ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL
LONDON, ENGLAND
Monday afternoon
Bahar walked slowly along St. Paul’s Church Yard, the wide busy street that formed the long south boundary of the rough triangle of land that enclosed St. Paul’s Cathedral. The façade of the church wasn’t set back from the incessant traffic or the encroaching buildings; it stood there right in the center of things, flanked on all sides by bicycles, big red tourist buses, and countless people scurrying about. Many small outdoor tables were filled with coffee and tea drinkers at the nearby London cafés.
He knew the real-time cameras of the state-of-the-art video surveillance system and people watching it from the on-site control room would pick him up when he entered the cathedral. They didn’t know who they were looking for, in any case, so it wouldn’t make any difference. No one would give the frail old lady a second glance.
They prided themselves on their Smartcards, given out to more than two hundred of their staff. Like most security ideas, the Smartcards sounded like a good idea, the most effective way to have a solid handle on the cathedral’s security, but it was so far from the truth, it was laughable. He hadn’t even risked stealing one. The truth was St. Paul’s allowed visitors to enter its sacred portals without even passing through an X-ray machine, and to an expert like himself, it was low-hanging fruit. The cathedral staff didn’t have the space to run such a system, not when more than two million tourists flocked here every year into an area no larger than a quarter of a square mile. The great Christopher Wren couldn’t have imagined what was going to happen to his grand creation.
Bahar felt blessed. He would achieve immortality today. He would forever be known as the man who destroyed one of the sacred shrines of the English, and of Londoners in particular. It would enrage them, they would yammer and yell, certainly, but even more, it would scare them stupid. Ultimately, what could they do but change their ways, and he couldn’t imagine that. The English mouthed every platitude of inclusion, praised diversity and tolerance, like the bloody Americans, but in the end they were certain of their own superiority, and that superiority made them objective and ethical. Hypocrites, the lot of them.
He smiled, thinking of what was to come. He wanted to whistle, but couldn’t, not as he presented himself today. Their lovely wedding would begin soon in St. Paul’s. The Strategist had expected as many as five hundred bejeweled and well-dressed nobs would be inside to witness the Christian union of these two old prestigious families. Bahar joined a crowd of sixty-odd wedding guests as they queued at the church entrance, past dark-suited men he thought now were added security. The Brits had moved fast since the attempted bombing of St. Patrick’s in New York less than a week before. He imagined they’d added other security measures he didn’t know about, and couldn’t see. He would if he were in their shoes. What had they done? Sadly for them, it wouldn’t matter. He held up his invitation to the security guard, who merely nodded at him as he passed into the church.
He walked slowly, regally, as he’d practiced it, into the vast nave and down the aisle toward the magnificent altar. The couple would be joined there with great pomp beneath the magnificent dome, guests on three sides. The lovely dome would come down; the Strategist had calculated where to place the explosive to ensure it. Bahar split from the herd of guests to pay a visit to the chapels of St. Michael and St. George, blending in easily with a dozen other guests. He moved to the Wellington Monument and stood for a respectful thirty seconds before walking as stately as the queen toward the south transept. He stepped into the stairwell that led to the Whispering Gallery, the library, and the two hundred and seventy steps to the Dome. There were half a dozen people coming down the steps, another three waiting to go up, speaking, admiring. He’d been inside several times before, knew where the cameras were positioned. He dropped his ancient Chanel bag, shook his head at the two helpful gentlemen, and leaned down slowly and carefully to retrieve his belongings. He slid a packet of C-4 and its detonator beneath the stairs with his foot as he rose. He made two other stops before he moved back into the nave and turned toward the south transept, stopping beside the Nelson Monument. He leaned against it, looking at the rows of chairs being filled by wedding guests. He chanced to catch the eye of a pretty young woman with a young child sleeping in her arms. She looked all milk-and-white English, stylish in her pale blue dress. He saw a slash of dark hair on the babe. She was smiling at him, beckoning him to sit in the empty chair beside her.
He found himself smiling back. He checked his watch, not wanting to draw attention to himself as the remaining seats filled, and he would join her. He would say little, perhaps compliment her child and wish her a fond farewell when he left her in a few minutes. When he was clear of St. Paul’s he would set off the detonators and enjoy the earsplitting explosions and the chaos and the screams that would follow. A pity the Strategist wouldn’t see the falling stone, the crumbling edifice, but he would see the flames and black smoke shooting above the skyline.
The young woman leaned close. “Aren’t all the roses beautiful? I think the family must have emptied out all the florists’ shops in London. You’re a friend of the bride’s family?”
The bride’s family—the Colstraps, an ancient barony bestowed upon the family hundreds of years ago, later an earldom, still rich despite all the heavy taxes because they’d turned to banking and succeeded. He didn’t know them personally. It was enough for him to know who and what they were.
He nodded and smiled at the young mother. She was pretty, a pity that in another twelve minutes she and the babe would be dead. From the blasts, or crushed beneath the tons of falling cement, flying glass from the smashed dome. All the cascading white roses wouldn’t be very pretty then.
