He nodded, lost in the memory invoked by the photograph. Gibbons glanced at Herrick and raised his eyebrows.
‘We all look so young,’ continued Loz. ‘A decade adds much care to a man’s face.’ He looked down. Khan had begun to stir. He had moved his feet, and Herrick could see they were still swollen. ‘We have visitors, old friend, and they have brought us a gift which reminds us who we really are and what we stand for. Sit up and see what she has found for us. Providence has blessed us at an important moment.’
Khan pushed himself up on one arm. When he saw Isis he showed signs of recognition and, to her astonishment, a hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth.
At that moment there was a thunderclap right above the building. The lights dimmed, the glass in the windows rattled and Herrick felt a tremor shoot down the wall. The next time it happened she was sure Gibbons would try to make a move. She had felt him flinch and get ready, but then restrain himself.
Khan lay back on the bed. Loz took the computer to the window and began to read the emails she had received from Nathan Lyne that day. Herrick understood they would delineate exactly what SIS didn’t know about the Brothers, and cursed herself for breaking the most basic security rule. When he had finished, he examined the prescription found by Foyzi in Eva’s things.
‘Again Providence has smiled on us,’ Loz said to the room. ‘We have an English spy, an American spy and, if I am not mistaken, an Israeli spy at our mercy. Perhaps we should kill each one as a symbolic sacrifice to Islam and put it on the internet. That would be a fine conclusion to the life of the website, a finale to beat. Foyzi, do you think you can find a webcam at this time of night?’
Foyzi nodded obligingly, but Loz’s eyes had gone to Khan, who was shaking his head.
‘You think that’s such a bad idea, Karim? But of course, I didn’t tell you who this American is. This is the man who had you tortured. Don’t you recognise the American pig?’
Khan raised his head and nodded. ‘Yes, he was in Albania. It is the same man. But he also gave me water. And he was not the one to torture me. It was the Arabs.’
Loz shouted and jerked the gun at Gibbons. ‘Stand up. I shall kill him now. Or do you want to do it?’
Again Khan demurred.
‘Why do you see everything in these terms?’ pleaded Herrick. ‘Arabs against Jews; Americans against Arabs. Karim just said it. It was Arabs who were prepared to torture a fellow Muslim, and worse, they did it for money.’
The intervention had worked. Loz walked off, and Gibbons let himself down on the floor again. Herrick understood why he took the risk of doing so without asking.
‘Look at the United Nations.’ Loz was evidently pointing to the UN building over on the East Side, although none of them could see it. ‘The people in that building are responsible for the death of Muslims everywhere – in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq. That building is the source of the evil because it is run by the Americans, the Jews and the British. You three are the United Nations. Not us. You. So you are our enemy.’
‘Does your plan include an attack on the UN?’ asked Herrick.
Loz flashed her an appreciative smile. ‘You’re very smart, Isis. I told you that we were made for each other.’
She nodded. ‘I should have guessed why you made so much of your contact with Benjamin Jaidi. You were staring your enemy in the eyes. What’s that quote about the riddle of steel and stone?’
Loz held his head back and stared at the rain. ‘It goes like this. “This riddle of steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of non-violence, of racial brother-hood, this lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errands forestalled.” Secretary General Jaidi likes that quotation but not for the reason I do. If you think about it, there is not one true statement in that quotation. It is all lies. Racial brotherhood… try being an Arab or an African. Home of all people and all nations… capital of everything… None of it is true. The only time the deliberations stopped the planes flying was in Bosnia when Muslims were being killed by Serbs as the West stood by. That’s when the United Nations stands back.’
‘Actually, I agree with most of what you say,’ said Herrick.
‘That’s because you are an intelligent woman,’ said Loz. ‘And you understand in your heart that that place cannot go on. Things must be changed from the outside. It is full of corruption. It is owned by you and the Jews and the Americans. You run it as though it is your back yard. How many times do you think the Americans have vetoed Security Council resolutions against Israel?’
Herrick shrugged and said she didn’t know.
‘Of course you do not because you do not notice these things. But we Arabs count. The answer is thirty-four times in the last three decades. What chance do the Palestinians have with that record?’
‘Are you using planes?’ she said calmly.
‘We are soldiers, we fight on the ground.’
‘So guns and explosives – bombs?’
‘No, Isis, I do not tell you. You will see soon enough. You will see everything from here, and you will hear about the other things we plan. Patience, little girl.’
Harland had used up most of his illicit supply of painkillers and was now feeling distinctly seedy. His sister Harriet was keeping him company through his sleepless nights by reading to him from the diary of Samuel Pepys, which she insisted had the right combination of titillation and longueurs. She’d told him she would leave as soon as he dropped off, but that didn’t look like happening soon because Harland couldn’t get used to the sensation of sleeping on his front, especially now the painkillers had upset his stomach.
‘Hold on one moment,’ he said to Harriet.
She smiled radiantly. ‘What, darling?’
‘I think I should check on someone. Haven’t heard from her since this afternoon.’ He eased himself from the bed, swung his legs to the floor, then groped for the phone secreted in his sponge-bag. He dialled Herrick and waited. The phone rang ten times before she answered.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ she replied.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Staring at the rain. There’s a big storm here.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Sure. I had a nice glass of wine with Ollins in the bar. He’s a real charmer. Now I’m back in the hotel room with a bottle of red and a book. It’s great. I couldn’t be happier, nor more relaxed.’
‘Isis, are you all right?’
‘Sure, I’m just a bit sleepy. Early start tomorrow. Got to hang up now.’
‘Isis? Isis?’
She had gone.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he said, looking at Harriet. ‘I mean, this is a woman who makes you look straight-laced and dowdy. She is utterly driven. Doesn’t sleep until she’s attacked a problem a thousand different ways. I’ve never seen anyone like her before – not in my former line of work, anyway.’
‘You sound smitten,’ said Harriet.
Harland brushed this aside. ‘The point is that everything she said was untrue. For instance, she said she had been to a bar with Ollins. She said he was charming. Whatever his merits, Special Agent Ollins is not charming. In the circumstances, it is utterly unlike her to curl up with a book and a bottle of red wine. So it follows that when she said she couldn’t be happier or more relaxed she meant she was exactly the opposite. She has to be in some kind of trouble.’
Harriet saw he was serious. ‘What’re you going to do?’
‘I’ll phone Teckman, then try Ollins.’
Standing in the centre of the room, Herrick lowered the phone and deliberately pressed the button to end the call that Loz, with some pleasure, had insisted she take while he pressed Foyzi’s gun to her neck.
‘That was good, Isis. You’re quite the actress.’ Loz laid an arm across her shoulder and gave the gun back to Foyzi. ‘Another time and another place, we would have been a sublime match. As the Prophet said, “to taste each
