Anybody else and he would have given them short shrift for interrupting the start of a long-awaited Easter holiday break, but Nadia Pizzuto of the anti-terrorist police wasn’t just anybody. He had worked with her before, in 2014, when chemical weapons surrendered by the Assad regime in Syria had arrived at the port of Giola Tauro in Calabria.
Pizzuto had been sent to check on the security arrangements at the port, which was heavily infiltrated by the Calabrese Ndrangheta mafia, who used it as a hub for importing cocaine. Guardiano led the small team of Italian experts to monitor the destruction of the 130 tonnes of mustard gas and sarin.
Having been transported to Italy on a Danish freighter, the chemicals were transferred to an American ship, which would take them out to sea and neutralise the toxins in a titanium reactor. Guardino was on board to witness the event.
“So how dangerous is sarin?” Pizzutto asks him twenty-five minutes later over Skype on the laptop that arrived at his apartment ten minutes earlier, carried by two men who claimed that the computer had been ‘vetted and was uncompromised’.
“Well that depends,” says Guardino, and Pizzutto remembered the calm and clear manner in which he explained complex scientific matters. She appreciated him for it.
“It’s most effective in vapour form, which is how we think Saddam used it, along with sulphur mustard, against the Kurds when he killed 5,000 of them in Halahbja in 1988, and how Japanese religious cultists used it on the Japanese subway in 1995. As a gas it quickly enters the lungs, and starts attacking the neurotransmitters in the nerves – making them go a little crazy.”
“How does that manifest itself physically?” asks Pizzutto, who is scribbling on a jotting pad.
“Okay, so sarin is colourless and odourless and so the first thing that a victim will notice is that their nose is running like crazy and their eyes watering. Then the mouth drools and vomits, and bowels and bladder evacuates. It’s not dignified. After that the chest tightens, the vision goes blurred and, if the exposure is great enough, convulsions, paralysis and death occurs in anything from one to ten minutes. A single drop of sarin the size of a pinhead can be enough to kill an adult.”
“And the good news?” asks Pizzutto, joking to give herself some space as she continues to furiously note down Guardino’s words.
“Hold on one second,” she says, finding the voice-recorder app on her phone. “Carry on.”
“Well, since you ask, the good news is that if the person doesn’t die then recovery is relatively quick and complete. They won’t be left blind or infertile or prone to cancer. And most people exposed to sarin don’t die. Plus, there is a lotion that can be applied to the skin immediately after exposure that works well. The US military used to stockpile it. When are you expecting this attack?”
Pizzutto can’t help herself – she laughs at the professor’s assumption, so neutrally inserted at the end of his spiel.
“We are not, professor, and this conversation never took place.”
“Understood, Nadia. Now can I return to my holiday?”
“One thing,” Pizzuto thinks carefully how to phrase the next question. “Were there to be an attack, in the centre of a major city, say, how would it likely be carried out?”
“I presume you mean a terrorist attack?”
Pizzuto makes no reply. The fact that she heads the anti-terrorist police should speak for itself.
“Well, sarin dissolves very easily in water, and the Tokyo attackers carried their’s in plastic bags, diluted in water. They then boarded trains, dropped the bags and punctured them, before getting smartly off the trains. They weren’t suicidal, like some of these Islamic groups we have now.
“The thing with sarin is that it not only dissolves easily in water, it also vaporises very easily. It’s a very volatile nerve agent, so that once released in liquid form it vaporises and enters the environment. There is a plus side to this: sarin evaporates so rapidly that the threat is short-lived. So if I was a terrorist I would do it somewhere confined, like the metro. Or in an office building.”
“And where would they get the sarin from?”
“Right now? Multiple sources. We suspect the various mafias took their slice of Assad’s WMD – the stuff that Assad didn’t hold back for his own use, of course. That’s why you were in Calabria in 2014, isn’t it? But more worrying at the moment is Libya. Islamic State is known to have got their hands on stockpiles of sarin and mustard gas from the Gadaffi era, and they’ve already used chlorine in Iraq.”
