The Concierge

by Gerard Gilbert

  “Si… hi… just got your message,” he says sleepily. “Why didn’t you guys wake me up?”

  “Max… thank God you’re alive. What are you doing with guns? Is it loaded?”

  And with that Simon takes aim at the kitchen window and pulls the trigger. His hands buck upwards as a loud retort fills the silence of the kitchen and the spent cartridge tinkles on the floor.

  “Shit, that hit me in the face,” says Simon, kicking the case across the other side of the room, and walking over to inspect the small hole surrounded by a web of cracked glass.

  “Idiot,” mutters Aafia, her ears ringing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Omar has never seen snow like this. Only in the movies. Of course it snowed in Afghanistan when he was there, but never settled on the trees and the big sloping rooftops like this, like in the Hollywood films he enjoyed as a kid, watching on bootlegged videos from the market. Home Alone, that was his favourite. America – the Great Satan as the Iranians called it – looked such a magical place then.

  He parks in front of a large supermarket and enters his password into the GPS app. They haven’t moved. They’re here in Verbier, for the night at least. He goes on Tripadvisor to look for a hotel – he’d prefer to sit in the car all night, but he’d be too conspicuous. He finds one that looks impersonal enough, logs in the coordinates, and pulls off.

  * * *

  The detective went hours ago, to be replaced by a different sort of policeman – security services, thinks Tariq. This man spoke in English and wanted to know more about his upbringing in Libya and what he had been doing in London and his relationship with the Saudi woman. Were they really married? When?

  Tariq was able to speak lucidly about all this – almost ebulliently thanks to the opiates rushing around his body – but the more recent past, the last few weeks, remained a blank. The man kept talking about a compound out by the airport, near where Tariq had been found lying unconscious, and where they’d also discovered assault rifles, Kalashnikovs, automatic pistols and an MP5 submachine gun. When did he come to Rome? What was the plan? A Paris-style attack? All the signs were there, said the man.

  And all Tariq could recall were a cafe where he’d spend his days with Aafia, like lovers idling their way through a long holiday, and a man with a scar. A truly frightening man. Did he remember his name? Omar, that’s right, Omar.

  The man said he’d be back in the morning. Three guards were posted outside his room, and another, discreetly in the corner of the room, in case he started to talk in his sleep, or whatever. This man, Tariq noticed now, was fast asleep. He wondered what time it was. Who was this young boy who kept impinging on the edge of his consciousness?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “You mean to say you were nearly the stars in your own execution video?”

  They’re sitting around the kitchen table, having explained the happenings of this extraordinarily long day.

  “Shouldn’t we go to the police?” says Kylie, not for the first time.

  “She has a point,” says Max.

  “No, not the police… not here,” says Aafia. “Maybe tomorrow in Geneva, or better still, in London. But we don’t give ourselves over to the village cops – this is far too big for them.”

  “But I’d feel safer,” says Kylie.

  “The cops are probably on their way anyway after Simon fired the gun,” says Harry, still smarting at Simon’s remark about always thinking that he was going to murder Max. “What’s out there anyway? You could have killed a neighbour.”

  “There are no neighbours,” he says. “That’s the attraction – a party house.”

  With that he reaches up on a shelf and pulls down an orange Le Creuset casserole dish and opens the lid. Inside is an old school black plastic film canister, which he opens. He tips three of four anti-moisture bags on to the table, along with a similar number of paper wraps, one of which he starts to open. Then reaching behind him he places a small mirror and a razor blade alongside.

  “I’m going to bed,” says Aafia. “Where can I sleep?”

  “Come on, the night is still young,” says Simon, chopping out some lines of powder.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find somewhere,” says Aafia, standing up and walking off. Simon is looking at her bottom.

  “Hey, you,” says Kylie, following his eyes. “I still think we should call the police.”

  “Too late now,” says Simon, pushing the mirror in her direction, along with a snipped length of drinking straw.

