LITMIR.BIZ

       FOUR

      Hawley Hemmingsway III stretched his big, well-covered frame in the Sheikh of Bahrain’s bath and paddled the foaming water to make the scents rise. The bath had been prepared for him by a maid, but Hemmingsway guessed that at least three exotic oils had been used to perfume his ablutions, one of them attar of roses. ‘Something about me that even my best Arabian friends won’t confide?’ he mused.

      Hemmingsway chuckled in his deep and melodious voice. Only one aspect of an American Energy Secretary could conceivably get up an Arab’s nose, and Hawley had no trouble in that direction. He chortled again as he recalled Warren Wheeler’s acute embarrassment at the White House luncheon party where Hemmingsway was offered the job.

      ‘You’re absolutely certain, now, Hawley,’ the President had persisted, the anxiety showing in the fork of frown-lines etched into the fingertip of flesh between his eyes. ‘Even three, four generations back – you’re sure, are you? Not a single drop of Hebrew blood anywhere? God knows – and I’m sure you do – that I’m no racist,’ Wheeler had interjected quickly, ‘but I simply cannot afford to annoy these OPEC guys, and one way to get them foaming at the mouth and biting their Persian carpets would be to appoint even a quarter-Jewish Energy Secretary.’

      Hemmingsway had assured the President that he was New England WASP clear back to the Pilgrim Fathers. With a sly grin he added, ‘As a matter of fact, the Hemmingsways were playing croquet with the Cabots and the Adamses and the Lodges while the Wheelers were still skinning beaver and raccoon to make a dress for Pocahontas.’

      The jibe had gone unremarked but for a slight lift of the President’s eyebrows; Hemmingsway knew his man, however, and had walked away from the West Wing with the Energy portfolio safely in his pocket. His credentials duly passed the scrutiny of the Arabs, and when the OPEC ministers met in Bahrain for talks on a possible East–West oil accord, Hemmingsway had been invited to join them as the house guest of the Ruler. One of the Sheikh’s fleet of Cadillacs was put at his disposal, and Hemmingsway derived satisfaction from roaring unnoticed around the island at the sort of gas-gulping speeds that were firmly outlawed in the States by his own energy conservation programme.

      The talks were going well, too, justifying President Wheeler’s decision not only to send Hemmingsway to Bahrain, but also to lay on his personal aeroplane, Air Force One, for the journey via Geneva to Washington, where the second stage of the negotiations would take place.

      Hemmingsway drew himself out of the huge round bath, walked to the shower where he sluiced off the oily water, and from there straight into a towelling robe held aloft by the maid, teeth gleaming beneath her yashmak, eyes decorously averted. Hawley grinned and thanked her in Arabic. He was an extremely conscientious Energy Secretary.

      Strictly speaking, Air Force One is not Air Force One at all unless the President of the United States is on board. Ferrying the Secretary of State, for example, it becomes Air Force Two, but it is still the same plane – what the USAF called a VC-137C stratoliner, which is their term for a Boeing 707 commercial long-distance airliner. And if the President chose to loan it out as Air Force One, that was his prerogative. The plane was his, together with the name, current since 1962 but now universally known.

      The Boeing was converted to include an office and living-suite for the President between the forward and centre passenger compartments. Visitors were not invited to occupy the ‘apartment’, but there was plenty of comfortable and roomy seating in the three passenger areas, flanked by front and rear galleys and rest rooms. Externally, Air Force One carried the streaming legend ‘United States of America’, and the Presidential insignia. She was crewed, always, by personnel of the USAF’s 89th Military Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC.

      The sun winked blindingly on her fuselage and gleaming wings as the liner turned on to the heading for Muharraq Airport, Bahrain. Major Patrick Latimer brought the big plane down to skim over the threshold; then he ran it to the taxi-way leading to the hardstand. Latimer, though officially designated the pilot, sat in the co-pilot’s seat to the right of the controls. On his left, in the pilot’s seat, was the Commander of Air Force One, Colonel Tom Fairman. Behind them sat the navigator, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Kowalski, and next to him crouched one of the flight’s two engineers, Master Sergeant Chuck Allen. They completed the closing-down procedures, and Sergeant Allen operated the Boeing’s hatch.

      Another man – a member of the crew, but with no aeronautical purpose to fulfil – waited for the airport staff to position the moving steps just below the hatch. He was always the first man to leave the plane, the last to board it. He stood by the open hatch, revolver drawn, peering out into the strong, clear sunlight.

      Just as it was Colonel Thomas D. Fairman’s task to supervise the flight of Air Force One, so the job of guaranteeing the safety of the Boeing, its crew and occupants, was ultimately the responsibility of only one man: the Head of Security, Colonel Joe McCafferty.

      The entire crew filed to the hatch and waited patiently while McCafferty completed his surveillance. Then Mac holstered his gun and walked down the stairway, followed by Fairman, Latimer and the other airmen. Last out of the plane was Bert Cooligan, agent of the US Secret Service, and the only other armed man on the flight.

      Fairman increased his stride and came abreast of McCafferty. ‘Seeing the Manama sights before we leave, Mac?’ he inquired. McCafferty treated him to a flinty grin. ‘Your job may be over, Tom,’ he returned, ‘but mine’s just beginning. Not that the vibrant and sinful capital of Bahrain doesn’t hold its attractions for me, but I think I’ll check around a bit and then retire to the hotel with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a good security schedule.’

      Fairman grinned. ‘Not even a Gideon Bible?’

      ‘Here? No, it’s either the Koran or my smuggled copy of Playboy – not to be left laying around for the natives to read. Gives them a bad impression of the flower of American womanhood.’

      Both men laughed, and the Arab watching them from the terminal building’s balcony through binoculars minutely adjusted the focus.

      Since the age of seven in her native town of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Sabrina Carver had been a thief. She started with a tiny brooch stolen from a fellow passenger on a trip down the Des Moines River. She got two dollars for it, which was a rip-off, for the brooch had three diamonds set into a silver clasp. Sabrina failed to recognise the stones as diamonds; it was a mistake she would not make again.

      Ten years later she left her home and Fort Dodge and, as far as she

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