Maestro

by John Gardner

  Later, at one in the morning, Hisham left the Parker Meridien, walked down to Fifth Avenue and found a public telephone. Before he left Warminster, they had given him a number to call. Now, as Ishmael, he used it for the third time.

  He was telling them what they already knew, but at least he was proving his loyalty.

  In London, early the next morning, Tony Worboys’s car blew up in a spectacular sheet of flame. The Range Rover was there one minute and gone, in a pillar of fire, the next. The people who saw it happen said it was like an illusion, the vanish of a car blown to fragments.

  26

  “JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK it’s all clear doesn’t mean that you should take any chances. When your life is under threat by these people, it remains under threat until they’ve all been either put away, called off or frightened off.” So the Head of SIS Internal Security to Tony Worboys. “My advice, sir, is to stay here, with your family, until everything’s off the books.”

  “I want my bloody car. Damn it all, it should’ve been delivered here in the first place.”

  Worboys had been ecstatic to learn that twenty-four hours after the Range Rover had blown up in front of his house, the Office had okayed the insurance and ordered a new, identical, car to be delivered.

  In a snafu that should not have surprised him, Worboys had the keys to the new vehicle. The Range Rover itself had been left at The Hall, Harrow Weald, with a set of spare keys shoved through the letterbox. The people who were checking his house daily had brought in the extra keys, leaving the car sitting idly in the turning circle in front of the house.

  “I have an appointment the other side of Heathrow at eleven o’clock. I’d like to drive there myself, in my own damned car.” This was about as angry as Worboys ever got.

  The Head of Internal Security sighed. “Well, I’ll get a couple of the lads to pick it up and bring it over here to Vauxhall Cross, sir. They’ll sniff it, and check it, and mark it okay. Then they’ll bring it here. No sweat. But I have to advise you that, if you go out, I want a chase car with some of my lads in it behind you all the way.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “It’s eight hundred percent necessary, sir.”

  Reluctantly, Young Worboys agreed. He had been getting much flak from his wife, who, not unnaturally, was keen to get back to her own hearth and home. Now they had cocked up the delivery of his car. It was nine in the morning. He would have to leave no later than ten.

  In New York it was four in the morning, that dreary hour of the night when people finally died in hospital wards and the morale of men and women under pressure was at its lowest ebb.

  In London, Worboys was arguing with the Head of SIS Internal Security. In their service apartment high in Trump Tower, New York, Big Herbie Kruger and DCI Bex Olesker were far from being at their lowest ebb. They had retired at around midnight with the knowledge that they had to be on their way, to Washington, D.C., at six.

  The entire team would be on the move, and once in D.C., the whole operation against the last three members of the Intiqam groups would be brought to a quick, sharp conclusion. The FBI and the Secret Service were confident that they had the entire thing buttoned up. Ted Mercer, who led the now more streamlined FBI Counter-Intelligence Department, had given his word that the unholy trio—as they had dubbed them—would be arrested with the explosives, and whatever else they were planning to use, actually on them. After the slipups during the World Trade Center bombing, nobody was going to take any chances with this lot. “Catch them in flagrante delicto,” Mercer said. “We’ll have a clear case that way. Nobody’s going to wriggle off the hook.”

  Herbie had misgivings. After all, they had the surveillance tapes; they knew where the trio was holed up—in one of New York’s most expensive hotels—so what were they waiting for? He made it plain that he wanted it on the record he was against playing the waiting game.

  In the small hours he made it plain again to Bex. “Don’t like it. Don’t see it’s necessary to wait. We’ve got ’em cold here, so what’s with the screwing around?”

  “I didn’t know anyone was screwing around, Herb.” Bex looked all innocent and virginal, just as she had done when she woke him at just before three.

