***
Folly Bridge, Oxford: 9:30 p.m.
‘Here you are, Omar, the latest news,’ said the young woman, handing three pages of assorted, decrypted e-mails to Al-Ajnabi in the downstairs office. They were alone.
‘Very good, Linda,’ Al-Ajnabi sighed after reading the first two items. ‘Why don’t you get some rest? It’s getting late.’
‘That would be very nice,’ Linda smiled, collecting her jacket with a weary sigh and making for the door. Hasan, coming the other way, waited patiently in the corridor, holding the door open.
‘Khalid and Brendan McLaughlin have checked in,’ said Al-Ajnabi, waving the transcript at Hasan. It was in moments like this, when he caught Hasan’s stony face staring at him in the doorway that Al-Ajnabi wondered whether it would have been simpler to stand back and let the executioner swipe off that last head. True, for ten years now Hasan had proved to be the most trusted and capable of allies, but he was also a man with a half-buried grudge and a Somali’s love of a feud.
‘Very good, Hadratak. You wish me to reply on Wednesday?’
‘Yes. Have Khalid come here for the party. He is an unknown. If he is seen, he will be untraceable; they will think he is from the Embassy. But tell McLaughlin to keep his head down. Did you get the photos?’
Hasan slapped an envelope on the bureau,
‘Here are the printouts. The images from my CCTV camera were not so clear. These with the camera are much better.’
‘Good, that was quick work,’ Al-Ajnabi grunted, frowning in distaste as he flicked through the black-and-white shots. ‘And from Ramliyya?’
‘Salah called this morning, Hadratak. He has arranged everything as you instructed for the twenty-first.’
‘Good.’
‘Mr Smedley also called while you were busy, Hadratak.’
‘And?’
‘He has also been successful. The last of the equipment is in position.’
Al-Ajnabi nodded, got to his feet and started to pace the room in silent satisfaction. It was a good start, but there were still so many variables, so many loose connections, any one of which could abruptly scupper the whole plan.
Brooding over all the information that had filtered in that evening, Al-Ajnabi started to pace the room, stopping eventually by the bureau, to pick up his papers and resume his reading.
The last and longest message was from Yokochi. Al-Ajnabi took his time to read the two-page communiqué and then re-read it before passing the sheets to Hasan.
‘That’s it, then, Hasan!’ he sighed, throwing the papers on the bureau. ‘Provided the dinner party is a success, we will be ready for the thirty-first, as planned.’
Hasan’s smile was, as ever, enigmatic. There was never any point in conversation with Hasan, whatever his lieutenant was thinking, so instead, he made for the door.
Sophie froze in the hallway when she saw Al-Ajnabi coming out of ‘the computer nerds, secret sanctuary.’ For the last three days she had been avoiding him, partly still embarrassed about her drunken interruption, partly trying to avoid thinking about the next ‘bed duty’.
The momentary confusion was mutual. It was Al-Ajnabi who broke the awkward silence.
‘Good evening, Miss Palmer, allow me,’ he offered, seeing Sophie fumbling for keys in her jacket pocket while trying to balance a huge pile of books on the other arm.
She passed him the books and flicked a couple of loose strands of hair from her eyes.
‘Why have I been demoted to Miss Palmer again, Omar?’
He smiled at her observation, almost amicably, she thought.
‘Forgive me, Sophie. That was unintentional. And I’m truly delighted that you have decided to stay on in my house.’
‘Look,’ she said, fiddling nervously with a bracelet. ‘I’m sorry about the other day, I…’
‘Don’t mention it. I quite understand.’
For the first time their eyes lingered. For a change, there seemed to be some warmth in Omar’s smile.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she flustered, ‘Let me take those from you. Can I get you a drink? I’m afraid I haven’t got much to offer.’
To her surprise, he accepted the invitation without hesitation. Taking a phone from his pocket, he gabbled in Arabic into the receiver, probably to Mousa, probably ordering the drinks she had offered.
They had to step around the unpacked boxes cluttering the doorway. Sophie joked nervously about the ironies of hosting a host while Al-Ajnabi took a seat on the sofa. He was dressed smart-casual in chinos and an open cream shirt, which accentuated his deep tan and an impressive physique. More than ever, the notion that Omar was an Arab prince seemed totally ridiculous and the myriad possibilities of hidden identities made Sophie fiddle with the ends of her hair. Mousa knocked and they ordered. Al-Ajnabi waited till they were alone before speaking.
‘Since you have decided to stay on here in my house, Sophie, I take it I can expect you to join my dinner party on Wednesday evening?’
Sophie frowned, fiddling with an ornamental ashtray on the coffee table.
‘Yes, I suppose so, but… how did you find out about Marcus?’
