“No, I didn’t know that,” says Maurilio.
“Anyway, whether it was Gaddafi or not, it almost doesn’t matter. The thing is that he let himself be portrayed as this almost comic-book ogre, and that was enough for America. The oil embargo imposed by the United Nations after the Pan Am bombings really hurt the country, at a time when it should have been booming.
“They fell out in the Nineties. My father was always lobbying for Gaddafi to somehow get the oil sanctions lifted, and they started arguing openly – a very dangerous state of affairs. My father arranged for us to all go on holiday to Tunisia in 1999, and that was the last I saw of my home and of Sirte as it was.
“Of course Gaddafi had us followed to Tunisia, but my dad was an old hand at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff and we shook them off. So then we flew from Tunis to London and gained political asylum. The British government was only too happy to welcome an enemy of Gaddafi. And then what? Within weeks Gaddafi did exactly what my father had been urging all along – he handed over the bombers.”
“So you really grew up in London?” says Maurilio softly, managing to make it sound like a question, although he had already read the case files overnight.
“Yes, and we were well off. Clever Papa had been sending money out of the country to Switzerland for years before we left. We lived in a suburb called Muswell Hill, and then later to Hampstead which is a wealthy liberal neighbourhood in north London. It’s famous for its exiles. Did you know that General de Gaulle lived there, and Jinah, the founder of Pakistan?”
“That, I didn’t. Do you like history?”
“Very much. And politics. That’s one reason I can’t abide these Daesh fanatics – the way they want to destroy the past.”
“Imagine what they would do in Rome…”
Tariq sits bolt upright.
“What is it?” asks Maurilio, intrigued.
Tariq can’t answer, but the suggestion that Daesh might attack Rome sparked some neural activity in the orange blob that was his memory of the recent past. Luckily Maurilio was skilled enough to let it pass.
“Anyway, you were saying. About London.”
“Oh, yes,” says Tariq, sinking back against the stacked pillows. “So I went to school – a private day school eventually after a god-awful time at a state school. And then university, where I met Aafia.”
Ah, yes, Aafia, thinks Maurilio, but he doesn’t say anything.
“She’s Saudi – her dad’s some sort of diplomat. Very wealthy anyway. She’s her father’s pet, and he allowed her an independent upbringing in the UK, where he was based in some sort of ambassadorial role – linked to the arms trade, I think. Every door in Whitehall was open to him, as you can imagine.”
Maurilio wasn’t sure what or where Whitehall was, but he let it ride.
“We both had an interest in left-wing politics… I was into the whole Palestinian thing and she was big on women’s rights in the Arab world. I used to think that feminism was a diversion from the main issue, which was Israel’s occupation of Palestine, but she persuaded me that the two were linked. Or rather, I let her persuade me, because I fancied her like crazy.”
Maurilio chuckled. Tariq would have made a good Italian man.
“Anyway, we became a couple, and a team, organising protests and meetings. Our phones were tapped and my flat was broken into twice, but this just seemed like confirmation that we were doing the right thing. I began to take an interest in my homeland, in Libya, and the Arab Spring erupted bang on my twenty-first birthday. I remember watching the TV reports of the first anti-Gaddafi protests in Tripoli while dressing to go out to dinner with Aafia and my parents to celebrate my twenty-first. It turned into a double celebration.”
Tariq told Maurilio about his helping disseminate information to UK journalists during the uprising and about his helping with the 2012 elections, and how Libya fell apart in the following years, and how he watched in horror as IS started taking a foothold in his beloved country.
“Sirte – my home town, or what is left of it – is now the main Daesh stronghold in Libya. It is part of the caliphate. They want to build a naval base there in order to attack shipping in the Mediterranean, and to launch God knows how many fighters across the seas. IS leaders from Syria and Iraq are flocking there, because those countries are becoming too dangerous for them. They won’t admit it to the poor bastards they’re sending to their deaths every day, but the caliphate is finished in Iraq and Syria. Libya will be their new home. It’s a disaster. This is happening on your doorstep… Italy’s doorstep.”
