by Phil Rowan
She’s right. It’s like she’s been seeing a different person. My feelings for her are still the same. I love her creative, independent spirit. I want to lounge with her under an umbrella on a Greek island. And who knows, in between her art and a summer of passion, something else might happen. A small seed could fall and grow. We might consider a longer period together. It could extend from hot embraces to camomile tea and soft symphonies. Ingrid’s eyes still have me in the dock though, so what can I do?
‘Give me a call later,’ she suggests.
I’m immediately struggling to get all sorts of excuses, explanations and apologies out from the back of my throat when she reaches up and kisses my cheek.
Carla’s next. This is just a handshake however, although it’s quite firm and I’m detecting undisguised flickers of warmth in her previously harsh and unrelenting expression.
‘Take care,’ she says. ‘And you know something?’
‘What?’
‘I’m looking forward to seeing your friend, Sulima.’
* * * * *
Fiona Adler’s Jeep Cherokee is parked outside her house in Crowndale Square. It’s strange going back. There’s an unmarked police car near the place that’s been my home for almost two years. The whole area is reassuringly tranquil, although I can still occasionally hear one of the helicopters hovering to the East over the Hackney Downs.
‘It really is crucial that the Iraqi woman speaks with Pele Kalim,’ Earl says.
I agree. No one wants nuclear particles raining down over London, and if Sulima can dissuade her man from creating a disaster, it would be most helpful.
Fiona’s not picking up on her phone initially. She’s probably asleep, so I try again. She might be away, but after a while I get a throaty response.
‘Rudi ... do you know what time it is?’
After one in the morning. I’m really sorry for waking her up, but can we talk?
‘Where are you?’
‘Outside – ’
‘With whom?’
‘Fiona ... we have a real emergency. Someone has hijacked a train load of nuclear waste on the Hackney Downs.’
It’s not far from Islington, so I stay quiet as it registers.
‘Hang on,’ she says and I’m waiting for the front door of her house to open.
‘Is he a policeman?’ she asks, pointing at the blue light on top of Earl’s people carrier.
‘Sort of ... but can we go inside? I’ve got a cold coming on.’
She’s wearing a full length wool dressing gown and she walks ahead of me to the kitchen where she gets a kettle going.
‘You want to see Sulima?’
‘Yes – ’
‘But you specifically requested that I shouldn’t tell anyone where she is.’
That’s all true, and now I’ve got to backtrack and plead.
‘The person who hijacked the nuclear waste train is in love with her,’ I explain. ‘There is a chance that if she speaks with him he might take his finger off the detonator switch.’ Even if it’s only for a second ... and that might be all that’s required.
‘Is the Hirsch woman involved?’ Fiona wants to know.
‘Yes ... and she’s not quite as tough as she seems.’
‘Ah ... so she’s won you over?’
There are residual issues between my former neighbour and friend and the woman who was briefly my Controller. It’s a gladiatorial contest between two titans. They’re out there in the arena with swords drawn and the issues are challenging. ‘So bitch,’ Fiona says. ‘You thought maybe you would have some fun with me. A little light titillation. A dangling of possibilities between the sheets or even on the sofa. Yes ... I was briefly excited by the possibilities. You’re a robust character, Hirsch, and I was taken for a while by the illusion of what you might be. The reality, however, was a disappointment. You need to get your act together, honey bunny, if you want to hang out with the grown-up girls.’
‘She’s OK, Fiona ... she’s conditioned by the work she does. She’s never really had a chance to express her feelings properly.’
‘My word – ’
‘And her father died with my girlfriend when the North Tower collapsed on 9/11.’
There’s an imperceptible softening here. Thoughts of Ground Zero hit the button for many of us. Almost three thousand people under the rubble in a great city opens steel doors to hard hearts. Fiona’s normally mortar proof resolve is faltering. However she feels about Carla Hirsch, the Hackney Downs are little more than a light westerly wind away. She’s switching off the kettle, but she’s still pinning me up against a kitchen counter with a strong Adler stare.
