Confessor (30 page)

The Italian authorities never treat any terrorist tip-off call as a possible hoax. Because of Italy’s complex political history—plus terrorist attacks ranging from the first Red Brigade units to Italian fascist extremists—their anti-terrorist organizations have been organized and reorganized again and again. Nowadays most anti-terrorist operations are dealt with by a unit within the paramilitary Carabinieri, and it was the duty officer of this section of the Carabinieri who was called in to listen to the recording of the woman’s telephone warning.

So it was that on the following morning, when Nabil and Ramsi went into the camera shop, they were under surveillance not only by Samira but also by a large force of unseen Carabinieri. Once the two members of the
Intiqam
cell were inside the shop, armed, uniformed men surrounded the whole of the railway station, while another group, in civilian clothes, moved in towards the shop. The general public were ushered away by uniformed police officers concerned lest the terrorists exploded one or both bombs in a last, desperate suicide act.

Samira saw what was happening and walked away, distancing herself from the two men. If the worst came to the worst, she knew it would be up to her to make a run back to London.

As Nabil and Ramsi emerged, carrying the two heavy aluminum cases, pistols and automatic weapons appeared in the hands of the plainclothesmen, and one officer shouted for the two
Intiqam
men to stop, put down the cases and place their hands over their heads. Ramsi, suddenly terrified by what he saw, forgot all his long training. By trade he was a bomb maker, happy to spend his time in some cellar or back room building devices that would cause death and horrible injury. He knew what his specialty would eventually accomplish, but like a pilot aiming his smart bombs from thousands of feet above the target, he was, by the nature of his work, detached from face-to-face combat, where instant death lay in the pistol in your hand. Ramsi was also at another disadvantage. He had been angry when briefed for these missions in Paris and Rome. Hadn’t he been sent with the team to build the bombs that would be used against their enemies? Hadn’t he received special training to arrange explosives, fuses and timers? Hadn’t he been given the most important job of teaching other members of the team to plant bombs, to set timers, to handle the explosives safely? Now he had been sent out to pick up bombs assembled by others in order to carry out the missions.

During the previous day in Paris, he had insisted on checking that the devices would do the job. He had intended to do the same thing today in Rome. So it was Ramsi who did as he was told: put the case on the ground, slowly straightened up and placed his hands over his head.

Nabil did not hesitate. He turned and started to run, knowing that they would probably have to hunt him down to catch him, banking on the fact that they would not take the chance of firing at him while he was carrying the case. He was ten paces from Ramsi when he glanced back, saw his comrade had given in and, with a loud curse, pulled his pistol and raised it to kill the traitor.

He was riddled with shots from the Carabinieri. The case he was carrying crashed to the ground, and, for less than a second, everyone seemed to pause, flinching away from the huge explosion that could follow, but nothing happened; the pause went almost unnoticed as Nabil’s chest was ripped away by bullets and his body seemed to spin in the air like some whirling children’s top, then lifted, finally hitting the paving with a crunch.

They closed on Ramsi, frisked him—two bomb squad men pulling the case away—and handcuffed his wrists. In a daze the bomb maker was led away.

Samira saw all this and was filled with fear. She now knew what the word “dread” truly meant and she willed herself to walk slowly away. Finally, she hailed a cab and asked to be taken to Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport.

By midafternoon she was back in London and heading towards the Camberwell house. She took great care and made the journey by Underground, taxi and bus, changing several times and finally walking the last four or five blocks through a light drizzle of rain that seemed to reflect her own disconsolate feelings. Now it was up to the four of them: herself, Hisham, Ahmad and Dinah.

It was only when she let herself into the house that she was told by Dinah—who had been left behind—that they would be moving to yet a new location and that there had also been trouble in the United States. The story had been on the television news, and though the
Intiqam
teams were not cognizant of each other’s roles, the fact that only two of the original American team were still at large upset both the women.

They left the Camberwell house in the early evening and Dinah led her to their new quarters: a large service apartment just off Kensington High Street.

Far away, in the garden of his villa overlooking Baghdad, the
Biwãba
—the Gatekeeper—sat alone as he contemplated the situation. His team in America had been decimated. Two of the British team were out of the game—one dead, the other in custody. It was Ramsi, the man being held in Rome, who worried him most. Ramsi, he had always considered, was the one who might crack under pressure of hostile interrogation.