‘I thought I should check up on my rival!’ he joked. ‘I must have had Hasan find out for me. I hope I wasn’t being too nosy. Nothing sinister was intended, I can assure you.’
Sophie squirmed with embarrassment and let out a gasp of surprise, ‘Look, Omar… umm… I think I’d better make it quite clear: just because I’m doing this ‘bed duty’ with you, it doesn’t mean I’ll be breaking with my boyfriend. I thought it was understood that our ‘arrangement’ is strictly business only. Please, don’t read anything more into it than that. You’ll make it too difficult for me to carry on, if you do.’
Al-Ajnabi laughed,
‘You are quite right, Sophie, and I have not forgotten my promise. But I do have another proposal for you. Ah, good,’ he broke off, responding to a knock on the door. ‘Mousa has returned with our drinks.’
Waving Mousa aside, he poured Sophie’s beer and helped himself to a large Scotch in a cut crystal glass large enough to accommodate a glacier of ice cubes.
‘Another proposal?’ Sophie asked, suspicious again.
“Yes. But before I make it, I want you to promise not to be offended—because that is certainly not my intention. The offer I will make you is quite serious, but I also want to prove a more general theory to you.’
Despite a feeling of impending discomfort that he always managed to induce in her, Sophie was intrigued, as much by the unusual softness of his tone as anything he was saying.
‘You are asking for a false commitment, Omar,’ she answered in her tutorial voice. ‘I don’t think you would ever agree to sign one of your business proposals before you were fully aware of what was involved in the deal.’
He nodded and smiled at her, taking a long pull on his drink. The sound of crackling ice cubes in his whisky amplified the tension. Eventually, he sat forward in his chair and his eyes met Sophie’s.
‘How would you feel if this house belonged to you?’ he asked nonchalantly.
Even by Al-Ajnabi’s standards, the offer made Sophie jump. But suspicion quickly stifled her delight and she gave him a hard stare, puckering up her nose and cheeks.
‘And what would the downside of that be?’
‘Let me explain a little first,’ he continued, waving a hand theatrically, ‘and make my offer sound less theoretical. Suppose that my business here in Oxford were successfully concluded in a month’s time, and that I would be leaving Britain. I would be unlikely to want to return to this house again. It would make sense for me to sell it.’
Sophie put her beer down, looking less suspicious and more interested.
‘You will be leaving, won’t you Omar? I know that the security guards are only hired on short-term contracts. So what then? What will happen with our ‘arrangement’?’
Again he smiled and nodded.
‘That is where my next proposal comes in.’
/> “Which is?’
“That I would sign over the deeds of the house to you. Just imagine—you would be the owner of this fine mansion, and I would also leave you the rest of your year’s allowance plus five others to boot.’
‘On condition that…?’ she asked as casually as she could despite the fact that her heart was racing. She daren’t risk showing him her desperation to accept; there would surely be a catch, as there was with all Omar’s grand offers.
He lent ever closer as he continued.
‘On condition that for the duration of my stay here, instead of just sleeping in my bed during the “bed duty”, as you put it, you agree that we sleep together—as man and woman, yaani.’
‘You mean you want to have sex with me?’ she gasped with despair rather than anger. Something like this had been coming all along, but she could no longer summon up the same defiant outrage she had shown when he had first propositioned her after the “interview”. It was past all that.
‘I just don’t understand why, Omar,’ she sighed. “Why you are doing this to me—or yourself come to that? You didn’t even want to sleep in the same bed with me last time I was in there. What’s the point? If you really want sex, why don’t you just get a prostitute?’
“I’m sorry. Let me be clearer,” he continued casually, taking a long sip of whisky and nibbling some peanuts that Mousa had brought in a silver bowl to accompany the drinks.
At least his tone was still softer and more natural than it had ever been before, a minor consolation. Better still, that stilted, semi-formal mockery had slipped from his repertoire too. And his accent – in the intimacy of the moment it had slipped to something that sounded almost plain English.
‘Whatever you are thinking, Sophie, I beg you not to overreact this time. My intention is not to humiliate you.’
‘Oh really? You could have fooled me, Omar!’ But even as she spoke the words, Sophie found if hard to summon up the due indignation.
‘No, not at all,’ he continued. ‘Think of it once again as a kind of psychological experiment—for your benefit as well as mine. The offer is very real; you needn’t worry about that. And frankly, whichever choice you make is unimportant to me. Oh don’t get me wrong,’ he rushed on, holding up his hand to prevent a further perceived rebellion. ‘You are an exceptionally attractive young lady, and I would very much like to sleep with you—you are quite wrong to say that your physical presence repulses me. But physical desire is not the sole motive behind my offer.’
