CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
She knew instantly
that the woman standing in the doorway was Eva Rath.
‘Miss
Herrick?’
‘Why bother to ask?
You know who I am. You’ve been following me all day.’
The woman gave her a
formal smile and approached with her hand outstretched. Herrick
declined to take it and instead lit a cigarette.
‘Isn’t there some
kind of no-smoking policy in the building? ’ said Eva.
Herrick shrugged.
‘What do you want? There’s nothing to interest Mossad here. The FBI
have been over this place a dozen times.’
‘Then why are you
here?’
Herrick thought for a
moment. ‘Because I’m interested to see where Loz worked. I want to
know what this is about.’
‘That is simple. It
is about hatred and revenge.’
‘Revenge for what,
exactly?’
‘The failure of the
Muslim world - the failure to build a functioning state in
Palestine, the failed jihad in Bosnia, the failure to retain
Afghanistan, the defeat in Iraq. Take your pick. There’s no
shortage of causes. They have to assert themselves and terrorism is
the only way they can do it.’
Herrick noticed that
the trace of Eastern Europe in her voice clashed with her
impeccable grasp of English idiom. ‘Well, they might have had a
better chance in Palestine if you hadn’t wiped out all the moderate
politicians.’
Eva smiled again.
‘And the computer, what are you looking for?’
‘The site you told
Harland about on the phone. That’s why I’m in New
York.’
‘It will not be on
this computer,’ she said
imperiously.
‘What exactly is the
site? We’re surely not still talking about the encrypted
screensaver on Youssef Rahe’s computer in London?’
‘No, no. That was
used to deceive you, although we didn’t know that at the time
either.’
‘But it predicted the
hit on Norquist?’
‘Which was used to
distract you.’
‘Did the confirmation
about the Norquist hit appear on this other site?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then who told us
about it? We had two sources saying he was going to be
hit.’
‘It’s simple. I told
Walter Vigo by phone from Heathrow, while waiting for Admiral
Norquist to arrive.’
‘You know Walter Vigo?’
‘Yes, I thought
Harland must have told you our history. I helped him with a problem
in the East some years ago. Vigo was my SIS handler.’
It was another story,
an age ago, and anyway Vigo was finally out of the picture. Or was
he? That clumsy approach in the bar a couple of days before came to
Herrick’s mind - the strange, almost plangent appeal, so completely
out of character.
‘And now he’s working
for you - right?’ she said. ‘The Mossad has contact with Vigo’s
company, Mercator? That’s why he tried to get me to give him the
stuff from the bookshop in London.’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Of
course, Vigo had me followed from the bookshop and then you trail
me around town here. You people are really plugged into this case,
aren’t you? Did you know about the suspects in Europe all along?
Was Vigo keeping you in the loop the whole way through
RAPTOR?’
Eva
shrugged.
‘So one way or
another,’ Herrick continued, ‘it was the old alliance. America,
Britain and Israel were working on RAPTOR even though the first two
had no idea they were sharing with you people.’
‘We don’t have time
for this,’ said Eva.
‘Let’s get this
straight,’ Herrick said venomously. ‘This is my investigation and I
do have time for it.’ She paused. ‘As I understand it, the
significant point about the website you’ve been monitoring is that
it started up again after three weeks of inactivity?’
‘Yes. That is
true.’
‘And you believe it’s
being run from New York?’
‘But not from these
rooms,’ said Eva. She placed her shoulder bag on the reception desk
and swept Herrick with a look of appraisal. ‘Harland said you were
the most natural talent he’d ever seen.’
Herrick ignored this.
‘The site started up again last week when Rahe was here in New
York. So he could well have had something to do with
it?’
‘Maybe,’ she
said.
‘The trouble is that
we’ve never worked out who was running this thing,’ said Herrick.
‘We thought it was Rahe, but if you look at the money trail it must
have been Loz calling the shots.’
‘Maybe both,’ said
Eva. ‘Can I have one of your cigarettes?’
Isis handed her the
crush-proof packet. Eva coaxed one out by tapping it on her palm
and lit it with an oblong gold lighter. Then she walked to the
window to look at the lightning illuminating the clouds on the
northern horizon.
‘Did you know this
building is hit five hundred times a year by
lightning?’
Herrick couldn’t help
but admire the woman’s self-possession, the absence of the need to
explain or to excuse herself. She returned to the computer. ‘I
guess that’s why Loz liked it,’ she said.
Eva turned. ‘Outside
the bank, you looked sick. What was the problem?’
‘You were watching me
then?’
‘Of
course.’
‘Why? Why didn’t you
just make yourself known? You could have joined in at the
bank.’
‘I wanted to see what
you would do.’ She stopped and tipped her ash into the waste-paper
basket. ‘I admit… I was also interested in you. Are you Bobby’s
girlfriend?’
Herrick turned from
the screen. ‘I don’t do this, okay?’
‘So you
are?’
Herrick shook her
head. ‘I’m really not going to talk about it.’
‘But you were ill.
There was something wrong. I saw you.’
‘There was nothing
wrong. I was tired. I needed to eat. I do now, in
fact.’
Eva revolved her
bracelet on her wrist. ‘What are you doing? Let me see.’ She came
to stand at Herrick’s shoulder. ‘Let’s look into the computer’s
history.’
She pulled the
keyboard towards her and began to work, eyes flicking from her
hands to the screen. Then she straightened and stood back, allowing
Herrick to see a list of web addresses. There was almost nothing
for the last six months, but in November and December of the
previous year someone had visited the official UN website and sites
concerned with Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon.
Herrick began to write down the pattern of research on a piece of
Sammi Loz’s headed notepaper. She scrolled down the list of sites
visited in the last three years, noting down about twenty of
them.
‘Why’re you taking
these notes?’ said Eva.
‘Force of habit,’
Isis replied. As she said it, her eyes drifted to the address
printed at the bottom of the notepaper. She read it several times,
then got up and walked to the door. ‘This is 6420,’ she called out.
‘This office is 6420!’
‘Yes,’ said Eva.
‘It’s still listed in the lobby as Loz’s place.’
