Rain on the Dead (16 page)

“Maybe, but that was before Nantucket. AQ tried to kill you, and from what I’ve read about them, they’ll try it again because they don’t do failure,” she said. “This is all very risky.”

“You’re probably right,” he said. “I’ll have to take that as it comes. The truth of the matter is that it would not make the slightest difference if I booked into the Dorchester as Mr. Smith. Al-Qaeda would still know it was me.”

She was suddenly angry. “So what are you going to do? Start carrying a pistol in your pocket, waiting for them to turn up—or should I say hoping they’ll turn up? This isn’t 1974, and it’s not Saigon, where action and passion were second nature to you.”

“Would that be so bad? At least it would show I was still alive. I’m meeting Blake now. Just go to bed, Carol,” and he switched off his mobile.

—

The supper bar was quiet enough when Cazalet went in, no more than twelve or fifteen tables taken, Professor Ali Khan at one of them. The two ladies who had been sitting nearby in the foyer had obviously followed him in and were within talking distance. Blake was near the palms by the window, slightly isolated and reading
Vanity Fair
. His champagne glass was half full.

Cazalet said to the waiter, “I’ll have some of that champagne, smoked salmon, and scrambled eggs. Is that all right for you, Blake?”

“Suits me fine.”

“Give us half an hour,” Cazalet told the waiter, and turned to Blake. “I think we should talk.”

—

Khan was wearing a KGB sound enhancer. The clarity was remarkable and he could hear everything. More important, however, was his cane with the carved ivory handle. It contained a directional microphone, which could record at quite a distance.

“So what have you decided?” Blake said. “Where’s the holiday to be? What are you going to get up to?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. If I do and you keep the whole business to yourself, perhaps it could ruin your career.”

“Screw my career, and I promise not to tell the President.”

“Okay, I’m going to Paris tomorrow.”

“What the hell for?”

“I figure I’ll look in on the UN committee meeting with the French President. When it moves to London, I’ll move with it. That’s my excuse.”

Blake frowned. “So why are you really going?”

“Ferguson’s found out quite a lot about what—and who—was behind Nantucket. And somehow I’ve just neglected to pass it on to either the White House or the CIA.”

“You’re frightening me now,” Blake told him. “Tell me the worst.”

—

Blake had started listening with a certain foreboding on his face, which was replaced by a kind of awe by the time Cazalet had finished.

“God help us, it’s better than the midnight movie.”

Two waiters arrived together with their meal, and conversation subsided while they served. They moved away, and Blake said, “So why is it so important to go to Paris?”

Cazalet talked while he ate: “When those Chechens attacked on Nantucket, one of them grabbed Sara Gideon, shouting his head off, and was about to shoot her when she stabbed him.”

“A soldier to the hilt, that young woman,” Blake said.

“Which I plan to take advantage of, her and the rest of Ferguson’s people. They know a lot about the Master now. They know he’s in London. They know he was appointed by a Grand Council in Paris. And I bet we can find out a lot more. I might not be able to do much good in the general scheme of things, but I plan to meet the Master face-to-face and shoot the bastard.”

Blake didn’t know what to say. Finally, he gave a small laugh and said, “I’d try to argue you out of it, but I know from experience that’d be useless. When your mind’s made up . . . Have you still got one of those nylon-and-titanium bulletproof vests Ferguson gave us some years ago?”

“I never travel without it.”

“Then just promise me this: Promise me you’ll wear it at all times.”

“My word on it,” Cazalet said.

—

Cazalet said good night to Blake under the hotel’s canopy, and as he walked back inside, he met Ali Khan, emerging from the supper bar. “Did you have an enjoyable meal, Professor?” Cazalet asked.

“Excellent,” Khan said as they walked down to the elevator. “I
love the hotel and always have, but then I love Washington. I came here at seventeen with my father from Pakistan. He was a widower and a very great eye surgeon, and I followed him as a student at the medical school.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. Cazalet said, “Do you return to Pakistan often?”

“I have, of course, to see relatives, but Washington has been home to me for fifty years now. I’m a widower, no children. What would I do anywhere else?”

