Keys to the Kingdom (26 page)

CHAPTER 37

Riyadh

It was early afternoon. The temperature outside Rosinski’s apartment was the equivalent of a baking oven, but inside the air conditioner set into the wall sent a stream of cool air circulating around her living room. She hadn’t bothered to go to the office. Why the hell should she? Gilman and his pals had totally marginalised her and the embassy was such a closed village that all of her erstwhile colleagues were aware that it was only a matter of days before she would be on her way with her pockets stuffed full of Uncle Sam’s dollars. She had been painted as the ‘Queen Bitch’. She didn’t give a shit for anyone at the Embassy. They made their careers with their heads up someone else’s ass. In a few days she would be out of there and she would never have to deal with assholes again. She did, however, care for Nadia. Rosinski sucked on the whisky sour she had made herself earlier. He record on protecting assets wasn’t exactly one hundred percent clean. Two years previously she had recruited a lawyer who worked for a group of drug smugglers in Istanbul. She’d allowed the poor fool to think that he was going to go the whole way with her. The guy had been scared shitless but he had reluctantly agreed to come on-board. Two weeks after she picked up his first report from a dead letter drop, the lawyer disappeared. He turned up five days later without a tongue and minus his hands. It should have stopped there, except that she began to get the feeling that she was being followed. It turned out that her asset had spilled his guts to his wife and the woman bore Rosinski a grudge for recruiting her husband. The wife finally tried to stab Rosinski and she had to be pulled out. There was no feeling on earth like looking at the mutilated body of an asset that you have personally recruited. There was no way that Rosinski was going to let that happen to Nadia. The intelligence she had produced, and was capable of producing in the future, was of the highest quality. Damn it, she had put them into the centre of the plot to destabilise the country. She had fingered the killer of Prince Mishuri and she probably knew who had put the torch to Ras Tanura. In any man’s book that kind of intelligence was pure gold. And because of Gilman she had been forced to hand a valuable asset to the Brits. She switched on her computer. There were two e-mail messages waiting for her but for the first time in her life she hadn’t bothered to open them. She was no soothsayer but something told her that one of the messages was from her lawyer and that it indicated that the ‘Company’ had finally done with her. She had always thought that she would break out the champagne the moment she had stuck it to the bastards in the big offices in Langley. But when she realised that the message on the computer screen could mean the end of her days as a field agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, she had felt a profound sense of sadness. She had wanted to work for the CIA ever since the day she had seen Robert Redford in ‘The Day of the Condor’. She hadn’t been sure at the time whether her motivation had been to protect the United States of America or to meet cute blond guys. Whatever it was the ‘Company’ had become her life. She loved the work, the travel, and the excitement of working in the clandestine service. The ‘Company’ had cost her her marriage. It had probably cost her the chance of having a family. But it had all been about work. She had not made a single friend in the CIA. Not even a woman friend. Maybe it was finally time to get a life. And a man who really cared for her. Maybe it wasn’t even too late for a chance at a couple of kids. She could become normal. She felt a tear creeping out of the corner of her eye. What the hell is this, she said to herself as she wiped it away with her finger. This is celebration time. You won, you asshole. They fucked you and you’re standing there crying about it. She looked around the room that had been her home over the past three months. Sooner or later she was going to have to read the e-mail from her lawyer and then it would be time to pack her stuff. She suddenly realised that she had no plans other than a beach somewhere. That scene wouldn’t last forever. Sooner or later she was going to have to do something with her life. But that was for to-morrow. The phone rang and she grabbed at the apparatus.

‘Mary Jo,’ Nadia’s voice was breathless.

‘Yes,’ Rosinski could hear the heavy breathing at the other end of the phone.

‘I must see you soon,’ the words rushed from her mouth.

‘Can you make it to the diplomatic compound this evening?’ Rosinski was alerted by the fear and urgency in Nadia’s voice. ‘You could mingle with the people who are picnicking in the grounds. There’s somebody I want you to meet. A man.’

