The guard’s eyes tightened.
“It’s standard operating procedure. I’m always there in the shadows, but the other guy gets all the glory.” Charles’ childhood accent wasn’t getting any easier to conjure up, his drawl just wouldn’t.
“ID.”
He pulled his driving licence out of his wallet, held his finger over the UK flag. “My hotel has my passport.”
The guard gave it a cursory glance. “I’ll ask them to let you in the hotel next door, they’re broadcasting the summit on a live feed.”
“Thanks, appreciate that.”
Not as grand an entrance as the star hotel of the moment, but the cool embrace of its air conditioning in the lobby was very welcome. People in, people out, ringing phones, conversations, a muted relay from the summit showing on two large screens, one behind reception, one in the vast lounge.
Charles turned Lily’s phone on to call the riad. Two rings, hang up, call right back. But the phone rang and rang on his redial, its shrilling siren muted from Charles’ end. He’d told her to answer if he called. What was she doing? She had no phone to distract her, no internet because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t know how to navigate the home screen on Terry’s ancient PC now he’d set it to display in Arabic.
He switched off her phone, he’d try again in a minute.
But there, on the TV screen, was his karma. He watched the toast to begin the summit dinner. Per Larsson speaking in subtitles Charles couldn’t read raising a glass and smiling at the assembled great and good. A water glass.
Larsson drank, the camera panned to the attendees in front of him doing the same.
He believed he’d timed it right, but had he? His agent would work fast, be strongest there before diluting downstream in a ripple effect. He’d been counting on the hotel having instructions to use the freshest water possible for the water jugs. It’s what he would have done, had he been showcasing.
Where are you, Jed? There, just in shot, swallowing his water like a good leader.
When the cameras panned back to the top table, Charles sat in one of the chairs arranged in groups around low tables and tasteful flower displays and waited.
56
“I’m trying to save your lives.” Eva ground out, her hand braceleting the wrist of the man who had hold of her. “Everyone’s going to die.”
He pulled harder at the knots in her hair.
“I really don’t have time for this.” Eva grabbed the man’s football shirt and kneed him as hard as she could with her braced knee. It didn’t protest at all at the up, down movement but he folded to the ground in a pain-pitched moan.
She ran back to a wider street where the city was more alive. She chose a woman dressed in a long tunic over trousers and a bright red hijab to ask, “Excuse me, do you speak English?”
The woman laughed. “I am English, from Peckham, ‘ere on ‘oliday.”
“Where’s the closest mosque?”
“You can’t go in dressed like that.”
But she could. “Do you speak Arabic?”
“Nah, just the Queen’s English. Nearest mosque’s that way,” the woman pointed.
Eva saw the carved stone monument of the minaret soaring over the buildings, probably only a couple of streets over.
But the entrance was closed, locked, when she tried the doors.
“You’re a hard woman to keep up with.” The English was welcome, the person speaking it wasn’t.
“If you’ve come to kill me, can you just wait until I’ve warned them about the water?” Eva backed away from Luke.
“What’re you talking about?” he followed.
“I showed you on your phone. Charles poisoned the water.”
“Not that, why would I be here to kill you?”
“Orders. Charles told me, you’re part of this group The Society.”
He made a gesture brushing aside what she said, the space between them. “You want to know what my orders are?”
She took a step backwards. He copied, a step towards her. Hers backwards, his forwards. Eva jolted up against the corner of something.
Luke took another step, Eva couldn’t move. “Gordon Stamford is the mutual friend between Addison and me. It’s how I found you, Iago tracked my phone.”
“You could just be saying that.”
“Out of all the names to choose from, I went with Iago?” He put his hands on the wall behind Eva, either side of her head, and bent towards her. His breath tickled her ear. “Vincent doesn’t know.”
Eva felt her eyes snap open, heard her own gasp.
Luke pressed back off the wall. “Nora told me that’d mean something to you. Don’t worry, she didn’t tell me what, though now I’m intrigued.” He took a half step away from her. “Believe I’m here to hurt you now? I tell a lot of lies in this job, but that isn’t one.”
Locks rattling on the inside of the building pushed her to decide. The doors to the mosque opened one at a time.
“You have to tell them to broadcast a warning about the water,” she gestured at her hair. “I can’t go in there.”
“Me either, not armed. Stand closer.” He held his right arm out and she did as instructed. “Holster’s on my left.” She slipped her arms into his warmth, understanding why he wore a jacket in the heat. He looked down at her, “I’m not giving you my weapon if I’m your enemy, am I?”
Eva shook her head. She unclipped the holster and pulled out his surprisingly heavy gun, under the cover of his closeness, tucking it into the waistband of her jeans beneath her t-shirt.
“Won’t be long.” He disappeared inside.
She stood stock still, hands hugging her stomach as though she was pregnant, holding the weapon tightly against her so it didn’t fall onto the concrete and accidentally shoot one of the people now approaching the mosque. Or get her arrested.
So
