Maestro

by John Gardner

  She got no farther than two steps from the car when the same SAS NCO took her out with two fast pairs of shots.

  They heard her go down onto the gravel, but waited for a minute in case any other trespassers had not broken cover. After a minute the officer in charge had shouted a command for those in hiding to come out or be shot down. There was no response, so after another minute the SAS team rose and went about clearing up the mess.

  An officer, trained in bomb disposal eased himself under the Range Rover and examined it with a small torch held between his teeth.

  “Bloody clever,” he muttered to himself. The limpet bomb secured magnetically to the underside of the chassis had been shaped like a small pipe, with ends at right angles, and covered in dirt, oil and grease. It had been placed carefully next to the crosswise bump in the underside of the chassis, covering the front axle. A cursory check would reveal nothing.

  As he began to prize the magnetically attached pipe from the car, he moved too quickly. The mercury switch within the pipe slid down and made the connection to the batteries. A stab of power hit the electronic primer and nine pounds of explosive became unstable and blew a funnel of flame and destruction upwards. The officer died instantly and the whole forward section of the vehicle was destroyed.

  As the echoes died, police and ambulance sirens could be heard as they raced to the scene of a reported series of shots, called in on 999 by a neighbor.

  Hisham watched the News at Ten, and so got the first indication of Samira’s attempt going wrong. The account was terse, an outline confirming earlier reports of a terrorist incident in Wiltshire. There were pictures of a wrecked car and a form covered by a tarp by the side of the road, while police and forensic experts worked nearby.

  The anchor took a feed from a local news team at the site. The reporter was a woman trying her best to appear as a tough, unfazed media person.

  “The police are being very tight-lipped over this,” she said, looking a shade shifty herself. “But it has been confirmed that there was an attempt to kill two senior intelligence officers and an anti-terrorist policeman who were traveling from London. The car that took the brunt of the explosion in fact belonged to a well-known local doctor, whose name is being withheld for the moment until all relatives have been informed.

  “The VIP intelligence and police officers escaped unharmed, and the one terrorist was shot dead by security forces. It is of interest that this happened very near to the spot where a former retired intelligence officer was killed—it is thought by a terrorist bomb—some three weeks ago. Police will not confirm if there is any connection between the two incidents, but this latest atrocity comes at a time when the security forces on mainland Britain, on the Continent and in the United States have been on a high state of alert following several bombings and shootings. Informed sources tell us that a Middle Eastern terrorist group has been responsible for the acts of violence both in Europe and the United States.”

  Hisham left the television switched on and pondered his position. He now had only Ahmad and Dinah at his disposal for the final push—not that he had as yet decided to let the horror they called Magic Lightning go ahead. His immediate problem was what to do. He would have to report to Yussif, which, in turn, would be in instant contact with the Biwãba. What would he, Hisham, do if he were in the Biwãba’s shoes?

  It depended on how many trustworthy people he had at his disposal. It was possible that he would send in a new team and—should he decide on that option—Hisham might be told to continue with the operation. The Biwãba was a great strategist, he was also a realist. In all probability he would have Hisham recalled, and that would mean only one thing. He would be immediately handed over to the truly dreaded Secret Police—Amn-al-Amm, known by a frightened people as the AMAM—and so would disappear.

  In the back of his mind, Hisham could really see only one way out of his dilemma. He should call one of the two numbers he had been given under his Ishmael cryptonym. He had no illusions about what could happen then. The British could easily deny him because of what he had already accomplished, or they could bring him in, turn him inside out and then throw him back to the Amn-al-Amm.

  He waited. The TV programs finally ended for the night, and he switched to a portable radio, listening to the news updates each hour. As the time dragged on and Ahmad and Dinah did not return, Hisham became more concerned. Then, at just after three-thirty in the morning, the DJ broke into his program saying there was a news flash.

