WYVERLY PLACE
LONDON
Monday afternoon
Hercule stood in the center of his penthouse flat on Wyverly Place, sipping his favorite Golden Slope chardonnay, staring at the television as the BBC reported the incident the night before in Brooklyn, New York, a video of the raging fire in the background. The same FBI agent who’d saved JFK had shot one of the attackers, and that was headline news across the world. The BBC’s report was, naturally, very different from Al Jazeera’s. It was from an informant at the news desk at Al Jazeera that the imam had gotten the call telling him of what had happened in Brooklyn, minutes before the news broke in the media. It was the imam who’d called Hercule on his burner. The old man was upset, but Hercule had also heard the trace of a gloat in his voice when he told him that his own handpicked killers had failed.
What had happened? His contact in New York, Salila, was a man who owed Hercule his very life. Salila had provided the incendiary device and the automatic weapons. He’d sent over some of his best people. Mohammad Hosni, not as fast with a knife as he’d once been, perhaps, but still a seasoned warrior, competent with an automatic, and a leader. Mifsud Shadid, his protégé, too young to entrust with the planning, but eager, and ruthless as a viper. And little Kenza, Hercule’s own prize, only seventeen. He’d seen her fight when she was fourteen, seen how she simply didn’t give up even when she fell to her knees, her face turning blue because she couldn’t breathe. Yet she’d kicked out with her foot and knocked her opponent to the ground, then leapt on him. He’d instructed the imam to give her over to his best trainer. With his guidance, she’d been fashioned into a guided missile, his guided missile.
Another big reason he’d selected the three was because none of them were on the watch lists, and they’d sailed through customs and security as he’d known they would, as British Muslims, an older man shepherding his two young friends. He didn’t know who had been killed, who was being held in FBI custody at Federal Plaza. The woman, his Kenza, was said to be severely wounded and under guard at a New York hospital. No casualties were reported among the FBI: not their target, Sherlock, none of them. How should he have planned differently to change the outcome? In hindsight, he could answer that easily enough. The FBI had set a trap, and that meant he’d acted too quickly. He should have given the FBI time to grow confident and lax.
It was now in the past, over with. He’d lost that battle, but he would win the war. He always did.
At least he knew none of the three would talk with the FBI. Kenza would spit on anyone who asked her questions. He trusted them all implicitly, another reason he’d chosen them. But would Kenza live? He had no way to know, and none of his informants knew a thing. The FBI had put an immediate lid on her whereabouts. Not that it mattered how soon he found out. Still, it was disconcerting to him to feel helpless. Hercule hated it. Who was dead, Mifsud Shadid or Mohammad Hosni?
He put it aside when his mobile buzzed. He’d been waiting for the call, from his man Bahar, who was to check in with him well before he entered St. Paul’s. Hercule heard the London traffic in the background as he listened. It was understood they would always speak in English because Arabic coming out of a man’s mouth tended to make Westerners pay attention. You could be holding a bomb in your hand, but if you spoke the Queen’s English, Londoners would give you a smile and a nod. But today Bahar wouldn’t be anything like himself. Hercule had planned out his appearance to the last detail, known exactly how he should dress for his role. It would be risky because they’d have increased security at St. Paul’s since the bombing at St. Patrick’s. But if he could get Bahar through the door as a plausible wedding guest, it wouldn’t make any difference. No one knew who Bahar was, and even if they did, they wouldn’t recognize him dressed as he was today.
Bahar sounded calm and confident. “I am standing across the street from the main entrance to Saint Paul’s. Guests are starting to flow in, happy, chattering. I’ll wait until there are more of them and then I’ll enfold myself in amongst them, as you planned, Strategist. Security is thicker than usual. I can’t tell if they’re private, for the wedding, or added agents. But you were right again, they are not checking any of the guests’ bags. But they are checking wedding invitations.”
Hercule was pleased to hear Bahar call him the Strategist. The imam thought many years before that the name gave him a certain mystique. It had certainly added to his growing status. He thought it was one of the imam’s better ideas. “And your disguise? Did you take your time, dress exactly as I asked? No one has seen Lady Durbish in years, but the dress I picked would suit her perfectly. And your makeup? You copied the photo I sent you?”
Bahar laughed. “Shall I send you a selfie, as the Americans call it? Trust me, Strategist, I am the very image of that wealthy, reclusive old lady herself, believe me. A faded beauty, as the English say. I am dressed exactly as instructed, with your large diamonds on my fingers. The powder on my face even lightens my skin to match the whey-faced English. Lady Evelyn Durbish’s invitation is in my purse, ready to show security.”
Hercule said, “If by chance someone who knows Lady Durbish comes up to you, they won’t question you are. No one has seen her in the flesh for years. The old lady surely won’t be there. She’s very likely puttering about the family home, Durbish Abbey, an ancient pile of stones in Derbyshire.”
“I believe I see Lady Elizabeth Palmer at the entrance with a group of young women. This is surely strange. They are all dressed alike.”
“They are the bridesmaids, that is why,” Hercule said. “I wonder why they aren’t with the bride?”
Of course Bahar wouldn’t know. Hercule wondered how Bahar knew of Elizabeth. Well, he had eyes, he’d probably seen photos of him with her in the London Times or the tabloids.
A pause, then, “It is possible she will be killed, Strategist.”
“Death is but an instant away for all of us, Bahar. The C-4 is primed?”
“And carefully encased in our enriched plastic coating, flattened enough to slip into your selected spots for maximum destruction. It will not be noticed.”
“Good. In forty-five minutes I will expect to hear news of our message to the West. Do not fail us, Bahar.” Hercule slipped his mobile back into his pocket. All would go well this time, Hercule felt it to his bones. He thought of Elizabeth again. Could she possibly survive the blast where she would be standing?
Hercule had always been a fatalist, had never believed in the absurd rewards that supposedly awaited a devout Muslim upon his death. He wondered if Elizabeth was one of those who believed in an afterlife, wondered if that would comfort her in the instant before her heart stopped beating. It was doubtful, though, that she would even have that. The explosion itself was an instant in time. Then he thought of Lord Harlow, seated on the groom’s side, close to the front since the families were close, and of the eight million British pounds, half of which already resided safely in one of his Swiss accounts.
He poured himself another glass of chardonnay and walked to the wide window overlooking the Thames. He looked east, toward St. Paul’s. He wouldn’t see it explode from here, but he would hear the explosion, see the billowing clouds of black smoke rising about the buildings. And when St. Paul’s exploded, or a goodly part of it came crashing down, he would hear the beautiful sound echoing around the city, and the sirens that would follow.
He raised his glass to Elizabeth and to Lord Harlow.