The Negotiator

That was not the story he had told Steve Pyle. The general manager of SAIB had heard of Easterhouse and his enviable influence with the royal family, and had been flattered to be asked to dinner two months earlier. When he had seen Easterhouse’s beautifully forged CIA identification he had been massively impressed. To think that this man was no free-lance, but really worked for his own government and only he, Steve Pyle, knew it.

“There are rumors of a plan afoot to topple the royal house,” Easterhouse had told him gravely. “We found out about it, and informed King Fahd. His Majesty has agreed to a joint effort between his security forces and the Company to unmask the culprits.”

Pyle had ceased eating, his mouth open in amazement. And yet it was all perfectly feasible.

“As you know, money buys everything in this country, including information. That’s what we need, and the regular Security Police funds cannot be diverted in case there are conspirators among the police. You know Prince Abdullah?”

Pyle had nodded. The King’s cousin, Minister of Public Works.

“He is the King’s appointed liaison with me,” said the colonel. “The Prince has agreed that the fresh funds we both need to penetrate the conspiracy shall come from his own budget. Needless to say, Washington at the highest level is desperately eager that nothing should happen to this most friendly of governments.”

And thus the bank, in the form of a single and rather gullible officer, had agreed to participate in the creation of the fund. What Easterhouse had actually done was to hack into the Ministry of Public Works’ accounting computer, which he had set up, with four fresh instructions.

One was to alert his own computer terminal every time the Ministry issued a draft in settlement of an invoice from a contractor. The sum of these invoices on a monthly basis was huge; in the Jiddah area the Ministry was funding roads, schools, hospitals, deep-water ports, sports stadiums, bridges, overpasses, housing developments, and apartment blocks.

The second instruction was to add 10 percent to every settlement, but transfer that 10 percent into his own numbered account in the Jiddah branch of the SAIB. The third and fourth instructions were protective: If the Ministry ever asked for the total in its account at the SAIB, its own computer would give the total plus 10 percent. Finally, if questioned directly, it would deny all knowledge and erase its memory. So far the sum in Easterhouse’s account was 4 billion riyals.

What Laing had noticed was the weird fact that every time the SAIB, on instructions from the Ministry, made a credit transfer to a contractor, a matching transfer of precisely 10 percent of that sum went from the Ministry’s account to a numbered account in the same bank.

Easterhouse’s swindle was just a variation of the Fourth Cash Register scam, and could only be uncovered by the full annual Ministry audit the following spring. (The fraud is based on the tale of the American bar owner who, though his bar was always full, became convinced his take was 25 percent less than it ought to be. He hired the best private detective, who took the room above the bar, bored a hole in the floor, and spent a week on his belly watching the bar below. Finally he reported: I’m sorry to have to say this, but your bar staff are honest people. Every dollar and dime that crosses that bar goes into one of your four cash registers. “What do you mean, four?” asked the bar owner. “I only installed three.”)

“One does not wish any harm to this young man,” said Easterhouse, “but if he is going to do this sort of thing, if he refuses to stay quiet, would it not be wise to transfer him back to London?”

“Not so easy. Why would he go without protest?” asked Pyle.

“Surely,” said Easterhouse, “he believes this package to have reached London. If London summons him—or that is what you tell him—he will go like a lamb. All you have to tell London is that you wish him reassigned. Grounds: He is unsuitable here, has been rude to the staff and damaged the morale of his colleagues. His evidence is right here in your hands. If he makes the same allegations in London, he will merely prove your point.”

Pyle was delighted. It covered every contingency.

Quinn knew enough to know there was probably not one bug but two in his bedroom. It took him an hour to find the first, another to trace the second. The big brass table lamp had a one-millimeter hole drilled in its base. There was no need for such a hole; the cord entered at the side of the base. The hole was right underneath. He chewed for several minutes on a stick of gum—one of several given him by Vice President Odell for the transatlantic crossing—and shoved the wad firmly into the aperture.

In the basement of the embassy the duty ELINT man at the console turned around after several minutes and called over an FBI man. Soon afterward, Brown and Collins were in the listening post.

“One of the bedroom bugs just went out,” said the engineer. “The one in the base of the table lamp. Showing defective.”

“Mechanical fault?” asked Collins. Despite the makers’ claims, technology had a habit of fouling up at regular intervals.

“Could be,” said the ELINT man. “No way of knowing. It seems to be alive. But its sound-level reception is batting zero.”

“Could he have discovered it?” asked Brown. “Shoved something in it? He’s a tricky son of a bitch.”

“Could be,” said the engineer. “Want we should go down there?”

“No,” said Collins. “

He never talks in the bedroom anyway. Just lies on his back and thinks. Anyway, we have the other, the one in the wall outlet.”

That night, the twelfth since Zack’s first call, Sam came to Quinn’s room, at the opposite end of the apartment from where McCrea slept. The door uttered a click as it opened.

“What was that?” asked one of the FBI men sitting through the night watch beside the engineer. The technician shrugged.

“Quinn’s bedroom. Door catch, window. Maybe he’s going to the can. Needs some fresh air. No voices, see?”

Quinn was lying on his bed, silent in the near darkness, the street-lamps of Kensington giving a low light to the room. He was quite immobile, staring up at the ceiling, naked but for the sarong wrapped around his waist. When he heard the door click he turned his head. Sam stood in the entrance without a word. She, too, knew about the bugs. She knew her own room was not tapped, but it was right next to McCrea’s.

Quinn swung his legs to the floor, knotted his sarong, and raised one finger to his lips in a gesture to keep silent. He left the bed without a sound, took his tape recorder from the bedside table, switched it on, and placed it by an electrical outlet in the baseboard six feet from the head of the bed.

Still without a sound he took the big club chair from the corner, upended it, and placed it over the tape recorder and against the wall, using pillows to stuff into the cracks where the arms of the club chair did not reach the wall.