The Gilgamesh Conspiracy

by Jeffrey Fleming

Still somewhat wary that he might be the subject of some journalistic ploy Dan called on Richard Davies after he had dropped her off at her hotel. He described his conversation and said that he had decided to accept whatever role was planned for him by Emily Stevens.

  ‘Sorry I connived in that set-up yesterday,’ Davies apologised as they sat down with a beer each. ‘Has she explained the operation to you?’

  ‘No, she said that she’d brief me on the way.’

  ‘Yes perhaps that’s best,’ he agreed. He took a drink and then asked ‘So what did you think of Emily, then?’

  ‘I thought she must be a bit off the wall. I would never have taken her for a Jasmine Bond character when we first met her in the bar.’

  The embassy man was quiet for a moment and Dan thought that his quip might have come over as a slur on British Intelligence and he was rather surprised by Richard’s reply.

  ‘Yes, well I’ve checked up on her and notwithstanding any impression she might have made upon you, you have to understand that she’s a ruthless executive operations agent. Anyway I expect, I hope, she’ll make you fully aware of the risks. You’ll have to watch out for yourself, because I’m not sure that she will.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be careful,’ Dan replied, somewhat put out by the implication that a serving officer of the US Marines should take care not to get in above his head with a woman, whatever her qualifications.

  They set off the following day just before dawn. Emily was driving a four wheel drive Toyota with their personal luggage; a tool box that she described as containing ‘useful stuff’; a set of heavy duty wire cutters; personal weapons and a five foot long metal case containing a British Starstreak surface to air missile. These last items were the reason they were driving away from the city of Muscat towards the mountains inland instead of using the border crossing point on the coast road.

  ‘There’s a dhow named Tarrada which flies the Pakistani flag coming into Fujairah,’ said Emily, which you may or may not know is one of the United Arab Emirates but it’s located just to the north of Oman on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula.’

  ‘Yeah I know about it in general terms, but I’ve not been there,’ Dan replied. ‘No oil, so it’s not awash with money.’

  ‘That’s right, but really nice people. Anyway ships putting in there come under less scrutiny than those that sail into the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. Tarrada has come from the port of Gwadar, in Pakistan close to the border with Iran and it’s picked up a cargo of twenty-five Stinger hand-held surface-to-air missiles.’

  ‘Where the hell have they come from?’ he asked.

  ‘One of your country’s less fortunate foreign policy decisions. They were supplied to the Afghan Mujahidin in about 1986. They’ve remained in the mountainside arms cache of a former Mujahidin leader for the last seventeen years so I imagine they fell into a sad state of repair. A Pakistani arms merchant traded them for some serviceable AK47s and shipped them across the border and on to Gwadar. That’s where an ex-army weapons expert has established a clandestine arms repair facility, using parts stolen from your storage facilities on Mazirah Island.’

  ‘Godammit, those Stingers are still a lethal piece of hardware! Who’s stealing those parts?’

  ‘That’s what I hope we’ll find out. We want to close down that source and also get hold of the arms trader who set up the deal and find out where he intends to send on the missiles, so we want him alive.’

  ‘Do we know who he is then?’

  ‘He’s Barry Mulholland, formerly of the IRA but now in private business. He’s travelling under the name of Francois Duroc, Belgian passport of course.’

  ‘Why of course?’

  ‘Oh, several thousand blank Belgian passports were stolen a few years back, and they’re a pain in our collective arse. Mulholland’s been using one to travel on business, but a few weeks back he was spotted by an observant off-duty Special Branch officer leaving Heathrow for Dubai. His name wasn’t on the passenger manifest and to cut a long story short it turns out he’s made many clandestine journeys to the Gulf. Also he seems to have a surprisingly high standard of living for a second hand car dealer.

  ‘So I want to find out who his contacts are and bring him out. He operates from a hotel in Fujairah. A team from the Sultan’s er…police force has been monitoring his activities but they’ll not become involved in his abduction as they’re under strict orders not to operate outside their own territory. This is what I plan to do…’

  Emily explained the operation while Dan inspected various photographs and documents that were assembled into a file folder. When he had absorbed all the details Emily asked him to drive while she frowned over a road map which she compared with a satellite photograph of the area. ‘This is it; turn right here,’ she instructed him.

