Assassin (10 page)

“Ghosts,” Hawke said, gazing up at the widow’s walk atop the captain’s house, the words of the choir floating out into the drizzly churchyard. “You’re quite right about this place, old thing. Ghosts and angels behind every door.”

They turned into Federal Street and arrived at a restaurant that took its name from its address, 21 Federal. It was on the ground floor of an elegant white clapboard building built in the late eighteenth century. Sutherland and Stokely were waiting just inside, chatting with the amiable host, who introduced himself as Chick Walsh. Once the four men were all seated round a deep red leather banquette just off the bar, Alex looked around approvingly. Dark paneling, brass fixtures, lovely period marine art on the walls. Ambrose had chosen well.

The waiter brought two cocktails, a Diet Coke for Stokely, and a glass of red wine for Alex.

“To the bride,” Hawke said quietly, raising his glass and, one by one, looking each one of them in the eye.

“To the bride,” they all answered in unison.

There followed a period of silence, not at all uncomfortable. Reflective rather, each man alone with his thoughts and memories of Victoria Sweet.

Ambrose was the first one to break the silence.

“I wonder, Alex,” he said, “If you’d be so kind as to fill us all in on this apparently very nasty matter at the U.S. State Department.”

“Ah, yes,” Alex said, relief on his face. “Conch’s crisis du jour. Ratcheted up from ‘apparently very nasty’ to simply ‘very nasty’, I’m afraid. State’s DSS fellows have concluded that the death in Venice was an assassination.”

“DSS?” Stokely asked. “New one on me. I thought I knew all those spooks.”

“Don’t get a lot of publicity, Stoke. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. Responsible for protecting American diplomats and their families at embassies and consulates around the world.”

“Rather tall order lately, I’d say,” said Sutherland.

The waiter arrived with their food, and all conversation ceased until he left the table.

Congreve asked, “Counterespionage, are they, these DSS boys?”

“Some are,” Alex said, “But their primary mission is to act as America’s cops overseas. Brilliant track record. It was DSS who finally nabbed Ramzi Yousef, lovely chap responsible for the first Trade Towers bombing back in 1993. Friend of mine, a fellow named Tex Patterson, heads up some 1200 agents. Tex calls them the best-kept secret in American law enforcement, and he’d like to keep it that way. He lets Langley or the Bureau take all the bows.”

“This poor chap in Venice,” Ambrose mused. “Their new ambassador. Never did hear a satisfactory explanation of that one.”

“Most people never will,” Alex said, “Ambassador Simon Stanfield was tracked and killed by a miniature smart bomb.”

“Good Lord. You can’t be serious,” Congreve scoffed.

“Sounds preposterous, I agree. But that’s what happened. DSS discovered a tiny encrypted dot, a microchip transmitter planted in Stanfield’s billfold. Still broadcasting the GPS coordinates of the dead man’s precise location to a satellite.”

“A
personal
smart bomb?” Stokely asked. “Man, what the hell is that all about?”

“Divers found fragments of it in the muck at the bottom of the canal. Reconstructing them, it appears to have been a small titanium missile, perhaps twelve inches long. A tiny warhead at the nose, packed with just enough plastic explosive to blow a man to pieces upon impact.”

“Astounding,” Congreve said, after taking a forkful of his duck. “And what about this second chap in Riyadh? McGuire.”

“Even more bizarre,” Hawke continued. “Butch McGuire, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, keeled over at a table in his favorite restaurant in Riyadh, whilst having dinner with his wife. Looked like natural causes, Patterson said, except the man was in perfect health.”

Congreve sat back against the cushions, his interior wheels spinning soundlessly but obviously. He turned his deceptively innocent blue eyes towards Hawke.

“Another splash of wine, Alex? I see they have a good La Tour on the wine list. Excellent vintage.”

“Thanks, no,” he said, proud of his new regimen, and then he told them all about the strange demise of Butch McGuire.

“So that’s it,” he concluded a few moments later. “Patterson said that when they opened Butch up on the autopsy table, the entire thoracic and gastrointestinal organs were basically fried.”

“Fried?” Stoke asked, taking a big bite of his steak. “What you mean
fried?
”

“Cooked,” Hawke said. “Well done. Charred.”

“Good Lord,” Congreve said. “How on earth did—”

“He swallowed something,” Hawke said. “Small enough to go down with food unnoticed. Then, inside the stomach, a microburst of electricity. Either self-detonating or triggered from a remote location.”

