I made another routine check around the environment in case there was anything to be picked up. Klaus wasn't talking to Ibrahimi any more: I assumed the Arab had come to report on what he'd been doing to keep the dead boy's family quiet -they would have been told to say his body had been found somewhere else, victim of an unknown assassin, something like that. Klaus would get away with it if the truth came out – he had a perfect case for a plea of self-defence in front of witnesses – but he was a busy man: today he'd killed only a dog and an Arab boy, but there were more deaths than that on his agenda, perhaps hundreds, on the stroke of Midnight One.

He was sitting alone now, leaning forward with his big hands interlaced, his eyes on the surface of the pool where the scimitar leaves of the eucalyptus floated, his mind absent, his fingers sliding together, sliding away, his whole body arched, flexed like a bow: he was in a form of meditation, deep in the theta waves, close to trance.

Inge Stoph watched him, her bright eyes idolatrous. Geissler was talking in low tones to Ibrahimi. The guards weren't moving, weren't bouncing cockily on the balls of their feet any more: they'd been tested and found wanting, and I suppose would be fired and replaced, fired or left somewhere humped on the ground with an arm thrown out in mute testimony to their fuhrer's displeasure – I'd seen today that in this small sovereignty of terror Dieter Klaus considered himself and was considered to be omnipotent, with the status of a god and the rights of a god over life and death. It was the only way he could run this show, the only way he could live.

Dolores had gone into the building after the scene with the Arab boy, and hadn't come out. Helen was lying down again, flat on her back, a sheen on her white face; I think she'd have liked to go into the palace too, or anywhere away from Dieter Klaus, but was afraid that if she stood up and tried walking she might feel dizzy and be sick.

George Maitland wasn't back yet from taking his photographs in the native quarter. I expected him soon now: he'd be here with Klaus as the time brought them close to Midnight One. From what Helen had told me, he was one of its architects.

One of the servants wasn't far away, and I beckoned him over. He was an older man with stubble on his dark thin face; his eyes had a light in them, a glint of inner fires. He didn't look at me as he waited for me to speak; I think if he'd looked at me I'd have felt the heat of his ferocity: I was a foreigner, an infidel, and it was a foreigner, an infidel who had killed the Arab boy.

I asked him in French, 'Why are they bathing the feet of those men over there?'

He didn't turn his head. 'It is holy water.'

'I see. What does it signify?'

He was looking down, his dark head turned slightly away from me, as if to hear me better, but it wasn't that. If he'd looked at me he wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to spit in my face.

'It signifies,' he said, 'that they will die.'

'When?

'Before they sleep again.'

Suicide run.

Chapter 18: IBRAHIMI

It was almost six o'clock, and the air was turning cool. The sirocco had died away from the south, from the Sahara; the leaves of the tall eucalyptus trees were still. Beyond them in the west the sun was low, the sky the colour of blood.

Maitland had come into the courtyard a few minutes ago and spoken to Dieter Klaus; then he'd seen Helen by the pool and had gone over to her. They were talking now. He was in a dark jumpsuit and carried a padded jacket. He was talking seriously, no smiles.

I could hear the pilots, speaking to each other quietly in Iranian, a language I didn't know. The boys had taken away the empty bowls and the muslin towels. The water – the holy water – had made a puddle on the tiles.

A suicide run: hence the ritual and the look of exaltation on the pilots' faces. There were talking with their heads close together. Klaus watched them from across the pool, still crouched forward with his fingers interlaced. He watched the Iranians with a degree, I thought, of fascination. From the nearest archway I too was being watched, by my personal guard.

A suicide run, but that didn't tell me the target. The other Iranian could be a pilot too, or at least aircrew: they'd both been through the ritual of their preparation for their ascent into heaven, had possibly been taken through a more elaborate ritual at the mosque. So it involved a big aircraft, with a crew of at least two. A bomber?

The evening prayer was being called by the muezzin from the minaret of the mosque; the voice sounded tinny: I think they use tapes these days, in the bigger towns.

Then the telephone began ringing again, and Klaus came over to it and picked it up. Two of his bodyguards had moved away from the wall, closer to him. This had become routine since the business with the knife.

'Out. Un instant.'

He took the telephone to Khatami, pulling the long cable clear of a deck chair. 'Pour vous.'

'Merci.' Khatami spoke into the phone. 'Oui?' Klaus stayed where he was, on his haunches, arms across his knees. 'Non, c'est pas bon. Vous avez un crayon? Alors, ecoutez. C'est precisement 26°03' au Nord par 02°01' a I'Ouest. Repetez. Bon, c'est bon. Ecoutez, il faut synchroniser les montres, hein? J'ai maintenant exactement 18:04 heures. C'est ca. A bientot, oui.' He put the receiver down.

I turned a page of the Tribune I was reading, got it creased, flattened it out, began reading again.

'Tout va bien?'

Klaus.

'Oui. 'Tout va bien. 'Tout est en ordre.'

Khatami.

I wasn't all that far away, a dozen yards or so, and I'd heard them quite clearly. But I don't think that Klaus even realised I was there; I don't think it mattered. I was under close guard and I was going to remain under close guard until the flashpoint out there at the airport, and whether the Miniver was delivered on schedule or not, whether London had sent forces in or not, my expectations were that I would be silenced at that time and in that place. Klaus would have ordered it. So it didn't matter what I overheard, what information I might pick up: it would remain safe for all time in the chill of the shrivelling brain.

But it was interesting, academically. I had the target.

26°03' north by 02'01' west.

Much good may it do me, so forth, that man Muhammad Ibrahimi had a bullet for me and he wouldn't leave anything to chance: if he failed to carry out his orders he wouldn't survive the day. I suppose it was the tinny ghost-voice of the muezzin wailing from the mosque that was giving me the creeps, that and perhaps the killing of the dog and the boy. The psyche was in despond, and this was dangerous, though difficult to change: time had started to run short. There was no The telephone rang again and Klaus answered it at once.

'Ja. Jawohl!'

George Maitland came across from the edge of the pool and the pilots got onto their feet. They're ready' Klaus said, and his voice was charged. 'Allons-y!' He went over to speak to Geissler and then made for the building, his bodyguards with him. The Iranians followed them, hurrying, their robes flying.

I noted the time: it was 6:14.

'I'm sorry you're going to miss this,' Maitland said. His bomber jacket was hanging across his shoulder from one finger. He was smiling, if you could call it that; there seemed a kind of light on his face, in his eyes, and I thought he'd lost colour a little. Yet I'd think he wasn't a man to get excited easily. It's going to be something quite spectacular.'

'Klaus didn't invite me,' I said. 'Should I ask him?' He shook his head slowly. 'He and I are the only ones going. Not even Geissler. Some of the minions, of course, but they're just monkeys, and won't be coming back.'