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Technicians from London were installing receivers and transmitters with their inevitable encryption machines for secure usage, and the place was about to become the headquarters of the British Secret Service for the duration of the emergency. Somewhere across town, the Americans were doing much the same for the CIA, which clearly intended to have a very major presence. The animus that would later develop between the senior brass of the U.S. armed forces and the civilians of the Agency had not yet begun.

In the interim, Mike Martin had stayed at the private house of the Station Head, Julian Gray. Both men agreed there would be no advantage in Martin being seen by anyone in the embassy. The charming Mrs.

Gray, a career wife, had been his hostess and never dreamt of asking who he was or what he was doing in Saudi Arabia. Martin spoke no Arabic to the Saudi staff, just accepted the offered coffee with a smile and a thank you in English.

On the evening of the second day, Gray was giving Martin his final briefing. They seemed to have covered everything they could, at least from Riyadh.

“You’ll be flying to Dhahran tomorrow morning. Civilian flight of Saudia. They’ve stopped running direct into Khafji. You’ll be met. The Firm has set up a dispatcher in Khafji; he’ll meet you and run you north.

Actually, I think he’s ex-regiment. Sparky Low—do you know him?”

“I know him,” said Martin.

“He’s got all the things you said you needed. And he’s found a young Kuwaiti pilot you might like to talk to. He’ll be getting from us all the latest pictures from the American satellites showing the border area and the main concentrations of Iraqi troops to avoid, plus anything else we get. Now, lastly, these pictures have just come in from London.”

He spread a row of large, glossy pictures out on the dining table.

“Saddam doesn’t seem to have appointed an Iraqi Governor-General yet; he’s still trying to put together an administration of Kuwaiti quislings and getting nowhere. Even the Kuwaiti opposition won’t play ball.

But it seems there’s already quite a Secret Police presence there. This one here seems to be the local AMAM chief, name of Colonel Sabaawi, quite a bastard. His boss in Baghdad, who may visit, is the head of the Amn-al-Amm, Omar Khatib. Here.”

Martin stared at the face in the photograph: surly, sullen, a mix of cruelty and peasant cunning in the eyes and mouth.

“His reputation is pretty bloody. Same as his sidekick in Kuwait, Sabaawi. Khatib is about forty-five, comes from Tikrit, a clansman of Saddam himself and a longtime henchman. We don’t know much about Sabaawi, but he’ll be more in evidence.”

Gray pulled over another photograph.

“Apart from the AMAM, Baghdad has sent in a team from the Mukhabarat’s Counterintelligence wing, probably to cope with the foreigners and any attempt at espionage or sabotage directed from outside their new conquest. The CI boss is this one here—got a reputation as cunning and nobody’s fool. He may be the one to be careful of.”

It was August 8. Another C-5 Galaxy was rumbling overhead to land at the nearby military airport, part of the vast American logistical machine that was already in gear and pouring its endless materiel into a nervous, uncomprehending, and extremely traditional Moslem kingdom.

Mike Martin looked down and stared at the face of Hassan Rahmani.

It was Steve Laing on the phone again.

“I don’t want to talk,” said Terry Martin.

“I think we should, Dr. Martin. Look, you’re worried about your brother, are you not?”

“Very much.”

“There’s no need to be, you know. He’s a very tough character, well able to look after himself. He wanted to go, no question of it. We gave him absolute right to turn us down.”

“I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“Try and look at it this way, Doctor. If worse comes to worst, we may have to send a lot of other brothers, husbands, sons, uncles, loved ones out to the Gulf. If there’s anything any of us can do to limit their casualties, shouldn’t we try?”

“All right. What do you want?”

“Oh, another lunch, I think. Easier to talk man to man. Do you know the Montcalm Hotel? Say, one o’clock?”

“Despite the brains, he’s quite an emotional little blighter,” Laing had remarked to Simon Paxman earlier that morning.

“Good Lord,” said Paxman, like an entomologist who has just been told of an amusing new species discovered under a rock.

The spymaster and the academic had a quiet booth to themselves—Mr. Costa had seen to it. When the smoked salmon cornets had been served, Laing broached his subject.

“The fact of the matter is, we may actually be facing a war in the Gulf. Not yet, of course; it will take time to build up the necessary forces. But the Americans have the bit between their teeth. They are absolutely determined, with the complete support of our good lady in Downing Street, to get Saddam Hussein and his thugs out of Kuwait.”