Confessor

by John Gardner

  “Certain of it. Real panic here, and I don’t blame them.”

  “You think the FFIRA has got wind that you’re there in D.C.?”

  “Could be.”

  “Well, watch your back, Herb. Norton might have come over to do the job himself.”

  Kruger promised that he would watch not just his back but every body part.

  Meanwhile, in the safe house where the FBI were keeping the three men of the Yussif team they had snatched, matters were coming to a head.

  These men were unbreakable by normal methods. Six of the FBI’s very best inquisitors had worked in shifts on them. They played it hard and soft; kind and threatening; carrot and stick. None of it worked, so they finally had to resort to other techniques.

  A doctor and nurse were helicoptered in from New York, and they began to do the job. In the old days of the Cold War both the FBI and the CIA had used sodium pentothal, inaccurately dubbed the “truth drug.” In the jargon, it was called SOAP, but many advances had been made since those times. They could now use a new and improved SOAP, coupled with a measured dose of a new hypnotic. The process was one hundred percent accurate, provided it was administered correctly, hence the doctor.

  They did not use the technique often, mainly because information gleaned by this method could be successfully challenged in the courts. Under the incredible system that had no sub judice law and regarded this type of interrogation as a breach of the subject’s rights, there was little chance of ever getting a judge to allow the results to be brought in as evidence.

  The subjects now were a very different matter. By the evening of that day of true shock and abhorrence, the cocktail of drugs brought out facts which were flashed to Washington, and a meeting of Conductor’s leading players was called at the sumptuous suite at the Willard.

  Hatch began the briefing. “As you know, we’ve already issued a statement saying the perpetrators of today’s attacks have almost certainly left the area. Normally we would be right, but it is now ninety-nine percent certain that these people’re still here. We’ve pulled files and you’ll be glad to learn that we have at least the identities of the people who have caused such terror.”

  He continued by telling them how the information had been garnered through the Yussif trio. Then he held up photographs, one at a time.

  “Walid Allush, aged thirty-four. A known former member of Abu Nidal’s network who ceased to be one of Nidal’s people after the Iraqi leadership banned the organization in 1983. Walid is a trained and ruthless terrorist with all the attributes of leadership. He is almost certainly at the head of this small group.

  “Next, Khami Qasim, aged twenty-eight. She has visited the United States on numerous occasions. Was kept under surveillance in 1988 when in New York and Boston. At that time, we suspected her of being a courier for a small cell of terrorists who were never actually apprehended. We had no reasons to either arrest or even question her. The photograph is, of course, six years old, so her appearance could have been changed. We now believe that she spent some time in one of the Libyan training camps. She is, therefore, regarded as being dangerous.” He looked up at Herbie Kruger. “Your service has some traces of her being active in London in the early to mid ’80s.”

  Kruger nodded, his expression unchanging. Jasmine, he thought. If Carole was playing some complicated game set up by Gus, this could be our Jasmine. On the other hand, if Carole had told him the truth, and if Jasmine was still alive, it could equally be the man Walid.

  “Third,” Hatch continued, “Hisham Silwani, aged thirty-nine. Known terrorist for hire. He has worked in the United States and Europe—he knows London very well. Though he is well trained, there is a suggestion that his loyalties are ill-defined.” He turned to Herbie again. “I have a note here that it is possible this man was, is or has been an asset of your Security Service. Can you say anything about this, Herb?”

  Big Herbie cleared his throat to give himself time to think. “I can only tell you I know the name, and it is quite possible that he has links with MI5. I cannot tell you more without getting authorization. You would like me to do this, yes?”

  “It’s an idea. We’d be grateful.” Hatch then held up a grainy photograph of a young man. “White, male, aged twenty-six. One two-year term in a federal prison for criminal damage. Names: Sporty Howard, Sinclair Howth, Stan Husted. Real name Sidney Allen Hench. This man has been a petty criminal since his teens, and became mixed up with various pseudo political groups in the late 1980s. He is, in fact, apolitical, and possibly psychopathic. A petty criminal who, it appears, has been paid well for servicing two safe apartments here in D.C. for the express use of the people who carried out today’s attacks. Unhappily, we have no way of getting access to these locations. It is obvious that the men from whom we received this intelligence have no idea where the apartments are located.

  “Naturally, we have all this information in the hands of the police and other agencies …”

  “Which means it’ll be in the hands of the media very soon,” Christie sighed.

  “True enough, but that might not be a bad thing. For this country, today’s events rank with Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President Kennedy. In twenty years, anyone over seven or eight years old will be able to tell you exactly where they were when they heard the news of the Washington bombings.”

  It was also undoubtedly true to say that anyone of an age to understand what had happened now lived in terror of what might come next.

  There were four bombs in all on the Wednesday afternoon. In spite of the alerts that had gone out, security was not completely organized. People were frisked and randomly checked as they entered public buildings; men were asked to open briefcases, women’s handbags were examined as they went into the larger department stores. Yet no explosive-sniffing devices were in place by lunchtime that day, when Walid, Khami and Hisham went about placing the bombs.

