“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.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sunday, early afternoon
Savich dropped Sean off at his grandmother’s house for an afternoon at the park and no doubt too many chocolate-chip cookies. He’d have enjoyed staying and throwing a football around with them, but it couldn’t be helped. He drove back downtown and picked Griffin up at his condo on Willard Street, an old established area known in the summer for its thick canopy of oak trees.
Griffin was waiting for him outside because Anna had been up all night on a drug bust and he didn’t want to disturb her. He climbed into the Porsche, turned to Savich. “Where are we headed this beautiful day?”
“To see Walter Givens again, at the D.C. Jail. I’d like to hear anything new you’ve found on the Alcotts on the way over.”
Griffin called up his files on his tablet. “What I’ve got has to do with Liggert mostly. He’s a bully, Savich, no other way to put it—bar fights, had to be pulled in by Sheriff Watson and Deputy Lewis a couple of times. He spent a night in jail after assaulting Walter Givens. I wonder what that was about.”
Savich said, “Liggert went after him at the bar after Walter called him out for hitting one of his kids. Teddy. Deputy Lewis arrested him.”
“Good for Walter.”
“I wonder, was that enough reason for Dalco to go after Walter, turn him into a murderer?”
Griffin’s head snapped around. “You think Liggert could be Dalco?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a reason. And to go after Sparky, have Walter butcher him? It would have to be something major.”
“And that is the question. What did Sparky do to Dalco, or to his family?” Savich said, and stopped at a red signal. Traffic was as light as it got in Washington.
“There’s something else interesting. Liggert’s oldest girl, Tanny, ten years old—she’s got a juvie record. She was caught shoplifting condoms, of all things. Turns out she was selling them to all the teenage boys around town, cleaned up for a while until the pharmacy owner caught her with Trojans stuffed in her pockets.
“Sheriff Watson called her parents, and they paid for the condoms, took her home. The pharmacist insisted on a police report, but nothing more came of it, at least that I could find.”
Savich had to laugh. “A ten-year-old isn’t usually sent to Attica for stealing condoms. I do wonder, though, how Liggert punished her.”
“We’re not done,” Griffin said. “That was when she was nine. She got slick enough to lift some watches from the general store. She tried to pawn some of them in Reineke when they were still brand new, and she was fingered. Get this, no charges again, they let her go.”
Savich shot him a look. “I wonder if Deliah Alcott took care of the problem. Or maybe it was Mr. Alcott. Was she caught before he died six months ago?”
“Just after. Maybe she was acting out, as the shrinks say, because of her grandfather’s death?”
“We could talk to the people at the general store. Maybe Sheriff Watson knows something about it.” He shook his head. When you came right down to it, what good would that do? Trying to find Dalco was leading them everywhere and nowhere. He was tired, his brain was tired.
“I spent some time looking into her granddad, Arthur Alcott. Nothing in the public record to suggest he was capable of anything hinky. After he died, there was a memorial service for him. The local paper gave it quite a write-up, said most people in town attended, so it seems he was respected well enough. Maybe that’s how his granddaughter got off with hardly any juvenile record, out of respect for him.”
Savich said, “But why Brakey?”
“He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Savich, doesn’t take long to see that. Maybe Dalco used him because he was an easy target, he was handy? Malleable?”
“If so, it sure backfired,” Savich said as he turned onto D Street. “After we speak to Walter, let’s go over to Plackett to see Sheriff Watson.”
“Has he called you yet about Deputy Lewis’s files?”
“Yes and no,” Savich said as he turned into the jail parking lot. “All he said was there wasn’t anything useful in the Alcott accident report.”
“Do you believe him? He was, after all, Deputy Lewis’s brother-in-law.”
“Do you know, I’m inclined not to.”
Savich had already gotten permission to meet with Walter again in the conference room. He was waiting alone when Savich and Griffin walked in.
“Agent Savich, do you know anything more about what happened to me?”
“We’re getting close. Walter, this is Agent Hammersmith.”
To Walter’s pleased surprise, Griffin shook his hand, smiled at him.
Savage studied the young man’s face. “Walter, we’re working hard to find out who’s responsible for all this. With your help, we’re hoping to work it out so you can go free.”
Color flooded Walter’s face, hope shined from his eyes. “Thank you, Agent Savich. I’ll help however I can, but I think I’ve told you everything I know.” He paused, raised agonized eyes to Savich’s face. “My folks, they look at me funny, you know? Even though they believed me when I told them I couldn’t remember anything, they still gave me these looks when they didn’t think I saw them. They’re horrified by all this. They really don’t know what to believe, and neither do I. But I really wasn’t responsible, was I? Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of fit?”
“No,” Savich said, “no, it wasn’t a fit. I’d like you to think with me, Walter. You called Liggert out last month, you told me, when you saw him hitting his little boy, Teddy?”
“Yes, sure. And then he laid into me when he got drunk at The Gulf. Deputy Lewis had to take him out of there.”
“Did you have any other contact with Liggert at any time in, say, the las
t six months?”
“No.” Walter frowned, tapped his fingertips on the conference table, made a decision. “Well, yes, once. He came to my shop about two months ago—a while after his dad got killed in that hit-and-run. He asked me about cars I’d repaired since his father got killed, cars that had been in an accident. Sure, I told him, all those fender benders help keep my shop open, even in a small town like Plackett. I remembered right away that Sparky had brought in his blue Mustang. He was proud as punch he’d bought that car from an old dude in Richmond, said it sat in his garage for over twenty years. Anyway, Sparky said he’d hit a deer and needed work on a panel and his right front fender.”
“You repaired it for him?”
Walter nodded. “I couldn’t quite match the color, it had changed so much with age over the years, but I did the best I could.” Walter paused. He looked a little guilty, Griffin thought, then he forged ahead. “I remember thinking it wasn’t too long after Mr. Alcott was hit and I wondered about the damage. Hitting a deer, it didn’t sound right, but Sparky was a real good friend, you know? Still, I knew I had to do something, so I called Sheriff Watson, but he was out of town, so I spoke with Deputy Lewis. He came over to see the car, told me he’d look into it. He didn’t want me spreading any rumors in the meantime, though.”
Griffin said, “Did Deputy Lewis get back to you, Walter?”
“Yes, the next day. He stopped at the shop, said he’d checked out Sparky and he couldn’t have been the one who hit Mr. Alcott. He wasn’t in town.
“Then, like I told you, Liggert came in asking about bodywork I’d done in the past months.” Walter’s eyes fell to his hands. “I wasn’t about to say anything, knowing Liggert. I didn’t want him blaming me, or accusing Sparky of anything, after what Deputy Lewis told me.