  Herbie had plunged into sleep almost before his head hit the pillow. A deep sleep, with an undercurrent of strange dreams. He was on a tropical beach, ungainly in swimming trunks. Carole was there with him, taunting him and laughing. “Just ring this number, Herbie,” she shrieked. “That’ll settle it for all time. Dial the number now.” She picked up a conch and it turned into a telephone. He was about to dial when Bex appeared beside him, shouting, “Herb, don’t be a fool. You know what she’s after. Wake up, Herb. Wake up …Wake up …”

  He felt the hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him, but only half comprehending that he was back in the real world.

  “Got to make this telephone call, Bex. Just wait a minute.” His hand was stretched out and he could feel the instrument gripped tightly.

  “Please, Herb. Please wake up.”

  He was awake. The bedside light was on, and Bex stood, leaning down, her hand on his shoulder. His first thought was that Bex in her night attire was more ravishing than in her usual business suits or the denim skirts and casual tops she also wore.

  She seemed to be swathed in silk. A white peignoir, trimmed with lace at the neck.

  “What the hell’s up, Bex?” He was suddenly wide awake, his mind and body alert, butterflies chasing in his stomach. What, he wondered, had gone wrong now?

  “Nothing’s up. I’m sorry, Herb. I can’t sleep. Something’s bothering me, but it’s just out of reach.” Then she added, in a kind of little girl voice, certainly not what you expected from a DCI attached to the antiterrorist squad, “I’m hungry as well.”

  Herb’s face split open into his broad smile. “If you’re hungry, call room service. If you want to talk, call me. Go, woman. Go call room service and I’ll join you.”

  “You want anything?” She still sounded a shade modest, as though waking Herbie had been a very daring thing to have done.

  “No. Don’ think so …Wait, yes. Coffee. Real coffee. Black. And some tomato sandwiches. Tell them only small amount of butter; white bread, skinned tomatoes, little vinegar on the side—and salt. Tomato sandwiches without vinegar and salt is like kissing your sister.”

  “Just one round?”

  “Make it two. Who knows what I’ll eat?”

  “Just your normal, ordinary little midnight dorm feast.” She laughed. Herbie heard the peal of bells in her laughter even when she had left the room. Don’t be an old fool, he thought to himself. Don’ get stupid. Your day is done. Forget the old snake and keep the one-eyed monk out of this. You are stupid, Eberhardt Lukas Kruger.

  He went into the bathroom, straightened his tousled hair, took notice of the thinning, which gave him the look of having the start of a tonsure, and sprayed a couple of squirts of cologne around his neck. Then he brushed his teeth and marched into the living room, where Bex sat on the edge of the sofa, her legs tucked under her.

  “‘Now, mother, what’s the matter?’”

  “Mother?”

  “Hamlet.” He grinned again. “When Hamlet goes into his ma’s boudoir and stabs Polonius in the arse.”

  “Arras, Herb.”

  “Sure. What’s up, Bex?”

  “I keep grasping at something someone said at Warminster. Can’t quite get a handle on it. Something significant. I keep thinking it’s something to do with the telephone logs. I know it’s important, but it’s just out of sight.”

  “Okay. I got the logs in my briefcase.”

  As he came back into the room carrying the briefcase, there was a soft knock at the door. He went over and peeped through the security fish-eye lens, then opened up to a crusty-looking waiter who wheeled in a tray containing a huge pot of coffee, the tomato sandwiches, vinegar, salt, pepper and a huge bowl of chef’s salad—sliced hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, toma
to, cucumber, shredded ham and cheese.

  He signed the proffered bill and tipped the waiter, who said “Have a nice day” like a programmed robot.

  “I see you’re only having a small snack also, Bex,” cocking an eyebrow, opening up a couple of the sandwiches and dribbling vinegar onto them, followed by an alarming amount of salt.

  “Christ, Herb, that much salt won’t do you any good.”

  “So, I live dangerously. Let’s look at the logs. See if we can tickle your memory a bit.” He dug into the briefcase and produced the thick wedge of printouts. “Let’s begin at the beginning. Go through it, call by call.”

  “Okay. My feeling, Herb, is that we’ve missed something. Not followed up. That’s always something that’s haunted me in police work. Things happen so quickly that, somehow, in the hurly-burly …”

  “Hurly-burly is good.”

