The Sword of God

- continued -

The American Embassy in Manama was not sequestered behind concrete bunkers and grim Marines — not yet — but the windowless walls of Ambassador Paul Northfield's private office were three feet thick and made of steel; his door was as strong as that of any bank vault, and opened only to those few high-ranking members of his staff who were privileged to know the combination to its sophisticated electronic locking mechanism.

Behind the state-of-the-art security, the office itself had been decorated to reflect the informal nature of its occupant. A massive mahogany desk and plush swivel chair dominated the room, two sofas at right angles around a low brass filigreed coffee table formed a pleasant conversation nook in one corner and a well-stocked wet bar stood invitingly in another, there was soft brown carpeting underfoot and an attractive arrangement of paintings on the walls.

Mahboob Chaudri sipped gratefully at the cold club soda he had been offered and studied the paintings with feigned interest. Most of them were oils by the emirate's own Abdullah al-Muharraqi, scenes of Arab life in warm reds and oranges, old men hunkered down in the suq with their worry beads, fishermen mending their nets by the sea, women in black abbas heating up their tambourines before a wedding performance. Under other circumstances, Chaudri's interest would have been genuine. But today he was far too busy eavesdropping on the argument from which he had turned his back in deferential politeness to concentrate on the primitive beauty of the artwork.

"Dammit, Mr. Ambassador," Senator Harding was saying, "I take your point, sir — but there's no way in hell you're going to be able to hush this thing up. The local media already know exackly what's goin' on, and — what with Saddam still makin' noise up there in Eye-Rack — you got your wire-service reporters based right here in Bahrain, you got your Time and Newsweek boys roamin' around lookin' for stories to file, you got — "

"I know all that, Bill." Like his office, Ambassador Northfield seemed relaxed and comfortable in the midst of chaos. He was a tall bear of a man, with steel-gray hair and a full salt-and-pepper beard and a strong handshake — but he was a tame bear, a teddy bear, not a grizzly. "All I'm saying is I think we need to stay in the background on this thing until we — "

"In the background," the Senator exploded. "But that's just exackly my point, Ambassador! Those damn journalists are on the scene, they're a fact of life, and before one hell of a lot more time elapses you're gonna have them bangin' on your door here yellin' for answers. And you and I, sir, are gonna wind up representin' the United States of America in a major media event before a global audience, so I say we damn well better have some answers, and we better have 'em right damn quick!"

Chaudri wondered if it had been with the idea of representing his country in mind that the Senator had insisted on a brief stop at the BAPCO compound in Awali before proceeding to the embassy. He had been gone for less than five minutes, but when he'd returned to the government limousine his gaudy golfing costume had vanished, replaced by the impeccable attire of the statesman.

The ambassador smiled tightly. "A major media event, Bill? A global audience? I see what you're driving at, but I can't help thinking you're exaggerating the importance of what's going on here. I mean, it's only been a — "

" — couple of hours," the Senator finished the bear's sentence in exasperation. "And after all, Bill, we don't even know who these people are, just yet." He tossed down the rest of his scotch and water and marched to the bar to fix himself a refill. "Now, you lookie here, Ambassador, I know all that. And I know that, with the good Lord's blessin', we may well get our folks out of there before anybody winds up gettin' hurt. And I know I may be just a ignorant ol' country boy and talkin' out of turn, but I'd like to remind you of a couple of things here, Ambassador. I'd like to remind you of that little incident back in Tehran in 1979, for instance. You may remember it, because it lasted 444 days and got a lot of attention on the news. I'd also like to remind you of TWA Flight 847 over there in Beirut a couple years later; that one only lasted 17 days, but it got a fair piece of play in the media, too. Now, while you and I sit here havin' this cozy discussion over drinks, we got — "

"While you and I are having this discussion, Bill," the Ambassador said firmly, "we have four American citizens held hostage about a mile from this spot, and we're not doing a single thing to help them in their time of need." He leaned forward and pressed a button on his intercom, and a woman's voice immediately said, "Yes, sir?"

"Carol," Ambassador Northfield instructed, "get me the State Department, would you, please? Priority One."

Senator Harding turned to his waiting aide. "Jerry," he said angrily. It was the first time Mahboob Chaudri had heard the young man's name. "Jerry, you go find yourself a secure phone and get me the White House. Mack, if you can get him; otherwise, I'll settle for the Veep. You know who I really want to talk to, but I reckon he's out joggin' or eatin' a Big Mac or some damn thing."

