Blood Rules

by John Trenhaile

  “I know that you can hear me.” The language English, the speaker male, his accent Middle Eastern.

  After a few seconds, Colin thought he recognized the voice as belonging to one of the terrorists. Not Fouad, who was dead. Colin had killed him. Jesus Christ, he prayed, forgive me.

  “I know that you can hear me,” the distant voice repeated slowly, deliberately. “Listen to me. I have found the wreckage of the helicopter. I have examined your tracks. Come back to the plane.”

  “Bluff,” Sharett said tersely. “If he knew which direction we’d gone, he’d never have faced around and around like that.”

  Colin reluctantly accepted this as true: reluctantly, because it was Sharett who’d seen it and he didn’t like Sharett now any more than he had in New York, two years previously, when they’d first crossed paths.

  The disembodied voice continued. “Come back to the plane, I say, and this will not go against you. But if you fail to return … at dawn tomorrow we shall blow up the plane and every living soul aboard. Our promise is not an idle one. Should you doubt us, watch the sky tomorrow at first light and learn the burden of sin you carry.”

  By now it was too dark for them to see one another’s faces. Colin felt an overwhelming desire to know the worst, to winkle out whatever each was thinking. As the seconds ticked by, his frustration mounted. He could feel the words on the back of his tongue. He tasted their bilious, metallic flavor, yet he could not bring himself to utter them, to condone mass murder by saying, We can’t go back. Mahdi saved him.

  “We go back now,” he gibbered suddenly. “Yes, back to the plane now, out here nothing to drink, nothing to eat; in the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, think what you are doing! You cannot condemn so many to die! You are not God, may Allah forgive my sinful tongue, you are not God!”

  Mahdi’s last word whined upward into a scream as Sharett unhurriedly struck him a backhander on the mouth, swinging his whole arm and putting beef into it.

  “And you?” he said equably to the pathetic huddle at his feet. “Were you God when you filmed the murder of the South African, when you connived at the taking of a planeload of passengers? Come on, God, tell us a thing or two. Tell us why so much concern for the innocent and the good when you didn’t give a shit before.”

  He swung back his foot and kicked Mahdi in the stomach. Robbie cried out, forcing his knuckles against his lips.

  “You didn’t give a shit before and you don’t give a shit now.” Sharett’s voice had turned ruminative and low: a judge meditating sentence. “It’s because you know that as long as you stay with us those scum will seek you wherever you run, so they can kill you. That’s why you dread the morning—because then they will start their pursuit. They will come after us. She … will come.”

  In the silence that followed, Colin held his breath, praying that Robbie would not have heard, not understood. But then the boy said, “She? Who is ‘she?’ ”

  Silence.

  “Which ‘she?’ “ A pause. “Which ‘she?'”

  Sharett hesitated. Then: “School starts early this term,” he said. “So let’s begin with ABC. Your mother, Leila Hanif—”

  “No!” Colin’s cry rebounded off the side of the wadi.

  Everyone jumped; everyone, that is, except Robbie, who announced, in a small, clear voice, “I want to hear it.”

  “Your mother,” Sharett said, “is one of the five most wanted terrorists in the world. She planned and led this hijack because she wanted one thing, and one thing only: you. That is why we are here. That is why Van Tonder had to die, and others will have to die. And that is why, as soon as there is light tomorrow, she will come. She is ready to pursue you into hell, if only she can get you back. So she will come. She will.”

  Robbie’s face was invisible in the gloom, but Colin knew, could feel, his son was smiling. “Yes,” he heard him say; and then, after a pause that seemed as long as life itself, “I know.”

  22 JULY: NIGHT: BAHRAIN

  Twenty-nine seconds, that’s all it took, from bedroom to Mercedes, five of them, Nunn and four bodyguards, two ahead, two behind, walking as fast as fit men can without breaking into a run, another trio waiting for them behind the swing doors where the service elevator was ready, a concierge with his key in the lock to guarantee nonstop descent to the second floor; then down two flights of stairs, past the hotel’s health club, into the back seat of the car parked down a side alley, long before the telephoto lenses and multidirectional mikes fifty yards away, barricaded next to the front entrance, could focus; sirens, motorcycle escort, pilot car forcing a path through the crowd: a comically gesticulating bunch of sweaty western faces strung with cameras and video recorders and tape decks, comic because the car’s bulletproofing shut out sound as well.

