The Phoenix Affair - Dave Moyer (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

our transport on the Amman end, and it will take at least a day to get it in place.”

“Yes, I know. How do you want to handle tomorrow?”

“I think we should start early. The Embassy is just there,” Fahd gestured, and then his face showed recognition, “but I’m sure you knew that, now that I think of it. By God, you are like a jinn, Paul. Anyway, I believe they will be open by nine-thirty, I would like to be there at that time. I can take your passport with me to get a visa put into it.”

“You can do that without me there? What about the family’s documents?” Cameron looked incredulous.

“It’s not a problem,” the General shrugged. “In Saudi Arabia, it means a great deal to be an Air Force Brigadier. I’ll march right in, make my introductions, and the consular staff will be more than happy to put a visa in your passport on my recommendation. As to the family, there is no need for any of us to do anything new—we can use our own passports to leave England, our trouble was with France, was it not?”

Cameron thought and then his face showed recognition. “Of course, not sure why I didn’t think of that. May I suggest that I watch the embassy for a while before you come, Fahd, just in case? I’d hate for anything unlucky to happen at this point?”

“That’s fine Paul, fine. Suppose you and I meet for breakfast, at about seven? We can go to that little place on the corner, just at the turning into this charming little square. It has a window that looks out onto the street with a likely view of the embassy. When the time comes I can walk down the street, and you can watch me go to make sure I don’t get into any trouble. Will that work?”

“It’ll work, General, it’ll work just fine.” Cameron looked at his watch, time had gone quickly and it was nearing nine o’clock. He signaled the waitress to bring the check, and Fahd produced his wallet with a flourish.

“This one is mine, Colonel, I insist. Gift of the Kingdom if you need an excuse.”

“I don’t,” Cameron surrendered. “I’m tired, I imagine they are too,” he waved at the other tables, “the thrill of the flight has to be wearing off by now and nobody’s had much sleep for the last three nights.”

Fahd yawned. “I am too, and yes, we all are. It’s bed for all of us. You are not up to anything strange still tonight are you, Paul? If you are, I insist on coming along!”

“No, no, no, Abu-Mohammed,” Cameron was waving both hands. “No more spy games for me. I need sleep, ten hours of sleep with no interruptions, and if we hurry I may just get it before our breakfast tomorrow. How will we join up with our transport in Amman?”

“I almost forgot about that. When we’re done at the embassy, we’ll use the concierge at the Hilton to book flights, something will be available I’m sure. Once we have that information, I have only to make a call to al-Ha’il and things will get moving pretty quickly. It’ll take them a day to get to Amman, another for us to make the return trip.”

“Hmmm. Fahd, can you ask them to come with room for two more? I sort of asked for some “help” to accompany us from Paris, the guys who helped us with, uhh, things there. I think it’d be a good idea. They’re handling their own visas and stuff like that.”

“It’ll mean another vehicle, probably, but maybe not. Yes, Paul, we can handle that. Their visas will be correct, though? I don’t know for sure what influence we’ll have at the border crossing, and you know how our immigration police are about visas.”

“They’ll be correct, Fahd. I suspect our Embassy in Paris worked it out today, tomorrow at the latest.”

“Fine then, it will be done,” the General declared, as if it was already so.

The waitress returned, Fahd signed, and they left. Turning right onto Curzon street Cameron glanced at the small bistro where they would breakfast, at present stuffed with people eating elegant dinners by candlelight. There was a good view of the front of the embassy compound a block to the West, and only one side street in between, running North. “Queen Street,” he read. They turned right again and walked back down Half Moon Street to the Hilton and sleep.

*****

The next morning could not have been more unlike the day before. The high, clear sky had been replaced by a steel-gray sheet that seemed to hang just above the rooftops. Heavy mist fell steadily out of it, and a remarkably cold breeze blew out of the north. An awful day for April, but very English.

Colonel Cameron woke before his alarm, feeling refreshed and rested for the first time since he’d crossed the Atlantic. “Whenever that was,” he mumbled, smiling to himself. In thirty minutes he’d done two hundred pushups and six hundred abdominal crunches. Thirty minutes after that, precisely at seven, he met Fahd in the hotel lobby. They made the short walk to Shepherd’s Market in silence, each huddled against the cold and the wet in a coat that was not made for the rain.

But the little restaurant was warm and dry, and the manager was a wonderful, motherly Italian woman who clearly lived for her work. They were the first of the morning, she seated them by the window where they could watch the traffic, and put steaming, thick coffee in front of them in less than a minute. The day was getting better even if the weather looked like the Great Flood would return that very day, forty days, forty nights, the whole deal.

