by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric
‘Sounds like an Oddball, Ashe.’
The committee nodded and murmured their agreement.
‘Indeed, Commodore. And someone else thought so too. Jalal al-Qasr disappeared in 1982. Israeli Mossad agents were suspected. Jalal’s body has never been found. His beliefs, however, were transmitted to a cadre of followers. They’ve spread far and wide. Followers include his son, Sami, a remarkable scientist. This Sami al-Qasr, the subject of the second file, worked at Cambridge with Sir Moses Beerbohm until quitting Britain abruptly, and mysteriously, in 1983.’
There was a knock at the door. Marston looked at his watch. ‘That’ll be Reynolds. Excuse me, Ashe, some members have taxis and trains to catch. Enter, Reynolds.’
‘Taxis, sir. I’ll fetch hats and coats.’
Ashe’s mobile rang. Someone tutted; mobile phones were absolutely forbidden at ODDBALLS meetings.
‘Dr Ashe!’
Ashe blushed and quickly exited the Tower, relieved to be in the open air again.
A voice crackled on his mobile. Ashe pressed it closer to his ear. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’ The crackling got worse. ‘Who is speaking? Who? Who?’
Ashe walked away from the Tower onto the freshly cut lawn, hoping to improve the signal.
11
He raised his pounding, aching head from the wet lawn. The dampness was blood: his own, dripping down the blades of grass. Ashe’s head was heavy, echoing with a strange wind, like waking in the blank afternoon after a bad dream. There was a stabbing in his eyes and a wall of noise in his ears. He was shaking, unable to focus, like a child in pain, whimpering, sick. He started to vomit onto the lawn.
Smoke and dust filled the air. In the distance: the screech of an alarm system. An old brick fell from Ashe’s back as he tried to get up, still vomiting, coughing, bleeding. He fell backwards, closing his eyes again, nauseous, dizzy. He rolled over and coughed up rancid remains of lunch mixed with bile and wine; his throat stung. He opened his leaden eyes and caught a beam of sunlight as it stole through the brick dust and billowing fragments of cement.
There was something in his hand. A mobile. The line was dead. Ashe passed out – somewhere to forget the pain and the sickness. It wasn’t happening. It wasn’t him. It must be something else… someone else. The sun again. Gone.
S
Remember the Snake
And know
The Serpent has the power
From the root of the tree
To the Tower
From the scorpion to the flower
Thousands of miles away, in a mountainous valley in northern Iraq, a man the local Kurds called ‘the Kochek’ awoke from a dream.
Seated on the pale, dusty grass in the shade of an olive grove, the wise old man scratched his long, grey, matted beard, gently wiped his folded eyes, adjusted his large turban and carefully rose to his feet. As he brushed some fallen leaves from the white woollen meyzar pulled tight around his shoulders, his sharp eye caught the sun, beginning to set over the mountain to the north. He kissed the fingertips of his right hand and drew them to his forehead. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and bowed to the sun three times.
The Kochek removed his shoes, then bent to kiss the threshold of the mazar in front of him. The mazar had no door; it did not need one. He entered the shrine, poured olive oil from an old petrol tin into a brass standard lamp, and placed four wicks into the grooves around the top of the lamp.
A tiny flame floated above a pool of oil in a window recess. Taking a taper from beside the flame, the Kochek ignited it and brought its light to the standard lamp. Concentrating, he brought the fragile flame to the dry wicks. A beautiful golden glow lit the heart of the little shrine. A soft wind chanted quietly down the blessed valley.
The elderly Kochek touched his fingertips to his lips and his forehead once more, then stepped gingerly back over the threshold. In the distance he heard the echo of a rifle shot bouncing from rock to rock in the south. The Kochek smiled. He was thinking of Sarsaleh, the imminent Spring Festival, wondering how many would come to him this year with their dreams. The past years had been hard, but they had been harder in the greater past. He was alive; that was good. But martyrdom put you in good company: alongside the ancestors, buried under stones, watching.
His loving eye surveyed the yellow rock-roses, the gladioli, the buttercups, the red and yellow Adonis, the hyacinths, all crying for life and straining to break through the gleaming pebbles and grass of the mountains. His eyes penetrated the greening hills to the north, south, east and west, now touched with a fiery light. And he thought of the four wicks, the cross, the flames of the sun, bringing new light and life to good and bad alike and blessings for those who knew.
He had been with the angel and the angel had warned him, as he had warned his ancestors.
12
Mati Fless drew the hired BMW Cabriolet to a halt on the hard shoulder’s crisp new tarmac. It was good to see California again. Fless turned the radio off and breathed in the creamy, fresh air wafting in from the snow-capped Sierra Nevada to the east. He cast his eye across Lake Oroville. The clear blue waters glittered like a tray of gems.
When he’d received instructions to fly to San Francisco, Fless had expected some squalid assignment in a back-lot in Haight-Ashbury or the dank corridors of a government housing project in Daly City. That was the usual environment for his kind of work. But Fless was headed for Paradise, 100 miles north of Sacramento.
