The Negotiator

The embrace lasted for several minutes, while McCrea, unaware, toiled over a frying pan in the kitchen beyond the sitting room. Qui

“How much longer, Qui

“Not long,” he murmured. “A few more days if all goes well-maybe a week.”

When they returned to the sitting room and McCrea summoned them to eat, he did not notice a thing.

Colonel Easterhouse limped across the deep carpet of Steve Pyle’s office and stared out of the window, the Laing report on the coffee table behind him. Pyle watched him with a worried expression.

“I fear that young man could do our country’s interests here enormous harm,” said Easterhouse softly. “Inadvertent, of course. I’m sure he’s a conscientious young man. Nevertheless…”

Privately he was more worried than he gave out. His plan to arrange the massacre and destruction of the House of Sa’ud from the top down was in mid-stage and sensitive to disruption.

The Shi’ah fundamentalist Imam was in hiding, safe from the security police, since the entire file in the central security computer had been erased, wiping out all record of the man’s known contacts, friends, supporters, and possible locations. The zealot from the Mutawain Religious Police kept up the contact. Among the Shi’ah, recruitment was progressing, the eager volunteers being told only that they were being prepared for an act of lasting glory in the service of the Imam and thus of Allah.

The new arena was being completed on schedule. Its huge doors, its windows, side exits, and ventilation system were all controlled by a central computer, programmed with a system of Easterhouse’s devising. Plans for desert maneuvers to draw most of the regular Saudi Army away from the capital on the night of the dress rehearsal were well advanced. An Egyptian major general and two Palestinian military armorers were in his pay and prepared to substitute defective ammunition for the ordinary issue to the Royal Guard on the night in question.

His American Piccolo machine pistols, with their magazines and ammunition, were due by ship early in the new year, and arrangements were in place for their storage and preparation before issue to the Shi’ah. As he had promised Cyrus Miller, he needed U.S. dollars only for external purchases. Internal accounts could be settled in riyals.

That was not the story he had told Steve Pyle. The general manager of SAIB had heard of Easterhouse and his enviable influence with the royal family, and had been flattered to be asked to di

“There are rumors of a plan afoot to topple the royal house,” Easterhouse had told him gravely. “We found out about it, and informed King Fahd. His Majesty has agreed to a joint effort between his security forces and the Company to unmask the culprits.”

Pyle had ceased eating, his mouth open in amazement. And yet it was all perfectly feasible.

“As you know, money buys everything in this country, including information. That’s what we need, and the regular Security Police funds ca

Pyle had nodded. The King’s cousin, Minister of Public Works.

“He is the King’s appointed liaison with me,” said the colonel. “The Prince has agreed that the fresh funds we both need to penetrate the conspiracy shall come from his own budget. Needless to say, Washington at the highest level is desperately eager that nothing should happen to this most friendly of governments.”

And thus the bank, in the form of a single and rather gullible officer, had agreed to participate in the creation of the fund. What Easterhouse had actually done was to hack into the Ministry of Public Works’ accounting computer, which he had set up, with four fresh instructions.

One was to alert his own computer terminal every time the Ministry issued a draft in settlement of an invoice from a contractor. The sum of these invoices on a monthly basis was huge; in the Jiddah area the Ministry was funding roads, schools, hospitals, deep-water ports, sports stadiums, bridges, overpasses, housing developments, and apartment blocks.

The second instruction was to add 10 percent to every settlement, but transfer that 10 percent into his own numbered account in the Jiddah branch of the SAIB. The third and fourth instructions were protective: If the Ministry ever asked for the total in its account at the SAIB, its own computer would give the total plus 10 percent. Finally, if questioned directly, it would deny all knowledge and erase its memory. So far the sum in Easterhouse’s account was 4 billion riyals.

What Laing had noticed was the weird fact that every time the SAIB, on instructions from the Ministry, made a credit transfer to a contractor, a matching transfer of precisely 10 percent of that sum went from the Ministry’s account to a numbered account in the same bank.

Easterhouse’s swindle was just a variation of the Fourth Cash Register scam, and could only be uncovered by the full a

“One does not wish any harm to this young man,” said Easterhouse, “but if he is going to do this sort of thing, if he refuses to stay quiet, would it not be wise to transfer him back to London?”

“Not so easy. Why would he go without protest?” asked Pyle.

“Surely,” said Easterhouse, “he believes this package to have reached London. If London summons him-or that is what you tell him-he will go like a lamb. All you have to tell London is that you wish him reassigned. Grounds: He is unsuitable here, has been rude to the staff and damaged the morale of his colleagues. His evidence is right here in your hands. If he makes the same allegations in London, he will merely prove your point.”

Pyle was delighted. It covered every contingency.

Qui

In the basement of the embassy the duty ELINT man at the console turned around after several minutes and called over an FBI man. Soon afterward, Brown and Collins were in the listening post.

“One of the bedroom bugs just went out,” said the engineer. “The one in the base of the table lamp. Showing defective.”

“Mechanical fault?” asked Collins. Despite the makers’ claims, technology had a habit of fouling up at regular intervals.

“Could be,” said the ELINT man. “No way of knowing. It seems to be alive. But its sound-level reception is batting zero.”

“Could he have discovered it?” asked Brown. “Shoved something in it? He’s a tricky son of a bitch.”