“Okay, so how would they transport it from Libya to Italy?”
“Well, like I said, it’s odourless and colourless and dissolves in water. In bottled water? In a ship’s hull? I don’t know. How do they get cocaine and heroin into Italy?”
* * * *
“Okay, two hours, then you drive,” Omar says to Aafia.
“Miracles never cease,” says Aafia under her breath, before twisting around on her side, slipping down the seat so that her head is resting against its back, and closing her eyes.
Omar settles back into his seat. There is nothing they can do now. All is in the hands of Allah and his mercy.
He remembers the lessons taught to him by the Saudi cleric in Pakistan. The man’s view of the world was different to most of the al-Qaeda leaders he had met. He referred to Osama bin Laden respectfully enough, calling him ‘Sheikh Osama’, but Omar could tell that he believed al-Qaeda’s approach was past its sell-by date.
And though he was a Saudi like Bin Laden, the cleric adhered to Wahhabism, the purest form of Islam that demands the strict adherence to sharia law, the demotion of women to their rightful place beneath men, and that Shia Muslims are heretics and apostates to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews. And above all he believes in a caliphate. Not in some distant future, but now.
Omar sat at his feet, completely spellbound as he spoke of returning to the sacred texts and the example of Muhammad himself, following them absolutely and without deviation – what the cleric called ‘the Prophetic methodology’ – and this was why the Shia were heretics, because what they believed in was an innovation, and to innovate on the Quran is to deny its initial perfection. And so all 200 million Shia are marked for death.
This new understanding suddenly became a blinding reality when Omar finally returned to Iraq in the autumn of 2010. In the three years since his departure, al-Qaeda had all but been defeated by the Americans, their leaders and top fighters jailed, and the government of Prime Minister Maliki was leading a Shia-dominated one-man state in Baghdad. The Sunni minority – top dogs under Saddam – were now second-class citizens, denied jobs and subject to random arrest. Malaki’s supposed government of national unity had turned into a Shia dictatorship, riven with cronyism and corruption.
Omar had decided to station himself in Mosul in the far north of Iraq, and about as far from the government of the Shia heretics in Baghdad as he could manage. From there he made discreet contact with his former comrades in the resistance to the American invaders and discovered that most were either dead or in jail. However one of them, an old Saddam loyalist called Abu with whom Omar had blown up Humvees during the early days of the occupation, introduced him to a man who was going to change his life.
Camp Bucca in southern Iraq had originally been called Camp Freddy by the British who stored their prisoners of war there. When the Americans took it over in 2003, they re-named it after Ronald Bucca, a New York fire marshal who died in the 9/11 attacks on New York. Bucca, an experienced marathon runner, had made it to the seventy-eighth floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center – pretty much exactly where the second of the hijackers’ plane struck.
Anyway, Camp Bucca was where Abu got to know another Abu – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who had also been a prisoner of the Americans. By the time Omar was introduced to him, one day in late October, after an all-day car journey during which Omar had been blindfolded, al-Baghdadi had recently become the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq following an American attack
that had killed the previous commanders.
Al-Baghdadi impressed Omar from the start – a quiet, purposeful, organised man in his early forties, he reminded him of his former mentor in Pakistan, the Saudi cleric. Al-Baghdadi was understandably extremely security conscious and had been whisked away by his bodyguards after less than fifteen minutes of their meeting, but Omar had felt the force of his intelligent gaze and had come away with the feeling that he had passed some sort of test.
It was less than a year later, immediately following the murder of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, that he met al-Baghdadi again. He wanted help in organising a response – a suicide attack on a police station to the south of Baghdad that they had been scouting as a possible target.
Omar’s phone wakes him from his reverie. It was a simple text: ‘Draycott family located’.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Harry allows the moving walkway to carry him past the endless advertisements for private banks and luxury watches, and feels like laughing. He is now officially part of this world, he thinks, glancing at his Rolex. Forty minutes till his flight and he has no luggage – not even a diamond which now sits snugly in its safety deposit box in Geneva.
