by Bill Ward
“Stop being so practical. I will lie about where I am staying. He won’t care as long as I do what he wants.”
“I hope that doesn’t extend to sleeping with him?”
“No, he lost interest in me in that way a very long time ago. He liked being the first and enjoyed me while I was very young but not now.”
“Good… Perhaps you should move away, somewhere your uncle can’t find you?”
“And where would I go? Anyway, I would miss you too much.”
“I’m not sure you take this seriously enough.”
“My uncle has been in my life for a very long time. I am used to him. It is only since I met you that I have been shot and in danger.”
Afina knew that was true. Everyone she had come in contact with since arriving in Brighton had seen their lives upheaved one way or another.
Afina was grateful Emma and Becky re-entered the room at that moment. Emma was carrying a chocolate cake with several lit candles on top. Becky was carrying four glasses of champagne. Emma put the cake down on the coffee table and Becky handed out the glasses.
“A toast,” Becky said, raising her glass. “Welcome back Mara.”
Everyone touched glasses and sipped at the champagne.
“Wow, this is good stuff,” Emma said.
“Very nice,” Becky agreed. “Who wants some cake?”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Powell and Jenkins arrived for dinner at the home they had spent so much time watching, with a sense of trepidation. They had debated right up to the last minute whether they should cancel but eventually taken a taxi, which dropped them outside the large double entrance.
The deciding factor in their decision to go was the opportunity to meet the children again. In the near future, they would in effect be abducting the children from their home and father. When it came to convincing the children they should accompany them to the airport and not run in the opposite direction, Powell thought it was going to be beneficial that they knew each other.
Powell buzzed the intercom on the gate and announced their arrival. The doors immediately swung open and as they entered the driveway, Baz was already coming out the front door of the house with a welcoming smile.
“Good to see you again,” Baz said. “And in much more pleasant circumstances.”
“Yesterday is not something I would like to repeat again,” Powell admitted, shaking hands.”
“I rather had the opinion yesterday it was not a new experience for either of you.”
Powell had expected Baz to ask about their past, given the aptitude for weapons they displayed. They had agreed how they would respond. “Two ex-soldiers,” he said smiling. “But in my case it was a very long time ago.”
“I thought as much.”
“Me more recently,” Jenkins said. “I’ve been working in Oman for the Royal family.”
“Well I think then I was indeed fortunate that you chose yesterday to go shopping. Let’s get out this heat and go in the house but may I ask you please not to speak of yesterday’s events in front of the children. They had nightmares last night and they are saying they are scared to go out. They didn’t even want to go for ice cream tonight!”
Powell remembered for the first time that it was Saturday and their plan for grabbing the children relied on them visiting the ice cream parlour the following Saturday.
“We understand,” Powell said. “Hopefully they will get over it quite soon.”
“I hope so,” Baz said, leading the way into the house. “You must come and meet my wife.”
Powell was shocked by the revelation Baz had already married again. He certainly hadn’t wasted anytime moving on with his life.
As they entered the house, Powell sucked in his breath at the opulence of the home. He looked across at Jenkins who seemed a bit in awe of his surroundings.
There were marble floors covered with what looked to be very expensive rugs. In the large entrance hall was a huge chandelier and an impressive, wide staircase leading upstairs. The walls to the side of the staircase were covered with pictures of Arab men. Powell wondered if they were family portraits.
Powell had realised it was quite a large house but the plain brick walls outside gave no hint of the impressive interior. It was evident Baz was not short of money.
“You have a beautiful home,” Powell said.
“Thank you. It has been the family home for many years. I now live here with my parents.”
Baz led the way into the Living room where he introduced his wife and parents who all spoke some English. They were obviously a well-educated as well as wealthy family. The women were wearing full length abayas so it was difficult to determine exactly what Baz’s new wife looked like. She was slim and had pretty eyes. Powell suspected she was a few years younger than Baz.
As Powell looked around the room, he came to the view the furnishings wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Palace. A veritable feast was laid out on the dining table at one end of the room.
“This looks amazing,” Powell said. Despite the surreal situation, he was actually looking forward to tasting local cuisine which he suspected would be of a high quality.
“You are special guests and I told you my cook is excellent. I’m only sorry I cannot offer you anything to drink as is your English custom.”
“That’s okay, we quite understand.” Powell replied.
“Where do you both live?” Baz inquired.
“I live in Brighton,” Powell replied.
“I’m from Wales but living in Stevenage recently,” Jenkins answered.
“Have you been to England?” Powell asked.
“I lived there for ten years until about a year ago. I worked at the Saudi embassy in London.”
“Are you a diplomat?” Powell questioned, warming to the charade.
“Nothing so grand. Just a lowly bureaucrat.”
“And did you enjoy living in England?” Powell enquired.
