coffee had been swallowed and the cups returned, refilled, and returned again. Sheik Hammuz inclined politely towards his brother.
‘You mentioned a matter of public concern?’
The Ruler said, speaking slowly and loudly, ‘You will be aware that I have recently made purchases of arms and equipment for our State of Umran. My object was to fit our country to play a proper part in the affairs of the world.’
‘The words of an armed man are listened to with greater respect than those of one who is unarmed,’ agreed Sheik Hammuz.
‘Some days ago these arms reached Beirut. All arrangements had been made to bring them to Umran by air. Those arrangements have been interfered with.’
Sheik Hammuz made a deprecatory movement of his hands and elbows, but said nothing.
‘The man who interfered with them is living here, under your hospitality and protection. He is the Iraqi, Kassim.’
A polite murmur of astonishment went up from the well-drilled chorus in the hall.
Sheik Hammuz said, ‘A man who could do such a thing does not deserve our hospitality. He deserves condign punishment.’
Heads were nodded in grave approval.
‘Since we are in agreement,’ said the Ruler, ‘let the man be handed over to us, and we will ensure that his conduct receives the punishment it deserves.’
‘There is a difficulty,’ said Sheik Hammuz. ‘Dr. Kassim is no longer here.’
A moment of silence.
‘Indeed,’ said the Ruler. ‘Then where is he?’
‘We must suppose that he became aware that his treachery to the State of Umran was known – or might be discovered – and decided that it would be discreet to remove himself. He left last night, by car, without informing anyone of his intentions. Our guards observed him driving off in the direction of Fujaira, but had, of course, no authority to stop him.’
The Ruler considered the matter, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Then he said, ‘Has it occurred to you that he might have returned, as secretly as he departed? That he might, even now, be hidden somewhere in this palace?’
‘It seems most unlikely.’
‘It is, nevertheless, possible. To assist you, I will have my men search every corner of it for you.’
The ghost of a smile appeared on Sheik Hammuz’s face, lingered for a moment among his billowing chins, and then dispersed.
‘That would be very helpful.’
The Ruler barked out an order to Major Youba, who saluted and said, ‘The order is to search the
whole
palace.’
‘Yes.’
‘Including the women’s quarters.’
The Ruler hesitated, and then said, ‘No. There will be no necessity to search the women’s quarters. After all, Dr. Kassim could scarcely be there.’
‘I will ask Raman bin Zafra to accompany Major Youba,’ said Sheik Hammuz. ‘He will be able to point out all possible places of concealment.’
He waved forward one of the men who had been standing behind his chair. Hugo thought he had never seen a more unpleasant-looking person. Hungry yellowish lidless eyes looked out from a face more grey than brown. Thin lips drew back in a smile from stained teeth, pointed like a dog’s.
‘It was Raman’s brother, Abdullah bin Zafra,’ explained Sheik Hammuz, ‘who perpetrated the criminal folly of attacking his Ruler and met a deserved fate. In fact, at your hands, Major, I believe?’
Major Youba said nothing. His hand was a few inches from his gun.
The Ruler said, ‘As you wish. Carry out your duty, Major, and report back to me here.’
‘Meanwhile,’ said Sheik Hammuz, ‘allow me to offer you further refreshment.’
This time, it was glasses of orange and lemon squash. Hugo took his thankfully and gulped it down. The sweat was dripping in a steady stream from his face and body.
It was a very long quarter of an hour before Major Youba returned. He said, ‘The man has gone.’
‘And it was wise of him to go,’ said Sheik Hammuz. ‘He knew that I could not tolerate any action hostile to my brother or to our State. The arms of which you spoke were bought for the general good?’
‘Certainly.’
‘It is your intention to use them to equip a national force, composed of
all
your loyal subjects?’
‘Indeed it is. And it is my intention that you shall help and advise me in their distribution.’
A faint look of uncertainty crossed Sheik Hammuz’s ample features. Up to that point, thought Hugo, he had been playing a hand along lines of his own devising. For the first time, the initiative had left him. He said, ‘I should, of course, be very glad—’
‘I was certain that you would co-operate with me,’ said the Ruler. ‘And with that object, I am inviting you, my dear brother, to return with me now.’