The process could hardly have been any easier. His passport was photocopied and a deposit taken, along with a year’s rental in advance – all on the company credit card. A neat, nondescript man, with a manner just the right side of obsequious, took him through the whole process, handed him the key and wished him good day. Out into the bright crisp sunshine of Geneva.
It’s only as he approaches the departure gate that he begins to feel uneasy. If Max has been killed, then it wouldn’t be long before they traced the hire car. But hold on, they hadn’t hired the car, it had been the Saudi who had arranged the Merc.
Then if Max had been rescued, he would have notified the police of Harry’s absence and they would be on the lookout for him. He slips the battery back into his phone, which tells him that he has twenty-three missed calls.
The woman at the departure gate scans the boarding card on his phone, and lets him through. Passport control is in a glass booth on the way to the security area, and Harry nonchalantly hands his to the young man, who gives it a perfunctory glance and passes it back. “Merci,” says Harry and the man nods, his attention already moved onto the next traveller.
In the duty-free area, Harry heads straight for a shop selling books, magazines and sweets, with a rack of newspapers by the checkout. He scans the local Swiss newspapers, but they’re full of yesterday’s news. He Googles ‘Swiss news’ and receives an eight-hour-old BBC news item about a new initiative to expel foreigners found guilty of minor crimes. He takes the battery back out of his phone. A departure screen above his head tells him that his flight will be boarding in twenty minutes. It’s now just after twenty past three.
He finds a snack bar, places a ham and salad roll and a bottle of sparkling water on a plastic tray, and finds a corner seat with a view of a TV screen. It’s some sort of news magazine programme with a smartly dressed man and woman by turns addressing the camera and each other. Harry can’t hear what they’re saying because the sound is turned down.
He’s just unwrapping the cellophane from his roll when an aerial shot of Simon’s chalet fills the TV screen. The next shot is of bodies, draped in blankets, being wheeled out of the driveway on trolleys. A caption beneath simply says Verbier. Harry fights the urge to be sick.
A uniformed policeman is being interviewed now. Microphones thrust under his nose. And then two mug shots fill the screen – God knows where they were taken. On the left is Max and on the right is Harry.
Harry shoots to his feet. Luckily he is the only customer, and the server has his back to him, rubbing the spout on a coffee machine with a cloth. Leaving his sandwich and drink, he stumbles out into the concourse – the server saying “Merci, monsieur” to his retreating back. He searches for a toilet sign, and sees that there’s a gents nearby.
Seated in a toilet cubicle he takes some deep breaths and tries not to be sick. Why Max and Harry’s photographs? Were they murder suspects? And does that mean Max is still alive? Then where is he?
He puts the battery back in his phone, but there doesn’t seem to be any signal here. There’s less than ten minutes to boarding. Should he just give himself up? Why was he trying to leave the country when he knew there was one dead person at the chalet, and others in mortal danger? Could he say that he was in shock? Isn’t he in shock? Taking another deep breath, he tells himself that he’s in the hands of the gods now, and with that he feels strangely serene.
* * *
“We’re running short of petrol,” says Aafia, who has been driving for the past half-hour. Max opens his eyes. He hasn’t been asleep; it’s just been a relief not to have to watch the road any more. He was getting dangerously spaced out going through the tunnel back there on the Swiss border.
Omar has decided to cut down past Genoa instead of taking the more direct route by way of Milan, because of roadworks on that route. They will re-join the E35 south of Bologna. The satnav is suggesting a 17:03 arrival time, but they can always put their foot down.
“And I need to go to the bathroom,” says Aafia.
“Me too,” says Max, remembering Aafia’s vanishing act on the way up to Switzerland. God… when? Yesterday… could it really have only been yesterday?
Omar is silent for a while.
“Okay, stop at the next service station,” he says. “But you can piss in your pants.”
“That’s disgusting,” says Aafia, followed by something in Arabic. “You can’t expect us to do that.”
“You don’t seriously think I’m going to let you go in a women’s toilet on your own, do you? How stupid do you think I am?”
