Confessor (41 page)

“Sure, but it won’t go wrong. When I ever let you down, Tony? You know
me
. I taught you to swim in these shark-infested waters. Now you’ve got to show some trust.”

A very long minute passed, then Worboys nodded. “It all makes sense. Okay, I’ll back you. Let me use this telephone.”

“Take all the time you need, as long as it’s bloody quick.” He went back to the dining room, where Bex was talking to Bitsy, calming her, reassuring. As Herb said later, “Like a Dutch Aunt.”

He finished the soup, which had cooled off, then demolished a huge plate of smoked salmon, talking Bitsy down as he chewed.

Worboys stuck his head around the door. “All set, if you have a minute, Herb.”

“Sure.”

“And they have him up in the viewing room.” Worboys looked pointedly at Bex, who rose, put a calming hand on Bitsy’s shoulder and spoke softly to her.

“That DCI’s worth her weight in gold,” the Deputy Chief said as they reached Gus’s study door.

“‘Her price is beyond rubies,’” Herb quoted. Again it shook Worboys that he had quoted from the Bible, and he just stopped himself from automatically doing the old schoolboy joke about what was Ruby’s price?

Seated in the study, he went over each step, made Herb repeat telephone numbers, told him about the deal he had made with the American agencies, and the big cut they had demanded in return for Herbie and Bex operating on United States territory. “You’re still not really their flavor of the month.” He chuckled. “The last time you ran an op there it wasn’t a completely spectacular success for them. They have long memories, but this thing’s so important they really can’t say no.”

“You bet they can’t. I have to see Carole, as we agreed, then do the final session with friend
Ishmael
, and time’s running out.”

“Go, then, Herb. And good luck.”

“Is not luck I need, Tony, it’s solid facts and making the right pieces fit. I don’ even know if all the pieces are in the box. If they’re not, then we won’t solve the puzzle.”

“Knowing you, Herb, you’ve some extra pieces hidden on your person.”

Kruger smiled. “How you guess that, Young Worboys? Hope I see you when I get back—if I get back. Maybe, this time, I run out of road.”

“Don’t even think it.”

Bex and Bitsy were coming back through the front door as the two men emerged from Gus’s study. Bitsy, red-eyed, quickly made for the staircase.

“It’s him. No doubts now. She feels unclean.” Bex jerked her head in the direction of the stairs.

“Then she shouldn’t. She’s not the first person who had to screw for Queen and Country and she won’t be the last. Bex, we’re out of here within the hour. I have one more thing to do, then throw some clothes into a case. You got enough stuff for an extended trip to the U.S.A.?”

“Just about. Do I need to report in to the Yard?”

“Been taken care of, Bex,” from Worboys.

“Go pack, Bex. See you in half an hour.” Herbie was gone, his hands swinging the wrong way, left to left leg and right to right. He was whistling The British Grenadiers as he lumbered from the house, heading for the guest facilities.

“When’s this farce going to be over, Herb?” Carole did not even stand up when Big Herbie came bulldozing into her room.

“For you, Carole, my dear, it’s over. I come personal to give you the news.”

“Then you know who did for Gus?”

“We think we know, Carole. We certainly know that it wasn’t you.”

Her cheeks flared with anger. “You didn’t think for a minute it was …?”

Herb’s giant shoulders moved almost to his ears in an overstated shrug. “Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men and women? The Shadow knows.”

“Don’t try the funny papers on me, Herb. You didn’t really …?”

“People are guilty until proved innocent.”

“It’s the other way around.”

“So they tell me, but that’s in the real world, little one. Seriously, Carole. You are greatly loved, and we’re all devastated about Gus. We think we know exactly what happened and we’re going after the bastards, though I fear they’ve flown the coupé.”

“Coop, Herb, as in hen coop.”

“Oh, really? Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? You’re free to go. You get your passport back, and you can return to your house because we’re leaving.”

“Really? It’s true? I can really go?”

“You think I’d lie to you, sweetie? Who knows what—”

“You just did that one, Herb, but you’re a darling.” The smile faded. “Be honest with me, Herbie. Are you not going to get them?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether any of them are still around to be got. I do my best for you, eh?”

