Rain on the Dead

‘What a damn traitor he turned out to be. Another turncoat.’

‘But not to Ferguson. As far as I know, MI5 claimed him. Perhaps he found it preferable to facing twenty-five years in Belmarsh under anti-terrorism laws,’ Lily said.

‘A traitor is a traitor. And as far as Ferguson goes, I’ve received an order from the Grand Council. They want revenge for ben Levi. Nothing less than assassination. Bullet or bomb, I’m open to either.’ He laughed. ‘I suppose I could put it to Tod Flynn.’

Lily was shocked at the implication. ‘The political upheaval would be enormous.’

‘And so it should be. That would be the point. That no one is safe, not even those working at the highest level for the Prime Minister himself, and there’s a thought.’

Lily tried to sound enthused, but managed only a muted ‘I hear what you say.’

‘Good. With luck, you should be back in London tomorrow. Give my sincere thanks to Hamid Bey for allowing you the few days’ leave to assist me as you have. He has been a revelation once he took over as imam. AQ acknowledges its debt.’

‘I’ll speak to him as soon as I get back. Is there anything more I can do for you?’

‘Yes, I’d like you to look up Tod Flynn’s niece at the Royal College of Music. She interests me. It seems that when she was fourteen, she lost her parents to a car bomb on a trip to Ulster and was crippled.’

‘Dear God,’ Lily said, genuinely shocked.

‘Her father was Flynn’s elder brother, Peter. Flynn became her legal guardian, and she’s been raised by him and her great-aunt. I want to know more about her. Something tells me it’ll come in handy for keeping Mr Flynn in hand.’

‘The usual file?’

‘Exactly, now be on your way. God go with you.’

She continued to walk at the water’s edge, thinking of Pound Street Methodist Chapel, now converted to the mosque and the headquarters of the Army of God charity. She was a cockney girl who from childhood had only wanted to be a nurse, had qualified against the odds and then joined the Army Medical Corps. In the seven years that followed, one war after another had given her an unrivalled experience of the barbarism, the butchery, that people could inflict on one another.

In Bosnia, she’d seen open graves with hundreds of Muslim bodies tumbled into them, as if the Nazis had returned to haunt Europe. In Kosovo, you had to get out of the ambulances to pull the corpses of mothers and their children to one side of the road so you could continue. In northern Lebanon, she had served with the Red Cross and UN with only a handful of soldiers to try to control the rape and pillage outside the mission hospital.

It was the only time she’d fought, and that was in desperation, picking up a dead soldier’s Browning pistol and emptying it into savage faces one after another, and then the trucks had roared up with the men and rifles. Al Qaeda, ruthlessly shooting wrongdoers, bringing order where there was none.

Two years later and out of the army, a nursing sister at the Cromwell Hospital in London, she’d met the love of her life, Khalid Shah, a handsome Algerian charge nurse, married him, and they’d moved to the dispensary at Pound Street, where it became clear that he was a follower of Osama bin Laden.

It was a year later that the cruelty of life took him away from her, when Al Qaeda called him in for service in Gaza, an Israeli air strike a month later ensuring his stay was permanent. She couldn’t hate Jews because of what had happened, for her dark secret, even from Khalid, was that she was only a Christian through her father, because her mother was a Jew and had married out. Hamid Bey, the imam at Pound Street Mosque, seemed a reasonable man, and as the dispensary was multi-faith, Lily’s Christianity caused no problem. The fact that he also looked the other way where Al Qaeda was concerned was understandable, when one considered that the greater part of his congregation supported it. She had yet to realize that she was entirely wrong in her assessment of Hamid, a savage zealot, who supported the Cause as much as the Master.

As her husband Khalid had been very open about his dedication to Al Qaeda, Lily had, to a certain extent, been drawn in. After all, it was the ruthless actions of Al Qaeda in Lebanon, saving many lives, including her own, which had made it possible for the most important relationship of her life to take place. And when that had ended, the telephone call from the Master to commiserate had opened a door into what followed. When General Ali ben Levi had been killed, she had not wondered why the Master’s voice had suddenly become different, for it was her place to serve without question.

But what had taken place here in Nantucket was like a bad dream that wouldn’t go away and not like anything that had happened before. Not even like Lebanon and the massacre and the intervention of Al Qaeda, which had saved so many lives.

She glanced at her watch and saw the time. If she was going to catch the ferry, she’d have to run. She slung her beach bag over her shoulder and started to do just that.