‘I would have to be driven and there are the mutawain at the entrance,’ there was a catch in her voice as though she was having difficulty speaking. What she was doing would certainly cause her death if her husband were to find out. ‘I don’t want to be seen with you. And meeting with a man in plain view is out of the question. Perhaps we could meet somewhere safe.’

Rosinski cursed Saudi Arabia for about the millionth time. If she were sitting in virtually any city in the world, even any city in the Arab world, setting up a meeting between the Princess and Worley wouldn’t pose a major problem. But in Riyadh such meetings were fraught with danger. The mutawain were all-powerful and could break into any house or hotel room at will. ‘What if I was to book a room at the Intercontinental? Could you visit me there?’ Rosinski felt like a shit. She knew the risk she was asking Nadia to run. She was haunted by a vision of the lawyer’s mutilated body in Istanbul.

‘It will have to do,’ Nadia said breathlessly. ‘I will be in the Intercontinental at nine o’clock this evening. I will ask for your room at the Reception. Now I must go.’

‘Take care,’ Rosinski said. ‘And if at any time things don’t feel right for you, bail out. It’s not worth your life.’

‘Mary Jo,’ Nadia’s voice finally collapsed and she began to sob. ‘There is such great danger that I fear for all of us. I will see you at nine o’clock.’

You’re an amateur, Rosinski said to herself as she replaced the handset, a damn unsanitary hotel room as a meeting place. She should have had something planned. Nadia shouldn’t be exposed in this way. Damn it. Her business with the ‘Company’ and the approach to Worley had deflected her from her primary duty to protect her asset. Nadia had sounded like she was scared out of her wits. What information did she have that had frightened her so much? Rosinski glanced at the computer screen that still asked her whether she wanted to read her e-mail. She moved the small arrow on the screen to the box marked ‘NO’ and pressed the left button. She could wait until tomorrow to learn how much her lawyer had managed to get for her. Right now she was going to have to organise the room at the Intercontinental and try to work out how she could safeguard Nadia.

