The Cornmarket Conspiracy

by Sharon Hoisager

  And then Rasul remembered the empty water bottle and the beer can. Damn, he thought to himself. He would surely see those in the kitchen.

  From the second bedroom, Rasul could hear the faint bink, bink, bink, bink of cell phone buttons being pushed. From the tones, Rasul realized the student was calling someone.

  The next words he heard were indecipherable, and Rasul realized that the Indian student was speaking Hindi. He must have called someone from home. Rasul was relieved for a moment that no police had yet been summoned. In between the Hindi words, Rasul could pick out “no, no, no” and “it’s okay.” Rasul took that to mean that the Indian would not be calling the police. As the young man said his goodbyes, Rasul held his breath for the sound of a second phone call. It did not come.

  In a few minutes, Rasul could hear the squeaking sound of water faucets being turned on in the shower, and the young man pulling back the shower curtain. Rasul waited until he was certain the guy was in the shower, and snuck back out the door and down the stairs. On the street, he walked around for a few minutes and wondered how long it would take a twenty-five-year-old college graduate student to take a shower. Ten minutes? Fifteen?

  After twenty minutes or so, Rasul climbed back up the same staircase, making sure to create a fair amount of noise so that he was sure to be heard. At the top of the stairs, he knocked three times on the door, which was still swinging free from the broken lock. In a moment, he heard the bathroom door open and the young man calling from the bathroom. “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Oh hello, it’s me again, from yesterday.” There was no response. A full minute passed.

  Rasul was beginning to think that the guy must be hiding in the bedroom, afraid to come to the door. But in a moment, the student’s dark head emerged from behind the front door, a quizzical look on his face.

  “Hello, I’m so sorry to bother you again.” Rasul tried his best to appear friendly and unthreatening. The young student’s enormous dark eyes just peered at him.

  “As I explained yesterday, I’m in Oxford on business, but I used to be a student here at Oxford. This was my apartment.” The student gave him a slight nod, but the quizzical look remained on his face. Rasul had no choice but to forge on with his story.

  “I know this sounds a little crazy, but after I left here yesterday, I was mugged at the train station. They took my wallet and my bag, along with my cell phone. I have nothing. I’ve called my company and they are wiring money into my account, but for the time being, I have no money, and I know no one in the city anymore. Well, other than you. Would you mind terribly if I stayed here for a little while, at least until the money hits my account? I could pay you …. I mean, when my money comes in, I’ll give you one hundred Euros.”

  The student continued to just stare at him, and Rasul was convinced he was about to slam the door in his face. But in a moment, the young man stood back and opened the door wider.

  Rasul smiled to himself. He could still spin a lie faster than anyone else he knew. He entered the apartment, and waited for the guy to speak.

  “Hi, I’m Himmat,” the young man stuck out his hand.

  “Hello, I’m Rasul,” and Raz shook his hand.

  “Have a seat. Would you like some water?” Himmat walked toward the kitchen, and Rasul took a seat on the same dirty couch where he’d been lying all day.

  “No, thank you. And thank you again for letting me stay here for a while. I’m hoping the money will come quickly, but the banks close very soon. If the money doesn’t arrive within the hour, I may have to find a place to stay for the night.”

  The young man gave no immediate reply to Rasul’s remark, but paused outside the kitchen to chat with his unexpected visitor.

  “I’m sorry you were mugged. Things like that happen all the time around here. You must be more careful.” Himmat was obviously feeling very comfortable with his new visitor.

  “Yeah, I need to be more careful,” Raz’s shoulder was beginning to hurt again, probably from running up the stairs and all the activity of the last twenty minutes.

  “You want a beer?” Himmat didn’t wait for a reply this time. He spun around and headed for the kitchen. He seemed grateful for the company, even if the Middle Eastern man’s presence seemed a bit odd to him.

  Just as Himmat turned toward the kitchen, Rasul panicked. He again remembered the beer cans, but now it was too late. At that exact moment, Himmat spotted them. Himmat stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the empty cans lying on the counter, spilling their last remnants of beer in a neat circle around each can. Rasul saw Himmat tilt his head ever so slightly to the right, as if trying to make sense of the cans’ presence on the counter.