It was at this point that Cameron began to wonder what Fahd would have for breakfast. He himself was practically slavering for a “proper English breakfast,” but he’d felt a sudden pang of guilt at the notion of eating thick rashers of bacon and sausages with eggs with his very Muslim friend right across the small table. The wet and cold suddenly felt like it was creeping under the door and into his bones as the weight of this disappointment started to sink in. He picked up the menu, began to look for plain eggs, oatmeal, or something suitable.

“Proper English breakfast, I hope abu-Sean,” Fahd said, in high good humor as he looked over his own menu. “You know, I was here for pilot training, up in the English countryside up North? Those British lieutenants, amazing thing they’re not all dead from heart disease or hardening of the arteries or whatever it is that you people get from eating too much pork. Oh, not you, Paul, of course. Much too fit for that. Me, I’m going to have eggs, scrambled, some bread if they have some of that good, solid English stuff, or Italian looks more like, it, eh? Orange juice. I find they usually squeeze it fresh here, Paul. . . .What?”

“Nothing, abu-Mohammed, nothing at all. Mashallah.” Cameron grinned, the lines at his eyes smiling with the rest of his face and the sparkle keen in the steel-blue eyes. “By the Grace of Almighty God, abu-Mohammed, a proper English breakfast it is for me, and the orange juice, too.” He waved at the matronly Italian woman and ordered for the two of them.

Fahd was a little confused, but he could see his friend was happy. “Ah, well, yes, never mind,” he said. “By the Grace of God it is. I gather you slept well Paul?”

“Very well indeed, my friend. This is excellent coffee. And you? And the family? How is Mohammed coming along?”

“Fine, fine, they slept like camels, all of them, and Mohammed seems to have brightened up along with them. Perhaps Paris did not agree with them. Paul, I’ve been thinking. How much are these airplanes you’re flying? Say, one like what we flew, for six people? I think I may check and see if one can fly them in the Kingdom.”

“You’re not serious?” Cameron said, surprised. “You think they liked it that much?”

“Them?” Fahd looked stupefied. “Me! I loved it. Well, sure, they loved it too. You see what it did for all of them! You know I’m stationed in Dhahran, and it’s a long drive, hot, dusty, from there to al-Ha’il, and we do it often. Think of just flying there in, what, two hours, three, instead of eight or nine on the road? Now that’s freedom, Paul. Really, what do you think it would cost?”

The breakfast came, Cameron unconsciously sawed off a huge chunk of the thick bacon and began to munch, thinking. He sipped coffee, went for the eggs, came out of the reverie, looked at his friend. “For a Saratoga, probably a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a late seventies airplane. For a new one, not that you’re thinking of that, close to five hundred thousand I would think.”

“So little?” Fahd said, drawing a quizzical look from Cameron. “What?” Fahd asked for the second time that morning. “Oh, that. Paul, it’s a matter of what they call ‘family money’ here in England. You have something similar in the States. The Al-Auda are a very old family in Arabia, older than the Al-Saud really, we go back to before the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. We aren’t as rich as the Al-Saud, nor the Al-Rashid, they’re definitely the second family of the Kingdom. And of course there’s the bin-Laden’s; I think in the States they would be “new money.” There are others, I suppose. Who keeps track of such things? Anyway, half a million only? Hmmm.” He spread butter on his bread, heaped egg on top, and took an enormous bite.

Thus they set upon their breakfasts with the heartiness of two good sized men who had had a tough three days without enough sleep or good food. At some point Cameron remembered there was a good reason for this breakfast and he began watching the foot traffic pick up out on Curzon Street. For an hour after breakfast he saw nothing at all unusual, first sparse and then steadier streams of very English looking men and women walking to work or to their morning shopping. There was nothing at all happening down by the embassy, everything quiet, nothing to spark interest at all. The woman of the house kept the coffee full and hot. Outside it remained a dim, dull grey, the mist alternately lightening for a time and then increasing to a steady, heavy drizzle.

By nine they’d pretty much exhausted the subject of light airplanes, including the possibilities of parking, servicing, and maintaining one in the Kingdom. But neither knew if any of it was possible or even legal, it was all speculation, and so they moved on to more urgent matters in time.

“Fahd, have you thought much about what we can do once we get to Al-Ha’il?” Cameron asked at length.

“I’ve been thinking about that a little, but not a great deal,” he motioned with his coffee cup for another refill. “At a minimum, I want to talk with my nephew and see what he can tell us about the people he met in the desert. I’ve decided I’m glad your two, how shall I call them? “Colleagues” perhaps?” Well anyway, that it’s good that they’re coming. I think we can use the professional help, no offense, Paul.”

“None taken. I’m just a poor, dumb fighter pilot like any other,” followed by the smile lines at the corners of his eyes. “I was thinking along the same lines in any case. We let the professionals talk to your nephew, we debrief him as it were, and maybe the guys can feed anything they get back to Langley, get some analysis in return, maybe that points us to what we do next in Saudi, if anything? Or maybe it points to other questions and more information