NEW YORK (#u716228c6-7378-52df-a43c-835920399ae5)

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The helicopter was comfortable enough, three tables with bench seats around the windows and a room in the back for privacy, into which Cazalet and Ferguson vanished on boarding. A young man and woman were in attendance, wearing identical dark blue suits and ties, and they ushered Dillon and Sara to one of the tables, belted themselves up for takeoff, and afterwards indicated that coffee or tea and a selection of sandwiches were available.

‘Would there be anything stronger?’ Dillon asked the woman, her colleague having gone off to serve the back room. ‘Like Bushmills, or would that be too much to ask?’

‘Of course not, sir, we keep a full range of spirits. And you, Captain?’

‘You must forgive my friend being so particular, but he’s Irish and not as other men. I’m probably being just as awkward by asking if you have any English breakfast tea.’

There was the ghost of a smile as the woman said, ‘Of course, Captain, I think I can manage that.’

She returned with their drinks on a tray and served them, and Sara thanked her. There were three double miniatures on Dillon’s small tray, a glass, but no water. ‘That should make you happy,’ Sara said as she poured her tea. ‘It’s almost as if she knows you.’

Dillon had opened his first miniature as she spoke, poured it, and tossed it down. ‘Maybe she does,’ he said as he opened another.

‘I don’t understand you, Sean,’ Sara said. ‘You were fine earlier when you came to tell me you’d had a word with Roper and so on, but now you’re in another place.’ She drank some of her tea. ‘You seemed okay when you went off to have a walk on the beach, but since then, not even a smile. What’s wrong? Are you upset about something?’

‘You mean like shooting a guy three times in the head last night? Why should I let a little thing like that bother me? You, on the other hand, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.’ He picked up the third miniature, started to open it, and slammed it down.

Sara reached over and put her hand on his. ‘What is it, love? This isn’t you. Just tell me. It’s what friends are for.’

‘Damn you, Sara, for being so bloody nice. I’m truly sorry, but let’s leave it. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the toilet.’

She sat there thinking about it, thoroughly worried, then he returned fifteen minutes later, a fresh face on him, hair combed. He smiled. ‘If I do that again, punch me in the mouth. I don’t usually stress up that easily, but I seem to have done so this trip.’

Not that she believed him, but she couldn’t take the matter any further when the young man appeared from the back room and told them that Cazalet wanted to see them.

It was comfortably furnished, some chairs clamped to the floor, a desk, a large television screen, a computer. Cazalet sat behind the desk, Ferguson to one side. Ferguson said, ‘We’ll be in New York pretty soon, so this is the last chance for the four of us to discuss what’s happening. Sit down.’

Which they did, and Cazalet said, ‘The President has decided to be guided by the CIA in this matter, and their advice is this. They agree that the attack was sponsored by Al Qaeda, but they want to keep it under wraps. They’ll immediately start investigating, but want to keep Al Qaeda off balance by not saying a word about it publicly. All they’ll know is that I’m obviously alive and walking around. Al Qaeda won’t know what to make of it, won’t know what did occur.’

‘Only that their two assassins have gone missing?’ Sara nodded. ‘That makes for an interesting situation.’

‘Well, they love their martyrs,’ Ferguson said. ‘We all know that, so handled this way, it denies AQ the oxygen of publicity.’

Cazalet said, ‘Maybe they’ll slip up, make a mistake, try to communicate with each other. That’s helped us before.’ Cazalet smiled grimly. ‘And we have a lot of drones.’

‘Which still requires us to know where the bastards are in the first place,’ Dillon said. ‘To be able to score.’

There was a slight pause. Sara glanced at Dillon, then said, ‘Thank you for being so clear, sir.’

‘Very weird.’ Dillon shook his head. ‘We were in New York at the UN to discuss the Husseini affair with the British ambassador, then got yanked out for an evening with you, and it was that which screwed up Al Qaeda’s plan. I’m surprised they didn’t get wind of our trip to Nantucket. The UN’s a sieve, all those countries crammed into that building on the East River. Don’t tell me Al Qaeda doesn’t have its fingers in that pie.’

‘That may be,’ Ferguson said. ‘The point is how we handle it now. I’ve had word from London. It seems the President has spoken to the Prime Minister, who has agreed to all this but with some reluctance. So that settles it. As far as the public is concerned, none of this ever happened.’

He turned to Dillon. ‘Have you anything to say? You usually do.’

‘About the dream I had last night? It’s fading rapidly.’

‘Go on, back to your seats. We need a last few words together, don’t we, sir?’ he said to Cazalet.

Dillon and Sara turned to go. He had his hand on the door handle when Cazalet called, ‘Just a moment, you two.’

They turned, and Sara said, ‘Yes, sir, was there something else?’