“I enjoyed many aspects of living in England but not your weather.”
“Join the club,” Jenkins said.
“Why did you leave?” Powell asked.
“My assignment was up and I was missing home. As you English say, home is where the heart is. Now let us eat and you can tell me all about yourselves.”
The food was excellent and the finished plates were removed by two servants of Asian origin, who efficiently came and went without being noticed.
“Are you married?” Baz asked Powell while Jenkins was speaking to the grandparents.
“I was but my wife died twenty years ago.”
“I am sorry to hear that. How did she die, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“She was killed by Irish terrorists.”
“That is terrible. We are fortunate we did not also perish in the same way.”
“How long have you been married?” Powell had been wanting to ask and now Baz had afforded him the perfect opportunity.
“Just two years. I am a lucky man.”
Powell was confused. According to Angela Bennett they had still been married and living together in England twelve months ago.
Have you never thought to marry again?” Baz continued.
“I haven’t met the right person.”
“And is your friend married?”
“No, Jenkins is also single.”
“In our culture it is very important for a man to be married. Women are not so available as in the West and our laws are very strict. No marriage means no fun, if you get my meaning?”
Powell understood perfectly. Sex didn’t happen outside of marriage.
Baz continued, “In a few years I will probably take a second wife. It is our custom that when one wife becomes older, she should move onto the household duties and a younger wife is better for keeping the bed warm.”
“How many wives can you have?”
“The Quran says I can have up to four wives at one time but frankly I think that is excessive. They are expensive and likely to gang up
on you!”
Powell was tempted to laugh but didn’t want to be so impolite. There was no doubt sexism was alive and flourishing in Saudi.
“What happened to the mother of Karim and Laila?”
“Sadly she was killed in a car accident. It is one of the reasons I decided to return to live in my homeland.”
Powell wasn’t surprised to hear Baz’s lie, he had worked out that he would have had to tell the children something along those lines. It helped further convince him, he was doing the right thing in helping Angela get her children back.
“Can I ask you about something that has been bothering me?” Powell inquired.
“Of course.”
“Why did the guards not allow us onto the floor to escape the terrorists. Surely it was a matter of life and death.”
“To someone brought up in England, it must seem very strange but from birth we are brought up this way. If you have never travelled and seen anything else of the world, you do not question these things. Thus the guard was only doing what is ingrained in his very being.”
“But you were arguing with the guards when we arrived so does that mean you think differently?”
“Do you agree with everything about England? Probably not. At the Mall, I was thinking about something which occurred around twelve years ago. We had a terrible fire at a school in our holy city of Mecca, where our religious police forced schoolgirls back into a blazing building because they were not wearing Islamic headscarves and black robes.
Fifteen girls were killed. The religious police even stopped men from trying to help the girls escape from the building. They said it was sinful to approach the girls.”
Powell couldn’t hide his shock. “Did they believe Allah wanted those children to die for the lack of the right clothes?”
“You live in England so it will be difficult for you to comprehend such behavior. Even the concept of a religious police is completely foreign to your way of life. I am a devout Muslim but I am also a father. My views have changed over the years and if it had been Laila who died in the school fire in those circumstances, I would have been very angry.”
Powell had heard enough. When Bella was killed, though it was senseless, she was doing her job and trying to help someone. He was proud of her actions. As a parent, he could imagine how the parents of the dead girls must have felt. They had a chance of escape denied them because of what they were wearing. If he had found the guards responsible, he would have not been able to control his reaction. The more he learned about Saudi, the less he liked the place. He excused himself to visit the bathroom.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Powell and Jenkins were anxiously sat in the BMW, praying the children would have lost their fear of leaving the house and be wanting ice cream tonight. Powell was reminded of various stakeouts during his days in MI5, more than twenty years earlier, although the success of an operation had never been quite so precariously balanced between the fear of two children leaving the house and their desire for ice cream.
“Shouldn’t they be here by now if they’re coming?” Jenkins queried.
“I’ve seen them come a bit earlier and later,” Powell replied, trying to sound more relaxed than he felt. Their visas would be expiring in five days and this was therefore their last chance to utilise Plan A and take the children at the ice cream parlour.
“I’ll be glad to get out of this country, it’s too damned hot,” Jenkins complained. “The heat saps all my energy.”
Powell shared Jenkins views about Saudi. “I actually look forward to seeing some rain and some grass when I’m back in Brighton. Everything here is concrete and sand.” He didn’t like Riyadh as a city and it had nothing to do with the people or the rules. It lacked colour or character. Brighton had both and a soul.
They had turned off the car engine and so the air conditioning had stopped working. It was more than uncomfortably hot in the car, it was quickly turning into a furnace.
“Next time you have a job for me, try and make it somewhere civilised,” Jenkins pleaded. “If it has to be hot, I prefer Spain or the Caribbean.”