Sophie felt her cheeks burning. She took a hurried swig of her beer and could not bring herself to return his frank stare.
“Look, I’m very relieved to hear you fancy me,’ she stammered, flicking nervously at her hair, ‘but don’t think for a minute that it’s going to make me accept your degrading offer.’
She expected him to challenge her refusal, but increased persuasion didn’t come. Instead Omar leant back again in his chair; he didn’t seem to have listened to a word she had just said. He rattled the ice cubes in the bottom of his glass again. Brooding. And when he finally spoke, it was delivered with a sigh.
‘Tell me, Sophie. Do you accept the principle that ‘might is right’?’
‘Accept it? No, of course not,’ she shrugged, perplexed by the sudden change of direction. ‘But it is all too often the way of the world. It’s hard to do anything about the rich, the mighty and the powerful, if that’s what you mean—but you should know all about that, Omar!’
He ignored the jibe and smiled.
‘So you do accept that in the day-to-day world, this principle is inevitably, if undesirably, the golden rule?’
‘I suppose you could put it that way. Though brave people throughout the course of history have tried to fight against it.’
‘Quite right,’ he agreed, with some gusto, shaking his head energetically. ‘But if you agree that the principle does hold sway, then my asking you to have sex with me is merely another example of the rich, the powerful, the chauvinists and the privileged exerting their influence over the weak and vulnerable. I am rich. I am powerful. I could increase my offer any number of times until you would eventually be forced to reconsider your natural (and understandable) inclination to reject my offer out of hand and slap me in the face!’
‘Or I could just walk out of here, however much you offer.’
‘Could you?” He asked, looking intensely alert. ‘Could you really, Sophie? Even if I offered not only this house and five years’ allowance, but five million instead, so that you could live in it like one of the ancient aristocrats who once owned it? Are you sure I could never out-tempt your repugnance?’
She looked up at him sulkily from under her long, curled lashes.
‘So what are you trying to prove, Omar? Rich and powerful people are immoral? What’s new about that? Who cares?’
He seemed to find her last remark privately amusing and nodded his head vigorously again.
‘Quite right! Who cares? Who really cares about such things?’ he smiled wistfully to himself. Then, ‘Yet you care about me making my offer. You find it degrading and insulting?’
‘It is. I’m sure that if I went to the police or to a lawyer, I could take action against you—diplomatic status or not.’
He smiled broadly and extended his arms wide open.
‘So you would be prepared take such extreme action against me for making an offer that is—possibly—immoral, an offer that might be unpleasant for you to a small degree—though you may even enjoy it (she scowled at him)—but would bring you rewards that you would never have dreamt possible before. That is truly noble of you, Sophie!’
He took another long slug of whisky then fell strangely silent and pensive again. And as she scrutinized him carefully while pretending to stare at her cut-crystal beer glass, she thought that some of the old malevolence had returned to his features.
‘But just tell me one more thing, Sophie,’ he continued eventually. ‘If you feel so strongly about my offer, then why do you not take action against the people who make far more intrusive and binding decisions about your daily life—the people in power and the people behind the power.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Sophie interrupted, ‘you can’t possibly be equating the decisions made by governments, businesses or international organisations with your lurid sexual propositions. That’s a fallacious argument if ever I heard one. The government here is elected by the people, to serve the people. The prime minister doesn’t go around the country propositioning innocent young women to have sex with him!’
Al-Ajnabi laughed. Finally the clouds lifted from his face.
‘My fault, I don’t think I’m making myself clear. Allow me to give some examples: When you finish here at Oxford, you will hope to get some job interviews, yes?’
She nodded.
‘And I believe that journalism is the career you wish to follow?’
Again, Sophie nodded.
‘Maybe you will follow your friend Mr Chapman into the Guardian?’
Sophie shrugged,
‘That would be fantastic, but it will be very hard. I might have to start outside print journalism; it’s a declining market.’
He nodded dismissively and carried on.
‘Well, wherever you start in the world of journalism, there will be plenty to report in the coming years, stories that will shock and change the world, your world too, long before you reach my age.’
His look was intense and he seemed animated again.
‘Maybe,’ Sophie shrugged. ‘But are you claiming you can read the future?’
‘I don’t need to, Sophie,’ he all but whispered. ‘I have travelled far. I know where the fault lines are weakest and the earthquakes are set to explode. I can even take you there.’
‘Where?’ she whispered, as if she about to follow a ghoul.
