Operation Scheherazade
by Sinbad
Chapter 7
Neither boy found himself able to move, panic froze them to the spot. Stick man growled at Chris:
“Beat it, you, I have business with Mr Taylor here.”
- which galvanised Chris into action. He advanced a couple of paces until he was between Stick man and Ricky. “Leave him alone! Go away or I'll scream!”
“Yes, you would, wouldn't you? But if you do...” and he shot out an arm and grabbed Chris by the neck, pulling him against himself, facing Ricky, and nearly throttling him in the process. He bent down to bring his mouth close to Chris' ear. “... if you do, I'll slit your throat from ear to ear. You got that?”
Poor Chris was now shaking with fear and nodded.
Ricky stood still, in front of Stick man and Chris, uncertain what to do. “What do you want from me?”
“There's something you and I need to discuss. In private. And once I've got rid of our hero here we can get on with it.”
“I certainly won't talk to you or anyone else without Chris. He's my best friend. We don't have secrets. And if you hurt him I certainly won't talk.”
Stick man seemed taken aback, and thought for a moment before saying “Best friend, eh? And you tell him everything?”
Ricky was confused. He couldn't tell where this conversation was going, or how much danger he was in. It was an unsettling feeling, and a very frightening experience. “Everything. So you can just let him go or you won't get me to talk!” He faltered a little in his bravado as he said this, and began to shake at the knees uncontrollably. And was interested to note that fear can cause your knees to knock for real, not just in comic books.
To his surprise, Stick man let go of Chris, and to his greater surprise Chris didn't then run away. He walked across and stood by Ricky, fumbling for his hand and holding it resolutely. Ricky looked across at his friend and tried to convey his profound gratitude in his expression.
“Okay, if that's the way it has to be, come with me, the both of you. Don't make a run for it or it'll be the worse for you. I've had enough running for one day.” He came around behind the boys and took hold of each boy's neck in one of his big hands and marched them back out of the alley and along the pavement of the High Street to just beyond the bookshop where they'd first seen him, where a big car was parked with a man in the driver's seat. He opened the rear door and pushed the boys in, closing the door behind him, then he got into the front passenger's seat.
“Okay Alan, let's go. And yes, I know I've brought two of them. I'll explain later. Just drive, okay?”
Without a word the driver started the car, put it into gear and moved into the line of traffic.
Ricky found himself weeping silently again. He looked across at Chris, who gave him a weak smile of encouragement. Neither of them dared speak, and neither man in the front of the car spoke. At one point when the car pulled up at traffic lights Chris tried the door handle but it didn't do anything – clearly the doors were designed to open only from the outside.
They could see through the windows that the car left town and took the London road. Beyond that they were lost, neither boy knowing the roads well enough. They sat glumly in silence until eventually the car turned through a pair of imposing wrought iron gates and made its way slowly up a long tree-lined driveway, spitting gravel from its tyres as it went. The car turned a final corner and left the trees behind, and a vast mansion came into view. It drew up at the wide stone staircase that led up to the entrance porch and a uniformed lady ran down the steps and opened the car door for the boys. She seemed a little nonplussed as the boys climbed out, and looked a question at Stick man, who just shrugged his shoulders.
“Follow me, boys.” he called, and without waiting, marched up the steps and into the building.
Ricky and Chris looked around them. They were clearly not near any town, and there didn't seem to be any point in making a run for it since they didn't know where they were or which way to run. So they looked at each other for support and followed the trenchcoat that was flapping around the man's legs like a great cape as he marched down a panelled corridor. The woman in the uniform followed behind them.
At the far end of the corridor, Stick man opened a big and apparently heavy dark wood door and ushered them into the room beyond. The boys walked past him into the room, an enormous room hung with vast paintings of hunting scenes. There was an ornate decorated ceiling and an intricate chandelier hanging from the centre point. The walls where there were no paintings were panelled in dark wood and there were bookshelves set into the walls in places. The whole room had a dark and foreboding atmosphere. There was not much furniture on the floor, just a desk right in the middle of the room, big enough to be in keeping with the scale of the room, and a swivel chair behind it, and gathered around the big carved stone fireplace, four generous upholstered armchairs.