  Nunn removed his dark glasses and began a review of what he would say to them in the British embassy when he arrived there in—he glanced at his Cartier Tank—four and a half minutes.

  He was still breathing heavily from his recent jog through the Inter-Continental Hotel’s nether recesses, which had done nothing to improve his temper. For the first time ever, retirement beckoned with all the attractiveness of Letuce’s maître d’ extending his hand to an old and favored client.

  Confronted by the maze of Middle Eastern politics he’d applied his techniques in the usual way, drawing back from the brink of disaster, careering around dangerous corners at high speed, never letting the ball drop. First fix Shehabi, then Bahrain, then Kuwait, then Saudi, then the British, the Germans, the Israelis, then whoops! back to collect Kuwait again, and then whoops! don’t let Saudi get upset… on and on it went, round and round, until at last he was where he wanted to be, no longer one protagonist among many but the Grand Wizard himself, with Her Majesty’s minister of state on line ready to do his bidding, and Feisal Hanif himself, Goliath to his David, emerging from the shadows to join battle. Until Halib’s call the afternoon had evolved into immaculately timed segments: Feisal was on his way to Damascus airport, he was airborne, he had landed, he was on his way to the Delmon, he was in his suite, he was ready. He was not ready, but soon would be. In an hour.

  That was when Halib had phoned with the news about Sharett.

  The Mercedes swung in through the gates of the British embassy—no more fooling around in Lloyd’s offices; this was for real—the soldiers in their blue-and-white sentry boxes saluted, another opened the car door, two men in front of him, two behind, walking at the same quick pace, stairs, the conference room on the northwest side, overlooking a weary garden, usual crowd, no new faces.

  “He’s gone,” he said, lowering himself into the chair at the head of the table. He poured himself a glass of ice water, draining it down in a series of gulps while he waited for the bodyguards to plug in and test his portable fax, waited for the rest of them to pounce.

  “Gone?”

  Philip Trewin’s voice, rendered neutral by fatigue, conveyed no hint of criticism or anger. Nunn sensed he’d been expecting to hear this news; no, he’d already heard it.

  “Meeting was scheduled for twenty hundred. Feisal Hanif had it put back to twenty-one; no show, nothing, minister not best pleased. Phone call to Hanifs suite elicits no reply; hotel manager suffering from palpitations, entourage left twenty minutes before.”

  They were so tired, all of them, that they could no longer form coherent grammatical sentences but instead had been reduced to a kind of languid telegraphese.

  “Meaning what?”

  Nunn looked down the table at all those tense faces turned toward him, and for the umpteenth time he wondered what on earth he was doing here, what they wanted of him, the ones who were really pulling the strings; he would hear later, of course, maybe years later, whose game it had been: Iran’s, Iraq’s, Syria’s, Yemen’s, but by then he’d have forgotten most of it anyway and it would be a struggle to remember half the names. He would not leave this place any the wiser than when he’d come, that much he knew.

  Halib
had not said categorically whether by now in Tel Aviv they realized one of their agents was aboard NQ 033. Maybe the Israelis had known and maybe they hadn’t. What taxed Nunn was whether he’d been right to ring them up and tell them. Too late to worry about that, he’d already done it.

  “Recap,” he said wearily. “Last night the chopper brought out that diabetic boy, Iranian frigate landed him in Oman, gesture of goodwill to facilitate, et cetera and so forth. Chopper goes back this morning, repeat flight this afternoon, no more heard of same. Radio silence blankets NQ oh-double-three, despite attempts by Iranian frigate to raise her. Feisal Hanif abruptly aborts negotiations, leaves Bahrain, no forwarding address.”

