Gary lifted the phone, hoping his young friend, Stuart McIntyre, a Scottish -Canadian asset manager, would be in his office.
"Stuart."
"Yeah. Gary. Hi, How ya doin' buddy?"
"Stu, are you available...like in five minutes...I really need your help...it's a question of life or death."
"Jesus, Gary, are you kidding me?"
"No, can I come over now?"
"Of course you can. I'll wait for you to get here."
It took Gary less than five minutes to leave his twentieth floor office facing the harbor -one of the most beautiful views of down-town Vancouver, cross the road, and walk two short blocks in the rain. It was one of those pernicious morning rains characterizing the time of year that some Vancouverites call "the west coast monsoon." Soaking wet, he entered Stew's building, grabbed the express elevator, and within moments, landed in one of the two magnificent leather couches in Stew's office.
Although Stuart was one of the biggest asset managers in Canada, his office looked like a closet, compared to Gary's -who at this moment was shaking at the idea of descending the social ladder a lot faster than he had climbed it. Eventually, if this job soured, the descent would put him six feet under.
"Stu, I'm in deep shit..." Gary summarized the situation in a few chopped sentences, enough time for Stu to hand him a stiff drink.
"So, if I get it, you think your clients got stung by these Swiss bad guys...Jeeze, aren't they all honest in Switzerland?" He smiled like someone in the habit of dealing with poisonous snakes, "...and you need to find someone who will be able to demonstrate they did it knowingly...and you need to do this before closure, so your clients can walk out of this deal without losing a fortune?"
Gary looked at him with resignation. Stu had the ability to synthesize the most complex situations. He admired that. Gary shook his head, and stared at the carpet. Now he wished Stu would synthesize an answer to this mess.
"Yeah, exactly. Look, you know me -I don't lose my cool easily, but this job is putting me in a terrible bind. Don't you see? I could be ruined, totally ruined, out of the scene!"
"Well, there're a number of very good and competent experts working in very reputable firms out there."
"Yeah, yeah. But Stew, I don't want a local guy. I had some advice by a local who was supposedly reliable. Now I don't know if this guy was already in the Swiss's pocket before I came in the picture. Hell, I don't know if the Swiss paid half of Vancouver in order to make sure they'd get rid of that damned property!"
"Well, being a geological consultant is becoming a dangerous profession. Did you see today's newspapers?"
"No, what do you mean?"
"Have a look." Stew handed Gary The Vancouver Sun. The headlines read:
Vancouver Police Investigate Beating and Sabotage
Last night at 8P.M. city firemen and police responded to a smoke alarm at 825 West Georgia Street. Officials found the body of a badly beaten man in the back alley. The identity of the man has not been released by the police, but reportedly he was the victim a of severe beating, with multiple fractures to his arms and legs. Sources at St. Paul Hospital report he is in a coma. They will not release his name until next of kin are notified. According to witnesses at the scene, the victim is a geological consultant whose offices are in the building. The fire apparently started on the same floor as the victim's office. A Fire Department spokesperson said the fire alarm system had been tampered with and arson investigators are being called.
Gary's hands trembled, his face drained of color to the point where he resembled a cadaver. A thin string of perspiration beaded on his upper lip.
"Stu, that's him!"
"Who?"
"That's him," choked Gary, "that's the consultant I hired to advise me on the land!"
"My God," said Stuart, "do you think your client did it?"
"Well, it doesn't seem like a particularly Swiss technique does it? They drop people in melted cheese, don't they?" replied Gary with strained sarcasm. Then, in a cynical, detached tone, he continued, more to himself than to Stuart. "Masuyama and Miyahata, the right arm of Tatsuya, arrived in town less than a week ago." Gary suddenly sat up straight on the couch. "Now, I'm not saying they did this themselves, believe me, these people have a network of extremely efficient and well -trained specialists that they use whenever they feel it's more expedient to use their methods instead of lawyers and courtrooms -but I've got the feeling the guy tried to get some quick bucks out of them, without understanding who he was dealing with. He certainly knew something that he didn't tell me, the bastard. So, you see, Stu, I really need someone, and it has to be an outsider."
