Dark Justice

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004

Copyright © Harry Patterson 2004

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Harry Patterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124939

Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780007369409

Version: 2015-07-20

To Neil Nyren, editor extraordinaire, with grateful thanks

Epigraph

‘One sword is worth ten thousand words’

The Koran

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

NEW YORK

Chapter 1

WASHINGTON

Chapter 2

LONDON

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

IN THE BEGINNING JOSEF BELOV

Chapter 6

IRELAND NANTUCKET

Chapter 7

IRAQ

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

LONDON

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

LONDON IRELAND

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

About the Author

ALSO BY JACK HIGGINS

Further Reading

About the Publisher

NEW YORK

1

Manhattan on a dark November evening around eight o’clock was bleak and uninviting, an east wind driving heavy rain before it, as Henry Morgan turned the corner of a side street into Park Avenue.

He was a small man wearing a dark blue uniform and cap with the legend ‘Icon Security’ emblazoned on each shoulder; in one hand was a black leather bag and the other held an umbrella over his head.

Park Avenue was hardly deserted at that hour, cars swishing by, although there were few pedestrians because of the rain. He turned into a convenient doorway for a moment and looked each way. It was a mixture of offices and residences, mostly impressive townhouses, lights at the windows. He’d always loved cities by night and felt a sudden nostalgia, emotional of course, and he took a deep breath. After all, he’d come a long way for this, a long way, and here he was at the final end of things. Time to get on with it. He picked up the bag and stepped out.

A hundred yards further on he came to an office building no more than four storeys high, a building of some distinction to it, older than the adjacent buildings. There was discreet lighting on the ground floor, obviously for security. A sign in gold leaf on one of the windows said ‘Gould & Company, Bank Depository’ and indicated business hours from nine until four in the afternoon. He stepped into the arched entrance, peering through the armoured plate-glass door into the lighted foyer and pressed the buzzer for Chesney, only Chesney didn’t come. Instead, a large black man wearing the same dark-blue uniform appeared and opened the door.

‘Hey, you’re late. Morgan, isn’t it? The English guy? Chesney told me about you.’

Morgan stepped inside. The door closed noiselessly behind him. A bad start, but he’d have to make the best of it.

‘I’m sorry. I always get Chesney coffee and sandwiches from a place round the corner.’ He followed the other man through to the reception area. ‘Where is he?’

‘The way I heard it, his gall bladder’s playing up again, so they rushed me over from South Street.’

‘What do I call you?’

‘Smith will do.’ He sat behind the desk, took out a pack of Marlboros and lit one. ‘A busy night out there, but at least there are a couple of good movies on TV. So you’re from London, they tell me?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So what are you doing over here?’

‘Oh, pastures new, you know how it is.’

‘Lucky you got a green card.’

‘Well, I’d been doing this kind of thing over there. It helped.’

Smith nodded. ‘Anyway, let’s see what you’ve got in that bag.’ Morgan’s stomach turned hollow and he hesitated. Smith reached for the bag. ‘I’m starving, and what with them rushing me over here last minute, I had no chance to get anything.’

Morgan hurriedly pulled the bag up, put it on the desk, opened it, produced coffee and sandwiches and passed them over.

‘What about you?’ Smith asked.

‘I’ll have mine later. I’ll do the rounds first.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Smith started to unwrap a sandwich.

‘I’ll get started then. I’ll just drop my bag in the restroom.’

He moved to the other end of the foyer and did just that, then called to Smith, ‘See you later.’

‘Take your time.’ Smith switched on the television and Morgan entered the lift and pressed the buttons that took him down to the vault.

He checked it thoroughly, giving what he’d put in the coffee time to work, although the effect was almost instantaneous and good for five hours, or so they’d told him. He trawled the vault, hundreds of steel boxes behind bars, went back to the lift and ascended to the third floor.

It was all office accommodation, everything in good order, and it was the same when he went down to the second and then the first floor. Boring, really, to have to spend your working life doing this. But it would soon be over. He returned to the lift and went down.

Smith was slumped across the desk, out completely, the partly drunk coffee cup beside him. The sandwich had a couple of bites out of it, but that was all. Morgan shook him to make sure, then turned to the general security box and switched it off for the entire building. He went along to the washroom, retrieved his bag, got into the lift and went to the first floor.

When he went out he dimmed the lights and walked across to the window looking out over Park Avenue to the splendid townhouse on the other side, its many windows ablaze with lights. Parking had been banned for the whole block, and not just because it was owned by Senator Harvey Black.

Having switched off the entire alarm system, Morgan was able to open the control panel by the window without any unseemly fuss. He started to whistle softly, put the bag on the table, opened it and produced an AK-47, unfolded the stock, cocked it and laid it across the windowsill, checking his watch.

It was twenty to nine and the fundraiser at the Pierre would just be finishing. Senator Black would be bringing his honoured guest back to the house for dinner at nine o’clock.

Morgan took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one and sat there at the open window, cradling the AK-47 with every intention of shooting the President of the United States dead the moment he stepped out on the pavement.

Suddenly he heard the sound of the lift in operation below. For a moment he froze in a kind of panic, then jumped to his feet and turned to face the lift. It stopped and Smith stepped out, followed by a tall, handsome man of fifty or so, black hair greying.

‘Why, Henry,’ Smith said. ‘What’s all this? I didn’t see anything about it in the job description.’

Morgan backed away, thinking hard.

There was a pause and the other man said, ‘Mr Morgan, my name is Blake Johnson. I work for the President of the United States. This gentleman is Clancy Smith of the Secret Service. I regret to tell you that the President isn’t coming tonight. Seems he cancelled the dinner at the last moment and flew back to Washington. So sorry.’

He stepped forward, and in a single motion Morgan raised the AK and fired at point-blank range – but only the rattle of the bolt sounded.

Smith said, ‘Forgot to mention. I emptied it when you went down to the vault. And by the way – I never accept coffee from strangers.’

Morgan dropped the AK to the floor with a look of despair on his face. Johnson almost felt sorry for him.

‘Hell, man, we got Saddam Hussein. Did you really think you could pull this off? Anything to say?’

‘Yes,’ Morgan said. ‘Beware the wrath of Allah.’

He seemed to bite hard, his jaw tightening, then he staggered back, tripped and fell to the floor, moaning terribly, his face contorted. There was a strange, pungent smell as Smith dropped to one knee and peered closely at him. He glanced up. ‘I don’t know what in the hell that smell is, but this guy is dead.’

By special arrangement, Blake had the body removed by Army paramedics and conveyed to an exclusive private hospital used mainly for rehab patients. It did, however, offer state-of-the-art morgue facilities and he’d called in one of New York’s finest chief medical examiners, Dr George Romano, to do the necessary.

He and Clancy had stopped off at their hotel so that Clancy could change out of the security uniform, and arrived at their destination a good hour after the corpse and found Romano in the Superintendent’s office already garbed for action. He and Blake were old friends. Romano had done a lot of work for the Basement, the White House security organization that Johnson ran. Romano was drinking coffee and smoking.

‘I thought that was against the law these days, especially for doctors.’

‘Around here I make my own rules, Blake. Who’s your friend?’

‘Clancy Smith, Secret Service. He’s taken a bullet for the President in the past. Fortunately nothing like that was needed tonight.’

‘I’ve started on our friend, Mr Morgan. Just taking a break.’

‘John Doe, if you don’t mind,’ Blake said.

‘And what if I do?’

Blake turned to Clancy, who opened the briefcase he carried, took out a document and passed it across to the doctor.

‘You’ll notice that’s addressed to one George Romano and signed by President Jake Cazalet. It’s what’s called a “Presidential warrant”. It says you belong to the President, it transcends all our laws, and you can’t even say no. You also never discuss what happened tonight, because it never happened.’

For once Romano wasn’t smiling. ‘That bad?’ He shook his head. ‘I should have known when I realized you’d given me a Heinrich Himmler.’

‘What in the hell is that supposed to mean?’ Clancy demanded.

‘I’ll go back in and show you, if you can stand to watch.’

‘I was in Vietnam and Clancy was in the Gulf. I think we can stand it,’ Blake said.

‘Excuse me, I was in ’Nam, too,’ said Romano, ‘and with all due respect, the Gulf War was pussy.’

‘Yeah, well, Clancy here has got two Navy Crosses to prove otherwise,’ Blake said. ‘But let’s get on with it.’

In the post-mortem room two technicians waited while Romano scrubbed up again. He was helped into surgical gloves and moved to the naked body of Henry Morgan, who lay on the slanting steel table, his head raised high on a wooden block, the mouth gaping. Close at hand were a video recorder and an instrument cart.

Romano said, ‘Wednesday, November 3rd, resuming postmortem, Henry Morgan, address unknown.’ He turned to Blake and Clancy. ‘Come closer. Because of the unusual circumstances I decided to investigate the mouth first, and if you look closely you’ll find a molar missing at the left side.’

