26 FEDERAL PLAZA
NEW YORK CITY
Tuesday morning
The speaker was blasting out John Eiserly’s voice when Special Agent in Charge Milo Zachery walked into the conference room that smelled of old bitter coffee and overripe pizza, but the agents focused on the MI5 agent’s voice didn’t seem to mind.
John was saying, “Kelly, as you know, we obtained a warrant to search Samir Basara’s flat—excuse me, the penthouse—on Wyverly Place within minutes after you called yesterday. He was gone, which means he was already prepared to make a fast getaway. The safe was open, and empty, probably missing his private papers, money, and another passport. He may have several passports, we don’t know, but he’ll have trouble accessing any accounts in his own name in England at least. We’re working on freezing any accounts he may have in Switzerland. Naturally he could have accounts in other names, in other places. Our forensic people are neck-deep finding that out. We’ve mobilized all our resources, alerted ports, airports, private airstrips. Still, it will be difficult to catch him if he’s intent on leaving England. He’s obviously spent a long time thinking it all through.”
“Sherlock here, John. You didn’t find anything to help us with a possible destination in the imam’s papers at the mosque?”
“Unfortunately, no. Basara isn’t mentioned directly, always by his moniker the Strategist, but there are a great number of financial reports to sort through. We found a set of books with enough illegal funding to put the imam in prison for a very long time. Once he stopped screaming about the sacrilege of our invading a holy place, he swore he knew nothing about anything. Not his fault. That bit will not fly, obviously.”
“Any idea where Basara went immediately after he left his penthouse?” Kelly asked.
“He left his Bentley, didn’t take a taxi, so we can’t be certain. He could have taken the Tube or a train to just about anywhere inside England.”
Sherlock said, “Or had another car. Didn’t you say, John, that he was obviously prepared to pick up and leave very quickly if his house of cards came down?”
“Yes, that’s probably what he did. No idea how we’d trace that.”
Cal said, “What about Lady Elizabeth Palmer? Was she helpful at all?”
John paused briefly. “She was horrified, at first simply refused to believe he could be an assassin or a terrorist. When I told her he’d set up to bomb Saint Paul’s, and wouldn’t you know she was standing right under the big dome as a bridesmaid, she very nearly fainted. Unfortunately, she wasn’t helpful with possible destinations. She knows a great deal about his personal habits, but knew nothing about his life as the Strategist. You know the last thing I heard her saying as I was leaving the room?”
“All right, John,” Sherlock said, “this better be good.”
“She should have listened to her father after all, should have known better than to take up with a man who liked to watch himself on the tele. Obviously he could have no sense of honor or fair play. And what would you expect from a commoner?”
Kelly said, “That wasn’t bad, John. Now, you spoke about Lady Elizabeth being surprised he was an assassin and a terrorist. We’ve been discussing this and believe, like you, that Basara was using terrorism as a cover to murder individuals, but we have no idea who he could have been after in Saint Patrick’s or the TGV or Saint Paul’s.”
John said, “If we don’t find him I’m afraid we’ll never know. But all three recent targets had highly placed government officials present.”
Sherlock said, “Okay, we know Basara hasn’t bought a commercial ticket, and you have his private Gulfstream and his pilot under wraps. If he took a boat, we may be out of luck. Private boat hires aren’t well monitored, and cameras at yacht harbors are few and far between. So we’ve been focusing our efforts the last few hours on contacting private jet charter companies to see if any male in our age range bought a ticket within the last twenty-four hours out of England to anywhere in the world. Many of them have been surprised to hear from the American FBI, until we mention Basara is a prime suspect in the attempted bombing of Saint Paul’s. That’s been getting their cooperation fast.”
John said, “Thanks for helping us cover those. What worries me is that if he managed to get to France, there are scores of European private jet outfits available to him—”
“I’ve got him!” It was Agent Gray Wharton, who’d burst into the room, waving his laptop. He was so excited he was nearly jumping up and down. “Twelfth on my list was Manchester Private Jet Hire—they had three international bookings in our time frame. They were pissy at first about warrants and customer privacy until I told them who we were looking for. They couldn’t move fast enough.
“They e-mailed the eight passport photos of their clients. I wasn’t sure any of them matched our guy until I ran them through facial recognition. Even with the beard, this one is a good match for Basara.” He put his laptop down on the conference table. “Take a look. His passport’s under the name of Bruce Condor, supposedly born in Caldicott, Maine, some thirty-five years ago. He told the woman at the counter he was an American businessman, returning home. Get this, no one with that name and birth date has ever filed a U.S. tax return and he has no Social Security number. It’s got to be him, I know it to my boots.”
John said, “Where did he book to, Gray? Timbuktu?”
“No.” He shot a look at Sherlock. “That’s what’s unbelievable. He arrived nine hours ago at Baltimore Washington International Airport.”
Zachery was almost out the door when he said over his shoulder, “I’ll call Mike at the Baltimore Field Office, tell him the situation, and he can marshal his troops. Kelly, Cal, Sherlock, you guys head down there right now. I’ll have the helicopter waiting for you at Thirty-fourth Street.”
John was shaking his head in disbelief. “Amazing. He could have flown to safety, but instead he’s flying right into the maw of the beast. Why would the Strategist do something so foolhardy? Has he gone entirely lunatic?”
Sherlock said aloud what everyone was thinking. “I can think of only one reason he’d come here. He wants to kill me.”
John was silent, remembering how close Mary Ann and Ceci had come to death in St. Paul’s. Was Sherlock in his sights now? “If that’s his plan, he’s gone crazy enough. You be careful, Sherlock.” Sherlock knew he’d be calling Dillon right away.