"Well, if you're willing to pay the price, there is an acquaintance of mine who could fit the profile...but let me tell you, I don't think he'll come cheap, and he's very busy."
"Stu, just get him here. Money is not an issue now!"
"Right. OK, Gary, I'll try my best to get in touch with him. He's Dr. Zeno Santucci. He works for a company called ESR, Earth Systems Research. They have an office here in Vancouver, but they work world-wide, have offices all over the place. They opened the office here not too long ago just to pamper one of their big international mining clients. Zeno's the kind of guy who lives in a plane, and has at least three fully-equipped apartments strategically positioned around the globe so he can survive the kind of life his success writes for him."
"Is he married? Does he have a family?"
"What the hell's that got to do with anything, Gary?"
"Well, I'm putting my life in the hands of a stranger. I'd at least like to know something about the man who could save my life-or sentence me to death!"
"Well, he must have been married once, or something, because he has three kids. One of them is actually here in Vancouver, the other two, I believe are in Switzerland."
"That's certainly a strange family arrangement, isn't it." Gary closed his eyes.
He was beginning to feel calmer, in control again.
"Well, yeah I guess, it is, but the guy maintains a very close relationship with his kids. He has a couple hobbies -cooking, and skiing. Actually he could have been a professional in both." Stew paused with his hand on the phone. "I've known him for many years now, we met on the slopes, in Verbier, Switzerland, and we're still very good friends."
"Well, Stew, it seems like you know him well enough, and if you trust his capabilities, then I guess I do too."
November 3rd, Vancouver, B.C. Canada, Gary Morton has a rude awakening, No 29
Gary Morton was stunned by the idea his career could come to an end just like that. Bad news had reached his office like a lightening bolt out of the clear sky. The situation he faced was difficult and potentially very damaging. Bad news had reached is office like a lightning bolt out of the clear sky. On October 30th, just before the weekend, his stupid secretary had not forwarded a fax, believing that it wasn't urgent -or so she said, just before dashing from his office in tears to seek refuge in the women's room.
Gary Morton's face had flushed with anger then turned pale with humiliation. His brain constantly replayed a movie of his life, as he desperately tried to devise a plan to help him minimize the damage. The pain in his chest became so acute, for a moment he wondered if he was going to have a cardiac arrest.
Gary had started as a young university student interested in the Japanese culture and language. An idealist, his twelve years spent studying Japanese literature and culture at the University of British Columbia had left him jobless, but fluent in Japanese -capable of reading any text in one of the three writing styles: Hiragana, Katakana, and Ganji. One day, a friend suggested Gary should get his act together, and perhaps embark upon some other studies -something that would bring in an income. So, he entered law school, with little enthusiasm, though by the time he was finished, Gary's Japanese studies turned to be the best investment of his life.
About the time Gary had been admitted to the bar, and had hung up his shingle, the Japanese had indeed started showing an incredible interest living, investing and buying real estate in Vancouver. The Japanese needed a Japanese-speaking Canadian lawyer, of which there was only one specimen in town -Gary Morton. In a few years, despite the fact he was a foreigner, a gaijin, he won the confidence of small private businessmen as well as large corporate clients. His Japanese clients brought in a few million dollars over the years. It was money he didn't have time to spend even now that he was reaching fifty-five.
Currently, Dipak Malhotra, an Indian broker based in London, had placed Gary's best clients, a group of very honorable and well-respected Japanese developers and business people in contact with an international group of investors based in Switzerland. Through a London organization controlled by ROTHIDA International Holdings of Zürich, the Swiss owned a large piece of pristine property near the very wealthy community of West Vancouver. Strategically located, the property was bound to become extremely desirable for development.
The Swiss wanted to sell. The Japanese wanted to invest. Malhotra was earning brokerage fees for bringing the two groups together, and Gary had been charged to write the contract. Piece of cake. A couple hundred thousand in his pocket, everybody happy, routine work, big bucks. But this time the shit had hit the fan.
