Retribution (7 page)

“Fleet Street is where the big London newspapers have offices. You think he meant one of them?”

“No,” the student answered. “He did not say Fleet Street, he said Fleet Street’s doorstep—that’s my translation from the Arabic,
which has a different construction. Something very close to-Fleet Street.”

Dartley could never find his way around London’s tangle of streets without the aid of a pocket map. He pulled one out, laid
it flat on the table, and located Fleet Street. “St. Paul’s Cathedral is nearby.”

The student shook his head and placed his finger on another spot. “The Old Bailey, as British people call their Central Criminal
Court. In four days’ time two
Libyans are due to go on trial for illegally entering the country with explosives. The surrounding area will no doubt be heavily
guarded when their trial starts, but probably not now.”

Dartley looked at the map again and pointed to the other end of Fleet Street. “What about the Royal Courts of Justice?”

“Only civil cases are tried there, no criminal cases. Besides, it’s not a well-known landmark like the Old Bailey. The Inns
of Court are close by too, but I see no point in bothering with them.”

“I want you to know that if you are lying to me, I will come after you and kill you. I don’t have to know your name to find
you.”

“I’m not lying,” the student insisted.

“Better not be. I’m going to alert the police about what you’ve told me. I hope it’s not too late.”

“I already have,” the student said matter-of-factly. “I telephoned at six this morning, having spent a sleepless night. I
didn’t give my name, but I think my Arab accent impressed them.” He smiled grimly. “I told you that we Kuwaitis do not support
terrorism.”

His having informed the authorities certainly explained the Arab student’s aura of fear. Informers were dealt with harshly.
Dartley was inclined to believe his story and intended to make a backup call to the police himself. A second anonymous call
with the same information could hardly be ignored. Dartley himself had no official contacts or information sources on this
case in Britain. He knew only what he read in the
papers and saw on TV. No doubt the British government censored all that. Yet he had to find some way to anticipate the Palestinians’
moves or locate them. He could not hang around the Old. Bailey for fear of being picked up in a police dragnet. He was powerless
to do anything except make careful inquiries and await the outcome of any attack on the Old Bailey.

He snapped out of his deep thought and saw the Kuwaiti student nervously watching him. “The waitress still hasn’t come to
take my order,” he complained. “The service in this place is awful.” He stood up and headed for the door.

Group-Captain Godfrey Bradshaw met General Gerrit van Gilder’s plane at London airport. No fuss was made—he had to pass through
immigration and customs like anyone else. An M.I.5 security man identified him for the group-captain as he came out of the
customs area.

“Delighted finally to meet you, van Gilder,” Bradshaw said, extending his hand to the stocky, almost-bald Dutchman.

No use of rank or respect either, the general noted. He somewhat grumpily shook hands with the British military intelligence
agent. Bradshaw sported an RAF mustache, a tweed jacket, and a red paisley cravat in his open-necked shirt. Van Gilder also
noticed that he had a head of indecently healthy-looking hair.

“We better hurry, old boy,” Bradshaw told him. “We have a full day in front of us. I’ll brief you as we drive.”

The car was an ancient Jaguar, an open two-seater. In spite of its age it accelerated as if a jet engine had been installed
beneath the hood.

“I know you won’t mind, old boy, if we stop off first at my tailor.”

Van Gilder didn’t mind. He felt a bit stiff in his dark suit next to Bradshaw’s sporty attire. They left the Jag in a hotel
garage at Hyde Park Corner and turned off Park Lane into Curzon Street.

“Care to pop in here for a moment?” Bradshaw asked.

Thinking they were going for a drink, van Gilder nodded, only to see that Trumper’s was not a pub but an old-fashioned barbershop.
The inside was paneled with dark, polished wood, sporting prints lined the walls, and the voices were quiet and superior in
tone. Van Gilder was escorted into a wooden cubicle and sat before a huge ornate sink, over which hung a photograph of King
Edward VIII and some old signs advertising mustache curling and badger shaving brushes. The barber pulled across a red velvet
curtain behind him, which was a blessing of privacy for a man with as little hair on his head as van Gilder.