He pulled the mouth open with a finger and disclosed the bloodied gap.

‘And here it is, gents.’ He picked up a small stainless steel pan and rattled the crushed remains of a tooth in it that was part gold. ‘Heinrich Himmler, for the benefit of those too young to remember, was Reichsführer of the SS during the immortal days of the Third Reich. However, he was smart enough to know that all good things come to an end and didn’t fancy the hangman’s noose. So he had a false tooth fitted that contained a cyanide capsule. A number of Nazis did. Faced with capture, you crunch down as hard as you can. Death is virtually instantaneous.’

‘So our friend here had no intention of being taken alive?’

‘I’d say so. Now in spite of the fact that I suspect it will prove useless, I intend to complete my usual thorough examination. What, by the way, do you know about the guy?’

‘The only thing I can tell you is that he’s thirty years old. When can I have the body?’

‘I’d say an hour should do it.’

‘Good. I’ll arrange transportation while we’re waiting in the office, and George…’ He pulled him away and murmured softly, ‘I don’t mind the technicians having heard the Himmler bit, but nothing more. No comment. And bring the videotape when you’re finished.’

‘Yes, O Great One.’

Romano turned back to the task at hand and Blake and Clancy went out.

They sat in the Superintendent’s office and Blake made a call on his Codex mobile. It was answered almost instantly.

‘Highgrove.’

‘It’s Blake Johnson. I phoned earlier about a disposal.’

‘Of course, sir. We’re ready and waiting.’

‘You know where we are. The package will be ready in one hour.’

‘We’ll be there.’

‘And I’ll expect the disposal to be immediate.’

‘Naturally.’

Blake switched off. ‘Let’s have some coffee.’

There was a pot standing ready in the machine. Clancy went and poured two cups. ‘Not a thing on him. Swept clean. No ID, no passport, and yet he had to have one to get into the country.’

‘Probably stashed it before he came here tonight. Everything else was likely forged. Came into the country posing as a tourist. A forged green card was supplied, a room booked for him in some modest hotel.’

‘And the AK?’

‘Could have been left for him in a locker anywhere. The job at the security agency could have been arranged for him in advance. I’ll bet he didn’t even meet anyone from his organization here in New York.’

‘But some outfit sent him from London.’

‘Of course, otherwise why would he be here? They’ve probably got friends in New York who kept an anonymous eye on him, but preferred not to get involved.’

‘I wouldn’t blame them. It was a suicide mission,’ Clancy said. ‘Even if we hadn’t gotten him now, he’d have been run down like a dog if the worst had happened.’

‘Very probably. Now I must speak to the President.’

He found Cazalet at his desk in the Oval Office.

‘Mr President, we got him. The whole thing was for real. He’s dead, unfortunately.’

‘That is unfortunate. Gunshot wound?’

‘Cyanide.’

‘Dear me. Where are you now?’

‘The mortuary, waiting for the disposal team.’

‘Fine. Take care of it, Blake. This never happened. I don’t want it on the front page of the New York Times. I’ll order a plane to pick up you and Clancy. I want you back here as soon as possible so we can sort things out.’

‘Yes, Mr President.’

‘And since it was our British cousins who alerted us to the existence of Morgan, you’d better telephone General Ferguson and let him know.’

In London it was four o’clock in the morning when the security phone rang at General Charles Ferguson’s flat in Cavendish Place. He switched on the bedside light and answered.

‘At such an appalling hour, I can only assume this is of supreme importance.’

‘It always is when it concerns the Empire, Charles.’

It was the codeword used to indicate the President in danger.

Ferguson was fully alert now and sat up. ‘Blake, my good friend. What happened?’

‘Your information on Henry Morgan was dead on. He tried to hit the President tonight, but Clancy and I stopped him. Unfortunately he had a cyanide tooth, so he’s no longer with us.’

‘Is the President all right?’

‘Absolutely. As for Morgan, what’s left of him will soon be six pounds of grey ash. I’ll probably flush it down the toilet.’

‘You’re a hard man, Blake, harder than I believed possible.’

‘It’s the nature of the job, Charles, and the bastard did intend to assassinate the President. Anyway, thanks to you and the rest of the Prime Minister’s private army, it’s all come out fine. Thank them all for me: Hannah Bernstein, Sean Dillon and Major Roper.’

‘Especially Roper on this one. The man’s a genius on the computer.’

‘Got to run, Charles. I’ll be in touch.’

Blake put the phone down, and Romano entered carrying a videotape and several documents.

‘Good man,’ Blake said.

‘Not really.’ Romano lit a cigarette. ‘I’m smart enough to know my place, that’s all.’

Clancy had gone out to check the corridor and found two men in black coats pushing a gurney with a body bag on it.

One of them, a quietly cadaverous man, said, ‘Mr Johnson?’

Blake leaned out of the office door. ‘He’s all ready and waiting for you. Load him on and we’ll see you at Highgrove. Tell Mr Coffin to wait until we arrive.’

‘As you say, sir.’

They moved away. Clancy said, ‘Coffin? Is that for real?’

‘If it’s the man I know, it certainly is.’ Romano smiled bleakly. ‘Fergus Coffin. I believe it’s called life imitating art.’ At that moment the gurney returned with what was obviously Henry Morgan in the body bag. ‘On your way now, gentlemen. I think I’ve had enough for one night.’

In the mortuary at Highgrove, Blake and Clancy waited by the ovens. Fergus Coffin and an attendant pushed the gurney forward, the body still enclosed in the black body bag.

Blake said, ‘Open it.’

Coffin nodded and his associate unzipped it, exposing the head. Henry Morgan it was.

‘He looks at peace,’ Blake said.

‘He would be, Mr Johnson,’ Coffin told him. ‘Death is a serious business. I’ve devoted my life to it.’

‘No questions?’

‘None. I’ve seen the Presidential warrant, but it’s more than that. You’re a good man, Mr Johnson. Every instinct tells me that. You’ve known great sorrow.’

Blake, remembering a murdered wife, stiffened for a moment and then said, ‘How long?’

‘With the new technology, thirty minutes.’

‘Then get on with it. Put him in, but I need to see.’ He held out the documents and video. ‘And these.’

The other man opened one of the oven doors, Coffin pushed the gurney forward, Henry Morgan slid inside. Coffin pulled the gurney away, the glass door closed, a button was pressed. The oven flared at once, the gas jets peaked and the body bag flared on the instant, along with the video and documents.

Blake turned to Clancy. ‘We’ll wait,’ and led the way outside.

In the office they smoked cigarettes. Clancy said, ‘You want coffee?’

‘Not in a million years. A good stiff drink is what I need, but we’ll have to wait until we’re on the plane.’

Rain hammered against the window. Clancy said, ‘Does it ever bother you, this kind of thing?’

‘Clancy, I went to war for my country in Vietnam when I was very young and full of ideals. I never really regretted it. Someone had to do it. Now, all these years later, we’re at war with the world – a world where global terrorism is the name of the game.’ He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. ‘And, Clancy, I’ll do anything it takes. I took an oath to my President and I take that to be an oath to my country.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Does that give you a problem?’

And Clancy Smith, once the youngest sergeant major in the Marine Corps, smiled. ‘Not in the slightest.’

At that moment the door opened and Coffin entered, holding a plastic urn. ‘Henry Morgan, six pounds of grey ash.’

‘Excellent,’ Blake said, and Clancy took the urn.

‘Many thanks,’ Blake told Coffin. ‘Believe me, you’ve never done anything more important.’

‘I accept your word for that, Mr Johnson,’ and Coffin went out.

‘Let’s go,’ Blake said, and added, ‘Bring the urn with you.’

He led the way out to the car park, where the rain poured down relentlessly. They walked to their limousine, which was parked by what, in season, would obviously be a flowerbed.

Blake said, ‘I was going to put those ashes down the toilet, but let’s be more civilized and do something for next year’s flowers.’

‘Good idea.’

Clancy unscrewed the top of the urn and poured the ashes over the flowerbed.

‘I believe it’s called strewing.’

‘I don’t care what it’s called. Washington next, so let’s catch that plane.’

WASHINGTON

2

But a cold front moving in from the Atlantic had done unmentionable things to the weather, and in spite of the rain, or because of it, low clouds produced heavy fog and closed things down at Kennedy.

Blake and Clancy made the best of it in one of the VIP lounges, dozing fitfully, but were still there at six the following morning when they got word that their Gulfstream had managed to get in.

As they walked out through the terminal, bags in hand, Clancy said, ‘There’s no romance in this work any more. I must have seen every James Bond movie on TV at one time or another, and he never got held up by bad weather at any airport, not once. Here we’ve got a Gulfstream, one of the classiest aircraft in the world, and it still couldn’t get to us.’