There were tears in her eyes and she gave Kruger a massive hug, which was rather like trying to hug a bear. “I can really go?” she asked again.

“Really. I should take a holiday if I were you.”

“Maybe I will. Maybe that’s what I need.”

Even as they talked, people like Ginger, Kenny Boyden and Micky were packing papers into boxes in Gus’s study. Later, a security van would take them to London and they would be deposited at Vauxhall Cross to await the tender mercies of the analysts.

They caught American Airlines 107 out of Heathrow at six o’clock. Hisham would be on the British Airways flight 179 leaving at six-thirty. Ginger, in the guise of a taxi driver, was taking him to the airport and there had been many confidential telephone calls from Vauxhall Cross and Warminster to make certain that Bex and Herbie did not bump into Hisham in the terminal.

The aim was to get Herbie Kruger and DCI Olesker into JFK before Hisham. The way had been smoothed at that end also.

Before leaving Warminster, Herb sat down opposite Hisham and put matters to him in an unfriendly, austere and brutal manner.

“If we could use someone else, we would, and you’d be dead and buried without anyone being the wiser,” he began. “Hisham, don’t doubt for a moment that you’ll be watched all the way. If you deviate or fail to report to us, then we’ll close you down permanently. You understand that?”

Hisham made it very plain that he understood. He was a terrified man, and Herbie bothered him almost more than the thought of being thrown to the Amn-al-Amm in Iraq. Herb detected the fear, like a wild beast scenting terror from a human. He warned Hisham that he should—as he put it—“Act as normal. Be yourself. Don’t hint to any of those clowns you’ll be working with. Just keep it light! Do as you’re told by them, and also do it right for us. I tell you, Mr. Silwani, that the slightest deviation will mean you’re out of the loop forever.”

On the flight over, they talked for about two hours, Bex Olesker went to sleep, her head dropping sideways on Big Herbie’s shoulder. At one point she almost came awake, but grunted, made a mmmmming sound and snuggled closer.

Herbie did not get any sleep, but vastly enjoyed the time he spent with Bex’s head in close proximity. She smells of wild violets, he thought. But what the hell, he told himself; what do I know about wild violets?

In England, while all three players were rumbling across the Atlantic, a team of SAS soldiers arrived on the outskirts of the village of Crowley in rural Oxfordshire. They were backed up by police and four members of the Security Service, plus Tony Worboys, who was kept well back out of sight.

A trace on the telephone number given to them by Ramsi and confirmed by Hisham had pinpointed an old farmhouse, recently renovated, on the outskirts of the village.

They went in at nine o’clock, just when the three men who were
Yussif
had been taking their evening meal. Only one of the men was stupid enough to go for an Uzi that was lying on a chair a few feet from the table. He died instantly, and his body was removed quietly in an unmarked van.

The SAS stayed on to act as guards, while two of the MI5 officers, both women, remained behind to interrogate the two men who were left. The inquisitors were exceptionally good and had read both Arabic and Hebrew at Cambridge. They began by completely breaking down the pair of
Yussif
men, telling them all the information they had on the
Intiqam
teams in both the U.K. and the U.S.A.

The young women also did a subtle piece of second-guessing, based on the fact that the number had been tapped by the Security Service from the moment it was traced. They knew—so they said—that there were constant monitoring calls made from Germany and Switzerland. They indicated that they also possessed all the code words used between
Yussif
and their monitors.

The pair of men who were now the only link
Intiqam
had left in Britain complied with all the requests made by the inquisitors. For them it was humiliating to be questioned like this by women, but the alternatives offered to them—such as public humiliation, or word passed to the Leader of their country, together with their live bodies—were more terrifying.

From that moment everything was done by the book. Local people did not detect anything wrong. They did not even see any troops in the area. Life went on as placidly as usual.

What nobody knew at that point was a meeting between
Claudius
and
Jasmine
had taken place early that afternoon. Part of the coded ad in the London
Times
had indicated a four-to-five-day wait before any contact should be made.

