watchful, and the face powerful. The face of a soldier, which in a way he had been. A man of forty-five who had joined the KGB at twenty and had made major when he had moved on to other things. Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq in the old days – he’d seen it all. His name was Yuri Ashimov.
He stood up and kissed her on both cheeks and spoke to her in Russian. “Greta, more lovely than usual. A drink?”
“I’ll have a vodka with you.”
He went to the bar, ordered two, brought them back, sat down, took out a pack of Russian cigarettes and lit one.
“So, as nothing incredibly shocking has happened in New York, you must have a story for me.”
“Not a thing,” she said.
“Come on, Greta, GRU handles all things Arabic and Muslim. There has to be something.”
“That’s the point. There isn’t. The President didn’t keep his damned appointment with Senator Black. After the function at the Pierre, he went straight to Washington.”
“And Morgan?”
“Certainly went to Gould amp; Co. as usual. One of our New York associates confirmed this. The only unusual activity was some sort of paramedic ambulance going down into the underground parking lot. It left half an hour later.”
“Did our associate follow?”
“He deemed it unwise.”
“I should bloody well think so. It stinks.”
“Do you think they got him?”
“Sounds likely. But if they have, they won’t let on, and it won’t affect us anyway. There were no direct contacts.”
Greta nodded. “I think they’d want him alive to see what he had to say. On the other hand, our American friends are a lot lighter on the trigger these days and he did have the cyanide tooth.”
“Alive or dead, they won’t advertise the fact. What about the mother?”
“I called yesterday, as you suggested. Brought flowers and a basket of fruit, supposedly from friends at the mosque.”
“How was she?”
“Faded – slightly confused as usual. She told me everyone at the mosque was so kind, Dr. Selim was fantastic. And she mentioned that someone from the Council Welfare Department had visited her. A woman, apparently.”
Ashimov frowned. “Why would the Welfare Department visit her?”
“Because she’s handicapped?”
“Rubbish. Her son’s well enough off. Why would Welfare visit?” He shook his head. “I don’t like it. Did she say if they would visit again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Be there, Greta. Just in case. If somebody turns up, I want a photo. I get an instinct for things.”
“Which is why you’re still here, my love.”
“True. But something here isn’t right. Let’s try and find out what it is.”
At Cavendish Place, Dillon and Blake were admitted by Kim, the General’s Ghurka manservant, and found Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Roper in the drawing room. Ferguson was in his sixties, a large, untidy man in a crumpled suit and a Guards tie. Hannah Bernstein was in her early thirties, with close-cropped red hair and horn- rimmed spectacles. Her Armani trouser suit was certainly more expensive than most people could afford on police pay. Major Roper sat in a state-of-the-art electric wheelchair, wearing a reefer coat, hair down to his shoulders, his face a taut mask of the kind of scar tissue that comes from burns, the explosion that had ended his career.
“Here he is, the man of the moment,” Dillon said. “I’m sure he’ll give it to us in graphic detail,” which Blake did, everything that had happened in Manhattan.
Afterward, Blake said, “So there it is. For the disposal system, I’m indebted to you, General. We’re fighting a new kind of war these days, although I can understand Hannah’s moral principles being bruised a bit.”
“Bruised or not, the Superintendent works for this department under the Official Secrets Act. Isn’t that right?” Ferguson glanced at her.
Hannah didn’t look easy, but said, “Of course, sir.”
“Good. Tell us about Mrs. Morgan, then.”
“She’s sixty-five and looks much older. I managed to get hold of her hospital records, and it’s bad. The automobile accident that killed her husband almost finished her off. She narrowly avoided being a paraplegic, but she has money. Her husband owned a pharmacy, which was sold after his death, and there was insurance, so she’s well-fixed.”
“Go on.”
“Her family disowned her when she married a Christian, but now she’s returned to Islam, as you know. Her son started taking her to the Queen Street Mosque in her wheelchair. It used to be a Methodist chapel.”
“And he turned, too?”
“Apparently.”
Blake said, “That really interests me, the idea of a highly educated man, ostensibly English for thirty years of his life, a university academic, turning to a faith he’d never accepted before in his life.”
“And then ending up in Manhattan with the intention of killing the President,” Dillon said.
“Which makes me wonder what goes on at the Queen Street Mosque,” Blake said. “Some of these places are hotbeds of intrigue, pump out the wrong ideas. Sure, we finally captured Saddam in Iraq. But how long ago was that and how many terrorist attacks have there been since?”
Ferguson said, “In his last message, Bin Laden spoke of his young extremists as being ‘soldiers of God,’ and what concerns us is that young men from this country could be among them. It makes places like the Queen Street Mosque of special interest.”
Hannah said, “If you’re looking for suicide bombers, though, it doesn’t seem like the place.” She opened a file and passed it across. “Dr. Ali Selim, the imam. Forty-five, born in London, father a doctor from Iraq who sent the boy to St. Paul ’s School, one of our better establishments. Selim went to Cambridge, studied Arabic, and later took a doctorate in comparative theology.”
Blake looked at the file, particularly the photo. “Impressive. I like the beard.” He passed the file to the others.
Hannah said, “He’s a member of the Muslim Council, the Mayor of London’s Interfaith Committee, and any number of government boards. Everyone I speak to tells me he’s a wonderful man.”
“Maybe he’s too wonderful,” Dillon said.
“I’ve checked with the local police. Not a hint of trouble at the Queen Street Mosque.”
There was a pause, and Ferguson turned to Roper. “Have you any thoughts, Major?”
“I can only process facts, opinions, suppositions. Unless I have something to go on, I can’t help.”
“Well, I’ll give you something,” Blake said. “And it’s been intriguing the hell out of me. Does the Wrath of Allah mean anything to you?”
“Should it?”
“When Clancy and I faced Morgan, in the moment before he bit on the cyanide tooth, Morgan said, ‘Beware the Wrath of Allah.’ ”
Roper frowned and shook his head. “It doesn’t strike a chord, but I’ll run it by my computer.”
“So, the way ahead on this one appears plain,” Ferguson said. “I think you, Superintendent, should have another word with Mrs. Morgan in your guise as a welfare worker.”
Hannah wasn’t comfortable and showed it. “That’s a difficult one, sir. I mean, her son is dead and she doesn’t even know it.”
“Which can’t be helped, Superintendent. It’s an unusual situation, I agree, but when one considers the gravity of the deed Morgan was trying to commit, I feel that any means that will help us to reach an explanation would be justified. See to it, and use Dillon as backup. His knowledge of Arabic may prove useful.” He turned to Blake. “We’ll drop Roper off at his house, and you and I can continue to the Ministry of Defence, where I’ll show you everything