  The tarmac road came to an end after another mile and the Toyota lurched over a rough desert track. Hills rose either side until they were in a wadi where the flaking dried mud surface indicated that rain had fallen sometime last winter. After three kilometres they arrived at a heavy metal link border fence woven with barbed wire, in which was set a gate secured by a chain with a heavy padlock. Dan drove up to it and turned off the engine. Emily clambered out the car and inspected the lock. ‘I’ll see if I can pick it. It‘ll be much easier than cutting a car-sized hole in the fence.’

  She went to the back of the car and opened the tailgate and pulled out a small toolbox. She selected a slender metal device and inserted it into the keyhole and began to feel about.

  The sound of a powerful diesel echoed through the wadi. Dan swung round and about half a kilometre back he saw a plume of mud and dust churned up by a military half-track. ‘Now would be a good time…’ he began, but just then he heard a metallic clattering and thud as the chain fell clear of the gate. He ran up and helped Emily push the gate open and then jumped back into their vehicle and they drove through into Fujairah. Dan glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the border guard truck pull up beside the open gate. ‘They’re not going to follow us are they?’ he asked, ‘under hot pursuit rules, or something.’

  Emily looked back through the rear window. She saw one of the soldiers gazing at them through a set of binoculars. A heavy calibre machine gun was mounted on the back of the truck but nobody swivelled it round to aim in their direction. A few seconds later the wadi curved to the right and the border post was lost from view. ‘No, I expect they’re just going to re-secure the gate. They’ll probably report this vehicle plate number to the people this side.’

  ‘We should probably change vehicles then,’ Dan suggested.

  ‘No, we’ll just change the plates,’ Emily replied. ‘There’re two sets of Fujairah plates and another set of Omani in the big tool box. Just drive a bit further and then we’ll switch to Fujairah plates. Another two kilometres and we should hit the road.’

  They drove towards the city in a silence that Dan found oppressive. ‘So how long have you been doing this job then?’ he asked.

  She looked at him for a moment, inscrutable behind mirrored sunglasses. ‘I’ve been on it for three weeks or so,’ she replied.

  ‘No, I meant how long have you been working for SIS, or MI6, or whoever you call yourselves these days?’

  ‘I call myself a free-lance journalist, or I say I work for the Ministry of Overseas Development, ili ya perevodchik arabskogo yazyka, menya zovut Yekaterina…’

  ‘Ok! So enough of the personal questions…I get it!’

  They drove on for a few more minutes. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow,’ Dan announced.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh…so you know all about me then?’

  ‘Your full name is Daniel Edward Hall, date of birth 11th May 1973, in Lowell near Boston. Your father is an estate agent or realtor I should say, and your mother is a dentist. You went to school in Lowell and then to Carnegie Mellon university where you studied electrical engineering and graduated magna cum laude. After university you lived with your fell
ow graduate Hayley Denison who left you when you abandoned working for Cavendish Engineering and went to Quantico for officer training in…’

  ‘Ok! Bloody hell! So you’ve done all this research on me, then, but I don’t know anything about you!’

  ‘Why would you want to? After this is over, you won’t see me again.’ She resumed her study of the map. Dan stared forward over the steering wheel, wondering why he felt slightly distressed by the conviction in her statement.

  ‘Sorry, I had no business mentioning Hayley,’ she said after a while, ‘it was totally unnecessary.’

  ‘No, perhaps you shouldn’t,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘You could ask me what music I like, who my favourite author is,’ she suggested.

  ‘What’s this? Opening gambits at the freshmen’s ball?’ he asked. She shrugged in reply and pouted slightly giving him an incongruous, fleeting impression of a sulky teenager.

  ‘Ok, I like Sibelius and Mozart, and Pink Floyd and REM,’ he said.