  “Well, with everything that’s been going on, something got missed. That’s what’s really bugging me.”

  Herbie looked her straight in the eyes, gave a quick professional nod and began to go through the log. “First, we have the night of Gus’s death. Call at around two-thirty in the morning. Carole Keene says it was Gus telling her he’s on his way home. We know it was from a public telephone in Salisbury, but we have a big query. A missing hour and a half, right?”

  “We have evidence that Gus left the magic club at one in the morning. Then he’s missing from then until two-thirty, when he calls Carole.”

  “Okay. Next call is the first big mystery. Five-thirty in the morning. Carole says it must have been the cops because they used the telephone. They came and broke the news at four-thirty and had use of the telephone. That’s all there in the log. They made three calls out—all to Salisbury. All correct. But this call is at five-thirty and the caller ID printout shows it came from a public box at a service station on the M4 Motorway, not far from Heathrow.”

  “Carole.” Bex sat up very straight. “The one at five-thirty we know came from the motorway service station. We know it. We have proof. It was answered, but Carole said she had no memory of it. Denied it right down the line. Just as she denied taking the call in the middle of the following night—well, early morning. Twenty-two hours after that proven call from the motorway service station. We know that one came from New York. Carole denies answering it. But that’s not the real problem. We did miss doing a cross-check. On the night of Gus’s murder there was another call. Five fifty-seven. Twenty-seven minutes after the motorway call. Carole picked up, said it was the CSIS. The monitors don’t tell us a thing …”

  “Which makes me suspect …” Herbie began. “Damn. Damn, you’re bloody right, Bex. Because we had no Caller ID trace showing on the log, I just believed Carole. The Chief would be calling from a secure phone. Secure phones give no ID signal. I took it on trust. My fault. I accepted that the five fifty-seven call was from the Old Man, but I didn’t check …” His hand lunged for the telephone.

  “There was a confirmed call from Heathrow itself at seven-seventeen. Carole denied any call for her at that time …”

  “I can reason that one out. It’s the call at five fifty-seven I want to check.” He was already punching numbers.

  In the SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, the switchboard lit up. “My name’s Kruger,” Herbie said quietly. “I’m not on the books, but I am on a special assignment and I have to speak with C, if he’s in.”

  “One moment sir.” The line seemed to go dead until a male voice answered, “Duty officer.”

  Herbie went through the routine again—adding that it was very important—and was again asked to wait. “Me, they have to check out,” he muttered at Bex.

  Then: “Good morning, Mr. Kruger. It must be very early in the morning your time.”

  “Middle of the night, sir.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I have a question, sir. It should’ve been asked some time ago. On the night of Gus Keene’s death—early morning—his widow took an unidentified call at five fifty-seven. She says it was you calling her, saying you were on your way to Warminster. I have to ask you, sir. Did you call the widow Keene just before six that morning?”

  There was a long pause, then the CSIS’s voice again, terse, with underlying tension. “Is this a very important point of evidence?”

  “Very, sir.”

  “Well, neither I nor my PA called Carole Keene that early. By five fifty-seven I was on the way to Warminster by helicopter. We gave no prior indication that I was going there. I went because I thought Carole probably needed to see me. I thought it would help. Worboys knew, but I did not make any call. Understood?”

  “Absolutely, sir. Thank you.”

  “Good hunting, Kruger.”

  Big Herbie sighed, shook his head. “One more call now. To Warminster, depends who’s around.” At the distant end someone picked up and Kruger asked to speak with Martin Brook.

  “Hey, Martin,” he greeted the new officer in charge of Warminster. “Herbie. Look, do you have access to what equipment is in or out? …Sure, I know it’s a pain, but that’s what we got computers for …Right. I want to know if poor old Gus ever returned his cellular scrambler. If not, I wouldn’t mind knowing if it’s just knocking around the place …I give you this number? Sure.” He trotted out the number, said he would be waiting for the call, then hung up. Turning to Bex, who was gradually making her way through the chef’s salad, he gave a little shrug. “Worth a try.”