‘No, you don’t
understand! In the bank this afternoon there was a document in
which the Empire State was given as the address of the account
holder - an American named Larry Langer who was a member of the
Rahe-Loz group in Bosnia - the Brothers. We assumed he’d given
Loz’s address for the account records. But he didn’t. He gave 6410
- not 6420. That means they could have another space on this
floor.’
‘Well, let’s go and
take a look,’ said Eva, picking up her bag.
The storm had moved
closer and the windows and polished floors flickered with
lightning. But in the corridor, as they checked the office numbers,
there was only the sound of their footsteps and the feathery
exhalation of the air-conditioning. As they rounded a bend into one
of the main corridors on the northern side, the lift bell pinged
and they heard the doors open. Both instinctively withdrew into the
corridor they had just searched. Herrick noticed Eva’s eyes,
straining to interpret the new presence on the deserted
sixty-fourth floor.
They waited. A pair
of heavily booted feet were approaching them - the solid,
purposeful walk of a man, but a man who didn’t know the floor well.
They heard him pause three times to look at the door
numbers.
Eva peered round the
corner. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, ‘I think he’s a messenger
looking for an office.’ Then she called out. ‘Can I help
you?’
‘No, I’m doing fine,’
came the reply. Herrick didn’t need to see the man to know who it
was. He was just a few paces away now and there was nowhere she
could possibly hide. She stepped out to join Eva.
The clothes were the
same: a scarf was wound loosely round his neck; the faded khaki
shirt looked in need of pressing and the blue jeans were sagging
and creased. His only concession to the city was an unstructured
dark blue jacket.
‘This is Lance
Gibbons of the CIA,’ Herrick said in answer to an enquiring look in
Eva’s eyes. ‘We met in Albania. Mr Gibbons is a great believer in
the value of the “extraordinary renditions” that come from torture
victims.’
‘Cut the crap, Isis.
You know I was right about Khan.’
‘It hardly matters
now,’ snapped Herrick. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’d ask you the same
question, but I wouldn’t get a straight answer,’ said
Gibbons.
‘We were looking over
Dr Loz’s offices with the permission of the FBI,’ said Eva coolly.
‘Are you here for the same purpose?’
‘Mam, last time I saw
this piece of work,’ he said, jabbing his finger an inch away from
Herrick’s chest, ‘a fucking towel-head A-rab was about to stick a
needle in my arm, which meant I didn’t know shit from sawdust for
three days and nights.’
‘You deserved it,’
said Herrick, moving off in the direction of the lifts. ‘You didn’t
see what your friends had done to Khan. I did. It was
disgusting.’
‘So what are you doing here?’ Eva asked
Gibbons.
‘Looking for
someone.’
‘Who?’
‘None of your goddam
business.’
‘Maybe we can help
each other,’ said Eva. ‘Which office do you want?’
Gibbons said he
didn’t have a number.
By now, Herrick was
by a small corridor which ran from the main aisle to the south of
the building. She looked up and saw a sign pointing to
6410.
‘Got it,’ she called
out. At the far end they found the door. Herrick bent down and put
her ear to it. There was no sound. Gibbons moved her aside with the
back of his hand and put a card into the crack by the lock but
after a minute of working had failed to open the door. He stepped
back and hit the door twice with his boot just by the lock. There
was still no joy. Then he moved to the other side of the corridor
and prepared to launch himself at the door but was stopped in his
tracks by a voice coming from the northern aisle.
‘Hey, you there! What
in hell’s name d’you think you’re doing?’
The silhouette of a
uniformed guard had appeared against the pulses of lightning.
Herrick saw the outline of the gun, then the silencer fitted to the
end of its barrel. But it was the rolling, lopsided walk of the man
approaching in the gloom that made her feel as though she was
seeing a ghost, for the second time that day. Before she could see
his face the man said, ‘Big lorry jump all over little
car.’
It was
Foyzi.
Herrick struggled to
understand what was going on, but Gibbons evidently had no such
problem. ‘This is the little cocksucker I’ve been tailing since
Egypt.’
Foyzi’s rubber-soled
boots squeaked the final paces to the light, and his face came into
view.
‘I saw you in the
street buying ice-creams,’ she said stupidly.
Foyzi made a little
bow to her. ‘Tenacious as ever, Miss Herrick.’ The New York accent
had been dropped in favour of an almost Wodehousian English. ‘I
always find opening a door is more easily achieved with the
appropriate keys, don’t you?’ He felt in the top pocket of his
uniform. ‘Here we are,’ he said, flourishing them. ‘Now, ladies,
step aside and I will open the door for us all.’ He waved the gun
in a small arc in front of them.
‘Mr Gibbons, perhaps
you would like to lead the way.’
Inside Foyzi hit a
switch and fluorescent light flickered behind five or six panels in
the ceiling. They walked into an unfurnished, L-shaped space with a
reception desk tucked into the angle. Everything but the steel-grey
carpet was white. ‘Welcome to sixty-four ten,’ said Foyzi, prodding
Gibbons in the back with the gun. ‘If you would move to the
furthest door, I’ll introduce you to your hosts.’ Then he seemed to
change his mind. ‘But of course, I’m forgetting the convention that
CIA people never go anywhere without a gun.’ He patted down
Gibbons, conjured an automatic from the back of his waistband and
put it in his pocket. ‘How did security
allow you into the building with that?’
he said with distaste. ‘And ladies, would you empty your purses
over there.’
Herrick’s Apple
Powerbook slipped noiselessly onto the desk, but not her phone,
which remained in her pocket. Foyzi murmured something and set it
aside, then began to sift Eva’s belongings, first examining her
mobile phone, then a US passport and a piece of folded notepaper.
He held it up to her.
‘It’s a medical
prescription for my mother. She has cancer - her name is
Rath.’
‘In Hebrew,’ said
Foyzi, and placed the note in his top pocket.
He went to the door
at the end, opened it and beckoned them to go through. Herrick saw
a room mostly lit by candles. There was a smell of incense on the
air and a faint sound of music - the Sufi chant Herrick had heard
on the island.