“So tell me why you came to Rome?” says Maurilio calmly.
“Because of that. In 2015 I went back to Sirte to help with the uprising there against Daesh, but it was hopeless and we were outnumbered. Before I was able to escape in a convoy of trucks belonging to Gaddafi loyalists – how ironic is that? – I witnessed three crucifixions. Crucifixions!
“I did however make contact with most of the leading anti-IS elements in the city and learned about plans to send foreign fighters to Italy to create terrorist cells for future attacks. And I learned about one attack in particular – one aimed at Rome.”
Tariq is sitting up again. It’s important that he doesn’t get too excited, thinks Maurilio. He’s doing very well, but it must flow naturally. The policeman remains silent, and Tariq sinks back into the pillows.
“Do you know the significance of Rome to the so-called Islamic State?” asks Tariq.
“No, I really don’t know,” says Maurilio, slightly worried that they are getting sidetracked, but eager to keep the flow going between them.
“These people believe in the apocalypse… the end of days… and it will be ushered in when the armies of Islam meets the armies of Rome in battle in Syria. But who are the ‘armies of Rome’? Some believe it means the Americans, others the Turks, because the Rome of the Prophet was the Eastern Roman Empire based in what is now Istanbul. But others think more literally. Rome is Rome, and Italy must be encouraged to join the war against IS, just as the attacks on Paris led to French involvement.”
“So it’s going to be a Paris-style attack?”
“Oh, no, much worse.”
“Worse?”
“I believe so.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Max unbolts the door and slowly pulls it back, only to suddenly feel an overpowering weight thrusting back at him, rocking him back on his heels and unbalancing him. The door flies back on its hinges to reveal the petrified face of Kylie framed by an arm around her neck and a pistol pointing at her head. Above and around her looms Omar.
“Throw your guns on the floor!” shouts Omar, taking in Aafia, who now has Harry’s gun in her hand. It’s pointed at Kylie, Omar’s shield.
“Please… please…” Kylie is whimpering.
“He’ll kill us all anyway,” says Aafia, taking aim just above Kylie’s head.
“I’ll count to three,” says Omar. “One…”
Max looks at Kylie’s wildly beseeching eyes, and then the stream of urine running down her leg and onto the tiled floor.
“Okay,” he says, bending slowly at the knees and lying his pistol on the floor.
“Kick it away from you,” says Omar, and Max flicks the gun with his toecap so that slides across the tiles to the far side of the room.
“Now you,” says Omar to Aafia.
She is looking at the Arab with pure hatred and, to give her her due, thinks Max, an absolute absence of fear. And then she seems to sigh, nods and throws her gun on the floor, where it clatters to a halt beside Max’s.
Omar shoves Kylie hard so that she staggers and falls to the ground, immediately burying her head in her arms and starting to sob.
Omar aims straight at her and fires, the first shot sending her sprawling on her side. It seems to have done its job because the second bullet merely evinces a sharp spasm, as Kylie’s wretched face registers the shock that she must have felt a second ago.
“Noooo…” screams Ma
x, rushing at Omar, only for Omar’s gun to smack him on the cheekbone with a crack. He can actually see stars for a moment. Recovering, he sees Omar pointing the gun at him.
“And now you,” he says.
“Omar…! Wait.” It’s Aafia. And she starts talking urgently in Arabic and whatever she is saying seems to be staying his hand. He’s still looking intently at Max, but he’s listening. The predatory gaze softens as Aafia continues talking. And then he starts asking questions – short, sharp questions by the sound of them.
Max steals a glance at Kylie. Poor Kylie, who chose the wrong night to go on a whimsical jaunt with a loaded forex trader. It must have seemed so exotic – the midnight flight to Switzerland, the skiing chalet, the endless cocaine. A pool of dark blood is slowly seeping from beneath her torso. The long legs that would have first attracted Simon’s attention are folded beneath her. She has returned to the foetal position.
