The wire was fairly soft, and the blades have practically no sound as they bit together through each strand.
Having stowed the cutters in my belt-kit, I pulled up the flap of mesh that I'd made, put my AK-47 through and crawled after it. Tony and Norm followed, and all three of us scuttled for the shadow at the back of the accommodation block.
There we waited, each on one knee, facing outward.
Close under the wall the noise of the air-conditioning units was considerable: a steady roar which drowned out all other small sounds. From here I saw that, to anyone inside the camp, the lights on the perimeter fence made the desert beyond seem black as a witch's tit. Even for us, it was impossible to detect that our other guys were out there.
'Right, Norm,' I whispered. 'There's your door.'
Tony and I remained on full alert as he set to with his torch and little bag of tricks, ten metres from us. We were both sweating like pigs, partly from the heat, partly from tension. I saw Tony's forehead gleaming in the faint light and beads of moisture trickling down his cheeks.
Inevitably Norm made a few clicks and scrapes exactly the sounds I'd heard in my nightmare at the cottage — but nothing to compare with the steady background drone that filled the air, and in an incredibly short time he had the door open.
'Rubbish,' he muttered, indicating the lock. 'Just a Yale-type. Opens from the inside with a turn of the knob.'
'Brilliant! We'll see you soon.'
We slung our rifles over our backs to leave our hands free, slipped inside and closed the door gently behind us. Inside was a passage, dimly lit by a single fluorescent tube. A smell of spicy food hung in the air — turmeric or cumin — and I guessed we were in the kitchen area.
After the heat outside, the air-conditioned atmosphere bit cold. I began to shudder, and felt the sweat congealing in the small of my back.
Two metres to our left the corridor came to a dead end in a closed door; to the right, it turned a corner. I calculated that our target room was almost directly above our heads.
I peeped round the corner. Another passage, longer, with doors on both sides, almost dark. This one lay parallel with the-front of the building. I reckoned it must lead to stairs opposite the front door.
The floor was cement painted with some dark-green compound. Our boots made no sound on it as we tip toed along. In fifteen paces we were at one side of a small entrance-hall or lobby, bare of furniture. The front door was to our right, and stairs with a metal banister rail and the same dark-green paint on the treads rose to our left. Beyond the reception area the passage carried on through the other half of the building.
Tony put a hand on my arm and pointed. Farther down the corridor, on the left, light was showing through the crack of a partially opened door. The room could have been an office — but equally it could have been the bog. Whatever it was, nobody was moving, and I shook my head to show we should ignore it.
I went.up the steps first, the Browning cocked, while Tony covered me from below. At the head of the stairs another corridor ran directly above the one on the ground floor. Dim fluorescent tubes glowed in the ceiling.
Standing on the second-top step, I put my head cautiously round the corner of the passage. From under the last door on the left, at the end, light was showing.
Without turning back, I waved my left hand to bring Tony up. A moment later I felt him materialise at my shoulder.
There in the heart of the building the noise of the air conditioners was much reduced, and it was quiet enough for me to hear my heart pounding. This was it.
This was the spot we'd come 4,000 miles to reach. All we had to do now was creep forward about twelve metres, open the door and drop the target where he sat.
Suddenly we heard a noise below: a chair had been pushed back or the drawer of a filing-cabinet slid shut.
Then door-hinges squeaked, and soft footsteps came towards us along the ground-floor corridor.
In a second we were both round the corner, into the upper passage, backs to the wall, in full view of anyone who came out of the target's room but shielded from the stairs. The footsteps started up the first flight. In ten seconds they'd be level with us.
Without a sound Tony pressed his Browning into my left hand and drew his Commando knife from its sheath on his belt. As the newcomer reached the top step Tony struck so fast round the corner that I saw nothing but a flurry of movement. The man made hardly a sound — just one gargling grunt as the blade drove into the side of his neck. If you rip out a guy's jugular and windpipe with one thrust, he doesn't start shouting. Tony caught him by the shoulder as he crumpled, turning the torso away from himself so that the spurting blood flew wide. The limp body slid bumping down the steps and came to rest on the half landing.
I could feel Tony quivering as I handed him back his pistol. Now, I thought: move, move.
Before I'd taken a step the passage lights went off. A second later they flickered back on, pinking and clicking, then went off, came on again, and finally died.
With them went the air-conditioning, and the background drone sank away into total silence.
Jesus! A power-cut. The extreme tension made me connect the shut-down with the corpse on the stairs.
Had we somehow caused the breakdown? Had the fall of that body triggered some switch? Impossible, surely.
It must be a coincidence. Whatever the cause, maybe the blackout would work to our advantage. Maybe it would flush Khadduri out and send him straight towards us.
I felt for my torch, down a slim pocket on my left, thigh. 'Get ready, I breathed. 'This'll bring him out.'
For a moment-nothing happened. I was stricken by a fleeting panic that Khadduri wasn't in his lair after all.
Then we heard movements inside his room, and I tensed myself for the door to open.
Another wait. What the hell was he doing? Maybe he was frantically trying to save whatever he had in his computer. But then, after another few seconds, came back the power: the fluorescent strips clicked and popped back into life; the air-conditioning units started up again.
With the background noise restored I ducked back on to the staircase, jabbed my pressel switch and said softly, 'Pat, what the fuck's happening to the power?'
'Dunno,' came the instant answer. 'The whole system went down for a few seconds. The entire camp was dark. Back on now.'
'OK. Nobody moving?'
'Not a soul.'
I felt my boot slip on the second step down, and realised the stairs were running with blood. Now I'd be leaving footprints. Too bad. Even our boots were Soviet-made.
I gave Tony a nudge and pointed down the corridor, breathing, 'Let's go.' But we'd taken only a couple of steps when the power went down yet again.
We stood still in the pitch-black corridor. I had the Browning in my right hand, torch in the left. Now he'll come out, I told myself. I reached back, hooked the torch round Tony's elbow and drew him forward with me. We crept on, one step, two, three, until I reckoned we were no more than six or seven feet from the target's door.
Noises came from inside the room: somebody stumbling over furniture. We heard the handle turn, then the hinges squeaked as the door came open. Torch on. There in the beam was al-Khadduri — heavier, greyer than I remembered, hair ruffled up on end, but without the slightest doubt the same man — in an open-necked white shirt, carrying a bufffile-holder in his right hand.
His eyes had a startled look and he opened his mouth to say something, but before any word came out my 9mm bullet smacked him in the centre of the forehead.
The impact knocked him backwards bodily, and he slumped to the floor. On the deck his head turned sideways, and in an instant I was on top of him, putting a second round through his skull just above the ear. At the second shot the body twitched and jerked as if it had had an electric current shot through it, and the feet, which were encased in some kind of soft shoes, went slap, slap, slap against the wall as the dead man's knees doubled up and straightened violently, up, down, up, down. I saw now there'd been no need for the second round, because the first bullet had blown offthe back of his skull and a mess of brains was hanging out. The papers had cascaded out of his file and scattered along the floor. There was blood on his face, his shirt, the floor, the door.