  Harry finds Simon’s insouciance strangely reassuring, and he feels safer now that at least there are five of them. But he also feels desperately tired all of a sudden, while his ears are still ringing from the noise of the gunshot.

  “I might turn in too,” he says.

  Simon guffaws. “You and the Saudi woman have something going on? I reckon she likes you.”

  “I need some coffee,” says Max when Simon pushes the mirror in his direction. “We’d better head into Geneva first thing. How long you staying, Si? Could we borrow your plane?”

  “I’m coming with you, mate. You’re not leaving us here on our own.”

  Kylie giggles, and then sniffs. Harry stands up, takes the pistol, slips on the safety catch and walks out of the room. A staircase leads upstairs to the bedrooms. The first one has an enormous double bed, and a weight-lifting bench in one corner. There’s an en suite, with what looks like Simon’s toiletries all over the place.

  The next room is dark. He switches on the light and sees the shape of Aafia underneath a duvet. She doesn’t stir, and he turns off the light again. Next door is an unmade bed, presumably where Max had been sleeping. He doesn’t bother to undress, just kicks off his shoes and pulls the duvet over him. Within two minutes he’s fast asleep.

  * * *

  Nadia Pizzuto of the ‘Antiterrorismo Pronto Impiego’ sits in the glass-walled cubicle that serves as her office and ponders the long meeting that has just concluded, leaving used disposable coffee cups cluttering her usually neat and tidy desk. Part of the Guardia di Finanza that historically investigated financial crime and smuggling, the ATPI was the main anti-terrorist department in Italy, and Nadia is its rising star.

  It’s a quarter past midnight when she phones her husband, Alessio, on the secure line and tells him that she won’t be home tonight. He’s watching football highlights and sounds a little drunk. Their daughters went to bed at ten on the dot, he says, before emitting one of those groans that football fans are prone to give when some player has a near miss on goal. Nadia says goodnight, hangs up and leaves him to it.

  The call to Europol in The Hague can wait until morning; she doubts they can help anyway. She stands up and walks over to the corner of her little office, picks up the bin and then sweeps all the coffee cups into the container. The action helps clear her mind.

  Approximately twelve hours ago they had received reports from the state police of shooting in the Fiumicino district of Rome, and the discovery of four bodies – all of them men of Arab appearance – and a significant cache of weapons – assault pistols, rifles, automatic pistols, grenades and even a sword. One of the victims, the report stated, appeared to be still alive. He had been taken to the Ospedale San Camillo, where he had been put straight into intensive care.

  The location of this massacre was a large compound of workshops, garages and sheds that was rented from a local businessman. Two Arabs, a man and a woman, had said they were looking for storage for their new online shopping site, selling carpets and other homeware. They could use it for manufacturing an atom bomb, for all he cared, said the businessman, considering the crazy rent they were willing to pay.

  He had only visited once in the six months they’d been there, said the businessman when questioned that afternoon. The Arabs hadn’t exactly made him welcome, so he hadn’t been able to check out what they were actually up to. There hadn’t been any complaints, the money was excellent, and his other businesses hadn’t been doing brilliant
ly since the financial crisis.

  The Arabs hadn’t been completely mendacious, thinks Nadia; after all one of the cellars was being used for online business – the online business of decapitating enemies of Daesh and, posting the results on the Internet. That at least seemed to be the purpose of the installation they discovered, complete with camera on a tripod and a laptop, which had been found smashed upon the floor, and the black robes, along with a series of placards in which short sentences had had been written in black marker, like cue cards:

  We are spies from our govement in Britain – pathetic slave of the White House and mule of the Jews.

  We say to our small insificant island – give up the fight against the might of Islamic State. Only a fool would wage war with a land where the law of Allah reigns supreme.

  Our govement and our people must understand how foolish we are to fight a people who love death the way we love our life.

  The IS is here to stay and they will continue to wage jihad until the whole world will be ruled by Shariah.

