The Matarese Countdown (32 page)

“He sounds interesting. Any kids?”

“They haven’t decided, decisions being a big problem with them, usually resolved by procrastination.”

“Now I get the picture.”

The three intercept specialists from MI-5 went to work in the garage. Two walked slowly around the space next to the walls under the guidance of the third man, waving what appeared to be miniature telephone poles with dual antennae shooting out from the sides. Dials were attached to the instruments, and the supervisor of the team kept checking the readings and taking notes on a clipboard.

“There’s a lot of iodized metal in here, Sir Geoffrey,” said the unit’s leader as short bursts came and went from the poles. Finally, after eight minutes, there was a rapid, steady stream of beeps from the instrument held close to the back wall of the workbench. It was a Peg-Board panel with numerous tools suspended on the hooks.

“Take the whole thing down, chaps,” ordered Waters.

The three men removed the tools, placing them on the bench. They then proceeded to pry the Peg-Board from the wall, where it was anchored at the four corners and the center with heavy Molly bolts. Once it was loose, they
propped the panel against the red Jaguar and thoroughly examined the wall beyond. And then examined it again and again.

“There’s nothing here, Sir Geoffrey.”

“There
has
to be,” responded the MI-5 chief. “Your instruments don’t lie, do they?”

“No, sir, they don’t.”

“The tools,” said Pryce. “Scan the tools, bless each one.”

Within minutes the bug was found. It was embedded in the handle of a large hard-rubber hammer, a tool rarely if ever used, as the jobs that entailed it would be done by a repair shop.

“Ian,” said Waters, addressing the supervisor, “did you bring along your magic machine?”

“Certainly, Sir Geoffrey.” The team’s director knelt down, opened his black bag, and pulled out an electronic instrument the size of a thick book. He placed it on the garage floor, returned to the bag, and withdrew a metal-framed grid divided into squares, tiny lightbulbs in the middle of each square. A thin wire with a small plug attached curled out of the top of the frame.

“What’s that?” asked Leslie.

“A tracing instrument, miss,” replied the supervisor. “It’s not perfected to the point where we would like it to be, but it can be of assistance. You see, this grid here represents roughly twelve hundred square meters, say three blocks circumference, which is the usual range. I plug the frame into the searcher, press the intercept, or bug, into the receptacle, and the lights skim over the areas and settle on where the receivers are located. Not specifically, of course, but within a reasonable distance.”

“That’s remarkable,” said Leslie.

“I’m surprised you don’t know about it,” said Ian. “We’ve shared the technology with your intelligence service.”

“We run a tight ship,” said Cameron quietly. “Sometimes too tight.”

“Proceed, please, old chap.” The supervisor lifted the
machine and the frame to the bench and did so, inserting the small, circular intercept into the orifice and turning on the equipment. The tiny lights flickered clockwise in sequence twice around the grid, finally settling on a square in the upper left-hand corner.

“What does it show us?” asked Montrose, Angela at her side. “How do you read it?”

“It’s angled to the four points of the compass,” replied Ian, the team leader. “Actually that’s a built-in, metal-rejecting compass in the lower center,” he added, pointing to a glass-encased floating needle at the six-o’clock spot. “Just picture what’s outside as if this were a map.”

“You mean the streets, the blocks, around Belgrave Square?” said Angela Brewster.

“That’s right, miss,” continued Ian, indicating several squares adjacent to the lit one. “That would be Grosvenor Crescent, this Chesham Place, and the one with the lights and presumably the listening post, probably Lowndes Street.”

“
Lowndes?
” exclaimed Angela. “That’s where Coley lives,” she added softly.

The night sky over Bahrain was dark, the last Islamic prayers shouted by the mullahs from the minarets, the hour for sleep and the nocturnal games of the privileged royals about to begin. Jamie Montrose slowly got out of bed and silently put on his clothes. Fully dressed, he turned on the desk lamp, walked to the locked white door, took a deep breath, and suddenly started hammering his fist on the steel panel.

“
Help!
” he screamed. “Somebody
help
me!”