Hisham would certainly move the British team to another safe house, so there was little information Ramsi could give on the question of location. Neither did the bomb maker know the final moves of the plan—the moves they called
Magic Lightning
—so that was safe.

The fact that only two of the original team were left in New York caused him even greater concern. To succeed and carry the entire design to its natural conclusion would now be very difficult, as security forces would be more alert. The original scheme had called for acts of violence to take place throughout the summer months so that the culmination would occur as the various governments returned to their seats of power when the long vacation period was over—two weeks to go.

He sat and thought over the matter for almost two hours. Finally, he came to a decision. They could not wait out the two weeks until the main targets would be in place. He would have to bring the targets back to their cities—to London, Washington, Paris and Rome—so that
Magic Lightning
could play on them and so destroy all effective governments.

He went into the house and put a telephone call through to a number in Switzerland.

In a room leading from an underground laboratory on the outskirts of Geneva, the telephone rang. It was picked up by a young biochemist who, with two other equally brilliant young men, was being paid a fortune to develop something which, once let loose, would be more lethal than any poison or nerve gas.

“This is the Kingpin,” the
Biwãba
said in his soft, slightly threatening voice. He spoke in English.

“Pestilence,” the young biochemist replied.

“How long will it take you to complete the packages?”

The young man laughed. “A day. No longer. As we told you, the work is not arduous. It is a relatively simple matter.”

“Then make your final preparations. I shall have couriers with you in the next forty-eight hours.” The
Biwãba
closed the line and then called the
Yussif
teams in both England and the United States. They talked in a code, which told these men in the Hudson Valley and in Britain’s beautiful Oxfordshire countryside, that they were to prepare for new and very special instructions that would reach them in the usual manner.

With luck, the
Biwãba
would have things ready for the final horror in a matter of hours. If everyone concerned did exactly as they were told. A week would see it done.

O
NCE MORE, BIG HERBIE
Kruger found it difficult to sleep. Perhaps it was the complexity of the case or, possibly, the atmosphere of the Dower House, his own private hell during the year of interrogations.

He raided the fridge and found some tasty fish paste, which he spread on a couple of pieces of bread, taking them through to Gus’s study, together with a large mug of coffee. Only later did he discover, from Bitsy, that the fish paste was a well-known brand of cat food. Bitsy had started feeding every stray that came her way.

Earlier, he had tried to send himself to sleep by reading a book from Gus’s library—
Conjurers’ Psychological Secrets
, by S. H. Sharpe—but instead of lulling him, the work wakened him up. He was amazed, for this book could just as well have been written as a manual for intelligence and security services. Gus, he considered, had been right. The techniques and methods of the performing magician ran parallel to the techniques of what was, in intelligence, called tradecraft.

In the study he tried to gather his tangled thoughts. It was exceptionally difficult to focus everything on the how and why of Gus’s death, when they now found it appeared to dovetail with the recent terrorist activity. The FFIRA and the hostile Arab cells seemed almost to have been designed to lead them away from the truth, pulling efforts into tributaries which beckoned them from the main target—Gus’s killer, or killers.

He was also depressed, as there was something funny about Gus’s having run the agent
Jasmine
. To add to this concern, he was now ninety-nine percent certain that he could not trust Carole, and that hurt him, for he had been almost like a father to her. Slowly he came to the conclusion that he had no option but to interrogate her again, with great hostility.

So, through the night, Herb worked is way through several layers of Gus’s dossier and the tangled web of notes for his memoirs. At around eight in the morning he had another shock. This time it was a private file, red flagged and marked “Mr. Keene Only. No Subscribers.”

After reading only a few lines he picked up the telephone and called Worboys, who was also in the Office early.

“Tony, the asset that Five latched on to?”

“The one who gave us so much grief?”

“That’s the fellow. One they didn’t give up without a struggle. You got his name?”

“Sure. Hisham Silwani.”

“This can’t be
Jasmine
by chance?”

“Definitely
not Jasmine
, Herb.”

