The past twelve hours had been the worst of her life. She had stayed up late reading about Fariborz Sahba, the Iranian architect behind the temple. Her mother had spoken often of him and his wonderful house of worship, which she had visited soon after its completion in the 1980s. Sahba had chosen the metaphor of a blossoming lotus flower in the hope that a new era of peace and religious tolerance would emerge out of the ‘murky waters’ of mankind’s history of ignorance and violence.
Spiro was ignorant of many things, but last night was the first time he had been violent towards her. She had tried to resist, to talk him out of it, but he had threatened to tell Monk Johnson that she was behaving erratically. Nothing could jeopardise the presidential pageant, or the leading part she had been asked to play in it, so she had followed him out of the restaurant and back to his hotel room.
Afterwards, in her own room, she had taken a shower, sobbing as she scrubbed herself with sandalwood soap. Then the tears had cleared and she had set to work, researching the Bahá’í faith online with the zeal of a dying patient desperate for a cure: the simple process of religious conversion that required a ‘declaration card’ to be filled out; how the rural masses had been targeted by Bahá’í missionaries in post-Gandhi India, many of them signing up to its appealing message of a united mankind with a single thumbprint. And the British weapons inspector David Kelly, who had converted to Bahá’ísm four years before his mysterious death.
By the time dawn broke, her research had better prepared her for the news of her mother’s death, which only seemed to confirm in her tired mind the belief that she had known about it already. She felt closer to her mother, understood her life better, and knew how to pray for her in death. Her understanding of the Bahá’í faith was still nothing compared to her mother’s, but it had grown in recent months, preparing her for this day.
Now she was here, in the Lotus Temple, waiting for her Security Service colleagues to arrive, and she must try to put her grieving on hold. As an intelligence officer she was used to protecting her emotions, partitioning off her inner life in order to play a part, but she knew that the next few hours would test her skills to the limit.
She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and looked around the temple, drawing strength from its beauty. Monk Johnson would want to walk through the President’s journey one more time, down the avenue, up the five flights of steps and into the protection of Sahba’s petals. Leila felt protected too, with her own declaration card in one hand, a page of prayers in the other, about to convert to the religion of her mother and hoping to be forgiven for the choices she had made and the actions she was about to take.
48
Marchant lifted his head towards the cell door and listened to the bolts being pulled back. Both of his eyes were heavily swollen, and he could hear better than he could see. As far as he could tell, he was in the basement of the American Embassy in Delhi. He had been hooded on the Seahawk flight, his wrists shackled, and then beaten by two men he took for Seals.
There was an avenging energy about their assault that made Marchant wonder if they were the same two who had waterboarded him in Poland. But they didn’t speak, either to him, or to each other, so it was hard to tell. Perhaps they were just venting their frustration that they hadn’t found Dhar, knowing that their own butts would be whipped for having returned empty-handed on the eve of a presidential visit.
Marchant went with the blows as much as he could, but it was a cowardly assault, and his anger stopped him from slipping into unconsciousness as quickly as he would have liked. Instead, he rolled around the cold floor of the helicopter, trying to protect himself by tucking up his knees, and spitting out as much blood as he could to stop it congealing later in his throat.
He was lying on the floor again now as the cell door swung open, letting in a cool draft from the air- conditioned corridor outside. He steeled himself for another beating, but the blows never came.
‘Daniel?’ It was the same voice he had heard on Dhar’s mobile: Harriet Armstrong’s.
He heard her walk towards him as the heavy cell door was closed and bolted behind her. She came over to where Marchant was lying.
‘I was going to ask if you’re OK. Can I get you some water?’
Marchant didn’t know what to say or think. This was the woman who had helped to drive his father from office, and had led the calls for his own suspension. What was she doing here? And why had she phoned him in the jungle?
‘I wasn’t expecting your call,’ he managed to say. Armstrong passed him a plastic bottle. He held it up to his lips with both hands. They were bound together in front of him now, rather than behind his back. He dropped the bottle after a few sips, and Armstrong picked it up, holding it to his lips again. Then she put it on the ground and helped him sit up against the back wall of the cell.
‘Thanks,’ he said. Armstrong said nothing. He heard her walk away from him and knock on the cell door. After a few moments the two bolts were pulled back. Another rush of cool air.
‘Get me some warm soapy water, a cloth and a doctor,’ her voice echoed down the corridor. ‘And if anyone questions you, tell them to call William Straker in Langley.’
‘Sir, I’ve got Carter on the line,’ the junior officer said, standing like a bellboy at the door of the Maurya Hotel’s Presidential Suite.
‘Carter?’ Spiro asked, walking across the main room, his mind on other things — Leila’s ass, when he could be with her again. ‘Is he back at Langley, or still showboating in London?’
He glanced around at the desk, the deep leather armchairs, the plasma screen on one wall and the large glass bowl on the low Rajasthani coffee table. A single lotus flower was floating on the water. Monk Johnson had asked him to take one final look at the suite. Everything seemed to be in order.
‘He’s here, sir, in Delhi.’
Spiro spun round to face the junior officer. ‘Here? What the hell’s he doing here?’
‘He’s at the airport, sir. Flew in on a Gulfstream this morning. The Indians are awaiting our authorisation before allowing him to disembark.’
The last thing Spiro needed was to have Alan Carter in Delhi. He would call Straker, find out what was going on. Carter had been pulled off the Marchant case when he went soft on the British renegade. This was Spiro’s shout now, an opportunity to rehabilitate himself after Poland. The DCIA had charged him with coordinating the Agency’s role in the presidential visit — his last chance, Straker had said. He wasn’t about to let Carter embarrass him again.
‘That’s the first sensible thing they’ve done in days. Let Carter fry. Tell the Indians there’s a problem with the paperwork. I’m sure they’ll understand.’
Salim Dhar pushed his way through the crowded alleyways of Old Delhi, thinking about his contact. Would he be a
He felt at home here, reassured by the warren of lanes and Mughal doorways, the call of a nearby
The arrangement had been designed to mirror the chaos of Chandni Chowk. His contact would pass by the mosque’s main entrance at around midday. More important than the exact time was the person in the back seat of the rickshaw, who would be wearing a black baseball cap. The rickshaw would stop outside the mosque, where its
