her.
Harland said. ‘The bed! Isis, you didn’t mention the treatment bed in his room. There was a really sophisticated adjustable bed. Levers all over the place.’
‘Well, there isn’t one.’
‘That’s odd. There has to be.’ said Harland. ‘What about the Arabic inscription on the wall, the one that says something about a man who is noble doesn’t pretend to be noble.’
‘There’s nothing of that sort, no.’
‘This could be important,’ said Harland. ‘Find out if Ollins has removed anything and call me back.’
Ollins shook his head. ‘There was nothing to take, Everything that was here is here.’
‘What about the treatment bed in the consulting room?’
Ollins shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that but I can’t delay my meeting because a goddam bed’s missing.’
‘And the computer, is that working? It might be worth going through it.’
‘I have to go,’ he said.
‘But I can stay and bring the keys back to you later? Federal Plaza, right? Look, I have helped you, haven’t I? I’m at the Algonquin. You have my number. I’m not going to steal anything. ’
He thought for a moment. ‘Okay, but have them back to me by morning. And call me on the cell when you leave this evening. I’ll tell the guards in the lobby.’
With that he bade her goodbye and hurried through the door, letting it swing shut behind him.
Herrick walked to the window and looked down through the rain at the traffic crawling along 5th, aware of the unearthly solitude and detachment of the building. It rose above things, she thought, literally and metaphorically. She felt the weight of its presence.
Now utterly calm, she turned on the computer and for half an hour or so went through Loz’s appointments diary, making notes. She spotted the initials RN, and concluded this was Ralph Norquist because of Loz’s visit to RN on May 13. She also found BJ – Benjamin Jaidi.
There was still water in the cooler. She took a cup and wandered round the room gazing absently out of the window again. Her back was to the door when she heard a noise. She whipped round. The handle was moving. Then, improbably, someone knocked, and opened the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
She knew instantly that the woman standing in the doorway was Eva Rath.
‘Miss Herrick?’
‘Why bother to ask? You know who I am. You’ve been following me all day.’
The woman gave her a formal smile and approached with her hand outstretched. Herrick declined to take it and instead lit a cigarette.
‘Isn’t there some kind of no-smoking policy in the building? ’ said Eva.
Herrick shrugged. ‘What do you want? There’s nothing to interest Mossad here. The FBI have been over this place a dozen times.’
‘Then why are you here?’
Herrick thought for a moment. ‘Because I’m interested to see where Loz worked. I want to know what this is about.’
‘That is simple. It is about hatred and revenge.’
‘Revenge for what, exactly?’
‘The failure of the Muslim world – the failure to build a functioning state in Palestine, the failed jihad in Bosnia, the failure to retain Afghanistan, the defeat in Iraq. Take your pick. There’s no shortage of causes. They have to assert themselves and terrorism is the only way they can do it.’
Herrick noticed that the trace of Eastern Europe in her voice clashed with her impeccable grasp of English idiom. ‘Well, they might have had a better chance in Palestine if you hadn’t wiped out all the moderate politicians.’
Eva smiled again. ‘And the computer, what are you looking for?’
‘The site you told Harland about on the phone. That’s why I’m in New York.’
‘It will not be on this computer,’ she said imperiously.
‘What exactly is the site? We’re surely not still talking about the encrypted screensaver on Youssef Rahe’s computer in London?’
‘No, no. That was used to deceive you, although we didn’t know that at the time either.’
‘But it predicted the hit on Norquist?’
‘Which was used to distract you.’
‘Did the confirmation about the Norquist hit appear on this other site?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then who told us about it? We had two sources saying he was going to be hit.’
‘It’s simple. I told Walter Vigo by phone from Heathrow, while waiting for Admiral Norquist to arrive.’
‘You know Walter Vigo?’
‘Yes, I thought Harland must have told you our history. I helped him with a problem in the East some years ago. Vigo was my SIS handler.’
It was another story, an age ago, and anyway Vigo was finally out of the picture. Or was he? That clumsy approach in the bar a couple of days before came to Herrick’s mind – the strange, almost plangent appeal, so completely out of character.
‘And now he’s working for you – right?’ she said. ‘The Mossad has contact with Vigo’s company, Mercator? That’s why he tried to get me to give him the stuff from the bookshop in London.’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Of course, Vigo had me followed from the bookshop and then you trail me around town here. You people are really plugged into this case, aren’t you? Did you know about the suspects in Europe all along? Was Vigo keeping you in the loop the whole way through RAPTOR?’
Eva shrugged.
‘So one way or another,’ Herrick continued, ‘it was the old alliance. America, Britain and Israel were working on RAPTOR even though the first two had no idea they were sharing with you people.’
‘We don’t have time for this,’ said Eva.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Herrick said venomously. ‘This is my investigation and I do have time for it.’ She paused. ‘As I understand it, the significant point about the website you’ve been monitoring is that it started up again after three weeks of inactivity?’
‘Yes. That is true.’
‘And you believe it’s being run from New York?’
‘But not from these rooms,’ said Eva. She placed her shoulder bag on the reception desk and swept Herrick with a look of appraisal. ‘Harland said you were the most natural talent he’d ever seen.’
Herrick ignored this. ‘The site started up again last week when Rahe was here in New York. So he could well have had something to do with it?’
‘Maybe,’ she said.
‘The trouble is that we’ve never worked out who was running this thing,’ said Herrick. ‘We thought it was Rahe, but if you look at the money trail it must have been Loz calling the shots.’
‘Maybe both,’ said Eva. ‘Can I have one of your cigarettes?’
Isis handed her the crush-proof packet. Eva coaxed one out by tapping it on her palm and lit it with an oblong gold lighter. Then she walked to the window to look at the lightning illuminating the clouds on the northern horizon.
‘Did you know this building is hit five hundred times a year by lightning?’
Herrick couldn’t help but admire the woman’s self-possession, the absence of the need to explain or to excuse herself. She returned to the computer. ‘I guess that’s why Loz liked it,’ she said.
Eva turned. ‘Outside the bank, you looked sick. What was the problem?’