Mary Ann Eiserly was tired. Ceci hadn’t slept more than three hours the night before, napped for only an hour this morning. She was thankful that now was the time she’d picked to pass out. It meant Mary Ann wouldn’t have to worry about her fussing in the middle of Ellie and Ryan’s exchange of vows. Yes, Ceci was down for the count. She lightly kissed her child’s head. Poor John was in worse shape, what with the terrorist red alert at MI5. She hadn’t seen him in twelve hours. She smiled again at the proud old woman beside her, who smiled back but remained silent. Her clothes were antiques, at least fifteen years out of date, but they were designer and expensive. Mary Ann saw the old lady had an odd profile, a pronounced hawk nose, not uncommon, she supposed, among the old aristocracy, and she was wearing a heavy layer of powder. There was something off with this old matriarch, but in truth, Mary Ann was too tired to care. She would ask Ellie who the old lady was when she returned from her honeymoon on Crete—if she remembered, that is. She felt brain-dead at the moment from lack of sleep. She would witness Ellie take her vows to a man Mary Ann wasn’t especially fond of, a gambler, she’d heard, then she’d haul Ceci home and pray John would drag himself in before midnight. She looked at her watch, wished they would get on with it. She wanted nothing more than to curl up next to her daughter and sleep the sleep of the dead.
• • •
JOHN EISERLY, MI5, sat in the control room at St. Paul’s with a half-dozen other agents and security staff, all eyes carefully studying the faces that passed into the cathedral. They’d been on high alert since the attempted bombing of St. Patrick’s. In addition, St. Paul’s deserved even more security this afternoon, given the number of very important guests here for the wedding. He’d heard the prime minister himself had spoken to John’s boss, ensuring they were going all out. Other than strip-searching all the guests, there was nothing more they could do.
The guests were all well dressed and in a festive mood, laughing, talking among themselves, not a suspicious character in the lot. Strip-searching them would most certainly put a crimp in the jolly mood. He grinned at the thought, then yawned. “Another two weeks” was his and Mary Ann’s mantra—the doctor said Ceci should sleep through the night in another two weeks. He hoped Mary Ann was finally getting some sleep. He chanced to look over at the monitor for the camera in the south transept and his heart stopped. There was Mary Ann sitting there, today of all days, Ceci hugged to her chest, sound asleep. She was wearing her beautiful blue dress she’d worn three weeks before when they’d celebrated their third wedding anniversary. For a moment he couldn’t get his brain around it. She hadn’t told him she’d be here today, had she? He remembered now. Of course she was here. She and Ellie Colstrap were friends, and her friend was marrying a man she’d told him she didn’t like. He’d forgotten about it in all the chaotic urgency of the last four days, forgotten they had even been invited. Ellie and Mary Ann had been close in the days before he and Mary Ann had married; Ellie was one of her very rich friends, who, John knew, thought Mary Ann had married beneath herself. A copper?
John focused on his wife sitting in the south transept, away from her friends, who sat among a huge knot of people in the center, closer to the altar, in case Ceci woke up yelling at the top of her lungs, so she could make a fast exit. He never took his eyes off his wife. He felt sweat trickle down his cheek and brushed it off. She was here, Ceci was here. No, nothing would happen to St. Paul’s. Nothing would happen to his family. Still, John couldn’t bring himself to look at the other cameras; his eyes stayed locked on Mary Ann’s face. He zoomed the camera in, saw a half-dozen people file in around her. A regal old woman stood near her, dressed to the nines, dripping with diamonds, her clothes out of date but screaming expensive. She was studying the Nelson Monument, moving closer, touching it. Then she turned, as if to leave, and Mary Ann smiled up at her and pointed to the empty chair beside her.
Wait. Wait. “Back up camera nine, now! The old lady, right there! Back up the camera!
“Stop, right there. That’s her—she’s stopped beside Nelson’s Monument. Okay, now go forward, half-speed.” Three agents crowded around him. They saw the old lady had a flat package, maybe six by eight inches in her gloved hand. If you weren’t looking closely, you wouldn’t have seen it. They watched her press close to the Nelson Monument, pause a fraction of a second.
“Zoom in!” John pointed. She shoved the package into a small crevice. They couldn’t see her after that, as people filed past her, blocked the view.
“Freeze it on her, full face!” John yelled. “Facial recognition! Quickly!”
The newly enhanced NCG homed in on the old woman’s heavily powdered face. Seconds passed as the program juxtaposed hundreds of faces next to the old lady’s. Then it stopped, narrowed her cheeks, removed the tight gray curls and her neck scarf. And there was the man Nasib Bahar, a fugitive wanted by the Algerians.
Bingo.
The agent at his elbow said, “John, there’s Mary Ann and Ceci!”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
John watched Bahar sit down beside a smiling Mary Ann. Was he going to blow all of them up, himself included? No, he was an operative. He had no intention of immolating himself in the process. He was here to set the explosives and escape. How many other packets had he positioned throughout the cathedral? John set them all to retrace Bahar’s steps on the video recording. They counted as many as eight packets.
What if he was wrong? What if Bahar was going to stay, blow himself up sitting next to Mary Ann and Ceci? He’d never been so scared in his life. He had to make a decision. Then the old woman was getting up. She stood quietly, looking toward the altar, upward at the dome, and she smiled. She moved into the nave and slowly walked past several latecomers, back toward the entrance.
John and a half-dozen agents ran out of the control room, John yelling into his comm.