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“Young, upwardly mobile professional,” drawled al-Mansour. “You’re out of touch.”
Terpil went red. Of course. He had seen the term but forgotten it.
What did he say? He said he represented a group of ultra-radical people, Rowse replied, who were sick and tired of the Reagan Administration, of its hostility to the Soviet and Third Worlds, and particularly of the use of American planes and taxpayer money to bomb women and children in Tripoli the previous April.
“And he produced a list of what he wanted?”
“Yes.”
“This list?”
Rowse glanced at it. It was a copy of the list he had shown Kariagin in Vienna. The Russian must have a superb memory.
“Yes.”
“Claymore mines, for God’s sake. Semtex-H. Booby-trapped briefcases. This is high-tech stuff. What the hell did they want all that for?”
“He said his people wanted to strike a blow. A real blow. He mentioned the White House, and the Senate. He seemed particularly keen on the Senate.”
He allowed the money side of it to be dragged out of him. The account at the Kreditanstalt in Aachen with half a million dollars in it. (Thanks to McCready, there really was such an account, backdated to the appropriate period. And bank secrecy is not really all that good. The Libyans could confirm it if they wanted to.)
“So what did you get involved for?”
“There was a twenty percent commission. A hundred thousand dollars.”
“Peanuts.”
“Not to me.”
“You write thriller novels, remember.”
“Which don’t sell all that well. Despite the publisher’s blurb. I wanted to make a few bob.”
“Bob?”
“Shillings,” murmured al-Mansour. “British equivalent for “greenbacks” or “dough.”
At four in the morning, Terpil and al-Mansour went into a huddle. They talked quietly in an adjacent room.
“Could there really be a radical group in the States prepared to carry out a major outrage at the White House and the Senate?” asked al-Mansour.
“Sure,” said the burly American who hated his homeland. “In a country that size, you get all kinds of weirdos. Jesus, one Claymore mine in a briefcase on the lawn of the White House. Can you imagine it?”
Al-Mansour could. The Claymore is one of the most devastating antipersonnel weapons ever invented. Shaped like a disk, it leaps into the air when detonated, then sends thousands of ball-bearings outward from the perimeter of the disk at waist-height. A moving sheet of these missiles will slice through hundreds of human beings. Loosed in an average railway concourse, a Claymore will leave few of the thousands of commuters in the area alive. For this reason, the sale of the Claymore is fiercely vetted by America. But there are always replicas. ...
At half-past four, the two men returned to the sitting room. Although Rowse did not know it, the gods were smiling on him that night. Al-Mansour needed to bring something to his Leader without further delay to satisfy the insistent pressure for revenge against America; Terpil needed to prove to his hosts that he was still the man they needed to advise them about America and the West. Finally, both men believed Rowse for the reason that most men believe: because they wanted to.
“You may go, Mr. Rowse,” said al-Mansour mildly. “We will check, of course, and I will be in touch. Stay at the Apollonia until I or someone sent by me gets in touch.”
The two heavies who had brought him drove him back and dropped him at the hotel doorway before driving off. When he entered his room, he switched on the light, for the dawn was not yet bright enough to fill his west-facing room. Across the valley, Bill, who was on the shift, activated his communicator and awoke McCready in his hotel room in Pedhoulas.
Rowse stooped to pick something from the carpet inside his room. It was a brochure inviting visitors to visit the historic Kykko Monastery and admire the Golden Icon of the Virgin. A single script in pencil beside the paragraph said “Ten A.M.”
Rowse set his alarm for three hours’ sleep. “Screw McCready,” he said as he drifted off.
Chapter 4
Kykko, the largest monastery in Cyprus, was founded in the twelfth century by the Byzantine emperors. They chose their spot well, bearing in mind that the lives of monks are supposed to be spent in isolation, meditation, and solitude.