Gallagher spent the day in a safe house in the Al Dirah district of Riyadh. He had sat quietly in the room his host had provided for him while he awaited the call from Kareem that would signal the ultimate stage of his operation. Kareem had been virtually sure that the King’s majlis would be called for the following day so there would be something more than twenty-four hours to wait before he could leave Saudi. It was almost over. He had waited twenty-seven years to take his revenge on the Al Sauds. His efforts had reduced their country to an economic mess and Allah willing he would be instrumental in killing every Al Saud that counted and many others that didn’t. He had dismissed Nasrullah earlier in the day. This was a time when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He sat cross-legged on the deep pile rug in the Spartan bedroom. Before him, on the gaily-coloured rug, were two photographs. On the left was a photo of his dead wife Leila. It had been taken two weeks before their wedding and the photographer had captured some of the wild passion that had attracted him so much to her. They had been born to find one another. If someone had told him when he was growing up in Belfast that he would convert to Islam and marry a strong willed Palestinian girl, he would have told them that they needed their head examined. But that’s the way it had turned out. The fight against oppression had brought them together but what had happened between them had little to do with their political convictions. He had never thought that he could ever love another creature the way he had loved Leila. And his life had been enriched by the fact that that love had been returned with interest. The day they married he was convinced that they would live and love forever. They would raise beautiful children who would breathe the free air of a new Palestinian state. But that was not to be. He picked up the dog-eared photograph that had been his constant companion down through the years and kissed it. The baby in her womb had been barely formed when they had both been butchered. He had often wondered how it had been for her at the end and it tortured him that she and his unborn child had to face their final journey alone. The intervening years had done nothing to dull the pain of losing her and revenge still burned as bright in his heart as it had the day he had heard that he would never look into her beautiful face again. But Leila was dead and buried somewhere in the country where he now sat. All that remained of her were the memories and the revenge that burned in his heart. He laid the photograph back on the rug and picked up the second photograph. It showed a group of urchins staring into a camera on a cobbled street in Belfast. Their faces were grubby from playing cowboys and Indians and their smiles showed their pearly white teeth in their dark faces. The Gallaghers had always had the dark features of the original Irish. He tried to remember the innocence of those playing children. It was long ago and far away and had vanished forever. He looked at Mary’s beautiful face. How could such a fragile child have become the ferocious leader in the fight against the English occupation? He let out a deep sigh and placed the second photo in its original place on the rug. His eyelids felt heavy and he let them close. He was getting old. It was time to retire gracefully to Placencia. He had more money than most people dreamt of. Perhaps one day he would tell the world who he really was and recount to them of his voyage from the backstreets of West Belfast to the plush villa on the hills above the blue waters of the Caribbean. He wondered whether he would be believed or would his tales of murder and mayhem be considered the rantings of an old Irishman. He suddenly felt very tired. It was almost over. Kareem’s jet would be fuelled and ready to go at Riyadh Airport. As soon as his work was done, he would be driven to the airport and he would be in Belize ten hours later. The ‘martyrs’ had reported to Nasrullah that their work was done. The majlis of every one of the King’s Palaces in Riyadh had been prepared for a holocaust. One of the martyrs would see Allah and receive his thirty virgins before to-morrow was finished. He opened his eyes and looked again at the two photos laid out before him. There was no need for him to take part personally in the final phase of the operation. The bombs in the majlis were the vehicles of death for the Al Sauds. His contribution would not be the deciding factor. But the day he had heard of Leila’s death he had made both her and himself a promise that his hand would avenge her. He looked at the smiling faces of the urchins on that cobbled street in Belfast, then closed his eyes as he thought about the journey from there to here.

Rosinski had gone looking for Worley at the British Embassy only to be told that he had already left for his apartment. She left the Embassy and made her way through the searing heat to the block housing most of the British diplomats. Worley didn’t answer his door immediately but she persisted.

‘Hi,’ she said when the door finally opened. She almost took a step backwards. Worley looked like he hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours.

‘Burning the midnight oil?’ she said standing up to the door.

‘Tell me about it,’ he said without fully opening the door. ‘I just got through a meeting of the intelligence officers of our friends and former foes. Gilman was the star of the show.‘

‘That’s Clark. I’m surprised he took time off from waterboarding,’ Rosinski said.

‘I don’t think that Clark likes me,’ Worley said.

‘He’s Mister Macho Man and he thinks you’re gay,’ she said quickly.

Worley laughed. ‘Time to brush up my image.’

‘No need. You fit the bill,’ she said smiling.

‘You’ll be glad to hear that all is well and that the Saudi establishment has everything under control.’ He pushed the door wider. ‘You’d better come in.’

‘I thought that you’d never ask,’ the door closed behind her as she entered. ‘I’ll have a Bourbon and ice by the way.’

‘My manners seem to be deserting me,’ he moved to a drinks cabinet and dispensed a large measure of Jack Daniels into a five ounce tumbler.  ‘Look,’ Worley said handing her the glass. ‘I’ve been mulling over our little conversation this morning and I think that I was a trifle rash in accepting to take over this Princess lady as an asset. Perhaps it might be better if someone on your side of the fence were to take her on.’

‘What gives?’ Rosinski set her face in anger mode. She needed this guy and there was no way she was going to allow him to weasel out. Even if he croaked in the process. ‘This morning you almost hopped out of your shorts when I told you what the Princess had already given me. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. She may be able to unravel the whole ball of wax for us. Think what your bosses will say when you hand them the key to this business on a platter.’

‘Cheers’ Worley clinked an imaginary glass with Rosinki’s. She had a determined look on her face and he knew he wasn’t going to extricate himself easily from his commitments.