  In one swift motion, like a cat attacking its prey from behind, Rasul was on him. As his left hand grabbed the grad student by the left shoulder, his right hand swung up and around his head and grabbed the young man by the face. With all the power he could still muster in his upper body, Rasul snapped Himmat’s head to the right with one hard jolt, forcing his head in to a contorted hard right angle, until he heard his neck snap. He held him there, listening to him gurgle his last breaths while he held the young student’s body in a vice. Himmat’s body twitched and convulsed. When Rasul was sure he was dead, he let Himmat sink to the floor of the kitchen and lay there in a limp heap on the linoleum floor.

  Rasul felt a new wave of pain sweep over him, and he went to the bathroom to inspect his incision once again. Fresh blood was oozing from the stitches. He felt a little bad about the grad student. He hadn’t planned or wanted to kill him, but when it was obvious he was starting to put two and two together, Rasul had no choice, he reasoned.

  Rasul knew he needed to get out of Oxford, and fast. He needed to get far away from this city, from London, the Ghost Man, and whoever else wanted him dead. He needed to get back to Paris, his own neighborhood. But how? He’d lost his passport, his identification, and he would need an airline ticket as well.

  Rasul knew he could not hide out here in Oxford. The news that he had survived the attempt on his life was no doubt common knowledge at this point in a town this size. News of the shooting would have been widely reported, along with information about him being taken to the hospital. The Ghost Man had probably already paid a visit to the emergency room at Churchill Hospital looking for him. The streets of Oxford could not hide him for long.

  Of course, he knew that the Ghost Man was not his ultimate enemy. He was just a small pawn in this whole conspiracy, just as Rasul realized he was as well. They were both pawns, and now Rasul understood he was expendable as well. Obviously, the command to have Rasul killed had come from someone much higher up. Rasul realized as well that as is so often the case, the easiest way to control possible leaks and unpredictable variables in a conspiracy is to have them eliminated. Rasul had just helped pull off one of the largest terrorist hits in history. Now, the people who masterminded the whole operation — the people he thought were his friends — wanted him dead, just like the people on that train. He was just a tool, a tool whose usefulness was no longer required, and that needed to be discarded as fast and as efficiently as possible.

  Rasul reached across the dead body on the kitchen floor and grabbed the last cold beer from the refrigerator. Returning to his spot on the couch, he downed the beer in three long gulps and sat staring out the window. He needed to get back to Paris. He needed more medical attention, away from the suspicious eyes here in this small town. In Paris, he would be back on his home turf, in his own neighborhood. The people there were used to watching out for each other. He could be safe there. People would help him. But how could he get back to Paris? His bag and belongings were long gone. His passport had been lost somewhere between the train station and the hospital. Besides, after being almost shot to death and then disappearing, he was certain he was now the subject of intense interest with the British police. With the terrorist bombing, every traveler — especially travelers with a Muslim surname — would be scrutinized. His passport was
useless to him now anyway.

  Rasul took another look at the lifeless heap on the floor, and suddenly an idea struck him. Getting up, he rolled the body over, and leaned down to take a hard look at the dead student. His lifeless brown eyes stared straight up at Rasul, as if eyeing him in return.

  Twenty-five or so years old, brown eyes, dark brown hair, darkish skin, yeah, it just might work, Rasul thought to himself. Suddenly Rasul hatched what he thought was a brilliant idea.

  Rasul made a beeline for the bedroom, and methodically went through each drawer, sorting through the old pens, folders, random homework assignments and other paraphernalia of student life. In the bottom left drawer he found a metal box, and pulling it out, was delighted to find a navy blue passport with a sleek gold imprint on the cover, ‘Republic of India.’ Opening the front cover, Rasul read the full name of his unfortunate new friend, Himmat Tushar Patel. The rest was in Hindi, but studying the black and white photograph, Rasul confirmed that most of their physical characteristics were a match. The single biggest problem of course was the twelve-year age difference, but Rasul convinced himself that with the right clothes and demeanor, he could pull it off. The photo, of course, was another problem. The guy didn’t really look much like Rasul in the face, and that was going to have to be fixed.