This is it, thought Hugo.
His eye photographed the exact position of every person in the crowded room. The armed policemen filling one end, the line of Sheik Hammuz’s retainers along the other three walls. Cowcroft to his left, behind the Ruler; Major Youba beside him; Raman bin Zafra behind Sheik Hammuz. He wondered how many hands were, at that moment, holding weapons under the all-concealing burnouses.
He had noted a substantial-looking desk to the right of the dais. It had packets of cigarettes on it and a vase of plastic flowers, and stood on a stone step. Hugo calculated that if he threw himself down, very quickly, he could get that desk and step between himself and the storm of bullets which was going to turn the room into a shambles.
This ignoble thought had scarcely registered in his mind when Sheik Hammuz rose to his feet. He said, ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, brother. I go with you very willingly.’ He turned to the silent lines of his people and said, ‘May today mark the beginning of a new era in our country. An era of co-operation and friendship.’
Hugo drove back with Cowcroft.
‘Do you think it’ll work?’ he said. ‘It all looked too easy.’
‘It was the speed that did it. Hammuz has got the fighting tribes behind him, all right, but it takes time to muster them.’
‘And then we can expect trouble?’
‘I’m not sure. Carrying off Hammuz was a very shrewd move.’
‘They might try to rescue him?’
‘If they do, they forfeit his life. They can’t be under any illusions about that. And once he was gone, they wouldn’t have any very obvious candidate for the throne. Did you notice a dark, thin character with a twitch sitting near Hammuz on the right?’
‘My mind was on other things just then.’
‘He’s Alid. A step-brother of sorts – one of the old Ruler’s sons by an unofficial wife. I don’t see him heading a rescue party.’
‘Dr. Kassim might. Do you think he really had gone?’
‘If he was anywhere there, he must have been hiding under one of the beds in the women’s quarters. Won’t have done his image much good. Physical courage is out of fashion in England, I believe. It’s still prized in these parts.’
‘I’ll confess,’ said Hugo, ‘that if shooting had started I was planning to fill up that hole behind the desk.’
‘It wouldn’t have been available,’ said Cowcroft. ‘I’d have got there first.’
When they arrived at the Palace the Ruler, who was in high good humour, had a word with Hugo. He said, ‘By our morning’s work we have gained ourselves a breathing space. You may now inform your colleague in Beirut that we are agreeable to extending his letter of credit for a further fourteen days. Nawaf will make all necessary arrangements with the Bank.’
Hussein, who still seemed depressed at not having been allowed to accompany the sortie, said, ‘Sayyed Nawaf is not here.’
‘Not here?’
‘As soon as you had left the Palace he ordered his car. I understood that he caught the midday flight to Bahrain.’
The Ruler said, ‘No doubt there was business which had to be attended to. If he is not back by tomorrow, I will myself sign the order authorising the extension.’
Hugo drove back to Mohara with Cowcroft. They passed one or two patrolling cars, but the streets seemed quiet. A number of shops, which had been barricaded that morning, were already taking down their shutters.
‘News travels fast in this neck of the woods,’ said Cowcroft.
When they reached police headquarters Hugo said, ‘I think I ought to put a call through to London.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
Taverner, at the Foreign office. I’ve got his number and extension. Better make it person to person.’ He looked at his watch. Two o’clock. We’re four hours ahead. He should be at his desk by now.’
‘You’re planning to tell him about this morning?’ said Cowcroft thoughtfully.
‘That’s my idea. How long does it take to get through?’ ‘Depending on sand storms and sunspots, anything from five minutes to five hours. I’ll book it for you.’ When he came back he was carrying a long flimsy sheet of paper in his hand. He said, ‘This came in yesterday evening. I forgot it in the excitement. It’s about your friend.’
‘Which friend?’
‘Colonel Delmaison. Didn’t someone try to kill him in London?’
‘That’s right. A pair of dissatisfied customers from the Dominican Republic.’
‘Well, they’ve arrested them.’
‘Our policemen are wonderful.’
‘Not the British police. The Americans. They were holding them temporarily at Kennedy Airport. Some irregularity in their passports. When they got word from Soctland Yard, they made it permanent.’