Sammi Loz was bent at
the centre of the room, working at his treatment. Karim Khan lay on
the bed, wearing only a loin cloth.
Loz put his hand to
his lips. ‘We will speak quietly. Karim is asleep.’ His hands
returned to Khan’s leg. ‘We expected you two women, but not this
person. Who is this, Foyzi?’
‘The man who had Khan
tortured,’ said Foyzi. ‘He followed me here.’
‘That is
interesting,’ said Loz. He let Khan’s foot down and stepped away
from the bed. ‘We found that it was best to travel with Karim
sedated. It has certainly helped his recovery, but he will no doubt
wake in a short while, and then I think it will be good for him to
meet the man responsible for his torture. It will be a pleasing
symmetry, for him to see his persecutor killed. Now tell me who
this is,’ he said, moving to Eva. ‘A nice erect posture and a firm,
well-exercised figure.’
Eva returned his look
with an absolute lack of fear and said nothing. Herrick absorbed
Loz. He had started a beard, which gave a pronounced hook to his
chin and he seemed to be thinner. The wild look she had seen in his
eyes on the island had been replaced with what she thought was a
rather self-satisfied calm.
He waved a remote at
the CD player to silence the music. ‘Isis, who is this
woman?’
‘I don’t know. She
was trying to help me find this place. You should let her go. She
has nothing to do with this.’
Foyzi handed him the
passport and a piece of paper. Loz read out the name Raffaella
Klein.
‘She’s an Israeli,’
said Foyzi.
Loz dropped the
passport and paper and brushed his hands on his white shift, then
adjusted the little white hat that signified he had undertaken the
pilgrimage to Mecca during Haj. ‘She has everything to do with you,
Isis. You see, we watch the comings and goings in my room.’ He
pointed to a monitor sitting on a pile of telephone directories.
The screen was divided between a view of the consulting room and
one of the reception desks. They had watched everything for the
last hour or so.
‘I wish now that I
had asked Foyzi to install microphones also. But then we didn’t
know we’d have such interesting visitors. ’ He looked at Herrick
sharply. ‘Why did you come here?’
‘How did you get off
the island?’ she shot back.
Loz placed his palm
in the air as if holding a serving plate. ‘Foyzi helped us. I hired
him on that last night on the island. British Intelligence was
paying Mr Foyzi only a little money. I could pay a lot more. It’s
as simple as that. It was Foyzi who gave me the idea of placing the
bodies of the men he lost to suggest that we had all perished in
the missile attack. It worked well, did it not? And then we were
able to travel to Morocco and to Canada with very little
trouble.’
‘To be picked up on
the Canadian border by Youssef Rahe - the Poet?’ said
Herrick.
‘Yahya. His name was
Yahya al-Zaruhn. There was no one his equal. No one! And now he is
dead, killed by British spies.’
‘Police actually,’
said Herrick. ‘But let’s not forget that Rahe had a man tortured
and killed to make it look as though he had died. That’s hardly
heroic.’
‘A traitor,’ said
Loz. ‘A filthy Jewish spy.’
Herrick sensed Eva
stiffen and realised that she must have known the man they were
talking about. The Mossad had certainly been wired into the
Rahe-Loz network from an early stage.
‘Sit down,’ he
shrieked suddenly.
Foyzi waved the gun
and they all sank to the floor. Herrick and Eva leaned against the
wall while Gibbons sat upright with his legs crossed in front of
him. Loz returned to Khan and began to stroke the backs of his
legs. He seemed to have resolved to concentrate on the treatment,
and for nearly an hour said nothing to them. Herrick let her eyes
wander the room. Near the windows there was a bowl filled with
candles, the flames shuddering in the draught from the window, and
some dirty plates with the remains of a meal. Propped on the table
was the Arabic inscription mentioned by Harland. There were also
some books, a copy of the Koran and other texts. One, entitled
Hadith Literature and the Sayings of the
Prophet, was lodged in the seat of an elaborate new
wheelchair that had evidently been purchased for Khan.
The three of them
exchanged glances, but each time anything meaningful seemed to pass
between them, Foyzi stirred himself from Herrick’s computer and
gestured at them with the gun. At length, Loz stretched upwards,
cracked his knuckles and moved away from Khan’s side towards the
windows.
‘How long are you
going to keep us here?’ asked Herrick.
‘Not now, please,’ he
said. He seemed to be entranced by the passage of the storm, which
had swept round to the south and was creating an astonishing
display over the ocean.
Eventually, Herrick
could stand it no longer and started to translate the framed
inscription. ‘ “A man who is noble does not pretend to be noble,
any more than an eloquent man feigns eloquence. When a man
exaggerates his qualities it is because of something lacking in
himself ”. ’ She paused. ‘Why does that mean so much to
you?’
Loz did not turn
round. ‘Because they were the first words spoken to me by Yahya, in
the middle of a gunfight in Bosnia. Can you imagine that sort of
presence of mind? Later, he gave me that to remind me of the
friendship that was born in the moment all those years
ago.’
‘But what about the
last part of the quote?’ asked Herrick. She turned and read,
‘“Pride is ugly. It is worse than cruelty, which is the worst of
all sins.” Hasn’t it occurred to you that the action you and Yahya
planned in Europe for tomorrow constituted the very worst kind of
cruelty - the killing and maiming of innocent men and women. The
suffering is almost too great to imagine.’
He got up slowly and
straightened his robe. ‘We are always like this,’ he said to Foyzi,
as though explaining an old and cranky friendship.
‘Like what?’ she
said. ‘Last time we laid eyes on each other you were trying to rape
me. Tell Foyzi what you were doing in that bath-house when the
missiles struck. I’m sure he has no idea you were attempting
that.’
He moved across the
room as quickly as a cat, seized her by the hair and banged her
head rapidly against the wall five or six times. ‘Dirty white bitch
lies,’ he said, still holding her hair. Suddenly Herrick was in the
police interrogation room in Germany, where she was hurt in exactly
the same way during the Intelligence Officers’ training course.
Later, she had decided that it was being screamed at that she
couldn’t stand, and so it was now.
