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 Her clothes were antiques, at least fifteen years out of date, but they were designer and expensive.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.
26 FEDERAL PLAZA
NEW YORK CITY
Monday
Agent Gray Wharton brought up a photo on his computer screen from the International Herald Tribune. “This is Sheikh Tamin bin Rashid al Amoudi. He’s oil wealthy and is treated like royalty whenever he visits London, which is often, because he spends lavishly. From what I can find so far, he is what he appears: an aging playboy who’s so rich he has not one but three jets.” Gray flipped to another photo. “On his arm is Lady Pamela Sanderson, daughter of Baron Pembroke. They’re on their way to a tony bash following a movie premiere, the latest James Bond.”
Sherlock studied the sheikh’s self-indulgent face, his dark eyes that saw nothing beyond his own desires. “No, not him, too old, too visible, too—pleased with all his wealth and what it brings him. What does he do with three jets?”
“Doesn’t say, but he’s got a good-sized family. I suppose you have to keep your relatives traveling happy.” Gray brought up the next picture, pointed to the man. “Here’s a British Muslim, Dr. Abbas Ghanbari, a professor at the University of Saint Andrews. The lady with him is the daughter of Viscount Pleasance. Look at him—stoop-shouldered, glasses, thinning hair, old. He looks too settled and content, doesn’t really fit the bill.”
Gray brought up another phot
o. “I’m thinking the next one’s our best bet—Dr. Samir Basara, thirty-seven, English citizen, well-known international economics expert, a professor at the London School of Economics. He’s Algerian, his father owns a large vineyard there. Samir was raised with wealth, left Algeria when he was eighteen to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, then went to the U.S. to Berkeley for his doctorate in economics, with emphasis on the Middle East.”
Cal said, “That’s bizarre. Kelly, Sherlock, and I watched him talk on the BBC last night. Bottom line, he said we share the blame for the attacks on JFK, Saint Pat’s, and the TGV. Not so surprising a position, given where he was educated.”
Kelly studied Basara’s face. “Look at his eyes, guys, they’re almost opaque, they give no clue what he’s thinking, feeling. And that suit he’s wearing, it probably costs more than I make in a month. He presents himself as a rich Western intellectual. Where does his money come from? His family? Middle Eastern contributors? If it’s true he flies in a private jet, we’re talking a lot of money. And that gorgeous blonde with him—”
“Lady Elizabeth Margaret Palmer, daughter of the Eleventh Earl of Camden,” Gray said, looking up from his typing. “She’s a popular society fixture and her daddy is a respected banker in London. Lady Elizabeth graduated from Oxford after returning from finishing school in Switzerland, active on the social scene. The tabloids say her younger brother is a cocaine addict.”
“Lady Elizabeth Palmer,” Kelly repeated her name. “Would you look at that smile she’s beaming up at Basara? Yes, Gray, focus on him. I’ll bet my Pink Panther knee socks Dr. Samir Basara is our Strategist.”
Sherlock nodded. “Now our problem is to prove it. Gray, did you find the records of his commercial flights?”
Actually, Basara hasn’t flown commercial in years, at least by his given name, which means he’s flying private. Here we go, Dr. Samir Basara owns a two-year-old Gulfstream, keeps it in southern England near Folkestone.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve, ah, ventured into the Civil Aviation Authority, you know, the FAA equivalent in Britain, to see if the good Dr. Basara files flight plans?”
“I’m going to the ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. Any flights over international space are filed through them.”
Kelly said, “Does Zachery want to know what you’re doing?”
“Probably. Like you, I always tell him everything,” Gray said, never looking up. “Okay, take a look. The jet has filed a number of flight plans—to Paris, Munich, Rome—most could be short vacations or business trips to other universities. No trips to anywhere questionable, like Syria or Iran.” They all looked over his shoulder as he scrolled down. “It appears he travels once a year back to Algeria, at Ramadan.” He looked at them. “Well, look at this. He flew to Boston last week, stayed two days, then back to London.”
Kelly said, “So he was here not only when the Conklin family was flown in, he was close by when Saint Patrick’s was supposed to be bombed. He’s looking better and better.”
Cal said, “You can bet he doesn’t file flight plans for all his trips. That would mean his pilot is complicit. Can we find out his name, Gray?”
“Wait a second. I’m looking at his family in Algeria.” He scanned, looked up. “Well, would you look at this. His grandfather’s name was Hercule.”
Sherlock pumped her fist in the air. “Yes!”
Cal said, “Kelly, you need to call your counterpart at MI5. Another thing—Shadid and Kenza are going to need protection. I have a feeling once Basara finds out we’ve outed him, he might try to have them killed.”
Kelly picked up her cell and dialed. “John? Have I got something for you. What? What did you say? Wait, I’m going to put you on speaker.”
John Eiserly sounded higher than a kite, but with an odd slick of fear in his voice. “We nearly lost Saint Paul’s. It was close, too close, but we got him in time. He’s a wanted terrorist named Nasib Bahar. My wife and my daughter—they were in Saint Paul’s attending a society wedding along with hundreds of the upper crust. If I hadn’t been assigned there as extra security, if I hadn’t happened to zoom in on my wife as he placed a packet of C-4 at the Nelson Monument, we would never have stopped him. He was dressed as a posh old lady, an incredible disguise.”