“What is it, Master James?” shouted the voice beyond the door.

“Who are
you?
”

“Kalil, Master James. What
is
it?”

“I don’t know, but my stomach’s on
fire!
I guess you should call a doctor—I’ve been doubled up on my bed for almost an hour but the pain won’t go
away!
” James Montrose
Jr. picked up an iron dumbbell that he had been given for his exercise routine, and stood by the wall next to the door. “For God’s sake
hurry!
I feel like I’m going to
die!
”

The door crashed open as the Bahraini rushed inside; seeing no one, he was briefly bewildered. The moment he turned, the teenager smashed the dumbbell into his forehead. The guard fell to the floor unconscious.

“Sorry, Kalil,” whispered the youngster, breathless. “My dad would have called it a diversion.” Jamie proceeded to search the immobile figure, removing a Colt .45 from its holster, several papers written in Arabic, and a billfold containing what appeared to be a great deal of paper money. He remembered what Amet, the head of the prison-villa, had said to him.
Don’t try to bribe our guards with promises, James. By our lights, they are very well paid, quite rich, really
. Young Montrose put the money in his pocket. He then dragged the unconscious body to the bed and ripped the top sheet into shreds; he wound several strips around the guard’s mouth, then his hands and feet, pulling the linen tight, and raced back to the desk, switching off the light.

He walked cautiously through the open door and closed it softly, turning the large brass key, then made his way down the corridor he had walked for weeks, toward the arch that led to the open area of the estate. From long nights of looking through the bars of his opposing windows, Jamie knew the grounds were patrolled by two guards with automatic rifles strapped across their shoulders and sidearms holstered at their hips. Dressed in white Arabic robes and headdresses, they walked in casual, quasi-military fashion, meeting at the east and west walls and retracing their steps.

The whitewashed arch that Montrose approached led to the east yard and wall, seen through the dim light shining from the main house. He crouched in the darkness of the stone corridor and waited until the two guards came into view, meeting at the center of the white wall, which was equidistant from the locked, impenetrable north and south gates. The guards paused, maddeningly lighting cigarettes and chatting. Jamie was suddenly alarmed. The blow he had
dealt the guard, Kalil, was harsh enough to render him unconscious, but not life-threatening; there was no need for that. Kalil might well regain consciousness any minute, and there were a dozen ways he could make sufficient noise to attract the guards—kicking chairs, shoving plates off tables, smashing the television, so
many
ways.

Young Montrose remained frozen, staring at the two Bahrainis, silently urging them to resume their patrol. Still they did not move, instead laughing quietly at some joke. Jamie Montrose began to sweat, perspiration born of anxiety and fear. It was common knowledge that the laws of the Arab emirates were as tough as those anywhere in the world, depending upon whom one displeased, and it was the
whom
that determined the punishment.…
But what was he worried about?
His “sequestration” was a joint exercise between Bahrain and the United States government!

Or was it? That was the question, for Jamie could not adequately convince himself that he had been told the truth. There was simply too much that was too crazy! His mother would have reached him someway,
somehow
, to let him know—even a
hint
—of what was going on. To think otherwise was nuts, as crazy as everything else that had happened!

It came! A crash from his cell, followed by moans and muted screams at the window. Then the smashing of glass and china dishes, finally the collapsing of wood from a disintegrating table and desk. The two guards raced over to the east window and Jamie held his breath, terrified that the worst would happen. It did
not!
They had no flashlights!

The guards screamed in Arabic, each pointing in opposite directions. One to the north, the other to the arch where Jamie was crouched in the shadows. The second guard raced past him, intent only on reaching his cell. Suddenly, searchlights were flashed on throughout the entire villa and its compound.

There was no one yet on the east wall. It was his only chance! He ran out into the yard and raced to the eight-foot wall, jumping as he had never jumped before, ripping his bleeding fingernails as he gripped whatever crevices of
stone he could feel. In sheer panic, he reached the top of the ledge, then, again suddenly, he realized that his hands were drenched with blood. The wall was crowned not only with shattered glass, but also a coil of barbed wire, its points as sharp as razor blades.

