The Power of Five Oblivion (39 page)

The sheikh seemed to realize what he had done. He suddenly laughed and clapped his hands. “Time for pudding!” he crowed. “And more champagne.”

The guests cheered and applauded. The meal went on.

Richard looked more closely at Jaheda, wondering why she had changed her mind and suddenly decided to help him. The two of them had barely spoken throughout the meal and he remembered how angry she had appeared as they left the casino.

“What does he want with her?” Richard asked.

“What do you think he wants with her?” Jaheda was angry again. “If you care for her, why did you even bring her here?”

Richard’s first instinct was to lie. He knew nothing about this woman. He didn’t know if he could trust her. But at the same time, he wondered if she might be able to help them. She seemed to have an agenda of her own. “We came here to get the pilot,” he said. “That’s all we want. We need him to fly us out of here.”

“That is not possible. He is in prison. He is being executed tomorrow.”

“Can you talk to him?”

“To Rasheed?” She shook her head and when she spoke again, she didn’t attempt to conceal the bitterness in her voice. “Not all the men in this country are like Rasheed,” she said. “And even he was not always like this. He was cruel. He was always spoilt. But when he lost control of his world, that was when he turned into this … child!”

“Why do you stay with him?”

“Because I want to. Because it is my duty. I am his wife!” Jaheda’s eyes flickered towards Scarlett and at that moment Richard understood exactly what was in her mind. “I will not be replaced by a child,” she said. “I knew that this girl would cause trouble for me the moment I saw her in the casino. And look at him now.” The sheikh had his arm around Scarlett, trying to force her to eat a piece of Turkish delight. “He is besotted by her. It makes me sick!”

“Then help us leave,” Richard said. “Do you know where Larry Carter is being held?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then get him out. Bring him to us. There’s a plane at the airport and we have a car just down the road.”

“I cannot do as you say. Rasheed will kill me.”

On the other side of the table, Rasheed threw the Turkish delight in the air and caught it in his mouth. He was doing tricks for Scarlett, trying to entertain her.

“I don’t think he’ll kill you,” Richard said. “I think he’s forgotten you.”

Jaheda nodded slowly. “We will see…”

THIRTY

By midnight, Jaheda still hadn’t come.

Richard and Scarlett had been given adjoining rooms in the palace. They were certainly comfortable enough. The beds were enormous, covered with Egyptian cotton sheets and silk duvets, buried underneath an avalanche of pillows. Anything that could be made of gold turned out to be just that – from the mirror frames to the light fittings to the bathroom taps. They had hot and cold water too. The baths were deep and surrounded by oils and shampoos. It was like staying in the most luxurious hotel in the world, apart from two small details: the windows were barred and the doors were locked.

They were both still awake. After everything that had happened during the course of the evening, sleep would have been impossible. Scarlett could still feel the clasp of the sheikh’s fingers on her wrist. She saw his black eyes and the food caught in his beard. She remembered what he had said. The one thing she hadn’t done was to tell Richard the threats that he had made. He would kill Richard to make her change her mind. Maybe that was why he had allowed them to stay near each other tonight, to remind her what her refusal would cost. But she had already decided that she wouldn’t let it happen. She would marry Sheikh Rasheed if she had to – but she would deal with him in her own way before she allowed him to touch her again.

For his part, Richard was angry with himself.

It had been his idea to come to the palace. What had he been thinking of? Martins had warned them that the sheikh was unstable. Had there really been any chance that they could persuade him to hand over the pilot and let them fly out of here to Antarctica? Richard had allowed them to walk in here without any plan at all and now they were both prisoners. His position was bad enough but from what he had seen at the dinner table, Scarlett’s was worse. He had brought her to this. It was his fault.

