Chapter 13
The stopover in San Francisco was hardly long enough for Prof. Dickson to get himself from one part of the airport to the other, and get onto the Qantas flight in time. Going through security and customs was a bit of a nightmare. Being a first-class passenger made things a little easier, but when it came to the question as to where the professor was intending to stay in Sydney, the professor was at a loss to name a hotel of note downtown. He couldn’t be sure if the hotel chains that you find everywhere in Europe or in North America extended as far as Downunder. He had to make a decision quickly. The custom’s officer was waiting. “The Hyatt,” the professor blurted finally.
“All right, sir. Enjoy Australia, Professor,” the woman said, motioning for him to move through the passage.
Professor Dickson walked down the hallway quickly, laptop case in one hand and overnight bag in the other. He felt totally out of his depth, not to say out of the water as a fish caught in a net of deceit. He didn’t like having to follow instructions or being hurled into a situation where he had absolutely no control over the players or the circumstances. He had no idea where he was going. Truly, Australia was as strange to him as the moon. He would remedy his ignorance quickly, he thought. He bought the new laptop for that reason—to stay in touch with the world—and he would be able to learn a lot about the country as soon as he could be on line in his hotel in Sydney.
Sylvan, for his part, had no such problems. Although he had never been to Australia either, CSIS had briefed him thoroughly about the country, the city where he and the professor were landing in some 15 hours and about the suburb and surrounding areas of Manly. Before he left, Fred had informed him that the agency would only advise the Australians as to the two men’s presence once they were on their soil. He didn’t want to pre-empt any move on their parts, which could be detrimental or interfering with their original plans. As it were, Sylvan and the professor were on their own until the Canadian agent and his charge would decide otherwise.
Sylvan had not followed Prof. Dickson per se since their boarding of the flight from Washington D.C. He didn’t need to. As an economy class passenger, the herd would follow the business class or first-class passengers anyway, and Sylvan knew the professor was as intent as he was to get to Sydney as soon as possible. The dices had been thrown and there was no going back now.
After a scrumptious, five-course dinner, the steward suggested that the professor could freshen up in the lavatory, before lying down on the sitting-bed for the night. He nodded a “Thank you” to the attendant, took his overnight bag to the lavatory and did as suggested. When he returned, his sitting-bed was ‘turned down’ for the night, complete with pillow, sheets, blankets, and a reading light shining discreetly from the side-panel. He looked at it, shook his head and sat down. Khalid felt as if he had lost touch with an entire era of modernization while he lived in Bamako, at the heart of the Sahel.
In the hours that followed, Khalid had a sense of navigating in a fog populated of faces, people, and noises that he didn’t recognize. He saw Talya walk toward him. She was dressed in her white gown, veiled, and holding a magnificent bouquet of red roses against her chest. He noticed the blood as each drop fell rhythmically onto her abayah. When she came closer to him, he saw she was crying. Suddenly, her face disappeared, and in an instant, she was gone. Sinister laughter accompanied his waking up.
He lifted his head from the pillow and for a moment, Khalid didn’t know where he was. The cabin was dark except for the spotlight overhead of someone reading a book two rows ahead of his. Talya had appeared often in his dreams of late, and Khalid could not turn away from these as easily as he did from other things, or ignore them. They were out of reach or his control. He got up, went to stand by the galley’s entrance and asked the attendant for a glass of water. He brought it back to his sitting-bed and drank it slowly.
He could not grasp what was obviously happening to him. He had fantasized vengeance, and his fantasy was now becoming a reality. He was instructed to follow his friend, an assassin, to a duel he only fathomed could take place. He began to realize the enormity of the situation. He had never met this Isaac fellow. He had only heard his other name mentioned in passing, Samuel, which meant God’s Word in Hebrew. Possibly, he was only an agent with no real agenda against him or Talya; he just executed orders as so many others did. However, here he was, on his way to kill the man. He had told Talya one day, if she wanted to take vengeance as a companion, she would have to take the devil as her assistant. Incredible as it was, Khalid was doing exactly that. With vengeance in his heart, he had concocted a devil’s plan to kill a man. It was crazy! He would not be able to go through with this. He couldn’t.
If he went to Talya, Mossad would claim that Saudi had forged a secret alliance with Israel, and his uncles would think nothing to have Khalid executed as soon as he would return home—to Paris. It would not be beyond expectation if he were to see reprisals exacted on him for meddling in the Saudi Arabian King’s political affairs, or international relations. What’s more, if he killed the man, Mossad and the Australian authorities would hunt him down like an animal, the same way they did with Talya. He was an outsider.
These tergiversations convinced him that Sadir (or even Fred) had been wrong; there was no way he was coming out of this alive. If he did pull through, he could only look forward to spending the rest of his days in prison, most certainly, in fact.
Replaying the luncheon conversation he had with Muhammad Sadir in his mind, Khalid asked himself why the man was so intent on baiting him into action. He had used an old trick on Khalid, knowing that he was as stubborn as a mule when it came to obtaining what he wanted in life, nothing on a silver platter mind you, but stubborn enough to get what he was told he could not have. He remembered thinking of the word reversal when Sadir changed tack, and advanced the idea that the CIA should repay a debt to his uncle. What a laugh! The CIA never paid any debt of the sort. They had already forgotten about Uncle Abdullah and his alleged contraband; they had other problems to deal with now, terrorism being one of them.