  “Where are we, Herb? I’ve only had one side of the conversation.”

  “We’re in limbo. This much we know, the Chief did not make that call to Carole at five fifty-seven. She was telling us lies. So who made it? Whoever it was called from a secure line, which means the Office or Office property. Let me give you a for instance, Bex. A what-if.”

  “I know what you’re going to say. What if Gus did not die in that car? Right?”

  “Would account for all the calls. Call from Gus, half-two in the morning. Again call from Gus from public telephone on the motorway, then another, on a secure line, twenty-seven minutes after the motorway. What if, Bex? What if Gus set up his own death? What if Carole knew? What if they had an arrangement about signals? What if he calls from the motorway? What if he still has a cellular phone with scrambler facilities? This would account for the call she says was from the Chief.”

  “Can I play devil’s advocate?”

  “Sure, how does it go?”

  “It goes, if Gus still had a cellular with a scrambler facility, why does he use an ordinary telephone at the M4 service station? There’s also the question of the call at seven-seventeen that same morning. The log shows that came from a public telephone at Heathrow. If this is some kind of strange plot, where Gus dies, but is later resurrected, why play ducks and drakes with public telephones and scrambled cellular? From what I know of Gus, he wouldn’t switch from a secure telephone to a very open line. Herbie, Gus knew the routine. He must have known the telephone log was still in operation. That all calls were saved on the computers: that they would be traced, and that we’d eventually get to them.”

  “Sure. Sure, he would. This is pure Gus, though, Bex. You didn’t know him. I knew him well. He was master of deception. He might just be giving us a bit of misdirection by switching the calls. Damn it, I don’t know anymore. I didn’t know Gus was a great magician until after he was dead …”

  “If he’s dead?”

  “Sure, if he’s—”

  The telephone rang. Herbie spoke in monosyllables for around a minute, then said, “Thanks, Martin. See you.”

  “Well?” Bex nibbled at half a hard-boiled egg.

  “Gus didn’t turn in his cellular phone. It was a Mark Eight, with all the bells and whistles. Absolutely secure, with a long range. So, Bex Olesker, it could have been done. Give me a piece of that egg.”

  “Get your own. We have twenty-four-hour room service.”

  “Rather have a piece of yours, Bex.”

  “Really?
” She shifted, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, if you’re good, who knows what you’ll get?” Her eyes twinkled and she blushed like a teenager on her first date. “Herbie, you must have had some of this in mind, so I have another question. Why’d you let Carole go?”

  “I didn’t. I let her walk, but she has company. Remember I took two telephone calls in my bedroom last night?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “First one was to say that the tail from Heathrow to here, New York, lost her. Second one was to tell me they found her again.”

  “So where is she?”

  “At this very moment?”

  “Now. At this moment, yes.”

  “She’s in D.C. She’s staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, which, incidentally, we’re going to be looking at over next weekend.”

  “We are?”

  “Sure. We’re going to a magic convention and guess who’s on the bill?”

  “Not …?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Have some of my chef’s salad.”

  The head of SIS Internal Security sent two of his best men up to The Hall, Harrow Weald. They were both very well trained and had a great deal of experience under their belts. They had sought and found bombs from Belfast to London, Beirut to Bahrain. Most explosive devices were meat and drink to them.

  Worboys’s new Range Rover looked exactly like the one that had blown up in front of his house.

  The two explosives experts knew all the wrinkles, and they even cut the engine of their own car so that it coasted to within feet of the brand-new vehicle. In the trade they were known as Mutt and Jeff because one was called Matthew and the other Geoffrey. Geoffrey loathed being called by any diminutive.

  They worked very much as a team and approached the Range Rover with initial caution, circling it as animals might circle a prospective victim. Mutt peered through the windows while Jeff got onto his knees, then his back, in order to slide under the vehicle. He knew cars of all types and makes almost down to the last rivet. He detected nothing under the Range Rover.

  “Clean as a whistle,” he pronounced.