Eva placed her hand
on her shoulder and Gibbons threw her a look of sympathy. She
prayed they realised she was pushing Loz for a reason.
‘That hurt,’ she
said. ‘Why do you take such pleasure in hurting women? Is it
because you fear them?’
Loz returned to Khan.
‘I do not, but sometimes it is necessary. ’
‘No, the truth is
you’re a psychopath who thinks that because you heal people you are
morally excused when it comes to hurting and killing. I suppose
it’s a kind of God complex. The great Dr Loz dispensing kindness
and random acts of cruelty and slaughter, with all the capricious
will of God Almighty. I had heard of doctors playing God before,
but I never dreamed I’d live to see one who actually thinks he’s
God.’
Loz’s hands stopped
moving and his gaze sought Foyzi’s. ‘Listen to that woman,’ he said
despairingly. ‘It reminds you of every mother.’ Foyzi nodded and
opened Isis’s Apple.
‘Is that your
problem?’ she said. ‘Is that why you’re such a fucking
psychological freak? A mother problem?’
His head turned to
her and he lifted his upper lip to display a row of perfect white
teeth, and picked at something in his mouth. ‘I have none of those
problems. I am merely doing what must be done.’
‘But you’re not - all
the men have been caught. Hadi Dahhak, Nasir Sharif, Ajami, Abdel
Fatah, Lasenne Hadaya, Latif Latiah.’ She included names of people
they knew had been to the Haj but had not been arrested. ‘Those men
who were going to spread disease, and murder with explosives and
poison, they’re all in jail.’
‘She’s clever, no?’
Loz said to Foyzi. ‘She thinks we do not know which ones are still
at liberty. She thinks she can trick us. She is in love with
trickery, this girl. But she doesn’t know how many soldiers we have
in the field. She has no idea, which is why she comes snooping in
the Empire State building. She comes to my building and pokes
around with her friends.’
Foyzi nodded and
walked over to the bed with the open laptop. Herrick caught a
glimpse of the Bosnia picture.
‘This is very
impressive,’ said Loz. ‘Where did you get this from?’
‘A British
photographer.’
‘Yahya… Larry…
myself. The Brothers. I must certainly have a copy.’
‘You can get one in
the papers tomorrow.’
He nodded, lost in
the memory invoked by the photograph. Gibbons glanced at Herrick
and raised his eyebrows.
‘We all look so
young,’ continued Loz. ‘A decade adds much care to a man’s face.’
He looked down. Khan had begun to stir. He had moved his feet, and
Herrick could see they were still swollen. ‘We have visitors, old
friend, and they have brought us a gift which reminds us who we
really are and what we stand for. Sit up and see what she has found
for us. Providence has blessed us at an important
moment.’
Khan pushed himself
up on one arm. When he saw Isis he showed signs of recognition and,
to her astonishment, a hint of a smile played at the corner of his
mouth.
At that moment there
was a thunderclap right above the building. The lights dimmed, the
glass in the windows rattled and Herrick felt a tremor shoot down
the wall. The next time it happened she was sure Gibbons would try
to make a move. She had felt him flinch and get ready, but then
restrain himself.
Khan lay back on the
bed. Loz took the computer to the window and began to read the
emails she had received from Nathan Lyne that day. Herrick
understood they would delineate exactly what SIS didn’t know about
the Brothers, and cursed herself for breaking the most basic
security rule. When he had finished, he examined the prescription
found by Foyzi in Eva’s things.
‘Again Providence has
smiled on us,’ Loz said to the room. ‘We have an English spy, an
American spy and, if I am not mistaken, an Israeli spy at our
mercy. Perhaps we should kill each one as a symbolic sacrifice to
Islam and put it on the internet. That would be a fine conclusion
to the life of the website, a finale to beat. Foyzi, do you think
you can find a webcam at this time of night?’
Foyzi nodded
obligingly, but Loz’s eyes had gone to Khan, who was shaking his
head.
‘You think that’s
such a bad idea, Karim? But of course, I didn’t tell you who this
American is. This is the man who had you tortured. Don’t you
recognise the American pig?’
Khan raised his head
and nodded. ‘Yes, he was in Albania. It is the same man. But he
also gave me water. And he was not the one to torture me. It was
the Arabs.’
Loz shouted and
jerked the gun at Gibbons. ‘Stand up. I shall kill him now. Or do
you want to do it?’
Again Khan
demurred.
‘Why do you see
everything in these terms?’ pleaded Herrick. ‘Arabs against Jews;
Americans against Arabs. Karim just said it. It was Arabs who were
prepared to torture a fellow Muslim, and worse, they did it for
money.’
The intervention had
worked. Loz walked off, and Gibbons let himself down on the floor
again. Herrick understood why he took the risk of doing so without
asking.
‘Look at the United
Nations.’ Loz was evidently pointing to the UN building over on the
East Side, although none of them could see it. ‘The people in that
building are responsible for the death of Muslims everywhere - in
Bosnia, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq. That building is the
source of the evil because it is run by the Americans, the Jews and
the British. You three are the United Nations. Not us. You. So you
are our enemy.’
‘Does your plan
include an attack on the UN?’ asked Herrick.
Loz flashed her an
appreciative smile. ‘You’re very smart, Isis. I told you that we
were made for each other.’
She nodded. ‘I should
have guessed why you made so much of your contact with Benjamin
Jaidi. You were staring your enemy in the eyes. What’s that quote
about the riddle of steel and stone?’
Loz held his head
back and stared at the rain. ‘It goes like this. “This riddle of
steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect
demonstration of non-violence, of racial brother-hood, this lofty
target scraping the skies and meeting the planes halfway, home of
all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the
deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their
errands forestalled.” Secretary General Jaidi likes that quotation
but not for the reason I do. If you
think about it, there is not one true statement in that quotation.
It is all lies. Racial brotherhood… try being an Arab or an
African. Home of all people and all nations… capital of everything…
None of it is true. The only time the deliberations stopped the
planes flying was in Bosnia when Muslims were being killed by Serbs
as the West stood by. That’s when the United Nations stands
back.’
‘Actually, I agree
with most of what you say,’ said Herrick.
