Hooked (7 page)

“Could you really?” asked Gavin, concentrating on the mixture he was drawing into the hypodermic. As soon as Sadun was down to 170 pounds, Gavin would gradually withdraw the drugs. He wanted Sadun to be independently healthy and freed from any need for medication.

“Really,” replied Sadun. “I am still popular with the Egyptian people and there is a royalist movement in Egypt, underground to be sure, but it could be mobilized, if I wanted—”

“Would you want that?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Gavin smiled slightly. “I wasn’t born to a throne—”

Sadun had begun to confide in him and talked about how worthless he had felt as a young boy. All the attention and praise had been lavished on his cousin Farouk, who would one day be king. The court hung on Farouk’s every word and moved quickly to satisfy each and every whim. Sadun’s distance from the throne accorded him inferior status.

He had fewer and less expensive toys than his cousin; he went to a school with regular classes, while Farouk was educated by a retinue of tutors. It all created in him intense feelings of deprivation, which, he told Gavin, might have been responsible for his life of overindulgence. He blamed his failings on the fact that he assumed he could never claim the throne. Now, for the first time, it seemed possible.

Sadun’s other sign of progress indicated to Gavin that he had succeeded in the assignment given him by Nicholas Kiskalesi: Sadun was now a man. He told Gavin he had proved it.

“X,” whispered Sadun. “She comes to my room every night—”

As Sadun continued to lose weight, he became even more interested in the outside world. Guests arrived almost daily for lunch and dinner, their long conversations interrupted only by Sadun’s shots. Their discussions were held in Arabic, so Gavin could not understand the words, but it wasn’t difficult for him — and for X — to guess at their meaning.

“He’s talking about claiming the throne,” she informed Nicky Kiskalesi on the telephone.

“Only talking?” Nicky asked. “Or is there more to it than just talk?”

“He’s seen military advisers,” said X. “They assure him that both Germany and the United States will send him weapons. It is in their interests to destroy Nasser’s power and evict the Soviets from Egypt. His political advisers assert that underground royalists can be mobilized. Apparently, the majority of the Egyptian people still favor a monarchy.”

“It’s interesting, isn’t it,” mused Nicky, “that the poorer a people are, the more they favor the trappings and indulgences of royalty? Tell me, X, does Sadun have a timetable?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep me informed.”

Nicky hung up the phone and speculated on various moves and counter-moves. Perhaps if he played everything just right, he could have an entire country at his disposal instead of just an oil-drilling operation. Sadun was making splendid progress but it was the doctor he was now worried about. In front of him was the dossier disclosing Gavin Jenkins’ penchant for defying authority.

“What’s in those shots of yours?” X asked Gavin.

“Various things,” he said. He wondered if Nicky Kiskalesi were behind X’s question.

“Such as?”

“A drug to increase his energy,” said Gavin. “Another to depress his appetite. It’s a crutch, but a temporary one. As soon as he’s down to his proper weight, he won’t need anything anymore.”

“You’re sure? He seems so dependent on your injections.”

“I’m sure because I’ve experimented on myself,” said Gavin. “I injected myself with various medications until I found what works best. I customize the treatment for every patient.”

“You seem very certain of yourself for a young doctor from — where do they call it in America? — hillbilly country.”

X was being deliberately insulting and Gavin didn’t like it.

“Have you been including every detail of Sadun’s private life in your daily reports to your employer?”

X looked shocked.

“How do you know?”

“Sadun,” Gavin said. “He told me—”

“Are you going to tell Nicky?”

“I don’t work for Nicky,” Gavin pointed out. “Sadun is my patient. Mr. Kiskalesi merely pays the bill—”

“He’d kill me if he found out,” said X.

“I know,” Gavin smiled. “So just behave yourself.”

Never would the former belly dancer have guessed that she would share Mohammed Abd-el Sadun’s bed.

The first time, X ascribed it to too much champagne. She had been almost celibate since Nicholas Kiskalesi had spirited her out of the Cinar nightclub. Occasionally she picked up a sailor or a waiter but she had too much of a past to risk getting emotionally involved. It was in her interest to keep her emotional loyalties in strict order of priority — and Nicholas Kiskalesi had first claim on her fidelity.