‘Nature rules,’ Blake said. ‘Face up to it and shut up. We’ll be on our way in fifteen minutes.’

They rose very quickly to thirty thousand feet. The crew was Air Force and their stewardess a young sergeant who introduced herself as Mary.

‘Now what can I get you gentlemen?’

‘Well, I know it’s only six-thirty in the morning,’ Blake told her, ‘but for very special reasons I think a bottle of champagne is in order. Could you manage that?’

‘I think that could be arranged.’ She gave them a dazzling smile and moved down to the galley.

‘We didn’t do too badly, did we?’ Clancy said. ‘Considering that the President could have been face down on the pavement.’

‘That he isn’t is due to Major Roper warning us that there was something fishy about Morgan in the first place. But I anticipated taking him alive, Clancy, squeezing the juice out of him.’

‘It’s not your fault, Blake. We did everything right. The tooth thing was just unfortunate.’

Sergeant Mary appeared with two glasses of champagne, which they took gratefully.

Blake toasted Clancy. ‘Let’s hope the President agrees with you.’

In Washington the rain was even heavier when they arrived, but a limousine was waiting and they were taken through at once and on their way, moving along Constitution Avenue towards the White House. In spite of the weather there was a sizeable crowd of demonstrators, a kind of moonscape of umbrellas against the rain, shepherded by police.

‘Which war are they protesting against?’ Clancy asked.

‘Who knows? There’s some sort of war going on in nearly every country in the world these days. Don’t ask me, Clancy. All I know is some people seem to make a profession out of protest.’

The chauffeur lowered the glass screen that separated him from them. ‘Too difficult from the front, Mr Johnson. May I try the East Entrance?’

‘That’s fine by me.’

They turned up East Executive Avenue and stopped at the gate. Blake leaned out and the guard, recognizing him at once, waved them through. The East Entrance was much used by White House staff, especially when wishing to avoid the media. The limousine pulled up, Blake and Clancy got out and went up the steps. A young Marine lieutenant was on duty, and a Secret Service agent named Huntley greeted them warmly.

‘Mr Johnson, Clancy. You’re looking stretched, if I may say so.’

‘Don’t ask,’ Blake said. ‘We spent most of the night stranded by fog at Kennedy, and the President’s expecting us.’

‘You know where he is, sir, but I’ll lead the way. It’ll give my legs some exercise.’

The President’s secretary, a pleasant woman in her mid-forties, admitted them to the Oval Office, where they found Jake Cazalet in shirtsleeves at the desk, working his way through a raft of documents, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He glanced up, smiled.

‘The return of the heroes. Have you eaten?’

‘Early breakfast at Kennedy. Congealed scrambled eggs and fries at five-thirty, and that was the VIP lounge,’ Blake said.

Cazalet laughed and turned to the secretary. ‘We can manage our own coffee, Millie, but speak to the chef and find them something exotic like bacon sandwiches.’

‘Of course, Mr President.’

She withdrew and the President said, ‘Okay, gentlemen. Let’s hear the worst.’

‘The worst didn’t happen, Mr President. The worst would have been Morgan shooting you from the first-floor window of Gould & Co. when you got out of your car outside Senator Harvey Black’s townhouse to join him for dinner.’

‘Which invitation I cancelled on your advice a week ago. You said then you wished to handle this business yourself. No one from the FBI, no police, no military. Even the head of the Secret Service was excluded, which makes it puzzling that you got away with using Clancy in this affair.’

Clancy intruded. ‘I was served a Presidential warrant, Mr President, so I had to do as I was told.’

‘I have a stack of them in my safe,’ Blake said. ‘All signed by you.’

‘Really. And you just fill in a name?’

‘Correct, Mr President. You know how the Basement works.’

During the Cold War, when it appeared the Communists were infiltrating every level of government, the then President had invented the Basement as a small operation answerable only to him. Since then it had been handed from one President to another. It was one of his most valuable assets. All other agencies were tied up in rules and regulations, the legal system. This was not. The Presidential warrant cut through the crap. People thought Johnson was a desk man. In fact he had a file of names of ex-FBI and Secret Service agents he could pull in on an ad hoc basis. He could connect at any time with General Ferguson in London, who ran a similar organization for the British Prime Minister.

‘I can, in effect, kill for you,’ Blake went on. ‘I can have, for example, someone like Morgan disposed of without a trace, but only if I’m left alone to do things my way. The war on terrorism can’t be won unless we’re willing to fight back on our own terms. Fight fire with fire.’

‘And where does that leave the rule of law?’

‘I’m not sure. People at al-Qaeda would have their own answer to that. All I know is that we won’t beat them by playing patty cake.’

‘Okay, I take your point. Tell me about this Morgan business. You said you didn’t want me to know too many details before. Tell me now.’

‘It was Major Roper who came up with it.’

‘Yes, I know about him. The bomb disposal hero who ended up in a wheelchair.’

‘And made a new career for himself in computers. Anything you want in cyberspace, Roper can find for you, but his great gift is developing new programs in which millions of facts can be overviewed in seconds. Take your evening out with Senator Black. The computer imaged that townhouse on Park Avenue, the surrounding properties. He then tapped in to every detail about the buildings, what was going on there, the personnel involved, and so on.’

At that moment Millie came in with a tray and the bacon sandwiches. ‘They smell good enough to eat, Millie. I might have one myself. Eat up, gentlemen, but carry on, Blake. What’s so special about what Roper’s up to? Surely our people can do that?’

‘Frankly, not as brilliantly as he can. His programs can show given nationalities, religious backgrounds, family, anything you want, and all at lightning speed. They also indicate anomalies, things that shouldn’t be. That means his computer is thinking for itself and making deductions, but doing it at a speed beyond human comprehension.’

‘Conceptual thought by a machine. Quite something,’ Cazalet said.

‘Anyway, to cut it short, the computer threw up the nationalities of the people working in the area of Black’s townhouse, which were many. Some of them were English, and Roper, interested, cross-referenced the identities, passports, birthplaces and religions, and in no time at all one Henry Morgan, who’d been working as a security guard at Gould & Co. opposite Black’s house, popped up. He was English, but with a Muslim mother.’

‘Really. Is that unusual?’

‘Just enough so that what Roper saw next rang bells: Morgan was a highly qualified pharmacist with a master’s degree, who also taught at London University, and he entered our country on a tourist visa.’

It was Clancy who put in, ‘So why does a guy like that take a job as a security guard, Mr President – and on a forged green card?’

‘Something else Roper discovered.’

‘Everything about us is on some sort of record these days,’ the President said. ‘So, General Ferguson tipped you off.’

‘No, there was more to it than that. Ferguson found Roper’s discovery interesting enough to check it out a little on his side. He sent his assistant, Detective Superintendent Hannah Bernstein of Special Branch at Scotland Yard, to visit Morgan’s home address in London. She discovered that the mother was in a wheelchair after a bad automobile accident that had killed the father five years ago. Bernstein posed as a welfare officer to gain her confidence. Discovered many interesting things.’

‘Such as?’

‘The mother had been disowned by her family for marrying out of the Muslim faith. Her son had been raised a Christian. After the accident, however, she rediscovered her faith and her son would take her to the local mosque, where she was received well. And the truly interesting thing was that she said her son had discovered Islam himself, and embraced it.’

Cazalet was looking grim. ‘So it all begins to fit.’

‘Especially when she said he’d gone to New York on vacation.’

‘Has Ferguson taken it any further?’

‘No, he’s waiting to hear from us.’

Cazalet nodded. ‘So Morgan obviously arrived on somebody’s orders.’

‘Exactly. An organization in the UK with some sort of contacts in New York.’

‘Why didn’t you arrest him the minute you got the story from London?’

‘I wanted to see where it would lead, and Charles Ferguson agreed. It was highly unlikely he was just a deranged loner, so there was a chance he could lead us to his New York contacts.’

‘Only he didn’t.’

‘The few days he was here, he didn’t meet a soul. I had two old FBI hands follow him when we found that the address he’d given Icon Security was false. He was staying in a small hotel; they discreetly gained access to his room and found nothing. No ID on him, no passport at his death. I’d say they’d all been destroyed, probably on orders from his handlers in London.’

‘They obviously were hanging him out to dry.’

‘Exactly, and the cyanide tooth indicates the equivalent of a suicide bombing. He wasn’t meant to survive.’

Cazalet said, ‘Okay, I know there’s a lot of supposition here, but I admit it makes a hell of a lot of sense. It still leaves the question of the AK. Where did that come from?’

‘It certainly wasn’t in his hotel room,’ Clancy said. ‘We figure it was probably left in some locker, maybe a train or bus station.’

‘By his unknown contacts in New York,’ Blake put in. ‘By pre-arrangement. He’d have been given the location, supplied with a key. Again, it’s supposition, but I’d say he didn’t pick that bag up until he was on his way to work.’