What Bradshaw had told him so far had thoroughly upset him. First, it seemed that Scotland Yard had been contacted from a
public phone in Oxford at six that morning by a man speaking with an Arab accent—from Kuwait, according to experts who later
heard the tape. His information was that the Old Bailey would be attacked today or in the next few days. An American
caller, also from Oxford, gave the same information only a short while ago, which Bradshaw learned when he telephoned in to
headquarters after parking the car. M.I.5 or possibly M.I.6’s decision on this seemed incredible to the Dutchman. Instead
of sealing off the entire area with security cordons, they were going to allow the attack to develop and counter it with in-place
special security units.

When he protested the decision vehemently, Bradshaw only shrugged and said the responsibility was out of his hands. This caused
van Gilder to mutter in Dutch that he should be seeing men of his own rank who would be responsible for such decisions.

But this was not all. Bradshaw said casually that disinformation had been fed to the media that the Irish government was about
to announce its decision to sign. This was expected to rid Britain of the terrorists if they were not caught at the Old Bailey.

“Won’t the Irish government suspect and be furious with you?” van Gilder asked.

Bradshaw smiled. “The Irish are always furious with us.”

There was more. They would not be going to the Old Bailey, because Bradshaw had some kind of tea party to attend. His wife
had the flu and he was taking van Gilder along ín her place.

“Can’t you drop me at the Old Bailey and go alone?” van Gilder asked in an aggrieved tone.

“Can’t be done. I have to stick by you. Come
along, you’ll probably have a good time. Those bloody Arabs can wait.”

Bradshaw paid for the haircuts and they walked along Curzon Street toward Bond Street. Kilgour, the Savile Row tailor, was
between Bond and Regent streets. Van Gilder did not want to go in. Bradshaw insisted. The tailors stared aghast at van Gilder’s
off-the-rack Italian suit, which he had felt looked very dignified only a short while ago. Bradshaw appeared after a few minutes
in his made-to-order double-breasted pin-striped suit.

“Double vents, four buttons on the sleeve with real buttonholes, plenty of shirt cuff showing, dull horn buttons, hand-stitched
silk lining,” Bradshaw listed. “Without those, old boy, you simply don’t have a presentable suit.”

“If you pay for it, I’ll order one,” the Dutchman offered.

Bradshaw guffawed, looked at his watch, and said they should be off—wouldn’t do to be late at the garden party. Van Gilder
wondered who in hell was having a garden party in the middle of the city.

They strode down Bond Street, along Piccadilly, across Green Park to the Mall, then joined a line in front of the iron gates
of Buckingham Palace. Many of the men in line wore a pearl gray tie and vest, striped pants, and cutaway coat. In contrast
the women were demurely dressed in quiet colors and unstartling fashions.

“This is the Queen’s garden party. But don’t
expect to chat with her, van Gilder; there will be eight thousand people here.”

Bradshaw wasn’t exaggerating. There were at least eight thousand on the fifty-acre lawn of the Palace Gardens, plus three
tents— one of them enormous—and two military bands playing show tunes.

“The wife was very disappointed at not being able to come,” Bradshaw explained. “It’s a bit of an honor to be here, you see.
Well, I expect you’ll meet her later on. You’ll stay with us, of course. We have a place in Surrey. Nice at this time of the
year.”

Van Gilder saw some Arabs, bearded and solemn, with traditional headdress over Western-style suits—probably Saudi princes
or sheiks.

There had been almost no security precautions as far as the Dutchman was aware, no metal detectors, no photo-identity checks.
Each pair of guests just handed in their invitation and were admitted. Van Gilder had seen more security around a second-rate
diplomatic event.

The Beefeaters, pikemen in gold and scarlet uniforms, herded the guests politely to clear a way for the Queen. She walked
through on her way to the royal tent, stopping occasionally to shake someone’s hand and say a few words.

Van Gilder saw Bradshaw came to full military attention as she passed, an almost instinctive reaction on the part of an old
military man, even at a garden party. He finally understood that a handful of terrorists were not enough to keep this Englishman
from his monarch’s tea party.

* * *

“Military-grade weapons are impossible to obtain right now,” Naim Shabaan told the other two in the Redcliffe Square apartment.
“I offered to pay top prices in dollars, but there’s nothing on the market except cheap handguns. Our IRA contact says they
haven’t raided any army bases in Britain recently, and whatever they buy on the Continent is shipped to Northern Ireland.
So it looks as if we’ll have tp make do with whatever we can lay our hands on.”