‘That’s because you
are an intelligent woman,’ said Loz. ‘And you understand in your
heart that that place cannot go on. Things must be changed from the
outside. It is full of corruption. It is owned by you and the Jews
and the Americans. You run it as though it is your back yard. How
many times do you think the Americans have vetoed Security Council
resolutions against Israel?’
Herrick shrugged and
said she didn’t know.
‘Of course you do not
because you do not notice these things. But we Arabs count. The
answer is thirty-four times in the last three decades. What chance
do the Palestinians have with that record?’
‘Are you using
planes?’ she said calmly.
‘We are soldiers, we
fight on the ground.’
‘So guns and
explosives - bombs?’
‘No, Isis, I do not
tell you. You will see soon enough. You will see everything from
here, and you will hear about the other things we plan. Patience,
little girl.’
Harland had used up
most of his illicit supply of painkillers and was now feeling
distinctly seedy. His sister Harriet was keeping him company
through his sleepless nights by reading to him from the diary of
Samuel Pepys, which she insisted had the right combination of
titillation and longueurs. She’d told him she would leave as soon
as he dropped off, but that didn’t look like happening soon because
Harland couldn’t get used to the sensation of sleeping on his
front, especially now the painkillers had upset his
stomach.
‘Hold on one moment,’
he said to Harriet.
She smiled radiantly.
‘What, darling?’
‘I think I should
check on someone. Haven’t heard from her since this afternoon.’ He
eased himself from the bed, swung his legs to the floor, then
groped for the phone secreted in his sponge-bag. He dialled Herrick
and waited. The phone rang ten times before she
answered.
‘How are you?’ he
asked.
‘Fine,’ she
replied.
‘What are you
doing?’
‘Staring at the rain.
There’s a big storm here.’
‘Are you
okay?’
‘Sure. I had a nice
glass of wine with Ollins in the bar. He’s a real charmer. Now I’m
back in the hotel room with a bottle of red and a book. It’s great.
I couldn’t be happier, nor more relaxed.’
‘Isis, are you all
right?’
‘Sure, I’m just a bit
sleepy. Early start tomorrow. Got to hang up now.’
‘Isis?
Isis?’
She had
gone.
‘Something’s wrong,’
he said, looking at Harriet. ‘I mean, this is a woman who makes you
look straight-laced and dowdy. She is utterly driven. Doesn’t sleep
until she’s attacked a problem a thousand different ways. I’ve
never seen anyone like her before - not in my former line of work,
anyway.’
‘You sound smitten,’
said Harriet.
Harland brushed this
aside. ‘The point is that everything she said was untrue. For
instance, she said she had been to a bar with Ollins. She said he
was charming. Whatever his merits, Special Agent Ollins is not
charming. In the circumstances, it is utterly unlike her to curl up
with a book and a bottle of red wine. So it follows that when she
said she couldn’t be happier or more relaxed she meant she was
exactly the opposite. She has to be in some kind of
trouble.’
Harriet saw he was
serious. ‘What’re you going to do?’
‘I’ll phone Teckman,
then try Ollins.’
Standing in the
centre of the room, Herrick lowered the phone and deliberately
pressed the button to end the call that Loz, with some pleasure,
had insisted she take while he pressed Foyzi’s gun to her
neck.
‘That was good, Isis.
You’re quite the actress.’ Loz laid an arm across her shoulder and
gave the gun back to Foyzi. ‘Another time and another place, we
would have been a sublime match. As the Prophet said, “to taste
each other’s little honey.” ’
She looked into his
eyes and saw an oscillation in his pupils and what she decided was
a profound and insane puzzlement. ‘Do you know what you’re doing? I
mean, do you have any real understanding of other people’s
pain?’
‘Of course I do. Look
at Karim. I have done everything that a man could do for his
friend. I have cleaned and mended his body, lavished my skill on
his injuries. That is an understanding of pain and it is proof of
the debt I owed him.’
‘What makes Karim
different from the people you’re going to kill tomorrow? When
Langer explodes his bomb or Ajami spreads the poison that infects
the bodies of children and pregnant women, or Aziz Khalil coughs
out his germs, they will in all probability kill people who have a
much greater capacity for good than you, Karim or I have. Why is
Karim to be saved and those people destroyed?’
Loz looked mildly
unsettled. ‘I do not have to answer to you.’
‘But you do,’ she
said vehemently, chopping the air with one hand. The other slipped
the open phone into her pocket. ‘I was the one who saved Karim
Khan, not you. I risked my career to stop this man being tortured.
If you don’t believe me, ask Gibbons. He knows what I did. He knows
I risked my father’s life to free Khan and place him in your
hands.’ Her hand went to her pocket and pressed a button at the
right-hand corner of the keypad. ‘You owe me an explanation and you
have a duty to yourself to reconcile these things in your head -
hatred and love of humanity. Because the love you profess for Karim
and Yahya is mere egotism unless you recognise that the part of
them you love is the human part, the thing we all have in
common.’
Loz wagged his
finger. ‘If I spent any time with you I would go mad from these
arguments of yours.’
‘It is not me that
drives you mad,’ she said sadly, ‘it is reason.’ She stopped and,
raising her voice, asked, ‘What good do you think will come of
blowing up the UN building tomorrow? What do Langer and Khalil and
Ajami and Latiah and Fatah think they’re doing? Sure, they’re going
to kill an awful lot of people at the UN, but what good will that
do? The world will look at Islam and say Muslims cannot be trusted.
You will achieve nothing but the exclusion and revilement of your
own people.’
Foyzi had moved round
Herrick as she was speaking. Without warning, his hand dived into
her pocket and pulled out the cell phone. He showed it to Loz and
pointed at the number displayed on the screen. Loz looked at her
furiously, took the phone and threw it against the floor, where
Foyzi crushed it under his boot. Then Loz whistled round and caught
her on the side of her face with the flat of his hand. Again and
again he hit her until she crumpled to the floor. Finally he took
the automatic from Foyzi and beat the back of her head and neck
with it.
