Guy Fawkes Day
Page 25
***
Central London: 9:00 a.m.
Douglas Easterby was relieved to open the letter Amanda handed to him in the morning post, bearing the ornate markings of the Royal Embassy of Ramliyya. A dinner invitation. Well, well, about time!
There had been a lengthy silence since Dr Al-Badawi had visited his office on the 3rd. Fair enough, the BDS bad boys in Ramliyya had not yet been weeded out, but with all the fanfare over the Ramlis’ lavish spending habits in Britain, Easterby had been hoping that Al-Badawi would want to settle the preliminaries of the additional contracts without delay. It was surely only a matter of time before Goss sent a couple of sacrificial lambs to appease the Ramli sensitivities and bless the new contracts.
Easterby pulled out the invitation and looked at the details. To his surprise, it was not from Dr Al-Badawi but the special envoy himself—the man whose name had been in the papers recently. That was more like it! The heavy, gilded paper carried the imprimatur and promise of inexhaustible currency.
Admiring the intricate calligraphy, Easterby studied the signature at the bottom. This Prince Omar Al-Ajnabi was not someone that any of his chaps at BDS could recall seeing, though Allard, an old Ramli hand now attached to head office, had mentioned the fellow’s name a couple of times. Something of a recluse. Well, so much the better.
Easterby looked again at the details. Oxford, eh? Bit of a fortuitous coincidence. Might as well go up on Wednesday afternoon and pay Marcus a surprise visit. Meanwhile, he rang down to Amanda and asked her to cancel his normal Wednesday evening booking at the Savoy.