‘Yes, it makes sense, all of it,’ Cazalet said. ‘He would have made an interesting prisoner, but now he’s dead, which leaves us with a dead end.’ He frowned. ‘Except for Ferguson and his people.’

‘Exactly what I was thinking, Mr President. Maybe we can find out more from the English end.’

‘The mother,’ Cazalet said. ‘Maybe she knows something.’

‘I don’t know. A handicapped, ageing lady in a wheelchair is hardly the sort of person that al-Qaeda would be recruiting,’ Blake said. ‘But she and her son were welcomed warmly at the local mosque.’

‘Which is where we should look.’ Cazalet nodded. ‘Ferguson’s the man to handle it.’ He smiled. ‘It’s London next stop for you, Blake. I’ll speak to Ferguson myself and promise him every assistance.’

‘What about me, Mr President?’ Clancy said.

‘No way. I need you to watch my back. You took a bullet for me once, Clancy. You’re my good luck charm.’

‘As you wish, Mr President.’

Blake said, ‘I’d like to keep a low profile on this one. I’ll fly over in one of our private planes, with your permission, and use Farley Field outside London, Ferguson’s base for special operations.’

‘By all means. As soon as you can.’ He hesitated. ‘When you asked me to cancel dinner with Senator Black, you didn’t tell me much, and I hesitated. Thank God I had enough faith in you.’

‘Just doing my job, Mr President.’

Blake went and opened the door and Cazalet called, ‘And Blake…’

‘Mr President?’

‘Take them down. Whoever they are, take them down.’

‘You can count on it, Mr President,’ and Blake went out.

LONDON

3

The Gulfstream came in to Farley Field right on time and Blake thanked the crew, alighted and walked across the tarmac, pausing to look around him. A lot of water under the bridge at this place, and not just the struggles with the Rashid empire.

A voice called, ‘Hey, Blake. Over here.’

Blake turned and saw a Daimler by the control tower, parked close to the entrance of the operations room. The man standing beside it was no more than five feet five with hair so fair it was almost white. He wore an old black leather bomber jacket and jeans, and a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. The man was Sean Dillon, once a feared enforcer for the IRA and now Ferguson’s right hand.

Blake shook hands. ‘How are you, my fine Irish friend?’

‘All the better for seeing you. The right royal treatment you’re getting, Ferguson sending the Daimler.’

They climbed in the back and the chauffeur drove away. Blake said, ‘So, how are things?’

‘Pretty warm since Ferguson heard from the President. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Blake, but that was a close call.’

‘You know how it is, Sean, you’ve been there. I remember how you saved President Clinton and Prime Minister Major on the Thames riverboat years back, and took a knife in the back for your trouble.’

‘From Norah Bell, the original bitch and worse than any man, and it took a decent woman like Hannah Bernstein to shoot her dead.’

‘How is Hannah?’

‘Wonderful, as usual. If she didn’t work for Ferguson, I think she’d have been Chief Superintendent by now or even Commander at Scotland Yard.’

‘But she loves you all too much to move on?’

‘Blake, she’s still trying to reform the lot of us. You know her grandfather is a rabbi. It’s that moral perception of hers. She’s been shot to bits, had her life shortened in any number of ways, and still hangs in there trying to keep Ferguson and me in check.’

‘And fails in that respect.’ It was a statement, not a question.

Dillon said, ‘Blake, the world’s gone to hell in a hand basket. Terrorism, al-Qaeda, all that stuff since nine-eleven, has changed everything. It can’t be combated by the old-fashioned rules of war. It isn’t like that.’

‘I agree.’ Blake shrugged. ‘A few years ago I’d never have said that, in spite of what I had to do during my time in Vietnam. I believed in the decencies, the rule of law, justice, all that stuff. But the people we have to deal with these days – there are no rules as far as they’re concerned, so there are no rules as far as I’m concerned. I’ll take them down any way I can.’

‘Good man yourself, I couldn’t agree more.’ Dillon lit another cigarette. ‘I speak Arabic, you know that, and I’ve spent my share of time in the Middle East. Even worked for the PLO in the old days when I was a naughty boy, and I think I know the Arab mind a bit. Most Muslims in the States or the UK are decent people, interested only in making a living and raising their families, but there’s a few of them who have a different political agenda, and it’s dealing with them that’s the problem.’

‘Take Morgan. English father, Muslim mother, raised a Christian,’ Blake said. ‘I know what happened to his parents, his mother returning to the Islamic faith and Morgan finding that same faith himself. But what turned him into the assassin who tried to take out the President?’

‘Well, that’s what you’re here to find out,’ Dillon told him. ‘And Ferguson, Hannah and Roper are waiting at Cavendish Place to discuss it with you.’

The Embassy of the Russian Federation is situated in Kensington Palace Gardens and it was typical November weather, rain falling, when Greta Novikova emerged through the main gates and paused at the edge of the pavement, waiting for the traffic to pass.

She was a small girl, unmistakably Slavic, with black hair to her shoulders, dark intense eyes and high cheekbones, and she wore an ankle-length coat in soft black leather over a black Armani suit. She would have made heads turn anywhere. She was a commercial attaché at the Embassy and had the degree to prove it, but in fact at thirty-five years old she was a major in the GRU, Russian Military Intelligence.

She crossed the road during the break in the traffic and entered the pub opposite. Early lunchtime it wasn’t very busy, but the man she was seeking was at the far end of the bar in the window seat reading The Times.

He was a couple of inches short of six feet, and wore a fawn raincoat over a dark wool suit. His hair was close-cropped, and a scar ran from the bottom of his left eye to the corner of his mouth. The eyes were cold and watchful, and the face powerful. The face of a soldier, which in a way he had been. A man of forty-five who had joined the KGB at twenty and had made major when he had moved on to other things. Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq in the old days – he’d seen it all. His name was Yuri Ashimov.

He stood up and kissed her on both cheeks and spoke to her in Russian. ‘Greta, more lovely than usual. A drink?’

‘I’ll have a vodka with you.’

He went to the bar, ordered two, brought them back, sat down, took out a pack of Russian cigarettes and lit one.

‘So, as nothing incredibly shocking has happened in New York, you must have a story for me.’

‘Not a thing,’ she said.

‘Come on, Greta, GRU handles all things Arabic and Muslim. There has to be something.’

‘That’s the point. There isn’t. The President didn’t keep his damned appointment with Senator Black. After the function at the Pierre he went straight to Washington.’

‘And Morgan?’

‘Certainly went to Gould & Co. as usual. One of our New York associates confirmed this. The only unusual activity was some sort of paramedic ambulance going down into the underground parking lot. It left half an hour later.’

‘Did our associate follow?’

‘He deemed it unwise.’

‘I should bloody well think so. It stinks.’

‘Do you think they got him?’

‘Sounds likely. But if they have they won’t let on, and it won’t affect us anyway. There were no direct contacts.’

Greta nodded. ‘I think they’d want him alive to see what he had to say. On the other hand, our American friends are a lot lighter on the trigger these days and he did have the cyanide tooth.’

‘Alive or dead, they won’t advertise the fact. What about the mother?’

‘I called yesterday, as you suggested. Brought flowers and a basket of fruit, supposedly from friends at the mosque.’

‘How was she?’

‘Faded – slightly confused as usual. She told me everyone at the mosque was so kind, Dr Selim was fantastic. And she mentioned that someone from the social services department had visited her. A woman, apparently.’

Ashimov frowned. ‘Why would the social services visit her?’

‘Because she’s handicapped?’

‘Rubbish. Her son’s well enough off. Why would social services visit?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Did she say if they would visit again?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Be there, Greta. Just in case. If somebody turns up, I want a photo. I get an instinct for things.’

‘Which is why you’re still here, my love.’

‘True. But something here isn’t right. Let’s try and find out what it is.’

At Cavendish Place, Dillon and Blake were admitted by Kim, the General’s Gurkha manservant, and found Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Roper in the drawing room. Ferguson was in his sixties, a large, untidy man in a crumpled suit and a Guards tie. Hannah Bernstein was in her early thirties, with close-cropped red hair and horn-rimmed spectacles. Her Armani trouser suit was certainly more expensive than most people could afford on police pay. Major Roper sat in a state-of-the-art electric wheelchair, wearing a reefer coat, hair down to his shoulders, his face a taut mask of the kind of scar tissue that comes from burns, the explosion that had ended his career.

‘Here he is, the man of the moment,’ Dillon said. ‘I’m sure he’ll give it to us in graphic detail,’ which Blake did, everything that had happened in Manhattan.

Afterwards Blake said, ‘So there it is. For the disposal system I’m indebted to you, General. We’re fighting a new kind of war these days, although I can understand Hannah’s moral principles being bruised a bit.’

