Operation Scheherazade
by Sinbad
Chapter 13
Two days later Ricky had a surprise visit in the morning, when he was home alone. The doorbell rang and Mohammed answered, and ushered into the large hallway Roland, the ambassador's son.
“Hello, Roly!”
“Hi there, Rick. I didn't know you were here, thought everyone had gone after the war. Are you back to live, or just for the hols?”
“Just the hols. My Dad came back to finish his contract but Mum's stayed in England. I've come out for the school holiday. You?”
“Yes, I'm only here for the holiday. Do you want to come up to my place for the day? Bring your swimming things, Mum says we can use the pool, or we could go riding if you'd rather.”
Ricky didn't need to think long – he was bored to tears with the routine of mornings at home and afternoons at the hotel pool so a break was attractive – and with Roland. It would be good to have a friend to spend time with, even if he was still slightly uncomfortable with Roly's easy display of superior wealth. He wrote a note for Maureen and gave it to Mohammed, and grabbed his swimming roll, his trunks rolled in a towel, before following Roland out of the house to the car waiting with the engine running and Roly's mother in the driver's seat. And they drove out to the outskirts of the city and then back in on the road that took them through the bustling souk of Djebel Amman where at Roland's request they stopped and bought glasses of orange juice from a vendor with a lever operated press with which he squeezed oranges to order. From there they made their way to the tree-lined slopes of Djebel Hussein.
There was a military checkpoint on the road into the big palace compound but Mrs Ambassador had the necessary pass to gain entry. She drove the two boys up the road that led to the King's palace and took a left turn through some woodland to the Ambassador's residence. The British Ambassador was the only foreign dignitary privileged to occupy a residence within the grounds of the palace and it was an indicator of King Hussein's close ties with Britain, having been educated at Eton and Sandhurst. Now Roland was shortly to start at Eton, and tended to assume that other boys he knew led similarly privileged lives. Ricky's one term at boarding school had been a very different experience.
The Residence was an imposing building made of neatly dressed stone and marble, with a verandah at the rear and a large private pool beyond it. The grounds included tennis courts and squash courts in a wooden building that also housed stables. They drew up at the front entrance and the boys ran up the steps and into the house. Ricky noticed the cool and guessed at an efficient air conditioning system. Roland led the way to his suite of rooms – a living room with television and armchairs, a bedroom, bathroom and separate dressing room. Ricky had been there before but was still a little overawed. The son of the Ambassador on the other hand just pulled his clothes off and sat on his bed to push his legs into his swimming trunks and then stood again, almost instantly ready to swim.
“Come on, slowcoach!” he called and headed for the door.
“Wait for me, then?”
“Well hurry, I want to swim!”
Ricky changed as quickly as he could and, remembering his towel, followed Roland down the long corridor and out onto the verandah. A tray with a jug of lemonade and ice cubes was already in place on a table just out of the sun and Roland poured each of them a generous glass. Ricky tasted it – freshly squeezed lemons and lots of sugar, wonderfully refreshing in the hot dry climate.
Roland was the first to put his glass down and run to the pool, and he judged his steps to launch himself into a long dive at the last moment, hitting the water smoothly and with little splash, his momentum carrying him half way down the pool underwater, a long torpedo shape beginning with fingers and ending with toes. He broke the surface and smoothly brought his limbs into a crawl, completing the length of the pool with elegant steady strokes, bringing his mouth to one side just long enough each alternate stroke to take a breath. He was a powerful, skilled swimmer, and so was Ricky – one of the benefits of an upbringing where the climate militates against any kind of activity in the afternoons other than swimming, combined with the ready availability of excellent pools.
Ricky joined him in the pool after finishing his lemonade, executing a similarly professional dive but switching to breast stroke on breaking the surface. Ricky's breast stroke and his back stroke were both better than his crawl.
The boys spent the afternoon in or by the pool. A servant brought a round of sandwiches early on and the boys ate enthusiastically, then they alternated between swimming and sunbathing, their deep brown skins, as dark or even darker than the native boys they knew – they had more time to sunbathe, and no disapproving parent to warn them against it – protecting them from burning so long as they didn't overdo it. They talked about the holiday, and what they had done and planned to do. Roland hadn't been to the Hill Climb but he was going with his father to the camel races, it was one of the Ambassador's official duties. They promised to look out for each other.