“Ratchet up the terror level at every American embassy,” Ross said, shaking his head. “That’s the plan.”

“This is bad, Alex,” Ambrose said. “Two in two weeks? It’s just the beginning.”

Alex nodded. “I agree. Question, Constable. Do you think Vicky was actually first? Or, rather, a botched attempt on me? I have very close ties to the U.S. State Department’s counterterrorist operations. If this is some kind a plot to paralyze America’s worldwide diplomatic mission, I wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”

“Not beyond the range of possibilities, Alex. But a separate, personal, and unrelated attack on you is also quite possible, given the chart we just created.”

“A target under either scenario, then,” Hawke said. “Off the top of your head, Constable. These diplomatic assassinations. Initial reaction? Thoughts?”

“Virulent psychopath with a deep-seated hatred for America. Her ambassadors at any rate. Sadist. Unlimited scientific and economic resources. Enjoys eccentric means to kill.”

“Could be just some nutcase genius with a grudge,” Stoke said. “Like that crazy Harvard fruitcake.”

“Which one?” Congreve asked.

“Unabomber. Kept sending ever more powerful mail bombs to people on his environmental shitlist. Too bad he didn’t get a ‘return-to-sender’ package and forget he had—”

“Mr. Alexander Hawke?” a waiter said.

“I’m Alex Hawke.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hawke. A gentleman on the phone who’d like to speak with you, sir. Extremely urgent.”

“Certainly. What’s this gentleman’s name?”

“A Mr. Jack Patterson from the State Department, sir.”

S
NAY BIN
W
AZIR AND HIS NEW BRIDE ARRIVED IN
L
ONDON
in the spring of 1986, bin Wazir’s febrile mind brimming with schemes and his coffers bulging with blood money. Elephant blood money to be blunt about it, although that chapter in his life had already been purged from the public record. Throughout the eighties and early nineties Snay bin Wazir would embark on a public relations campaign and a spending spree that eventually had all of London town in an uproar.

At first, putting his toe in the water, he acquired a palatial penthouse flat on Park Lane, with panoramic views of Hyde Park. He hired a staff of three, two maids and a Filipino cook, for his wife, Yasmin. Then he installed Tippu Tip, the former African chieftain, as the highest-paid bodyguard cum driver in London. Tippu in turn hired a houseboy named Kim who was soon lighting the Sultan’s trademark Baghdaddy cigarettes with a heavy gold Dunhill. That was Snay’s idea of a slow build. There was nowhere to go from there but up.

A Kuwaiti friend recommended a tailor in New Bond Street. Snay had six identical suits made, all black terry cloth. He noticed that people smiled their approval wherever he went. “Where on earth did you get that suit?” people would often ask, and Snay, now a fashion trendsetter of sorts, was happy to direct them to his newly acquired tailor.

After a month or more of prowling the fashionable and not so-fashionable West End clubs and casinos, he bought Harpo. This trendy, upscale nightspot in Knightsbridge had a huge dance floor on the ground floor and a plush VIP casino upstairs. For a while, Snay himself was on the door every night, ingratiating himself with London’s younger upper crust and ogling the Pretty Young Things who shimmered nightly through his increasingly famous portals.

He strode into Jack Barclay’s Rolls-Royce emporium on Berkley Square one fine morning and bought his first Roller. A gleaming aluminum-bodied 1926 Silver Ghost with a red leather interior. The vanity plate acquired at a princely sum read
Ivoire.
He outfitted Tippu Tip in pearl grey livery with ivory buttons. Tippu was easily the best dressed, most heavily armed private chauffeur in London.

In one of Snay bin Wazir’s more inspired moments, he turned the door at Harpo over to Tippu. The six-foot-six chief outfitted himself in a variety of colorful matching silk turbans and loincloths every night, his massive black chest complemented by a splendid ivory skull necklace of his own design. “Ebony and ivory, Boss,” he’d said laughing, “Living in perfect harmony.”

Almost overnight Snay bin Wazir’s rugged, mustachioed face was everywhere; between the covers of magazines and tabloids which covered such things, and smiling at you on a monthly, weekly, and, ultimately, daily basis. He had become, after a fashion, a minor celebrity, and had even earned himself a glamourous nickname, the Pasha of Knightsbridge. He knew he was destined for far greater glory, but, for the present, he was satisfied.

