The commando ignored him and spoke into the radio mike on his wrist. "Double checking. Five canisters. Right? Over."

"What did the wh.o.r.e say?"

The leader ignored him and addressed his team member. "Four now. Apparently he's already exploded one in Saudi."

They opened the crates. It took two men to haul out each stainless steel cylinder from the straw packing. A black circle with three propeller blades on a yellow background was stamped on each canister. They had arranged for the decoy canisters of medical caesium to be delivered while the Princess Aliya was docked in Karachi.

"Check them," the leader said to the other man.

Khalid stepped back. "Allow me to leave before you do. I wish to father more children."

The Israelis glanced at each other.

"They can check them back on the boat," the leader said. "You two check the rest of the vessel. Throw any weapons overboard." Addressing Khalid, he barked, "Your quarters. Let's go!"

The leader demanded that he open the safe. Ignoring the bundles of cash, the man took out a laptop computer and a USB memory stick, which he inserted into a micro-computer carried by one of his men. Apparently satisfied, the leader placed them in a waterproof bag that he zipped inside his wet suit.

Khalid didn't find it difficult to express his outrage at this defilement by the Israelis. "No! You can't take them! I have no other copies of that information!" Another lie. Before they left Paris, he had made several copies of the memory sticks and left one in the BNP safe deposit box. The other was with Ziad in the panic room, along with his computer and other valuables. The laptop taken by the commando leader was an old spare. Khalid had also changed the numbers of the bank accounts on the memory stick. The Jews would not be able to get their hands on his money.

"Well, that was a bit stupid, wasn't it? Take it up with your lawyer," the leader said. He put the radio to his mouth. "Have you found Ziad?" A pause. He turned to Khalid. "Where's Ziad?"

"I had him thrown overboard last night. Was he one of your Zionist spies?"

But the leader was listening to his radio. He swore, and turned to Khalid. "The women's quarters. Now!"

"Ziad would not be there. It is not permitted," Khalid said as he led the way down the stairs, glimpsing the thirty-calibre gun as it toppled over the side, then plunged into the deep, trailing its bra.s.s scarf The women's quarters were not bulletproof as Khalid's quarters were, and had taken fire. Broken gla.s.s crunched underfoot, and when Khalid opened the door, Fez the cat meowed loudly and ran outside. Dr. Gammal was crouched down, attending to someone, a.s.sisted by Rubi, who glanced up, and when she saw him, her eyes flooded tears.

"Jamila!" Khalid cried out. What was she doing here? She was supposed to have stayed in his bulletproofed quarters.

"Saleh, what happened? Is Jamila all right?"

Dr. Gammal didn't look up. "She is sedated. She will live, Highness, if we can get her to Andaran and Dr. Xi in time. But she has lost the baby. I am sorry. I cannot be certain if she will be able to carry another."

Rubi stroked Jamila's hair as she spoke. "We were in your quarters but Jamila came down looking for Fez just before the shooting began."

Khalid turned on the commando leader. "Look what you've done, you incompetent Zionist fool. We radioed you but you refused to respond and board us in an orderly manner. You chose to shoot at my women and kill my unborn child! I promise you this, I will make sure the international media knows all about your Israeli brutality."

The commando leader appeared unfazed. "I don't think your credibility will be enhanced once we reveal that you were carrying uranium on board. And I'm sure the Saudis and the Americans will be interested to know that you were behind the recent bombing in Saudi Arabia. If you had accepted our offer in Paris, this action would not have been necessary."

He barked some words into his radio, then gestured to his men. They followed him out and disappeared from view. A short time later, the commandos took to their Zodiacs and returned to their mother ship, which turned away and headed north.

Once they were underway, Khalid gave new orders and in high spirits returned to his quarters. He opened the panel that concealed the panic room. "The Zionist pirates fell for the decoys," he said, smiling. "And I was right, Ziad. The commandos had orders to kill you."

"Sheriti had me targeted all along."

"So it would appear. As it stands, I should kill you myself. You told me that you had checked her out thoroughly. I have only jusi avoided a public relations disaster."

"Egyptian Intelligence is not the same since Mubarak was deposed."

"Arrange for the guns in the panic room to be distributed among the senior officers. And take the woman Tally back to her cell. They didn't even ask about her, so she's obviously not Israeli. Must be American, after all. And since you spoke to this man McCloud, we will have to a.s.sume now that the Americans know I have the nuclear canisters."

"But they would not know where, Highness. I a.s.sume they are safe inside the fortress?"