Aafia is still talking, and whatever she is saying is registering with Omar, who gives a slight nod. He still has the gun pointed at Max, but Max relaxes slightly as he senses a deal being brokered. This was his territory and he recognises the signs.
And then Omar is alert again. He’s looking out of the window towards the slope behind the house. Max follows his gaze and notices the two figures – policemen – walking slowly across the garden, looking at the ground in front of them. They seem to be following some tracks in the snow, and the tracks appear to be heading towards Simon’s chalet.
Sweeping his pistol to and fro across the kitchen, so that Max and Aafia are both covered, Omar steps back and retrieves the guns from the floor. Max watches as he secures both safety catches and slips them in his coat pockets.
“Stand back from the window so they can’t see you,” he says to Max, who takes a last glance outside and sees that the policeman are now only a few metres from the house. They are definitely following footprints in the snow. Harry’s?
Aafia says something in Arabic, which earns a sharp rebuke from Omar. “Shut up, both of you!” he says, turning off the kitchen light. It’s now far brighter outside than in, the effect doubled by the intense white of the snow.
One of the policemen, a young man whose beard does little to disguise his age, presses his face to the window. Omar doesn’t waste any time. Stepping forward he fires twice in quick succession, the second shot clean in the centre of the man’s forehead.
Bursting out of the door he finds the second policeman still fumbling with his own standard issue SIG P225. Two shots finish him off, and Omar steps over and takes the gun from the dead man and slips lightly back into the chalet as calmly as if he had been letting the cat out.
He throws his Browning on to the sideboard, and checks the SIG’s magazine. It’s fully loaded. He extracts the gun that Aafia had been holding, the one that Harry had left behind.
“It’s empty.” His voice is almost amused.
Max can’t speak, he’s still trying to take in what has happened. Kylie and now these two policemen. He seems to have stepped into a different world with different rules, where it’s okay to kill people and carry on as if nothing abnormal has taken place. A world where you murder without compunction.
“So this is war,” he finds himself saying aloud.
Omar and Aafia look at each other and then back at Max, and for the first time Max notices a shred of humanity in his scar-faced adversary. It’s nothing as obvious as a smile, perhaps just a slackening of the face muscles or a dilation of his pupils.
“Yes, this is war,” he says. “And now we must go.”
He’s talking sharply in Arabic now.
“He’s asking ‘Do you have your passport?’ and ‘Can you drive?’ translates Aafia.
“Yes to both questions.”
“Naam,” says Aafia, or something like that. Max recognises it from his dealings with her father. It was the word he always wanted to hear from him. Naam… Yes’.
“Now we go,” says Omar. “Back to Rome.”
* * *
The stoned ski-boarders in the VW camper van set Harry down by the cable car, and drive very slowly away. They’d wished him luck and had even leant him some Swiss francs just in case he needs it for the ride.
It’s not yet eight o’clock and the telecabine doesn’t start running for another half an hour, so he trudges into the centre of town looking for a clothes shop. They only seem to stock ridiculously expensive designer ski-wear and anyway none of them is open until half past nine, so Harry withdraws some cash from an ATM and walks back to the telecabine.
He doesn’t like heights, but he hardly notices as he’s swept down the mountainside on the first lift of the day, most of the traffic, skiers newly arrived for the Easter weekend, travelling in the opposite direction. His feet are so cold he can’t feel them, and he doesn’t try to stamp them because the cable car already seems rocky enough. Perhaps there’s a washroom with hot water at the station. After all, this is Switzerland.
In the event he doesn’t have time to find a washroom because the next train for Geneva is due in five minutes. He buys a one-way ticket and heads on to the platform of the chalet-style building, just in time as a red-and-white train bearing the legend Saint-Bernard Express glides to a halt.