Hugo was looking at the Telex message. Something in it was wrong. He worried at it for a moment before he realised what it was. Then he said, ‘Either they’ve got the date wrong, or they’ve arrested the wrong men.’
‘Can’t be the wrong men. Look at the last sentence; “Identified by fingerprints on car”.’
Hugo started to read the message again. He said, ‘Then the date’s wrong. The American immigration people picked them up off a flight on the evening of March 23rd. That was a Thursday! Right?’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘But the explosion was on Friday evening. That was March 24th.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. I remember someone at the meeting next morning making a crack about Lady Day. That’s March 25th.’
‘All right. They planted the stuff on the Thursday and cleared out quick. The Colonel didn’t happen to need his car until Friday evening.’
‘But,’ said Hugo slowly, ‘Colonel Rex told us that the same men had attacked him, less than an hour before the explosion.’
‘I suppose it was the same men.’
‘It’d be a pretty long shot if two quite different parties had been gunning for him at the same time and the same place.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Cowcroft. Tell me the whole story. I’ve only heard bits of it so far.’
Hugo told him the story. When he had finished Cowcroft grunted, and said, ‘Police messages aren’t often wrong about facts. Inferences and conclusions, yes. Not things like dates and names.’
‘But how—?’
‘You say the Colonel wouldn’t let a doctor examine him.’
‘No. But I talked to the Inspector who saw him that evening. He said there’s no doubt he was hurt. He saw the blood soaking through the bandage.’
‘You draw a lot of blood out of the palm of your hand with a razor blade.’
‘You mean he
knew
that someone had planted a bomb in his car?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried a caper like that on him I expect. He’d take the usual precautions. Put some sort of tell-tale in the car. Talcum powder sprinkled on the floor, or a spot of grease on the door handle.’
Hugo was thinking it out.
‘Then he faked up the attack so he’d have an excuse to ask the other chap to drive his car?’
‘If that’s right, it looks as though you’re teamed up with a pretty cold-blooded sort of sod.’
‘Oughtn’t I to tell someone?’
‘How are you going to prove it, now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hugo unhappily.
‘Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s a clause in your contract that lets you out if your partner turns out to be a murderer, is there?’
Hugo was saved from answering this by the telephone. The exchange said, ‘Your London call, Mr. Greest.’ And then, ‘I have Mr. Greest waiting for Mr. Taverner.’ There followed the usual interminable pause, and then Arnold Taverner’s voice, as clearly as if he had been in the next room. ‘Greest? Good of you to call. How is everything at your end?’
Well? How
was
everything at this end?
It needed an effort of the imagination to visualise the man he was speaking to, warming his hands, perhaps, at the small fire in his grate, sniffling a little with the last cold of a dismal English spring. How could he explain to Arnold Taverner, surrounded by the solid, if faded, certainties of the British Empire, that as a result of the cheese-paring tactics of the British Government, he, Hugo Greest, was out on the end of a limb?
‘We’ve had a bit of trouble here,’ he said.
‘Trouble?’
Hugo did his best of explain. He said, ‘It seems to have blown over for the moment.’
‘That’s fine, then.’
‘All the same, I think we ought to arrange to have some forces standing by. Just in case.’
‘What forces?’
‘A couple of companies of motorised infantry would make all the difference.’
‘Do you suggest that I ask the Ministry of Defence to fly a half battalion of infantry to Umran?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything so stupid,’ said Hugo. ‘But we’ve still got influence with the Oman Scouts. Couldn’t it be arranged for them to pay us a visit of ceremony? The Ruler would gladly invite them.’
‘I could suggest it. I am very doubtful of it being agreed. We are exceedingly cautious about appearing to interfere, even indirectly, in the internal affairs of another state.’
‘The Americans don’t think like that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’ve got a light cruiser standing off Umran now, ready to land a party of Marines immediately the balloon goes up.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘I had it from a very reliable source.’
There was an interval of silence, and then Mr. Taverner said, ‘I don’t think that would change our attitude.’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Hugo, losing his temper, ‘stop talking about attitudes and talk about facts. There’s a valuable plum here. A bloody valuable plum. Something that could make all the difference to our balance of payments next year. Do we want it, or don’t we?’