She smiled. She had met Lasserre when he had been to her house. Such an impressive man. She still could not get used to the fact that her husband lived all his working life, and much of his private life, in the company of the rich and, frequently, the famous. Lasserre was a Viscomte: she wasn’t clear what a Viscomte was, but she was profoundly impressed that a Viscomte had deigned to visit her home. Now she was even more impressed that her husband, a simple Greek fisherman, had managed to beat a Viscomte at golf.
Culundis lapsed into silence and munched his way through his salad, occasionally stopping to swill down a mouthful of the cold wine.
‘You must be tired,’ she said.
‘No — not really — I have some problems on my mind. I’m okay.’ He smiled reassuringly and she sat for the rest of the time in silence, while he ate.
Culundis churned over in his mind the events of the past few weeks. Something was worrying him a lot, and he wasn’t sure what it was. He was certain they were being screwed by Elleck and if he found that was the case, then Elleck would be a sorry man, a very sorry man indeed.
He went through the operation in his mind: everything was in place. The 100 Israeli sailors there, in secret. They were happy. They had been briefed by Ephraim that they were on a top-secret mission and had to follow orders either from him or from Hamid Assan, Culundis’s chief of staff in Amnah. Culundis had picked an Arab as his chief of staff for many reasons, the most important of which was in order to be sure of a rapport with the Emir’s own armed forces. The nuclear mines were all in place too, in the warehouse, ready to be loaded. Steaming towards the Gulf, under remote control, at this very moment, was the SS Arctic Sundance, with a twenty-kiloton nuclear explosive charge taped to the inside of her oil-storage tank. On Thursday night, as she started the run up towards the Strait of Hormuz, her crew would leave by helicopter; Friday morning, as she entered the Strait, in full view of the Omani coastguard, and programmed by her computerized auto-pilot not to be within ten miles of any other ship, the charge would detonate, reducing the SS Arctic Sundance into tiny slivers of metal and glass.
Within ten minutes of the detonation, a message would be sent, direct from the Knesset, to every Head of State in the world. The message would state that Israel had taken command of Umm Al Amnah, and from Amnah it had organized the mining, with nuclear mines, of the Strait of Hormuz. The mines would be difficult to locate, and impossible to defuse if found. No mention of the quantity of mines would be given. The message would continue that only Israel knew the position of the mines and the signal that could defuse them; it would not make the Strait of Hormuz safe for shipping until new borders for Israel were agreed between Syria, Jordan and Egypt. These would be ratified by the signatures of the Governments of every major power in the world and, as security against a future break, all export oil revenues to every Arab country must be paid for a period of ten years, through the Israeli government. Culundis twiddled with his ear. After that, there would be no further demands by the syndicate on General Ephraim. Culundis wondered what kind of rumpus there would be in the Knesset when the Prime Minister learned of what had happened — that, unbeknown to him, the head of the Mossad had invaded and conquered another country and had blockaded the Persian Gulf. Israel would have egg on her face for months while the Prime Minister issued denials — which would not be believed, because of the actual presence of the Israeli sailors in Amnah. Maybe Lasserre was right, he thought. Regardless of what it was now, gold would go straight up through the heavens.
Culundis smiled to himself at the thought of Emir Missh — that he had conquered the man’s country without his even knowing it. He would be mad, mad as hell, for no one would ever believe that he was not in complicity with the Israelis. All the Arab countries would turn against him, as would all the Western World. He was a weak man, thought Culundis, a feeble and weak man; his father, old Quozzohok, was better, he reflected — a tyrant, yes, but at least he had gumption. Culundis knew he could never have walked all over Umm Al Amnah if the old man had still been at the helm. He downed his wine glass, smiled at his wife, and rose from the table.
At four o’clock in the morning, the telephone by the bed rang; Culundis was awake in a second, apprehensive.
‘Culundis,’ he said.
‘It’s Hamid. I’m sorry to call you at this hour.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Culundis to Hamid Assan, his Chief of Staff in Amnah. ‘What’s up?’
‘We’ve been flung out of Amnah.’
‘What?’ Culundis sat bolt upright in bed. ‘What did you say?’
‘Every one of your soldiers has been rounded up, their weapons removed, and they have been put on a plane out of the country. I have to leave in one hour’s time myself.’
‘This is an outrage. What is Missh playing at?’
‘He has instructed me to telephone you to say that the services of you and your men are no longer required, and where would you like them delivered to?’
Culundis sat in the bed, speechless, for nearly a minute. When he next spoke, he was nearly shouting: ‘Is Missh there? I must speak to him myself, at once.’
‘I don’t know where he is; I’m in Tunquit prison.’
‘Give me the number. I’m going to call you right back.’
‘Hold on — I will ask for it.’
There was a pause and then Assan’s voice came back: ‘It’s Tunquit 448 — the Tunquit code is 62 — and the international code for Amnah is 010971.’
‘I must speak to Missh — then I will call you right back.’ Culundis hung up. Throughout the conversation, his wife hardly stirred. She was used to his telephone calls at strange hours of the night.
He began to dial Missh’s private number at the Royal Palace in Tunquit, when the doorbell rang. Puzzled, he put the receiver down. After a few minutes, it rang again, a long positive ring. He wondered who on earth it could be, and looked at his gold Cartier: it was five past four. There was a night security guard on the gate — he would never let anyone past at this hour, and if he needed to speak to Culundis, there was an intercom system by which he could buzz the house. But this was the doorbell. Culundis was baffled; the telephone call from Hamid, followed by the doorbell ringing, was too much for him at this hour. Maybe the security guard needed to speak to him and the intercom was broken, he wondered.
He slipped out of bed, put on his paisley silk dressing gown, which he had bought at Harrods, and walked over to the bedroom window. The view was as always, stunning. It was a view he could never tire of, the little fishing port where he had been born and lived as a child, the tiny white houses. He could see the one where he had lived. The sun was a red ball on the horizon, and the sky was cloudless; it was going to be a beautiful day. There was the steady staccato diesel phut-silence-phut-silence-phut-silence of a deep-sea trawler coming back in after its night’s work; several other smaller boats were also heading in towards the stone mole of the port. There was the smell of sweet wet dew in the air.
Culundis padded downstairs in his bare feet as the bell rang a third time. ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘I’m coming!’ He opened the door, just a fraction, and peered round. He saw a short man in a thin, dark raincoat; the man smiled pleasantly. ‘Good morning, Mr Culundis,’ said the stranger, politely.
‘Er — good morning,’ said Culundis baffled.
The stranger forced the door wide open; for a second, Culundis could not quite understand the man’s behaviour, and then he saw for the first time, that the stranger held in his hand a Walther automatic pistol with a silencer fitted to the end. For the first time in his life he felt real fear, an icy chill wind that swept through his veins, pumped into his stomach, down through his bile duct and into his rectum. He shat onto his feet. It probably would not have cheered him to know that this actual gun, silencer, and the bullets inside it had all been supplied by him, as part of a large order, to General Isser Ephraim’s team of Mossad agents.