They met outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and walked together across the street and down to the crowded area in front of Rockefeller Plaza.

Jasmine
gave
Claudius
a detailed account of the state of play, including the fact that there was a possibility they would be moving to Washington, D.C., very soon. “Then it’s really going down?” It was a rhetorical question from
Claudius
.

“It looks very like it. If you have a number, I can call you once we have the complete information. You’ll need to know the exact times and the nature of
Magic Lightning
.”

Claudius
gave
Jasmine
two numbers, to be used only in an emergency.

The entire meeting lasted twenty minutes. Then
Claudius
wandered off, while
Jasmine
stayed a little longer bathed in the sticky heat and watching the rollerblading going on below. In a couple of months’ time this would be a skating rink.
Jasmine
wondered if death or worse would come between now and then.

American Airlines flight 107 landed at JFK ten minutes early, at eight twenty-five on a clear warm evening. At the jet way they were met by one of the Embassy people from Washington, D.C., and a pair of FBI Special Agents, who hurried them through the usually interminable immigration and customs checks, helped with the small baggage and then drove them into Manhattan. On the way through the airport they checked the arrivals monitors and saw that Hisham’s British Airways flight was on time. He would be going through the endless routines with Customs and Immigration in around half an hour’s time, which meant they could not expect his call-in for around an hour.

They were to stay in an apartment in the luxurious Trump Tower, often used by the British for short-stay diplomats. Their own people from D.C. had readied the large and comfortable flat that afternoon, putting in extra telephones, color-coded so that they could immediately know which direct and safe line they were on—one to Vauxhall Cross, another directly to the Resident’s office in D.C., while a third and fourth were local, for dealing with the people on the ground.

The first call came in just as they had chosen rooms, unpacked and generally settled in. The man from the British Embassy was still with them, as he had been instructed to stay until they knew all the equipment was working properly.

The call was from a section of listeners, holed up in a cramped apartment off East Fifty-seventh. Hisham had followed orders to the letter. The two remaining members of the American team were, it appeared, living in style as Mr. and Mrs. Walid Jaffid at the Parker Meridien Hotel. He had been instructed to check in and contact them in their suite—6102. Hisham had also confirmed that the number he had been given was definitely the telephone number for the
Yussif
team in the United States.

“So, we’re off and running,” the man from the Embassy said. He received a curt nod from Herbie, who was not about to pass on any extraneous information to anyone outside what he considered to be a charmed circle.

As soon as the Embassy contact left to take the shuttle from La Guardia back to D.C., Herbie put in a call to Vauxhall Cross. He was patched through to Worboys, who was at home. They spoke for some fifteen minutes, after which Herb decided they should get some food sent up. They had been lodged in one of the service apartments, which gave them access to such things as maid and room service.

“What you fancy, then, Bex?” he asked, giving her the big open smile.

“About sixty hours of sleep.” She looked as though she had been run ragged. “Then I’d like to go out and splurge on clothes and stuff I’d never even think of in England.”

“Maybe your day will come. Seriously, no food?”

“No food. Seriously. I need sleep.”

“Then I think I’ll have a Reuben on rye with fries and some coffee. Maybe also apple pie à la mode.” He turned the room service menu upside down and reached for the phone.

“Just a snack, eh?” Bex gave a winning little laugh and tottered toward her bedroom.

In the Parker Meridien, Walid and Khami were indulging in their favorite indoor sport when the telephone rang with a message from
Yussif
saying that help was on the way, very near at hand.

“There is an English saying,” Walid groaned as he gave Khami the news. “Two is company. Three is a crowd.”

“He won’t actually be sharing this suite, will he?” She sounded panic-stricken.

“Not if I have anything to do with it. You want the handcuffs off?”

“No, my prince. Just have your evil way with me …Please, Walid! Please!”

Hisham had done everything they had told him to do. Now he took a cab to the Parker Meridien, where there was a room reserved for him under the name of Dr. Sa’dun Zaidan.

They showed him his room and he thought, ‘This is the greatest luxury to which I have ever been exposed.’ He then put a house call through to suite 6102.