by David Archer
Sam picked up the photograph and looked closely. The size was right, and the man in the picture had the same muscular build that Sam and Denny had seen, but the face was entirely different. Sam shook his head and passed the photo to Denny, but he also shook his head.
“I’m afraid there’s no way to be sure,” Sam said. “He’s the right size and shape, but that could actually be anybody.”
Moshe looked at both of them for a moment. “Just a moment,” he said. “You both have actually met him, is that correct?”
Sam and Denny both nodded. “Yes, we had the displeasure,” Sam said.
Moshe leaned back in his seat and put a finger to his chin. He stared at them for several seconds, then leaned forward again. “And yet, even you cannot identify him. Gentlemen, I appreciate what you have tried to do, but I’m afraid that it is time for the Mossad to take over. Lizzie, it has been a pleasure, as always. Please see to it that these gentlemen are returned to London as soon as possible, and be sure to let me know when they are gone.”
He got up and walked out of the room, and Sam and Denny stared at the door as it closed behind him.
“Well, that was abrupt,” Sam said. “What did we do to piss him off?”
Lizzie shook her head. “Nothing, I’m afraid,” she said. “Unfortunately, you have just seen an example of the reason most intelligence agencies do not get along well with the Mossad. As far as they are concerned, they are the best, and they don’t trust anyone else when it comes to the security of their own country.” She got out of her chair. “We have been dismissed, boys,” she said. “It’s late enough that I’m thinking of dinner. We might as well go and get some, and then look at getting you onto an airplane.”
“What?” Denny asked. “You’re actually going to send us back to England?”
Lizzie blinked. “Of course,” she said. “While that may have seemed like a polite suggestion, you were both just expelled from Israel. Mo won’t worry about stopping for dinner, but if you are still here in the morning, you would probably find yourselves arrested. Come on, we still have to stop by the hotel and pick up your bags.”
They left the headquarters building and Sam noticed that no one they encountered on their way to the door would even look at them. A part of him bristled, because all he was trying to do was save lives. Getting kicked out of the country, in his opinion, wasn’t going to help anyone.
When they got into the car, Sam turned and looked at Denny in the back seat. “Maybe we should leave,” he said. “It’s just frustrating that we were unable to even get a decent lead on this guy.” He let out a sigh. “Then again, Beauregard said we were just going to be instrumental in sending him back toward Noah and his people. Just wish I knew how we were supposed to do that.”
Lizzie glanced over at him. “Who is Beauregard?”
“You don’t really want to know,” Denny said. “Unfortunately, Beauregard is somebody who has a tendency to be correct. If we’re supposed to be the beaters, I’d love to know where the bush is.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, me, too. Beaters make noise to drive the game toward the hunters, but they need to have some idea of where the game is hiding.”
“That would be nice,” Denny said. “We're running out of time on this guy, I’m sure. Whatever his actual plans are, we can't let them happen.”
“What about underlings?” Lizzie asked. “Does he have a deputy, somebody he can delegate these things to?”
“I doubt it,” Sam said. “I get the impression that Tushar doesn't allow anyone to know exactly what he's doing. The only reason we even know who he is was because we got lucky. We went to talk to a biochemist about his possible involvement, and Tushar just happened to be there. It’s probably a miracle we made it out of the place alive.”
Denny, in the back seat, leaned forward so that he was almost between them. “Look, we have to get him. This is about finding a way to save lives, and lots of them. This monster is planning to kill millions in the hope that it will somehow let him lead Islam into power on a global scale. With all the terrorism already going on the world, he’s set to tip us over the brink into absolute chaos.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Denny,” Sam said. “I just wish I had some idea of what we could do.” He leaned back in his seat, frustration evident in his face and manner.
“Well, I’m afraid that the only thing we actually can do at the moment is get you back to London,” Lizzie said, “and let Albert figure out what to do next. I do wish we’d been able to catch this man, boys, but if he was smart enough to mislead us, then he’s probably doing something quite the opposite of what we expect. If that’s true, we could well be all wrong about the parade even being a target.”
Sam nodded glumly. “You’re right. Tushar could be anywhere, and we wouldn’t even know it if we saw him. For all we know...”
Sam suddenly froze. He looked at Lizzie and then turned to look at Denny in the back seat before grabbing his phone and dialing a number. It was the number Albert had given him when he’d first arrived in London, and the old spy answered on the third ring.
“Albert Lingenfelter,” he said.
“Albert, it’s Sam Prichard. I think I just figured it out. Tushar isn’t in Israel, he’s still in London!”
Albert sounded as if he was choking for a second. “What? Are you certain?”
“My gut is,” Sam said. “It just suddenly hit me, when Lizzie here said something about him leading us down a garden path. When he went to see Charles’ friend, the one who’s getting the Obie award or whatever it is, he seemed awfully interested in it, but then he just suddenly decided to leave the country. That doesn’t make any sense, unless you consider that he was testing to find out if we were paying any attention to the guy. You need to find that man fast, Albert, because the guy we thought was Tushar here was nothing but a way to see if we took the bait! We probably signed the poor man’s death warrant by showing up and trying to catch this guy.”