  ‘I love Sibelius,’ she agreed with enthusiasm, ‘but not Mozart much. I prefer Beethoven. Some opera…’

  ‘I hate opera! All that over the top singing,’

  ‘I suppose you prefer Country and Western, Dolly Parton or Shania Twain, then.’

  ‘Well as you mention them…’

  After driving for another half an hour they pulled into the car park of the Hilton hotel. ‘Good morning. I’m Emily Stevens and this is Daniel Hall,’ Emily announced to the receptionist. ‘We have rooms booked for three nights.’

  The receptionist greeted them in return and then he consulted his computer. ‘Yes I can confirm the reservation, but we have a check-in time of 3pm. Wait a minute please.’ He tapped at the keypad. ‘I can let you have your rooms at about twelve thirty. Until then you are welcome to use our swimming pool and beach club. And by the time you have eaten lunch your rooms will be available.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Emily replied after a moment’s consideration, ‘which way is it to the beach club?’

  Dan watched Emily swimming up and down the pool. It appeared to be a favourite form of exercise because she swam length after length of fast freestyle without any apparent effort. After about an hour she emerged dripping water and wrung out her hair, the muscles over her diaphragm pumping in and out, but by the time she had walked over to him her breathing seemed pretty much restored to normal. Through his mirrored sunglasses he stared surreptitiously at her body clad in a bright blue bikini.

  ‘I need some shade,’ she announced pulling over an umbrella, ‘I’m not oak-tanned like you. Shall we order lunch now?’

  They spent a few minutes perusing the menu and then ordered.

  ‘I’m just going to have a quick shower and get dressed,’ Emily announced. She returned fifteen minutes later just as the waiter appeared with their meals, and instead of her paramilitary garb she was wearing a light summer dress.

  ‘Wow, you look like a real girl!’ Dan declared, taking what he thought was a bit of a risk. To his relief she grinned at him and handed him a plastic key card. ‘I’ve checked us in; you’re in 723 and I’m in 708,’ she said, ‘here’s your key.’

  During lunch they carried on their conversation and Emily revealed a few details of her life before university. Despite her reticence he enjoyed talking to her and found she had an enchanting laugh that contrasted with her more usual solemn expression. When they had finished eating she looked at her watch. ‘I have to call home now. I’ll see you back here in a few minutes; don’t go away.’

  She returned to her room and pulled out an encrypted satellite phone and called her case officer in London. ‘It’s Tate. Do you have the location for me?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re twenty minutes late!’ he snapped. ‘Your GPS signal shows you’re at the hotel, so I suppose you’ve been lounging by the pool. The goldfish should be in the bowl at about 19:00 local time.’

  ‘Ok that makes sense as sunset is at 18:30. I expect the red setter plans to go on board this evening. Have you found his room number?

  ‘He’s booked a suite on the eleventh floor in your hotel under his Belgian name. Nothing further to add. Take care.’

  ‘Ok thanks, sorry about the lateness.’

  Gerry signed off and resumed her seat beside the swimming pool. ‘Mulholland has a suite on the eleventh floor,’ she announced, picking up her beer. ‘The dhow is due in port at 19:00. I expect he will wait for it to send a message and then he’ll go on board.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Your Navy has two aircraft carriers in the area, and they’re keeping an eye on it for us. We’ll stick to plan A, and visit him this evening before he gets his phone call. What will you do until then?’

  Dan could think of something they might do together but knew that he would never dare suggest it. Instead he said ‘Do you like sailing? We could take out one of those Hobie Cats over there.’

  ‘I’m not staying out in this sun, I’d get burnt.’ She looked down at her arms. ‘I’ve got a bit red just swimming. I’m going to take my stuff to my room and then I think I’ll check my e-mails, keep an eye on things. Can you be in your room from say, six o’clock? I’ll be in touch by six-thirty at the latest.’

  ‘Ok, I’ll be there,’ said Dan. ‘There’s a good breeze, so I think maybe I’ll go windsurfing for a while.’