  What was he doing here? What on earth were any of them supposed to be doing?

  “Stalemate,” he muttered sourly.

  Major Trewin looked down at his hands. “Perhaps,” he said.

  “Meaning?”

  “I’m informed that South Yemen has been subjecting the position to ‘in-depth dialectical analysis.'” “And?”

  “They might just be prepared to let Hadhramaut province be used as springboard for a home run by the SAS.”

  “Conditions?”

  “Thumping big bribe. Aid. Grants. Hardware. Moscow’s been leaning on them. Most of what we hand over to Aden will find its way back into the commissars’ pockets, of course, but the Yemenites don’t know that.”

  Nunn was staring at him. “Why should Moscow be leaning on South Yemen to put an end to a hijack?”

  “Because they’re upset.” It was the M16 spook who interjected; Nunn struggled to recall his name before remembering that he hadn’t ever given one. “Sources there have finally confirmed that this hijack diverted Soviet resources in breach of guidelines.”

  “Translation?”

  “Leila Hanif is off on a frolic of her own. Halib was right.” There was a bemused silence, broken only by the rustling of men creaking their weary bones into new positions.

  “How reliable are your sources?” Trewin inquired, after a pause.

  “Very, we think. Of course it could be a con, but somebody went to a lot of trouble to persuade us that they could get Yemeni signatures on the line, and it’s coming out just like they said. They’ll allow a rescue force to assemble within their territory as long as no Israelis are involved and the Yanks stay out of it. And as long as the check clears, of course.”

  “Of course,” Nunn said. “Will it?”

  “Looking good. Hereford’s standing by; airlift on ninety minutes’ notice.”

  “Excuse me,” Selman Shehabi said, “but they do not have recent desert experience.”

  “Nobody has experience of South Yemen,” Trewin said huffily.

  Israel does, Nunn thought to himself; bet you a pony any day, old boy. Yes, Israel—

  “Germany’s GSG-Nine would be more acceptable,” Shehabi said. “To us.”

  “With respect,” Trewin said, “your country has already caused more than enough—”

  But Andrew Nunn interrupted them. ‘What exactly was the position with regard to Israeli passport holders on that plane?” he asked. “What did you establish, in the end? Don’t flannel me, give me the bottom line.”

  “We turned up a couple of dual nationals,” said the M16 man. Then, after a pause, “And half a dozen shoes. Sorry—false passports.”

  “False?” Andrew couldn’t conceal his trepidation, didn’t even try. “Anyone you know?”

  “Apart from the terrorists, there were one or two familiar names. I’ve only just had the list in from London, I haven’t had a chance to analyze it yet, but…”

  “Yes?” Andrew banged the table, his heart sinking. “Come on, don’t make us drag it out of you, tell us the truth.”

  “The Mossad had men on that flight.”

  So now everyone knew. Andrew could hear his own pulse. The room was otherwise remarkably silent.

  “Israeli intelligence had put men aboard that flight?” he said at last. Shehabi was preparing to explode. “No, Selman, wait… is that what you’re telling us?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Oh, for God’s—”

  “Apparently Leila Hanif may not be the only—ah, loose cannon rolling around this particular deck.”

  So Halib had been right about everything, Andrew

  thought. In the circumstances, what was I supposed to

  have done? Of course I had to call Tel Aviv, of course I

  did. Try and get her out of it, Dodo. The child too. Annie,

  I am so very sorry

  “What will Jerusalem do about Sharett?” he asked, knowing already. “Assume they’ve discovered that one of their most senior people is aboard, what will they do?”

  From the way M16 looked at him Andrew knew he was wondering about that word “senior.” No one in this room had said Sharett was senior. No one had mentioned his name, either.

  M16 was about to speak when a knock on the door brought the exchange to an abrupt halt. A second lieutenant wearing the insignia of the Scots Guards brought in a sheet of paper and laid it before Trewin.