‘Bruised or not, the Superintendent works for this department under the Official Secrets Act. Isn’t that right?’ Ferguson glanced at her.

Hannah didn’t look easy, but said, ‘Of course, sir.’

‘Good. Tell us about Mrs Morgan, then.’

‘She’s sixty-five and looks much older. I managed to get hold of her hospital records, and it’s bad. The car accident that killed her husband almost finished her off. She narrowly avoided being a paraplegic, but she has money. Her husband owned a pharmacy, which was sold after his death, and there was insurance, so she’s well fixed.’

‘Go on.’

‘Her family disowned her when she married a Christian, but now she’s returned to Islam, as you know. Her son started taking her to the Queen Street mosque in her wheelchair. It used to be a Methodist chapel.’

‘And he turned, too?’

‘Apparently.’

Blake said, ‘That really interests me, the idea of a highly educated man, ostensibly English for thirty years of his life, a university academic, turning to a faith he’d never accepted before in his life.’

‘And then ending up in Manhattan with the intention of killing the President,’ Dillon said.

‘Which makes me wonder what goes on at the Queen Street mosque,’ Blake said. ‘Some of these places are hotbeds of intrigue, pump out the wrong ideas. Sure, we finally captured Saddam in Iraq. But how long ago was that and how many terrorist attacks have there been since?’

Ferguson said, ‘In his last message, Bin Laden referred to the young extremists as “soldiers of God”, and what concerns us is that young men from this country could be among them. It makes places like the Queen Street mosque of special interest.’

Hannah said, ‘If you’re looking for suicide bombers, though, it doesn’t seem like the place.’ She opened a file and passed it across. ‘Dr Ali Selim, the imam. Forty-five, born in London, father a doctor from Iraq who sent the boy to St Paul’s School, one of our better establishments. Selim went to Cambridge, studied Arabic, and later took a doctorate in Comparative Theology.’

Blake looked at the file, particularly the photo. ‘Impressive. I like the beard.’ He passed the file to the others.

Hannah said, ‘He’s a member of the Muslim Council, the Mayor of London’s Interfaith Committee, and any number of government boards. Everyone I speak to tells me he’s a wonderful man.’

‘Maybe he’s too wonderful,’ Dillon said.

‘I’ve checked with the local police. Not a hint of trouble at the Queen Street mosque.’

There was a pause, and Ferguson turned to Roper. ‘Have you any thoughts, Major?’

‘I can only process facts, opinions, suppositions. Unless I have something to go on, I can’t help.’

‘Well, I’ll give you something,’ Blake said. ‘And it’s been intriguing the hell out of me. Does “the wrath of Allah” mean anything to you?’

‘Should it?’

‘When Clancy and I faced Morgan, in the moment before he bit on the cyanide tooth, Morgan said, “Beware the wrath of Allah.”’

Roper frowned and shook his head. ‘It doesn’t strike a chord, but I’ll run it by my computer.’

‘So, the way ahead on this one appears plain,’ Ferguson said. ‘I think you, Superintendent, should have another word with Mrs Morgan in your guise as a social worker.’

Hannah wasn’t comfortable, and showed it. ‘That’s a difficult one, sir. I mean, her son is dead and she doesn’t even know it.’

‘Which can’t be helped, Superintendent. It’s an unusual situation, I agree, but when one considers the gravity of the deed Morgan was trying to commit, I feel that any means that will help us to reach an explanation would be justified. See to it, and use Dillon as back-up. His knowledge of Arabic may prove useful.’ He turned to Blake. ‘We’ll drop Roper off at his house, and you and I can continue to the Ministry of Defence, where I’ll show you everything we have on Muslim activity in the UK.’

‘Suits me fine,’ Blake said.

Ferguson turned to the others. ‘All right, people, there’s work to be done. Let’s get to it.’

After leaving the pub on Kensington High Street, Greta and Ashimov crossed the road to the Embassy and got into a dark blue Opel saloon. She checked the glove compartment and found a digital camera.

‘Excellent,’ he told her. ‘You can drop me at my apartment in Monk Street and keep in touch on your mobile. Anything of significance, I want to know.’

‘Of course.’ She drove out into the traffic. ‘Where’s Belov at the moment?’

‘The good Josef is in Geneva. All those billions, my love, it keeps him so busy.’ There was an edge of bitterness there.

‘Come off it,’ she said. ‘Money is power and you love it, and working for Josef Belov is the ultimate power and you love that too.’

‘To a point – only to a point.’ She turned into Monk Street and stopped. He said, ‘Sometimes I think it was better in the old days, Greta. Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq. To smell powder again.’ He shook his head. ‘That would be wonderful.’

‘You must be raving mad,’ she told him.

‘Very probably.’ He patted her silken knee. ‘You’re a lovely girl, so go and do what Belov is paying you to do. Extract a few more facts from Mrs Morgan, but keep your masters at the GRU happy.’

He got out of the Opel and walked away.

Heavy traffic on Wapping High Street held her back a little, but she finally found what she was looking for: Chandler Street, backing down to the Thames. Many cars were parked there, which gave her good cover, and she pulled in, switched off and settled down, her camera at the ready.

Number Thirteen, that had amused her when she’d looked at the file, an old Victorian terrace house. She sat there, looking along the street to the grocery shop on the corner opposite the river. There was no one about, not a soul. It started to rain and then a red Mini drew up opposite and Hannah Bernstein and Sean Dillon got out.

Hannah pressed the bell and they waited. Finally they heard the sounds of movement, the door was opened on a chain and Mrs Morgan peered out. She was old, faded, much older than her years, as Hannah had indicated. She had a long scarf wrapped around her head, the chador worn by most Muslim women. The voice was almost a whisper.

‘What do you want?’

‘It’s me, Mrs Morgan, Miss Bernstein from the social services. I thought I’d call again.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘This is Mr Dillon, my supervisor. May we come in?’

‘Just a moment.’ The door closed while she disengaged the chain, then opened again. When they entered, she had turned to precede them in the wheelchair.

All this, Greta Novikova had captured on her camera.

In the small sitting room the air was heavy and close and smelled of musk, a strange, disturbing aroma that was somehow alien and not quite right.

Hannah said, ‘I just thought I’d check on you, Mrs Morgan, as we happened to be passing.’

Dillon, more direct, said, ‘Your son is in New York, I understand, Mrs Morgan. Have you heard from him?’

Her voice was muted, and she coughed, ‘Oh, he’ll be too busy. I’m sure he’ll phone when he’s got time.’

Hannah was angry and glared at Dillon. He nodded and she carried on reluctantly. ‘Have you seen Dr Selim lately?’

‘Oh, yes, at the mosque. When my son’s away Dr Selim sends a young man to wheel me along to Queen Street. It’s not far. He’s been very good, Dr Selim, helping us so much, helping me and my Henry to discover our faith.’

Hannah felt wretched. ‘I’m sure that’s been very nice for you.’

‘Yes, he’s called around two or three times since Henry’s been away, with his friend.’

There was a pause, her breathing heavy. Dillon said, ‘And who was that?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember his name. Very strange, Russian, I think. He had a terrible scar right down from his eye to the corner of his mouth.’

Dillon said sternly in Arabic, ‘Have you told me everything, old woman? Do you swear to this, as Allah commands?’

She looked fearful and replied in Arabic, ‘There is no more. I don’t know his name. My son said he was a Russian friend. That’s all I know.’

Hannah said, ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, Dillon, but leave it. She’s frightened.’

Dillon smiled, suddenly looking devastatingly charming, and kissed Mrs Morgan on the forehead. ‘There you are, my love.’ He turned to Hannah and led the way out.

Outside, she said, ‘What a bastard you are. What were you saying?’

‘Just checking if she was telling the truth.’

‘Right, let’s go.’

‘I’m not ready yet, Hannah.’ He nodded to the corner shop at the end of the street. ‘Let’s have a word down there. The Russian gentleman with the scar interests me. Maybe he’s been in.’

They walked down the pavement towards the shop, and behind them Greta Novikova turned her Opel into the street and drove away.

The sign on the shop window said ‘M. Patel’. Dillon nodded. ‘Indian, that’s good.’

‘Why, particularly?’ Hannah asked.

‘Because they’re smart and they don’t screw around. They’ve got a head for business and they want to fit in. So let’s see what Mr Patel has to say and let’s use your warrant card.’

The shop was neat and orderly, and obviously sold a bit of everything. The Indian behind the counter reading the Evening Standard was in shirtsleeves and looked about fifty. He glanced up, smiling, looked them over and stopped smiling.

‘Can I help?’

Hannah produced her warrant card. ‘Detective Superintendent Bernstein, Special Branch. Mr Dillon is a colleague. We’re pursuing inquiries, which involve a Mrs Morgan who lives up the street. You know her?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Her son’s away,’ Dillon said. ‘New York, I understand?’