  The last members of Intiqam were taking no chances. Following the huge bombs, Walid had pointed out they needed only follow-up devices to cause more panic. At their disposal they had around two hundred pounds of explosives. This was moved to the second safe house prepared for them by the American they called Henchman. The toxic spray cans were left in the Georgetown apartment, together with the timers, which they would not fit to the cans until the last possible moment—even though they were exceptionally sophisticated pieces of electronics, capable of a time lag of up to three months.

  The second apartment was in Alexandria, on a street named for a great American general. It was there they prepared the four forty-pound bombs, timed to go off one minute apart, starting at two in the afternoon. All three of them went out and placed the devices without any problems, even though by this time they were aware that their descriptions were being circulated. There were even photographs on the streets and in buildings.

  “Do not fear capture,” Walid told them. “You know how things go when old pictures are put up for identification. Nobody ever expects to see the living person. They can look you in the eyes and not even experience a flicker of recognition. Go where you must go, and do what you must do.”

  The first explosion was inside the Executive Office Building, close to the White House. It killed fifty people, injured another forty and caused great alarm. One minute later, the one they had placed in the National Museum of American History on Constitution Avenue exploded in the gift shop. Forty men, women and children died; another thirty were seriously injured.

  One minute after that, the bomb in the National Gallery of Art ripped through a wall, killed eighteen, injured another fifty and destroyed twelve priceless paintings. The final device, outside the Watergate building on the Virginia Avenue side, killed nobody. It did some damage and several cars were destroyed, but a couple of fires were brought under control quite quickly.

  Early that evening, the President made a statement after conferring with his National Security Adviser, together with the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of State. He was calling
a joint meeting of the Senate and the House of Representatives for the following evening. He would speak to his administration, he said, in this grave hour of crisis. In part, the statement was a message to the terrorists to show that the President was not going to hide away like a frightened rabbit. Both he and the governing body would be on show. It also spoke of a gigantic crackdown, the likes of which had never been seen in the United States of America. Already, the President emoted, known dissidents, groups of organized troublemakers and similar disenchanted gangs were being sought out and arrested.

  There were rumors that areas in the cold wastes of Alaska were being readied to take thousands of disaffected troublemakers and organized anti-American political groups. They, the rumor mill said, would be made to build their own prisons, from which there would be no escape for the rest of their natural lives.

  Attached to this rumor was a tale—not altogether untrue—that the President, under emergency powers, would sign a bill allowing the police and security agencies the right to arrest and detain known deviants without the benefit of trial. The detention orders, it was thought, would be for life.

  In the Georgetown house, Walid, Khami and Hisham gathered for the final moves. The spray cans were on a table, together with the cylindrical timing mechanisms. They had planned to set these for around an hour after the given time of the President’s speech in the Capitol.

  They were nervous, as they already knew the place would be hedged off by security and police from now, this Wednesday evening, until after it was over on the Thursday night, but they planned to set the timers in the early hours of the morning and go into the Capitol in the guise of cleaning and maintenance workers. They tried to sleep, but it did not come easily. All three were aware of their proximity to the deadly canisters, and the duty they would have to perform on the next morning.

  It was late on the same night that Big Herbie Kruger and DCI Bex Olesker went to the respective FBI and CIA heads of Conductor to tell them that they would have to leave the operation by noon on the following day. “I fear we are now in possession of vital information regarding the case we’re here to crack,” Herbie lied.

  “We did warn you about the possibility,” Bex added. “We have to follow up on our leads.”

  “That was before these murderers began their attack on D.C.” Cork Smith looked pained, as though they were naughty children refusing to do as they were told.

  “The case we’re following may well converge with Conductor.” Herb remained passive and very serious. “You checked with London. You knew what to expect.”

  Smith and Hatch took it very badly, but had no option other than to agree. Both had the decency to admit they would be weaker without Herbie and Bex.

  They were awake by five-thirty. It was not yet light outside. Khami brewed some fresh coffee for them. That was all they wanted. None of the trio could face food. The aerosols were lined up on the kitchen table.

  “We’re all agreed that once we’ve each got our quota of these things into the air-conditioning ducts, we will meet together at the Alexandria house.”

  The other two muttered agreement.

  “Now.” Walid took the first aerosol spray can and placed it, nozzle away from him. He then took the first timing device and set it to eight-thirty that evening. Once this was done, they all knew, it would be an easy job to slip the collar of the cylindrical timer over the spray unit at the top of the can. They had been told that they would hear a slight click as it closed firmly on the spray section.

  Walid slid it into place and pushed down. Instead of a click, the top of the canister hissed out a fine spray of the harmless water substituted by the FBI.

  All three gave cries of alarm as they tried to beat each other to the door. Once outside, Khami gasped, “Do you think we’ve been …?”

  “We won’t know until it’s too late.” At least Walid remained cool, understanding that they could do little about matters now.

  “It’s unlikely,” Hisham spoke low. “None of us was in line with the spray, but we daren’t go back in there.”

  “Go.” Walid’s voice was a mixture of anger and fear. “Go. Go, both of you. Pass some time and we’ll meet in the Alexandria house within an hour to two hours’ time.”