There was someone in the swivel chair at the desk, and immediately the boys appeared, a voice from this chair began berating Stick man. “What's this? Two boys? Why have you brought two boys? Didn't I tell you on no account to involve anyone else, to accomplish your task in strictest secrecy and not to divulge our purpose to anyone? To anyone at all, let alone an eleven year old child??? What were you thinking of?...”
He would probably have gone on like that for some time, not letting Stick man get a word in, had not Chris butted in. “I'm twelve, actually, and if you think you can kidnap someone in broad daylight in this country you've got another think coming. You won't get away with it, you know. My father's a barrister and he will see you put in prison, you'll see.” He was pacing the carpet in front of the desk as he spoke, waving his arms around in an impressive show of bravado and would have continued, but Ricky stopped him.
“Chris, it's Mr Farquharson. Remember, the man I told you about, who explained about the banknote?”
Chris looked closely at the man, a very fat man with a lot of curly white hair and glasses, and an expressive face with piggy eyes that almost disappeared when his face scrunched up in a smile or in anger. The man Ricky had said had the odd name, Chumley Farkerson.
Suddenly everyone spoke at once. Chris started with “then why has he kidnapped us?”, Stick man started with “It couldn't be helped, my Lord – the Taylor boy wouldn't come without his friend” and Mr Farquharson said “You told this boy about me? Didn't I tell you not to breathe a word? Didn't I explain that our national security and your personal safety was at stake? Why couldn't you keep quiet?” - and of course no-one heard what anyone else was saying.
Ricky shouted at the top of his voice “Shut up everyone!” - which worked. And he turned to Mr Farquharson and said “he's right, I wouldn't come without Chris. He's my best friend and I trust him completely. And I don't have any secrets from him. And yes, I told him about you, and it doesn't matter because he won't say anything. But I want to know the same thing Chris does – why did you kidnap us?”
“I didn't. Of course not. I just sent a car to pick you up.”
Well you could have warned me. And why did that horrible man follow us all around town and then corner us in a blind alley?”
“Is that what you did, Danvers?”
“Well, it wasn't quite like that, my Lord. I was hoping there would be a moment when I could talk to young Taylor alone, but the two boys kept close together all the time. And eventually I had no option but to confront the two together, but I still tried to persuade this one, Chris, to clear off so that I could talk to young Taylor alone. Only when that didn't work I just gave up and brought them both here. I thought you would be able to deal with the matter.”
“Well, that's another fine mess you've got me into, Stan. Well what's done is done. And so we seem to have no option but to trust Chris as we've trusted Richard.”
He turned his attention to the boys who were stood to attention with their hands behind their backs in front of his desk like schoolboys in the headmaster's study – which was not far off reality, of course.
“Now, boys, it seems this has all gone wrong, rather, so let's see if we can begin the process of putting it right. Have you had your tea? No? Well, lets get something organised then and we can sit around the fire and talk while we eat. Miss Peters? Some sandwiches, biscuits, cakes? The stickier the better, I imagine? Can you manage that?”
The uniformed Miss Peters just grinned and said “Yessir!” and turned and walked out. Mr Farquharson heaved himself up and out of his chair, which gave the boys a better impression of the enormous bulk of the man, and walked slowly over to the fireplace and sank into the chair nearest the left side of the fire which was glowing brightly. The chair creaked ominously, but didn't collapse. He beckoned the boys over to sit on the two chairs opposite and by the time they were in place Miss Peters was back with a tray overloaded with food, drink and crockery. She laid it all out on a small table against one wall, and then picked the table up and placed it between the chairs in front of the fire. Then she pulled it back a little so that it was not so close that it might get singed by the fire.
“Tuck in, boys, I expect you're hungry.” she said and winked at each of them, and then turned and left the room, with what Ricky thought might be a deliberately sexy walk. His mind wandered, and he jumped slightly when Mr Farquharson spoke again.
“Now, let's talk.” He smiled his all-consuming smile and his eyes became just slits below his eyebrows for a moment.
“First of all, Richard – or can I call you Ricky? – will you introduce me to your friend? We haven't met. I think I heard you call him Chris, but otherwise...” he tailed off and Ricky spoke up.
“Who are you, really, and why have you brought us here?”
“Well, I am exactly who I said I was when we first met. I work for the government, attached to the foreign office, in that big building in London where we met, SIS.”
“So why are we here, not there?”