  At 6.15pm Dan heard a knock on his door. He peered through the spy hole and saw a woman dressed head to toe in black abaya and niqab. She was looking back along the corridor so he could not see her face. He opened the door and she turned to face him but the only part of her face visible was dark skin and brown eyes from the bridge of her nose to just above her eyebrows.

  ‘Er… good evening,’ he said in his best Arabic.

  The woman replied in a stream of Arabic that he could not follow but he thought she sounded angry. He used two more of his collection of Arabic phrases. ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand,’ he apologised, ‘can you speak any English?’ The woman had apparently been crouching slightly under the cover of her abaya and now she suddenly straightened up to her full height.

  ‘I said are you going to let me in or will I have to stand in the corridor all evening, you brainless son of an ass shagged by a camel.’

  ‘Oh hell it’s you! Very funny!’ he said and stood aside to allow Emily into his room. She sat down and took the abaya off her head and then unfastened the niqab. Her face was its usual colour apart from a broad strip surrounding her eyes which she had darkened with make-up.

  ‘I’ve been in the lobby coffee shop for the last few hours, from where you I could watch the main entrance. I saw Mulholland come into the hotel about twenty-five minutes ago with two people who are obviously minders, and one other who I’m not sure about. Are you ready to make a move on them?’

  ‘I’m ready. I’ve been pacing my room for the last hour.’

  ‘Good. Can I just borrow your loo? I’ve been sitting in that cafe drinking coffee and diet coke and I’m bursting for a pee.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Dan replied, feeling slightly guilty that Emily had been maintaining a vigil whilst he had been relaxing on the beach.

  ‘Right,’ she said emerging a minute later pulling her abaya back into place over her jeans, ‘I expect one or two of the large gentlemen will be stationed outside the room. My plan is that I will walk past them first and then as you walk towards them their attention will be on you. Then we’ll deal with them as planned.’ She repositioned her veil and head covering. ‘Are you ready?’

  As the elevator stopped on the eleventh floor Dan held it with a fire-fighter’s override key that Emily had procured. There was one guard outside the room and he watched her walk towards him with her head bowed down modestly and staring towards the floor. He then marched purposefully towards the doorman whom he saw eyeing him suspiciously. The man reached inside his jacket. He did not notice Emily stop and pull her abaya aside and take a Taser out of her belt. T
here was a snapping sound and a rapid clicking from the weapon and then Dan watched the man tremble violently for a moment and then fall to the ground. He reached inside the guard’s jacket and fumbled around until he found his gun; he stashed it inside his bag and pulled out his own silenced automatic which he shoved against the man’s stomach. Emily pulled the Taser darts out of his neck and gave him some rapid orders.

  ‘Now you stand very close to the door so you block the view through the spy hole and then when my friend knocks on the door you say you need to come in to use the bathroom. You will keep your hands behind your back. Don’t make any mistake or my friend will blow your balls off.’ She prodded him in the groin with her own automatic to emphasise the threat. Under stress he had changed from a dangerous looking heavy into a somewhat bemused, overweight, middle-aged man. He did as instructed.

  Emily pulled off her Arab garb and stood one side of the door with a Taser at the ready and Dan stood on the other side. He knocked on the door. They waited for about ten seconds and then the door opened.

  ‘What is it?’ a voice asked from inside. Dan thrust the door wide open and Emily Tasered the man inside and he collapsed.

  ‘Ok, go in,’ she ordered the first guard and gave him a push. Emily sheltered behind him as he shuffled forward reluctantly and on the far side of the room she saw a third man aiming a gun towards them.

  ‘Drop it! Emily ordered.

  The man fired a shot that whistled past the ear of the guard and narrowly missed her. She reached around her hostage and shot the man in the thigh sending a spurt of blood onto the carpet. Her victim dropped his weapon and fell to the ground screaming.

  ‘Shut up!’ she called, pointing her gun towards him. He stopped screaming and shuddered and moaned quietly. Dan ran forward, picked up the gun and checked the bedroom and bathroom.

  ‘There’s nobody else here; where’s Mulholland?

  The guard who had opened the door began to push himself to his feet and Emily placed the Taser against his neck. He began to curse her in a stream of Arabic invective.