Dark Justice

‘And fails in that respect.’ It was a statement, not a question.

Dillon said, ‘Blake, the world’s gone to hell in a hand basket. Terrorism, al-Qaeda, all that stuff since nine-eleven, has changed everything. It can’t be combated by the old-fashioned rules of war. It isn’t like that.’

‘I agree.’ Blake shrugged. ‘A few years ago I’d never have said that, in spite of what I had to do during my time in Vietnam. I believed in the decencies, the rule of law, justice, all that stuff. But the people we have to deal with these days – there are no rules as far as they’re concerned, so there are no rules as far as I’m concerned. I’ll take them down any way I can.’

‘Good man yourself, I couldn’t agree more.’ Dillon lit another cigarette. ‘I speak Arabic, you know that, and I’ve spent my share of time in the Middle East. Even worked for the PLO in the old days when I was a naughty boy, and I think I know the Arab mind a bit. Most Muslims in the States or the UK are decent people, interested only in making a living and raising their families, but there’s a few of them who have a different political agenda, and it’s dealing with them that’s the problem.’

‘Take Morgan. English father, Muslim mother, raised a Christian,’ Blake said. ‘I know what happened to his parents, his mother returning to the Islamic faith and Morgan finding that same faith himself. But what turned him into the assassin who tried to take out the President?’

‘Well, that’s what you’re here to find out,’ Dillon told him. ‘And Ferguson, Hannah and Roper are waiting at Cavendish Place to discuss it with you.’

The Embassy of the Russian Federation is situated in Kensington Palace Gardens and it was typical November weather, rain falling, when Greta Novikova emerged through the main gates and paused at the edge of the pavement, waiting for the traffic to pass.

She was a small girl, unmistakably Slavic, with black hair to her shoulders, dark intense eyes and high cheekbones, and she wore an ankle-length coat in soft black leather over a black Armani suit. She would have made heads turn anywhere. She was a commercial attaché at the Embassy and had the degree to prove it, but in fact at thirty-five years old she was a major in the GRU, Russian Military Intelligence.

She crossed the road during the break in the traffic and entered the pub opposite. Early lunchtime it wasn’t very busy, but the man she was seeking was at the far end of the bar in the window seat reading The Times.

He was a couple of inches short of six feet, and wore a fawn raincoat over a dark wool suit. His hair was close-cropped, and a scar ran from the bottom of his left eye to the corner of his mouth. The eyes were cold and watchful, and the face powerful. The face of a soldier, which in a way he had been. A man of forty-five who had joined the KGB at twenty and had made major when he had moved on to other things. Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq in the old days – he’d seen it all. His name was Yuri Ashimov.

He stood up and kissed her on both cheeks and spoke to her in Russian. ‘Greta, more lovely than usual. A drink?’

‘I’ll have a vodka with you.’

He went to the bar, ordered two, brought them back, sat down, took out a pack of Russian cigarettes and lit one.

‘So, as nothing incredibly shocking has happened in New York, you must have a story for me.’

‘Not a thing,’ she said.

‘Come on, Greta, GRU handles all things Arabic and Muslim. There has to be something.’

‘That’s the point. There isn’t. The President didn’t keep his damned appointment with Senator Black. After the function at the Pierre he went straight to Washington.’

‘And Morgan?’

‘Certainly went to Gould & Co. as usual. One of our New York associates confirmed this. The only unusual activity was some sort of paramedic ambulance going down into the underground parking lot. It left half an hour later.’

‘Did our associate follow?’

‘He deemed it unwise.’

‘I should bloody well think so. It stinks.’

‘Do you think they got him?’

‘Sounds likely. But if they have they won’t let on, and it won’t affect us anyway. There were no direct contacts.’

Greta nodded. ‘I think they’d want him alive to see what he had to say. On the other hand, our American friends are a lot lighter on the trigger these days and he did have the cyanide tooth.’

‘Alive or dead, they won’t advertise the fact. What about the mother?’

‘I called yesterday, as you suggested. Brought flowers and a basket of fruit, supposedly from friends at the mosque.’

‘How was she?’

‘Faded – slightly confused as usual. She told me everyone at the mosque was so kind, Dr Selim was fantastic. And she mentioned that someone from the social services department had visited her. A woman, apparently.’

Ashimov frowned. ‘Why would the social services visit her?’

‘Because she’s handicapped?’

‘Rubbish. Her son’s well enough off. Why would social services visit?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Did she say if they would visit again?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Be there, Greta. Just in case. If somebody turns up, I want a photo. I get an instinct for things.’

‘Which is why you’re still here, my love.’

‘True. But something here isn’t right. Let’s try and find out what it is.’

At Cavendish Place, Dillon and Blake were admitted by Kim, the General’s Gurkha manservant, and found Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Roper in the drawing room. Ferguson was in his sixties, a large, untidy man in a crumpled suit and a Guards tie. Hannah Bernstein was in her early thirties, with close-cropped red hair and horn-rimmed spectacles. Her Armani trouser suit was certainly more expensive than most people could afford on police pay. Major Roper sat in a state-of-the-art electric wheelchair, wearing a reefer coat, hair down to his shoulders, his face a taut mask of the kind of scar tissue that comes from burns, the explosion that had ended his career.

‘Here he is, the man of the moment,’ Dillon said. ‘I’m sure he’ll give it to us in graphic detail,’ which Blake did, everything that had happened in Manhattan.

Afterwards Blake said, ‘So there it is. For the disposal system I’m indebted to you, General. We’re fighting a new kind of war these days, although I can understand Hannah’s moral principles being bruised a bit.’

‘Bruised or not, the Superintendent works for this department under the Official Secrets Act. Isn’t that right?’ Ferguson glanced at her.

Hannah didn’t look easy, but said, ‘Of course, sir.’

‘Good. Tell us about Mrs Morgan, then.’

‘She’s sixty-five and looks much older. I managed to get hold of her hospital records, and it’s bad. The car accident that killed her husband almost finished her off. She narrowly avoided being a paraplegic, but she has money. Her husband owned a pharmacy, which was sold after his death, and there was insurance, so she’s well fixed.’

‘Go on.’

‘Her family disowned her when she married a Christian, but now she’s returned to Islam, as you know. Her son started taking her to the Queen Street mosque in her wheelchair. It used to be a Methodist chapel.’

‘And he turned, too?’

‘Apparently.’

Blake said, ‘That really interests me, the idea of a highly educated man, ostensibly English for thirty years of his life, a university academic, turning to a faith he’d never accepted before in his life.’

‘And then ending up in Manhattan with the intention of killing the President,’ Dillon said.

‘Which makes me wonder what goes on at the Queen Street mosque,’ Blake said. ‘Some of these places are hotbeds of intrigue, pump out the wrong ideas. Sure, we finally captured Saddam in Iraq. But how long ago was that and how many terrorist attacks have there been since?’