In the Palace of the Khans Read online

  “Now,” he said. “It’s my move. I attack your queen with my bishop. Either you’ll have to move her away or use her to take my bishop, but if you do that I’ll take her back with this pawn. What do you do?”

  “I move her … but you say no?”

  “Look what happens if you move her. Something like this …”

  Rapidly he shifted the pieces through several moves.

  “Now you see, you’ve still got your queen but you’ve lost more pieces than I have and I’m pretty sure to beat you soon. But …”

  He put the pieces back.

  “So I take the bishop, like this, with my queen?”

  “And I take her with the pawn. You’ve lost her. But look at your rooks.”

  It took her a few seconds to see the point. She picked the front rook up and banged it down in his back rank.

  “Check!” she shouted, and a moment later “Checkmate!”

  “A queen sacrifice,” said the President quietly. “Extremely satisfying. Except when it happens to you.”

  “You tell me I am your queen,” said Taeela pertly. “Often you say this. So you sacrifice me, because it is satisfying? You tell me, marry the son of the British Ambassador because it will be good for your stupid dam.”

  “You should not tease your guest like this. It is not manners. Besides, Nigel may have views on the matter.”

  He turned to Nigel and raised his eyebrows.

  “Er … well … of course you wouldn’t sacrifice her for anything or anyone,” he said. “Chess is only a game—all you’ve got to do is win. And anyway Fohdrahko wouldn’t approve.”

  “Three excellent answers for the price of one,” said the President. “All you have to do is win, so you will sacrifice your best pieces to achieve that. As your father my aim is to secure your happiness and well-being. As President my aim is to secure the happiness and well-being of Dirzhan. These two purposes are not part of the same game. May I never need to choose between them.”

  All the lightness of his tone was gone. For the first time Nigel felt that he had a glimpse of the man behind the mask of power—the man behind the monster behind the mask, if you wanted to look at it that way. Taeela reached up and stroked the back of his hand with her fingertips. He took her hand into his own, squeezed it gently, and let go.

  “You do not choose,” she said. “You ask me, ‘Who do I wish I … wish to marry?’ Then I choose. Am I right?”

  She had dropped her habitual pertness and spoke as if she meant what she said almost as earnestly as her father had. His face went blanker than ever.

  “Well, we must not keep our guest waiting to be taken home,” he said.

  Taeela refused to have the subject changed.

  “First, tell me I am right, Dudda.”

  He said nothing for a while, then sighed.

  “Yes, you are right. I do not sacrifice my queen, though I lose the game.”

  “Word of the Khan, Dudda?” she said, dead serious now, and offered him her hand, palm up. He hesitated briefly and took it between his.

  “Word of the Khan, Taeela,” he said.

  “It is spoken, Khan,” she answered, still utterly solemn, then swung round laughing, triumphant, and it was a game again.

  “Nigel, you are witness. You will come again tomorrow?”

  “If you like. But I’m afraid I can’t do Saturday or Sunday. We’re going up to the mountains for the weekend.”

  “Pooh! Nothing is to do in the mountains?”

  “There is for us. My father is nuts about fishing, and my mother and I will go bird-watching. She says they’ve found a really nice old hotel at—I’ve forgotten the name—it begins with an F. For- something.”

  “Forghal,” said the President. “I must take you there one day, my dear. The hotel is a true relic of the Czarist days … I am afraid there may be problems about that, Nigel. I will call for the latest reports and telephone your father. Meanwhile I think the driver is waiting for you in the lobby. We will see you tomorrow.”

  Nigel told his mother what the President had said as soon as he got back to the embassy.

  “Oh, I hope not,” she said, “but it’s the sort of thing that happens here. Somebody gets drunk in a bar and says something stupid about the President and they close the whole area off and do a house-to-house search and so on.”

  “Are there actually any terrorists? Bombings and stuff?”