  “What if we’re …?” Khami gasped again, hyperventilating.

  “If you start to feel ill, get yourself to an emergency room and tell them you think it’s a Strep A infection,” Walid snapped at her. “Now go.”

  The city was just coming to life. Hisham wondered what would be the best thing to do. He walked, monitoring his body as he tramped the streets. Was that a twinge of a sore throat? No, just dryness.

  Traffic was beginning to move in the streets now, so he made his way over to the Mall. The area around the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial had been taped off by the police, but he could see that people had placed candles and flowers all over the decimated area where so many had died.

  Hisham had his first twinge of remorse. Just there one minute, then gone the next like a wraith. He had done what he had to do. He had obeyed orders. No matter that he had betrayed his country in one way, he had no option but to go along with the orders. For the sake of his own life he had obeyed what the Leader had set in motion.

  He walked across the grass, up the mound to the base of the Washington Monument, with its flags rippling and cracking around him. Then he trudged down the Mall towards the Smithsonian.

  In all, he allowed ninety minutes to pass before he hailed a cab and asked to be dropped two blocks from the house in Alexandria.

  Few people were about, and he found himself shivering slightly. He only wore jeans and a T-shirt, with a pair of trainers on his naked feet. Was the shivering the first sign of infection? He wondered. No, the sun was shining, but it was relatively cool. What to do? What to do?

  Each of them had a key to the place. He climbed the stairs, put his key in the lock and stepped inside.

  For a moment his brain could not take in the carnage. Then he reacted with horror. Walid lay half in and half out of the bedroom, his face almost gone where the bullets had struck him; his quashed and riddled features lolled in a pool of blood.

  Hisham called out twice: “Khami! …Khami!”

  No reply, just the hint of an echo around the apartment. Hisham moved slowly forward, pressing against the wall to avoid stepping in the dead Walid’s blood. Who could have done this? Why?

  He remembered that both Walid and Khami had their personal weapons tucked into the waistbands of their jeans before Walid attempted to set the timer. He now saw that one of the automatic pistols was lying on the kitchen table. Next to it was Walid’s briefcase, open, still with hard cash bundled in hundred-dollar bills. Not as much there as he had seen on the previous evening when Walid had been checking on their IDs.

  Hisham went from room to room, now holding the pistol from the kitchen table. His heart was beating heavily and he could hear it in his ears as it pumped blood through his body.

  Allah save me, he thought to himself as he entered each of the rooms, not knowing what to expect on the other side of the door. Maybe some stranger who had been surprised by Walid when he entered the place. He knew that could not be right. Any casual burglar would have taken everything, including the spare weapon.

  When he had checked each room and every closet, Hisham sat down at the kitchen table. He felt exhausted; could not get his brain to work; did not know how to proceed. The smell of Walid’s blood was a stench in his nostrils, and the sight of the body lying so near revolted him.

  Where should he go? What should he do? Then he remembered whom he had seen during the short stay at the Grand Hyatt and a plan slowly started to form in his mind.

  He must have sat there in the kitchen for the best part of an hour before all the pieces came into place. Carefully he removed two of the thick rolls of hundred-dollar bills and put them in the pockets of his jeans, together with a completely new set of ID and credit cards in the name of Wilson Sharp.
Then he placed the pistol next to the rest of the money in the case and snapped it shut. Within ten minutes he was out on the street, flagging down a cab and asking to be put down at the shopping mall near Pennsylvania Avenue, which is called simply The Shops.

  It took him around two hours. Shirts, socks, shoes, ties, two suits (which luckily fitted him well) straight off the rack. Casual slacks and a light blazer, sports shirts. A name-brand toilet set. Everything the well-groomed man required. In one of the men’s shops he changed into a white open-necked shirt and a pair of light blue slacks, finishing it off with the blazer and a pair of brand-new trainers.

  He bought a matching suitcase, garment bag and overnighter, piled all he had purchased into the various cases. After that, he went into a barber’s shop, got a shave and had his hair cut in a conservative style.

  At one of the public telephone booths he called the Grand Hyatt and asked if they had any rooms for the weekend. They told him only suites, which had the added bonus of the use of small coffee bars with snacks, open from seven each morning until ten at night. He said he would be checking in shortly.

  The Shops contained several pleasant restaurants, so Hisham lined up at one of these and ate a simple meal of bean soup and a tuna salad. They treated him with respect and even put his cases in a safe place.

  It was early afternoon when he came out into the sunlight and waited for a cab to take him to the Grand Hyatt. By two thirty he had unpacked and was ready to go in search of the person who might just give him a way out.

  He walked down the passage and realized there were already two men standing in the little lounge area next to the elevators. He did not even look at them until one of them spoke.

  “Well, that’s a surprise, so. Meeting my old friend Hisham Silwani here in Washington. We haven’t seen one another since we spent a night at Les Misérables in London, so. I think we’d better change our plans and go for a nice private talk.” Declan Norton moved in and grasped Hisham’s arm, while the other man stepped behind him. Together they made their way back along the passage.