‘Yes, she did tell me that. Look, what is this?’

‘Don’t fret, Mr Patel, everything’s fine. Mrs Morgan is friendly with a Dr Ali Selim. You know who he is?’

Patel’s face slipped. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘And you don’t like him.’ Dillon smiled. ‘A Hindu–Muslim thing? Well, never mind. Sometimes when he sees Mrs Morgan he has a friend with him. Bad scar, from his eye to his mouth. She thinks he’s Russian.’

‘That’s right, he is. He’s called in to buy cigarettes, sometimes with the Arab. Selim calls him Yuri. They were in yesterday.’

Hannah glanced up at the security camera. ‘Was that working?’

He nodded. ‘I was busy, so when the tape stopped I didn’t run it back. I took it out and put a fresh tape in.’

‘Good,’ Dillon said. ‘I’m sure you have a television in the back room. Get us the tape and we’ll run it back.’

Patel proved accommodating, closed the shop for a while and ran the tape through for them. Finally he stopped.

‘There they are.’

Hannah and Dillon had a look. ‘So that’s him?’ Dillon said. ‘The Russian.’

‘Yes. And I’ve remembered something else,’ Patel said. ‘One day he was on his own and his mobile rang and he said, “Ashimov here.”’

‘You’re sure about that?’ Hannah asked.

‘Well, that’s how it sounded.’

‘Good man, yourself,’ Dillon said. ‘You’ve helped enormously.’

Patel hesitated. ‘Look, is Mrs Morgan in trouble? I mean, she’s not fit to be out, but she’s nice enough.’

‘No problem,’ Hannah said. ‘We’re just pursuing some inquiries.’

‘And I know exactly what that means with you people.’

Dillon patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, old son, we’re the good guys.’

They went out and walked towards the Mini. ‘Yuri Ashimov,’ Hannah said. ‘Interesting.’

‘Let’s go and see what Roper makes of it,’ Dillon suggested.

At Monk Street, Greta linked her digital camera to Ashimov’s television and ran the photos of Dillon and Hannah.

‘There you are. The social services I assume. I’ve no idea who the man is.’

Ashimov swore softly. ‘But I do. My God, Greta, you’re on to something here.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Last year, when Baron von Berger of Berger International was killed in that plane crash, and Belov took over his oil concessions and put me in charge of general security…I started going over all of Berger International’s previous security records. Did you know that Berger was in a state of open warfare against a man named General Charles Ferguson? Have you heard of him?’

‘Of course I have,’ Greta said. ‘He runs that special intelligence outfit for the Prime Minister.’

‘Gold star for you, Greta.’ Ashimov pointed to the last picture on the screen. ‘That’s Detective Superintendent Hannah Bernstein, Ferguson’s assistant.’

‘Good God,’ Greta said.

Ashimov flicked to Dillon. ‘And this gentleman – this one really is special. Sean Dillon, Ferguson’s strong right hand, and once the Provisional IRA’s top enforcer. For twenty years or more the British Army and the RUC couldn’t lay a hand on him.’

‘And now he works for the Prime Minister? That’s unbelievable.’

‘Well, it’s typically British. They’ll turn their hand to anything if it suits.’

‘So where does this leave us?’

‘With Ferguson’s outfit checking Mrs Morgan, whose son was supposed to have a go at President Jake Cazalet in New York and has now disappeared, or so it would seem. Would you say the appearance of Dillon and Bernstein at her front door was a coincidence?’

‘Not for a moment. What do you intend to do?’

‘I’ll alert Dr Ali Selim, naturally. We’ll take it from there. I’ll show them the photos.’

‘And Belov?’

‘He left this sort of thing in my hands, but I keep him informed.’ He smiled. ‘He’s not involved, Greta my love, you must understand. He’s too important. As regards operations at what you might call the coal face, I’m in charge.’ He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Trust me.’

Soon after, he was standing by an old jetty round the corner from the Queen Street mosque, overlooking the river. He leaned on a rail smoking a cigarette, enjoying the landscape, the views, the boats passing. Selim appeared after a while, a handsome bearded man wearing a Burberry raincoat, an umbrella guarding him from the rain.

‘Yuri, my friend.’ He smiled. ‘You said it was urgent. Why not call at my office at the mosque?’

‘Not again,’ Ashimov told him. ‘I’ve got news for you. Our friend Morgan’s trip to New York would seem to have disappeared into a black hole.’

‘How unfortunate,’ Selim said calmly.

‘Listen.’ Ashimov went through everything.

Afterwards Selim said, ‘We can’t be certain he met a bad end. That’s supposition, surely?’

‘Ali, my friend, if Ferguson’s lot are involved, particularly this Dillon, then the end is as certain as the coffin lid closing.’

‘You consider the man exceptional, it would seem.’

‘And for good reason. He’s a man of many skills. An experienced pilot, for instance, and a linguist. Russian and Arabic, for example.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘Besides his years with the IRA, he worked for the PLO as a mercenary, and for the Israelis in Lebanon in the old days.’ Ashimov lit a cigarette. ‘He kills at the drop of a hat, this one.’

‘Oh, in a dark street on a rainy night, I’m sure he’s as susceptible to a knife under the ribs as anyone.’

‘My dear Ali.’ Ashimov smiled. ‘If you believe that, you’ll be making the worst mistake of your life.’

Selim said, ‘So, what about Mrs Morgan? If they’re sniffing around there, she could be saying the wrong things.’

‘I don’t know. She’s an ageing cripple in a wheelchair. She can’t speak in much more than a whisper. And what could she tell him? That she’s a woman who returned to Islam after her husband’s death, whose son also discovered the faith and lightened her grief. Wouldn’t you, as her imam, agree with all this?’

‘Of course.’

‘Exactly, and you are a man of impeccable background and highly respected. Whatever has happened to the son has no connection with you. You’re too important, Ali, that’s why we keep you out of it. You even sat on a committee at the House of Commons last week. Nothing could be more respectable. No, my friend, you’re a real asset.’

‘And too valuable to lose,’ Selim said. ‘And loose ends are loose ends. If Mrs Morgan should happen to mention you and me in the same breath, they’ll discover who you are. The man who is Belov’s security.’

Ashimov sighed. ‘All right, leave it to me. Now we’d better split up. I’ll be in touch.’

Selim hesitated. ‘Morgan was a soldier of God. If the worst has come to the worst, he is also a true martyr.’

‘Save that tripe for the young fools at the mosque, your Wrath of Allah fanatics. Go on, get going.’

Selim went, and Ashimov stayed there thinking about it. Perhaps Selim had a point. After all, why would Bernstein and Dillon be calling on the old lady at all? Better to be safe than sorry. He looked over at the incoming tide, then pulled up his collar against the rain, walked round to Chandler Street and rang the bell at Number Thirteen.

She answered it after a while and peered out over the chain. ‘It’s me. Mr Ashimov,’ he said. ‘Dr Selim’s friend. He asked me to call and see if you wanted to go to the mosque.’

‘That is kind,’ she said. ‘I was going to go a little later.’

‘Since I’m here, why don’t you go now? It’s much easier if I push you,’ he said. ‘Bring an umbrella. It’s raining.’

She closed the door, undid the chain and opened it again, and Ashimov stepped in. ‘Let me help you.’ He reached for a raincoat and a beret hanging on a hall stand and helped her. ‘There you are, and here’s an umbrella.’ He took one down and gave it to her.

‘So kind,’ she said.

‘Not at all. Have you got your key?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had a visit this afternoon, I believe. A lady from the social services department?’

‘Did I?’ she frowned. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Yes, with a gentleman. What did they ask you? About your son in New York?’

She was confused and bewildered. Few things seemed real to her any more, and her memory was fading fast these days.

‘I can’t remember. I can’t remember anyone calling.’

Which was true, for she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It was obvious to Ashimov that he was wasting his time.

‘Never mind. Let’s be on our way, then.’

The rain was driving down, no one around as they went along the street, the fog drifting up from the river. They went past the shop, which now showed a closed sign inside the door.

‘It’s going to be a dirty night later,’ he said.

‘I think you’re right.’

‘But still a nice view of the Thames.’ He turned in at the old wooden jetty, the wheels of her chair trembling over the warped wooden boarding.

‘There you are.’ He paused at the top of the steps going down to the river.

‘I like it at night with the lights on the boats.’

Her voice was like a small wind through the trees on a dark evening, as he looked at the river high with water lapping at the bottom of the steps. Then he shoved the chair forward. Strangely enough, she didn’t call out, but gripped the arms of her chair tightly, and when she hit the water she went under instantly as the chair emptied her out.

It was only four or five feet deep, a mud bank when the tide was out. Someone would find her soon enough. He’d done her a favour, really. He lit a cigarette and walked away.