“Well we're very anxious not to let anyone know that we're in touch with you. We think there are probably people watching you and if they see you go into the SIS offices twice they would certainly know. Actually we think they don't know you've been there once, so we're one step ahead of them, which is good. Have another slice of cake. The one with the crusty sugar coating on top is very good, it's got lemon in it.”
Ricky was beginning to get cross. “You haven't explained why you've brought us here? What is this place?”
“Oh, haven't I? No, silly me I haven't. I'm so sorry. This is my home, it's where I live.”
“But – it's a palace – it's enormous. I've been to places like this before but they all belong to the National Trust.”
“This one doesn't, although I've been thinking of giving it to them, it costs so much to run. But it's the family heirloom, I inherited it from my father. I haven't got any children to pass it on to, so it will probably go to the NT when I die anyway.”
“Who was your father, that he had a place like this to leave to you?”
“He was Lord Farquharson of Beaulieu.” He pronounced it Farkerson of Bewley.
“He was ennobled for services to government in the days when hereditary titles were given for such things. It doesn't happen any more.”
“So you're....”
“Yes, now that he's dead, I'm Lord Farquharson of Beaulieu.”
Chris whispered to Ricky “I thought it was funny when Stick man called him 'my Lord'.”
Ricky, who knew a bit about addressing nobility, thought for a moment.
“Well, shouldn't we be calling you Lord Beaulieu?”
“Technically, yes, but it gets in the way a lot at work, so I've let it be known that at work I'm just plain Farquharson.”
Chris got the giggles at the suggestion that a man who looked like him, with a name like his, could be described as 'plain'. Ricky frowned at him, because he had more serious questions to ask.
“You still haven't explained why you kidnapped us.”
“I haven't? No, I suppose I haven't. Well, let me say I'm sorry about the way it happened, it's probably my fault, I didn't brief Danvers well enough. I just told him to bring you here without alerting anyone else that we've made contact. And he did rather bungle that, didn't he? If I'd told him all about you he might have managed it better, but we get in the habit of secrecy in my job, and we tend to tell people the absolute minimum.”
“But why did you kidnap us at all? What do you want with us?”
“Well, with the greatest of respect, we don't actually want young Chris here, he's just along for the ride as you might say. But we do want you, Ricky. We need your help.”
Ricky was still a bit cross and his anger came out unbidden at this point.
“You're going a funny way about asking for it.”
Lord Beaulieu raised his hands, palm forwards, to his shoulders in a gesture of surrender, as though he was facing a gun.
“Yes, it hasn't been my finest hour, has it? I really am very sorry. All I wanted was to have you picked up from school and chauffeured here. I rather hoped we could get you back to school before you were missed. I guess that hasn't worked, either. It's all rather a big disaster, isn't it?”
He smiled broadly again, giving the boys the impression that he wasn't too upset about his failure.
Ricky, still seething, said “Are you going to tell us what you want with me, or not?”
“Well, I'll have to talk to Chris first, if that's all right.”
Ricky looked across at his friend, who gave him a small smile of assent.
“Chris, I don't know anything about you, and I don't know how much Ricky has told you about our business together. Perhaps you could help us out a bit by telling me your full name, and your address, and what your father does for a living?”
Chris glanced at Ricky, who nodded slightly. He faced Lord Beaulieu and gave him the information he'd asked for, clearly and accurately. When he'd finished, he noticed Lord Beaulieu nod in a direction over his shoulder, and he looked around just in time to see Danvers, who had been standing by the door all this time, disappear out of the room. He looked back at the fat man and raised his eyebrows in a question.
“Sorry, he's just gone to check up on you, to find out if we know anything about you or your family.”
“Why? What's this all about?”
“Well, since Ricky is determined to have you here with him, I have to discuss things that are government secrets with the two of you. And I need to know that I can trust you both, that you won't reveal these secrets outside this room. Ricky has already let me down by telling you about me, and I have no idea how much more of his story he's told you.”
Ricky spoke up. “I've told him everything. But it's not like you think. Chris is my best friend, and I can tell him anything and he'd never tell. He's not like that. We tell each other everything!”
Lord Beaulieu put the tips of his fingers together like roof beams, and touched his joined index fingertips to his lips. “Okay, I'll take your word for it. Chris is to be trusted. So everything I have to talk to you about, he gets to know as well. Is that okay with both of you?”
After another glance at each other for reassurance, the boys both nodded.
