THORNSBY, ENGLAND
Saturday afternoon
Imam Al-Hädi ibn Mirza crossed his arms over his white-robed chest and sat back in his caned chair, well aware that the other dozen or so customers were eyeing him, not surprising because he looked so different from them, a foreigner they didn’t trust or understand, a holy man who belonged in the desert, not in this time-warped little English village barely large enough to be on the map, in this middle-class little tea shop with its lace draperies and middle-aged serving women.
He looked with pride at the stylish man opposite him, the one he called Hercule, the name only those intimate with him were privileged to know. He dipped his almond biscotti into his cappuccino to soften it and chewed gingerly since one of his back teeth ached from a cavity again, a cavity he had to get taken care of but didn’t want to. He saw Hercule was scanning the room from their small back-corner table to be sure no one would hear them before he spoke. The imam noted he didn’t even look fatigued from his red-eye private flight back from Boston, not six hours before. A privilege of youth and money, the imam thought, and he wondered what the Strategist would look like when he’d reached his own age—if, that is, he was still alive.
“Thank you for coming this far so promptly,” Hercule said. “Are you certain your driver evaded anyone following you on your way here?”
“You know my driver Sarkis is a wily old dog. He can sniff out an infidel no matter how they try to hide themselves. Stop your worrying, Hercule, you sound like an old woman.”
The imam was being his usual dismissive self, not a good sign. “You should assume that MI5 has agents following you, listening in on your every word on the telephone. Listening as well to your followers, tracking where they go and who they see. Take this seriously, Imam.”
“Naturally I take this seriously. I expect your pilot made good time from Boston?”
Hercule knew the imam hadn’t been all that careful, regardless of his assurances, but now, he hoped, he would. “Mr. Picard always makes excellent time. It was nothing, less than six hours.” Hercule gave an elegant shrug, lifted his cup of English tea in salute. “First of all, Imam, I wish to congratulate you on the spectacular triumph yesterday. Your funding and my planning, together as always. When our supporters find out you were responsible, your donations will flow like a river.”
The imam smiled. The praise was his just due, and high praise it was from the man he’d nurtured and trained as a father would a worthy and beloved son, a man who’d earned the name the Strategist, a name now feared and respected. The man who sat across the table from him didn’t dress as a devout Muslim. He wore Western clothes and exhibited Western tastes. He didn’t pray five times a day, he drank alcohol whenever he chose to; indeed, he flaunted not being devout. Only the imam knew he was not just a master at planning, but a master of deception as well, appearing to those in his milieu as an adopted English gentleman, admired and accepted. Hercule knew lying to the infidels was not a sin, he had taught him that.
The imam raised his cappuccino to tap it against Hercule’s cup. “In that you are right. It was a great success.” The bombing of the TGV had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. “Bahar executed your plan perfectly. The list of dead is growing. The French are beside themselves, and even more afraid of their Muslim population now after the bombing of their precious TGV.”
The imam raised his cup again in a salute to a particularly nosy older woman who’d been staring at him, and smiled. She flushed with embarrassment and turned away quickly, the old crow.
Hercule witnessed this small drama. He understood both the woman and the imam, and realized he sided with her. Unlike the imam, he was dressed casually in a polo shirt, slouchy leather jacket, Armani slacks, and moccasins. He looked elegant and casual, a look he knew the English admired and instinctively trusted. He believed the imam a fool for shoving his differentness in the white English faces, particularly in this insignificant place where he wouldn’t be forgotten.
As for the bombing of the TGV, yes, it had gone off exactly as he’d planned it, and he’d been very pleased. Five million euros from Mr. Bardon, to be exact, electronically forwarded to one of his untraceable Swiss bank accounts. Certainly the old man with the bad teeth and the white robe sitting across from him would never need to know that. It was time, he thought, looking at the imam’s proud old face, so full of empathy one moment and sulking anger the next, hate always lurking behind those intense old eyes. He would let him know he would no longer tolerate his arrogance, his misguided belief that his position as imam would protect them both and that he would remain on Mohammad’s all-time list of favorites.
Hercule leaned forward, said quietly, “You were wrong, Imam, about Nasim. Your assurances and blind faith in your plan for him brought us failure in New York. And for what? To protect a stream of money coming to the mosque and to you.” There, it was said, and it sat squarely between them now. He watched the imam stiffen, imagined his thick white hair beneath its brilliantly white burnoose stiffening with him. Was he insulted? Afraid? Perhaps both. Hercule’s voice had been like chipped ice.
Hercule took another bite of his chocolate croissant, being careful the chocolate didn’t ooze out, and waited. The imam never believed it possible he could be wrong, and that’s what made him dangerous. How would he deal with his most obvious blunder?
“Nasim brought us failure only at JFK,” the imam said finally, his voice calm, as if they were discussing the light rain outside. He shrugged. “Nasim did no lasting damage. He knew nothing except his small part.” He flipped his hand over, palm up. “He gave them nothing at all, so they continue to have no proof of anything.”