Harland had picked up
the phone on the first ring and immediately signalled to Harriet to
give him a pen and paper. Then, as he listened, he wrote the number
of a direct line in Vauxhall Cross and frantically whirled his
index finger in the air to tell her to dial it on the hospital
phone.
Harriet’s call was
answered and she nodded to her brother. Cupping his hand over his
phone, he hissed,‘Tell them Herrick is with Loz in New York. Tell
them he’s alive. She’s left the phone on so I can
hear.’
Instead of relaying
this information immediately, Harriet said to the operator, ‘Put me
through to Sir Robin Teckman and tell him to hold for a very
important call from Robert Harland. Say those exact words to him.
Mr Harland will be with you shortly. This is a matter of national
security.’
Harland’s hand moved
across the paper and he managed to write ‘UN - tomorrow - bomb (?)
Langer, Khalil, Ajami, Latiah.’ He missed the last name and waited.
But suddenly the line seemed to be overwhelmed by static, and then
she was gone. He gave the cell phone to Harriet and took the
hospital phone from her lap. ‘See if you can hear any more… Hello?
Hello?’
‘Yes,’ said the duty
officer at Vauxhall Cross.
‘I need to speak to
the Chief.’
‘I’m afraid that’s
not possible.’
‘This is a national
security emergency. Get me Sir Robin. Tell him it’s Robert
Harland.’ He gave an old identification code that he remembered
from fourteen years before.
‘Just putting you
through.’
After a couple of
minutes the Chief came on the line. ‘Bobby, what can I do for
you?’
‘Herrick’s in New
York. She’s with Loz. He’s alive. She kept her phone on and I heard
a conversation that seemed to suggest they’re going to blow up the
UN tomorrow.’
‘Where is she
exactly?’
‘I’ve no idea. But I
just had a very odd, coded conversation with her when I called her
a few minutes ago. I believe she saw a friend of mine from the FBI
named Ollins, who was investigating the Loz case. She had a drink
with him, so I would imagine he knows where she was going after
that.’
‘Then get on to your
friend.’
‘I tried after
talking to her. His phone is off and I don’t have his home
number.’
‘Then ring the bloody
FBI in New York.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll send someone
round to St Mary’s to be with you in case you get another call. Let
me know what Ollins says and I’ll start cranking up things our end.
If you need to call me again, tell the operator you’re ringing on a
Code Orange matter. They won’t mess about if you say that.’ He hung
up.
Harland called
international directory inquiries on Harriet’s cell phone, got the
number of the FBI in Manhattan, and found an equally unhelpful
operator on the other side of the Atlantic. ‘This is very
important,’ he said. ‘My name is Robert Harland. I am ringing from
Secret Intelligence Service headquarters in London and I need you
to trace Special Agent Ollins and get him to the phone. Do you
understand?’
‘I am sorry, sir,’
said the woman at the other end. ‘I cannot do that at this
time.’
‘What’s your
name?’
‘I am not at liberty
to tell you, sir.’
‘Let me just say this
to you then. Ollins is in possession of information that may avert
a terrorist attack in New York tomorrow. He may not know what he
has. If you wish to keep your job beyond tomorrow afternoon, I
suggest you get the Special Agent to the phone. I’ll wait here
until you do that.’
The line went dead
for what seemed a period of endless deliberation. Eventually a
man’s voice came on the phone. ‘With whom am I speaking?’ he
asked.
Harland gave his
name. ‘I need to speak to Special Agent Ollins on a very important
matter. The British government will be in touch with the US
government in the next hour, but if you get Ollins for me we might
just be able to short-circuit the system and avert disaster. It’s
up to you. I hope for everyone’s sake you make the right
decision.’
From the floor,
Herrick could see Eva’s face, but not Gibbons’. She briefly
wondered why neither had attempted to help her, but then reflected
that they were both professionals and were likely to be playing a
longer game, keeping themselves in reserve.
She raised her head
slowly, giving the impression that she was more stunned than she
actually was, and indicated to Foyzi that she would like to return
to her place against the wall. Foyzi waved the gun with irritation.
She crawled towards Eva and Gibbons and pushed herself up alongside
them. Eva darted her a look that said, ‘wait’; Gibbons stared
unblinkingly ahead.
Something had come to
pass while she had been collapsed on the floor, too shocked and
beaten to have taken much in. Loz had wheeled the bed next to the
window, and was engaged in a heated exchange with Khan, although
none of them could hear what was being said. Each time Khan spoke
he lifted his head from the bed, the muscles in his neck strained,
and his wiry legs twitched towards the floor. He was trying to get
up to confront Loz on equal terms, but Loz wouldn’t let him, and
interrupted by pressing down on his chest, leaning into his face to
rebuke him.
Herrick slid down the
wall a fraction so she could see Khan’s mouth under Loz’s elbow.
When his head popped up again she had no difficulty in lip-reading
what he said. ‘I don’t question your judgement, Sammi. But it was
wrong to hit her. You have too much violence in you and
I…’
He was again forced
down, and this time Loz’s hand moved nearer his neck.
Eva spoke very
quietly to Foyzi. ‘My people know of you. You’re a freelance.
You’re not committed to this madness. My government will pay you
five times what he has given you.’
He shook his head. ‘A
deal is a deal.’
‘It wasn’t on the
island,’ Herrick snapped.
Loz turned with one
hand still restraining Khan. ‘Shoot them if they talk. Shoot
them…’
The rest of the
sentence was obliterated by a crack of lightning overhead. The
Empire State was tapping the storm and drawing its power to earth.
The lights flickered again and then went out completely. Gibbons
hurled himself at Foyzi. Eva went to the right, rolling and
springing to her feet like a gymnast to deliver several ferocious
kicks to Foyzi’s upper body, just as he loosed off three rapid
close-range shots at Gibbons. The gun dropped from his hand with
the final kick. Herrick dived for it and came to her feet, aiming
at Loz, who had not moved from his position near the window. She
glanced left and right. Gibbons was hit; Foyzi lay dead from stab
wounds from a knife still in Gibbons’ hand.
Nathan Lyne ran
panting to Harland’s room after being driven across London in an
unmarked Special Branch police car that topped 100 mph on the flat
of Park Lane.
