The Devil's Breath (48 page)

Now, thanks to science, he knew better. He bent to the last of the scans, frowning. ‘And these?’ he said, pointing to a series of white flecks.

‘More damage to the sheath. Your nerves have this fatty stuff covering the fibres. The stuff’s called myelin. When it gets damaged, the messages don’t conduct so well.’ He paused. ‘Your story about the gas station? In Hamburg?’

‘Yeah?’

He nodded, returning to the scan, tapping the cluster of white flecks. ‘Something like this would have been enough to have done it. Your brain says put the gas nozzle back in the pump. Your hand’s ready and waiting. But the message doesn’t get through properly.’ He shrugged. ‘You were lucky. It might have been worse.’

Telemann nodded, remembering Inge running from the car, how quickly she’d taken control, how well she’d done.

‘Yeah,’ he said, turning away. ‘It might.’

There was a long silence. Laura was still outside in the waiting-room. She’d offered to come in, be with him, but Telemann had shaken his head. However bad the news, he was the one – in the end – who had to cope. Best to get a little practice. Best to start rehearsing.

He looked at the neurologist. ‘It doesn’t kill you?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘It’s not infectious?’

‘No.’

‘So—’ he shrugged ‘—what’s the problem?’

The neurologist reached for the file again, leafing slowly back through the scans, his eyes flicking quickly from one to the other.

‘You have a lot of damage,’ he said at last. ‘Frankly, I’m surprised you’ve kept going for so long. That’s why …’ He gestured towards the waiting-room repeating what he’d said
earlier about Laura, the letter he’d had to send her, how strongly he’d advised her that her husband should be told, how important it was for him to know, to understand, and to begin to come to terms with it all. Telemann nodded, mutely compliant, accepting the gentle reprimand. The doctor leaned forward again, an ally, a friend. ‘The science isn’t exact,’ he said, ‘not as exact as we’d like.’

‘But?’

‘But—’ he shrugged ‘—I’d expect more attacks. I’d expect difficulties with your vision and your balance. I think you’re going to have a lot of trouble walking. I think you might find talking hard. Your memory might go. Plus—’ he shrugged again ‘—you may become incontinent.’

Telemann looked up. ‘
What?
’ he said.

‘You may …’ The neurologist hesitated, picking over the words. ‘It’s a question of control. Your brain decouples, you see. It decouples from the motor functions. Gaps develop. The body takes over—’ he smiled bleakly ‘—develops a mind of its own.’

Telemann stared at him, shocked, suddenly aware of the way it would have to be. Not guesswork. Not maybes. But the real thing.

‘So what’s time-scale here?’

‘Years.’ The doctor reached forward, a hand on Telemann’s shoulder. ‘The rest of your life.’

Telemann nodded, saying nothing, looking away. A wheelchair, he thought, and that silly fucking bag you keep between your thighs under the blanket. The one with the tube. The one you have to empty every two hours or so. The one that spares you all that social embarrassment. He got up and walked to the window. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, students crossing the road outside, walking, talking, laughing. He shook his head slowly, hearing the doctor closing the file.

‘Sounds like nerve gas …’ he said quietly. ‘Only slower.’

*

An hour before dusk, the old man came out of the house. He locked the door and pocketed the key, looking carefully down the road towards the highway. Then he rubbed his face a couple
of times and took a deep lungful of air. Watching, McVeigh could hear the long sigh as he breathed out again and began to walk, very slowly, away from the house.

McVeigh grinned, scarcely able to believe his luck. No need to break into the house. No need to ring the doorbell and risk a confrontation on the stoop. No need to worry about anyone else, some mystery guest, some minder he’d yet to spot. He stood up, stepping quickly back into the trees, then set a course for himself that would intersect with the old man. He could see him now, on a path below, his head down, pausing from time to time, picking things up, fir cones, examining them, tossing them away. McVeigh walked a little further, moving silently. He wanted to meet the old man face to face. He wanted to cause him as little grief as possible.

Minutes later, he was in position, the old man coming towards him, head still down, the trees in deep shadow now. McVeigh waited a moment longer, then began to walk, whistling to himself, plenty of noise. He saw the old man stop and look up. His face had changed since the photograph. He looked thinner, older, more gaunt. McVeigh kept going, stopping three or four yards away. The two men looked at each other. McVeigh could see the fear in the old man’s eyes. He held out his hand. ‘My name’s McVeigh,’ he said. ‘I’ve come from Amer Tahoul.’