The elevator stopped, and he stepped out and turned. “Such an honor for me, sir. Good night to you.” And he walked away as the doors closed.

In his suite, Cazalet poured himself a brandy and ginger ale, dimmed the lights, opened the glass door to the terrace, and enjoyed the fresh smell of the room. Paris beckoned. He was already excited.

—

Fifteen years earlier, on vacation in Pakistan, relatives had taken Ali Khan to hear a remarkable new vision for Islam being preached by a man named Osama bin Laden. It was soon to be embraced by Muslims all over the world, but on that day, the crowd roared and Ali Khan roared with them, his life changed utterly.

He had found the conversation between Cazalet and Blake Johnson to be one of the most remarkable he had ever listened to. Once in his suite, he removed the recording device and the directional microphone, both incredibly small and delicate, and inserted them into what looked like a perfectly normal tape recorder. It was, in fact, a device that coded the contents for transmission, via
satellite, to anywhere in the world. In this case, it was headed for al-Qaeda’s Grand Council in Europe.

He waited, and after a while a green light blinked three times and the machine turned itself off. Mission accomplished and nothing to do with him anymore. What happened now was not his business. A pity really, because he’d rather liked Cazalet, but such thinking was pointless, so he went to bed.

—

In his apartment, Blake was sitting at his desk, going through a security report, when his phone rang. It was Carol Shaw and she was upset.

“Blake, have you got a moment? I’m desperately worried about Jake.”

“And why should you be?” he asked.

“Look, I’m aware of the attempt on his life on Nantucket. I know I’m not supposed to, and it’s top secret and so on, but Jake tells me about most things.”

“Correction, Carol,” Blake said. “Jake has been telling you everything for at least fifteen years. Do you think I don’t know that? So let’s start again. What is it you want to discuss, Paris?”

“So you know about that?” she said. “Parading himself like a target, daring them to have a second go at him when the fool has no security whatever.”

If Cazalet hadn’t told her what else he had in mind, Blake wasn’t going to tell her. “If he is on a hit list, he’s in danger wherever he goes. Paris would be no worse than anywhere else,” Blake told her.

“I can see I’m going to have to go to the President about this,” she said.

“Well, you can, of course, but I can guarantee one thing. Jake will never speak to you again if you do. Do you want that to happen?”

She gave a long shuddering sigh. “Of course I don’t. You’re absolutely right. I’ve been silly. I lost my husband to the stupidity of war. I’ve never really got over that. I couldn’t bear to go through it again.”

And he was immensely sorry for her. “Carol, he only told me what he intended to do because I promised not to tell the President. On the other hand, I didn’t promise not to tell General Charles Ferguson in London.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “Do you think he might have a solution?”

“He often does. Leave it with me. I’ll ring you back.”

“But when?” she said. “London’s five hours ahead of Washington, it must be almost three o’clock in the morning over there.”

“Just go away, Carol, I’ll be in touch,” and he cut her off.

There was a perfect solution to the time problem, of course, which was Major Giles Roper. The man barely slept, and Blake knew just where to find him.

Roper came on almost at once. “Why, Blake my man, what a pleasure, especially at this time in the morning. It obviously means you have a problem. How can I help?”

Blake explained in detail, and Roper seemed amused more than anything else. “So now he’s a vigilante? Rather different from presidential days. No Secret Service covering his back, no security at all. Is he contemplating suicide?”

“What would Charles Ferguson think of it?”

“Not very much, but I’ll put you on hold and see. He happens to be here at the moment, staying in the guest wing.”

“It’s three a.m., Giles,” Blake said. “He isn’t going to be very pleased.”

“Well, that’s just too bad,” Roper said, and rang through to Ferguson’s room.

—

The general took it surprisingly well when he joined them in the computer room wearing a bathrobe and sat beside Roper, drinking tea plus a shot of whiskey.

“What in hell is Jake Cazalet up to?” he asked.

Blake shrugged. “He’s turned into a bit of a wild card.”