  Nadia, who spent three years posted to Washington, where she perfected her university-level English, notices spelling mistakes on the placards. The lack of any blood suggested that a video had yet to be filmed here. Had someone or something interrupted this latest piece of Isis propaganda theatre? The way that the laptop had seemingly been thrown on the floor suggested some sort of struggle.

  The reading material found on site, several copies of the Quran and tourist guidebooks on Rome, strongly suggested some kind of Paris-style attack, but where and when?

  Initial forensic reports stated that the three dead Arab men had been killed with two separate guns – two of them shot at close range with a Glock 26, the third at a longer distance using an MP5 submachine gun, which also appeared to have sprayed the walls of the compound. The identity of the weapons didn’t take long in coming, because both were found next to the bodies of the dead men and matched the calibre of the discharged bullets.

  The fourth man had no gunshot wounds – instead he had trauma to both sides of the head indicative of being hit by a blunt instrument. He had regained consciousness at approximately five o’clock this evening, and on being interviewed, claimed to be suffering from memory loss, but had otherwise been cooperative.

  His name, it is quickly established, is Tariq Fakroun, a Libyan granted political asylum in the UK in 1999, along with his family. He was granted full UK citizenship in 2011, and he lives in London. He is married, he claims, to a Saudi national named Aafia. They belong to a group that fights Islamic extremism in all its forms, and is especially dedicated to countering IS, or Daesh as they preferred to call them. They came to Italy in order to set up a fake safe house for terrorists posing as immigrants – something that was remarkably easy once they had found the right contacts inside Syria.

  This all sounds like an elaborate double bluff, thinks Nadia – a phony back-story if ever she heard one. Her trusted deputy, Fabrizio, who had conducted the interview, was however prone to believe the man, and Fabrizio was as cynical as they come. She will make an appointment to interview him herself tomorrow morning.

  Tomorrow is Saturday, she notices with a quick glance at her desk diary. She is due to take her daughters to a party in the afternoon, the first time she will have spent meaningful time with them for nearly two weeks. Sighing, she scribbles a question mark next to this item, and then her eye drops to the Sunday. Easter Sunday.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Harry is having his London dream again – the one where London bears only a passing semblance to the real city. Once again he’s having problems making the right connection on the Circle Line – a Circle Line unlike the real one – this Circle Line more like a rural overland railway, in Kent or Essex or somewhere like that.

  Usually in this dream he’s on his own, but Rachel is with him this time. She’s leaving Max, she explains, and going to live with her friend Jess in Dubai. Harry doesn’t feel unhappy at this news, just friendly towards Rachel. She puts her arm around his shoulder and starts to squeeze. Now she’s shaking him, quite roughly.

  “Hey!”

  “Harry… Harry!”

  He can just make out Max by the light of the open door, looming over him.

  “Wake up, Harry, we need to make a move soon.”

  “What time is it?” is all Harry can think to say. He remembers where they are now and sits bolt upright.

  “A little after six,” says Max. “I think we all need to leave at first light. I’ve already emailed Dieter to expect us with the diamond.”

  “Dieter? Who is Dieter? Oh, yes, the gemologist in Geneva.”

  “Shit! Where is the diamond?” he says.

  “You have it,” says Max. And Harry stretches for the jacket that he had pushed under one of the pillows last night, next to the gun. The hard lump is there where he left it, in the inside pocket. Harry sighs and fights the temptation to drop back on the mattress and return to his dream, or at least the oblivion of sleep.

  Max meanwhile looks in on Aafia, who is curled up asleep on one edge of an enormous bed, and he decides to leave her for the moment. He kind of trusts her now, but doesn’t at the same time. He doesn’t really understand her story about fighting IS, but he can’t argue with the fact that she helped them escape a horrible and very public death. Not that he can think about that. He tries not to.

  He also decides to leave Simon and the girl for now, and goes down to the kitchen and puts another capsule into the coffee maker – his fifth or sixth cup of the morning. It’s about two hours to Geneva and there shouldn’t be too much traffic if they set off in good time.

