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“Of course not,” said Jim Donaldson. “This country will pay that easily, for the President’s son. I’m just surprised it’s taken two weeks.”
“Actually, that’s pretty fast, or so I’m told,” said Bill Walters. Don Edmonds of the FBI nodded his agreement.
“We want to rehear the rest, the tapes from the apartment?” asked the Vice President.
No one needed to.
“Mr. Edmonds, what about what Mr. Cramer, the Scotland Yard man, told Quinn? Any comments from your people?”
Edmonds cast a sidelong glance at Philip Kelly, but answered for the Bureau.
“Our people at Quantico agree with their British colleagues,” he said. “This Zack is at the end of his tether, wants to close it down, make an exchange. The strain in his voice is coming through, hence the threats most probably. They also agree with the analysts over there on another thing. Which is that Quinn appears to have established some kind of wary empathy with this animal Zack. It seems his efforts—which are what has taken two weeks”—he glanced at Jim Donaldson as he spoke—“to portray himself as the guy trying to help Zack, and all the rest of us here and there as the bad guys making problems, has worked. Zack has an element of trust for Quinn, but for no one else. That may prove crucial at the safe-handover process. At least, that’s what the voice analysts and behavioral psychologists are saying.”
“Lord, what a job, having to sweet-talk scum like that,” observed Jim Donaldson with distaste.
David Weintraub, who had been staring at the ceiling, cast an eye toward the Secretary of State. To keep these amateurs in their high office, he might have said but did not, he and his people sometimes had to deal with creatures just as nasty as Zack.
“Okay, gentlemen,” said Odell, “we go with the deal. At last the ball is back with us in America, so let’s make it fast. Personally I think this Quinn has done a pretty good job. If he can get the boy back safe and sound, we owe him. Now, diamonds. Where do we get them?”
“New York,” said Weintraub, “diamond center of the country.”
“Morton, you’re from New York. Have you got any discreet contacts you could tap into fast?” Odell asked the ex-banker.
“Certainly,” Stannard said. “When I was with Rockman-Queens we had a number of clients who were high in the diamond trade. Very discreet—they have to be. You want me to handle it? How about the money?”
“The President has insisted he will personally pay the ransom, won’t have it any other way,” said Odell. “But I don’t see why he should be troubled by these details. Hubert, could the Treasury make a personal loan until the President can liquidate trust funds?”
“No problem,” said Hubert Reed. “You’ll have your money, Morton.”
The committee rose. Odell had to see the President over at the Executive Mansion.
“Fast as you can, Morton,” he said. “We want to be talking here in two to three days. Tops.”
In fact, it would take another seven.
It was not until morning that Andy Laing could secure an interview with Mr. Al-Haroun, the branch manager. But he did not waste the night.
Mr. Al-Haroun, when confronted, was as gently apologetic as only a well-bred Arab can be when confronted by an angry Occidental. The matter gave him enormous regret, no doubt an unhappy situation whose solution lay in the lap of the all-merciful Allah; nothing would give him greater pleasure than to return to Mr. Laing his passport, which he had taken into nightly safekeeping only at the specific request of Mr. Pyle. He went to his safe and, with slim brown fingers, withdrew the blue United States passport and handed it back.
Laing was mollified, thanked him with the more formal and gracious “Ashkurak,” and withdrew. Only when he had returned to his own office did it occur to him to flick through the passport’s pages.
In Saudi Arabia, foreigners not only need an entry visa, but an exit visa as well. His own, formerly valid without limit of time, had been canceled. The stamp of the Jiddah Immigration Control office was perfectly genuine. No doubt, he mused bitterly, Mr. Al-Haroun had a friend in that bureau. It was, after all, the local way of doing things.
Aware there was no going back, Andy Laing determined to scrap it out. He recalled something the Operations manager had once told him.
“Amin, my friend, did you not mention once that you had a relative in the Immigration Service here?” he asked him. Amin saw no trap in the question.
“Yes, indeed. A cousin.”
“In which office is he based?”
“Ah, not here, my friend. He is in Dhahran.”
Dhahran was not near Jiddah, on the Red Sea, but right across the country in the extreme east, on the Persian Gulf. In the late morning Andy Laing made a phone call to Mr. Zulfiqar Amin at his desk in Dhahran.
“This is Mr. Steven Pyle, General Manager of the Saudi Arabian Investment Bank,” he said. “I have one of my officers conducting business in Dhahran at this moment. He will need to fly on urgent matters to Bahrein tonight. Unfortunately he tells me his exit visa is time-expired. You know how long these things can take through normal channels. ... I was wondering, in view of your cousin being in such high esteem with us ... You will find Mr. Laing a most generous man. ...”
Using the lunch hour, Andy Laing returned to his apartment, packed his bags, and caught the 3:00 P.M. Saudia airline flight to Dhahran. Mr. Zulfiqar Amin was expecting him. The reissue of an exit visa took two hours and a thousand riyals.