  “Not like that, not so far. I suppose these days there are fanatics about wanting to turn Dirzhan into a proper Islamic state, though everyone else thinks the Dirzhaki are hopeless heretics and don’t even count. You’ll have to ask your father—he’ll be up for lunch in a few minutes, though I doubt if he’s heard anything about Forghal yet. It can’t be that urgent.”

  She was wrong on both counts. He was half an hour late and came in with an odd expression on his face. He didn’t say anything until he’d sat down.

  “The good news or the bad news?”

  “The President told Nigel there might be a problem about Forghal,” said Nigel’s mother, “so I suppose the bad news is that we’re not going there because the area’s closed off.”

  “Right, but I doubt if that’s true. Roger called the hotel this morning to check our bookings were OK, and they didn’t say anything.”

  “Then why on earth …? Unless he doesn’t want us to go to Forghal for some reason, I can’t imagine what.”

  “Because he wants us to go somewhere else?” said Nigel. “And that’s the good news?”

  “You’re spoiling my fun,” said his father. “Care to guess what?”

  “I don’t know. We were chatting away about going to Forghal, and he started telling Taeela what a nice old hotel it was, and then, all of a sudden he pretty well closed right down and sent me packing.”

  “So the good news is …”

  “That we’re still going somewhere we can fish and bird-watch … He’s taking us out to the thingummy gorge to look at the fish-owls so he can show the British Ambassador how much he cares about them?”

  “I worry about you, Niggles. You really are too bright to live long. Yes, he’s invited us to his hunting lodge for the weekend. That’s something in itself. It’s the old hunting lodge of the khans, not that far from the Vamar gorge, so we’ll be flying up in a couple of helicopters on Saturday morning, then driving over to the gorge that evening to have a look at the fish-owls.”

  “In the dark?” said Nigel’s mother.

  “He’s already got a project set up to study the birds with a view to providing them with a fresh habitat further down the gorge. There’ll be night vision binoculars and so on. The project director—I’ve met him—he’s a very live-wire little German—looks like a cross between an Old Testament prophet and a garden gnome—he’ll be on hand to tell us what’s what.”

  “You’ve already accepted?”

  “Difficult not to. It would be a considerable snub. Mostly he uses the lodge as a private retreat. I believe he took the President of Kyrgyzstan out there when he came on a state visit a few years back, but that was very much the exception.”

  Nigel could hear the purr in his voice. The visit would be a real plus for him at the Foreign Office.

  “Is Taeela coming?” said Nigel.

  “Indeed she is. He specifically asked me to remind you, Lou, that she mustn’t be left alone with Nigel, or indeed with any member of the male sex over the age of four, including himself, but it’s all right if you’re there too.”

  “What a crazy mind-set. Helicopters and sophisticated economics and CCTV and this! Poor girl. Am I going to have to dress for dinner, Nick?”

  “Not if we’re going owl-watching, I imagine. But we’d better take something presentable, just in case. There’s limited baggage-space in the helicopters, so a car will come for our stuff on Friday morning and take it up by road. Oh, one other thing. Don’t tell anybody where we’re going. Anybody at all. Even here in the Embassy.”

  “I bet you I hear about it
at the next wives’ lunch,” said Nigel’s mother. “These things always come out. They’ll be green with envy.”

  “This is serious, Lou. I’ve promised the President that none of us will breathe a word about our visit until we’re safely back in Dara. By the best intelligence we’ve got there’ve been two foiled assassination attempts in the last eighteen months.”

  “Wow!” said Nigel. “Who by?”

  “Could be any of a number of people. The odds are it’s something to do with the dam. According to rumours it was the Moscow mafia, hoping to muscle in on the project if the President isn’t in the way. But it’s just as likely to be home-grown Dirzhaki, some of them pretty high up in the administration, who’ve got the same idea. And then there’ll be some of the military who’d like to be able to order absurd numbers of tanks and aircraft in the arms market because of the kick-backs that go with them. And there’s even an old clan feud still active. You know what the great Dirzhani epic is called, Niggles? The Vengeance of the Khan. They still think like that.”

  “Have you got it?”

  “There’s an English translation in the library. I found it pretty unreadable. I hope you’re both happy about this.”