“Well listen carefully, and I'll tell you why you're here. You will know that the war in the Middle East is between Israel and various Arab states that are her neighbours. Do you know why they're at war?”
The boys shook their heads.
“Thousands of years ago there was a nation called Israel, roughly where Israel is today. It was founded by the son of a great man called Abraham. His story is in the Bible. Now, the son was called Isaac, and his son was called Jacob Israel and that's how the nation got its name. But Isaac had an older half-brother called Ishmael who was thrown out of the household and it's thought that the Arab nations are descended from Ishmael. And Jacob had a twin brother Esau who was tricked out of his birthright and the Edomites, an ancient Arab nation, are descended from him. Much later under the Roman empire, the Jews lived in a Roman province, still the same location, called Judea, and just north from them were the Samaritans who were descended from much the same family lines, like cousins, if you like. But the Jews despised the Samaritans and wouldn't have anything to do with them. So, you see, the ancient nation of Israel developed a lot of enemies among her neighbours.
“Two thousand years ago, in the year 66AD, the Jews revolted against the Roman occupation of their country, and in retaliation, the Roman armies destroyed their cities and their capital, Jerusalem, with its famous temple in 70AD. The Jews were scattered and went to live in various other countries. From then until just about twenty years ago, there was no nation of Israel in the world, just a lot of Jewish people living in other people's countries.
“In the Second World War, the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and his henchmen, tried to conquer the whole of Europe, and intended to kill all the Jews. They said the Jews were secretly running the financial world for their own benefit and robbing the ordinary people. As you know, they failed, but the Jewish people who lived in the countries in Europe that Germany did manage to conquer during the war suffered terribly, and millions of them were killed in terrible ways in concentration camps.
“After the war, there was a movement to give the Jewish survivors their own country again. The area that had once been Israel was called Palestine and the people who lived there were Arabs. Britain had a mandate of control in the area. So Britain decided in 1948 to give the area back to the Jews, and Jewish people from all over Europe, especially from the Russian federation, the USSR as it became, and from Germany, emigrated to Israel.
“Unfortunately most of the Palestinian people who already lived there, and whose families had lived there for hundreds of years, and had farms or businesses, were virtually forced to flee from their homes and go and live as refugees in other countries, Arab countries, nearby. Ricky, a lot of the people you knew in Jordan were Palestinian refugees. Your cook housekeeper, for instance, once owned an orange grove near Jerusalem.
“Since then there has been a lot of aggression and distrust between Israel and the Arab nations she is surrounded by. Egypt has maintained a big military force close to the border with Israel and has occupied an area at the south of Israel, claiming that it is necessary for security reasons. Syria has done similar things. And Israel has felt very threatened. Also Israel wanted more territory than the British had given her. In particular, the British only gave her half of Jerusalem, and she wanted the rest of Jerusalem and all the area to the West bank of the Jordan river. So Israel went to war to get what she wanted – and at present seems to have achieved that. She has got the West Bank from Jordan, and the Gaza strip back off the Egyptians.
“But we're now very worried that this war has destabilized the whole Middle East region. Israel has made sworn enemies of most of the Arab world by this action. The USA is solidly behind Israel and has been funding enormous military growth for the Israelis. The Russians are supporting the Arabs and this could all escalate into an extension of the cold war – or even spark a real war between the superpowers.
“The West is reluctant to speak out against the Israeli aggression because it looks like anti-semitism, and although the United Nations has condemned her actions, unless America withdraws her aid, the UN statements don't carry weight.
“The hatred between the Jews and the Arabs goes back thousands of years and unless action is taken to defuse the situation, the whole region will disintegrate into war, sabotage, terrorism and fanaticism.
“It is to his enormous credit that King Hussein in Jordan has held it all together at least in his own country, and has been a moderating influence in the rest of the region. Despite that, Jordan was the first place that Israel attacked just before you were evacuated. But Hussein is still our best ally in our attempts to calm things down, and we desperately need good communication with him. However, he now has a growing body of extremists among his people who would look on any co-operation between Jordan and the West as treason, and might then mobilise a popular revolution and depose Hussein and his family. That would be the biggest disaster for Jordan and for international diplomacy in the region. It mustn't happen. So any contact between us and the King must be achieved in complete secrecy, so that even his intelligence service don't know about it.
“And that's where you come in.”