X thought only she and Sadun shared their secret and she was shocked to find out that someone else knew. Now her life was precariously balanced on the whims of three powerful men: Nicholas Kiskalesi, Prince Mohammed Abd-el Sadun, and Dr. Gavin Jenkins.

She would come to wish she had never heard of any of them.

The sudden political activity on the obscure island of Cilek did not go unnoticed by the world’s press. Reporters were dispatched from news bureaus in Istanbul, Athens, London, Tel Aviv, and New York. The article in the September 4, 1958, issue of
Image
magazine was an accurate reflection of what was going out on telexes and teletypes the world over.

FROM PLAYBOY TO POWERHOUSE

As recently as 1957, any suggestion that Prince Mohammed Abd-el Sadun was seriously interested in the throne of Egypt would have been met with disbelief on the part of every knowledgeable observer of the Middle East. Overweight, rumored to be suffering from debilitating illness, Sadun went into hiding in Turkey on the day that his cousin, King Farouk, was expelled by General Naguib from Alexandria. Everyone agreed that Sadun would probably die in exile.

Today, however, a slim, energetic Sadun has been making ever-widening contacts throughout the Middle East. Power brokers from that area gather on the island of Cilek, owned by the billionaire tycoon Nicholas Kiskalesi and used as headquarters by Sadun.

The article went on for several pages. It documented Sadun’s hereditary claim to Egypt’s throne and mentioned the blood ties he had to the royal family of Saudi Arabia. It told of his education, his years as pampered playboy, his flight from Egypt, his years of exile in Cilek.

Above all, it concentrated on the remarkable circumstances that alone of all the Arab leaders Sadun was reported to be soft on Israel. There were no hard facts to back up this presumption, but “reliable sources” said that Sudan had made quite clear that a condition of his assuming the throne would be that he be allowed to back away from the war in Palestine on the grounds that Israel’s existence was a
fait accompli
and that money for weapons might better be spent on irrigation.

Accompanying the article were several photographs. One showed a grossly fat Sadun in a bikini with his arms around a pair of generously endowed blondes on the beach at Nice. There was a photo of Sadun with his cousin Farouk when they were both Egyptian boy scouts, one with young King Faisal II of Iraq taken shortly before Faisal’s murder in 1958, and a recent shot of Sadun on the terrace of his villa. Beside him, smiling enigmatically into the distance, was an unidentified man. His name, known only to a very few, was Sadun’s physician, Dr. Gavin Jenkins.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” asked Sadun. His pulse was dangerously slow, his blood pressure depressed, his respiration shallow and labored. If Sadun’s vital signs declined any further, he
would
die.

“You’re not going to die,” said Gavin. “Not as long as I’m here—”

Gavin was not about to lose the man he had brought to life and he told X to call Nicky Kiskalesi.

“But it’s not time yet,” she said. “I’ll call him later.”

“Call him!” Gavin said. ”Now!”

She feared that if she didn’t obey him, he would tell Nicky about her and Sadun. She picked up the telephone and when Kiskalesi got on the phone, Gavin picked up the extension and told him that Sadun was in critical condition.

“My bag is missing,” said Gavin. “It disappeared over night and Sadun’s going to be dead unless I give him another shot—”

“What do you need?” asked Nicky. “I’ll have the drugs flown in from Zurich—”

“Iron, thyroid, vitamins B-12 and E, testosterone, d-phenylamine—”

“You’ll have it in a few hours. How long will it take him to recover?”

“A couple of days—”

“He’ll be able to stick to his timetable?”

“Yes,” said Gavin. “
If
I get the drugs promptly—”

“Will the treatment be completed by then?” Nicky asked.

“Yes,” said Gavin. “In fact, I had hoped to have him completely withdrawn from medication by now but I’ve discovered an anomalous receptor in his amoeboid cells. It’s what made him blow up to two hundred and sixty-five pounds—”

As soon as Gavin put down the receiver, he realized he had neglected to order glucose but decided not to bother phoning Kiskalesi back. He had already begun eliminating glucose from Sadun’s formula anyway.

When the medication was delivered from Zurich, though, the package included glucose. Nobody could have known about it except the man who had taken his bag — or the man for whom it had been taken.

