“Wait,” says Omar, opening the boot of the Audi with one hand while pointing his pistol at them with the other. He rummages about and extracts a short black crowbar with a yellow rubber handle. Max has something like it at home.
“Come,” he says, the two of them trudge after him, to where the hired Mercedes is where they parked it yesterday.
“You,” he says, looking at Max and throwing the crowbar on the ground at the back of the Mercedes. “Get rid of the number plates.”
Max prizes the sharp end of the crowbar in behind the number plate and it snaps in two. He yanks each half off and moves round to attack the front plate, which comes off in one.
“I could get good at this,” he says to try and cheer himself up.
“Bring,” says Omar, pointing to the plates. Max picks them up and they trudge back to the Audi.
“You, in the front seat,” he says to Aafia. “You,” he says pointing his gun at Max’s head with one hand, the key to the Audi proffered in the other. “You drive.”
Whatever deal Aafia has struck with Omar, and Max feels sure that any bargain with Omar comes at a high price, it feels sensible to simply act his part for now. For the moment it feels like a reprieve.
As they drive to the end of the road, they see the police car parked outside a house two along from Simon’s. An old man, presumably the old woman’s husband, is standing by the open doorway. Max can see Omar through the rear-view mirror, sizing him up. Would he know enough about cars to report the make and model?
Omar winds down his window, and fires a warning shot that has the man scuttling inside.
“Right,” comes the voice from the back seat. “Faster now.”
With his pistol in his left hand, Omar re-sets the satnav with his right. Rome, Italy. The device finds its coordinates and a blue route emerges.
“Turn left in fifty metres and then keep right for nought point seven kilometres,” a neutral woman’s voice commands. Arrival time 16:40, the screen informed him. It is enough.
“Passports,” barks Omar, with an impatient clicking of his fingers.
Aafia looks at Max, who slips a hand into his inside jacket pocket and produces his battered, burgundy-coloured booklet and hands it to her without a word. Aafia retrieves her own from her money belt, and hands both to Omar, who nods, apparently engrossed in putting a battery back into his phone.
“In two hundred metres, turn left on to Place Centrale,” the satnav voice says, and then more insistently. “Turn left on Place Centrale.”
They are passing the hotel where Omar had spent two or three hours with his eyes closed, unable to sleep, after killing the British man. He had checked out of the hotel at four that morning, saying that he had to be at a meeting in Geneva at eight. The receptionist didn’t seem remotely interested, but asked if he wanted to take some pastries for the journey. They now sit on the back seat next to Omar.
“Keep right and continue onto Rue de Medran.”
He now turns his attention to the passports. The whore’s is black with the palm tree emerging from the crossed swords. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is written in gold script, beneath the same words in Arabic. ‘Diplomatic Passport’ is inscribed below in English and Arabic in the same gold script.
One day soon there will be no immunity for the House of Saud, thinks Omar with satisfaction. Their reward for helping the crusaders invade his homeland in 1990 and 2003 is at hand, and the caliphate will reach soon into the Arabian Peninsula. The apostates will be removed and true Sharia will govern the people.
He now turns his attention to the British passport. Maximilian Charles St John Draycott. Date of birth 25th December 1979. The date stirs something in his memory.
“Twenty-fifth December 1979,” he reads aloud.
“My date of birth,” shouts Max over his shoulder. “Christmas Day.”
No, that’s not it, thinks Omar. Christmas Day! The pagan festival of Santa Claus and turkey. No, of course. It was the day that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It was when the first airborne Soviet paratroopers landed in Kabul. It was the start of all this.
“At the roundabout, take the second exit onto Rue de la Poste.”
Omar reads on. Place of birth: Stockbridge, Hampshire.
“Stock-bridge… Stock… bridge…” he says.
“Stockbridge,” says Max. “My place of birth.”
“Do you still live there?” asks Omar.
“No, but my parents do.” At once he feels uneasy. Why had he said that? But Omar is already on his phone, and now he’s talking quickly in Arabic. Aafia looks concerned.
“What’s he saying?” asks Max, but he can understand the words ‘Draycott’ and ‘Stockbridge’ and ‘Hampshire’ because Omar is spelling them out.
“Who’s he talking to?” Max shouts. “Who’s he talking to?”
“Turn right and stay on the Route de Verbier”
“I don’t know,” says Aafia. “He’s telling someone to find your parents.”
“Turn right and stay on the Route de Verbier.”
“Omar, who were you talking to?”
“Silence now and drive,” he says raising his pistol.
“Turn right here,” says Aafia.
They continue in silence, except that Omar is muttering something under his breath, almost chanting. Aafia listens intently and can finally make out what he it is that he keeps repeating to himself.
“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” he is intoning. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. We will conquer your Rome…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Martigny, spread out along the Rhone valley, is slightly bigger than Harry imagined, and so is the station. He gives a final wave to Monsieur Remy, who is also preparing to leave the train, and steps down onto the platform, making a great show of looking around, and then strides off purposefully in the direction of an exit sign.
