INTERSTATE 95, EN ROUTE TO WASHINGTON, D.C.
Tuesday afternoon
Samir Basara pressed the gas to pass a beer truck that had slowed to thirty miles per hour for no reason he could understand, then slowed immediately back to exactly fifty-five and eased smooth and easy into the right-hand lane. He wasn’t going to let his excitement for what was coming affect his driving. He wanted no trouble from the state police. The car Salila had left him in the airfield parking lot was perfect, a three-year-old light tan Toyota Camry that would draw no attention. A Walther P99 semiautomatic was on the seat beside him, Salila’s own weapon, he’d told Samir when they’d spoken on the phone briefly late last night. Everything else they would need, his nephew had driven down to Washington. Everything was ready for him in the condo Salila had rented, and enough C-4 to blow the FBI woman’s house in Georgetown into a pile of rubble, her and her family with it. She would return to her home soon enough. Basara would simply wait. He couldn’t fault Salila for the debacle in Brooklyn. Salila had been so mournful about the failure of his “soldiers”—Salila called everyone he worked with his “soldiers,” no matter how young or how old—that Samir had felt moved to comfort him, but still he’d had to make it clear that his soldiers had mucked it up, gotten themselves wounded and caught, and the oldest comrade in arms, Mohammad Hosni, had gotten himself killed. Salila had told Basara he feared the two younger soldiers, Mifsud and Kenza, whom he thought of as his children, would never be released from the American prisons. He assured Basara neither of them had anything to fear from the young ones. They would never talk. His children were loyal to the cause, as he was loyal to Basara.
A pity the FBI agent hadn’t roasted to death in that house in Brooklyn. It was a royal cock-up, but it wasn’t Basara’s fault, he’d planned it well, given clear, concise instructions. Salila’s soldiers had somehow given themselves away, alerted the FBI. Best not to think of it now. It was no longer important.
It was time to move forward, to focus on the woman, and Basara trusted Salila to handle the details, trusted him to do whatever it was Basara wished. He’d trusted Salila since he’d saved his life in Syria when a bomb exploded next to their car outside Damascus and Basara had pulled Salila to safety. Salila wouldn’t fail him in this, his final assassination, unlike Bahar, who’d failed him miserably. He planned to reward Salila handsomely for this day’s work.
Traffic thickened and he was forced to slow down. He wondered if MI5 had found the papers in the imam’s office yet that listed out the huge donations Mrs. Sabeen Conklin had made to the imam with funds she’d embezzled from her husband. That alone would be enough to send them both to prison. Nasim Conklin’s widow, Marie Claire, who had survived, would no doubt press charges. He felt rage build because he didn’t know how the American FBI had found her and her children, but he knew that damned woman Sherlock had taken part, and she would pay for that as well. Thinking of how he’d make her pay calmed him.
He wondered briefly if he would ever see his family again. His sisters could rot in hell for all he cared, but he admitted to himself he would like to see what his mother did to his father in the months and years to come, and how long his father would survive her endless tender care.
He laughed, wondering what Elizabeth thought of him now that she knew she’d defied her parents and shared her secrets and her quite lovely body with a terrorist. And not just any terrorist, but the mastermind who’d planned to blow up St. Paul’s and her along with it. What would her father have to say now? Poor Elizabeth, there would be no more jewels to pawn for her wastrel brother, but more than that, the London Times might print the whole sordid story and ruin both her and her noble family. He would watch from afar and enjoy the media free-for-all.
His stomach growled. He realized he hadn’t eaten after that late-night sandwich from room service and a bottle of wine, his favorite, which always made him sleep like a baby. He looked down at his watch. Nearly noon. He’d eat after he met with Salila.
He started whistling an old Algerian song, as he added up all the money he’d put aside into the several accounts he knew no one would ever find, buried under a tangle of intertwined corporations. It reminded him yet again that he had more than enough to relocate to Sorrento, Italy, when all of this was done, to the villa he’d bought there four years ago. It sat right on a cliff overlooking the sea, and he would put up his feet on the exquisite railing, sip his wine, and settle his soul. Only then would the Strategist slowly return to his business. It would be more difficult with the imam in prison, but his reputation as the Strategist would be enough. Their followers would fear and respect him still. Blowing apart the FBI agent who had helped send the imam to prison, along with her family, would help convince them.
He knew she alone wasn’t responsible for his lost career as one of the greatest assassins of all time, his lost jet, his lost penthouse, but killing her was a start. He hummed, picturing the bitch blown to hell.