A few minutes later, standing in a doorway, he phoned Ali Selim. ‘You can relax. Mrs Morgan has met with an unfortunate accident.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Ashimov told him. Selim sounded horrified. ‘Was that necessary?’

‘Come on, Selim, you were the one talking about loose ends. Now, don’t forget, if the police enquire, you were unhappy about her habit of going to the mosque alone in her wheelchair, which is why you often sent young men to fetch her.’

Selim took a deep breath. ‘Of course.’

‘She was prematurely ageing, confused a great deal of the time.’

‘She had Alzheimer’s.’

‘Well, there you are. I’ll leave it with you,’ and Ashimov rang off.

4

It was at ten the following morning that Patel, exercising his small terrier, found the body and the wheelchair on the beach. He called the Wapping police, and since Hannah had put a tracer on Mrs Morgan, she was notified at once at the Ministry of Defence.

Ferguson was in a Defence Committee meeting, but Dillon was in the office and she quickly filled him in.

‘So what do we do?’ he demanded.

‘Get down to Chandler Street fast and I’ll put a red flag on the case and take command. You come with me. You might be useful.’

They used a department limousine with a civilian driver, retired police. Hannah said, ‘It’s one hell of a coincidence.’

‘And you know how much I believe in those.’

Just then, Dillon’s mobile rang. ‘Sean? It’s Roper. I’ve got something interesting for you on Ashimov and also on the Wrath of Allah thing.’

‘Hold on to it for just a bit. Mrs Morgan’s turned up on a mud flat at the end of her street, and Hannah and I are on our way. We’re just about there. I’ll call you later.’

They took a turn, and then there they were. There was a police paramedic’s ambulance, the usual team, and a sergeant in charge who jumped to attention when Hannah showed him her warrant card and assumed command.

‘Not much of a scene of crime, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Plenty of mud.’ She and Dillon looked over the rail. ‘It’s obvious what happened. The gent who found her said she was always pushing herself in her wheelchair up and down the street to the Queen Street mosque. Come off the pavement twice before in the past and ended up in the gutter.’

Hannah said, ‘Right. Get her up out of there and deliver her to Peel Street morgue. I’m going to call in Professor George Langley. He’ll handle it.’

She walked away with her mobile and stood in a doorway. Dillon saw Patel lurking outside his shop and went over.

‘This must have been a shock for you?’

‘A terrible shock. It was a higher tide than usual last night. It’s amazing she wasn’t swept away.’

‘Are you surprised by what happened?’

‘Not really. She’d had a few close calls in that wheelchair and she was worse these days.’

‘What do you mean, worse?’

‘Couldn’t handle herself, confused, no memory worth speaking of. She didn’t know which way she was pointing. She was very upset when Henry went off to the States.’ Patel hesitated. ‘What was it all about before, you and the Superintendent and those inquiries?’

Dillon lied glibly. ‘Her son was only on a special tourist visa, but seems to have gone missing, and we had a request to check it out. A lot of people do that. Go as tourists and fade into the landscape.’

‘A lot of people do that here, too,’ Patel said.

‘The way of the world.’

Dillon went over to Hannah as she finished her call. ‘What next?’

‘I’ve spoken to Langley and he’s going straight to the morgue.’ A couple of paramedics carried Mrs Morgan past them in a body bag. ‘Poor old lady,’ Hannah said.

‘And nothing we can do. But speaking of doing things, Roper seems to have come up with some stuff about Ashimov and the Wrath of Allah thing.’

‘Good. I’ll speak to the General,’ which she did briefly and turned to Dillon. ‘He suggests we all meet up at Roper’s apartment, get filled in together.’

‘Sounds good to me.’ He shook his head. ‘I accept everything Patel says about Mrs Morgan and her wheelchair, about her incompetence and so on, her minor accidents – but it doesn’t explain what she was doing on the jetty in the first place.’

‘Exactly what I was thinking.’

Roper’s apartment was on the ground floor, with a ramp entrance to facilitate his wheelchair. The entire place was designed for not only a handicapped person, but one determined to look after himself. His equipment was state-of-the-art, some of it top secret and supplied by Ferguson.

Dillon and Hannah had been with him for perhaps ten minutes when Ferguson arrived and joined them.

‘So where are we?’ he asked Hannah. ‘With Mrs Morgan, I mean.’

‘I’ve pulled in Professor Langley, sir. He’s working on her now.’

‘He won’t find much, not in my opinion.’ Dillon told Ferguson all Patel had said. ‘So there you are. It’s highly suspicious, but I doubt we can prove it’s any more than an accident.’

Ferguson looked gloomy. ‘One thing’s certain. We can’t throw the fact that Henry Morgan is dead into the pot because we’re not supposed to know. So where does that leave us?’

‘With Yuri Ashimov, for one thing,’ Roper said. ‘Formerly the pride of the KGB.’ He punched his computer keys and photos of Ashimov emerged. One or two in uniform, others in a more social situation.

‘What’s he up to now?’

‘Head of security for Josef Belov and his outfit.’

‘The oil billionaire?’ Dillon asked.

‘That’s the man,’ Roper said. ‘Man of mystery, that’s his front. A billionaire many times over, and friend of Putin.’

‘So what on earth would Ashimov be doing around Mrs Morgan?’

‘It must have been something to do with the son,’ Hannah said. ‘Has to be.’

‘And the interesting question is, who sent Henry Morgan to New York with the intention of shooting the President?’ Dillon turned to Hannah. ‘You said Dr Ali Selim was clean as a whistle.’

It was Roper who broke in. ‘He is, as far as my researches show.’

‘Then why is he involved with a man like Ashimov? What’s the purpose?’ Dillon shook his head. ‘There has to be a reason.’ He turned to Roper. ‘What did you find out about the Wrath of Allah?’

‘It was an Arab militant group some years ago during the civil war in Lebanon. With the end of that war it seemed to disappear from view. Last year the Israeli Mossad tried to establish if it was an offshoot of al-Qaeda, but got nowhere.’

‘Well, it meant something to Henry Morgan,’ Ferguson said. ‘It may have disappeared, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. One of our greatest security problems is the way a few terrorists can hide themselves in the mass of an ordinary decent Muslim population. How can you tell the difference?’

‘Mao Tse-tung invented that strategy years ago and it eventually won him China,’ Dillon pointed out.

‘I’ve got something else for you, recently pulled out of my printer.’ Roper handed three photos across. ‘Greta Novikova. Supposed to be a secretary at the Russian Embassy, but in reality a major in the GRU. Used to be Ashimov’s girlfriend. Neat coincidence, her being assigned to London, isn’t it?’

‘Quite a lady,’ Dillon said admiringly. He slipped a copy into his breast pocket. ‘Maybe I’ll run into her.’

Hannah’s mobile rang; she answered and listened. ‘Fine, we’ll be there.’ She turned to Ferguson. ‘Professor Langley, sir. He can give us a preliminary.’

‘Excellent,’ Ferguson said. ‘You hang in there, Major. I’ll keep you informed.’

They filed into Ferguson’s Daimler, and as it moved away Greta Novikova eased out in her Opel and went after them.

George Langley was a small, grey-haired, energetic man whom they had all met in the pursuance of previous cases. Many people considered him the greatest forensic pathologist in London, and not much escaped him.

The Peel Street morgue was an old building, some of it Victorian, but the interior was modern enough. A receptionist led them into a white-tiled room with fluorescent lighting and modern steel operating tables. Mrs Morgan lay on one of them. The wounds from her examination had been stitched up.

‘My God, I never get used to this part,’ Hannah said softly.

Langley came in from the preparation room in shirt sleeves, drying his hands on a towel.

‘Ah, there you are, Charles.’

‘Good of you to be so quick off the mark, George. What have you got for me?’

‘Death by drowning. No suggestion of foul play. Strangely enough, no bruising. On the other hand, she was as light as a feather. Very undernourished. Her previous medical history isn’t good. The car accident, which reduced her to the wheelchair, was very grave. I’ve checked the records. I’ve also checked with her GP and she’s being treated for Alzheimer’s.’

‘So that’s it?’

‘I’d say so. It’s interesting that the man who found her, Patel, speaks of these minor accidents she suffered in the wheelchair. I notice a report by the scene-of-crime sergeant who went to see the imam at Queen Street. Sounded most distressed, said he’d implored her many times not to venture out alone, and usually sent someone to escort her.’

‘Which still leaves us wondering what she was doing at the end of the jetty,’ Dillon said.

‘I’ve had a quick look. Nothing out of the ordinary. The Alzheimer’s would make her subject to confusion, memory loss, considerable general stress. If she turned right, she’d turn the corner for the Queen Street mosque; if she turned left, she’d find herself on the jetty and only a few yards to the steps.’ He didn’t even frown when he said, ‘Are you looking for suspicious circumstances here, Charles? You usually are.’

