name is Langer, but we’re not certain. There is one other in the photo, a Jordanian named Aziz Khalil. Helene also remembered another man of unknown origin joined the group later. His name was Ajami, but he’s not in the shot. She’s given us a lot of general material on the Brothers. We’re getting a picture of a very tight little group, a prototypical al-Qaeda cell, though the general feeling here is that we are not dealing with al-Qaeda per se, but an earlier formation. As you know, a few of these men trained in Afghanistan, but just as many holed up in the tri- border region in South America. North Africa is important and the crucial thing is that the three big civil wars – Lebanon, Bosnia and Algeria – have all contributed to the Brothers’ membership. There’s a lot of retributive energy in them. That’s a strong theme.’
‘Has the attack date let out by Sammi Loz been confirmed? ’
‘Shit, I was forgetting. Yeah, three of them have said it’s tomorrow, beginning early in the morning with a suicide bombing of the conventional kind in Hungary.’
‘And ending where? In America, later the same day?’
‘No, we don’t think so. There’s been no indication of that.’
‘Let’s go back to the photo. We’ve got three faces – three members of the Brothers unaccounted for in the arrests – Larry Langer, Aziz Khalil and Ajami. Do they match with the Haj switch?’
‘We think so. But it’s difficult. Dolph did all the work on this. He’s still in really poor shape.’
‘But he hasn’t got worse?’
‘No, a lot of pain and some internal bleeding. They have it under control.’
She absorbed this. The image of Rahe’s wife screaming like a banshee and Harland, Dolph and Lapping sprawling on the floor of Rahe’s bookshop, filled her head.
‘So, there are two more people in the Haj switch that we don’t have pictures for, but have you got any names?’
‘These guys change identities like T-shirts. We’ve got a couple of Arabic names – Latif Latiah, Abdel Fatah – but they don’t show up on any watch list. We don’t have a clue who they are, where they come from.’
‘Are the Saudis helping?’
‘Kind of, but there’s a lot of resistance to the idea that the pilgrimage would be used in this way. The Saudi government put in security measures during the last Haj to stop any kind of demonstration by fanatics. They’re saying the switch just didn’t happen.’
‘Right, they watched nearly three million people, all dressed identically in white, for a full five days and can definitely say what each one of them was doing?’
‘Yeah, well…’
‘There’s a really good case for threatening to release Dolph’s research on this. Has anyone thought of twisting their arm a bit?’
‘We’ve already threatened. But they’re not playing. Look, I’ve got to go.’
‘Hold on, I have a couple more questions.’
At that moment a fire truck, horns blaring, passed along 44th Street under her window. Herrick blocked one ear.
‘Holy shit!’ said Lyne when the noise had died. ‘That kind of proximity to a fire truck means you could only be in Manhattan. What the hell are you doing?’
She reached for the packet of Camels she’d bought at Heathrow and lit up. ‘Okay, so I am in New York, but it’s where I should be.’
‘For chrissake Isis, you should be taking time out. You looked like shit yesterday.’
‘Thanks, but to answer the question at the back of your suspicious corporate mind, I am perfectly okay, utterly sane. Besides, you’ve only to look at the evidence to see this is the place to be. We know Rahe was here as recently as last week; we know he hired a car for three days – what for? – and we know that this entire network has been funded by money made on the New York property market. Rahe had a whole different existence here as Zachariah. Besides these things, there’s a website which was dormant during the period Loz was out of New York but has now started up again. What could be clearer?’
‘Hold on there, gal. What website? What’re you talking about?’
‘Harland has a line in on Mossad – Eva, his ex. She was meant to meet me here with information about a site they’ve been monitoring. I suspect that is where the confirmation came from about the assassination attempt on Norquist, though I don’t have any hard evidence.’
‘You’re losing me.’
‘Sorry, I’m going too fast for you. Look, there were two sources of information on the Norquist hit. One came through the encrypted screensaver that we had access to through Rahe. The other one has never been explained properly, but I’d put money on it that this is where it came from.’
‘That’s all history. Do you know what the website is?’
‘No idea. Bloody Eva didn’t make the breakfast meeting.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Phone her, then start looking into Rahe and Loz’s lives here. You can help by getting the Chief to release to me all SIS research on the property dealings.’
‘That means I have to tell him where you are.’
‘But you were going to do that anyway.’
‘Stop being such a ball-breaker. I am trying to help here.’
‘Right, get me that stuff and send it to isish1232004 at Yahoo. Don’t encrypt it. That’s like a flag to the NSA, and anyway I don’t have any of the programs on my personal laptop. Just serve it up as it comes.’
‘Teckman is likely to want to put your people in New York onto this.’
‘That’s fine.’ She stubbed the cigarette out. ‘Now call me whenever you get something.’
She hung up. This was okay, she thought, she could do this. As long as she wasn’t expected to go to meetings and watch the hours tick away, there wouldn’t be a problem. She flipped open the phone again, dialled Eva’s number and got the message service. ‘I don’t know where the hell you are,’ she said. ‘But I’m waiting at the Algonquin to meet you.’ She left her own number and rang off.
She ordered coffee from room service and then started setting up her Apple laptop, fitting it with a US phone adapter. By the time the coffee arrived she had typed a list of what she needed to do, half-admitting to herself that she was shooting in the dark. The first item simply read Ollins. She dialled the number Harland had given her, and within a couple of rings an alert voice answered. ‘Ollins here, please state your business.’
Herrick explained that Harland had told her to call.
‘Yeah, I already heard from the sonofabitch. Last time I talked with Harland he was helping a fugitive from justice, as it happens, a man whom we knew to be a terrorist. I don’t know how things are in your country, Ms Herrick, but in mine that’s not a good place to start when you are asking a favour.’
She waited a moment before replying. ‘Did Harland tell you he was in hospital with gunshot wounds? Did he tell you that he was shot by the wife of the suspect Youssef Rahe, Sammi Loz’s principal European contact, who was in New York last week using the identity of David Zachariah?’ She had guessed right. All this was new to Ollins. Now she had his attention.
‘No, he didn’t mention it. You say Youssef Rahe was here?’
‘Right. He drew money and he used a rented car. We requested information from the FBI on this yesterday and got nothing. We really need to know where he went.’
She gave him the details of the car rental, then told him there were five other men thought to be part of the network in Europe. She could hear him making notes. ‘Your people should know most of this. I know it’s being shared.’
He grunted. Evidently it hadn’t reached him. ‘Okay, Ms Herrick, what do you need from me?’
‘Two things. I want to go to the Stuyvesant Empire Bank on 5th Avenue and talk to them about the account David Zachariah used. I need you to be with me because otherwise I won’t get access. Second, I want to get into Sammi Loz’s rooms in the Empire State building.’
‘You know Sammi Loz was one of the men killed in Egypt? There was a definite ID of his remains.’
‘I was there, and I can tell you there was no proof.’
This seemed to impress Ollins and he gave another of his grunts. ‘Look, about the bank, Ms Herrick. I can’t make it until this afternoon. I’ll meet you there at three-thirty, quarter of four. I’ll call ahead. We’ll see about the Empire State later.’