  That was it. A terrorist attack on the house of a very senior intelligence officer in Harrow Weald. There was talk about a car-bomb explosion that killed one army officer. Then, almost as an aside, the newscaster announced that two terrorists, a man and a woman, had been shot dead after they opened fire on security forces.

  The whole of the British Intiqam team, except for their leader, had gone. One in custody, he presumed, wrongly, in Rome, the rest dead.

  Hisham put on a light raincoat against the chill of the morning air and left the flat, going to the nearest telephone booths up near the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Public Library.

  Using one of the telephone cards, he dialed the Yussif number in Oxfordshire. They told him to stay put. There would be instructions. Probably tomorrow morning. Wait, they commanded, and he had to admit that the man in Oxfordshire sounded as though it were an order he must obey at all costs. By this one action, Hisham realized, he had broken off his ties to the British. Or had he? Hisham was a frightened and confused man who could just not make up his mind.

  It was late afternoon in Baghdad when they got the message through to the Biwãba—the Gatekeeper. As usual the old man took the bad news calmly. He told his staff that he did not wish to be disturbed, and walked out into the garden to sit in his favorite spot, looking out over the city he had known all his life.

  Realist that he was, the Biwãba knew it would be absolute folly to pass these new tidings on to the Leader. His mercurial character was sometimes difficult to bear, for he was the kind of leader molded like the great kings of old, who would punish the messenger.

  This was a battle that could continue, the Biwãba knew. Logic told him that the operations in Europe were probably dead for the time being. Yes, he had some well-trained people he could send in, but these things required time and great patience to bring about. He thought of Hisham as a good commander who had stumbled and come up against bad luck. Perhaps the best thing would be for Hisham to join Walid and Khami in the United States. Over there, Magic Lightning was slowly going forward. He would leave matters for twenty-four hours, but prepare Hisham for a possible journey to America.

  After an hour of meditation the Biwãba returned to the house and wrote a short message that was to be sent straightaway to Hisham in London. Yussif would have to deliver the news personally, and nothing must go wrong.

  Big Herbie managed only a little sleep that night. He had spoken to Martin Brook, calling him Fat Boy to his face, which was a daring thing to do at any time. It turned out that Martin was really not interested in sitting in on further interrogations of either Carole or Ramsi. He, not unnaturally, was getting things organized for his move in as Warminster’s commanding officer.

  At around midnight Worboys called saying that a troop of SAS were on their way to assist in making Warminster more secure; also the most recent telephone logs were on their way by courier. They had a short spat about the telephone logs, Herbie arguing that, as they were made up here at the Warminster complex, they should be passed over to him directly instead of this bureaucratic nonsense of being sent to London, copied and then sent back.

  “Herb, you know the rules as well as I do. Now that Whitehall oversees every damn thing we do, it’s more than my job’s worth to slide them over to you directly.”

  Herb argued for a while, then decided it wasn’t worth his time.

  That night, though Kruger never admitted it, he almost got to the point of asking to be relieved of being detective in residence, attached to the G
us Keene murder case. It was but a phase, so he turned his mind to the question of what they could accomplish in the morning. He thought it might be a good thing to have another go at Ramsi. He had to examine the telephone logs. Maybe they would show that Carole had been making calls out. It could, he supposed, be her, or Bitsy, Ginger, Kenny Boyden, even Mickey Crichton or any one of the other half a dozen staff knocking around.

  Whoever he turned up, he would play hell with the guilty party. After all, what they had reported to this man Hisham Silwani, aka Ishmael, had almost caused Herb to be killed. They had caused the death of an innocent doctor, and great anxiety to DCI Bex Olesker. He was very angry about that. Bex had swallowed a large glass of medicinal brandy—the fact that it was Rémy Martin did not make it less medicinal—before going off to bed. She had given Herb a big hug and a little peck on the cheek before she went. All this had left him slightly unnerved, and he could not for the life of him understand why.

  Yes, Ramsi tomorrow. First on the list.