It seemed so long now since he had been a writer, working on a local newspaper in the north of England. The
Greater Malling Gazette
… he could see it so clearly, the drab offices set behind the High Street, filled with cheap furniture and computers that were forever crashing. It had been his first job after leaving university. Not
The Times
, not the
Telegraph
, not even the
Yorkshire Post
but his next step towards a career that he had wanted since he was a boy. Richard had always been fascinated by the news, by the way people’s lives all over the world could be changed and moulded by events over which they had no control. Why should a flood in Bangladesh mean anything to a housewife in Yorkshire? It was the journalist’s job to make the connection, to make people care.

Not, of course, that he ever covered such stories in Greater Malling. Almost from the day he had arrived, he had been bored rigid, writing about marriages and funerals, charity events, local councillors and bright school kids. He had thought about leaving several times and had only stayed because there were no other jobs. He had a flat in York. He had occasional girlfriends. Life wasn’t too bad and he was sure that if he stayed around long enough, something would turn up.

That something was a fourteen-year-old boy who had arrived in the office one afternoon, just after lunch, with a story so incredible that Richard had given up on him within five minutes of their meeting. Matthew Freeman claimed he had been kept prisoner in a local farm, Hive Hall, that he had stumbled upon a conspiracy that involved a disused nuclear power station, a circle of witches and God knows what else. It was all completely unbelievable. Richard had said so and Matt had stormed out of the office.

What was it that had made Richard decide to take a second look, to drive out to the old power station that night? He doubted now that he would ever know, but as things had turned out, he had met up with Matt again and at once he had been plunged into a different world. And it really had been like that … as if he had dived off a cliff, into a cold sea. His own life had been torn away from him. Everything he believed had been shattered. Yes, there were witches and demons and blood sacrifices. There were children with special powers and secret societies that existed to protect them. There were the Old Ones. He had been forced to accept all of it and had known from that moment on that there would be no escape.

From Yorkshire to London to Peru, back to London and then to Hong Kong – Richard had been swept along, trying to work out what his role in all this might be. The five Gatekeepers had been chosen for this adventure long before they had been born … but why him? He had consoled himself with the thought that he was there to help Matt. Certainly the two of them had become friends of a sort. But even that role had been taken from him when he had found himself in Cairo with Scarlett.

Since then, he had tried to give her the same support he had given Matt. He had barely left her side after she had been wounded. He had managed to save her from Tarik and had brought her here to Dubai. And now he had failed her. It was as simple as that. He should never have brought her here.

Richard went into Scarlett’s room. “We’re leaving,” he announced.

“What?” Scarlett had been lying on the bed but now she sat up.

“We’re getting out of the palace. It doesn’t matter about Larry Carter.” Richard went on quickly, before she could interrupt. “He probably wouldn’t have taken us where we want to go anyway. We can get back in the car and drive to Oman or even down to Yemen. If there are planes here, there may be planes there. It doesn’t make any difference. All we know is we can’t stay here.”

“But what about the door? It’s locked.”

By way of an answer, Richard leant down and seemed to take something out of his shoe. When he straightened up, he was holding the gun that had once belonged to the Frenchman, Rémy.

“Where did that come from?” Scarlett asked.

“I had it in my sock.”

She stared, then remembered the entrance to the casino. “What about the metal detectors?” They had both passed through them.

“Yes. I was worried about that. But they weren’t even plugged in. I knew when I saw a man go through, carrying a dog. It had a metal collar and it didn’t set anything off. I guess the security was all part of the make-believe.” He gripped the gun. “I wasn’t going to come here empty-handed. And I can use this to get us out.”

“Someone will hear if you shoot.”

“I don’t think so. There were no guards in the corridor as far as I could see, and most of the people here were so drunk when they left the dinner that they’re probably fast asleep. But you can help me. Run the bath and put the shower on. That’ll make a bit of noise. And as for the rest of it…”

He grabbed one of the pillows off the bed and wrapped the muzzle of the gun inside it, then pressed the whole thing against the lock of the door. Meanwhile, Scarlett had run into the bathroom and turned on all the taps. With so much metal and marble around, the sound of the water seemed amplified. Richard took a deep breath, then pulled the trigger.

