by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric
‘They won’t come! They won’t help you! They’re on the bridge! Devil worshippers! Devil worshippers! Evil! Evil! Devils! Devils! Satans! Satans! We kill you! We kill you! We kill you all! Death to the infidel!’
Qoteh was standing at the foot of the stairs, steeling herself.
‘We can go, Qoteh! We have time.’
‘We cannot. Rozeh!’
‘Evil! Evil! Drinkers! Drunks! Corrupters of the faithful! Collaborators! Transgressors! Dogs! Devils! Devils! Devils!’
The chanting increased. The kicking on the steel door increased, echoing coldly around the shop.
‘We must wait for Rozeh. This is her home. We must be here for her. What if she comes back and we are gone?’
Qoteh started screaming at the mob. ‘Who are you? We know you! Yes, we know you. We know your fathers and mothers and grandmothers. They know us. You know we are not evil. You know we love God. We love God.’
‘Blasphemers! You Yezidis are Blasphemers! Kill the liars! Kill the devils! You bring temptation to the faithful! You ignore the Law! God smiles on the killers of the pagan Yezidi!’
‘We are not pagans! We love God! We are all human beings! Like you! Leave us! Go in peace! Do God’s will!’
The shop went quiet.
‘Unlock the shutters, Saddiq.’
‘And let them in at the front?’
‘If they get in, we can at least—’
‘No, we stay. We fight. If God wills, we will win.’
More explosions on the bridge; rapid fire; police alarms; the heat.
The couple heard an object roll against the metal door. A stone? Pray it be a stone.
‘Get down!’
The door flew into the shop smashing through a stack of beer cans. In rushed a gang of desert Arabs, teenagers, some in black headbands emblazoned with lines from the Koran, carrying knives and machetes.
O Khatun Fakhra, help us!
O Khidr Elias, help us!
O Sheykh Matti, help us!
Saddiq stood up. ‘In the Name of God, leave this house!’
A Fedayeen, his face hidden under the trademark black woollen turban of the paramilitaries loyal to Saddam Hussein, emerged from the group. ‘Polluters of the Sacred City! In the name of all the Fedayeen martyrs and all who defend the faith from the Crusaders, servants of Satan and the power of evil, you are condemned to die!’
The man gestured for the others to back off. He then took out a grenade from beneath his shirt and pulled the pin. Without a thought, Saddiq shot him between the eyes. The grenade dropped and the Fedayeen fell quickly on top of it.
‘Get out! Get out!’ cried one of the intruders.
The blast hurled Saddiq into the shutters as the shop’s ceiling collapsed.
By seven o’clock, the bridge was quiet. American reinforcements had arrived from the south and re-established the roadblock. The skirmish did not make the news – because it wasn’t news. Things like this happened all the time. At eight o’clock, teachers led a group of schoolchildren over the bridge. The boys played war games and the girls played pop music on their Walkmans.
As the line got closer to the other side, as the teachers were body-searched by the soldiers, as the moon vanished behind a huge cloud of burnt oil, as the dogs barked and life in Mosul went on, Rozeh saw her home. Only, it was not home any more.
Outside the battered shutters, buckled as if blasted by a huge fist and pulled up a few feet above a pool of deep, dark blood, was a row of bodies and body parts. These were not parts like you would buy to mend a car. These were parts that could never make a whole. They weren’t people and the people were no longer in the parts. Mute, cold, pale, signifying nothing but an absence of something that had woken up that morning, dreamed of better times to come, had lunch, had… life.
Rozeh, her thick black hair framing a face wet with tears, was suddenly an orphan, a daughter of the war. The boys who a few hours earlier had scraped as much booty as they could off the road were back to see what might be left in the shop. One of them came up to Rozeh, who was staring at the blankets, wondering which of the shapes beneath was her mother or father.
‘Can I give you a drink, lady?’
‘No.’
‘Is that your mother?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe she’ll wake up, or come out of Paradise to see you.’
Rozeh cried. The police took her away.
At the shelled-out station near the old imperial post office, the police asked her a few questions, but she had no answers. She only had a question:
‘Why won’t they leave us alone?’