  He went again into Gus’s secret magic cave, where he found an excellent book by someone called Milbourne Christopher, who, it appeared, had been National President of the Society of American Magicians from 1957 to 1958. It was called Panorama of Magic, and he went through it from cover to cover, fascinated by the drawings, engravings, reproductions and photographs, not to mention the text, from which he learned a great deal.

  Finally, he fell asleep in Gus’s chair, only to be wakened by the telephone. He blundered out for it, found that it was Worboys and the time was seven forty-five.

  “Well, they tried,” Young Worboys said.

  “Tried what? I just woke up.”

  The Deputy Chief went through the events of the middle of the night at The Hall, Harrow Weald.

  “Have to buy yourself a new Range Rover, then, won’t you? I got to get shaved.” As long as it was only the car that had gone and not Worboys, Herb was happy. At the time he knew nothing of the young SAS officer who had been killed.

  The representative from Yussif arrived at the flat off Kensington High Street at a little before ten in the morning. He was serious and did not smile once during his discussion with Hisham Silwani. The instructions were very clear. He was to get the first possible flight out of London to New York. Once there he should use a public telephone to call a number which had to be committed to memory. Things would take shape after that. He would join what was left of the Intiqam team in the United States and make sure that Magic Lightning was carried out in Washington as soon as possible, taking instructions from the American team leader, Walid.

  After the emissary from Yussif left, Hisham sat for the best part of thirty minutes. Then he gathered together a few belongings, left the apartment and headed once more for the bank of public telephones near the library. His hand was shaking as he dialed the number. Panic-stricken, he had once more swerved in another direction, all logic gone.

  In the guest facilities at Warminster, Herbie and Bex were just getting into their stride with Ramsi. They had learned that the American team was, as far as he knew, the same size as the one sent to the United Kingdom. They even got some names and secure passwords, and they also discovered that both groups were being handled by someone called Yussif. “I think, however,” the stout little bomb maker said, “this Yussif is not just one man but several. Also, I think one Yussif is here and another in the United States. I even know the telephone number for the one here.”

  “Really.” Herbie tried to sound as though he were not interested in the slightest, so Bex said, “Better give it to us, just for the record,” and wrote down the number in her little black notebook.

  She was just about to put the next question to Ramsi when there was a tap at the door and Martin Brook looked in.

  “A word, Herbie, in private. Rather urgent, I think.”

  Kruger excused himself, prized his body—now almost back to its old weight—from the chair and lumbered out of the door.

  “We’ve an odd call on the line,” Brook told him, walking quickly toward the room that used to be Gus Keene’s office. “There’s a fellow in a public call box. London, I think. Says he’s Ishmael and will only speak with Ajax or someone who knows his work. I thought it might be up your street.”

  “Jesus.” Herb pounded along the passage into the office and picked up the telephone.

  “Ishmael?” he asked.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A very old friend of Ajax. You want proof?”

  “That would set my mind at ease.”

  “The name Mary Delacourt mean something to you?”

  “If you know about her, then you know about me.”

  “Yes. What can I do for you?”

  “I want to come in. I’m in a very difficult position.”

  “Yes, I should be imagining that you are, now that you’re alone.”

  “I told you. I want to come in. There’s more I can do, and I’ll do it. Just get me out of sight for a few hours so that we can talk.”

  “Okay.” Herbie tried to sound normal and unexcited. “Now, where are you?”

  Hisham told him.

  “Anyone onto you?”

  “No. I don’t think so anyway.”

  “Spend the next half an hour checking that out, then go to St. Mary Abbotts Hospital in Marloes Road. You can get to it easily from where you are. You know Marloes Road?”

  “I think so.”

  “Be certain nobody’s on your heels. Wait by the entrance to the hospital. A car will stop and a man will ask you if you’re from the Society for Stray Dogs. Got it?”

  “For stray dogs?”

  “Yes. Tell him you have a dog called Hagar. He’ll have you on the way to me as quickly as he can.”

  “Hagar?”

