I Am Pilgrim(206)

Several days later, by the time he had finished processing the last of the ten thousand vials, the Saracen saw that the cold front was growing stronger and more widespread.

He moved the plastic-sealed packages into the warehouse proper, placed them in the right shipping bays for their intended destinations and checked one last time that all of their dispatch documents were in order.

In twenty-four hours, several trucks, part of the endless convoy which regularly passed through Chyron’s European manufacturing plant, would pick up the packages and convey them the ninety miles through the town of Mannheim, past the huge US military base at Darmstadt and on to Frankfurt airport.

The flights to America would take about ten hours, the packages would then be transported to the company’s regional freight centres and – about twelve hours later – be loaded on to trucks and delivered to doctors’ offices throughout the United States.

Alone in the cavernous warehouse with only his thoughts and God for company, the Saracen was certain that in forty-eight hours the storm – both literally and figuratively – would hit the Republic.





Chapter Four


THE INTERIOR OF the arms dealer’s private jet was so ugly it hurt my feelings as well as my eyeballs. The walls were lined with a purple crushed velvet, the captain’s chairs were upholstered in a deep-red brocade, complete with monograms, and all the fittings were in gold plate that was so highly polished it looked like brass.

But the plane was capable of flying very high – where the turbulence was less and the air thinner – which meant that, in the hands of the two US Air Force pilots, we would make it to Jeddah in record time. The craft also had one other advantage – at the back of the cabin was a door which led into a bedroom with a full-size bed, and a bathroom decorated in a combo of chrome, mirror and leopardskin.

I managed to ignore the decor and, after showering, I changed my clothes and lay down on the bed. I have no idea how long I slept but at some stage I woke up and lifted the blind and was surprised to see that night had fallen and we were flying beneath an endless field of stars.

I turned over and, in the solitude of flight, got to thinking about the huge effort I had made to escape the secret life, what it had been like in Paris for those few wonderful months when I was reaching for normal and how I wished that I had found somebody who loved me as much as I wanted to love them. I would have liked children too but given the circumstances – being swept back into the covert world, even now chasing shadows down dark alleys – the way things had worked out was probably for the best. Maybe later, when the mission was finally done, I thought dreamily …

It was with that thought in mind, somewhere between heaven and the desert, that I must have fallen back to sleep and, once more, seemingly out of nowhere, I saw the vision of myself on the old yacht, sailing across the endless sea, heading into the dying of the light.

In the midst of it I heard a distant voice I didn’t recognize, but then I realized: it wasn’t God, it was the pilot on the PA announcing that we were landing in fifteen minutes.

I swung my legs off the bed and sat in silence for a moment. The vision of death had troubled me even more than before. It was more vivid and more insistent, as if it were drawing closer.





Chapter Five


A HIGH-LEVEL DELEGATION wearing immaculate white thobes and the characteristic red chequered headdress – two of which were braided in gold, indicating that the wearers were members of the Saudi royal family – met me on the asphalt at Jeddah.

They waited at the bottom of the steps – a dozen of them, whipped by the strong desert wind – with at least forty more guys with assault weapons standing near a fleet of black Cadillac Escalades.

The leader of the delegation – one of the men with the gold braid – stepped forward, shook my hand and introduced himself as the director of the Mabahith, the Saudi secret police. In his late thirties, with a weak handshake and hooded eyes, he had about as much charisma as the Angel of Death.

He indicated the rest of the group. ‘These are all senior members of my organization. We flew up from Riyadh two hours ago,’ he explained, pointing at an unmarked jumbo jet standing on the adjoining runway. I guessed they needed a plane that size to transport their fleet of armoured SUVs.

I smiled and lifted my hand in greeting to the team. I thought of asking why there were no women in the party, but I thought it might get us off on the wrong foot. Instead I thanked the director for his assistance. ‘I spoke to Dave McKinley as I was leaving Turkey – I guess he called you immediately.’

The guy looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. ‘I never spoke to Whisperer – President Grosvenor called His Majesty the King personally.’ Little wonder we had a 747 and a small army on hand.