The old man studied him for a moment longer. ‘
Salaam
,’ he said. ‘Amer promised you’d be here.’

They went back to the house. The old man made coffee. They sat together in the big lounge, the lights on, the curtains drawn, and McVeigh told him everything he knew, bits of the story stitched together, some from Cela, some from Amer. He told him how the Israelis had built the hatred in his heart, taking his son, selling his life to the
moharebbin
; how an Israeli had appeared at his door, pretending to be an Arab, pretending to recruit him for the cause, sending him overseas, giving him the key role in a plot to poison the streets of Manhattan. Whether or not the strike would ever have taken place, whether the threat was real or not, McVeigh didn’t know. Far more likely, the Israelis would themselves have unmasked it, earning the
gratitude of the Americans, saddling Iraq with the blame, stiffening Washington’s resolve, exposing Saddam for what he really was.

McVeigh did his best to simplify the plan but he could tell from the old man’s face that the depth of the treachery was too much for him. He didn’t understand power politics. He couldn’t fathom the subtlety of the play the Israelis had tried to make. He kept shaking his head, looking away, his hands knotting and unknotting, the mug of coffee untouched. ‘My wife,’ he said at the end. ‘Hala.’

McVeigh nodded, reaching for the haversack, looking for the square of cloth Cela had given him by the river. Finding it, he laid it carefully on the table between them. The old man stared at it, uncomprehending.

McVeigh took his hand. ‘She’s dead,’ he said.

The old man looked up. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’ McVeigh nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

The old man got up and left the room. When he came back, minutes later, McVeigh knew he’d been weeping. It was there in his face. He stood by the table, looking down at the tasselled square of cotton, roughly cut from his wife’s scarf. He made no attempt to touch it. ‘I hate them,’ he said. ‘I hate the Israelis.’

McVeigh nodded, reaching in the bag again, producing the bottle of water. He put it on the table beside the cloth, uncertain what to say, how to put it. Finally, he looked up at the old man.

‘This comes from an Israeli,’ he said. ‘Her name is Cela. She was the wife of one of the men behind the—’ he shrugged ‘— plan. He gave the plan away. He betrayed it to his wife. The Israelis killed him for that.’ He paused. ‘His wife asked me to give you this. She took it from the the River Jordan. She hoped you’d understand.’

He offered the old man the bottle of water. The old man shook his head, ignoring it, his eyes wet again, the talk of death, the talk of bereavement. ‘What about you?’ he said at last. ‘Are you Israeli?’

‘No, I’m British.’

‘Then why …’ He shrugged, nodding at the water.

McVeigh thought about the question, the bottle still in his
hand. He remembered the darkness by the river, how cold it was. He looked away.

‘Because of her,’ he said simply. ‘Because of Cela.’

*

Emery, stepping out of the cab from Washington’s National Airport, recognized Sullivan’s limo, still parked by the kerb outside the ‘F’ Street office. Personal visits were becoming a habit, he thought, crossing the sidewalk and heading for the door.

Juanita met him in the tiny reception area on the fourth floor. ‘He’s been here nearly an hour,’ she said. ‘He’s still on the computer.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Getting into NID.’

‘You give him the pass codes?’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘In the end I did.’

Emery looked at her for a moment. NID was the National Intelligence Databank. It held details on a huge range of Intelligence contacts worldwide. Unlimited access depended on a set of pass codes, issued to no more than a couple of hundred people in the Washington area. Despite his position at the White House, Sullivan probably wasn’t one of them. Ordinarily, he’d have gone through someone like Emery for hands-on Intelligence. Emery shrugged and gave Juanita the envelope he’d taken from Weill. ‘This is the German stuff,’ he said. ‘Absolute priority.’

Emery walked into his office. Sullivan was sitting at his desk, bent over the computer. The blinds were down on the window and the room was in semi-darkness. Even from the door, Emery could read the name on top of the computer file. ‘McVeigh,’ he said aloud.

‘Sullivan looked up. He’d spilled coffee on his shirt-front. The empty styrofoam cup lay on the desk. ‘English guy,’ he said. Ex-Marine. Seems to do a lot of work for the Arabs. London-based.’ He paused. ‘You wanna read the rest for yourself?’

Emery shook his head. He circled the desk and pulled up a chair on the other side. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just tell me why you’re interested.’

‘You know why I’m interested.’