Khalid smiled grimly. "My bomb-maker should be working on my second bomb. This time the target is Mecca- the Holy City itself! I will rid the world of the Wahhabi mullahs who sentenced my Muna to death. Ha! The House of Saud will not be able to survive this attack, which will contaminate the Holy City for thousands of years. And Al Qaeda will be blamed, because the bomb will be identical to the other one. In a few short weeks I shall return to Riyadh, cheered as Arabia's exiled hero! Go and tell the pilot a.s.sad I want the helicopter ready for takeoff in fifteen minutes. We must get Jamila to Andaran."

Ziad grinned as he left. He had no doubt that Al Qaeda would deny responsibility for the bomb, and blame the Americans. Just as many millions believed the Jews were behind 9/11, so Muslims everywhere would believe the US President ordered this attack on the heart of Islam, just as America had defiled Pakistani sovereignty when it a.s.sa.s.sinated Osama Bin Laden.

86.

As he regained consciousness, Mac could hear a voice, though it seemed to be a long way off. It spoke with a strange, high-pitched, nasal accent. He was strapped to a table, an intravenous line piercing a vein in his hand. With his nose almost blocked, he sensed rather than smelled the astringent tang of antiseptic. An intubation tube was down his throat, allowing him to breathe but not speak. A screen prevented him seeing what was happening below his neck. There were machines everywhere, several video screens showing a body cut open, people in blue moving around talking softly, the clink of metal on metal, and the beeping of a heart monitor that he suddenly realised was keeping pace with his own.

For a moment he felt relief that he was in a place of safety, that his injuries were being repaired. Then he noticed three men watching behind a gla.s.s part.i.tion at the back of the room. One of them was an obscenely grinning man in uniform. Colonel Boroni! Mac struggled furiously against his bindings, but they held him tight on the gurney. No! He could hear the heart monitor increase its pace rapidly as he fought back panic. This wasn't safety. This was his worst nightmare. Being restrained, helpless to stop whatever your captor might enjoy doing to you. He forced his mind to focus and began to understand the Arabic words of one of the surgeons.

"...And so, now that we have severed the spinal cord, the patient will feel nothing below the neck. It is now a relatively simple procedure to remove the liver, as you can see Dr. Tan doing on the monitor."

His heart monitor began to beep more urgently as the surgeon's remarks registered. They were taking his liver! Instinctively, he tried to move his arms and legs. They strained against the straps. At that moment, one of the theatre staff turned from the other operating table carrying a liver and placed it in a large metal dish. He could see someone lying on the other table.

No!

He shut his eyes, fighting the urge to throw up as his mind tried to reject what his eyes couldn't turn away from. On the other table was Scotty. Staring at him. It was obvious that he was aware of what was happening. They had taped a ventilator tube in his mouth, and he couldn't speak. But he understood Arabic. Scotty would know exactly what they were doing to him.

The robotic voice continued its reporting of the procedure: "Now that we have removed the liver, the donor will die quite quickly. And now, to complete today's practice, we will open up the recipient and show how quickly we are able to remove the existing liver and transplant the new organ."

A voice. Shouting. More voices. Suddenly, all the medical staff rushed out of the theatre. The men in the gallery looked confused for a moment, then hurried out.

Scotty's face was paling. He tried to speak but couldn't. He raised his eyebrows. Closed one eye and opened it. Mac frowned. Scotty did it again. It was definitely a wink. Tears stinging his eyes, he winked back and nodded. Scotty held on for a few moments longer, then his eyes closed. The other heart monitor became a continuous beep.

The staff reappeared. A voice ordered: "Get these two out of here. You, bring clean instruments. Hurry! The helicopter has just landed with Sheik Khalid and his injured wife."

87.

"Are you really sure you want to do this?" Jog yelled over the crashing waves and rumbling thunder.

Cramped in the bow of the Rabi's lifeboat, soaked to the skin from rain and salt spray, Anastia clutched the rope that skirted the top of the boat, watching for rocks that could tear the craft to pieces. She wasn't sure if her churning gut was from the swell or from the danger of failure. "I must do this. For Anton!"

The evening storm had been too good an opportunity to pa.s.s up, and the cover it provided was the only reason they had managed to persuade Sammy to venture this close to the Yubani Resort. That, and two thousand dollars cash. The darkness and teeming rain would prevent anyone spotting them from the resort, while the c.u.mulonimbus monsters spurting deadly bolts of lightning should deter anyone in their right minds from venturing out.