  Fortunately, Rasul had a bit of experience with falsifying identification from his college days right here in Oxford. Generating fake I.D.s is a common task for college students, and Rasul was convinced that with a new passport photo, he could slice the laminate cover along the edge of the page and slide his new photo imperceptibly into position. Of course, he was counting on the fact that few people would be scrutinizing passports of young people moving between Britain and France anyway, especially one of an Indian graduate student. Even though England had left the European Union months before, most of the trappings of easy travel between the countries were still in place. Chances were, border patrol would barely glance at the passport of an Indian graduate student, and if he played his cards right, they might not even open it at all.

  Rasul was convinced his plan would work. He grabbed Himmat by the legs and pulled his lifeless body into the second bedroom, stuffing his body far up under the bed. Rasul was careful to close the apartment door as he left, and jimmied the broken lock so that it would hold the door in place. Easing down the stairs, he knew just where a pharmacy was that could produce a new passport photo for him in half an hour. With any luck, he’d be back within an hour, and could make quick work of doctoring up Himmat’s passport. If everything went according to plan, he could hopefully be back in London and on a plane back to Paris by late this evening.

  He would grab some new clothes out of Himmat’s room, steal his wallet and credit cards, and don his new identity as Himmat Patel. Rasul went to the bathroom and smiled at himself in the mirror. Making his best impression of an Indian graduate student, Rasul watched himself in the mirror as he practiced his lines, with his best Indian dialect: “Hello, my name is Himmat Patel. I am traveling to Paris for the weekend to visit my grandmother.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Damn. Jeffrey stared at his phone. What in the hell was going on? What did Annie mean when she said that someone was there?

  To Jeffrey, nothing was making sense. Everything in his life was in a freefall of confusion and stress, and yet the people he counted on the most were disappearing one by one. His country had just experienced the biggest global terror hit since 9/11. Andrew was dead, and then he was stunned to find out the revelation that Andrew and Annie, his two closest confidants had been carrying on an affair on some level — the details for which he hoped he’d never have to hear. And now Annie had disappeared. His job as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister was to help sort all this mess out, help coordinate a massive rescue and recovery mission to retrieve the victims, and to aid and help expedite the investigation to find the evil person or people who did this. No group had yet claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack, yet so many of those closest to him seemed to be involved. It didn’t help either that with Annie now under the microscope, he was being personally dragged into the investigation as well. Jeffrey was a very strong man, he had dealt with a lot, but all of this was all almost more than he could bear.

  As Jeffrey turned all of the information over and over in his head, he got a sick feeling in his stomach. Like some sort of tortuous game with a myriad of clues, but no clear answer, his brain was working overtime, trying to connect the dots. Making matters worse was the fact that, as is so often the case when people you care about are involved, his own personal thoughts and feelings were clouding his perceptions and his judgement. His talk with Fletch LaForge hadn’t really helped clear anything up either.

  He picked up his phone and dialed MI6.

  “Yeah, uh, John O’Leary please.” Jeffrey Hunter waited for the investigator to pick up his line. There was a click, and then John O’Leary’s Scottish brogue came on the line.

  “O’Leary here.”

  “Good morning John, Jeffrey Hunter. I was just wondering if you have any updates on Annelise Craig’s whereabouts in Paris — or what she’s doing there — anything. Have you had any luck reestablishing contact with the agent you had following her?”

  “Hello Jeffrey. I’m afraid we’ve hit a wall on Ms. Craig’s location. We still have an agent on her tail, one of my very best investigators, but still have not had any contact with her since last night. We’ve triangulated the agent’s cell phone signal, and tracked her last location to somewhere in the 19th Arrondissment, which makes no sense. I’m worried as hell about her too at this point. I’ve got two more agents trying to track her down now, and we’re checking all the hotels in the city center of Paris, especially around the Sorbonne, which takes time. Of course, we’re betting Ms. Craig is going to try and make contact with Rasul Aziz, the man Andrew was visiting last weekend, so we have his apartment staked out. Right now, that’s about all I can tell you.”

