Payback (21 page)

‘I think we’ve only two options,’ Massood said at once. ‘We must enter either openly by day, or by stealth without being detected. By openly I mean that we would have to
assume the identity of regular tradesmen you might expect to see at the racecourse, as electricians or caterers, perhaps, or we attend as spectators. Otherwise we’ll have to go in at night,
avoiding the guards.’

‘Which do you think offers the best chance of success?’

‘Impersonating tradesmen might be risky, since we don’t yet know the layout of the racecourse, or what sort of identification is required. And we would need to steal or hire a
suitable vehicle, with sufficient tools and equipment to convince the guards that we were legitimate.’

‘We could steal a vehicle from a company that’s already working here,’ Bashar suggested.

‘That’s true,’ Massood agreed, ‘but we would probably have to kill the workers themselves, and that would leave a trace. A husband who doesn’t return home, a son
who goes missing – questions would soon be asked. Entering as race-goers wouldn’t work because of what we have to take with us. The gate guards would not allow us inside the racecourse
without inspecting our bags, so it looks like we’ll have to slip in at night.’

Saadi turned to Bashar. ‘Do you agree?’

‘Yes. Massood is right. We’ll only succeed if our intentions remain unknown.’

‘This evening we can work out exactly what extra equipment we’ll need, but now we have to decide where to cross the fence. That means surveying as much of the perimeter as we
can.’

As Saadi put the Renault into gear and drove it down the road closer to the racecourse, Massood picked up the piece of paper on which he’d already made copious notes.

Sheraton Hotel, Manama, Bahrain

Richter was waiting in the lobby when Caxton and Evans walked in. Evans made the necessary introductions, then ordered drinks.

‘I’m sorry your trip out here has been to no purpose,’ Caxton began, ‘but we had to check the report, however unlikely it might seem.’

‘It wasn’t a problem,’ Richter replied, ‘though the timing could have been better. If I’d got the call a day later I might have finished in Dubai and then flown
back to the UK from here.’

‘What were you up to in the UAE, assuming that isn’t classified information?’

Richter smiled at that, but didn’t respond until the waiter was out of earshot. ‘You’re the SIS Head of Station here, so I think I
ought
to be able to trust you. But it
wasn’t classified, and I think I’m going to be wasting my time there as well. It involves checking out an expatriate Englishman who claims he experiences dreams about terrorist bombings
before they actually happen. You’ve probably seen something about him in the traffic coming from Vauxhall Cross.’

‘Oh, yes, James Holden.’ Caxton stirred his coffee thoughtfully. ‘I gathered some kind of investigation was in progress, but I was surprised they’d sent someone all the
way from London. I would have thought a local officer could have been tasked.’

‘So would I, but I don’t think SIS really believed there was any substance in what Holden was claiming, so they decided to pass the investigation over to my outfit. We tend to get
given the jobs that Vauxhall Cross doesn’t like the look of.’

‘And how is Richard Simpson these days?’

‘You know him?’ Richter was surprised, knowing that his boss tended to keep a low profile.

‘I’ve run into him a couple of times, and I also know a bit about your organization at Hammersmith. He’s still keeping cacti, I suppose?’

‘Yes, whole flocks of them. You can barely get near his desk for the prickly little green bastards.’

‘So what do you think about Holden?’

‘I don’t know. If he’d just pitched up after the event, we’d have dismissed him as one of the usual loonies, but his statement in advance of the Damascus suicide bombing
was very detailed. Maybe he’s a genuine psychic, able to tune in to certain future events. If he is, then at least we have to look seriously at his claim that a Gulf State hotel is about to
be hit. That’s the logical conclusion, but my personal opinion is that it’s all rubbish, and there’s actually something else going on that we know nothing about.’

Evans glanced at Caxton. ‘Perhaps our friend Holden can help find out what happened to Shaf,’ he suggested with a smile.

‘Shaf? Who’s Shaf?’ Richter asked, puzzled.

‘It’s not a “who”, more a “what”,’ Caxton explained. ‘Just a little local happening that doesn’t seem to make much sense. Shaf’s a
prize racehorse, entered for the Godolphin Mile event and . . . do you know anything about horse racing?’

‘The square root of sod-all,’ Richter replied. ‘I’ve got no interest whatsoever in any form of organized sport.’

