‘As a token of my good faith. And my complete trust in you, my friend. And the other four thousand later.’
The Arab still looked dubious, torn between desire for such a magnificent sum and fear of discovery and dismissal. The American pressed his case.
‘If you were doing anything to harm your country, I would not dream of asking. But this man is a thief. Taking away from him what he has stolen can surely be only a good thing. Does not the Book praise justice against the wrongdoer?’
Mr al Khory’s hand covered the thousand dollars.
‘I’ll check in here, now,’ said Dexter. ‘Just ask for Mr Barnes when you are ready.’
The call came two days later. Mr al Khory was taking his new role as secret agent rather seriously. He phoned from a booth in a public place.
‘It is your friend,’ said a breathless voice in the mid-morning.
‘Hallo, my friend, do you wish to see me?’ asked Dexter.
‘Yes. I have the package.’
‘Here or at the office?’
‘Neither. Too public. The Al Hamra Fort. Lunch.’
His dialogue could not have been more suspicious, had anyone been eavesdropping, but Dexter doubted the Ras al-Khaimah secret service were on the case.
He checked out and ordered a taxi. The Al Hamra Fort Hotel was out of town, ten miles down the coast but in the right direction, heading back towards Dubai, a luxurious conversion from an old turreted Arab fortress into a five-star beachside resort.
He was there at midday, much too early for a Gulf lunch, but found a low-slung club chair in the vaulted lobby, ordered a beer and watched the entrance arch. Mr al Khory appeared, hot and dripping even from the hundred-yard walk from his car in the parking lot, just after 1 p.m. Of the five restaurants they selected the Lebanese with its cold buffet.
‘Any problems?’ asked Dexter as they took their plates and moved down the groaning trestle tables.
‘No,’ said the civil servant. ‘I explained my department was contacting all known visitors to send them a brochure describing the new and extra leisure facilities now available in Ras al-Khaimah.’
‘That is brilliant,’ beamed Dexter. ‘No one thought it odd?’
‘On the contrary, the officials in Air Traffic got out all the flight plans for December and insisted on giving me the whole month.’
‘You mentioned the importance of the European owners?’
‘Yes, but there are only about four or five who are not well-known oil companies. Let us sit.’
They took a corner table and ordered up two beers. Like many modern Arabs Mr al Khory had no problem with alcoholic drinks.
He clearly enjoyed his Lebanese food. He had piled his plate with mezzah, houmous, moutabel, lightly grilled halloumi cheese, sambousek, kibbeh and stuffed vine leaves. He handed over a sheaf of paper and began to eat.
Dexter ran through the listings of filed flight plans for December, along with time of landing and duration of stay before departure, until he came to 15 December. With a red felt-tip pen he bracketed those appearing then and covering the period to 19 December. There were nine.
Two Grumman Threes and a Four belonged to internationally known US oil companies. A French Dassault Mystere and a Falcon were down to Elf-Aquitaine. That left four.
A smaller Lear jet was known to belong to a Saudi prince and a larger Cessna Citation to a multimillionaire businessman from Bahrain. The last two were an Israeli-built Westwind that arrived from Bombay and a Hawker 1000 that came in from Cairo and departed back there. Someone had noted something in Arab script beside the Westwind.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Dexter.
‘Ah, yes, that one is regular. It is owned by an Indian film producer. From Bombay. He stages through on his way to London or Cannes, or Berlin. All the film festivals. In the tower, the
y know him by sight.’
‘You have the picture?’
A1 Khory handed back the borrowed photograph.