Harland had put the
phone down on Ollins a few minutes before. ‘She’s in the Empire
State,’ he said, turning to his address book. ‘The FBI man left her
in Loz’s old office. She’s there by herself. I’m calling a friend
who was due to meet her.’
Nathan took the
hospital phone and spoke on the open line to Vauxhall Cross. ‘You
got all that?’ he said. ‘What floor?’
‘Sixty-fourth,’ said
Harland, hearing the first rings on Eva’s phone.
Eva heard her phone
ringing out in reception and prayed it would be her headquarters in
Tel Aviv. She ran out and picked it up, together with the gun that
Foyzi had taken from Gibbons.
‘Yes?’ she barked,
turning back to the room.
‘It’s Bobby. Where
are you?’
‘The Empire
State.’
‘Isis kept her phone
on. We heard something. Is Loz alive? What the hell’s
happening?’
Eva went back into
the room, where Herrick was on one knee beside Gibbons. ‘It’s
okay,’ she said between breaths, ‘we disarmed them. Your friend is
here. She’s got Loz and Khan covered.’
Harland began to
speak, but Eva lowered the phone because Gibbons was saying
something. His voice was a whisper. ‘If you say where we are, every
fucking jackass cop will be here. We don’t have time for that. We
don’t know what these men have planned. We can’t let them be
arrested.’
‘You’re losing
blood,’ said Herrick. ‘You need to get to a hospital.’
‘Forget that,’ said
Gibbons. ‘Just get these bastards talking.’
Harland told Lyne
what he’d just heard on Eva’s phone. ‘They’re with another man - an
American. They seemed to have overpowered Loz. This man has been
hit, I think. He’s insisting they don’t get help until they’ve
found out what Loz was planning.’
Lyne frowned. ‘What
the heck are they doing?’ He stopped and met Harland’s eyes, then
spoke to Vauxhall Cross. ‘The situation is under control. Tell the
FBI to hold off. This is very important.’
Eva put her phone on
the table, went over to Loz and placed Gibbons’s gun at his temple.
At the same moment, Herrick seized the end of the bed and wheeled
it away from them.
The two women said
nothing to each other. The situation was beyond words.
Herrick looked down
into Khan’s eyes and murmured, ‘I’m sorry. I have to do this.’
Without thinking any more, she raised Foyzi’s gun, and brought the
silencer and barrel down on Khan’s still-bloated right foot. He
shrieked. She looked up at Loz. ‘Tell us the plan. Tell us where
your men are. How many of them?’
Loz shook his head in
disbelief. ‘You cannot do this.’
‘Hurt him again,’
said Gibbons from the floor.
Herrick aimed and
struck again. Although she pulled the blow at the last moment, the
scream lasted much longer and died only when Khan had run out of
breath. She paused. Her hand slipped to Khan’s side and momentarily
snatched at his hand and squeezed it. The pressure was
returned.
Now Eva worked on
Loz. ‘We’ve only just started. We will cause your friend
unimaginable pain. Are there five men or more? Where are they? Stop
his suffering.’
Loz hung his head and
then shook it.
Eva nodded at
Herrick, who hit Khan again.
Gibbons had dragged
himself from the floor. Holding his stomach with both hands, he
lurched to where the food and the candles were by the window,
picked up a plastic bag, then made his way to Herrick and handed it
to her. Then he threw himself across Khan’s body, pinning him to
the bed. Herrick looked down at Khan and wrapped the bag over his
head.
‘No!’ shouted Loz. ‘I
will tell you.’
Eva stepped back and
reached for the phone. ‘Can you hear this, Bobby?’
Harland told her he
could.
‘Tell us what the
plan is. Then we’ll let your friend breathe.’
‘There are six,’
mumbled Loz. ‘Three in New York. Two in London. One in
Holland.’
Eva repeated this to
the phone.
Khan’s legs were
trembling and jerking in the air, as though he was suffering a
seizure.
‘Let him breathe,’
pleaded Loz.
‘What’s your plan?’
Eva screamed. ‘What’s your goddam plan?’ She hit him on the ear
with the gun.
He shook his head
again.
Herrick was now aware
of Gibbons whispering to her. He was pointing to the TV monitor on
the floor. ‘The cops are in the other room,’ he hissed. She glanced
down and saw the figures darting across both halves of the split
screen. She held the bag tighter round Khan’s head. His right hand
weakly tore at Gibbons’s back. The other flailed in the air near
Herrick. His legs stopped moving.
Eva stepped back from
Loz. ‘Tell us and you’ll save him.’
‘They are martyrs.
Martyrs with explosive. You understand! Martyrs! You cannot stop
martyrs who give their lives to the struggle!’
‘Suicide bombers with
Semtex, men spreading disease and toxic agents?’
He did nothing and
she repeated the question, screaming in his ear.
He nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘When’re they going
to attack?’
‘They have passes for
two o’clock.’
‘American or European
time?’
Khan had now stopped
moving completely.
‘Please! Let him
breathe!’ Eva signalled to Herrick, who pulled the bag from Khan’s
head.
‘American time -
after the other attacks.’
‘There aren’t going
to be any other attacks. Who are these men?’
‘You know some of
their names,’ said Loz. ‘I will tell you everything if you let Khan
live.’
He gave them the
names, haltingly, as if he couldn’t quite remember, but soon they
had six names, only three of which Herrick recognised. He repeated
them slowly again while Eva held the phone to his mouth. Langer,
Khalil, Al-Ayssid, Ajami Hossein, Mahmud Buktar and Iliyas Shar.
One American, three Arabs and two Pakistanis. He told them the
men’s details. Their phone numbers and addresses were on a laptop
by the table, which none of them had noticed before. Everything was
there, including his last message to the martyrs.
Herrick looked down
at her victim and nodded to him. Only she and Khan knew that she’d
punctured the bag with her fingernails before wrapping it around
his head. Despite the ferocious assault on his feet, he had gone
along with her and play-acted his suffocation. She bent down,
stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead. Her other hand
went to Gibbons’ shoulder.