‘I will take you to Generals in Ethiopia and Egypt who are about to fight a war over the water in the river Nile. Their populations have grown so large there
is no longer enough water to share. I will take you across the capitals of the Middle East, from Tunis to Cairo and from Amman to Baghdad, where the swollen masses of jobless youngsters and destitute are just one price rise away from revolutions that will unleash levels of barbarism unheard of even in Syria and Iraq. I will introduce you to so called friends of mine, sheikhs from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, who have bought up nearly all the fertile agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa as food security for the desperate times ahead. I will take you to Bangladesh, where more than two hundred million people live in homes that will shortly be lost to the waves. Do you think they will just sit there and drown? How will the imminent arrival of two hundred million refugees go down in Brussels? Do the people of Europe have two hundred million council house waiting for them?’
Sophie shook her head, warming to the argument.
‘And will we see the four horse riders of the apocalypse in the sky above us,’ she scoffed. ‘These are extreme and exaggerated claims, even by your own standards, Omar.’
‘These are the predictions of your own scientists and the finest minds in the world.’
Sophie shifted awkwardly in her chair. The debate was enjoyable, much like being in a tutorial, and though she remained utterly unconvinced of his claims, she felt strangely at a loss for her next riposte.
‘History never works in such extreme ways. And I’m sure that you will find that the truth is likely to be far less extreme. For a start, the debate on world population growth is far from a over. There are some studies that show the world’s population peaking and even starting to decline after 2050. As for climate change, yes, we all know it is happening and governments and agencies around the world are planning for it.’
Omar shot forward in his chair so quickly, for a second she thought he was going to slap her. But instead, he took the crystal from her hand, deposited it on the latticed coffee table and grasped her hands in his own. He pulled both her palms gently towards him, then folded them out and upwards, staring down at the central creases as if he were a gifted palmist.
‘What if I told you,’ he almost whispered ‘that no meaningful action will ever be taken, for every politician knows that election to government will be impossible on the harsh agenda of action needed to save us from ourselves.’
‘If such dire action is really necessary, then it’s up to a brave politician to convince us at the ballot box. That is the price of freedom.’
‘Ah, freedom!’ Al-Ajnabi smiled coldly, letting go of her hands as if they were covered in poison. ‘A word I like to hear. And often! Like the freedom you get when democratic government after government either abnegates its authority, or willingly colludes with the corporate profit ethic to form a virulent brand of runaway capitalism that is a slave to the global free markets and a purveyor of death by syrup. Yes, then you are free to watch them destroy the lakes, rivers, oceans and forests, pollute your air, your water, your food, downsize your jobs and your pay, threaten the very future of life on this planet. And why do they do it? Because they can! Because the masses underneath them have prostituted themselves to their masters’ greed in the hope of gaining a few unwanted cast-offs from the rich man’s table. And has their runaway consumerism really made anyone any happier? What will the planet look like when ten billion humans have felled every tree in the Amazon and the Congo and processed them into furniture, have fished the last tuna fish from our bleached-coral oceans, drunk every river dry and unleashed Armageddon over the resources they have collectively plundered?’
He had become animated again, just as he always did when talking politics. Sophie was confused and wary.
‘I’m sorry, Omar. I can’t follow your logic at all and I don’t see how all this political theorizing changes anything. What good do you think it will do you?’
The smile was vampiric again; she shuddered deep down to see its return.
‘Because either way, you see, Sophie, I win: If you choose to accept, I get to gratify my physical desire; and if you refuse…,’ his voice trailed off and he swigged the last of his whisky.
‘Yes?’
“Then you are one of us. Then you are one of the very, very few who do not believe that might should be right, that the rich and powerful should treat the world, its people and its resources as their personal playthings.’
In her confusion Sophie was slow to realise that he might be paying her some backhanded compliment.
‘And who are ‘us’?’ she asked sharply. ‘Is that why you entertain the likes of Mr Hennessy here?’
He laughed, good-naturedly for once, and got to his feet.
‘I think I have tormented you enough for one night, Sophie. Please, take your time to consider my offer, and I urge you to consider it very carefully. Do not be swayed by what others might think, or even by what I have said. Do what is right for you. Either way, your choice will intrigue me. But for the time being, I wish you a good night.’
As he made for the door, Sophie hit upon one last, desperate gamble to outmanoeuvre the vampire. Instinct told her that he did not really want her to accept.
‘So,’ she sighed phlegmatically. ‘I suppose you’ll have the title deeds made over? And five years’ worth of cash? Or do you just expect me to take your word for your side of the bargain?’
Al-Ajnabi turned in the doorway. As she had hoped, Sophie could feel his astonishment.
‘You wish to accept?’
‘Of course! And I’ll tell you why, Omar: because I don’t believe you want to do it any more than I do, and I’m going to make you take back everything you have just said.’
He paused for a while, as if were about to change his mind. But then the menacing smile returned.
‘As you wish, Sophie. I will instruct Hasan to have a lawyer take care of the deeds and the money…and…I always enjoy a challenge!’ he added, closing the door behind.