‘No, no. It’s an unrelated matter.’

‘Unrelated, huh? Which brings you hotfoot, plus the Superintendent and Dillon? Highly unlikely, I’d have thought. However, I can’t help you with this one and I’ve other things to do. I’ll be on my way.’

They left and walked to the Daimler. Ferguson paused, frowning, and said to Dillon, ‘What’s that you usually say? About making it a we-know-that-they-know-and-they-know-that-we-know situation?’

‘I’d say you mean you want Dr Ali Selim pushed a little.’

‘Exactly. I’ll leave it to you. Blake’s at the American Embassy at the moment. We’ll all catch up later.’

‘Don’t you think I should provide a police presence for Selim, sir?’ Hannah asked.

‘No. Some things require the Dillon touch, Superintendent.’

They got in and drove away. Dillon said, ‘You’ve noticed the Opel saloon trailing us?’

‘Absolutely. Don’t forget to find out who it is.’

Ferguson dropped him off. Hannah was not best pleased and Dillon leaned down to her through the open window. ‘Keep the faith, love.’

‘Well, you keep your fists in your pockets.’

The rain increased and Dillon glanced at the Opel and decided to leave it alone. He went inside the mosque and followed a sign that said Office.

In the Opel, Greta Novikova called Ashimov on his mobile. ‘They were all at this Major Roper’s place in Regency Square – Ferguson, Bernstein and Dillon. They’ve now dropped Dillon at Queen Street. Why?’

‘I should imagine because Mrs Morgan has met an untimely accident and Mr Dillon is about to speak to Selim about it.’

‘What do you mean, accident?’

‘Her wheelchair appears to have deposited her in the Thames. These things happen. Stay there and follow Dillon when he comes out.’

Dillon found the office, knocked and walked in. There was no one at reception, so he tried the next door and found his quarry working at a desk.

‘Dr Ali Selim?’

Selim recognized him at once from a computer photo Ashimov had left him.

He managed a smile. ‘Can I help?’

Dillon decided to let it all hang out. ‘Oh, I think so, me ould son.’ He lit a cigarette.

‘Not in here. It is an affront,’ Selim told him.

‘I know, a terrible vice, but we all have them. I can see you know who I am, your face twitched, but then a guy like Ashimov would be right on the ball about me and my friends. We have a video of the two of you, by the way. That would go down big at the House of Commons, don’t you think? And I notice his girlfriend, Greta Novikova, is outside.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Well, in broad terms you do, and I could fill in the rest for you. Henry Morgan walks up a Manhattan street in the rain and disappears into oblivion, his mother goes off the jetty in Chandler Street and into the Thames. A very unfortunate family.’

Selim’s face had turned pale. ‘Get out of here. I’ll call the police.’

‘Oh, I don’t think you will, not with Ashimov on your back.’ Dillon dropped his cigarette in a half-filled cup of coffee by Selim’s right hand. ‘Say your prayers, son, you’re going to need them. Oh, and good luck with the Wrath of Allah.’

It was a long shot, but the shock on Selim’s face was obvious.

Dillon went out and paused on the pavement, looking across. Greta Novikova was taking a photo and she was badly caught out when he crossed the street quickly, opened the passenger door and got in.

‘Now look here…’ she started to say.

‘Oh, cut it out, girl. I know who you are and you know who I am.’ He produced a packet of Marlboros and took two out. ‘I bet you smoke, too. Most Russians do.’

‘Bastard,’ she said. But she almost looked amused.

He lit the cigarettes and passed her one. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Go? Where to exactly?’

‘My place in Stable Mews. Don’t pretend you don’t know where that is.’

She drove away, half smiling. ‘I bet Selim was messing himself in there.’

‘Something like that. I told him we know about Ashimov and you, and who knows? Perhaps Ashimov’s boss, the mysterious Josef Belov.’

‘You’re playing with fire, Dillon,’ she said. ‘I’d be very careful.’

‘Oh, I always am.’

She paused at the end of Stable Mews. ‘Can I go now?’

‘Of course – unless you’d like to have dinner with me.’

‘The great Sean Dillon with a romantic side? I doubt it. Besides, you’ve chosen a bad night. I have a function at the Dorchester ballroom this evening on behalf of the Russian Embassy.’

Dillon got out and leaned in. ‘Oh, I’m sure I could gain admission.’

She drove back to the Embassy, turning this strange man over in her mind, and phoned Ashimov to tell him what had happened. ‘I’ve got a crazy idea he could turn up tonight.’

‘So he’s challenging us, is he? Well, we’ll challenge back. I’ll go with you. Pick me up at seven.’

After she hung up she went into her computer, into her secret GRU files, accessed Dillon and was breathless at what she discovered. This was the man who’d been responsible for the mortar bomb attack on Downing Street in ’91? A feared enforcer for the IRA for years, a killer many times over…once an actor at the National Theatre? She read, fascinated.

‘I put the fear of God into Selim,’ Dillon told Ferguson on the phone.

‘I thought you would. What’s your verdict?’

‘Well, the obvious thing is that he didn’t deny any of it – Morgan, Ashimov, the Novikova woman, the lot.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he? By the way, Blake’s been in touch. He’s taken all that stuff I gave him on the Muslim situation in the UK and gone straight back to Washington.’

‘What a shame. I’d hoped to take him to the Dorchester tonight. The Russian Embassy’s got a function on in the ballroom. Get me a security pass, Charles. Novikova’s going to be there. Perhaps Ashimov will be with her. I’d like to run with it.’

‘Only if you run with me, you rogue. We’ll go together.’

‘Cocktails at seven, Charles, not black tie. The Embassy’s trying to make friends and influence people – and I understand that there might be a surprise guest or two.’

‘Are you referring to the fact that when President Putin finished at the European Union’s Paris conference this morning he decided to divert his plane to RAF Northolt for a chat with the Prime Minister this afternoon? And that he’s not due to depart until late tonight?’

‘And how would you be knowing that?’

‘Because I’ve been notified of his flight plan out of Northolt to Moscow. It’s what they pay me for, dear boy.’

‘So I’ll meet you there?’

‘And the Superintendent, too, I think. Dress things up a little. And do me a favour.’

‘Yours to command.’

‘Wear one of your better suits. We mustn’t let the side down. This should be interesting. I knew Putin rather well in the bad old days, you know, when he was a colonel in the KGB.’

‘I bet you exchanged shots across the Berlin Wall.’

‘Something like that. Meet us at the Dorchester as you say, at seven.’

‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

In the ballroom at the Dorchester the great and the good mingled with politicians and civil servants, and waiters passed through the crowd with trays loaded with vodka and the finest champagne, as the Russian Embassy did its best to impress. Yuri Ashimov and Greta stood by a pillar, drinking iced vodka.

‘It’ll be a hell of a shock for these people when Putin appears with the Prime Minister,’ Greta said.

‘It’ll be an even bigger one for you when Belov appears.’

‘Belov?’ She was bewildered. ‘But why?’

‘Because Putin wanted him. Out of all the oil magnates, Josef, my love, is the one the President trusts. They go back a long way.’ He reached for another vodka as a waiter passed. ‘I spoke to him a couple of hours ago. Brought him up to speed on the Henry Morgan affair.’

‘Does Putin know about that?’

‘Of course not. There are limits. Josef was philosophical about it, but he wasn’t happy about Ferguson and his friends.’

‘What if Dillon turns up?’

‘I hope he does. I have a friend named Harker, Charlie Harker. A crook of the first water, dabbles in everything from protection to drugs to women. Such people have their uses.’

‘What’s he going to do?’

‘I mentioned Dillon and gave him a photo. Harker has arranged for two or three of his men to, shall we say, pay special attention to him if he does show up.’

Greta said, ‘I’ve checked on Dillon, Yuri. He’s hell on wheels.’

‘Well, so am I, my love.’

‘But it isn’t you who’ll be doing it, that’s what worries me.’

‘Well, we’ll just have to see what happens. Because there he is.’

At the same moment a voice echoed over a microphone as the Russian ambassador called for attention.

‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen. I had intended a few words at this moment, but someone far more important has arrived – and with a very special guest.’

He gestured and, through the side door, President Putin appeared, the British Prime Minister at his side. The crowd broke into spontaneous applause. The two men stopped for a moment, acknowledging the crowd, then moved on, pausing to shake hands here and there. They were followed by several men, obviously security, but not all.

‘The man on the left,’ Ferguson said. ‘Black suit, steel-rimmed glasses, cropped hair. Josef Belov. Now what’s he up to?’

Belov looked to be around sixty, his face very calm, giving nothing away. Putin paused for a moment and listened as Belov whispered, ‘The man standing over there with the woman and the small man with very fair hair, his name is Ferguson. He runs the Prime Minister’s private intelligence outfit.’

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