“John, take Mary Ann out tonight, someplace really special, and celebrate. Congratulations.”
“It can’t be all that special, I mean, we’ll have our baby with us, and believe me, Ceci can yell a house down. Well, maybe a Wimpy or Spudulike.”
Laughter, then Kelly said, “And I’ve got some great news for you, too. We think we’ve identified the Strategist as Dr. Samir Basara, a British citizen. He’s been in your newspapers lately as Lady Elizabeth Margaret Palmer’s escort.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I know the guy, seen him on the BBC, Roland Atterley’s show. Lady Elizabeth Palmer? She was here at the wedding. She’s still inside waiting to be interviewed. Let me go get her. Thanks. I owe you.”
It never hurt, Kelly knew, to have a favor tucked in her pocket. She beamed at all of them. “Saint Paul’s survived and now we’re in business.”
WYVERLY PLACE
LONDON
Monday
Hercule didn’t look away from the skyline toward St. Paul’s Cathedral. Where was the billowing smoke? But he knew he could no longer deny that Bahar must have failed. St. Paul’s should have blown up at least twenty minutes ago. He had his television on and he turned when he heard the BBC break to a reporter standing near St. Paul’s with news of an attempted bombing, and then they switched to a video obviously shot on a bystander’s mobile, but clear enough. MI5 agents were hustling an old woman out of St. Paul’s. She was struggling, trying to jerk away, when her wig fell off. He stared at Bahar. He watched wedding guests pour out of St. Paul’s behind them, most trying to maintain their English dignity, but some yelling and pointing at Bahar, then the sharp voice of a man in a dark blue suit yelling at them to get the man into the waiting van. What had happened? They must have seen Bahar placing one of the C-4 packets at a site Hercule had chosen. Hard to believe because Bahar was a consummate professional. It was another failure. He found it hard to breathe, then forced himself to calm. He knew Bahar would never give him up. They’d worked together for nearly six years, brothers-in-arms in the jihad, or at least Bahar thought so. Hercule cared less about losing Bahar than the millions of pounds that would not be wired to his account in Zurich for the assassination of Lord Harlow.
His mobile buzzed. Was it Elizabeth? He grabbed it off the table and looked down at the name that filled the screen—it was the imam. Why was the old fool calling him on his private number and not on the burner? It was a long-standing agreement between them. Was the old man senile at last? He wouldn’t answer it, it would be the height of stupidity to answer it. Then he realized the damage was done, the imam had already placed the call. He didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “Why do you call me on my private line?”
The imam sounded old and afraid, his voice shaking. “MI5 agents have invaded my home. They have a warrant and are going through everything. They want to question me. Me, Hercule! They talked about Mifsud—your boy—they accused me of sending him to kill that FBI agent, and of sending Bahar to bomb Saint Paul’s. They were gloating. Do you hear me, Hercule? They were gloating!
“They are confiscating everything! I told them I felt ill. I am in the bathroom, agents outside the door. They didn’t realize I had my mobile to use because I destroyed my burner as they broke in on me and they didn’t think to look for another. Hercule, what am I to do?”
Basara’s heart was beating as wildly as the imam’s, but he kept his voice calm and cold. “Get hold of yourself, old man. We have always seen to it they will find no evidence against you. You keep no papers, no computer files that can incriminate you or anyone we know.” The old man stayed silent, and Hercule took it
like a punch to the gut. “Do you have any incriminating evidence at the house?”
“No, no, I’ve always taken great care. I did not lie. All is safely hidden elsewhere.”
Then why was he so scared? Ah, so that was it, the old idiot. “So you have damaging information at the mosque, then?”
Silence, then a strangled, “Yes, but they won’t be able to get a warrant to search a Muslim place of worship. It is the safest place I could think of.”
After the attempted bombing of their precious St. Paul’s, they would have no difficulty at all even getting a warrant to search beneath the imam’s precious prayer rug. “What records, exactly? The ledgers, our payments, receipts? Are there names mentioned? My name?”
“Yes! Some names, but not your own, not the name Samir Basara.”
You old fool, you have left them the keys to everything, in your own mosque.
“Hercule, they are ordering me to come out. I must hurry or they will break the door down.”
Hercule heard banging on the imam’s bathroom door. He yelled, “Smash the mobile! Now! Keep your mouth shut. All will be well.” Now, that was a lie of the first order. Hercule heard the door burst open, heard men’s voices. The mobile went dead.
The imam had had the time to destroy the mobile before the agents got hold of it. Not that it mattered. MI5 would find all the proof they needed at the mosque, probably right in the imam’s massive mahogany desk. He should have known. As discreet and smooth as the imam could be in public, he never guarded his speech at all on his home ground, at his beloved mosque. He thought he was invulnerable there. Now he would pay for his stupidity in prison. Good riddance, you old blighter.