“The nails and plastic explosive worked well enough for us at Oxford,” Ali Khalef said with a smirk. They had just heard of
another law professor’s death over the radio.

“It’s the place where the attack occurs that counts now, regardless of how many we kill,” Naim said. “We could gain a higher
body count with a device placed in a store or in the Underground. I think it’s more important for us to strike at well-known
places than to try to kill the maximum number of people. They’ll be expecting us at the Old Bailey in a few days’ time, but
not this afternoon.”

Hasan Shawa looked doubtful. “When I passed there in the car an hour ago, I didn’t like what I saw. It was too quiet. People
seemed to be in a hurry to come in and go out of the courthouse. There were small groups of men stationed around, some at
the edge of the street. Not one uniformed policeman in sight. I believe they’re waiting for us.”

“Of course they are,” Naim said. “They’re guarding
every potential target in Britain round the clock. That’s why we have to hit one of those to make a strong impression. An
Underground station or the Regent’s Park Zoo would be too easy. That would be cowardice on our part, at least in their eyes.
But if we come right at them, in spite of their vigilance, and succeed, then we will hurt them. They will know that nothing
is safe then. At that point they will squabble among themselves, the weak one blaming the strong. Then you will hear that
the announcement of the intention to sign has been postponed. But not if we back down and start hitting safe targets. If we
do that, they will see that they have won and we are in retreat. We have to stay on the attack. No matter what defenses they
put up, we must be cleverer than them, more daring.”

“With a shotgun, a bag of nails, and some plastique?” Hasan asked mockingly.

Naim’s eyes glittered. “With our bare hands if we have to.”

Hasan no longer challenged him.

Naim finished sanding the wood handle of a toilet plunger. He slid the wood handle into the barrel of the shotgun. It was
a tight, perfect fit. Next he two-thirds filled the plunger’s rubber suction cup with three-inch nails. On top of those he
placed a thick cake of plastic explosive, which he crimped around the edges of the suction cup like a cook crimps the edges
of the pastry dough around an uncooked pie. He pushed three impact detonators into the explosive, making a triangle.

The gun was cheap, a single-barrel single-shot
breechloader. With a knife he picked out the circular card at the end of a cartridge and spilled out the shot. Having broken
the shotgun, he loaded the cartridge into the breech so that the base of the plunger handle fitted tightly into it. Náim closed
the gun, leaned it in a corner, and wiped his hands with satisfaction.

“They’ll be looking for something big,” he said to the others. “They won’t be expecting anything small-scale and at a distance.
We go in once, that’s all, win or lose. If there’s no one in the entranceway or the doors are closed, I’ll aim it through
a window.”

So they would not lose each other in traffic, they drove along the Thames all the way, Hasan driving the first car with Naim
in the backseat, and Ali alone in the second car. They turned left at Blackfriars Bridge, rounded Ludgate Circus, went along
Ludgate Hill, and turned left into Old Bailey, the street which gave its name to the Central Criminal Court. The courthouse
was at the other end of the street from them, on their right. Since traffic drove on the left, they would be attacking from
the far side of the street to the courthouse. Security men would not be expecting this. Another advantage was that they could
hang a quick left turn onto Holborn Viaduct and avoid being trapped where they were.

“You see the two cars pulled in over there, a driver in each?” Hasan asked urgently. “There’s two more farther up. Look at
those men standing there. See
that one with the loose coat I bet he has a submachine gun under it.”

“Keep going,” Naim said from the backseat, calmly rolling down the right rear side window. “Ali is right behind us. He’s the
one who will have to take most of the heat.”

“You better cock your pistol,” Hasan said, doing it to his weapon and placing it on the seat beside him. “I see trouble ahead.”

Naim had bought three Llama .38 semiautomatic pistols, which were the best he could find, though he would have preferred a
heavier caliber. The Spanish nine-shot was a quality weapon, known to be reliable. Naim cocked his pistol, put it on the seat,
and reached for the shotgun lying on the floor, loaded with its missile.