Unbeknown to Gary, the Swiss company was a group of nasty crooks, as Gary had now learned.
A few years earlier they had acquired a property that was severely endangered by a potential geohazard which could jeopardize future chances of developing the land. He knew from prior experience that geohazard is a technical term encompassing all the hazards due to the particular geology of a site, including earthquakes, landslides, rockfalls, flooding, and many other phenomena. Since Vancouver was known all over the world as a seismic zone, Gary thought it was probably an earthquake-triggered landslide problem indicated here, probably a dormant phenomena. Dormant slides are particularly nasty geohazards. They may be the result of ancient geological activity, in some cases as old as the last glaciation, and may have been stable for generations. In this case, it would have been very difficult to detect in the field, until it manifested itself and destroyed whatever had been built on it. In order to make sure they could unload the land on someone else, the Swiss had apparently engaged in a broad-based conspiracy including corruption, lies, falsifying documents, and intimidating local witnesses in order to sell this rotten apple to Gary's Japanese clients without them even suspecting the existence of the geohazard. They stood to lose a fortune on the deal.
Gary as usual had foreseen the need for protective clauses in the contract, but to get out of this underhanded deal, his clients had either to prove there was a deliberate intention to hide evidence by the seller, or face a financial penalty. In this case, several million dollars were on the line. Time was of the essence. There was a contractual deadline-noon, November 28th -the standard 30 day clause. If his Japanese clients lost, Gary knew his career, and probably his life, would come to an unfortunate end.
Curiously enough, Masuyama and Miyahata, the assistants of his long-term client,Tatsuya, had brought up the subject themselves, in a very direct way, contrary to traditional Japanese practice. Under these circumstances, it would be difficult to save face -for Gary or for his clients. So many years of work in the Japanese culture had changed Gary's way of seeing the world to such an extent that most of the time he felt very nihonjin, very much like a Japanese man.
If the clients had not detected the problem, there were lots of chances they could have developed the land without ever knowing about the hidden natural menace. The geohazard could have remained dormant for years, maybe never manifesting itself -if a strong earthquake didn't hit the area. Even if it did happen, most likely no one would have bothered trying to prove the phenomenon was preexisting. By that time, his clients would have already sold all the units and been long gone. The Swiss would have made their money, and the clients wouldn't even have known they'd been stung.
On the other hand, Gary despaired, the worse case scenario would have occurred if something happened before the end of construction. His clients would incur enormous losses. They would probably start questioning the soundness of the geology, and anyway, they would never forgive Gary for leading them into trouble. He knew Japanese organizations only too well to realize his career would not be the only thing to come to an end.
He knew it was futile to toy with these ideas. Unfortunately for him there was no other option than getting out of the deal at any price. The Japanese had not really detected the problem by themselves. They had let slip, intentionally or by mistake, the fact that someone from Vancouver had warned them. This was bad, very bad news from Gary's point of view, because it probably meant his clients had already brought in another advisor.
He lifted the phone...
Gary Morton's face had flushed with anger then turned pale with humiliation. His brain constantly replayed a movie of his life, as he desperately tried to devise a plan to help him minimize the damage. The pain in his chest became so acute, for a moment he wondered if he was going to have a cardiac arrest.
Gary had started as a young university student interested in the Japanese culture and language. An idealist, his twelve years spent studying Japanese literature and culture at the University of British Columbia had left him jobless, but fluent in Japanese -capable of reading any text in one of the three writing styles: Hiragana, Katakana, and Ganji. One day, a friend suggested Gary should get his act together, and perhaps embark upon some other studies -something that would bring in an income. So, he entered law school, with little enthusiasm, though by the time he was finished, Gary's Japanese studies turned to be the best investment of his life.
About the time Gary had been admitted to the bar, and had hung up his shingle, the Japanese had indeed started showing an incredible interest living, investing and buying real estate in Vancouver. The Japanese needed a Japanese-speaking Canadian lawyer, of which there was only one specimen in town -Gary Morton. In a few years, despite the fact he was a foreigner, a gaijin, he won the confidence of small private businessmen as well as large corporate clients. His Japanese clients brought in a few million dollars over the years. It was money he didn't have time to spend even now that he was reaching fifty-five.