“That’s an understatement,” Ferguson said.

“What will you do?”

“Bring in the DGSE, the French Secret Service, and our old friend Colonel Claude Duval. We’ll keep a close eye on him, beginning when his plane touches down at Charles de Gaulle.”

“He might not be too pleased.”

“He’ll get over it,” Ferguson said. “Especially when he discovers that Sean Dillon and Sara Gideon have also moved into the Ritz.” He smiled and raised his cup of tea in salute to the screen. “I feel quite cheered by all this, Blake. Who knows where it might take us? But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get back to bed.”

—

Twenty minutes later, Blake was speaking to Carol on the phone, filling her in with what was going to happen.

“I’ll take the blame at some future date. I’ll point out to Jake that I only promised not to tell all to the President. On reflection, I
got worried and as he was also due to go to London, decided it was wise to seek Ferguson’s advice.”

She was overjoyed. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You can easily do that by letting him get on with what he wants to, otherwise you’ll lose his friendship.”

She sighed. “You’re right, of course. I’d better get back to reality, see everything’s properly organized for the trip. Will you be seeing him off?”

“That’s the last thing I’m going to do. I just want him out of Washington before the President discovers what he’s up to. I’ll see you, Carol.”

—

In London at the same time, the Master came awake to rain rattling the windows of the penthouse apartment that had been the top floor of an Edwardian mansion in Mayfair. The living room extended into a studio, which was now furnished as a library office. There were four rooms below, serviced by a narrow lift, rooms lovingly preserved, furniture covered in drapes.

He had been sleeping on a couch, which he did frequently, and could see across to his desk, where a green light pinged softly, which meant only one thing. A communication from the Grand Council.

He got up and went straight to the desk, acknowledged receipt, then switched on the transmitter. A neutral voice detailed the provenance of the material and the identity of the players. A few moments later, he joined Jake Cazalet and Blake Johnson for supper at the Hay-Adams Hotel.

He listened to them, considering what it meant. It was certainly
the coup of a lifetime. Because of it, he now knew everything that had happened to Ferguson and his people since Nantucket, including the truth about the Drumgoole affair.

So Tod Flynn was dead after all? What a clever bastard Sean Dillon was, but he’d overreached by attempting to play a dead man. That could be dealt with later. The important thing was the mine of information he now possessed. Including the fact that sometime during the afternoon, Jake Cazalet was arriving in Paris to stay at the Ritz without presidential approval. This would allow the White House to pull the plug on his security, knowing that the French would be forced to assume it, which meant that when the plane landed, it would probably be greeted by Colonel Claude Duval of the DGSE.

What a coup it would be to finish the job started in Nantucket and knock off Jake Cazalet in Paris. These days, with the terrible civil war in Syria, there were plenty of men available and capable of such an assassination, either in Paris or London. Jihadists home from the war, taking a rest and available, at a price, to handle such a task.

He consulted the Grant Council and found what he wanted with no problem: Aleg Lupu, a Chechen hard man of the finest water, back from Syria for two months to receive specialist treatment for a bullet in the left thigh.

He’d been living with his woman, a French Algerian named Zahra le Ruez. The word was that he was about to return to the fray in Syria by way of Turkey, but since the only thing Zahra loved in this world more than herself was Lupu, anything that would keep him in Paris would appeal to her greatly. An actress since fourteen, she still performed when a good show was available. And
when resting, as actors referred to it, she augmented her earnings by performing as a high-class lady of the night who worked only the best hotels. She lived in a luxurious barge on a lonely little quay near Notre Dame.

—

Asleep on the couch in the salon, Zahra came awake with a start and lay there, aware of Lupu’s steady snoring from her cabin. She pushed herself up on her elbow, saw the light glowing on her mobile, and reached to the table.

“Who in the hell is it at this time in the morning?”

She had spoken French, and the Master replied in English. “There is only one God, and Osama is his Prophet.”

She recognized him instantly and sat up. “Master, it’s you,” and she could not help the touch of fear in her voice.

“Who else would it be, Zahra? Is Lupu still with you?”