He desperately needs some new clothes. He may not have looked too odd in his salopettes and city shoes in Verbier, but here he is beginning to attract curious glances from people waiting for their trains. First though he finds a timetable and looks for the next train to Geneva, and is relieved to see that they seem to be pretty regular, every half hour or so, the journey taking just over ninety minutes.
In the station cafeteria he asks the whereabouts of a nearby supermarket and is told that there is a large Co-op about five minutes away, down the Avenue de la Gare, and then turn left. On his way he passes a clothes boutique that seems to sell everything that he needs, and he goes in and makes the owner’s morning by buying a new shirt, pullover, trousers, pants and socks as well as a pair of decent trainers. The company credit card is accepted.
With many salutations, Harry makes his leave of the overjoyed owner, an unshaven, middle-aged Middle Eastern man with an enormous paunch, and makes his way back to the station, stopping at a bench to pull out his phone. There are no messages and no missed calls. He remembers that they couldn’t get a signal in the chalet. Perhaps no news is good news.
He goes into his contacts, and taps the number that he had Googled on the drive up from Rome – a private vault in the centre of Geneva. Yes, monsieur, they were open on a Saturday. The smallest of their safety deposit boxes measure 60mm by 250mm by 350mm and would be sufficient to store one diamond, unless the diamond is very big – ha, ha.
And it would cost 200 Swiss francs for a year… very reasonable, I’m sure you will agree… with a 400-franc refundable deposit. And would monsieur require his own key? Then that would be a further refundable 800 francs. Very good. We close at five p.m.
He then searches for flights to London, finding an EasyJet departure at four p.m. with available seats. He books one, and downloads the boarding card to his phone.
He pauses to think before he makes the second call. What should he say, or, rather, what should he not say? He looks at his Rolex. It’s ten minutes past ten. There’s a train for Geneva leavin
g in twelve minutes. He taps in the numbers 117.
“Police. Puis-je vous aider?” It’s a woman’s voice.
“Hello… do you speak English?”
“Oui Monsieur. Where are you calling from?”
“I’m in Verbier.”
“Verbier”
“Yes. Please go quickly. There’s been a shooting.”
“What address?”
“I don’t know the address.”
“When did this happen?”
“About two hours ago.”
“What is your name?”
“Harry Kimber. Harry, like Prince Harry. Kimber. K – I – M…”
“That’s all right, Mr Kimber, we have your details. Where can we find you?”
“Hello… Hello… Hello? I seem to have lost you. Hello?”
After that unconvincing pantomime, Harry ends the call, and opens the back of the phone, extracting the battery and putting it in the inside pocket of his brand new jacket, and walks back to the station. The train leaves in five minutes. What did she mean ‘We have your details’?
* * *
“Daesh is finished in Syria now that Russia has entered the war on the side of Assad.”
Tariq has just been seen to by a doctor, who checked his pulse and examined the various instruments connected to his body. He feels tired now, but wants to continue talking to this intelligent man with the sympathetic demeanour.
“And when the caliphate starts shrinking, then just watch the foreigners and adventurers disappear as quickly as they arrived. The people are terrified of them – the women especially – but they won’t openly rebel. Daesh won’t have much popular support on the ground, though; the people can’t wait to see the back of them. Have you heard about a thing called a ‘biter’?”
“No, no, I haven’t,” says Maurilio, who had allowed himself to drift off a little during this little speech about Islamic State’s prospects. He has to let the conversation drift wherever Tariq wants it to go, but he hopes it will return soon to Rome.
“A biter? No. What is that?”
“It’s a tool that these so-called fighters carry – it’s like a pair of tongs with sharp claws – and when they see a woman who they think is showing too much flesh they clip off pieces of their flesh. It’s agonising apparently, and really just sadistic, and they’re using them more and more. Women have to be fully veiled, wear loose or baggy trousers, gloves and socks, and be accompanied by a male relative, if they don’t want to be at risk of being clipped like this. My friends in Sirte say it’s being used there now.”
“That’s just sadistic, like you say.”
“Anyway, they’re finished in Syria, and possibly, after that in Iraq. I’m not so sure. It’s why so many of the top leadership have gone to Libya. They think they’re safe there. But the caliphate needs a real showstopper soon to encourage more recruits.”
“And that’s going to happen in Rome, you think?”
“I know.”
Maurilio hesitates. He’s at a vital moment, but how best to approach? He must help Tariq build a narrative.
“When did you and Aafia first arrive in Italy?”
“About six months ago,” says Tariq, looking round for a glass of water.
“Here,” says Maurilio, standing up and handing him the glass that’s on the bedside cabinet.
“We hired the compound as a workshop and storage for our supposed online import-export business with North Africa – carpets and ceramics and stuff like that. We’ve got a lovely website that actually works, although the stuff is so deliberately expensive that we don’t get that many orders. But when we do, we send out stuff. It’s amazing how stupid some people are.”
“My wife wants a nice old Moroccan rug. Remind me to avoid your website.”
“All our stuff is from Tunisia, and that’s the point,” says Tariq. “The Tunisian government has been building a barrier along its border with Libya since the attacks on tourists in 2015, and are proud about how effective it is at keeping out terrorists, which makes everybody think that the country is safe from infiltration. But that’s rubbish – apart from the many Tunisian Daesh fighters, the border is easy to broach, especially at its southern end.