Currently, Dipak Malhotra, an Indian broker based in London, had placed Gary's best clients, a group of very honorable and well-respected Japanese developers and business people in contact with an international group of investors based in Switzerland. Through a London organization controlled by ROTHIDA International Holdings of Zürich, the Swiss owned a large piece of pristine property near the very wealthy community of West Vancouver. Strategically located, the property was bound to become extremely desirable for development.
The Swiss wanted to sell. The Japanese wanted to invest. Malhotra was earning brokerage fees for bringing the two groups together, and Gary had been charged to write the contract. Piece of cake. A couple hundred thousand in his pocket, everybody happy, routine work, big bucks. But this time the shit had hit the fan.
Unbeknown to Gary, the Swiss company was a group of nasty crooks, as Gary had now learned.
A few years earlier they had acquired a property that was severely endangered by a potential geohazard which could jeopardize future chances of developing the land. He knew from prior experience that geohazard is a technical term encompassing all the hazards due to the particular geology of a site, including earthquakes, landslides, rockfalls, flooding, and many other phenomena. Since Vancouver was known all over the world as a seismic zone, Gary thought it was probably an earthquake-triggered landslide problem indicated here, probably a dormant phenomena. Dormant slides are particularly nasty geohazards. They may be the result of ancient geological activity, in some cases as old as the last glaciation, and may have been stable for generations. In this case, it would have been very difficult to detect in the field, until it manifested itself and destroyed whatever had been built on it. In order to make sure they could unload the land on someone else, the Swiss had apparently engaged in a broad-based conspiracy including corruption, lies, falsifying documents, and intimidating local witnesses in order to sell this rotten apple to Gary's Japanese clients without them even suspecting the existence of the geohazard. They stood to lose a fortune on the deal.
Gary as usual had foreseen the need for protective clauses in the contract, but to get out of this underhanded deal, his clients had either to prove there was a deliberate intention to hide evidence by the seller, or face a financial penalty. In this case, several million dollars were on the line. Time was of the essence. There was a contractual deadline-noon, November 28th -the standard 30 day clause. If his Japanese clients lost, Gary knew his career, and probably his life, would come to an unfortunate end.
Curiously enough, Masuyama and Miyahata, the assistants of his long-term client,Tatsuya, had brought up the subject themselves, in a very direct way, contrary to traditional Japanese practice. Under these circumstances, it would be difficult to save face -for Gary or for his clients. So many years of work in the Japanese culture had changed Gary's way of seeing the world to such an extent that most of the time he felt very nihonjin, very much like a Japanese man.
If the clients had not detected the problem, there were lots of chances they could have developed the land without ever knowing about the hidden natural menace. The geohazard could have remained dormant for years, maybe never manifesting itself -if a strong earthquake didn't hit the area. Even if it did happen, most likely no one would have bothered trying to prove the phenomenon was preexisting. By that time, his clients would have already sold all the units and been long gone. The Swiss would have made their money, and the clients wouldn't even have known they'd been stung.
On the other hand, Gary despaired, the worse case scenario would have occurred if something happened before the end of construction. His clients would incur enormous losses. They would probably start questioning the soundness of the geology, and anyway, they would never forgive Gary for leading them into trouble. He knew Japanese organizations only too well to realize his career would not be the only thing to come to an end.
He knew it was futile to toy with these ideas. Unfortunately for him there was no other option than getting out of the deal at any price. The Japanese had not really detected the problem by themselves. They had let slip, intentionally or by mistake, the fact that someone from Vancouver had warned them. This was bad, very bad news from Gary's point of view, because it probably meant his clients had already brought in another advisor.
He lifted the phone...
November 3rd, Muscat, Oman, Zeno flies to the oil fields, No 28
Zeno left Muscat in a bad mood. He wasn't too happy about taking this damn propeller shuttle. The plane was an old Fokker operated by the Omani Civil Aviation Company, a company that only existed to service the oil fields spread out all over the Omani desert.