  “Movement,” he said, after studying it. “High-level reconnaissance, last light today, indicates that the helicopter has crashed close to the plane. Indistinct markings on the ground may mean there were survivors.”

  Ninety minutes’ standby at Hereford would not be enough; even as Nunn opened his mouth to speak he knew the futility of it, but now there was nothing more he could do to affect events so he did not hesitate.

  “Get the SAS over,” he said to Trewin. “ETA sometime yesterday.”

  DAY

  FIVE

  24 JULY: NIGHT:

  AL MAHRA, SOUTH YEMEN

  SHE felt tired, so very tired. She sat in the cockpit, aimlessly looking out the window, and it was thus that Hisham found her.

  He stood on the threshold awkwardly, shuffling his feet and wondering what he was supposed to do now that Fouad and Selim both were dead. Earlier he had gone with Leila to broadcast a message into the desert while she poked around in the still-hot wreckage of the helicopter, but since then the leader had remained sealed in the cockpit, alone with her thoughts.

  “They will come tonight,” she said, not conscious of addressing him, not really aware of another presence at all. “The imperialist infidels.”

  On her final word, as if at a prearranged signal, the cockpit lights flickered and died. A red lamp on the radio took some time to fade. The last residue of fuel had been used up. Now there was no power to work the air-conditioning, or the ovens, or the lights. NQ 033 had perished. She had perished.

  Leila elbowed herself forward in the copilot’s seat, feeling the tension pressurize pain into her shoulders, and said, “We shall separate now.”

  “Separate?” he said uneasily.

  “I must follow my son.”

  Hisham looked dubious: how could anyone have survived such a terrible crash? Yet they had found nothing that might once have been a teenage boy among the twisted struts and embers.

  “What do you want us to do?” he asked. “Blow up the aircraft?”

  Leila shook her head. “Killing the passengers cannot help you, and it’s time to protect yourselves. You’ve been magnificent. In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, go in peace and soon, before the soldiers come. Leave me water. Only that.”

  Hisham quit the cockpit. He went the rounds of his people, giving them quiet instructions, before lifting the intercom handset. He told the passengers that he and his men were moving to the desert floor and warned them to stay seated, because gunmen would still be covering the doorways throughout the night and the booby-trapped explosives would remain in place. Ten minutes later the plane was bereft of terrorists.

  At the foot of the escape slide, Leila exchanged an embrace and a blessing with her men. Then she headed toward the place where the helicopter had crashed. She carried an M3A1 with a full clip plus one spare, and a flask containing three liters of water. When she reached the
wreckage she settled down to await first light.

  She had no sense of time passing. She may even have slept a little: here, in the desert, there was no light to ease the eyes from their constant battle with blackness. Her mind turned this way and that, but mostly it concentrated on the coming day.

  She was used to this terrain, and she knew how to track a man. She had water. She would travel fast. But the pace of those she hunted would be dictated by the group’s weakest members, Robbie and Colin. One or more of them might have been injured in the crash. Her chest tightened at the notion. She would find them quickly. Then she would take Robbie back and settle accounts.

  Time drifted slowly, so slowly. Like that last day in New York; it had seemed interminable, from the moment she woke up until …

  She could have stopped all this then. A word to Halib, another to Colin. No separation, no loss, no more death. Did her family ever think of that? she wondered; did they blame her for keeping silent when a word from her would have changed the world?

  Sharett led them only a little farther into the wadi before calling a halt for the night. In total darkness there was no way they could continue. The silence was total too.

  Despite the pain he was suffering, Colin managed to get his priorities in order. First, reestablish contact with Robbie. And second. And third.

  Easy to say. Two years of silence and concealment didn’t evaporate overnight. Robbie knew his father had lied to him. How long had he known?

  Colin squatted beside his son, trying to ignore the pains in his back. His arm was feeling better, but the burns were going to trouble him for a long time. He had nothing to cover his skin with. When they left the plane he’d abandoned his jacket, and his shirt was scorched, useless. He’d have to take off his trousers and use them to cover the wounded area. He’d look ridiculous. So what.