Читать книгу Prime Target - Alistair MacLean, Alistair MacLean, Hugh Miller - Страница 8

When Philpott stepped into the semi-darkness of the Secure Communications Suite he found Mike Graham hunched in front of six computer screens, three on three.

‘I know you said another hour.’ The padded walls and ceiling muffled Philpott’s voice. ‘But I got fidgety.’

‘I’m antsy myself, now,’ Mike said. ‘One damned detail has bugged me for twenty minutes. I’m getting nowhere with it.’

He leaned back and stretched. He was a lithe man, conventionally handsome with even features and an easy way of smiling. Philpott, never keen to admit that anything or anyone was without major flaw, often remarked that Mike’s hair was too long.

‘When will you have results worth examining?’

‘I’ve got them now.’

‘Excellent.’ Philpott took the swivel chair next to Mike’s. ‘Do you have a tentative verdict?’

‘Well this could certainly be UNACO’s kind of case, because the dead man had a terrorist pedigree. His real name was Yaqub Hisham, and he was Arabic, as everybody thought. He was registered with the Department of Social Security in London as Kamul Haidar, twenty-six years old, living in rented accommodation in Chelsea, with a home address in Morocco. He’d been in London a month, allegedly studying history and English at the Monkfield Institute.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Scotland Yard’s SO11 gave it the once-over. It’s a couple of rented rooms off the Edgware Road, run as a school by a retired teacher. Plenty of students are registered with the Institute, but nobody seems to show up for classes.’

‘Another dismal racket,’ Philpott sighed. ‘Something in the atmosphere of England nurtures seedy hustlers.’

‘Aside from his scholastic work, our man was a part-time porter at the Wimcote House Hotel in Paddington.’

‘But in spite of that, he could afford digs in Chelsea. All of this was a cover, I presume.’

‘Oh sure.’ Mike tapped a button on the console and a Mossad Criminal Data card appeared on the third screen of the top row. The Arab’s picture was at the left with his fingerprints at right and a summary of his criminal record below. ‘No information at Scotland Yard or Interpol, but the Israelis have the goods on him. The picture was taken a month after he had his face changed. His prints were altered too, acid and pumice powder they reckon. Mossad’s fingerprint boys used a latency comparator on smudgy dabs they picked up in Hebron, and the comparator turned up this guy’s original set of prints.’

Philpott peered at the text on the screen. ‘It’s in Hebrew.’

‘I got a translation.’ Mike held up a printout sheet. ‘Courtesy of Mossad Criminal Records.’

‘I’m impressed. You have better connections every time I see you.’

Mike ran a finger down the sheet. ‘Hisham had sixteen listed aliases and was a known terrorist from the age of eleven. During his middle and late teen years he managed to study history as well as sedition and anarchy. He was a prominent graduate of the Jezzine terrorist movement in Lebanon. Known to be energetic, technically skilled, resourceful and, unusually, the guy was multi-lingual. He wasn’t strong on ideology, but he got by on plain hatred of the Jews. He was made an honorary member of the Brotherhood of the Civet when he was eighteen.’

‘Brotherhood of the what?’

‘Civet. It’s a kind of cat. The brotherhood are sworn to do harm to Jews in any way they can, which doesn’t make them unique, but they are customized. They have a tattoo of a civet’s head in the right armpit. The animal’s supposed to be lucky and to ward off danger.’

‘Every day,’ Philpott said, ‘I learn a little more…’

‘In June 1994 the Israelis bombed a Hezbollah training camp in southern Lebanon and killed forty guerrillas. Six people survived. Yaqub Hisham was one of them.’

‘He was with Hezbollah?’

‘The Israelis believe he was training them. For a while after the bombing he was treated like a living martyr, and he made a public declaration that he would double his efforts against Jews. Three weeks after that he ambushed three officers of Shin Bet at a checkpoint in the Bekáa Valley and butchered them. Mossad’s been on his tail ever since. He was believed to be holed-up in Tetuán, Morocco, which isn’t an easy place for Israelis to go looking for somebody. Mossad are very surprised that he showed up in England.’

‘Indeed. What was he doing in London, shooting a political analyst from the White House? I mean, why him? Why a seasoned, Jew-hating Middle Eastern terrorist?’

‘Emily Selby was Jewish.’

‘Not the kind of Jew that Arab terrorists travel all the way to Europe to assassinate, surely?’

‘If we knew the link between Emily and the other woman in the picture, Erika Stramm, I’m sure we would be standing in a brighter light.’

Philpott looked at the screens. ‘What’s the loose end you’re chasing?’