A few weeks before, two ESR engineers almost died when another of these Fokkers had trouble landing in Dahla, one of the hubs in the south Oman oil development. Of course, no one would never know if human error or mechanical failure was responsible for the accident, but nevertheless, the plane had been completely destroyed. It was a miracle there were no victims. Zeno reminded himself the Fokker was perfectly adapted to rough desert conditions, and was designed to land on the unpaved runways that constituted the backbone of the personnel transport network.
After experiencing the standard first five minutes of abject terror, when the plane fights to get enough altitude to hop over the mountains rising steeply just behind the coast, Zeno started to admire the view.
From the air, the Omani desert was absolutely magnificent, changing by the season. It still bore the marks of violently erosive fluvial activity. The mountainous areas were decorated by emerald oases shaped like huge immobile snakes hiding in the valleys and ravines.
These contrasted with the moonscape features of the low lands with their amorphous dunes, and disturbed flats where markings from old exploratory tracks would stay imprinted forever. The plane passed over successions of rocky jebels, or desert hills, etching a shadow along their craggy surfaces.
In Marmul, Zeno was picked up by his driver, Mahmoud, and driven to the Qurum Production Station. He was getting sick and tired of these trips in the desert. Travelling at a maximum speed of 80 km/h, the speed of their journey was regulated by the car's electronic circuitry set to deliver a five second alert if the regulatory maximum speed was exceeded, and then cut off the engine for twenty minutes if the speed was not reduced.
Good drivers would go between 75 km/h and 85 km/h, letting the bloody device whistle for 3.5 seconds and slowing down to the regulatory speed just before cut-off. It was a delirant game, in a desperately flat desert, with the whistle slowly hypnotizing the driver and the passengers.
In southern Oman, all the vehicles were equipped with roof engine exhausts to handle the sudden floods triggered by rare but violent storms. Each vehicle was linked by radio to the Operation Manager's Office, and the roads were of exceptionally good quality, 15 meters and more wide, with ample roundabouts at crossings designed to accommodate the drilling towers and derricks constantly moving among different locations in the desert.
Loaded on huge, low platform trailers after being disassembled, the towers, derricks, barracks, pipes, ancillary mud treatment pools, and pumping stations were all transported the same way. For the first-time visitor to the Omani desert, fifteen to twenty such trailers, pulled in convoy by huge triple-axle trucks with blazing white headlights, and rotating yellow roof lights, were an unforgettable vision.
Built out of nothing in the flat rocky desert, Qurum Production Station rose as a vast Club-Med-type village with a large swimming pool, tennis courts, a football field, and a club that even served beer and booze. Exploration and the resulting implementation of the oil fields in central-south Oman had proven to be very challenging. In the beginning, there were no roads crossing over the mountains. Everything was shipped by boat to Dumq, on the Arabian Sea.
From Dumq, roads similar to the one Zeno had taken from Marmoul to Qurum had been created to penetrate the interior of Al Wusta. With the extreme desert conditions hundreds of miles away from anything resembling a town, the landscape was all rocks and sand; working there was almost like colonizing the moon.
This was a dangerous environment. Curiously enough, the chance of sudden death by drowning was high -the last thing most visitors would expect- but, extremely violent rains could provoke flash floods in the wadis, those low topographic channels that looked like dried creek beds. A wall of water, suddenly cascading down a wadi, was capable of wiping out roads, vehicles and any other man-made constructions set in its path.
Unluckily, the infrequency of these rainy events, one every four to six years, was not sufficient to create underground drinking water reserves. The water found in the underground in the Al Wusta region was brackish, and extremely saline in some areas. To sustain life in the oil field camps, water was extracted from wells and treated by a desalination-purification process called reverse osmosis, a fairly common but expensive water treatment method that uses synthetic membranes to separate clear water and concentrate in a much smaller portion all the impurities.