  “You’ve got it. Any problems, put your right hand in your pocket. If things are okay, keep your hands in sight. You carrying anything?”

  “Small suitcase.”

  “Off you go, then.”

  Herbie cradled the instrument and immediately began punching in numbers that would get him straight through to Worboys. He was breathing hard.

  23

  THEY GATHERED IN WHAT had once been the main briefing room in the big house: Worboys representing the CSIS, Big Herbie Kruger, DCI Olesker and Martin Brook.

  Tony Worboys was the last to arrive, having waited until Hisham Silwani had been picked up at St. Mary Abbotts Hospital and taken in an unmarked car to Warminster. Only then was Worboys driven down in one of the Office cars. When he came into the room, he was in what Herbie later called “a flurry.”

  “This is not strictly any of our business,” Worboys began.

  “Okay, you call the Security Service and we’ll throw him to them,” Herbie said brightly.

  “He is their asset.”

  “He was Gus’s asset, and my job is to find out who blew Gus away. This guy is—or was—the leader of a terrorist team operating in Europe out of the U.K. Let’s see what he has to offer. If he’s just your usual run-of-the-militia terrorist, we’ll toss him back. No harm done. You pick up the phone and say, ‘Stella, we’ve got one of your bodies. Please send a spare van for him.’”

  “I know Gus ran him, but he did that under MI5’s authority.”

  “Oh, shut up, Tony. I need to talk with him.” As far as Herb was concerned, the matter was over.

  “You do have him secure?” Worboys looked hard at Martin Brook.

  “Houdini couldn’t get out.”

  “I’m not thinking of Houdini. I want to be certain the bomb maker—Ramsi—doesn’t bump into him taking a morning stroll.”

  Herbie laughed. “Tony, it’s Carole you should be worrying about, and they’re all well separated.”

  The underground guest facilities had four holding units, which could be opened to each other or closed off. If they were closed, nobody down there would even know anybody else was quartered near him.

  Each unit had been built with an eye to comfort, and they were like small suite
s in a luxury hotel: sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. In the same facilities they had two interrogation rooms: one for hard cases, bare and uninviting; the other for the soft sell, with calming paintings on its walls—sea views and sailing ships—deep, comfortable leather armchairs and not a single no smoking sign.

  There had been some peeves about the latter from the vociferous many, but Gus, a pipe smoker to the end, had overruled everyone. His argument was that the secondhand-smoke lobby did themselves more harm by walking the streets of any big city, and if you completely prohibited smoking, it would be necessary to do away with alcohol and sex also—both being just as dangerous in the long run.

  Worboys changed tack quickly, asking if the extra security had settled in.

  “They’re happy as sandboys,” Brook told him. “We’ve given them free range and their two officers dashed around the place setting a watch.”

  “I’m going to need three or four of those blakes—”

  “Blokes, Herbie.”

  “Sure. Three or four of those blokes in civilian clothes.”

  “They’re all in civilian clothes.”

  “That’ll make things nice, then.”

  “What for, Herb?” As the senior man from the Office, Worboys felt out of place in the presence of Kruger, who had no rank but was in charge of the investigation. He could not blame anyone for this, as it had been his idea to bring Big Herbie back to do the dirty work. The CSIS had agreed without reservation, for any investigation of Gus’s death would be dangerous.

  “We still got that room upstairs? The one with the two-way mirror?” Herb asked of Martin Brook.

  “Yes, and all the gear.” By this he meant audio and video machines which could take pictures or preserve conversations from behind the mirror, which looked into a room containing only a table and half a dozen comfortable chairs.

  “What for, Herb?” Worboys repeated.

  “Ask no questions and you’ll get no lies, as my old grandmother used to say.” A statement that was highly improbable, as Big Herbie’s grandmother, on his father’s side, never spoke English in the whole of her long life. He gave the Halloween grin, then said that before he even began talking with Hisham, he wanted him put in that room—“looking respectable and with four SAS faces.”