Loz saw all this. He
looked perplexed for a moment, then seemed to understand. ‘The
goddess Isis used the essence of Ra to defeat him,’ he said. ‘That
is what you did to me. You used my essence - my love for Karim - to
defeat me.’
Herrick heard this
but was too concerned about Gibbons’ condition to reply. She tore
to the reception area and bellowed into the corridor. Within
seconds, the place filled with members of the SWAT team they’d seen
on the CCTV. They pressed field dressings to Gibbons’ wounds and
then four of them picked him up and rushed to the elevator bank.
Ollins, who had come in behind the men, crouched down by
Loz.
‘How much information
have you got from him?’ he asked Eva quietly.
‘He’s told us there
are six men, three to attack the UN building here, two in London
and one in Holland.’
‘Where in London? The
UN offices?’
Loz’s eyes had come
to rest on the patterned rug a few feet away. ‘This has been my
prayer mat since I was a small boy. It has been with me all these
years.’ He smiled to himself. ‘It’s the only thing I have
left.’
‘Forget the
self-pitying shit,’ said Ollins. He took hold of Loz’s jaw and
banged his head upwards against the wall. ‘Where in London? Where
in Holland? How are they going to make these attacks at the United
Nations?’
‘He can’t speak if
you’re going to hold him like that,’ said Eva.
Ollins let go and
Herrick took over. ‘You’ve got men at the Hague. Is that right? The
War Crimes court, the Chemical Weapons Inspectorate - which part of
the UN in Holland?’
‘You will not find
these men.’ Loz worked his jaw from side to side as though
recovering from Ollins’ assault, paused and turned to Herrick, his
eyes locking onto hers with the strange, wild look she had seen on
the island. He bit into something, winced and opened his mouth to
reveal foaming saliva. Herrick grabbed his shoulders, more out of
desperation than any hope of saving him. Then, with only the
smallest convulsion, the cyanide capsule silently took his life.
His head lolled sideways and a little stream of dribble ran from
his mouth onto his chest.
Ollins swore and
thumped the floor. Herrick sat back, shocked.
‘Is he gone?’ They
turned to see Khan, his head raised from the bed. ‘Is he
dead?’
‘Yes,’ said
Eva.
Khan’s head sank
back.
‘He killed himself
because of the failure,’ said Eva. ‘He killed himself because he’d
told us everything.’
‘What makes you so
damned certain?’ asked Ollins.
‘Because this man
lived to outwit people. Once he knew he was beaten there was no
point in living. If anything was still going to happen, he surely
would have waited until at least the end of tomorrow to see the
realisation of his plans.’
Herrick stood up and
looked over to Khan. ‘Are there any more surprises for us,
Karim?’
‘Yes,’ he said at
length. ‘The man called Langer.’
‘Larry
Langer?’
‘Yes. Langer is
waiting to kill the Secretary General. Jaidi got him a job at
Sammi’s request six months ago. He has a pass that allows him
anywhere in the building. He is waiting there now for Jaidi to meet
the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations for breakfast in his
office.’ He stopped and looked up at Herrick. ‘If you bring me that
computer, I will show you the other plans.’ His hand flopped out
towards the laptop. ‘You see, Sammi told me everything because he
trusted me. But you saved me, Isis Herrick, and now I will help
you.’
Twenty-one days after
that night in the Empire State building, Isis sat down for dinner
with her father and Harland - effectively three generations of
British Intelligence officers, as Munroe pointed out - at a pub in
the Western Highlands. There were still several hours of daylight
left, but they’d been forced to abandon fishing on the loch nearby
because clouds of midges had risen when the wind dropped, making it
impossible for them to concentrate. She glanced at Harland’s face,
already covered with tiny red blotches from midge bites, but he
still looked jubilant. An hour before, he had caught his first sea
trout from the old wooden rowing boat they were using. It was a big
specimen, weighing just under five pounds, which had snatched at
the fly as he dragged it across a ripple on the water, then fought
for its life for a full twenty minutes before being
landed.
They had said little
to each other during the day and now there was silence between
them. Without warning, her father rose to his feet in the empty
dining room and held his tumbler of whisky up to her and then to
Harland.
‘This is to you two,’
he said. ‘And to the most remarkable intelligence operation of the
last two decades.’
Harland smiled and,
when Munroe sat down, raised his own glass to Isis. ‘It was your
success.’
She couldn’t agree
with them. She shook her head and stared down at the table
mat.
‘What is it?’ her
father asked. ‘Come along, spit it out.’
‘I hurt Khan… real
pain… deliberately inflicted to get the information. That’s
torture, whichever way you look at it.’
‘Yes, but even Khan
understood why you had to do it,’ Harland told her. ‘Without it,
those men would have caused havoc with their bombs and poisons and
diseases. It was an operational necessity. You took the only course
open to you in the circumstances. I know. I heard it all through
Eva’s phone.’
‘Yes, but I did it
without thinking. That’s how these things happen - you slip into
them without realising the threshold you’ve crossed. I’m no
different from The Doctor, or Gibbons for that
matter.’
‘That’s the world we
live in,’ said Munroe gently.
‘But it shouldn’t
be,’ she replied, turning to her father. ‘If we are to stand for
anything, we have to preserve our standards and morals whatever the
price. The only way we can argue for our system and beliefs is if
we are utterly rigorous with ourselves as well as other people. We
have to make sacrifices not to become like the other
side.’
Her father looked at
Harland, who spoke. ‘It’s a matter of weighing the lesser of two
evils. You were there and you had to make a decision. Besides, Khan
went along with it. As a result he will soon be a free man, and can
rebuild his life. That’s all you need to take from
this.’
‘The question is,
would I have done it anyway - without his cooperation?’ She paused
and put her hand up to her father who was about to interrupt. ‘And
the answer is yes, I would.’
Munroe tapped his
daughter on the hand. ‘Enough of this,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s think
about what we’re going to order so we can get back on the water as
soon as possible. The conditions are perfect and there’s a bit of a
breeze coming up.’
Herrick looked out
over the slate grey loch but her mind was still in the Empire
State.