  “I appreciate it John. Listen, I’m worried as hell about her too. Listen, I’ve actually heard from her. I received a short call from her this morning, and she told me that she’s still in Paris. Our conversation was brief and then she cut it off. What really concerns me is that she told me someone might be following her, although I’m thinking that whoever she saw was one of your agents on her tail. She’s no dummy, she would spot someone following her in a heartbeat.”

  “I don’t know, Hunter, we’ve had no reports from any of our agents that they’ve spotted her…” O’Leary’s voice trailed off with skepticism.

  Hunter brushed off his words and continued his train of thought, “And you’re right, she mentioned that she planned to try and meet up with Rasul Aziz. Please keep me informed, and let me know when you’ve caught up with her. I want to be informed of every detail.”

  “All right, Mr. Hunter, thank you for contacting us. Please contact me as soon as possible if you hear anything additional. And we will contact you as soon as we locate her. You’ll be the first to know.” John O’Leary hung up the phone.

  Jeffrey Hunter touched end, and sat down in his chair. Swiveling his chair toward the window, he sat staring out at the tiny courtyard outside his window, and thinking about all that had transpired. In his mind, he replayed the whole scenario, starting with the night he received the phone call from Annie telling him about the train explosion. He replayed all the events in his head after that, the morning phone call, the grueling rescue and recovery operation, Andrew’s death, his conversations with O’Leary concerning MI6’s investigation, his conversation with Annie about her and Andrew, and now Annie’s disappearance.

  His cell phone rang again on the desk, and Jeffrey was brought back to the present. Glancing at the phone, he was puzzled to see “Out of Area” appear on the screen. After the last call, O’Leary’s team had set him up with the ability to record any more suspicious calls that came in. He punched two buttons on his phone to initiate the recording, and then hit the button to an
swer the call.

  “Jeffrey Hunter,” he said in his most imposing sounding voice.

  There was no one there. Jeffrey stared at the screen. Okay, now I’m really getting paranoid, he thought to himself.

  He laid the phone on his desk and tried to refocus on the recovery reports in front of him, when once again, he heard his phone. Although this time, it was the ding of a text message coming in. The screen identified the text as coming from Annelise Craig.

  “Jeffrey, I need your help. Meet me at 17 Rue des Carmes, Paris, tonight, 22:00. Tell no one, and please come alone.”

  Jeffrey studied the text. This didn’t sound like Annie at all, but then she was obviously under some sort of distress. He went back to his list of recent calls and saw the recent “Out of Area” at the top of his list. He pressed redial, but only heard the familiar beep-beep-beep, signaling that the call could not be placed. He stared again at the text message, gritting his teeth. He knew he was being entangled in a situation that was very obscure and hazardous, but at this point, he was beginning to feel that he had no choice.

  Annie was in real danger; there was little doubt about that. He also knew that he needed to get to her before O’Leary and his team did. Of course, the whole truth would need to come out at some point, but it was Jeffrey’s intention to do everything he could to keep the administration from being dragged down in the investigation. If he could intervene, perhaps he could keep the whole administration from being tied to this nightmare, putting the Prime Minister, their long fought-for agenda, and all of them at risk.

  But what was he supposed to do about this text message? Paris? Tonight? How was he supposed to drop everything and fly to Paris tonight? He had a job to do, damnit, a very important one. People were depending on him. Hell, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was depending on him. He didn’t have time to be flying off to Paris for the evening when dozens of bodies were still trapped in a train explosion far underground, the financial markets were still reeling, all of England was feeling terrorized, and one of his country’s most important trade routes had been destroyed. Not to mention his critical responsibility to keep the Prime Minister constantly updated, informed, and out in front of every potential ramification from the tragedy.