Three of the troopers had been sent down the lane back to the village, and had returned with the three Renault Espaces.
They swiftly moved the bodies of the two dead SAS troopers into one of the vehicles, then Richter and Ross supervised the removal of almost everything portable in the house, from the computer in the back bedroom to the prayer mats in the lounge, taking anything and everything that could provide clues to the identity of the four dead Arabs. They stripped the bodies, collected their clothes, personal possessions, weapons and ammunition, and all the spent cartridge cases they could find. Everything went into the cavernous boots of the Espaces.
They photographed each of them, several times, full face and profile, even Ibrahim, who nobody, not even his own mother, would recognize. They worked quickly, aware that the noise they had created in assaulting the house would certainly have been heard by someone, and that quite possibly the gendarmes were already en route to the village. Confrontation with French law-enforcement officers would not be a problem, because one call by Richter to Lacomte should sort it out, but he and Ross had agreed that a swift and silent exit from the scene was by far the best option.
Twenty-eight minutes after Richter had shot Abbas in the stomach, the three vehicles began the descent down the hill into St Medard.
‘This is appalling,’ the Russian President said, unconsciously echoing the words the British Prime Minister had used just minutes earlier and almost two thousand miles away. ‘You are absolutely certain of the facts?’
‘Yes, Comrade President,’ Yuri Baratov said, his familiar smile for once completely absent. ‘A low-yield nuclear weapon was detonated in the American south-central region approximately one hour ago. Our initial estimate based on technical analysis and seismograph data suggests that ground zero was Abilene in Texas and this has been confirmed by the American news media. CNN, in particular.’
The President rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I am not familiar with American centres of population. What size city is Abilene?’
‘The population of the city is around one hundred and twenty thousand,’ Baratov said, ‘and about a further one hundred and seventy thousand people live in the surrounding area.’
‘And the weapon? What size device was used?’
‘Again, Comrade President, we do not yet have accurate data, but we believe the weapon to be very low- yield, probably thirty kilotons or less.’
‘So what sort of damage are we talking about? What casualties?’
Yuri Baratov spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘We can’t begin to estimate it. The worst-case scenario would place the weapon in or near the centre of the city. That could produce a death toll of anything from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand people. That’s most of the population, but by American standards it’s a small city. If the weapon was detonated some distance outside the city, perhaps half of those figures.’
‘So many?’ the President murmured, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘But you said it was a low-yield weapon.’
‘That is what we believe,’ Baratov replied. ‘But you must remember, Comrade President, that the weapon the Americans dropped on Hiroshima only had a yield of twenty kilotons, and that killed about one hundred thousand people.’
‘And the question the Americans will want us to answer, no doubt, is why a Russian nuclear weapon was detonated in an American city. And I too want that question answered. There is no possibility that this was some kind of a terrorist attack, and nothing to do with that idiot Trushenko’s
Baratov shook his head. ‘I have already talked with General Sokolov, and he has confirmed that Abilene was one of the cities targeted by Trushenko, though he does not know either the calculated yield of the weapon or where it was located. But I do not believe in coincidence. This weapon was certainly one of the
‘Which of course raises yet another question,’ the President growled. ‘Modin and Bykov have just been placed under armed guard at the Embassy in London. Sokolov is here in Moscow in a cell in the Lubyanka and Trushenko is dead, killed in the Ukraine, so who fired the weapon?’
Again Baratov spread his hands wide. ‘I have no idea,’ he said.
‘Well, one thing is quite certain,’ the President said, getting to his feet. ‘I will have to go and talk to the Americans. Immediately.’
‘There’s a phone box – stop the car,’ Richter called, and Dekker obediently hauled the Espace into the side of the road. Richter had been checking his mobile phone for the last eight minutes, ever since the idea had come to him, but the signal strength had stayed obstinately at zero. The box in Vic-Fezensac was the first public telephone he’d seen on the road since they’d left St Medard. He jumped out of the Espace, ran back to the phone box and lifted the receiver, feeding Euros into the slot as he did so. The phone rang only twice before Baker answered.
‘It’s Richter. The Arab who was calling himself “The Prophet”. It’s just occurred to me that perhaps his backdoor code could be the same, but in a different language. His screen name or whatever you call it was Yiddish, not Farsi or Pashto, which we would have expected of an Arab. Maybe he ransacked the languages of the world, using obscure words in dialects spoken by only a handful of people. He seemed to think the name “The Prophet” was some kind of a joke, so it’s possible he thought it was so funny he used it twice, if you see what I mean.’
‘Yes, maybe,’ Baker said doubtfully. ‘I’ve already tried accessing the system using “Dernowi”, but that didn’t work. I’ll run the word “prophet” through the dictionary program and see what it comes up with. I’ll call you.’
‘Right,’ Richter said. ‘You’d better make that your first priority – the Arab said that somebody else knew the backdoor code to the Krutaya mainframe, and I don’t think he was joking about that. Oh, and ask somebody there to get Lacomte to re-activate the mobile phone cells down here as soon as he can.’
‘Right. Is that it?’
‘No. Is Simpson there? I need to brief him on what we got out of the Arab. Some of what he said will certainly interest him, and I’m sure the Americans will be fascinated.’
Sadoun Khamil was still sitting in front of the television set, but his smile had vanished and he was puzzled. The screen now showed long-distance television pictures of the ruins of Abilene, taken from a news chopper that was keeping some miles back from the devastation, presumably because of the danger from the fallout. That wasn’t what was puzzling him. By now, he had expected there to be news of other detonations, from all across the United States, but it was beginning to look as if the Abilene weapon was an isolated incident.
He would, he decided, wait only a further hour, and then he would have to contact al-Qaeda. In the meantime, he strode across to his computer to compose an urgent email, sent direct and this time in clear, to Hassan Abbas.
‘An Arab?’ Yuri Baratov could not keep the incredulity out of his voice. ‘Why would some fucking raghead have access to a Russian weapons computer?’
‘According to the American President, because the fucking ragheads, as you describe them, actually paid for it to be built. If the Americans are to be believed,’ the Russian President continued, ‘the Arabs – and by that the President actually means the al-Qaeda group – conceived the