22
Outskirts of Hamburg, Germany
Inside the Audi, the atmosphere was tense. The old man couldn’t sleep; the younger man was shaken. The driver, eyes darting from catseye to headlight, was nervous. He’d taken several wrong turnings before getting on to the E22 autobahn at Lübeck, northeast of the port of Hamburg. Soon the bleak city lights and industrial outskirts of Hamburg itself filled the windscreen: not a welcoming sight.
Turning sharply off the ring-road in Wandsbek, they headed uncertainly down the wide Wandsbeker Marktstrasse towards the Altstadt and the city centre. The road was clear and the pavements were empty. As they passed the old Lutheran church in the Jacobs-Park, dimly lit by an orange spotlight, the driver looked nervously to the rear-view mirror.
‘Polizei.’
‘Continue.’
The younger man turned to look back. The green-and-white BMW was gaining ground fast. By the time they’d reached the junction at the Mühlendamm, it was tailgating the Audi. Hands sweating, the driver saw two policemen, one taking their registration number, the other making a radio call. He rubbed the back of his neck. His knees felt stiff. He bit his lip and gripped the steering wheel as if it were the last link with life.
His nerve broke. The car squealed to a stop outside the Marienkrankenhaus hospital. Unable to brake in time, the police skidded into the Audi’s rear. The passengers lurched forwards, the old man’s nose smashing into the driver’s seat, spurting blood over his grey moustache.
‘What are you doing, you fool!’ The younger man gripped the driver’s shoulder.
While the policemen were recovering from the shock, the Audi driver hammered into reverse and ground the police car into a lamp-post. Its right bumper wrenched into the wheel cavity; the car was crippled.
The Audi driver cut his lights, revved the engine and stormed into first. He U-turned up the one-way Mühlendamm and headed north, dodging startled traffic up Schürbeker Strasse to the busy junction with Mundsburger Damm.
‘Stop! This is insane! What are you doing?’ The younger man pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and thrust it under the nose of the old man. The old man said nothing.
Deaf to all entreaties, the driver slammed his foot down; he had no work permit. Deportation was unthinkable.
Racing south down Mundsburger Damm, they were soon in sight of the glittering Aussenalster Lake. Ignoring a red light, the driver screeched into Buchtstrasse’s narrow funnel and skidded to a halt outside a department store.
‘I get new plates.’
Hurling himself out amid the howling of sirens, he dashed round to the boot of the car.
The old man looked at his friend. While the driver tried frantically to screw the plates to the back of the Audi, the men flung open the back doors and disappeared into the shadows. The younger man pointed. ‘This way! Do you have the case?’
The old man nodded.
The driver shot up from behind the open boot. ‘Hey! What about my money? It’s a long way from Giessen!’
The men were nearly at the end of the street. ‘You’ll get your reward! God be with you!’
They rounded the corner into Sechslingspforte.
‘Just keep walking. How’s your nose?’
‘Not broken, but I…’ The old man started coughing. ‘No… no… It’s all right. I’m not sick. It’s just that… Do you kno
w the saying from the Christian Bible?’ He stopped, inviting the younger man to look around at the display lights in the shop windows; the neon glitter high above the hotels and fashionable stores; the fairy-lit floating restaurants on the lake; the yellow street lights, and the beams of passing cars. ‘See! There is light everywhere, but we walk in the cold shadows.’
‘Is that it?’
‘No! It says: “The birds have their nests; the fox has his lair. But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”’
23
The 2.8 roaring litres of turbocharged V6 Saab 9-3 churned up the gravel outside Peover Hall, a handsome Tudor brick stately home in mid-Cheshire. Ashe stepped out of the Rosso Bologna open convertible to admiring glances from women in black miniskirts, large hats and veils. Admiral Lord Whitmore was not so impressed. Recently returned from France with Lady Nancy, he was not yet re-accustomed to the throb and tension of British life.
Lady Nancy, a radiant seventy-five, stepped nimbly over the gravel to greet Ashe. ‘So nice to see you, Toby. Such a pity about the circumstances.’
‘Yes. A terrible thing.’
‘Save the jaw-jaw, Ashe, we’re walking in procession. Get in line, man.’