Then there was the night in the late eighties when the world-famous arms dealer Attar al-Nassar himself appeared at his door, a bevy of beauties on each arm. Bin Wazir knew from the moment he first laid eyes on al-Nassar that, somehow, his life was forever changed. He ducked into the cloakroom and rang up his friend, Stilton, a rabid society newshound at the
Sun
. “Al-Nassar’s here,” he told Stilton. “I’ll keep him here as long as I can but you’d better hop to it.” Stilton hopped right to it. The Pasha and the reporter had developed a very successful and symbiotic relationship.

Bin Wazir provided the diminutive and somewhat unfortunate-looking
Sun
journalist and his sidekick photographer with women.
The Sun,
which, on a good day sells around four million copies, in turn conferred celebrity status of a certain kind upon the arriviste Snay bin Wazir.

That night, bin Wazir showered the world-famous arms dealer with attention, ushering him to the best table on the dance floor and sending over endless bottles of Crystal, compliments of the house. Stilton arrived ten minutes later, his taxi screeching to a halt outside Harpo’s crowded entrance. The giant Tippu parted the throngs and personally escorted him inside. The shots of al-Nassar and his bevy on the Harpo dance floor were splashed all over the newsstands next morning.

The end of that splendid evening found Snay and Attar on a first-name basis, huddled in a corner banquette smoking cigars and talking politics, women, religion, and, ultimately, business.

“I take it you’re not a religious man, Snay,” al-Nassar said mildly.

“On the contrary,” Snay smiled. “I am a fanatic. My gods just happen to reside in a vault in Zurich.”

Al-Nassar laughed. “Then why do you trifle in nightclubs, my friend?”

“Have you looked carefully at the dance floor tonight, Attar?”

“Ha. Accessories! Baubles and bangles! I will tell you a confidence, Snay. Because I find I like you, and I don’t like many people. Today, I sold more than two dozen forty-million-dollar fighter jets to the Peruvian government. Eastern European jets. Highly unreliable design.”

“Unreliable fighter jets?”

“Hmm. Every piece that falls off is wildly expensive. The real money will be in keeping them flying.”

Snay, smiling, raised his flute of champagne and leaned back against the cushions. It had taken him many long years, but he realized he had finally found a role model.

“Beautiful suit,” he told al-Nassar, eyeing the man’s exquisitely cut three-piece navy chalkstripe. “May I ask, who is your tailor?”

“Chap at Huntsman, Savile Row,” Attar replied. “Fellow named Ronnie Bacon. I’ll ring him tomorrow if you’d like.”

Snay nodded and said, “I was wondering, Attar…I’m sitting on some money.”

“Yes?”

“Not a lot. Fifty million or so. English pounds,” Snay said, holding a match to the tip of his monogrammed yellow cigarette.

“Yes?”

“I don’t suppose you ever look for investors? At that level, I mean?”

“I don’t, to be honest, Mr. bin Wazir,” al-Nassar said.

“Sorry. Sorry if my question offended you, Mr. al-Nassar.”

“A wise man never regrets the questions he asks. Only the ones he didn’t ask.”

“This is good advice.”

Al-Nassar tapped his temple with his index finger and said, “My gods reside up here, Snay bin Wazir. Right now, my deities have all overindulged themselves. The lowly grape clouds their normally lofty judgment. It’s late in the evening. Would you be so kind as to give me a day or so to consider your question?”

“Certainly.”

“You’re basic raw material, Snay. Good, rough, hard stone. Don’t mind getting your hands dirty either, from what I’ve heard. I like that. A bit of polishing strictly for appearances and I might just be able to use a fellow like you.”

“I should be honored, Mr. al-Nassar.”

“Good. We’ll get you started. Forget ivory. Too visible. Too—messy. I’ve got one word for you, Snay. Flowers.”

“Flowers?”

“Flowers.”

“Mr. al-Nassar. Perhaps I don’t follow you quite exactly. Could you be, please, more specific?”

“Gladiolas.”

“Ah. Of course. Gladiolas.”

“Precisely. Just the beginning. You buy day-old glads in South Africa for two dollars a stem and you sell them to rich Russian tourists in Dubai the next day for one hundred dollars a stem. You can carry twenty tons per flight. Better than printing money.”

“That sounds good.”

“One question, which I shall always regret if I do not ask it,” al-Nassar said, fingering the black terry cloth of Snay’s lapel.

“Anything, Attar.”

“Where on earth did you get that suit?”