The executioner nodded to the police officers standing on either side of the bound man. They looped lengths of cord around Saadi’s forearms, a few inches above the wrists and pulled them tight into rudimentary tourniquets to ensure that he wouldn’t pass out from loss of blood. Then they forced his arms down firmly against the wood. With the efficiency of a butcher dismembering a carcass, the executioner sliced though Saadi’s left wrist and tossed the severed hand onto the plastic sheet. The crowd roared again, shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ — God is great — echoing from the buildings around the square. The executioner cleaned the blade of the knife on the back of Saadi’s gellabbiya, then proceeded to sever his right hand.
An officer repositioned the plank, and the procedure was repeated on each of Saadi’s legs. The double-amputation took longer, but within ten minutes both severed feet were also lying on the plastic sheet right in front of the condemned man.
By now, Saadi was hoarse from screaming, the incredible pain from his mutilated limbs worse than anything he could ever have anticipated. But his yells were easily drowned out by the roars of approval from the crowd.
Only then did the executioner stride around to the front of the sheet again and retrieve the long sword from the police officer. Again the tall Arab stared down at his victim with a smile of satisfaction. Everything had been done precisely as his instructions had specified. That just left the finale.
He turned the sword over in his hand so that the sharpened edge of the blade faced upwards, then slid it underneath Saadi’s throat and pulled it up and backwards. The blade cut deep into the bound man’s throat, severing his windpipe and producing a new gush of blood. Just as the executioner had anticipated — he’d been allowed to practice the manoeuvre on two condemned men of no importance three days earlier — Saadi’s head jerked back. With one swift movement, the executioner lifted the scimitar high above his head, turned the blade again, and brought it slicing downwards, severing the Arab’s neck with a single blow.
Saadi’s head flew off, followed by a huge spurt of bright arterial blood. The head bounced three times before rolling to a stop at the very edge of the plastic sheet. Two men in the crowd leant forward, then hawked and spat directly at it, while behind them the roar of the people in the square rose higher and higher — ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar’.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘I’ll see you around, I guess,’ Carole-Anne Jackson said, picking up her new Gucci weekend case. Stuffed full of brand-new clothes, it was the evidence of her finding enough spare time to enjoy a little retail therapy. They were sitting over a coffee in the food court on the first floor of the International Airport, and the check-in desk for Jackson’s flight back to Manama had just opened.
‘You’ve got my numbers in London, so whenever you feel like taking a look around the old country, just give me a call. I can’t promise you this kind of luxury’ — Richter waved his hand in a vague gesture that implicitly encompassed the whole of Dubai — ‘but we could still have ourselves a good time.’
It had been a very busy week. The Dubai government had settled Richter’s bill at the Crowne Plaza and moved the pair of them, free of charge, into the second Royal Suite at the Burj Al-Arab. Then government officials had wined and dined them at every opportunity, whisking them by Rolls-Royce from restaurant to reception to restaurant to hotel. It had been an exhausting gastronomic feast, and Richter was delighted it was finally over. All he was really looking forward to now was beans on toast and a cup of instant coffee.
In between engagements, he and Michael Watkinson had helped government officials prepare a statement, explaining that the unfortunate crash at the airport had been caused by a mechanical failure that had tragically resulted in the deaths of all those on board the Gulf-stream. The government also sent an official message of condolence to the CIA.
Richter had already briefed John Westwood, using the secure facilities at the British Embassy, to ensure that Langley knew what had really happened. He guessed that the four real CIA agents had probably been buried somewhere in the desert near Cairo, and their bodies might never be found. He also suggested that Westwood should contact the Gulfstream Corporation and explain exactly why their almost-new thirty-five-million-dollar executive jet had burst into flames on take-off.
The suitcase nuclear weapon had been removed from the Burj Al-Arab, and delivered to the local CIA officers for transfer to Langley for specialist examination.
The good news for the Dubai authorities was that they had recovered all of the bullion and gems from the wreckage of the Gulfstream, and most of the cash too, because it was locked inside steel boxes and had survived the fireball with only slight charring. The majority of the financial instruments had been incinerated, which meant they couldn’t be exercised, so that was entirely satisfactory. Those documents that had survived would probably be destroyed anyway.
It had been, by any standards, a good result.
They stood up, and Jackson walked away towards the stairs that led to the ground floor and the check-in desks. Richter watched her retreating figure, wondering if they would ever meet again, waved as she turned back to look at him at the top of the staircase, then sat down again. He still had over an hour to wait before he could check in for his own flight.
Seventy minutes later, Richter retrieved his passport from the unsmiling female Immigration Officer sitting at her desk wearing traditional garb. He walked the short distance to the final security checkpoint, slid his briefcase onto the conveyor belt and strode through the portal scanner. Two minutes later, he stepped into the departure hall, which was something of a revelation.
It was enormous. It looked to Richter as if it was probably about a quarter of a mile from end to end, a long and wide two-storey building lined with both an extraordinary variety of shops and the numerous departure gates. Futuristic light fittings decorated the ceiling high above, and huge palm trees marched in a double row down the ground floor. It made every other airport he’d ever visited look positively shabby and boring.
As he stared around him, he noticed a group of Arabs in traditional dress standing watching him. They had an indefinable look that suggested they were government employees, or at least some kind of officials, and Richter assumed they’d come to see him safely off their patch.
And they had, but there was a little more to it than that.
‘Mr Richter, the government of Dubai wishes once again to offer you its heartfelt thanks for helping us resolve our recent difficulties,’ the spokesman began.
‘That’s my job,’ Richter said simply.
‘I know, but we are very grateful to you. Now, we’re aware that your salary is paid by your government.’
‘That’s true, such as it is.’
‘Quite,’ the Arab nodded. ‘We’re also aware that offering you any kind of financial reward for your service here in Dubai would be wholly inappropriate. But we did wonder if you’d like to buy a ticket in one of our prize draws? Perhaps for the Ford car? We can arrange its delivery and registration in the United Kingdom, or any other country, at no charge.’
‘Thanks, but I’m not a gambler,’ Richter said, shaking his head, ‘and I don’t really like Fords.’
‘But the odds in this draw are very good,’ the Arab insisted, ‘and the car is quite special — you might call it a limited edition.’ He pointed down the hall to a raised plinth perhaps thirty yards away on which a brand new Ford GT was displayed.