Watching the excited, freshly-slept skiers descend from the train, he has that trippy, up-all-night sensation that he used to get in his twenties when, going to raves in Waterloo or Dalston, he used to meet commuters on their way to work.
He needs to change trains at Martigny he was told by the woman in the ticket office, where there would be a ten-minute wait, and the train would arrive in Geneva at 11:57. Probably to the minute, thinks Harry.
Luckily the train is heated, and Harry finds an unoccupied bank of seats and peels his socks off. His feet are as white as he has ever seen them, except the ends of his toes which appear a little blue. God, don’t say he has frostbite. He thrusts the socks and shoes right up against the radiator grid and takes out his phone. There’s no reception. He’ll try again in Martigny.
They’ll ask why he didn’t contact the police in Verbier, of course. He panicked? Unlikely. He was in shock? More plausible, but still redolent of cowardice. That he didn’t want to end up in a police cell with a priceless diamond in his pocket? Closer to the truth. That he left Max and Aafia to their almost certain deaths? He can’t think about that now.
He’ll be ostracised, of course. But who by? He assumes he will never see Max again. Rachel ditto. Simon is dead. Max for all he knows might be dead. Probably is dead. The company will maybe close, and he will leave London. He’ll go up to Norfolk, sort his mother out financially and then he’ll go and live somewhere cheap and hot. Greece or Thailand, where no one knows his name.
There’s a respectable looking middle-aged, balding man reading a Kindle at the end of the carriage. Harry walks towards him, aware that he’s in bare feet and what he’s about to ask won’t improve on this first impression.
“Excusez moi, monsieur. Parlez vous anglais?”
“A little bit,” the man replies in English.
Holding up his phone as a sort of guide to translation, he asks, “Do you know the number to ring the police in an emergency?”
The man stares at him for a moment, and Harry thinks he doesn’t understand.
“Police? Urgence?” he answers at last.
“Oui. Police… urgence.”
“It’s 117, monsieur. One… one… seven.”
“Merci monsieur,” says Harry, padding back to his seat. He’s sure the man will remember the strange barefoot Englishman on the train who wanted the emergency number for the police. He stands within sight, playing with his phone, making a great show of trying to get a signal. And then what he doesn’t want – the man is getting up to help him.
“You just dial 117, monsieur, and your phone will find the right network.”
“Oh, I see thanks.”
“You have an emergency now?”
“My passport has been stolen,” he lies.
“Look… we’ll be in Martigny in less than ten minutes. Wait until we arrive and look for a policeman.”
“You’re right,” says Harry, grateful for the let out. He has to change at Martigny anyway. “I’ll do that.”
He pulls his socks off the radiator grill: they are still slightly damp but at least they are hot. Wisps of steam are rising from the soles of his shoes, but the uppers are still saturated. He’ll have to find a clothes shop in Martigny. He can also phone the police – he can always cite the man on the train as a witness; it’s not much, but it does show some willingness.
The train is in a tunnel as he does up his shoelaces, his feet unhappily returned to their moist prison.
“Monsieur….” The man is leaning over the seat in front of Harry. “Martigny is after this tunnel.”
“Ah… merci monsieur.” He has an idea, and extends his hand. “Monsieur?”
“Monsieur Remy,” the man says.
“Monsieur Kimber,” says Harry, pointing at himself.
“Bonne route,” says Monsieur Remy. “Et bonne chance.”
* * *
Omar hustles them out of the door, past the dead bearded policeman lying on his back and looking even younger now, staring sightlessly into the heavens. Max notices a figure standing at the top of the garden. It’s an old woman with an apron round her dress, like she has been interrupted in the midst of baking a cake. Omar notices her too, but thankfully doesn’t seem perturbed. Instead he ushers them down the side alley, past Simon, who now looks almost unreal, his face drained of any colour. Max finds himself breathing hard.
The Concierge Page 19