  He’s arranged to meet Dieter at midday, and he’s booked three economy tickets to London Heathrow, just in case Simon didn’t want them to use the private jet. He couldn’t think why he wouldn’t, but Simon is an unpredictable beast and perhaps he might decide to stay on and ski, or party with this latest girl (what was her name?) despite everything. Max wouldn’t put it completely past him.

  Pulling aside the curtain, he can’t see any evidence of dawn, just white snow illuminated by the light from the chalet. He drains his coffee, and goes back upstairs, knocking gently on Simon’s door. No answer. He knocks again and hears a girl’s drowsy voice.

  “Who is it?”

  “Max. Can I come in?”

  “Just a minute.”

  Max can hear the rustling of bedclothes and assumes the girl – Kylie, that’s right – is making her way into the en-suite. Instead she appears at a crack in the doorway.

  “Hi-ya,” she says.

  “Hi. Is Simon awake yet?”

  “Simon? Isn’t he downstairs? He’s not here.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve been downstairs all night and I haven’t seen him.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” says Kylie. “He went down to get something from the car, he said. I don’t think ’e came back. I fell asleep anyway.”

  “Oh Christ,” says Max and turns and rushes down the staircase. The front door is bolted from the inside. He goes through to the kitchen and into the utility room. The door there is closed but it’s unlocked. Max opens it and is hit by a frigid blast of air, his breath condensing in great plumes.

  He can’t have come out this way, thinks Max. He has been in the kitchen all night. Except he did move into the dining room for an hour at around one o’clock and tried to resuscitate the fire in the wood burner. He’d almost dozed off on the sofa after failing in that task, and had moved back to the kitchen to make the first of several coffees.

  There is a skiing jacket hanging on a hook in the utility room and a pair of lined gumboots. The boots are too large for him, as is the coat, but he puts them on anyway and steps out into what seems like a back alley. Past a bin, the alley opens out on to small lawn, which is blanketed in thick snow. A mess of footprints, lightly dusted in fresh snow, goes along the side of the house in both directions, and Max follows these round, past a hedge and on to the driveway. Simon is sitting on the ground,
propped up against his car door.

  “Fuck, Simon, are you okay?” says Max, although he is clearly not okay. Max walks closer to the body, his feet crumping on the snow. Simon’s face stares inertly ahead, an expression of peevish annoyance set on skin that is greyish looking compared to the pristine snow. As Max approaches he can see that the front of his shirt is stained a brownish red.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Omar had chosen a hotel that looked large enough to be anonymous but not so luxurious as to attract any fuss – and booked a room at the four-star establishment that was reasonably central. Amal Abulafia had a single room for one night, breakfast included.

  He stared at his passport after the receptionist handed it back to him with a professional smile. Amal. At least it began with the same letter as his real name, Ahmed. Ahmed the Victorious. Ahmed the Forgotten One, his history shed like a skin in self-defence.

  When did Ahmed die, to be replaced by Omar? Certainly not in 2003, as the Americans invaded and Baghdad fell. Unlike most Iraqis, who waited to be rid of Saddam with a sullen cynicism, Ahmed was a true believer. He had met the great man once, a seventeen-year-old proudly saluting the president as he inspected the cadet force lined up in his honour. He was sure Saddam had smiled at him as he passed.

  He also met Uday Hussein, Saddam’s eldest son, on two occasions – once when he volunteered for the Fedayeen, Uday’s ultra-loyal paramilitary force, and once – after his father had persuaded him to join him in the Republican Guard instead – when he had helped train some Fedayeen recruits. These young men, Ahmed was disillusioned to discover, were more interested in access to new cars, private hospital care and kickbacks from minor officials than loyalty to the Ba’athist regime.

  Ahmed himself was born in Tikrit, 140 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and famous for being the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. In fact Ahmed’s family were related by marriage to the same tribe as Saddam, the Al-Bu Nasir, kinsmen especially favoured by the dictator for the supposed loyalty of their blood ties.