‘You’re sure about what’s happening?’ she asks.
‘Yes ... and there are a lot of vulnerable people around the incident site.’
Am I merely a pawn, she’s wondering. Is Carla Hirsch just using me to get to a vulnerable Syrian woman? She’d be right on both counts, but I’m holding onto the eye contact between us. It’s dumb perseverance, I guess, and it’s working.
‘I’ll get dressed,’ she says. ‘And there’s whisky in the cupboard by the oven.’
‘Thanks – ’
I imagine she’s cursing as she goes upstairs, but she doesn’t delay.
‘Are we going with your police person?’ she asks when she comes down again in Dior jeans, heels and an Angora roll neck sweater.
‘Yes ... he’s a very nice man, Julia.’
Earl’s already on the pavement. He’s holding the back door of the people carrier open for her and he’s giving out with a great grin. I think she likes his brilliant white teeth. She’s also conscious of the fact that he’s Afro-Caribbean, so she smiles. ‘Feminists respect persons of colour, sir. Your life has not been easy, so the least I can do is be civil to you.’
We’re joined by another unmarked police car with blue flashing lights when we get to the Holloway Road. Fiona has already given Earl an address in Belsize Crescent. It’s a flat belonging to one of her magazine editors, who is presently on assignment in Los Angeles. She has also insisted that she will make the initial contact with Sulima.
‘Hello,’ she says softly to her mobile when we get to Haverstock Hill, which is close to Hampstead. ‘This is Julia, my dear ... I apologise for calling at this late hour. But something rather serious has come up ... Rudi and I wondered if we might drop by?’
There is some talk between them. Fiona’s on Sulima’s side. She wants to protect her from people like Carla Hirsch and myself: rapacious instrumentalists who want to use a vulnerable woman.
‘She’s anxious,’ Fiona says when they finish speaking. ‘So we’ll have to be gentle and considerate ... you understand ... yes?’
Of course. I have warm feelings for Fiona Adler. I love the fact that she’s a ruthless business woman who’s more than capable of looking after herself and her interests. But she has a generous open heart, and I’ve always found her to be a good friend.
‘Here we are,’ she says when Earl enters the Belsize Crescent. ‘Down there on the left ... but please don’t switch on your revolving blue light ... it might alarm the neighbours.’
He responds with another big grin and I’m envious about the state of his teeth. Fiona squeezes my arm as we go from the pavement to the steps leading up to a fine white fronted building with two generous columns supporting a portico at the entrance. A light has already come on in the hallway and I’m holding my breath when the front door opens.
Sulima is wearing white linen pyjamas. She looks like a cross between a model and a saint and Fiona is instantly entranced.
‘I’m truly sorry about waking you up,’ I tell her. ‘We certainly wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t urgent.’
She’s calm. Her long black hair is resting on her shoulders, but she seems to be almost in a trance.
‘Come in,’ she says, leading us towards a ground floor sitting room, where we sit facing each other around a hand-carved Indonesian coffee table.
‘What has
happened?’ she asks.
I’m half waiting for Fiona to tell her, but it’s my call. I do the best I can to stick to the essentials. ‘Pele has hijacked a train load of nuclear waste in Hackney, honey. He’s threatening to blow it up. If he does, a lot of innocent people will be irradiated ... it may not be quite the same as a nuclear bomb, but the consequences could be with us for years.’
She’s looking blankly towards the curtained bay window and it’s a while before she responds.
‘I think it’s difficult for you to understand where he’s coming from,’ she says.
It’s true. For me, Pele Kalim is in the same group photograph as Mohammed Atta. He’s a crazy, tunnel-visioned fanatic who wants to kill us all.
‘You need to go back a long way in history,’ she says, which has Carla and I nodding.
I’m thinking of lumpen crusaders from the UK who were intent on beating hell out of the civilised Mesopotamians in that whole dodgy part of the Middle East.