Ignoring her husband, Lady Nancy took Ashe’s arm as over a hundred mourners formed themselves into a quiet line that edged its way towards St Lawrence’s Church, Over Peover, one of Cheshire’s fine old chapels, set peacefully in the wooded grounds around Peover Hall.
Soon Ashe found himself nudging a marble sarcophagus. Sir Philip Mainwaring lay recumbent, his armoured hands raised in prayer as they had been since his entombment in 1652.
It had been Loveday-Rose’s special wish to be buried at Peover. One of the late archdeacon’s hobbies had been Cheshire history. The chapel of St Lawrence had always seemed to concentrate that interest in his rich imagination. Loveday-Rose cared about England’s future because he had loved its past. Ashe had imbibed much of the same philosophy; it had been a powerful bond between them.
The service began with a platitudinous address from a Bunter-faced ‘team’ vicar. Ashe started to yawn. A nudge in the ribs from Lady Nancy returned him to the end of the vicar’s vacuous valediction. ‘And now Toby is going to say a few words about his old friend.’
Relief flowed like a wave over the congregation as Ashe got up and made his way past the unctuous vicar to the Jacobean wooden pulpit.
He steadied himself. ‘A great man has passed from us.’ Ashe paused, staring into the lake of distinguished faces melting before his eyes. Emotion was getting the better of him.
‘The silver chain has snapped; the golden bowl is broken. Archdeacon Aleric Loveday-Rose, Military Cross, was the kind of man the Church of England cannot replace. The vitality of the Victorian age provided the mettle of his upbringing, and the fire and fury of wars and revolutions informed his adulthood. Aleric was truly a match for his times.
‘How was it possible for this man, who had witnessed the twentieth century’s carnage at first hand, to say to me that, at the end of this terrible century, Truth, Beauty and Love had survived intact?
‘He could say it because he had survived intact; his integrity still shining.
‘Aleric, my dear friend, you have crossed the bridge – and you are home. And I do not think its light and its furnishings will be strange to you.
‘Farewell, my friend.’
A few members of the congregation began spontaneously to clap, gently and tentatively. But as Ashe’s final words echoed from the stone floor to the vaulted roof, and as the stained glass cast beams of many colours across the nave, the applause became a swell.
Ashe left the pulpit and returned briskly to his seat. Admiral Whitmore nodded in sage approval; Lady Nancy gripped Ashe’s hand while clearing tears from her rouged cheeks. ‘Thank you, Toby.’
The reception on the neat lawns of Peover Hall was a stylish upper-class affair.
Admiral Lord Whitmore, his weathered jowls deeply tanned, approached Ashe. ‘That was a damn fine address, Ashe. Though I’m never quite sure if you’re serious – and, dammit, I never see you shooting! You don’t hunt, and whenever the subject of sport comes up, you disappear.’
‘It’s a dull boy that doesn’t like sport, Lord Whitmore.’
‘There you go again! Are you trying to tell me you’re dull?’
‘That’s enough, Gabriel,’ interjected Lady Nancy. ‘Toby has all the right values – that’s what counts, isn’t it, Toby?’
‘I hope so.’
‘You see, Gabriel, you just have to face the fact that there are different kinds of clever people – and some are a bit cleverer than you.’
‘Tosh! Clever is one thing; useful is another. Ideas need to be applied. I bloody well hope you find who smashed up my Tower! And bring that damned butler of mine to the bar of justice!’
Ashe’s mobile emitted a gentle tone. He made a swift apology and took refuge beneath the boughs of an ancient cedar.
‘Colonel! Where are you?’
‘Hamburg. Visiting relatives in St Pauli. Listen… Is this a secure line?’
‘Yes, but I haven’t much time.’
‘I have that list for you. I’m posting it from here. There will be no cover note and no source references.’
‘Understood.’
‘This call never happened. I can do no more for you. Good luck!’
The line went dead.
Ashe felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘Hello!’
‘Hello. You must be…’
‘I’m the archdeacon’s niece.’
‘Melissa!’
‘You remember!’
‘What are you doing now?’
‘Publishing.’
‘Lucky publishing.’