‘Not even cricket?’

‘Especially not cricket,’ he said firmly.

‘Right, then. The World Cup was first run in ’96 at the Nad Al-Sheba track in Dubai. It’s now the world’s richest horse race, with prize money totalling six million US
dollars. The Godolphin Mile is itself worth a million. The money’s one thing, of course, but the World Cup’s as much a social event as sport. The locals are mad about horse racing, and
most of the nobility of the Arab world turn up there.’

‘And Shaf?’ Richter demanded. Caxton seemed to have drifted somewhat from the point.

The SIS officer explained what the police had found at the Al-Shahrood stables.

‘There doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery,’ Richter said finally. ‘It sounds to me like a straightforward theft. OK, the missing item’s a bit unusual, but my
guess is that there’ll be a ransom demand in the post any time now.’

The smile hadn’t left Evans’s face yet. ‘
That
isn’t the mystery. What nobody can work out is why Shaf is at this very moment scoffing hay in his pre-booked stables
over in Dubai.’

‘Say again?’

‘The mystery is why Shaf was apparently kidnapped – or whatever the correct term is for a stolen horse – and then delivered to his stable in Dubai about twenty-four hours
earlier than originally planned. Vets there have checked the horse for drugs, but found nothing, and there’ve been no unusually large bets placed on him for the race.’

‘You’re right,’ Richter said. ‘That doesn’t make any sense at all. What about the missing people from the stables in Saudi – have any of them turned up so
far?’

‘Not one,’ Caxton replied, ‘and yet there were no signs of violence. The men who delivered Shaf to Dubai never checked in to their pre-booked hotel in the city, and nobody has
any clue where they are, or even who they are. Sheikh Qabandi, the horse’s owner, is a powerful man, and he hasn’t been reticent in driving the police investigation. I think they would
have been happy enough to file it as a missing persons report, and just wait until one of the stable staff eventually turned up. As the police see it, there’s no evidence that a crime has
been committed, but Qabandi won’t let them drop it. He’s insisted on area-wide coverage, which is why we know about it here in Bahrain.’

‘Forensic scientists have been all over the stables back in Saudi,’ Evans explained, ‘and the only thing to raise a question mark was a small patch of dried fluid in the
entrance hall of the main house. When they analysed it, they found it was urine, human in origin. Anyway, perhaps Holden can sleep on it and then let us know what really happened.’

Nad Al-Sheba Racecourse, Dubai

After two hours of checking, Saadi and his colleagues had identified three points along the boundary fence where they believed they could effect an entry without being
detected.

‘You’ve seen enough?’

Massood glanced down at his pages of notes and nodded. Saadi eased the Renault away from the kerb, heading back towards Dubai city.

‘We must plan this final phase with great care,’ Massood remarked. ‘I don’t think we’ll have time to make all our preparations today. We’ve a lot to do, so
we’ll have to position the device tomorrow night. But that will still leave enough time.’

Manama, Bahrain

‘I told you I’d see you again,’ Carole-Anne Jackson said cheerfully, as Richter climbed into her BMW outside the Sheraton.

‘I don’t think you driving me to the airport counts as a date.’

His cases were already in the boot, and he had a reservation on the next flight to Dubai, scheduled to depart in about three hours.

Jackson smiled at him. ‘What’s your plan now?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to talk to this Holden guy, and tell my boss what I think. Then I’ll book a flight back to Heathrow and try to get through Dubai International without getting sucked
in to any of the duty-free shops. My credit card can’t take too much of a pounding right now.’

Jackson smiled at him again as she started the engine. ‘And would you be interested in having a personal guide to the sights of Dubai before you head back to London – where
it’s raining at the moment? That’s according to Bill Evans, who monitors the World Service for coded messages all the time.’

‘You have someone in mind?’

‘Yes, me, obviously. I’ve got a couple of days’ leave due, so I could nip over tomorrow afternoon, say, which would give you time to sort out Holden during the morning. If you
booked your flight back on Monday, that would give us most of Saturday together and all day Sunday. No strings, just a bit of sightseeing, some decent food and anything else you fancy.’

‘Anything?’

Carole-Anne glanced across at him. ‘Almost anything. I don’t do whips and chains, latex or leather, but I’ll consider pretty much anything else.’

