Glancing beyond the security obstacles to
where his female companion, temporarily distracted by the taxi driver, fussed
with her suitcase and the bright blue Louis Vuiton
handbag, the clean shaven young man with the mop of black hair wrote urgently
in lines of flowing Arabic script.
‘Suitcase to be switched,
successfully dispatched with Doctor Twopenny. Since
she will be wearing a burqua, you will identify her
by the suitcase being identical to yours.
She knows nothing of the plan. If
there is any difficulty, tell her you come from Said and she will give eager
cooperation. Be careful. Her mother worked in Egypt as an
archaeologist. She knows Arabic.’ He checked an impulse to add a religious
exhortation; the Name of God should not be written on something that would be
eaten after it had been read. He folded
the fragment of McDonald’s edible packaging that held the message, using the
enemy’s technology against him was an approved technique, and dropped it into
the trash can. Walking away towards the
taxi the plate glass windows of the shops opposite enabled him to keep its
reflected image in sight. He saw the boy
move along, glance round as he came level with the can, then reach in and dart
away.
Hooded and chained, as she had been kept
constantly, except during the brief interrogations by men with brutal faces
speaking an Arabic that she found difficult to follow, Doctor Jane Twopenny in her prison, reflected upon what had
happened. They had nearly reached the
airport, silver planes visible in the distance across the scrub, when two
unmarked cars blocked the road where it went into a shallow dip to cross a
brush-filled ravine by a concrete bridge.
Uniformed men poured from the cars brandishing weapons and then firing
wildly as Said and the driver burst from the car and sprinted for the cover of
the ravine. She had seen the body of the
driver lying in a spreading pool of blood but Said had disappeared over the
rocky edge in a cloud of dust.
Why had they taken her Louis Vuitton handbag,
despite her frantic pleas and protests?
The last she had seen of it before she had been driven away, it had been
standing in the open desert with a ring of men keeping their distance from it
as if they feared it might explode. It
was one Said had given her to replace another he had ruined by spilling sun tan
oil over it; but more importantly than that, it contained the precious clay
tablet, a miniature Rosetta stone for the pre-Sumerian culture. The police uniforms had been stripped off in
the car and the prison she was being kept in had a makeshift air. It smelt of
diesel oil. Clearly her captors were not
regular police or military. This must be the work of some undercover group,
part of what everyone was now calling the Undeclared War. Was she the prisoner of some Al Quaida influenced group or some other enemy of Western
culture? Jane was confused but endeavoured to remain valiant. Perhaps Said was still being pursued even
now. He was so fastidious and sensitive
that she was nearly sure that he was gay.
If so, he could hardly be on the side of the fanatics. She must protect his identity for as long as
she could. His assistance had enabled
her to pay the thieves who had looted the tablet and hopefully evade the
inevitable international squabble over ownership. Once she had got it aboard the plane and
safely in the air she would have shown it to Professor Putticock. He would have to swallow his scoffing at the
idea that women might have special skill at languages. The two or three nations involved could
squabble over ownership all they liked once the tablet had been properly
authenticated and recorded.
In the front office Adnam
Horga, part time smuggler and undercover agent for
Alliance Intelligence, was reporting progress to the military officer who had
come out with the VIP from the USA. WWW
had once meant the World Wide Web, now parts of it were enemy territory and
much of the rest a place of guerrilla war.
Since it had turned into World Wide War the military overrode anything
civilian.
“The woman’s bag was blown up in a controlled
explosion, Major, but the bomb turned out to be in the identical bag found
abandoned at the airport. They must have
intended to switch them.”
“The bomb carrier was female?” The Major
shook her close-cropped head. “Some weirdoes these people are! The sneaky bitch would have killed the whole
planeload of us!”
She had lips worthy of a movie starlet, Horga thought in lustful fascination. And could have his funding cut off, he
quickly reminded himself. The short
military crop didn’t disguise the startling red colour of her hair. She was a well-built woman too, nice pair of
legs and strong thighs that strained the knee-length skirt of her dress
uniform. The Americans employed women in
their military as if there were no sexes.
It demeaned a man to have to serve under them.
“According to the papers the boyfriend was
carrying, she was a Lebanese schoolteacher with a membership card in the Party
of God. But they look faked. She sounds
Egyptian. She claims to be English. She says she is an archaeologist, and knows
Professor Putticock.”
“Maybe she is. Maybe she does! Those Limey bitches don’t
care who they fuck with and converts make the worst kind of fanatic. Shows how clever the enemy is. They must have
read his file. The old goat would have
been locked up if he weren’t so crucial a player. Maybe she is the reason they found out his
importance in the first place! I would
have advised against letting him fly here.
We know the enemy can break any code message they think is worth the effort,
otherwise we could have had this discussion by satellite link instead of me
having to go back and forth in person.”
“You think it was him she was trying to kill,
Major? I guess the ancient language
business was just a cover story.”
“You might say that. But he did come to address the archaeological
conference right enough. What about the
guy who was with her, the boyfriend?
Will he talk?”
“He has some protection; he’s the nephew of
the Police Minister here. We have no
skilled interrogators and there isn’t much time. The government have a foot in both camps,
delegates in both the Real UN and the Alternative!”
“It has to be something that leaves no marks
and can be denied afterwards!” The Major
hardened her voice. “Put pressure on him
through the woman. These people are keen
on female purity.” She fished in her
briefcase. “Try this on her! It’s the latest MC drug. Makes the prisoner
completely suggestible. Get hold
of some porn movies and feed them to her.
See how the boyfriend reacts to watching her have eager sex with other
guys. Make sure he knows you are
recording it. I’m sure you can find
some volunteers from your macho gang!” she added sourly.
“MCD 32?” he read as he examined the row of
small capsules. “Will it have such a
quick effect?”
“Supposed to work
fast. Guaranteed
effective in minutes. A
combination of mind control drug and aphrodisiac.”
“You people should get your eggheads to work
on communications. Some of the stuff
they come up with is out of this world!”
The American looked sharply at the local man but she only responded to
it dismissively.
“Yeah, out of this world.”