Jamie thought for a second, a millisecond—
circumstances. Evaluate. What would
Dad
have done?
The roving searchlights caught him in their beams and converged on his frozen figure. Thinking suspended, instinct his command, he leaped over the top of the wall as a pole vaulter might, twisting his body in an arc and landing hard on his shoulders on the ground. His right arm was in agony, but he could live with it as long as he was out of his so-civilized prison.

Running wildly, he reached a dirt road, and waited for a car or a truck he could flag down. Several passed, paying no attention, then finally a taxi stopped. The driver spoke in Arabic.

“I don’t understand you, sir,” said young Montrose, out of breath. “I am an American—”

“
Americain?
” shouted the driver. “You
Americain?
”

“Yes!” cried Jamie, nodding his head rapidly, grateful that the man understood some English. “Is there a … consulate or an American embassy here?”

“
H’ambassie Americain!
” replied the driver, shouting and grinning and also nodding his head up and down like an excited chicken. “Shaikh Isa … in Manama!”

“The
embassy?
”

“Yes, yes—”

“Take me there—
drive
me!” Montrose reached into his pocket, pulled out a fistful of money, and jumped into the backseat.

“
Aiyee Americain!
” gleefully shouted the Bahraini as his taxi roared off down the road.

Sixteen minutes later, after crossing three bridges, Jamie’s blood-soaked hands curled in his shirt, they were in the capital of Manama. The sights and sounds seemed strange to Montrose junior, peering out the window. Sections of the small city were in silent darkness, few people in
what appeared to be nearly deserted streets. Yet other areas were brightly lighted, storefronts blazing with exotic wares, and Middle Eastern music emanating from loudspeakers; these streets were crowded, not raucous at all, but filled with people. What astonished Montrose junior was the sight of numerous American sailors and naval officers.

“
H’ambassie Americain!
” exclaimed the driver, gesturing ahead at a pink-and-white mansion in the Shaikh Isa Street. Jamie looked outside at the front of the building—something was
wrong!
There were four men in Arab robes, two on each side of the ornate entrance of glistening dark wood. At first glance, it might be presumed they were guards, but American embassies, without exception, posted American Marines as guards. And those few embassies that required external patrols at night would never,
never
use native civilians of the host city for that duty. It was not only unheard of, it was potentially suicidal. Montrose junior had been in too many countries to doubt that.

There was only one answer: The four Arabs were from the alabaster villa on the shores of the Persian Gulf! “Keep
going!
” yelled Jamie, gripping the driver’s shoulder with the strength of a young wrestler and jabbing his right index finger back and forth, indicating the street ahead. “Take me back to the lights, the people … the
stores!
”

“
Aiyee, shoppees!
You
buy!
”

His hands wrapped in gauze, awkwardly purchased at a pharmacy, young Montrose wandered into the thick crowds roving through the shopping area of the Az Zahran district in Manama. He spotted a naval officer, a lieutenant senior grade, as denoted by the insignia on his open-shirted summer-dress collar and the silver wings on his shirt. Something about the man and the way he handled himself vaguely reminded Jamie of his father. The black officer was tall, his features clean-cut, sharp but not aggressively so, his informal manner conveyed by his humorous handling of several enlisted sailors who had obviously discovered shops where illegal liquor could be obtained. He gently mocked their
salutes and conferred with a few, apparently urging them to get out of the area before they were spotted by the shore patrols. The advice was taken.

Montrose junior approached the officer. “Lieutenant,” he said, speaking loud enough to be heard over the noise of the crowd, “may I speak with you, sir?”

“You’re an American,” observed the naval officer. “What the hell happened to your
hands
, kid?”

“It’s part of what I have to talk to you about, sir. I think I need help.”

C
ameron Pryce walked aimlessly, anxiously around the stately furniture in the Brewster drawing room while Leslie Montrose sat with Angela on the brocaded sofa.

“We’re being
sidetracked
, damn it!” cried the CIA field officer. “We’re going around in circles, circles with no tangents, as Scofield would say.”