Sammy seemed amazingly calm, given a particularly close strike of lightning and the danger of being smashed onto the unforgiving rocks. Using skills he had learned from years of fishing along the cliffs of the Andaran coastline, Sammy somehow kept the motor at the right revs so the boat drifted ever closer to the eastern cliffs.

A particularly large wave thrust the boat forward but Sammy swung around, riding the crest just before it crashed over them, turning again to allow them to be carried in again on a subsequent, smaller wave. After a fourth attempt, he got close enough for Jog to throw Anastia's sports bag across the gap onto the rocks. As Jog released the bag, a wave unbalanced him and he toppled into the water. He grabbed at the rope, just managing to hold on, coughing and spluttering, as waves pounded him. Anastia grabbed his arm as Sammy manoeuvred the boat away from the cliffs. Dragging Jog back over the gunwale almost caused the boat to capsize.

"Thank you," he said, after he'd stopped vomiting up the brine.

"I can't see my gear."

Jog pointed. "Bag's behind that rock, just above the water line. Do you think you can reach it?"

"I'll have to!" she shouted as another bolt of lightning shrieked down, swatting the surface in the centre of Crater Bay. Ear-shattering thunder exploded off the basalt cliffs.

"Next time, you jump!" Sammy yelled.

Anastia held onto the anchor rope and crouched, ready to push herself off. Jog held her steady as the boat surfed in on the next wave. She hesitated. The gap was too wide. The wave kicked the boat up level with the ledge and it began to drop fast.

"Go! Go!" shouted Sammy.

She released the anchor rope and Jog pushed. She powered off the gunwale across the widening gap, then landed awkwardly and slid down rocks where razor-sharp barnacles and sh.e.l.lfish shredded the skin on her hands and forearms. She jammed her feet out to stop the slide and a sharp, searing pain tore up her right leg.

She cried out and swore, knowing something had to be broken. She looked down. Her right foot had wedged itself between two rocks and her leg had kept going. Either the ankle was broken or she'd tom some ligaments. No, definitely broken. She could tell from the angle her foot was pointing. After the initial pain and shock, she couldn't feel anything. But she knew from a past skiing accident that as soon as she tried to move, the pain would be excruciating. She turned to signal the boat to return, but it had disappeared into the black storm.

There was no going back. She'd been crazy to think she could do this. Just like when she was a teenager, and had felt the need to prove she could beat the boys by climbing higher up a cliff face to jump into a waterhole. She'd done it. The following week, one of the local boys had fallen to his death trying to outdo her.

She concentrated on working up the strength to deal with her injury. First, she needed to get her foot out of the wedge before the ankle swelled up and trapped her. She gently untied the shoelace and started to slide her foot out, biting her lip to stop from screaming. Little by little, she managed to release her foot from the trapped shoe. Leaving the shoe, she crawled over the slippery rocks to find her bag.

It took her almost five hours to retrieve the bag and drag herself up the slippery rocks to the position she had seen through the binoculars from the Rabi. It was a shallow cave they'd spotted from offsh.o.r.e. A colony of bats was sheltering inside and the stench of bat faeces was overpowering. But at least she was dry and had an excellent view of the resort and could hide from those below. She brushed bat faeces away to clear a s.p.a.ce big enough to lie down. The sun was just beginning to rise when she stripped off her wet clothes and wrapped herself in a blanket. Setting out the contents of her bag nearby, she ate a bar of chocolate and tried to get some sleep.

She hadn't brought any painkillers. However, she must have drifted off at some stage because she had a dream in which Anton was killing women and children. He was a burning zombie with a weapon that spat daggers of fire. She had no wish to join him in h.e.l.l.

88.

A wave of nausea swept over Mac, and a sharp pain from his nose was stabbing behind his eyes. His thinking was fuzzy. He swallowed the blood trickling down the back of his throat. It felt like a scrubbing brush had been shoved down his gullet. He could smell again, and the metallic smell of blood was overwhelmed by a cinnamon fragrance as someone leaned over him, blocking out the light. He tried to move his arms and legs, but his wrists were handcuffed to an iron ring at the head of the bunk bed. That was when he noticed the coloured tiles that Mai had mentioned and realised that he must be in one of the cells inside the fortress.