Fless caught his image in the side mirror. He hated mirrors. He hated to see himself. Without an image he was invisible, just an idea, the point of somebody’s will. His olive eyes seemed darker than usual, his face longer than usual, his short black hair less plenteous. He was thirty-four and he’d started thinking. Not just asking questions and settling for attractive answers, but really thinking. Deep stuff. He wouldn’t last much longer in the job.
It had taken three years to get a transfer from Shin Bet’s anti-subversion department to the Israeli Mossad’s foreign operations branch. God, how Fless hated spying on his own people. Yes, some of the guys in the ultra-nationalist Kach were nutters – but spending days staking out student families in the hills of Samaria in the West Bank had got him right down.
Fless hadn’t joined the security service to watch organic farmers, ceramicists, sculptors, theatrical types, musicians, embroiderers, stained-glass artists and candle-makers. Of course, the idealistic self-help groups were a nursery for the Bat Ayin underground, a West Bank settler group. There’d been some bad things. Fless himself had foiled a plan to detonate a cart filled with explosives next to a school in the Arab neighbourhood of At-Tur in Jerusalem. The zealot Israeli militant mentality left him cold.
The final straw for Fless had been the uncovering of a secret Kach plan to blow up the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount and replace it with an altar to be used for animal sacrifices. The whole thing gave him crazy dreams. It wasn’t even something he could talk about. He couldn’t drink it off his mind either. As far as Fless was concerned, the problem in the East was too much religion and not enough reality. It always had been.
But California: wow! Every kind of nutcase – but not a bomb in sight. The sun, the fir trees, the dazzle of sky on the windscreen, the roar of the engine. Fless felt intoxicated as he wound his way round the lakeside and up into the mountains towards Paradise.
The car sped up the hairpin track, higher and higher. Then Fless slammed on the brakes and reversed the car. To his left, a small sign: ‘KISMET’, the professor’s house.
Fless continued up the track until he reached a lay-by shadowed by great pines. Taking a case from the boot, he darted into the forest. He caught his black jeans on a barbed-wire fence concealed by ferns. Maybe the fence was wired to an alarm. Listening hard, Fless backed off, following the fence down the hillside.
Ten miles away in Chico, Fless’s team waited on his call.
Through a clearing, he caught his first sight of the house, an early seventies split-
level job. Fless crouched on the ground for an hour. He checked the contents of his case: a hypodermic gun and a phial of something the doctor didn’t order – humanely brief and fast dispersing.
Fless heard a crack behind him.
An Alsatian leapt at his neck, biting and tearing through his jersey. A blur of teeth strained for the jugular. Pulled to the ground, hard against the barbed wire, Fless rolled over with the animal as it gnawed and salivated as the scuffle intensified. Fless kept his chin down and forced his right hand against the Alsatian’s beating chest, down towards his waist. Once he’d got leverage, the job was soon done.
The blade severed the dog’s neck. A high-pitched bark was abruptly silenced by Fless’s adept twist of the knife. The dog’s legs beat helplessly in the undergrowth as its lifeblood seeped into the scattered sunlight.
‘Fucking dogs!’
Fless heard a car in the distance and then a click. He felt sick. A gun barrel pushed hard into the nape of his neck.
‘One move, son, and you’re as dead as that dog.’
13
Istanbul, 8.10 a.m.
Aslan stormed into his office and slapped down a wet copy of Hürriyet in front of Ali.
‘See that?’
‘The official communiqué is on your desk, sir.’
‘Why bother when it’s all over the newspapers?’
‘Might be different, sir.’
‘Is it different, Ali? I presume you’ve read it.’
‘Not really, sir.’
‘Not really you haven’t read it, or not really it might be different?’
‘The odd word; nothing of substance.’
‘See what it says here in Hürriyet? Did you read it?’
‘I read the story in Sabah, sir. It all comes from the same place.’
‘Well, Ali, in case there is any difference, let me read this to you.’
Ali’s tired eyes looked heavenwards and blinked. Aslan carried on regardless.
‘“Istanbul’s governor, Muammar Güler, said that a new group with plans for further atrocities was behind the attack on the Masonic Lodge in Kartal District. He assured the public that eighteen suspects are currently in custody and have confessed to planning and preparing…” Get that, Ali? “Planning and preparing”, what the hell’s the difference? Suggests they’re trying to pile up charges. Ah, look… it gets better. “We know they received political and military training in camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but police have so far found no links between them and al-Qaeda. The governor added that ‘It does not have links to currently known organisations. We are investigating whether it has links to al-Qaeda.’” Are we currently investigating links with al-Qaeda, Ali?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Are we?’
‘If the governor says we are, Ali.’
‘Then of course we are, sir. There was a bit more in Sabah, sir.’
‘A bit more what?’
‘A few more details that do not appear in the official communiqué on your desk, sir.’
‘What is it?’
‘Not much.’
‘Not much is all we’ve got. Let’s hear it.’
‘Only, sir, that Celalettin Celik considered the attack to be the work of amateurs.’
‘Since it’s difficult to make a profession out of suicide bombing, he’s on safe ground there. Is he suggesting blowing oneself to smithereens is a kind of hobby?’
Ali swallowed a laugh.
‘And why the hell didn’t Celik tell me he’d ended his so-called news blackout?’