That evening, Gavin began to fit all the pieces together and, immediately after giving Sadun his shot, he went into his room, locked the door, and wrote a three-page letter, with one carbon copy. In it, Gavin accused Nicholas Kiskalesi of the theft of his bag and went on to describe, accurately, Sadun’s position as a pawn in an international multimillion dollar oil gambit being manipulated by Nicholas Kiskalesi.

When he had finished, Gavin put the carbon into an envelope and sent it to Nicholas Kiskalesi. He enclosed the original in another envelope marked DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. He mailed it to Cleo Talbot at her Fifth Avenue residence.

Sadun’s vital signs improved after the second injection. By the third day, he was back to his old, new self and it almost seemed as if nothing had gone awry.

The first thing Sadun did was to announce to the world’s press that instead of waiting until Ramadan, he would return to Egypt immediately. He ordered Rudy to do his packing and requested the loan of Nicky’s plane.

In Cairo, public celebration of Sadun’s imminent return began — apparently spontaneously — in front of the presidential palace, in the marketplaces, and in the grand mosque of El Azhar. The military, partially loyal to the absent monarchy and partially beholden to the Nasser government, which paid its salaries, was momentarily paralyzed. Rumors of insurrection circulated and seventeen deaths were reported as a result of the 7.62-mm AK-47 assault rifles supplied by the Russian technical advisers.

Gavin, without whom Sadun had refused to budge, was in his room packing when he heard a scream from next door. He picked up a bronze candlestick and opened his own door softly. He looked both ways. The corridor was deserted.

He walked the few paces to Sadun’s room and knocked. There was no answer and he let himself in. X lay on the bed in a lake of blood. Lying next to her was Sadun. His head, severed from his body, had rolled to the floor where it rested on the zebra skin rug, its eyes wide, frozen in an expression of horror.

They will come for me next
, thought Gavin. He ran down the hallway, down the rear servant’s stairs, through the kitchen and then to Seema’s room.

He put his forefinger to his mouth. “Shhhh,” he told the terrified child.

The beheading of Sadun in his grotesque bedroom, his crimson blood staining crimson satin, made world headlines.

Nasser’s government realized how precarious its base of power actually was and knew it needed support, political and financial, from sources other than the Soviet Union. When the Turkish billionaire Nicholas Kiskalesi offered to finance a dam project equal to the Aswan, Nasser was happy to accept.

As part of the bargain, Kiskalesi asked for and was granted oil concessions. Nasser’s thinking was that dams and oil fields created jobs, and jobs created full bellies. With full bellies and money in their pockets, people weren’t so likely to harbor thoughts of a return to monarchy.

The murderers of Cilek, as they were dubbed by the world’s press, were never identified. Speculation abounded; some said they had been hired by Nasser; others asserted that they were Soviet KGB assassins assigned to get rid of Sadun before he could seize control of Egypt and push it further to the West; still others alleged that they were CIA killers hired by the United States, who wanted to keep Israel in a vulnerable and therefore more pliable position.

Nicholas Kiskalesi was never mentioned although he had profited by some eight hundred million dollars.

“A new way to liquidate a corporation?” Adriana commented with the merest trace of a smile when she read about the Cilek murders.

“Nothing in the world is new,” replied Nicky with an opaque smile of his own.

He did not tell Adriana about Gavin’s letter and its accusations although he was furious. He knew Jenkins was far too shrewd to have sent him a carbon without placing the original in the hands of someone who would be able to hurt him.

Nicholas Kiskalesi could not risk having Gavin killed and thus he wrote the check for eight million dollars. No one — except Nicky and, of course, Gavin — knew that Sadun’s murder had turned Gavin Jenkins into a multimillionaire.

Gavin flew from Istanbul to London, and then, while waiting for the connecting flight to New York, he sent the cable.

Cleo was waiting for him at the transatlantic passengers’ arrival area.

“How many other men have proposed by transatlantic cable?” he asked, taking her into his arms.

“Only you,” she said.

Three days later — three days of lovemaking and bringing each other up-to-date — Cleo asked the question that had been on her mind. The newspapers reported that Sadun’s entire staff had been beheaded — even the girl, Seema.