‘He believes in what he’s doing,’ Sulima says. ‘And he won’t be deflected ... I don’t think you’ve accepted this?’
It’s as though she’s suddenly turned into a block of granite. She still looks great, and Carla’s eyes are moist, but I’m concerned. I’m thinking about the train on the Hackney Downs and what will happen if Pele explodes the nuclear waste canisters.
‘Look ... ’
‘What do you want me to do, Rudi? Go down and talk to him. Say, Pele – I still love you ... could we get married and raise a family. Of course there is a part of him that would like to do as I suggest ... but his mission is, I fear, rather more important.’
‘It’s Armageddon time for the West, infidels ... and we’re starting with London town. You don’t really get where we’re coming from, do you? Osama tried to show you the way, but you didn’t see his signals ... so now we’re going to have to up the ante as it were. A little nuclear fallout might get the sort of attention we clearly missed out on with the Twin Towers ... whatever else, the after effects of dark clouds over London will last for much longer.’
I hadn’t anticipated this resistance, and I feel powerless to do anything about it.
‘We don’t have any other options,’ I say despondently. ‘You are our only hope, Sulima. Pele may not listen to or be persuaded by you ... but if there’s a chance, however remote, that you might influence him, I hope you’ll consider it.’
Fiona has moved to sit beside her on the sofa. She’s got a comforting arm around her shoulder and Sulima isn’t objecting. Is there something in a heartfelt hug that cuts through wordy pleas? It’s crazy, but possible, because I’m catching a small smile in her dark eyes.
‘Oh Rudi ... you have never changed. You are such an incurable optimist.’
Fiona’s nodding and grinning. ‘It’s true,’ she says. ‘I sometimes think he’s a little deficient in the brain cells department ... but I do believe that what he’s suggesting is worth a try on this occasion.’
One night, at a do in the West End, my pal – the ruthless magazine mogul – took a glass or two over the ‘safe to drive your car’ limit and she had started to talk to me about her grandparents. Her grandfather was a lawyer in Prague when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia. He lived with his family in the Jewish quarter by the River Danube. For a while, apparently, it was all right. Life went on more or less as normal. Then one day the Germans entered the enclave and took her grandfather and his family. They had been transported to a holding facility North West of Prague and that was the last anyone heard about this part of the Adler dynasty.
I think some of what Fiona’s family had been through is coming across to Sulima. It’s all about trying to keep going, and she can identify with this.
‘I still doubt if Pele will listen to me,’ she says quietly. ‘But I will come with you ... and I will do whatever I can.’
Chapter 29
The streets are eerily quiet. Earl’s security service people carrier has two police motorcycle outriders and there are camouflaged Army Land Rovers in front of us and at the rear. Sulima is sitting between Fiona Adler and me in the back seat. We’re each holding one of her hands, and she grips mine as an Army Sergeant sitting beside Earl gives details of our position on his radio. The hovering helicopters have gone, but there are bewildered crowds of displaced residents on the approaches to the inner city green space. Many are wearing traditional Muslim dress, with the women in hijabs, burqas and jilbabs and the men in knee length tunics or jellabas with kufi hats.
‘There are a lot of Muslim people living here,’ Earl says, ‘and particularly in the newly built Council flats around the incident site on the Downs.’
They’ve all been evacuated and they’re waiting for transport to take them to temporary accommodation in other boroughs. Half-a-mile up the track, Pele and his hijacking buddy would have been in the heart of a large Orthodox Jewish community, most of whom have good relations with their Turkish, Balkan, Pakistani and other Muslim neighbours.
Two huge floodlights have been erected outside the now deserted Council tower blocks. There are armed soldiers everywhere and as we pass through a tight security cordon, I see the train with the clearly marked nuclear waste canisters on the open goods wagons. It’s on a raised embankment that skirts the Downs and there are more Council flats immediately behind it. The goods train engine whose front wheels have been derailed is balancing precariously on the track. We’re being waved through and a marine is directing Earl to a small school that had been built for the children in the now deserted social housing blocks.