‘Lucky me.’
Melissa was attractive. A fountain of deep brown wavy hair cascaded around her rosy face, framing her bright eyes and aquiline nose. She was wearing Ashe’s favourite kind of dress: cotton, with a plunging neckline, buttoned at the front.
‘You know, Uncle was a very good judge of character. He liked you a lot.’
From the corner of his eye, Ashe saw two men in dark suits and black ties. Surely not…? Giles Bagot and Tony Colquitt approached like beagles on a scent.
Ashe put his arm around Melissa and began to walk round the back of the cedar towards a nest of rhododendrons.
‘I say, Ashe! Ashe!’
Ashe tried to ignore them. Melissa looked at him with compassionate eyes. ‘Go on, you’d better talk to them. We can catch up later.’ She squeezed Ashe’s hand and headed off, her full bottom swaying sexily in her breezy dress.
‘Glad to see you’ve recovered, Dr Ashe. Perhaps you’ll feel more communicative today.’
‘Small talk over, Giles?’
‘That’s bloody charming, Ashe.’
‘You want to know who phoned me. And I can’t tell you.’
‘What are you up to, Ashe?’
‘I can’t tell you the name. It was a Turkish journalist. Anonymous source. Said he had a contact in NATO. Said he’d heard about the explosion at the Tower and believed it was linked to something in Istanbul.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Zero.’
Bagot sighed. ‘Why didn’t you get more out of him?’
‘Told him I couldn’t go further without proof of ID.’
‘Good. Proper procedure.’
‘That’s it. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
Ashe headed back to the reception. The wine was beginning to flow. He caught Melissa’s eye. ‘Are you staying with your family tonight, Melissa?’
24
Sherman Beck hurried through the angular maze of the CTC’s operations coordinating area. He had just three minutes to make a meeting with his director on the seventh floor. If he didn’t make it, Beck risked his work being buried beneath piles of new leads. Take a week off for a bad cold and you might come back to a different war.
Computers peeped, phones bleeped, and every
wall seemed steeped in TV sets: al-Jazeera, CNN, military command centres. It made the Fox newsroom look parochial.
Beck jumped into the elevator. His director shared the seventh floor with the Director of Central Intelligence. This was politically useful for Lee Kellner, who made the most of it. A former sub-editor for the Washington Post, fifty-five-year-old Kellner regarded his ability to sift relevant from irrelevant stories as second to none. ‘Proven in Commerce’ was his motto, and it was stuck to his door – as were the entrails of those who crossed him, or so he bragged.
‘You got five minutes max.’
‘Just five?’
‘Give or take your balls. D’ya wanna make the President’s Threat Matrix Report?’
‘Dr Sami al-Qasr, sir. Having met with Leanne Gresham, I feel—’
‘Feel, Beck?’
‘Think, sir.’
Kellner nodded.
‘I think the communication regarding Professor al-Qasr at Paradise, California, sir, requires immediate action.’
‘Reason?’
‘D’you recall the Gitana, Daley, Rikanik and Kelly investigations?’
‘David Kelly? The British guy. Worked for the Rockingham Cell and UNSCOM.’
‘Yes, sir. Biological weapons specialist. Committed suicide July 2003.’
‘Alleged suicide. Big scandal in Britain. Remind me about the other guys.’
‘Your investigation explored relations between Kelly and the US bio-defence industry. Looked for a link with the mysterious deaths of Francisco Gitana, Greg Daley and Boris Rikanik.’
‘And there wasn’t one, was there?’
‘File’s still open, sir. Regarding Gitana, Daley and Rikanik. Gitana and Daley were both involved in DNA sequencing.’
‘Refresh.’
‘Weaponised pathogens, sir. In theory, it’s possible to create a weapon that targets only certain races.’
‘You got me. Keep talking.’
‘In November 2001, Gitana was found unconscious in a Miami parking lot, after receiving a late call. Inquest said natural causes, but his family claimed four men attacked him. A few weeks later, Daley washed up 300 miles downstream from a Mississippi bridge on which his car was found with the lights on and the keys in the ignition. He’d just left a Memphis banquet for fellow researchers.’