Part 18 (1/2)
”And he knows it,” Roper put in.
”Makes you wonder why he's come back,” Greta said.
”If that means could there be a purpose to his return, I'm sure there is,” Roper said, and Ruby arrived with the champagne on a trolley.
AT ALI Ha.s.sIM'S CORNER SHOP near Gulf Road, Professor Khan drew up in an Audi and went inside. Ali himself was behind the counter with a young girl in a smock, a niqab covering her entire face except for the eyes.
”Professor,” he said in Arabic. ”What a surprise.” He nodded to the girl. ”Come on,” he told Khan and led the way into the small back room.
They sat opposite each other at the table.
”I thought you were to go to Hazar?” Ali said.
”Yes, but the news from Hazar is bad.”
”I've heard wild rumors. Can it be so?”
”Absolutely.”
”So the Ras.h.i.+d girl is once again at the house in Gulf Road.”
”The father, a.s.sisted by devils from h.e.l.l, abducted her from Hazar. She'd gone there with her cousin and future husband, Hussein Ras.h.i.+d.”
”The Hammer of G.o.d himself. Praise be his name.”
”Praise indeed. They had left Baghdad, where her grandfather was killed by a car bomb in his Mercedes planted by Sunni dogs.”
”Curse them,” Ali said. ”What happened in Hazar?”
Khan gave him as close an account as he was capable of.
”So what happens now?” Ali inquired. ”Hussein Ras.h.i.+d is what he is and a great man, but there aren't just newspaper photos. One of my sweepers had to go to Hampstead police station for the new business, and there were two photos on the big notice board in the Most Wanted section. He could never come to England now.”
”So it would seem.” Khan got up. ”I must go.”
Ali accompanied him to the street door and stood by the Audi. Khan said,”You never heard a word from Abu?” In fact he knew perfectly well that Abu was dead, shot by Greta Novikova, for Jamal had told him, but there had seemed little point informing Ali Ha.s.sim. There were more important considerations, and he had sworn Jamal to secrecy.
Ali Ha.s.sim was remarkably calm in his reply. ”I think they murdered him. It is the only explanation. If he was alive somewhere, he would have let us know by now.”
”May you meet in Paradise. I'll be in touch.”
As he got in the Audi, Ali said, ”Things go badly, am I right?”
”No. It is just a minor setback. Hold true to your faith in Allah and in Osama.”
”Always that.” Ali closed the door for him and Khan drove away.
NOT LONG AFTERWARD there was an emergency at the hospital and Molly Ras.h.i.+d was called. In an effort to return to some sort of normalcy, the three of them had intended to go to the cinema together, but the child in question at the hospital was only seven, heart valves were involved, and Molly really was very good at that.
So off she went, and when Caspar suggested just the two of them going to the cinema, Sara said she'd rather not. He tried talking to her as they worked their way through the light salad Molly had left for supper, but he got little response.
Afterward, in the main drawing room by the fire, he tried to make conversation and failed miserably when he tried to discuss the future; it had disastrous results. His hesitant mention of school drew a totally negative result. She actually came alive.
”Do you really think that would be appropriate, Daddy? School blazer, jolly hockey sticks?”
”But look, love, you'll have to go to school. The law demands it.”
”The law!” There was a kind of fire in her eyes. ”What's that? All I saw for months were people shot, saw it on a regular basis. Your mother was killed along with seventy-two people in a market bombing in downtown Baghdad, your father in a car bomb by Sunnis.”
”I know, darling.” He tried to take her hand. She pulled away. ”You say Sunni as if you hate them.”
”Why not? At the villa, including servants we had over forty people, because those who lost their homes brought their families. People lived in tents in the grounds, and every week without fail, somebody was killed. There were always three or four. One week was bad-ten in another market bombing.” She shrugged, ”And the dead were replaced by more refugees. It was a cycle. It never stopped. There was no time for school. I don't think I'll ever find time for it again.”
”Don't talk like that.”
She said, ”I think I'll go to bed.”
”Are you sure you're all right?” he asked.
”Oh, yes, you've got to look on the bright side.” She actually managed a smile. ”I've just thought of something good. At school, we do our advanced level certificates in a few years. Just think, I could probably do Advanced Arabic right now and get an A. Good night.”
He sat there thinking about it, and the terrible thing was that in spite of his learning, his degree, the books he had written, there was nothing he could do about it.
He stood quietly in the hall for a while, then went upstairs and tiptoed to her bedroom door. She was crying, he could hear that well enough.
As he went back downstairs, he'd never felt so helpless in his life.
HUSSEIN, FRUSTRATED AND ANGRY, hired a private jet from a company in Kuwait, a Citation X, a twin-engined plane requiring two pilots. The owners of the company were good Muslims, so it wasn't just a question of money when they realized who he was. The aircraft was reputed to be the fastest commercial jet in the world since the Concorde's departure. It was due the following day, but like everyone in the Broker's world, he had no means of getting in touch with him and could only wait.
At last the call came and he took it, angry. ”What in h.e.l.l is going on? I've already booked a private jet; it's coming tomorrow morning.”
”Excellent. I have a destination for you.”
”Where?”
”Algeria, just as I said. You, of course, did your combat training there in the camps. So did Dillon thirty years ago when he was nineteen and first joined the IRA. Do you know an area called the Khufra, on the coast?”
”No, I was in the desert two hundred miles west. It had a bad reputation. Why would we go there?”
”In a way, it's a message from me to Major Roper that I'm on to him.
Ferguson's people had a hard time of it there last year. They're still wanted by the Algerian police for several murders. Anyway, it's a bad place, hundreds of miles of marsh, creeks, lots of boats and a hotbed of smuggling and drug-running. There is an airstrip, old hangars, a basic control tower.”
”And where do we go from there?”