Sulima is uneasy. The nuclear waste train driver, Arthur Hodge, his assistant Anwar Singh and the driver of the partially de-railed goods train have been spread-eagled and manacled across three of the nuclear waste canisters. Arthur Hodge seems to have collapsed. His chin is resting on his chest, and for a moment, I can see a shiny bald head in the train cab.
Carla Hirsch is waiting outside the junior school, which is now a security service and Army control centre. She shakes Sulima’s hand respectfully and makes the same gesture to Julia, who hesitates before accepting the greeting.
‘Come inside,’ she suggests and we all follow her to the school assembly hall. There are pictures of Africa, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania around the walls, along with the national flags of these countries. There is also a large TV monitor at one end of the assembly hall that has the hijacked train in close up.
‘We think the driver may be dead,’ Carla says, ‘and if you look closely at the flasks, you can see that each of them is fitted with shaped explosive charges. We are advised by the military that these are capable of blowing up each canister and scattering the contents over a large part of London.’
‘Why don’t you just shoot the bastards?’ a familiar voice asks from the doorway.
The Home Office Minister, McCarthy, is surrounded by Labour Party acolytes. They desperately want a solution to the situation on the Hackney Downs, and quickly, for elections are due again within six months.
An Army General steps forward to salute the Minister. ‘We can’t do that, sir,’ he says. ‘The lead hijacker has a detonator switch strapped to his wrist, and he means business. They’ve also fixed sensors around the train, which will alert them if we approach from the rear or any part that they can’t see from the driver’s cab.’
The Minister and his advisers are clearly frustrated. The Government has more than enough in the way of problems at the moment. It is unpopular with the electorate, and nuclear contamination in East London is something they can definitely do without. Disaster must be averted. The General is having a quiet word with the Minister, and they’re both looking over towards Sulima.
‘We so appreciate you coming here,’ McCarthy says when he’s crossed the room with an outstretched hand. ‘And we hope you may be able to persuade Mr Kalim to desist ... I know it may not help, but if you can talk him out of whatever it is he may have in mind, we will do everything we can to meet his requirements
... we would not harm him in any way, and he would of course be free to leave Britain and travel to a country of his choice.’
Sulima shakes the Minister’s hand. She is not convinced by what he’s saying. I don’t think anyone is, and Carla’s picking up on it.
‘Mr McCarthy, sir ... our timing is crucial here. Might I suggest we now brief Miss Sharif and see what we can do to get a resolution?’
The Minister and the General withdraw to the other end of the school assembly hall while Carla motions Sulima, Julia, Earl and me to sit at some children’s desks. She’s drawing up a chair in front of us and I feel it’s like teacher time with the kids – ‘So pay attention, ye all!’
‘You and Pele are very close,’ she says to Sulima, who nods.
‘We were ... ’
‘I’m sure you still are ... and frankly, I believe you’re the only hope we have. Your friend refuses to negotiate with us. He has made certain demands ... some of which, it’s just not possible for the British Government to deliver on. They will of course do whatever they can with regard to al-Qaeda and other Muslim prisoners they’re holding. That’s a practical matter and not a problem ... the real issue, however, is more straightforward.’
We’re waiting for it, and the punch line is impressive. ‘A large proportion of the people living around here are Muslims,’ Carla says. ‘Most of them have only just moved in to the Council flats behind us, and if Pele blows up the nuclear waste canisters, the train crew will die and all of these people will be homeless.’
The Home Office Minister, the Army General and everyone around them are putting on protective clothing. The white, one piece garments have just arrived and included with them are headpieces that incorporate goggles and a filtered breathing mask.
‘I will talk with Pele,’ Sulima says decisively. ‘I don’t know if he will listen to me ... it’s possible he won’t.’
Carla is discreetly waving away an Army Sergeant with the protective suits we’re expected to change into. There’s a final point she needs to make.