‘Yaqub’s gun. I checked the serial number with the makers at Deutsch-Wagram, and they say it’s from a batch of fifty bought in Vienna last July for export to the USA. Buyer’s name was Albert Torrance of Denver, Colorado, which turns out to be a fake ID. But the guns did clear US Customs. I have the other weapon numbers from the consignment and I’ve been flagging law-enforcement nodes on ICON, but nobody has a thing on Glock 17s.’

‘Am I right in thinking the Glock 17 is the gun people were making so much noise about at one time? The gun that panic-merchants thought could escape airport X-ray detection?’

Mike nodded. ‘There’s a lot of plastic in its construction. But there’s enough steel to show up on X-rays. What really grabs the enthusiasts is the seventeen-shot magazine.’

Mike tapped a picture of the Glock 17 up on to a screen.

‘There’s a lot going for it. It’s hefty, it’s accurate, and it’s got enough rounds to let you do shot-clustering if that’s what a job calls for.’ Mike looked at Philpott. ‘I’m just intrigued to know how the weapon got from the States to Yaqub Hisham.’

‘And I’m intrigued to know why he shoved it in his mouth and took the back off his head just because four London bobbies were chasing him.’

‘He probably didn’t want to be arrested,’ Mike said. ‘Superstition and obsession are primary components of a fanatic’s mental structure. They’re also the elements that can undermine him. In my experience, a terrorist’s superstition and fear often take the form of an abhorrence of being captured, of being contained on somebody else’s terms. Remember in Rome, three years ago? I cornered a bullion hijacker, a Lebanese guy -’

‘Shofar,’ Philpott said.

‘Shofar. I had the drop on him, he could do nothing but submit and get taken away. Except he was a fanatic. He didn’t want to be arrested, not at any price. So before I knew it he’d shoved his wristwatch in his mouth and rammed it into his gullet. A heavy-duty Seiko with a steel bracelet and a casing four centimetres across. And boy did it wedge. He went blue and he was dead in less than a minute. All because somebody wanted to restrict his movement.’

Mike stood up slowly, rubbing his eyes.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I think I should get out of here soon. I’m starting to like the cloistered feel of the place, and I’m getting sleepy.’

‘A refreshment break, that’s the thing.’ Philpott took a tiny cellular phone from his pocket and tapped a button. ‘Then you can get on with tracking that gun. I’m sure it’s important.’ He put the phone to his ear. ‘Miss Wellington? I wonder if you could bring something to sustain Mr Graham and myself? We’re in SCS-One. Thank you.’ Five minutes later, as Philpott was pouring coffee, he noticed a strip of surgical tape across Mike Graham’s knuckles.

‘Have you been punching something harder than yourself?’

Mike flexed the hand. ‘I took a corner too fast and had to correct in a hurry. My hand brushed a projecting stone.’

‘You really shouldn’t go tearing about on motorbikes the way you do.’

It was something appropriate to say, and it was said with little enough emphasis to be easily ignored, if Mike chose.

‘I don’t tear about, sir. You know that.’

‘Do I? I must have forgotten.’

‘Even when I’m in a race I strive for the spiritual dimension,’ Mike said, deadpan.

‘Ah…’

‘My goal is oneness with the machine, so that I can be part of the transcendental fact of its speed.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s art. What’s a little lost skin in pursuit of art? I mean, let’s face it, when I’m on my bike I’m expressing my deepest urges and polishing my karma at the same time.’

‘Michael. It was foolish of me not to realize all that.’

They laughed. Philpott handed Mike his coffee. For just a moment an edge of stiffness intruded. At sociable moments silences between them were awkward, because matters which stayed unmentioned were nevertheless always there.

‘Still enjoying the serenity of Vermont on the weekends?’

‘More and more,’ Mike said.

‘And you still like being on your own?’

‘Yep. Just me, my TV for company, my pickup for transport, and my bike for death-defying art.’

Some years before, Mike’s wife and son had been murdered by terrorists. He had been devastated, and the grief of his loss damaged him brutally. For a long time he was beyond consolation. Finally, when grief had run its course, he moved from New York to Vermont, and there he took up the solitary domestic life. With time he had gained a measure of tranquillity, though some women liked to think they still saw pain in those dark blue eyes.

The agony of Mike’s loss was now a thing entirely of the past, but he was changed, and serious risk-taking was a feature of that change. Philpott privately believed that it was therapy: any ex-policeman knew that jeopardy wiped out restlessness.

‘What’s your instinct on this case?’ Mike pointed at the screens. ‘Do you get think we could see some action?’

‘Paperwork action, maybe. A ground-covering investigation, with plenty of interviews, then a long, detailed report to tidy the whole thing up.’

Mike stared at him. ‘You certainly know how to lift a guy’s spirits.’

‘On the other hand it could be a thrill-a-minute caper.’ Philpott sipped his coffee. ‘Let’s see what Sabrina turns up. I just have a gut feeling this might be much bigger than we realize.’