Less stupid than he and Harry, thinks Max. “At least can’t we go in a bush… maybe in some picnic area?” he suggests.
“Maybe,” says Omar absently, his thoughts returning to his homeland, the caliphate. After the attack on the police station, Omar had become one of al-Baghdadi’s most trusted fighters, and with his knowledge of bomb-making he was sent to the Iraqi capital to coordinate a spate of IEDs and car bombs across the city, just days after the final American troops left the country.
Then things began to change, and the Sunni minority began to protest at Prime Minister Maliki’s sectarian policies. The protests were peaceful at first, but not the government’s response, and after the massacre at the Hawijah peace camp in April 2013, armed resistance became the order of the day.
By then the so-called Arab Spring had reached Syria, and Assad was in serious trouble from various armed rebel groups. Where others saw nothing but anarchy, al-Baghdadi spotted opportunity, and he, Omar, was one of the experienced fighters that was sent to Syria to set up Jabhat al-Nusra as the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
“Petrol ten kilometres,” announces Aafia, breaking into Omar’s thoughts.
“Okay, we’ll pull in there,” he says.
Aafia puts her foot down, and before too long they’re turning off and drawing up next to a pump.
“The key,” demands Omar when Aafia turns off the engine, and she passes it back to him.
“Okay… everybody out. You,” he says looking at Max. “You do the petrol.”
With stiff legs and a bursting bladder, Max steps down on to the forecourt. All around, oblivious to his plight, normal life continues. A Dutch motorhome owner is filling up in the space in front of the Audi. Across the forecourt, a fat middle-aged man yawns expansively on the way back to a Fiat that looks too small to take his weight. The sun shines and the breeze is warm. Max is sure he can smell the sea.
Omar has corralled Aafia around to the side of the car where Max is standing with the pump. She bends and stretches and jogs on the spot. “I need a pee,” she says. Omar, watchful, one hand inside his coat opening, and no doubt attached to his pistol, ignores her.
A sharp click tells Max that the tank is full, and he returns the handle to the pum
p. “Come, we go together,” says Omar. “You two in front.” They walk over to the pay station.
“Tell me, Aafia,” says Max, suddenly feeling liberated from Omar’s immediate command. “Why did you steal the diamond? What did you want the money for?”
“A new life,” she says smiling. “After all this is over… a new life. A life without my father, and without Tariq.”
“Without Tariq?”
“We’re not lovers, you know. Not any more.”
They’re in the shop now. There’s a short queue, and up and to the left of the till is a screen. Looking back at Max is a slightly blurred facial photograph of himself, next to one of Harry. The image changes to a notice advising of motorway roadworks, and Max wonders whether he imagined it.
“Did you see that?” says Aafia, handing over a 100-euro note. Max nods.
“Okay, back to the car,” says Omar.
“I need a pee,” says Aafia.
Max senses the hand tense under Omar’s coat. Would he shoot them here? Max wouldn’t put it past him.
“Come on,” he says, and they return to the Audi. The Dutch motor home has gone, as well as the overladen Fiat. Aafia climbs back in to the driver’s seat.
“We’ll find a place. Drive round to where those trucks are parked,” says Omar, pointing towards a sort of lay-by beyond the shop, where three freight lorries are pulled up. There is a bank running along its side, with bushes growing up its slope. Aafia pulls up behind the last of the trucks.
“You go first,” he says to Max, lowering his window and pulling the Swiss policeman’s gun from inside his coat. “Stay where I can see you.”
Max goes behind a bush and, with his back to the car, empties his bladder to the accompaniment of a long sigh. He buttons up and returns to the car.
“Now you, pass me the key first,” says Omar, as Aafia starts to open the driver’s door. She passes him the ignition key, and steps down out of the Audi. She goes further into the bushes than Max, causing Omar to tell her to stay in sight. She pulls down her trousers and squats with her back to the car. Omar has his gun trained on where he can just about see the top of her arse.
The Concierge Page 21