Because of the cost involved in the operation, great care was taken in making sure water was reused for maintaining, at great effort, some vegetation within the camp limits. Outside the camp, there was no vegetation except maybe a forest of Prosopsys Trees growing in a semi-arid oasis along one of the major wadis of the region, Wadi Runib. Runib Forest, as it was sometimes called, was distinctive in satellite photographs, the only green patch for hundreds of miles around.
At the moment the car stopped in front of the Operation Building, the oil field's nerve center, Zeno turned to his driver: "Mahmoud, I shall not leave the camp today, but please be ready early tomorrow morning -we'll leave at five thirty." Smiling broadly at the early close to his day, Mahmoud registered the departure time. His smile vanished.
A few weeks before, two ESR engineers almost died when another of these Fokkers had trouble landing in Dahla, one of the hubs in the south Oman oil development. Of course, no one would never know if human error or mechanical failure was responsible for the accident, but nevertheless, the plane had been completely destroyed. It was a miracle there were no victims. Zeno reminded himself the Fokker was perfectly adapted to rough desert conditions, and was designed to land on the unpaved runways that constituted the backbone of the personnel transport network.
After experiencing the standard first five minutes of abject terror, when the plane fights to get enough altitude to hop over the mountains rising steeply just behind the coast, Zeno started to admire the view.
From the air, the Omani desert was absolutely magnificent, changing by the season. It still bore the marks of violently erosive fluvial activity. The mountainous areas were decorated by emerald oases shaped like huge immobile snakes hiding in the valleys and ravines.
These contrasted with the moonscape features of the low lands with their amorphous dunes, and disturbed flats where markings from old exploratory tracks would stay imprinted forever. The plane passed over successions of rocky jebels, or desert hills, etching a shadow along their craggy surfaces.
In Marmul, Zeno was picked up by his driver, Mahmoud, and driven to the Qurum Production Station. He was getting sick and tired of these trips in the desert. Travelling at a maximum speed of 80 km/h, the speed of their journey was regulated by the car's electronic circuitry set to deliver a five second alert if the regulatory maximum speed was exceeded, and then cut off the engine for twenty minutes if the speed was not reduced.
Good drivers would go between 75 km/h and 85 km/h, letting the bloody device whistle for 3.5 seconds and slowing down to the regulatory speed just before cut-off. It was a delirant game, in a desperately flat desert, with the whistle slowly hypnotizing the driver and the passengers.
In southern Oman, all the vehicles were equipped with roof engine exhausts to handle the sudden floods triggered by rare but violent storms. Each vehicle was linked by radio to the Operation Manager's Office, and the roads were of exceptionally good quality, 15 meters and more wide, with ample roundabouts at crossings designed to accommodate the drilling towers and derricks constantly moving among different locations in the desert.
Loaded on huge, low platform trailers after being disassembled, the towers, derricks, barracks, pipes, ancillary mud treatment pools, and pumping stations were all transported the same way. For the first-time visitor to the Omani desert, fifteen to twenty such trailers, pulled in convoy by huge triple-axle trucks with blazing white headlights, and rotating yellow roof lights, were an unforgettable vision.
Built out of nothing in the flat rocky desert, Qurum Production Station rose as a vast Club-Med-type village with a large swimming pool, tennis courts, a football field, and a club that even served beer and booze. Exploration and the resulting implementation of the oil fields in central-south Oman had proven to be very challenging. In the beginning, there were no roads crossing over the mountains. Everything was shipped by boat to Dumq, on the Arabian Sea.
From Dumq, roads similar to the one Zeno had taken from Marmoul to Qurum had been created to penetrate the interior of Al Wusta. With the extreme desert conditions hundreds of miles away from anything resembling a town, the landscape was all rocks and sand; working there was almost like colonizing the moon.
This was a dangerous environment. Curiously enough, the chance of sudden death by drowning was high -the last thing most visitors would expect- but, extremely violent rains could provoke flash floods in the wadis, those low topographic channels that looked like dried creek beds. A wall of water, suddenly cascading down a wadi, was capable of wiping out roads, vehicles and any other man-made constructions set in its path.