The imam smiled then, crossed his arms over his white-robed chest. “If Nasim was my mistake, then you, Hercule, are responsible for our failure at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The end result of your plan in New York was a few broken windows on Fifth Avenue and the dead senator’s hearse destroyed when the bomb exploded. Ah, but all the mourners inside the cathedral, and the cathedral itself, they were unharmed.
“Instead of blaming yourself or me, Hercule, for what has failed, let us enjoy what we’ve accomplished and move on to the next great task before us.”
The old fossil had not only attacked him, he was giving him a sermon. Hercule realized the imam saw clearly he had managed to surprise him, and he was enjoying himself. Hercule said slowly, “You said yourself the boy finding the bomb, the priest hurling it away from the cathedral, was bad luck, that no one was to blame.”
“There you have it. So was Nasim—simple bad luck. Who could have guessed that an FBI agent would be there in the security line? We both knew Nasim was not a trained fighter, and so it was possible for that woman with her sinful red hair to defeat him.” Hercule saw his hand was now a fist on the table when he spoke of her, the veins riding high and thick beneath his flesh.
And that was why Hercule still admired the imam. He could turn on a dime, as the Americans said. It was well done. “Yes, and I saw the FBI press conference after they killed our men in Connecticut. The woman spoke directly to me, taunted me. On the flight I had time to plan. Everything is in place to rid us of her. She will become dust and bone for what she did.”
“It is dangerous to play the hero in a holy way,” the imam said, taking another sip of his cappuccino. “But why do you waste time killing this woman now when you have so many more pressing matters to settle? Sabeen Conklin has come to see me often since her son and his family disappeared. MI5 made accusations about me to her, and she had the gall to question me about whether I had anything to do with it. I had no choice but to lie to her, and assure her I was equally concerned and would look into it myself.” He pictured Sabeen Conklin, a vain, rich, middle-aged woman, but still a true believer, despite all her Western extravagance. He’d been slowly turning her back to him again, comforting her daily in her time of grief. Until the Conklins were freed. “What will happen now after her accursed daughter-in-law and grandchildren contact her? Marie Claire will poison her against us, and she will sell the business, just as her husband was doing.”
Hercule took another sip of his Earl Grey tea, squeezed in more lemon. “Unfortunately, Imam, that is right, we will have to turn to other resources. The FBI has taken control of Marie Claire Conklin. They would not be so unwise to let her show herself, so there is little we can do. You should treat Sabeen Conklin as you always have and stop wishing for the impossible. Marie Claire now has all the control of all the money, not she.
“The bottom line here is that Bella will bring in more than Sabeen Conklin ever funneled illegally through her husband’s business to you. What you need to do, Imam, is to eliminate all your records of her donations, and where that money went. Very soon now you can expect a visit from MI5, and this time they will have a warrant.”
The imam said, “I do not understand why MI5 hasn’t already come around to accuse me of all manner of mayhem in New York, but they have not.”
Hercule was surprised, too, because it was not what he would have expected of them. And that worried him even more. “When they come, simply continue to tell them you know nothing of this. Destroy all files they shouldn’t see. They cannot touch you without them.”
The imam laughed. “They are fools. I have no fear of them.”
The imam didn’t understand his own enemies. Hercule wondered if his ignorance, his trust in the old barbaric ways, would be the end of him. He looked around the tearoom once again. “This is the last time we will meet. It will soon be too dangerous.”
The imam nodded. “There is no need to take undue risks.” He arched a thick white brow. “Is our next . . . effort to proceed? Has the Englishwoman given you what you need?”
“Yes. I am meeting her to confirm at lunch tomorrow.” The imam hadn’t called her his lover, though she was. She was also very good at it, for an earl’s daughter. Possibly because she had to pawn the gifts he gave her to keep her wastrel brother from living in a ditch because her family had finally cut him off. It was to her advantage to keep him pleased.
“It was well done of you, an inspired choice. Lady Elizabeth provides excellent cover, and entrée into the highest levels of London society.”
“And to their politicians,” Hercule said. “Her stiff-necked father is in the House of Lords and has the ear of a great many in government. He would as soon kick me in the teeth. I am a foreigner—an Algerian, no less—but I am well regarded in society and by his daughter, and so he’s had to swallow his bile.”
“Yes, you chose well. The cathedral will be thick with their kind.”
Ah, that was true enough, but Hercule was interested in only one of them, which was why he’d chosen the time and place very carefully. He slowly rose, smiled down at the old man. He laid a ten-pound note on the table. “Watch the BBC tonight, Imam. I have been asked to give my expert opinion on the economic consequences if the bomb had done great destruction to Saint Patrick’s. I imagine they will also ask for my opinion about their precious Saint Paul’s.”
“So the government looks to the wolf for solutions?”
“They have no idea.” Hercule left, aware that every eye in the tearoom followed him out.