“I’m on it,” Albert said. “I understand you will be coming back today?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “We’ve been politely kicked out of Israel. I’ll let you know when we’re due to arrive.”
Albert sighed. “Very good,” he said. “We shall see you then.” Sam ended the call and put the phone back into his pocket.
He sat back in silence as Lizzie drove, and when he got quiet, the other two let it stay that way. They rode the rest of the way back to the hotel without speaking. Lizzie parked the car near the front entrance and the three of them walked in silence into the hotel and the elevator. Denny pushed the button for their floor.
“Four men and a woman in the lobby watched us get into the elevator,” Sam said.
“Of course,” Lizzie said. “Mo is nothing if not efficient. Those would be his people, sent here to watch and make sure you leave. They’ll probably be watching at the airport, too.”
The elevator opened and they went to their room. Lizzie followed, then went straight to the bar once they got inside. “I need a drink,” she said. “Anyone else?”
Denny raised a hand as he sat on the couch. “Make mine a double of whatever you’re drinking.”
“I don't drink,” Sam said, and both of them stared at him.
Lizzie shook her head. “You hang around with Denny long enough, you will.”
Sam and Denny started packing their things, and they were finished rather quickly. The weapons Lizzie had brought them were put back into the briefcase and then they went down to the main desk to check out. Fifteen minutes later, they were on the way to the airport.
This time, the flight was a commercial one, on British Airways. Sam called Albert to let him know they’d be getting to Heathrow at three in the morning, and then they boarded. Sam was staring out the windows as the plane taxied to the runway and took off, but Denny was sleeping like a baby in the seat beside him.
TWENTY-TWO
Tushar was furious. He’d checked the news as he always did, and there was his ow
n lovely face on the screen, just over the shoulder of the announcer. His eyes were wide as he listened to the story that went with it, but the back of his mind was already calculating how to recover from this disaster.
They’d found Embry. The announcer told how the three men he’d left behind to watch the idiot had been killed by agents of the government, and then went on to tell how Embry had given up the secrets of the Touch of Death. Five jetliners had already taken off with their cargoes of imminent doom, but the ruddy birdwatchers, the SIS lot, had tracked them down and made them all ditch into the sea!
Of course, they also got most of the rest, but for the ones Tushar had already passed off for the local operations. Only six packages left, but they were safe, and any one of them could nearly kill off all of London and the surrounding regions. With all six, he could probably leave the entire U.K. desolate, or close to it.
Now, there was a thought. The people and animals would all die off, but the land, buildings, all the infrastructure would be preserved. Once a couple of good rainstorms came along, the islands would be inhabitable again. Tushar could easily see himself ruling the world from Buckingham Palace, he really could.
Behind him, Tariq came into the room. Tushar closed the laptop and got to his feet. “Tariq,” he said. “I’m afraid things are not going as well as we’d hoped.”
Tariq smiled. “Do not be disheartened, Tushar,” the old man said. “One does not always need to strike to make his enemies cower. CNN is doing some of our work for us, by letting the entire world know that death is now able to descend from the skies. Many people who have long thought themselves safe from jihad will begin now to watch and wait for its touch to come to them. It will make our next strike only that much more powerful.”
Tushar made a salaam. “I know, but the British agents are proving far more resourceful than I had expected. Of course, we have more than enough of the Touch of Death still in our grasp, and the best stroke of all will not need much, if you approve of my plan.”
Tariq sat in the chair beside Tushar’s. “That is why I have come to speak with you. We know that the SIS was behind the ploy to draw you to the investiture, and it is likely that they hope to trap you there, but I believe it is precisely the kind of event we need to launch the Realignment. By showing that even the British Royal Family is not safe from Allah’s touch, the rest of the world will know that you are a force they cannot deny.”
Tushar eyed him excitedly. “You approve, then? And what about the greater plan? It will leave London completely barren, at least.”
“Of course I approve, of both plans,” Tariq said. “I only advise you to proceed carefully, so that the attempt is successful. Another failure could weaken the resolve of many of our allies, and this would displease Allah.”
Tushar bowed. “I will not fail, my friend. I will not fail.”
* * * * *
Sam and Denny arrived back in London on schedule, and a driver picked them up and took them back to the hotel. They were put back into the same room they’d had before, and both of them went right to bed. The flight had been a rough one, with quite a bit of turbulence and several screaming toddlers, so the little sleep they had gotten was unsatisfying.
The following morning, Noah and his team considered waking them but decided to let them sleep. After the events of the preceding day, they decided to skip breakfast and head straight to SIS headquarters. It was time to start going through all of the reports from the rescue operations and searching through any reports of unexpected, sudden deaths.
Noah, Sarah, Neil and Jenny were asked to assist Albert and Liam in going through the news reports. Out of the five planes that had to ditch, only one had suffered catastrophic damage on impact with the water. Unfortunately, there were a few people who panicked on each of the planes, and failed to use their flotation devices properly. The combined death toll from all of the planes came out to thirty-nine.