"Ah, you're awake." A man wearing a traditional white Saudi thobe with a headscarf and khanjar in a silk belt walked into his cell. One of the guards carried in a plastic chair and the man sat down next to Mac's bunk. It took Mac a moment to realise it was Sheik Khalid, who looked slightly thinner in the face than his photos. "Beautiful day outside, Mr. McCloud." Khalid's cultured English accent seemed at odds with the way he was picking under his nails with the curved dagger.

Leaning against the wall by the door was the bald giant whom the bomb-maker had called Ibrahim. His leg was bandaged and he was leaning on a walking stick. Scotty had mentioned he'd winged him.

Scotty! The image returned even as he tried to shake it from his mind. His friend lying paralysed on the operating table, his eyelids slowly closing as he died right before his eyes. He had brought Scotty here. He was responsible for Scotty's death. He groaned as the sour taste of acid rose in his throat and feelings of horror and guilt overwhelmed him. He swallowed, but it was no good. Leaning over, he heaved up blood and salt water and the rest of the contents of his stomach. His only comfort now was that Scotty hadn't felt any pain during the procedure that had killed him.

Khalid stepped back and turned to a guard waiting outside the door. "Clean it up!" he ordered in Arabic.

Khalid! He was responsible for all of this. Sophia and Danni, Tally and Rosco. And now Scotty. He wanted to tear the man apart with his bare hands. He knew he could do it. He thrashed his arms, but they remained cuffed to the iron ring. He strained to focus, trying to recall the details that Mai had told him about this place.

"Don't waste your strength, Mr. McCloud. We have plenty of time and much to discuss."

"You sick f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d! We know everything. Soon there'll be a company of soldiers here to blast this place to s.h.i.t."

Khalid held the khanjar against his throat. "We?"

Mac felt the p.r.i.c.kle against his skin. Any sideways movement would cause the razor-sharp blade to slice into his neck. "The United States Government."

"Very good. Unfortunately, you arrived a little earlier than we had expected. Quite impressive, by the way. If I were a betting man, I'd have put my money on Masoud. He was one of my best. Now, I have some questions. First, how did you get into my fortress?"

But Mac was thinking: What did he mean, they had arrived earlier than expected. How could he have been expecting them?

A familiar face appeared at the door. Ziad.

"Princess Aliya has just berthed, Highness. But the helicopter will be out of action for several days. I'll collect Sheik Zodhami from the airport and bring him here on the launch."

Zodhami? The hateful leader who had been one of the planners of 9/11 and was currently the favourite for taking Al Qaeda's top job. Then he remembered. He was the terrorist with the rare blood type that Tally had mentioned was coming here for the transplant.

Sophia!

Was she to be the donor? He needed time to think. What was it Mai had told him before the ambush? That Bill had planned for every contingency...

Khalid went outside to speak to Ziad while the guard cleaned up the vomit. Ibrahim remained where he was, wearing a Mona Lisa smile.

Mac wanted to wipe the smile off that face with some insulting remark. But until he knew whether the others were okay he couldn't risk provoking Ibrahim, or Khalid. He needed to stay alive, now that he was so close. To avenge Scotty's death, and help the others. Where were they holding Sophia and Danni? And where were Tally and Rosco? By now, Wisebaum should have contacted Khalid to negotiate their release. Hopefully the Director would realise that it would be better to send in a Delta team and would overrule Wisebaum.

Khalid returned and again placed the khanjar blade against his throat. He chuckled. "You know you're too old to volunteer for this, Mr. McCloud. Here we only use young, living donors whose organs are still growing. But never mind. Dr. Xi will get to use you for practice, as with your colleague. Now, I need some answers. How did you learn of the fortress?"

McCloud glanced over at Ziad. What had Tally told them?

He felt a stinging as Khalid moved the blade ever so slightly and nicked the skin like a shaving razor. "Pay attention, Mr. McCloud. I am not a patient man. I will not ask again."

"Mai Fanning," he replied. It didn't matter now. "Bill told her everything. She's well-protected now. Your a.s.sa.s.sin failed."

Khalid clucked with his tongue. "My a.s.sa.s.sin? Which a.s.sa.s.sin are you referring to, I wonder? Mai Fanning is dead, Mr. McCloud." He paused for effect. "Oh, let's drop the pretence, shall we? Sergeant McCloud, formerly of Delta Force. I hear your friends call you 'Mac'?"

Mac inhaled sharply, despite himself. He coughed up blood.

"Oh yes, Mac, your colleague Rosco told us many things before he died. Tally too. We just need some confirmation from you in case they lied."

Rosco dead? And Tally? And Mai? "I don't believe you. Mai is alive."