Powell thought it quite probable they would work together again but first they had to get home in one piece. “I’ll see what I can do,” he promised with a hint of sarcasm.
He checked his watch again because despite his upbeat manner with Jenkins, he was worried. They were definitely running late.
“They’re here,” Jenkins suddenly announced as the familiar car drove into view.
Powell sat forward in his seat. In just a couple of minutes would see the culmination of weeks of planning. He could feel the adrenaline start to course through his body.
They watched the car pull to a stop in front of the ice cream parlour and the passenger door opened as usual. The grandmother stepped out from the car but instead of opening the rear door as usual, she strode purposefully straight into the ice cream parlour.
“Shit!” Jenkins swore. “What now?”
Powell was desperately trying to peer through the darkened windows of the Range Rover to see if the children were inside the car but close up it would be difficult to tell and they were thirty metres away.
“I’m going to risk a look,” Powell said. “Get behind the wheel. If I see the kids are inside, I’m going to take possession of the car and we follow through on the rest of the plan.”
Powell walked quickly along the pavement with his head turned towards the ice cream parlour and away from the driver of the car. Once level with the car he checked the grandmother was still ordering the ice creams and then stooped to put his face right up close to the rear window. He then kept walking, certain the car was empty apart from the driver.
He had little experience of wearing the long white robe he was currently wearing but as a disguise it worked perfectly. He had been growing a beard for several days and also using a fast tanning lotion, which together, at least at a quick glance, made him difficult to identify as European.
Jenkins pulled up in the BMW at the side of the road after Powell had walked fifty metres and he climbed inside.
“The children weren’t in the car,” Powell confirmed. “We’ll go to Plan B.”
“Let’s hope they aren’t too scared to go to school,” Jenkins said, as he accelerated away from the kerb.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Powell and Jenkins had observed the children being dropped off at school and breathed a sigh of relief. Then they went back to the hotel, where they hired an additional car for Jenkins to drive and then spent a couple of hours swimming and having lunch. Powell telephoned Angela Bennett to check she understood her role in the events about to play out and then they headed back towards the school to take up their respective positions.
Jenkins drove to the side street they had both picked out as the best place for their plan to take effect. Jenkins could see the Range Rover coming down the main road, in no great hurry. It was a journey the driver had made hundreds of times before without incident.
As the Range Rover came close to the side street where Jenkins was parked, he accelerated the brand new Ford he had hired into the main road and intentionally collided with the front wing of the Range Rover. The driver of the Range Rover had seen Jenkins emerge from the side street, swerved and applied his brakes but been unable to avoid the crash.
Jenkins was first out of his car and went to check on the condition of the other driver.
A stream of broken Arabic poured out of the unhappy driver as he stepped from his car but the man was of Asian descent not Arabic. Jenkins gave a small prayer of thanks for their information being correct. Baz’s family, as was common, employed a family driver from India.
Noticing he was talking to a European the driver quickly turned to English.
“Did you not see me coming?” the driver inquired.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Jenkins apologised profusely. “I don’t know what happened. I looked and there was no car coming and by the time I pulled out you were suddenly there.
You must have been going very fast.”
A few people were gathering around. Conversations were taking place in Arabic between the driver and others. The noise level was rapidly increasing as was the gesticulating of arms. To Jenkins it appeared everyone on the street had a view on who was guilty.
“I was not going fast,” the driver replied. “I have witnesses it was your fault.”
“I’m not sure but let’s not argue. This is a hire car and of course I have insurance. Should we call the traffic police?”
The driver was inspecting the damage to his car. “If we do that then as we are both foreigners, we may spend a great deal of time at the police station, maybe even behind bars while they investigate. No one is injured and it looks like both cars are drivable.”
“I have a number my rental company gave me to call in case of an accident,” Jenkins volunteered. “I believe they then sort everything out for us.”
“That is a good idea,” the driver agreed, obviously relieved.
Jenkins had been told that the Najm or traffic police started off with preconceived notions of guilt, based on the driver’s birthplace, when an accident involved different nationalities. Saudis were nearly always innocent, Europeans next best and other nationalities such as Indians at the bottom of the pile. Jenkins had counted on the Indian driver not wanting to call the Najm.
“Do you live here in Riyadh?” the driver asked.
“No, I am just here on business. I’m staying at the Four Seasons hotel.”
Jenkins took his mobile form his pocket and dialled the number he’d been given by the rental company. He briefly explained what had happened and answered various questions. He gave the person at the end of the phone the registration number of the Range Rover. The call took about five minutes and then he was told everything was in order for him to leave the scene of the accident.
“That was easier than calling the police,” Jenkins said.
“Do you have some paper to write down your name and details?” the driver asked. “I need to provide my family with this information.”