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“Where did they get this from?” he asked Glosson.

“Interviewing the construction teams who built them, so they say,” said Glosson.

“Bullshit,” said General Horner. “Those cocksuckers have got themselves someone in Baghdad. Buster, we don’t say anything about this—to anyone. Just take their goodies and rack ’em up on the hit list.” He paused and thought, then added, “Wonder who the bastard is.”

Steve Laing made it home to London on the eighteenth, a London in frenzied turmoil over the crisis gripping the Conservative government as a back-bench Member of Parliament sought to use the party rules to topple Margaret Thatcher from the premiership.

Despite his tiredness, Laing took the message on his desk from Terry Martin and called him at the school. Because of Martin’s excitement, Laing agreed to see him for a brief drink after work, delaying Laing’s return to his home in the outer suburbs by as little as possible.

When they were settled at a corner table in a quiet bar in the West End, Martin produced from his attaché case a cassette player and a tape. Showing them to Laing, he explained his request weeks ago to Sean Plummer, and their meeting the previous weekend.

“Shall I play it for you?” he asked.

“Well, if the chaps at GCHQ can’t understand it, I know damned well I can’t,” said Laing. “Look, Sean Plummer’s got Arabs like Al-Khouri on his staff. If they can’t work it out ...”

Still, he listened politely.

“Hear it?” asked Martin excitedly. “The ‘k’ sound after have ? The man’s not invoking the help of Allah in Iraq’s cause. He’s using a title. That’s what got the other man so angry. Clearly, no one is supposed to use that title openly. It must be confined to a very tiny circle of people.”

“But what does he actually say?” asked Laing in complete bewilderment.

Martin looked at him blankly. Didn’t Laing understand anything?

“He is saying that the vast American buildup doesn’t matter, because ‘soon we shall have Qubth-ut-Allah.’ ”

Laing still looked perplexed.

“A weapon,” urged Martin. “It must be. Something to be available soon that will hold the Americans.”

“Forgive my poor Arabic,” said Laing, “but what is Qubth-ut-Allah?”

“Oh,” said Martin. “It means ‘the Fist of God.’ ”

Chapter 12

After eleven years in power and having won three general elections, the British Prime Minister actually fell on November 20, although she did not announce her decision to resign until two days later.

Her fall from power was triggered by an obscure rule in the Conservative Party constitution requiring her nominal reelection as Party leader at periodic intervals. Such an interval occurred that November. Her reelection should have been just a formality, until an out-of-office former minister chose to run against her. Unaware of her danger, she hardly took the challenge seriously, conducting a lackluster campaign and actually attending a conference in Paris on the day of the vote.

Behind her back a range of old resentments, affronted egos, and nervous fears that she might even lose the forthcoming general election coalesced into an alliance against her, preventing her from being swept back into the Party leadership on the first ballot.

Had she been so returned, there would have been no second ballot, and the challenger would have disappeared into obscurity. In the ballot of November 20 she needed a two-thirds majority; she was just four votes short, forcing a runoff second ballot.

Within hours, what had started as a few dislodged stones tumbling down a hill became a landslide. After consulting her Cabinet, who told her she would now lose, she resigned. To head off the challenger, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Major, ran for the top job and won.

The news stunned the soldiers in the Gulf, American and British alike. Down in Oman, American fighter pilots who were now consorting daily with SAS men from the nearby base asked the British what was going on and received helpless shrugs in return.

Mike Martin heard the news when the Iraqi chauffeur swaggered over and told him. Martin contemplated the news, looked blank, and asked:

“Who is she?”

“Fool,” snapped the chauffeur. “The leader of the Beni Naji. Now we will win.”

He went back to his car to resume listening to Baghdad radio. In a few moments First Secretary Kulikov hurried from the house and was driven straight back to his embassy.

That night, Martin sent a long transmission to Riyadh, containing the latest batch of answers from Jericho and an added request from himself for further instructions. Crouched by the doorway of his shack to ward off any intruders, for the satellite dish was positioned in the doorway facing south, Martin waited for his reply. A low, pulsing light on the console of the small transceiver told him at half past one in the morning that he had his reply.

He dismantled the dish, stored it back beneath the floor with the batteries and transceiver, slowed down the message, and listened to it play back.