Omar finally stood up, nodded to the two Americans and walked to the door. He stepped out into the sunlight, leading the way around the house towards the parked Chevrolet. Taking a key from the pocket of his gellabbiya, he opened the boot and stepped back a couple of paces.
In an open cardboard box were four packets wrapped in clear plastic, along with a small toolkit. There were also several smaller items: a battery, a cable, six detonators, a soldering iron, a roll of black insulating tape and a battery-powered seven-day timer.
‘And the other stuff?’ O’Hagan asked.
‘In the bag on the back seat,’ Ahmed said, lowering the boot lid slightly and pointing through the car’s rear window.
‘Good. What is it — Semtex?’
‘Yes. It’s the easiest to get hold of, and it’s very reliable.’
He was right on both counts. Semtex was invented in the village of Semtin — which inspired its name — in East Bohemia by a chemist named Stanislav Brebera in 1966. It was stable, odourless and had an indefinite shelf life. Unfortunately, terrorists immediately realized that Semtex was an ideal weapon for their purposes, as it passed with consummate ease through airport metal detectors, and could not be identified by sniffer dogs. Brebera recognized the danger, and later incorporated metallic compounds and chemicals within the explosive, but these measures were too little and too late.
Pan American flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie in Scotland by twelve ounces of Semtex hidden inside a Toshiba cassette recorder, killing 270 people, and it was also the weapon used in the 1998 attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
The manufacturing company, Explosia, has exported over 900 tons of Semtex to Libya, and about the same quantity to a handful of other hostile or unstable nations, including Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Syria. Altogether, it has been estimated that the world stockpile of Semtex is in excess of 40,000 tons.
‘What’s the total weight of the charge?’ O’Hagan asked.
‘Four kilos,’ Ahmed said.
The American reached down to pick up one of the detonators, a slim aluminium tube about two inches long with a pair of silver-coloured wires emerging from one end. The wires, he noted with satisfaction, were twisted together. If they’re left separate there’s a possibility that they can act as antennae and, if a mobile phone or other radio device is used in the vicinity, they can spontaneously detonate.
Ahmed noticed O’Hagan’s almost imperceptible nod of approval. ‘We know our business here,’ he added.
‘I know you do, Ahmed, but it never hurts to check, particularly where this kind of stuff is concerned.’
‘You’re satisfied?’
O’Hagan replaced the detonator in the box. ‘Thank you, yes.’
Petrucci spun the wheels of the combination locks on the briefcase, aligned the numbers and snapped the catches open. He lifted the lid, pulled out a bundle of banknotes and handed them over to Ahmed.
‘As we agreed,’ O’Hagan said. ‘Please check the amount’s correct.’
The Arab passed the money to Omar, who immediately began counting it. ‘I trust you, my friend, and I’m sure it’s right. Omar, on the other hand, does not trust you, and he’ll no doubt let us know if there’s any discrepancy.’
As Petrucci slammed the boot lid shut, Omar nodded towards Ahmed and tucked the bundle of notes into his pocket. The Arab handed the car keys to O’Hagan.
‘Remember our arrangement. Leave the car on Al-Mutanabi Avenue, between Al-Khalifa and Tujjaar, at the location we requested.’ Ahmed extended his hand, and O’Hagan shook it. ‘It was good to do business with you again.’
William Ewart Evans — whose initials, emblazoned in gold leaf on his cases, had been the cause of prolonged merriment on his arrival as a spotty schoolboy at Harrow — was thirty-nine years old, tall, thin, fair-haired and a third secretary in the consular section at the British Embassy. His appointment was recorded in the Diplomatic List, and anybody enquiring by telephone for that particular third secretary would eventually find themselves talking to Evans. Despite this, he actually worked elsewhere in the large building on Government Avenue, and any callers genuinely seeking the help of the consular section would be politely passed on to someone else.
In reality, Evans was a career officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, responsible for local liaison and cooperation and, when he wasn’t out operating on the streets of Bahrain, he could be found in the ‘Holy of Holies’, the name given to that section of the Embassy reserved for use by SIS officers.
The telephone call he received just after four-thirty that afternoon was both short and unremarkable.
‘Bill?’ The voice had a pronounced accent, and Evans recognized it immediately. He checked the caller-identification display on his desk phone and wasn’t surprised that it reported a ‘private number’. The clarity of the line suggested it was either a mobile or a car phone.
‘Yes, Tariq?’
‘I’ve found that album you were looking for. Could we meet this evening for a drink so that I can give it to you?’ The man’s English was precise but somewhat stilted.
Evans glanced down at the filing trays on his desk, all of which, with the notable exception of the ‘out’ tray, seemed to be depressingly full, but knew he had no choice, because the caller, Tariq Mazen, clearly had very urgent information for him.
The telephone code the two men used was simple, innocuous and very easy to remember, and relied on a handful of key words inserted into the kind of conversation any two male friends might have. ‘Album’ meant immediate, right now. The other options were ‘book’, which meant an urgent meeting within twenty-four hours; ‘CD’ within forty-eight hours, and ‘DVD’ within seventy-two hours. Simple enough: ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ in descending order of priority.
The second sentence contained the word ‘drink’, which meant that Mazen was already in his car waiting for him. For less urgent meetings he would have said ‘meal’, and also suggested a date, time and place and, as the two men were openly friendly with each other, they would meet in a restaurant as agreed. There Mazen would hand over an entirely normal book, CD or DVD, and Evans would pay him for it.
The information Mazen needed to convey would be passed to Evans during the meal itself, if circumstances allowed, or afterwards as they walked back to their vehicles. Nothing in writing had been their rule from the first. If Mazen had to supply photographs or documents, he would simply seal them in an unmarked envelope and leave it at one of a dozen dead-letter drops scattered around Manama, and tell Evans using a simple number code which one he was going to use, and when the drop could be serviced.
‘I’m sorry, Tariq,’ Evans replied. ‘I can’t tonight. I’m up to my ears in work here, and I’ve just had another ten files dumped on my desk. If I can manage tomorrow, I’ll give you a call.’ That ‘ten’ meant he would be outside the Embassy building within ten minutes.
Evans glanced at the wall clock and stood up. He walked down a short corridor, knocked on a door and opened it without waiting for a response. Inside, a pretty, dark-haired woman of about thirty looked up from her laptop and smiled at him.
‘Carole-Anne,’ Evans began, ‘I’ve just had a call from Tariq Mazen. He wants an urgent meeting so I’ll be out for a while. Could you please record that I’m meeting him, subject and duration unknown, and I’ll write up my work diary when I get back. But if I don’t make it here by close of business, can you stick all my stuff in the safe and lock it?’