  “Anything to get out of Dara for a couple of days,” said Nigel’s mother. “I was in the market before ten, and it was stifling already. Rick says according to the local radio it’s going to get worse.”

  “That’s all right, then. Now I’ve got to gobble and go. Tell me what you’re up to this afternoon.”

  “I thought we’d go and look at the caves. At least it will be cooler in there.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Day 4 was yesterday

  Mr G’s again in the morning, but then I got a crummy great headache and Mum made me go to bed. Sorry about that …

  (He didn’t like lying, but it was the best he could do.)

  It seemed even hotter next morning by the time the driver dropped Nigel off at the back entrance to the Palace. The same guard was there, half-lounging in the strip of shade below the wall while he chatted to a young woman, presumably one of the palace servants. He had a piggy, pleased-with-himself face. When Nigel offered him his pass he just glanced sidelong at him and waved it aside and opened the door, making no attempt to search him, and gestured to him to go on in. He grunted something that probably meant “Wait” and returned to the girl.

  Nigel went in and waited. He’d forgotten to have a pee before he left the embassy and was beginning to notice the fact. Several minutes passed. He was already late. The need to pee was becoming urgent. The hell with it, he thought, and keyed in the code. The lift doors opened, and closed behind him as soon as he pressed the 2 button.

  The lift went down, not up, and stopped with a jolt. The lights went out. Close by outside an alarm bell clanged alive. His heart hammered. It’s all right, he himself kept telling himself. Just a lift malfunction. They’ll come and get me out.

  After a while he settled down into a corner, stuffed his thumbs against he his ears to damp down the headachy clamour of the bell and played through his game against the President in his head to fight the urge to pee.

  The bell stopped as suddenly as it had begun. He took his thumbs out of his ears and rose. He could hear a man’s voice, close outside, giving orders by the sound of it. The doors sighed open and he was bathed in glaring light.

  He staggered back, blinded. Rough hands grabbed him, hustled him out and flung him on the floor. A man shouted an order, urgent.

  “I’m English!” he croaked, just managing not to wet himself. “I can’t speak Dirzhani. No Dirzhani.”

  Silence. Hesitation. The glare vanished, replaced by ordinary electric light. Blinking, he made out soldiers standing above him, staring down. Two guns were pointing at him. He began to reach for the pass in his pocket, but was instantly grabbed again, and hoicked to his feet. One of the men felt in the pocket, found the pass, looked at it and handed it to the man who seemed to be in command.

  He too looked at it, unclipped a handset from his belt and tapped in a number. When it was answered he spoke for a while, answered a question, waited, spoke again, and passed the handset to Nigel.

  “Mr. Rizhouell?”

  “Mr. Dikhtar? Yes, me. I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t realise …”

  “Please tell me what happened. Your driver reports that he left you at the door and passed you over to the guard on duty there.”

  “That’s right …”

  Nigel started to explain in detail.

  “You knew the code for the lift door.”

  “The guard let me see him tapping it in yesterday. 9876. It was so simple I couldn’t help noticing.”

  “Understood. Please pass me back to the guard sergeant.”

  The guard sergeant listened to the handset briefly, switched it off and clipped it back on his belt. He gestured to Nigel to go into the lift, then started giving orders to the other men.

  Nigel waited shuddering with released tension and desperate by now for a pee. His headache got worse. To distract himself he tried to work out what must have happened. The simple security code was a trap. There must have been something the guard did yesterday after the door had closed. Yes, that buzzer, signalling that everything was in order. Without that the lift would have gone down, like today, trapping whoever was inside it safely in the basement.

  So it looked as if the guard was going to be in serious trouble, and the poor servant-girl too, probably. It really didn’t seem fair, especially on her. But if there’d been two assassination attempts in the last eighteen months …

  At last the guard sergeant came in, closed the door, took the lift up a floor, opened the door, pressed the 2 button, and nipped out before the door closed. The buzzer sounded overhead and the lift rose, stopping at the second floor. Mr. Dikhtar was waiting in the lobby, not looking at all smiley. The air-conditioning was on, but his upper lip was shiny with sweat.