Late in the afternoon, the Ambassador himself arrived after his day's work at the Embassy. He came out to the verandah and watched the boys in the pool for a time, nursing what looked like a rather large neat whisky. When the boys next climbed, dripping, out of the pool, he called his son over and asked him to fetch him another drink. Once Roland had moved out of earshot, he called Ricky over.
“Richard, isn't it? There's something I think you may need to know. I've had a message from the Foreign Office about you. Apparently you may have need of our help and I'm authorised to give it without limits. I don't know what you might need help with young man, which is not a position I like to find myself in, but from time to time the F.O. can be a bit secretive that way and we get used to it. Would you care to tell me any more?” Ricky looked dumbfounded and didn't answer. “No? Well, very wise, probably, I won't press you on it. However just be aware you have carte blanche at the Embassy. Please don't get my son involved, though? He's a little hothead and I rather imagine if ever he was let loose on a Foreign Office project he'd start World War Three by mistake!”
Ricky recovered his wits enough to respond: “Yes, sir, thank you sir. There is a message I would like to get back to England if you can do that for me.”
“Yes that's easy enough, we'll include it in tomorrow's diplomatic bag. Will that be soon enough?”
“I should think so, sir. Can I write it down?”
“Certainly. Go into my office, just along the corridor – it's the second door on the left – you'll find paper and pens on the desk there. If you just leave your message on the desk there I'll see it gets to its destination. When Roly gets back I'll keep him here and tell him you've gone to the toilet. If you want the toilet, by the way, it's further along the corridor on the other side. It's marked.”
Ricky turned to find the office and the Ambassador settled himself back in his chair to enjoy his drink. Just before he reached the edge of the verandah and the door that led inside and to the corridor, he turned back.
“Mr Fielding?”
“Yes, Richard?”
“I'm not meddling in Foreign Office affairs, it isn't like that.”
“Don't worry. I know that much. I do understand you've been catapulted into this situation, that it is none of your doing but that you're trying to do your best for your country. I think it's very laudable and I hope it all works out well for you. You will have an adventure to tell your grandchildren about!”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don't mention it. Now, go write!”
- and Ricky scuttled off to the office, which he found very solemn and dour. Paper and pen were easy to find, and he sat on a leather swivel chair, his bare legs and still slightly damp trunks gripping the seat surface uncomfortably, and wrote down everything about the mysterious men, the one he never saw in Ajlun forest, and the one who followed him around in Jerash. And then he wrote a question:
Should I be worried about this, and what can I do about it? Is it safe to continue to try to contact the King?
He folded the paper neatly in four and wrote on the outside:
For Mr C Farquharson, Foreign Office, London
He was just congratulating himself on knowing the right way to write Lord Beaulieu's name when suddenly the realisation hit him like a stab to the heart: he was supposed to use his special pen! And he didn't have it with him. It was agreed that writing with his special pen would identify the message as genuine, as coming from him. So if a message arrived written with an ordinary pen it would be rejected as fake.
Suddenly he was overwhelmed with misery. He had been loaded with an enormous responsibility, and now everything was going wrong. His Dad was preoccupied with his new love interest, he was being stalked by scary men in suits, he had failed his original assignment to get his message to the King at the motor race, and now when he needed to call for help from Mr Farquharson he couldn't do even that right. He put his head down and cried.
He forgot where he was and the passing of time, he just sat and sobbed. In fact some five more minutes passed before the door to the office opened and Mr Fielding's head appeared around it. Seeing Ricky and the state he was in, the Ambassador moved quickly to his side and, putting his arm around the boy's shoulder, pulled him to his side in a gesture of sympathy. With his other hand he pulled a drawer of the desk open and plucked a handful of paper tissues from a box, and offered them to Ricky, who took them and blew his nose, and dabbed his face.
Ricky calmed down and gradually recovered sufficiently to look up and say: “Thank you.”
“You can tell me all about it if you like, I'm sworn to secrecy – it goes with the job.”
“Where's Roly?”
“Swimming. I tell you what, why don't you lock the door and put the key in your pocket. And then settle yourself down and tell me enough so I know how to help.”
Ricky did as he was told, reasonably certain that their conversation wouldn't be audible in the corridor, through the heavy door. The ambassador had moved to an armchair by a small octagonal table with fretwork legs and a top decorated with intricate marquetry and inlaid with shimmering mother of pearl. When Ricky had locked the door he gestured to the other armchair, the other side of the little table, and Ricky sat down.