* * *

From their vantage point atop the four-story apartment building a quarter of a mile to the south, Mahboob Chaudri and Senator Harding had an unobstructed view of the Suq-al-Khamis Mosque. Its twin minarets gleamed in the twilight, though a closer inspection would have revealed that the towers had been patchily whitewashed and the wooden balconies three-quarters of the way up the height of each spire were in poor repair.

Behind the concrete wall which ringed the compound, the mosque itself was a barren ruin — roofless, floorless, without walls. Of the once-proud temple erected almost 13 centuries in the past by the Umayyad Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz, nothing remained but a scattering of stone columns and crumbling archways, baked by the harsh Middle Eastern sun and scoured colorless by a thousand sandstorms.

"AK-47 assault rifles," Chaudri frowned, passing his binoculars to the Senator. "Kalashnikovs, Russian-made."

An armed guard stood on each of the weathered balconies, framed by the narrow arches leading to the interior of the minarets. Both men wore long white thobes, their heads covered with the traditional ghutra and thin black agal. It was impossible to be sure of their nationalities, but from their set expressions and their weapons Chaudri was convinced they were Iranians.

"Mean-lookin' sons a bitches," the Senator snapped, handing the field glasses on to his aide. "Them and their guns. Where you reckon they're holdin' the hostages, officer?"

Chaudri considered the question. "Inside the minarets," he said at last. "It is the only possibility. They are being held on the stone steps within the minarets, trapped between the pair of guards we can see on the balconies above and another pair at the base of the towers, hidden from us behind the wall."

Chaudri accepted the return of the binoculars and raised them again to his eyes. A dozen official vehicles were stationed at 20-yard intervals around the compound; a hundred officers in the olive-green of the Public Security Force were in position behind the buses and sedans and Land Rovers, some unarmed, others with their useless weapons held loosely, waiting.

And, as the Senator had predicted, a score of reporters milled about with their notepads and their tape recorders and their cameras. They, too, were waiting, waiting for something to happen, for tragedy or resolution, for any scrap of news or human interest with which to still the constant hunger of their editors and readers and viewers, their audience.

Among the assembled policemen, there were sharpshooters present who could easily take out the Arabs on the balconies of the Suq-al-Khamis Mosque's twin spires. Even from this distance, Chaudri could read the frustration on their faces. For, if the guards above were wounded or killed, then their brothers below would surely retaliate — and it was the four American hostages who would suffer.

No, the Public Security marksmen must wait impatiently for the situation to develop, and Mahboob Chaudri knew and shared their emotion. He, too, had used a telephone at the American embassy, not an hour before. He had phoned the Police Fort at al-Qalah and practically begged for reassignment to the team now surrounding the mosque. But his superiors had ordered him to remain with Senator Harding, and the Senator's own superiors in Washington had ordered him to stay clear of the scene, to leave any negotiations with the Sword of God to the Bahrainis and any contact with the press to Ambassador Northfield.

"Why the hell don't your people get in there and do somethin'?" the Senator demanded. "You just set around and wait for somethin' to happen — well, by God, when somethin' does happen, you may just find out it ain't the somethin' you was hopin' for!"

"And what would you suggest we should be doing, sir?" the Pakistani asked quietly.

Senator Harding glared at him. "Don't you patronize me, son. And, hell, I don't know what to do. That's why my damn government's got me benched here on the sidelines. Ain't you got somebody you can send in there to make nice with 'em, like Jesse Jackson sweet-talked them grunts out of Kosovo last year? Or, if this bunch's too far gone to cut a deal with, you just send your local SWAT team in and pull a Rambo — that's what I'd do if I's in charge. I'll tell you this much for free: you better do somethin', 'fore them bastards in the white nighties decide to commence usin' them peashooters they're totin'."

Mahboob Chaudri understood very little of the Senator's English. He understood the feelings which boiled beneath the words, though. He understood that Senator Harding, too, was frustrated by his inability to bring a stop to this terrorist madness, to find a way to resheathe the Sword of God before innocent blood was spilled.

Chaudri understood and shared the American's sense of impotence — and wondered if the angry words were only words, or if a man of true courage stood behind them.

As the police and press stood around and did nothing, he made up his mind to find out.

"Senator, sir," he said softly, "I am thinking that perhaps it is time for you and I to talk."

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