“He got a crypto? With the Security Service I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Let me have it, Tony. Be a good old chum and share it with me.”

“Share it, Herb? Share it? For heaven’s sake, don’t go all American on me. The damned American Service are always wanting to share things with me when, as they say, they have a visit with me. I’ll do better than share it, Herb, I’ll give it to you.”

“Wait.”

“Wait?”

“Sure, let me have a shot at reading your mind.” He had watched Gus doing his thing on video, so now Herb was in the psychic business. “I sense that this man has a crypto which is biblical. It is a Bible name beginning with an I—”

“Cut the crap, Herb. Yes.”

“It starts with an I and the name is Ishmael, like in
Moby Dick
also—‘Don’t call me Ishmael, I’ll call you.’”

“No, Herb. Ishmael, as in son of Abraham and Hagar. Recipient of a divine blessing. Our friends in the Security Service have a sense of humor; Hisham Silwani was the recipient of their divine blessing. They turned him.”

“Wrong, Tony. I got it in front of me.
Gus
turned him.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Gus turned this guy for the Security Service. Same as Gus got hold of this asset
Jasmine
. Very close fellow, our Gus.”

“You’re sure? I mean one hundred percent sure?”

“Two hundred and fifty percent sure. Proof positive. Might even be able to get DNA.”

“Stop horsing about, Herb. You’re really serious?”

“I told you, Tony. We lent Gus to Five. Gus turned the guy and never told us. Like Five never told us.”

“Shit!” said Worboys with feeling.

“While we’re at it, Young Worboys, what did you get from the telephone numbers in
The Times
answerback ad?”

“Damn all. Those telephone numbers make no sense at all.”

“You tried other cities as well as London?”

“They tracked the entire United Kingdom, Herb. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.”

“Okay, why not try it worldwide? You see, Tony, they have big silver birds these days. Carry people over oceans.”

“I think we have them doing that already—I mean a global search.”

“Good. So what about the telephone log in and out of here and the big house?”

“On its way to you now by courier. A couple of interesting things there. But you really have got Gus’s fingerprints all over
Ishmael
?”

“Told you, Tony. Give you full report later in the day. Trouble is these islands are full of noises and full of silence. Now we got committees running things, left hand doesn’t know what right hand is doing half the time.”

“We really only want to know who blew Gus away, Herb. This is getting more complicated.”

“Sure, I’ll give you full complications later. Okay?”

Herbie had it there in front of him. Chapter and verse. A long notation giving all the facts.

The Security people had come to Gus in 1983 wanting to lay their hands on a new Middle East asset. They had put the man, Hisham Silwani, under surveillance and considered that he was not—as they said—kosher. Gus had the notes of his first meeting with the two officers who really wanted the man. “You’re good at turning and burning, Gus,” they had said. “Can you do this one for us? Discreet. Closed mouth. Strictly
entre nous
.”

Gus had noted in the file:

They took me out to watch Silwani today. Playboy Arab on the surface, but he has contacts which a playboy would steer clear of. I was with them on the following night, and it was very obvious that Mr. Silwani liked playing with the ladies. To be fair, they liked playing with him also. I told J and B that I could set it up. I thought Mary Delacourt would suit very well. I said that if I baited the trap the actual burn would be up to them. Then I’d come in and turn him when they had softened him up. They said okay.

The next comment was made almost a week later:

Our brothers at Five have decided to give Mr. Silwani a shot. They called me in for a meeting, and C has given permission for them to use me without having the details from them. I am not elated over the fact that our brothers and sisters are not going to share the product, so to speak. However, it is a go, so we go.

Last night I had a long talk with Mary (Delacourt). She said things like “Oh, yes!” and “Yum-yum.” So I yum-yummed her, just for the practice, and she is going to latch on to him sometime this week. The boys will then do their stuff and I shall be called in to spin him. It all appears to be straightforward. Mary is a Sloane at heart, and she mentioned some club where the younger royals can be seen at least twice a week. She has an in with the management and they will send Brother Silwani an invitation—a free week of temporary membership, then he can decide if he wants to pay ten grand a year so that he can go out with aristocratic young women, and get the occasional glimpse of Di and Fergie.