“Now, young man, tell me as much as you feel you can and we'll see if we can't make it better between us.”
Ricky felt the weight of responsibility lift from his shoulders and he smiled a small smile.
And he began telling his tale. He told the Ambassador nearly everything. In great detail he told him about the stalker, or stalkers, and about failing to pass his message to the King.
Mr Fielding listened quietly, interrupting only once when Ricky told about the men who said something to King Hussein just before it would have been his turn to ask for his autograph, and about how the King had announced that he had to go immediately after.
“Ah, I may be able to fill a gap in your story there. His Majesty mentioned it to me. Apparently his bodyguards alerted him to the presence in the crowd of a possible assassin. They persuaded him to cut the autograph signing short and he left. Hussein hates to be isolated from his people and he ignores his minders much of the time. Not many heads of state in this region would dream of signing autographs but Hussein does it regularly. He's very popular. But even so he has survived two assassination attempts and his bodyguards work closely with the intelligence agencies to keep the great man safe. And in this case they had good reason to warn him, the man they had caught sight of has been identified by Interpol as a known hitman. What's worse, they didn't apprehend him, he slipped away.”
“What does he look like? Could he have been the man who followed me in Jerash?”
“I really don't know, Richard. I might be able to find out, though. Would you like me to try?”
“Yes, please, I'm sure that would help.”
When Ricky had finished telling the Ambassador his story up to the point where he couldn't send a message to Mr Farquharson because he didn't have the pen with him, Mr Fielding smiled and said:
“That's easily put right. When it's time for you to go home, I'll give you a lift. When we get to your house, run in and write your message and bring it straight back out to me. I'll wait in my car. And I'll get it back to London in tomorrow's despatches. How's that?”
Ricky beamed his relief. “That's wonderful. Thank you so much!”
“That's settled, then. Time for another swim before tea?”
As they left the office, a servant was passing in the corridor with a fresh tray of lemonade. Mr Fielding intercepted it and handed the tray to Ricky.
“You take it out, and if Roland wants to know what took you so long you can say after visiting the toilet you went to get more lemonade and waited while the cook made some fresh.”
In the end Roly didn't mention it, too much involved in his game in the pool. He had a Li-lo air bed that he was trying to clamber on to, but it was unstable with his weight on it and each time he got part way on, it capsized and dumped him back in the water. He was shrieking with delight and Ricky enthusiastically joined him. They worked out a co-operative strategy; one held the air bed steady while the other clambered up, then the first assisted the other onto the bed. Unless they dangled their legs into the water either side of the bed it was still unstable and more than once they found themselves turfed into the drink, and came up shouting with exuberant happiness.
Eventually it was time to return home and Mr Fielding was as good as his word. Roly wanted to come for the ride but his father forbade him, telling him his tea was ready and to tell his mother that they would have to eat without him, he'd have something when he got back.
The Ambassador did not call for his official car, a big white Bentley, but he drove his little Triumph Stag sports car, which would attract less attention, though perhaps not very much less. The King was fond of soft-top sports cars, and small boys were in the habit of peering closely into any similar car to see if it was the King driving.
They pulled up outside the Taylors' house and Ricky ran to the front door, rang the bell and was let in by Mohammed. His father was not yet home, he was glad to discover. He ran straight to his bedroom, wrote fast but in his best handwriting, a detailed account of the stalker, and added a bit about the assassin that Mr Fielding had told him about, and a request to Mr Farquharson for advice, whether to continue to try to pass his message to the King, and whether he was in any real danger and what to do about it.
He put the message in an envelope this time and sealed it, and wrote Mr C Farquharson, Foreign Office on the front. He hoped he would get the message quickly, and, more to the point, would reply quickly. How would a reply arrive? He had no idea, but he was sure he could leave that to Lord Beaulieu.
He ran back to the car and gave the envelope to Mr Fielding who promised to send it to the Foreign Office in the Diplomatic Bag the next day. The Diplomatic Bag is an arrangement internationally whereby Embassies can send information home in secret and the bag is by common consent never opened in Customs. Embassies were trusted not to use it for smuggling contraband but it was widely believed that at least some embassies had their whisky, cigarettes and caviare supplies shipped by diplomatic bag on quiet days!