Even with the pillow acting as a silencer, the explosion was enormous and must surely have been heard throughout the palace, if not in much of Dubai. Richard lowered the pillow – there was a scorched hole right through the middle – and tried the handle. The door swung inwards. He and Scarlett waited, hardly daring to breathe. But there was no sound of any alarms, no guards running. Someone must have heard the gunshot but it was always possible that they had no idea where it had come from. It could have been a drunken guest trying to make a point … perhaps even the sheikh himself.

Richard wasn’t going to wait any longer. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

He and Scarlett slipped out.

After the sudden interruption, the palace had returned to that strange, absolute silence that only comes at night. The corridors were empty, illuminated by lamps shaped like candles, set at intervals along the walls. There weren’t very many of them but the light was reflected by the white and pale grey marble, allowing them to see far ahead. Richard still had no idea how many people lived in the palace. It seemed to him that only half the dinner guests had actually left, meaning that around fifteen of them might still be under the sheikh’s roof. Then there was the sheikh himself, his three bodyguards and at least a dozen servants. Add in guards, attendants, ministers and hangers-on and there could be a hundred people here … certainly the palace was big enough to house them all.

“Which way?” Scarlett asked.

“Follow me.” The truth was that Richard had little idea which way they were going. He had been careful to follow their progress from the dining room, along a maze of twisting corridors and passageways, up two flights of stairs … but even if he could make his way back to the main door, he had little doubt that it would be locked and guarded. He still had the gun, but that wasn’t going to help them if they were surrounded. He knew only that he had very little time to find a way out. Someone must have heard the gunshot. They might be investigating it even now.

They reached the end of the corridor, passed through an archway guarded by two onyx lions, one on each side, twisted round on themselves and finally came to the main staircase, a swirl of gold banisters and red carpet that would bring them down to the entrance hall and the doors to the street. They hurried down, but as they got to the hallway, Scarlett grabbed hold of Richard and pulled him back. She pointed. A CCTV camera was mounted high up on a crossbeam and, unlike the metal detector, it was definitely working, a red light blinking in the half-light. They were out of range, but one more step and they would have been seen.

“What now?” Scarlett whispered.

“A service entrance. There must be one…”

They found their way back to the dining room and went through the swing doors into the kitchen. Fortunately, there were no more cameras and if there were any guards on patrol, they didn’t come across them. Together, they hurried past the stainless-steel surfaces, the fridges and the ovens. This was where all the food was prepared. It had to come in from somewhere.

It was on the other side, a set of double doors at the end of a short corridor. Without knowing quite why, Richard was certain that they had found the delivery entrance. He hurried towards it, realizing only when it was too late that he had made a mistake, that there was a second corridor that he hadn’t noticed, with a man standing in the shadows. A guard stepped out, his rifle already loaded and at the ready. He stared at Richard and Scarlett in disbelief, then spoke to them in Arabic. Richard didn’t move. He was still holding the gun and wondered if he could bring it up and fire it in time. The guard was aiming directly at him, less than five metres away. He would certainly shoot Richard down before he himself was hit – but at least that might give Scarlett a chance to get away. The exit door was so close! Richard cursed himself for not being more careful.

There was the tinkle of glass. The guard’s eyes went white and he folded in on himself. It took Richard a moment to see that something had smashed into the back of his skull. Then Jaheda appeared behind him, holding the broken neck of a bottle of champagne.

The two of them looked at each other.

“You…” she said.

“Jaheda.”

“I was coming to your room. I was coming to find you.” Was it true? The woman’s face, still partly concealed by the black silk scarf that hung around it, gave nothing away.

She was not alone.

There was a man standing behind her, dressed in the rags of what had once been blue trousers and a white shirt. He was barefoot. Richard knew at once that he was looking at the pilot, Larry Carter. He had been badly beaten. Richard saw the whip marks where the blood had dried across his shirt, and one side of his face was swollen. He had sand-coloured hair, matted and bedraggled. He looked as if he hadn’t eaten properly for a week.