‘There’s something else, sir.’
‘Well?’
‘The London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported receiving a statement from the al-Qaeda linked group Jund al-Quds, Soldiers of Jerusalem, claiming responsibility.’
Aslan paused, weighing up the value of the statement. ‘London, you say?’
‘Yes, sir. According to Sabah.’
‘Why’s there always someone in London who knows more than we do?’
‘It’s been called the terrorists’ international café, sir.’
‘Really? More like a review bar, Ali. In the interests of what the British call fairness, every arsehole gets a hearing in London. Which reminds me…’
Aslan pulled up his plastic chair and grabbed the communiqué.
‘What’s this?’
‘I think it’s a codicil, sir.’
‘Have you read it?’
Ali bit his lip.
‘All right, Ali. You may now retire to your Mac and begin composing your resignation.’
‘Sir! Please!’
‘Only joking, Ali. It’s only right my secretary should be better informed than I am. I might have to lose my memory one of these days.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Ali saluted and turned on his heels.
Aslan speed-read the communiqué, then turned to the codicil. He squinted as a shock blast of sunlight punched its way from behind a cloud and burst through the wet air into the office. Aslan shielded his eyes and struggled to come to terms with what he was reading.
‘Sons of bitches! Two-faced bastards! Ali! Come back in here, now!’
14
‘I don’t like torture, son. So be kind to me. Don’t make me do it.’
‘That’s not torture. That’s execution.’
‘I don’t think so, son. 110 volts won’t kill you. Of course, if I pour this here jug of water over y’all, that could be real bad. But keep talkin’, son.’
The American had tied Fless’s hands with exposed live flex and plugged the end into a mains socket beneath a shelf of garden tools. Behind the American, aluminium steps led up to the three-car garage at the side of al-Qasr’s house.
Fless looked around the utility basement – anything to give him an edge or an idea.
‘So wha’d’ya think, son? Feel like talkin’?’
Fless shook his head.
‘Sorry to hear that, ’cause the way I see it, either a) you came to spy on Professor al-Qasr, b) you came to abduct Professor al-Qasr, or c) you came to kill Professor al-Qasr.’
The American agent hauled his meaty thighs off the toolbox he was squatting on.
‘Nice here, ain’t it, son? Bet you wished you lived here. Swell place. Swell view. Folks real friendly round here too. Not like Israel, huh?’
The agent reached into his suit pocket and pulled out Fless’s passport. ‘I see here you’re in your early thirties. Good time to be alive. Shame to die here for something no one will ever know about.’
Fless shrugged his shoulders. ‘We all have a job to do.’
‘What are you, Suicide? I’ll never understand why you fellas don’t keep us informed of your fun and games. I guess y’all think we’re dumb. Come on, son, give me something!’
‘You’re not gonna hurt me. Your boss will want to speak to me first.’
‘Just you keep those knees tight like a belle at the ball. Good boy!’
The American, agitated, looked up to the ground floor of the garage.
Fless stared quizzically at the tuber-faced American agent. The guy wasn’t for real.
‘Do it, officer. Give yourself a guilt trip.’
Agent Buckley looked at his watch. ‘Excuse me a second, son… Don’t you go changin’ now.’
He laughed to himself and dialled a number on his cellphone. The signal was weak. Buckley stepped backwards up the metal stairs.
15
Ashe had come out of his coma during the early hours. As his mind finally merged with his surroundings, the strange dream about a blonde girl dancing naked with a man covered in green leaves faded. The bare room now had the unpleasant edge of reality about it. Outside it was grey.
Two SIS officers in smart blue suits entered the dim ward of Aldershot Military Hospital. They whispered to each other, then approached his bed.
‘Dr Ashe, can you talk?’
‘Depends on the subject.’
‘I’m Giles Bagot. This is Tony Colquitt.’
‘Weren’t you Major Bagot the last time we met? And you were—’
‘A lieutenant, yes, Toby. It’s all civil-service style now.’
‘Even for you… Giles?’
‘We’ve been asked to supervise in Commodore Marston’s absence.’
‘Absence?’
‘Lost a leg. Above the knee. Intensive care, not far from here.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
Bagot smiled weakly. ‘I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for a shock.’
‘Shocks are for the unprepared.’
‘Mrs Lindars is a friend of yours?’
Ashe’s heart sank. ‘Is she…?’
‘Oh no! She’s OK.’
‘Thank God for that!’
Bagot smiled. ‘Shaken, of course. Surgery on her right ear. Residual neck and back pain. Otherwise, fine.’
‘And the archdeacon? He’s an old friend too.’
Bagot looked down at the polished floor. ‘The er… I’m sorry to say, the old boy didn’t make it. Dreadfully sorry.’
Tears welled up in Ashe’s throbbing eyes.
‘You OK, Ashe?’
‘It’s this pain in my eyes – one in particular.’
‘It’s concussion. How’s your memory?’
‘A bit peculiar. I remember being at the meeting… vaguely. And I remember going outside, until… But nothing else about the day at all. How I got there, the previous day… nothing.’ Ashe shook his head. ‘I remember Brigadier Radclyffe turning up. That was a surprise. Is he all right?’