“So, what, I don’t follow. How does this benefit your import-export business?”
“Italy’s a big trading partner with Tunisia and freight between the two countries is common and unexceptional. Boats come in all the time from Tunis to Civitavecchia.”
“And there’s a ferry crossing to Civitavecchia,” says Maurilio, who knows the port well from the spell in which he was seconded to the DCSA, the Direzione Centrale per i servizi Antidroga – the Italian drugs squad.
“And Civitavecchia is only forty minutes from the compound. We’ve used the ferry three or four times… bringing back carpets and stuff,” says Tariq. “But mainly we’ve used freight companies.”
“Yes, but why?”
“So that customs get used to us and our company.”
“But why?”
“Because that’s how we attract Daesh to work with us.”
“Why, what do Daesh, as you call them, want to import? Drugs? Guns? Semtex?”
“No. Sarin.”
* * *
The mountain roads are becoming progressively less full of hairpins as they approach the Italian border. There’s quite a bit of traffic now, and Max has to overtake a slow-moving caravan, and an old couple crammed into a tiny car. Nobody is speaking, the only voice that of the satnav and that has gone quiet for the past ten minutes as their route stretches unbroken before them.
Max is beginning to feel desperately tired as the adrenalin deserts his brain to re-group somewhere deeper in his body. A couple of times now, he has realised that he has forgotten that he was driving, his mind so distracted that for ten-minute stretches he has been on auto-pilot.
He looks in the rear-view mirror, hoping and fearing that he will see the flashing lights of a chasing police car. Instead he meets Omar’s implacable gaze and returns to his thoughts.
What will happen at the Italian border? Will they have traced the hire car back to Rome and therefore have Max’s name? Will the old man – the neighbour in Verbier – have noted the Audi’s number plate before he scuttled back inside his house? Perhaps he was a car enthusiast and knew his Audi A6 from his Audi A3. Surely news must have been broadcast now of the massacre at the chalet, the murder of two policemen and two English people – a man and a girl? What a story for the Sunday newspapers.
Omar is having similar thoughts, but he’s drawing rather different conclusions. The old man, he presumes, will ring the police straight away, reporting that a man in a car pointed a gun at him. He will be told that two policemen are already at the scene, and then his wife will hurry back into the house to say that she can’t be sure but she thinks one of the policemen might have been shot. She thinks she saw a body by the back door. The old man rings back.
This spurs the police into action, but they are already two men unaccounted for. The local police stations are only manned on weekday mornings and afternoons, and backup must come from the town of Sion, nearly an hour away. Omar, who has meanwhile Googled for police stations in Verbier, is encouraged by scanning an accompanying Wikipedia article that discusses the way in which the Swiss police operate in their separate cantons, and jealously guard their independence. The federal police become involved in such matters as money laundering and terrorism, but how long will it take those local cops in Verbier to piece together the bigger picture?
He imagines them now, staking out the chalet and waiting for the tactical assault unit to arrive from down in the valley. It will be a while, he feels, until they charge into that house of death.
The Great St Bernard Tunnel is one point five kilometres away, the satnav announces as they pass petrol stations and hotels and restaurants, and finally enter a roofed section of road, with concrete slabs on the left where the road clings to the mountainside, and a concrete colonnade on the rig
ht with views of the mountains beyond. Max is finding the strobe effect of the columns hypnotic and slows down.
“Why are you slowing?” barks Omar, the first thing he’s said for about an hour.
“I’m tired, these pillars are mesmerising me. I’m scared I’ll crash.”
“Why don’t I take over?” says Aafia, a suggestion that elicits a rasping sound from Omar.
“Women must not drive,” he says.
There follows a sharp exchange in Arabic, which at least breaks up the monotony of this endless hypnotic colonnade.
“Stop at the Tunnel of Great St Bernard in 800 metres,” interrupts the satnav, as they pass a sign saying the same thing. Max wonders what he will do if they are asked to stop and get out of the car. Will he run? Will he be shot before he can run?
Instead they pull up at a tollbooth, where a grumpy middle-aged woman tells Aafia that the rate for a car is 27.90 euros or 29.30 Swiss francs, Aafia hands her a fifty-euro note from her money bag. The change is handed over without a word. They move on.
There seems to be some sort of customs facilities and a couple of cars have been pulled over. Or perhaps they’re just parked there. Nobody is about. A vortex of lights and white lines swallows Max as he enters the tunnel, and he clears his throat loudly as if this will pull him back from the abyss.
“Holy fuck,” is all he manages to say.
CHAPTER FORTY
Professor Luca Guardiano of the Chemical Research Centre in Naples was eating breakfast at home with his two teenage daughters – a rare treat these days – when the call comes through. His wife, Carmelinda, brings him his phone, which has been ringing insistently on the kitchen sideboard for the past ten minutes – each time it went to the messaging service, whoever it was would call again without leaving a message.
“Twenty missed calls,” she says, picking up the side plate on which are the remains of a bread roll and replacing it with his phone. Almost immediately it begins to ring again.
The Concierge Page 20