Unluckily, the infrequency of these rainy events, one every four to six years, was not sufficient to create underground drinking water reserves. The water found in the underground in the Al Wusta region was brackish, and extremely saline in some areas. To sustain life in the oil field camps, water was extracted from wells and treated by a desalination-purification process called reverse osmosis, a fairly common but expensive water treatment method that uses synthetic membranes to separate clear water and concentrate in a much smaller portion all the impurities.
Because of the cost involved in the operation, great care was taken in making sure water was reused for maintaining, at great effort, some vegetation within the camp limits. Outside the camp, there was no vegetation except maybe a forest of Prosopsys Trees growing in a semi-arid oasis along one of the major wadis of the region, Wadi Runib. Runib Forest, as it was sometimes called, was distinctive in satellite photographs, the only green patch for hundreds of miles around.
At the moment the car stopped in front of the Operation Building, the oil field's nerve center, Zeno turned to his driver: "Mahmoud, I shall not leave the camp today, but please be ready early tomorrow morning -we'll leave at five thirty." Smiling broadly at the early close to his day, Mahmoud registered the departure time. His smile vanished.
November 2nd, 23:00: Al Bustan Palace Hotel Gardens, Muscat, Oman, Zeno and Irina are observed, No 27
"You getting any reception?" asked Ahmed, assistant to the Leader, through the miniaturized mike hidden in the collar of his gardener's uniform. His comrade, Muhammed, was posted near the shore, pretending to rake the sand not far from Irina and Zeno's table. He turned his back to the couple and answered after a long moment.
"Tawak kalto al Allah," cursed Muhammed,"No, I'm trying, but there is too much noise from the patrons and from the sea. These bloody infidels have all abused wine and liquor, they scream instead of talking. Have you seen all these half-naked sharmuta? Western whores. I could kill them all-dirty creatures! The Leader and his allies are going to be pissed off if we can't get any information. Allah praise the Leader and burn to ashes these people and all the gadgets they have brought here."
"Muhammed, take it easy," hissed Ahmed, "Insha-Allah, in a few days the Jihad will wipe this country clean of these infidels and their whores."
"Look, do you recognize the guy under the tree?" urged Muhammed.
"Yes, it is Schwayb, the Russian sharmuta's agent." whispered Ahmed. "Can you hear anything?"
"No. But look, she is leaving the table with Schwayb...and look, she..." Muhammed almost choked as Irina kissed Zeno on the cheek.
Unaware of being observed, Zeno wandered back to his room feeling dully contented. While slipping the knot from his tie, he walked by the window. Glancing below he saw Irina, Schwayb, and a third man, a giant, probably an East Indian, walking briskly towards a Mercedes 600 rakishly parked right in the middle of the Hotel drive.
"Tawak kalto al Allah," cursed Muhammed,"No, I'm trying, but there is too much noise from the patrons and from the sea. These bloody infidels have all abused wine and liquor, they scream instead of talking. Have you seen all these half-naked sharmuta? Western whores. I could kill them all-dirty creatures! The Leader and his allies are going to be pissed off if we can't get any information. Allah praise the Leader and burn to ashes these people and all the gadgets they have brought here."
"Muhammed, take it easy," hissed Ahmed, "Insha-Allah, in a few days the Jihad will wipe this country clean of these infidels and their whores."
"Look, do you recognize the guy under the tree?" urged Muhammed.
"Yes, it is Schwayb, the Russian sharmuta's agent." whispered Ahmed. "Can you hear anything?"
"No. But look, she is leaving the table with Schwayb...and look, she..." Muhammed almost choked as Irina kissed Zeno on the cheek.
Unaware of being observed, Zeno wandered back to his room feeling dully contented. While slipping the knot from his tie, he walked by the window. Glancing below he saw Irina, Schwayb, and a third man, a giant, probably an East Indian, walking briskly towards a Mercedes 600 rakishly parked right in the middle of the Hotel drive.
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Book One
The Santucci Brothers Trilogy, 1999, F. Oboni
