'No… No, it's nothing like that, in sh'Allah,' Hamad was quick to reassure him. 'It seems that a young woman took a spectacular khanjar for expert valuation to some television programme that was being recorded this afternoon.'

'That makes the national news in this country?'

'There were rubies,' he replied. 'Very large rubies. And a story about a runaway Arabian princess and stolen jewels, which apparently makes it…' He hesitated, then with distaste, said, 'Sexy.'

Fayad stilled. 'Go on.'

'The local paper picked up the story and passed it along, and, having done some research, the Chronicle has inevitably come up with the mystery of the long-lost Blood of Tariq. They're running the story using the photograph of your great-great-grandfather with Lawrence, along with the original 1917 despatch from the front line in tomorrow's first edition. They were hoping for a comment from the embassy.'

'Did they get one?'

'Only that many fakes of the Blood of Tariq had been produced over the years, and this is undoubtedly one of them. That the value of the rubies is nothing compared to the value of owning the khanjar touched by Lawrence.'

'Yes…' Fayad sat back, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

The Blood of Tariq had a mystical power that put it beyond price. To hold it, possess it, was to hold the fate of Ras al Kawi in your hand.

A fake.

It had to be a fake. But in the present climate that might be irrelevant.

It was what people believed that mattered.

Lost, the khanjar was a legend, a tale for old men as they sat around the campfire recalling past glories.

Found, it was trouble.

His grandfather was failing in health, his father was a disaster, and in the wrong hands even a fake, especially one with such an incendiary story attached to it, could prove disastrous to his country.