  “You have behaved somewhat unwisely, Mr. Rizhouell.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. Taeela doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “The guard denies that he kept you waiting more than a few seconds, while he finished some official business with the young woman.”

  “That’s nonsense! It was more than five minutes. I looked at my watch. And they were chatting and laughing.”

  “One moment,” said Mr. Dikhtar, reaching for a wall telephone.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” said Nigel. “It’s really urgent.”

  Mr. Dikhtar pointed at a door as he picked up the handset, and Nigel darted off. By the time he came back Mr. Dikhtar was trying to be smiley again, but not convincingly.

  “Fortunately we have corroboration for your account,” he said. “The car was logged in at the entrance eight minutes before the alarm sounded. That being the case I have to apologise on behalf of the President for the insolence of the guard’s behaviour. But at the same time I must ask you not to speak to anyone about what has happened. If the precautions we take to protect the President became known, they would cease to be effective. I am afraid this applies even to your father. It is not that the President does not trust him personally, but …”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Dikhtar. I’m just here to help Taeela with her English. My father doesn’t want me to get involved in anything else. If I happen to pick up interesting stuff here, he doesn’t want to know.”

  Mr Dikhtar stared at him unbelievingly and shrugged.

  “That is a wise arrangement,” he said. “I will tell the President.”

  “What about Taeela? She must have heard the alarm. I’ve got to tell her something.”

  “She is aware of the precautions that involve her safety and will have taken the appropriate action.”

  He moved along the corridor, hesitated, and tapped on the door.

  “I will see you later, Mr. Rizhouell,” he muttered, and stood aside as it opened.

  Inside the room almost nothing had changed, but the atmosphere was completely
different. The television was on, Charmed this time; Fohdrahko was closing the door, Taeela sitting on the sofa. But he wasn’t smiling and she was hunched and scared and the room prickled with tension.

  “What happens? What happens?” she whispered, rising to her feet.

  He forced himself into movement, crossed the room and settled onto the arm of the sofa, trying to look a bit more relaxed than he felt.

  “It was mainly my fault, I suppose,” he said, “but I didn’t want to keep you waiting and I was desperate for a pee …”

  “What is pee?”

  “Go to the loo … er, toilet, bathroom, whatever you call it.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “You talk about this? To me? A woman?”

  “Er, yes. I suppose so. Shouldn’t I have?”

  She laughed suddenly, and the tension eased.

  “I am learning so much from you,” she said. “Go on.”

  It was a relief to tell someone who he felt was on his side. He went through the story in detail, only toning down his rough handling a bit, but making no bones about how scared he had been. It took a while as she stopped him every couple of sentences so that she could translate to Fohdrahko. Nigel had been ready for her to find it comic, which it had been in a way, the whole elaborate machinery of the palace gathering itself to suppress a harmless kid.

  But Taeela didn’t see it that way at all. She said something to Fohdrahko, and took Nigel’s hand in between hers.

  “But this is horrible for you, Nigel,” she said earnestly. “Did they hurt you?”

  “I’ll get over it. But it was pretty scary while it was happening … Look, Taeela, there’s one thing you could do. I don’t feel too bad about the guard. He wasn’t doing his job properly, and then he tried to make it look as if it was all my fault. But the woman he was talking to—could you try and see that they aren’t too tough with her?”

  “Was she pretty?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  She shook her head pityingly and rose from the sofa.

  “Nigel, you are too much … much too … nice,” she said. “OK. I telephone Avron Dikhtar.”

  While she was talking to Mr Dikhtar Nigel looked round the room, puzzled. She would have taken the appropriate action, Mr Dikhtar had said. What? There was only the one door, nowhere obvious to hide, and the windows were barred by the stone lattice close outside. All he could think of was that there might be some kind of James-Bondish device which would shoot out of the floor at the touch of a button and bar the door with inch-thick bulletproof steel, but he couldn’t see any sign of it.