‘You know something?’ Richter said, settling back in the seat. ‘This might turn out to be the most entertaining trip I’ve been on for a long time. You’ve got my
number. Give me a call when you’re on your way, and I’ll come and meet you at the airport.’

They were crossing the Sheikh Hamad Causeway when Jackson’s mobile rang. She pulled the BMW over to the side of the road as soon as she could, and answered it. Her face clouded immediately
and she spoke mostly in monosyllables, then ended the call abruptly.

She put the mobile back in its cradle, slipped the BMW into gear and accelerated hard. ‘We’ll have to scratch the Dubai interlude,’ she said, ‘and you’ll have to
change your flight.’

‘Why?’

‘Holden’s been back to the embassy there, and now he claims he can see a car bomb exploding imminently – maybe today, tomorrow at the latest. He gave a lot of precise details
and the Six people in Dubai believe the location is probably Bahrain itself. Right here in Manama, in fact.’

‘And?’

‘And Julian Caxton has talked to your Mr Simpson and you’ve been reassigned. The Six office will keep tabs on Holden until you eventually get back to Dubai, but in the meantime
you’re temporarily attached to us here in Bahrain, to help us find this bomb before it goes off.’

‘Stuff a stoat,’ Richter muttered.

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Jackson replied, turning the BMW to head back towards Manama.

British Embassy, Government Avenue, Manama, Bahrain

‘What exactly did he say this time?’ Richter asked.

Bill Evans consulted the printout of an encrypted email sent from SIS Dubai less than an hour earlier.

‘It’s a car bomb that’s already been positioned by two men wearing traditional Arab clothing. The vehicle’s a big saloon, possibly American, and it’s been left on a
long straight road that either points towards the sea, or runs parallel with the seafront. That description, of course, could include most of the cars in Bahrain, and almost every street in
Manama.’

‘Or just about any other Gulf State town or city,’ Richter pointed out. ‘So why is SIS Dubai convinced the device is here?’

‘Holden claims that when he dreams these events he sees them from above, so they asked him if he’d noticed anything else distinctive. The only thing he came up with was a civilian
aircraft – or, at least, a big white jet which doesn’t sound too military – landing on a nearby island.’

‘Muharraq,’ Carole-Anne Jackson breathed.

‘Exactly,’ Evans said. ‘Bahrain is the only Gulf State where the airport is located on an offshore island. That’s precisely why they think we’re in the firing
line.’

‘Still sounds like bullshit to me,’ Richter muttered, ‘but I suppose we’ll have to go through the motions. Do you have procedures for this? Like a street-clearance plan
that the local police implement?’

Evans shook his head. ‘As far as we know, they don’t have any contingency plans like that, simply because there’s never been any need for one before. All we can do – in
fact what we’ve done already – is tell them what we think we know.’

‘You didn’t say where you got the information from, I hope?’

‘No way,’ said Evans with a grin. ‘We don’t want our friends to think we spend our time here reading fucking tea leaves and decoding cats’ entrails. We just told
them the tip-off came from an anonymous source, and left it at that.’

‘And what are they going to do?’

‘Probably not a lot. They’ll put more police on the streets, I suppose, and they’ll check out any cars that fit the profile we’ve supplied, but realistically it’s
needle-in-a-haystack time. There are cars parked all over Manama on roads that fit Holden’s description and any one of them could be the bomb vehicle. That’s always assuming this guy
isn’t just yanking our chain for reasons of his own.’

‘Amen to that,’ Richter said. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘The same as the local plods. Caxton wants us out there on the streets, keeping our eyes open. We’ll operate in pairs – one driving, the other watching, mobile phones switched
on. The local SIS – the Bahraini outfit – is involved as well, and Tariq Mazen will be here any minute to pick me up. Are you happy to partner Carole?’

‘Of course. And if we spot something?’

‘Retreat to a safe distance and call it in. There’s a bomb squad here, but I don’t know how good their people are. I suppose this is one way of finding out.’

Manama, Bahrain

Carole-Anne Jackson swung the BMW out of Government Avenue, heading for King Faisal Highway.

‘I’ve said it before,’ Richter remarked, ‘but I still think we’re wasting our time.’