‘I know that Al Zahra passed on the name.’ He paused. ‘Zahra’s not a source we can trust.’

‘Who says?’

‘Ten years of dealing with him says. He fabricates. He lies. Guy lives in fairyland. Should work for Disney.’ He leaned forward across the desk. ‘Plus I checked with London. No one’s heard of any missing nerve gas.’

‘Who did you talk to?’

‘MI5.’ He paused. ‘And they should know.’

Sullivan shrugged and bent to the computer again, scrolling out another line of text. The entry on McVeigh ran to a bare three lines. Emery could see Sullivan struggling to control his temper.

‘McVeigh went to Israel,’ Sullivan said finally.

‘How do you know?’

‘Guy in London told me.’

‘Who?’

Sullivan looked up. The smile was icy. ‘Guy I happen to know. Well placed. Someone I trust.’

‘Not Zahra? Not the Intelligence people?’

‘No.’

‘Who, then?’

Sullivan shook his head, refusing to impart the name, and Emery shrugged, peering at the screen again. ‘So where is he now? This McVeigh?’

‘He’s here. In the States.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘I don’t know. Yet.’ Sullivan frowned. ‘But he’s in touch with our friend with the gas. Word is, he’ll deliver.’

‘
Deliver?
’

‘Yes.’

‘When did you hear this?’

‘Last night. Late.’

Emery sank back in the chair. There was a long silence. ‘Ever think of sharing the news?’ he said drily.

Sullivan removed his glasses for a moment, then ran a hand over his face. ‘You were too fucking busy,’ he said, ‘not listening to me.’

The two men looked at each other for a moment over the computer. Then Emery shrugged. ‘Might have been easier, that’s all.’

‘Sure, buddy.’ Sullivan reached for the empty styrofoam cup, lifting it in a mock toast. ‘And here’s to Mr Assali.’

Emery looked at Sullivan for a moment longer. Then he got up and went to the window. The blinds up, daylight transformed the room. He turned round. Sullivan had switched off the computer. Emery walked back to the desk. ‘The Israelis killed Assali,’ he said quietly. ‘And Ron was part of that. Another guy’s dead, too. Otto Wulf.’

‘Heart attack. It was on the wires.’

Emery shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He died of poison gas. Nerve gas. Either murder or suicide. The evidence isn’t clear.’

Sullivan blinked, leaning forward. ‘How do you know?’ he said. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Ron was there. He saw it. In fact he delivered the stuff in the first place.’ He offered Sullivan a cold smile. ‘Federal Express.’

‘Shit.’ Sullivan shook his head. ‘Who gave it to him?’

‘Wulf’s mistress.’ The smile faded. ‘An Israeli.’

‘Why?’

‘Two reasons. One, he’d been supplying gas to the rag-heads. Not the final product, but constituent chemicals. Once you’ve got that, the rest is simple.’ He paused. ‘In fact I suspect Wulf supplied the stuff that came here. It was either ready-mixed or synthesized at a place near Hamburg. Out in the country. Then shipped through Antwerp.’

Sullivan nodded. ‘And two?’

Emery looked down at the desk, wondering whether he should wait for confirmation, the transcript of the German material he’d hand-carried back from Cape Cod. Finally he decided against it, looking up, smiling again. ‘Wulf was a broker,’ he said. ‘He had connections everywhere. He traded favours for influence.’ He paused. ‘One of the items on Saddam’s list was data on Israeli ECM. The frequencies they use. What he’d need to know to knock the IAF out of the sky.’

‘And Wulf?’

‘Found him the data. Guy on the West Coast. Avionics guy. You might remember the name. Lennox Gold.’

‘Guy in the hotel? Guy that got gassed?’

‘Right. Gold needed the money. The Iraqis had the money. And Wulf was the go-between.’ He shrugged. ‘The Israelis settled both debts. Wulf’s and Gold’s.’

Sullivan was frowning now, following the smoke upwind, trying to find the bonfire.

‘You’re saying the Israelis killed Gold?’

‘Yes.’

‘With poison gas?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the rest of it?’ He paused. ‘The horses up in the Catskills?’

‘Same message.’

‘From the
Israelis
?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why?’

Emery sat down at last, the smile quite gone, spelling it out, explaining the motive, describing the plan, Sullivan leaning forward across the desk, following it all, word for word.

‘You’re saying it’s a scam?’ he said finally. ‘The fucking Jews leading us to water?’