Then, however, there were the deaths that were apparently caused by powder released from the descending aircraft. A cargo ship in the North Atlantic had radioed that they were suffering from sudden illness that was killing everyone, although a few did survive when they dived into the ocean. Two smaller vessels, private yachts, also called begging for help that would never arrive in time, and then there was the village of Somia, on the coast of the island of Socotra, southeast of Yemen in the Arabian Sea. Three hundred and seventy-two men, women and children perished there, with only one radio message making it out to let anyone know that something was going wrong.
The morning wore on, and they turned from studying the news reports to looking through the reports of rescuers and investigative teams. The cargo ship, because no one knew just how long the powdered version would remain deadly, had been scuttled, along with the yachts. On Socotra, a UN hazmat team was flown in, but after seeing so many bodies laying about, it was decided to simply burn everything. A napalm airstrike was called in from Yemen, and the smoke was still rolling from the site the next day.
* * * * *
“Mr. Ibrahim? This is Tushar Balakrishnan. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time?”
“Not at all,” Ibrahim said. “As it happens, I am perfectly free at the moment. How can I help you, Mr. Balakrishnan?”
“I should like to meet with you, but privately this time. I believe that Allah has answered my prayers, and has given me instructions on how you can serve in the great work that is taking place. Will you answer the call to serve the will of Allah, Mr. Ibrahim?”
Ibrahim did not hesitate. “There is no greater desire in my heart, my dear Mr. Balakrishnan. Only command me, and I am at your service.”
Ibrahim could hear the smile in the voice that came through the line. “I was hoping you would feel that way,” he said. “Perhaps we could have dinner together this evening? I have developed a fondness for lobster, I’m afraid. Would you care to join me at Sir Walter’s Seafood, at perhaps seven this evening?”
“Again, it will be my pleasure. Is there anything I can bring, perhaps a gift of some sort for you?”
The sound of the smile was still there. “That will not be necessary, my dear friend. Your presence and willingness to serve are all the gift I could ever ask for.”
* * * * *
“Has anyone but me noticed it’s getting close to lunchtime?” Neil asked, finally. “We skipped breakfast so we could get to work, but now my belly is starting to get seriously pissed about it.”
Noah looked over at Sarah and Jenny and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m a little hungry myself,” Sarah said, shrugging.
“Ditto,” Jenny said. “I think lunch is actually long overdue, to be honest.”
“Okay, I guess we can take a break. We need to collect Marco and Renée. There’s a restaurant just down the street, I don’t want to go too far.”
The four of them walked out of the conference room and snagged Marco and Renée, who were helping Angeline scan through intelligence chatter files. They invited Angeline to come along, but she begged off, so they simply rode the elevator down to the main floor. The restaurant was only a couple of blocks away, so they decided to walk. When they got there, the place was relatively busy, but the maître d’ found them a table for six. They placed their orders and were waiting for them when two policemen walked into the establishment.
The two officers glanced around as they were being seated, and one of them let his gaze rest on Noah for a moment. Noah noticed, but kept his face turned so that it was facing Sarah, beside him. It gave the officers his profile, and allowed Noah to watch with his peripheral vision.
The policeman took out a phone and made a short call, then whispered to his partner. The partner looked at Noah, shrugged his shoulders and looked away. The first one got up and left the restaurant for a moment, but returned a couple of minutes later and took his seat, pointedly ignoring Noah as he did so.
“I’m not sure what’s happening,” Noah whispered, “but the pair of bobbies over there seem to be pay
ing some serious attention to me, and I get the feeling they’re waiting for backup.”
“I think you’re right,” Marco said. “A patrol car just pulled up out front. How do you want to handle this?”
“I don’t think there’s much to worry about,” Noah said. “If they act like there’s some sort of problem, we just show them our temporary MI6 ID cards. If that doesn’t work, we call Catherine.”
A second pair of policemen entered the restaurant, and the first officer rose from his seat. His partner followed a moment later and all four of them approached Noah’s table.
“Pardon me, sir,” the first officer said. “I’m truly sorry to trouble you, but have we met before?”
Noah looked up at him, genuinely surprised at the question. “I’m not sure,” he said. He looked at the officer closely, and then narrowed his eyes. “Actually, you do look familiar. My friends and I are from the U.S.A., and we are working with MI6 on a situation over here. Could it be that you’ve been at their headquarters in the last few days?”
The officer broke into a smile. “I think that confirms it,” he said. “Albemarle Elementary School, two years ago. That was you, wasn’t it? The one who took down the assassin?”
Noah blinked. “You were there, weren’t you? I remember you, now, you were trying to help when my friend was shot.”
“Yes, sir, and I thought that was you. Everything happened so fast that day, I never got a chance to thank you for what you done. I was brand-new on the job, then, and everything got hushed up, so a lot of these blighters thought I was simply telling a story, but I kept telling them it was true. When I saw you, I just wanted to grab the chance to prove I wasn’t making it all up.” He smiled sheepishly. “I truly hope you don’t mind, but it was probably the only chance I was going to get.”