Confessor

by John Gardner

  It seemed that Tony Worboys had been distanced from the hierarchy at the Office and was now running the events in the aftermath of Gus’s death. Ginger was left at Warminster, and two cars were sent down to pick up Herbie and Olesker. They were crammed with minders, most of whom, Herb thought, were now working for the Office on a temporary basis. Herb and Bex traveled in the second car; the first contained the traditional three-man team, two up front and an observer in the back, all armed to the teeth.

  The first thing Kruger noticed in their car was a short Heckler & Koch MP5K in a clip between the driver and shotgun passenger up front. It was an indication of how seriously they were taking the situation.

  “Our lives in their hands,” he muttered to Bex, nodding towards the weapons.

  “I loathe guns.” Bex wrinkled her nose. Then: “This man who’s just been killed? He a big noise? Is it very serious, his death?”

  “The Whizz was The Whizz.” Herbie was being almost coyly uncommunicative about Archie.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Long Service career. Knew his stuff, but must have dropped his guard for a moment. Archie was a great fixer. In essence—that’s good, eh? In essence? Good English?—he was a very private person, which is excellent in this business, as you must know, Bex. In police you have the informers, yes?”

  “Grasses.” Bex grinned, again wrinkling her nose.

  “Like people smoke? The grass?”

  “No, a grass is a police informer. You’re saying that Blount-Wilson ran a lot of grasses?”

  “He had contacts in all kinds of places. Called him The Whizz because he was a wizard at seeking out experts, briefing them and coming back with the eventual take.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as once, I remember, in Switchbackland—”

  “Where?”

  “Switzerland. My mangled English calls it Switchbackland when I decide to use it.”

  “You turn your fractured English on and off like a bloody light switch, Herb, right?”

  “Only when I can’t make it.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “Means I turn it on and off like a neon sign. Getting old hat nowadays. The old hands know what I’m on about. The younger, and less subtle, people pretend they don’t understand. They’re like critics, these new guys. Always pretending they don’t know when you’re being subtle. Everyone’s a critic nowadays.”

  “You were in Switzerland.”

  “Sure. I needed to get a very delicate job done. Time was short. I needed two new Swiss passports and some other paper. The local resident didn’t want to know, and the guy we usually used had gone on holiday. South of France. Bloody technicians. They’re like policemen, Bex, never there when you need them.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Sure, but do I need you, Bex?”

  “I hope so.”

  He wasn’t certain, but he could have sworn that her shoulder moved into his shoulder and stayed there.

  “Yeah, well. There I was, DCI Olesker, out of time, in a country that gives new meaning to the word ‘brusque,’ and with a great need for paper. What do I do?”

  “You get on to The Whizz, or I suspect that’s where you’re leading me.”

  “Gold star and green rabbit for you, Bex. I call the Whizz from a public telephone. Tell him what I need. In twelve hours I have a courier at the hotel and they’re ‘Paging Mr. Kruger.’ Or at the time it was ‘Paging Mr. Klause.’ I was using the work name, Klause.” He gave a little puerile chuckle. “As in Santa Klause.”

  “What other wonders could The Whizzer do?”

  “Anything. You wanted it, The Whizzer provided. They used to say he could get a witch doctor to change the weather if you needed it. Great saying about The Whizz. He could get a witch doctor—”

  “To change the weather. Yes, I did understand.”

  At Head Office the minders crowded them, as though they were heads of state. Kruger recalled the time he had been sitting at a sidewalk café in the Place de l’Opéra in Paris when the legendary and very tall President Charles de Gaulle turned up. Cars off-loaded around twenty tall men, who bunched together and headed up the steps. At each step he had seen the French President’s head bobbing up from the middle of the knot.

  “We can’t go around like this, Tony!” Kruger almost shouted as they got inside his room. It was high in the building, and they had passed down corridors where young men and women hurried about with set faces, on secret business.

  Worboys’s room was decorated in salmon pink with paintings on the walls that made Paul Klee look like a designer for romantic novel book jackets.

  “They gunned Archie down in broad bloody daylight.”

  “So? We have to go out only at night? Turn us into vampires, Young Worboys?”

  “I wasn’t going to take any chances, and I didn’t want to set up a meeting in some safe house. One thing’s for sure, Herb, we’re next on the list. They must’ve figured out by now that they didn’t get you at the cottage. Gus down, Archie down. Now it’s us.”

  “Watch your back then, Tony, and I’ll watch mine.”

  “Just sit down, Herb, and let’s get on.”

  “With what?”

  “They found the cab.”

  “Good. We all go home now and I get on with trying to solve poor Gus’s murder.”

  “I think that’s what we’re doing, Herb. Just listen. No, I’ll give you some good news first. I’ve a check here for three quarters of a million. I threatened all kinds of mayhem if the insurance people didn’t pay up promptly. Buggers tried to say it was an act of war, your cottage going up. This is an adjusted sum. You do a list of contents and value and they’ll up the ante.” He passed the envelope across the desk.

  “So I’m rich. Anyone for champagne?”

  “Just listen.” Worboys’s temper was wearing thin.

  Kruger took the hint and sat down, looking like an obedient schoolboy, his big hands folded around the envelope containing the check.

  Worboys went through the obvious information first, talking about the two terrorist teams; their links with the FFIRA as far as the U.K. team were concerned; the probability that, going by the American evidence, there were now only four of the team left in the U.K. In the United States they reckoned on only two being still at large. “The analysts’re convinced that there’s some kind of end game both here and in the States.” Worboys sat behind his desk, fingers laced to stop him fiddling around with his hands—a habit to which he was prone when either frightened or angry.

  “We have no idea what this end game could possibly be, but in Europe they could be badly stretched because they seem to have been operating both here and in France and Italy. We’re taking it as read that these people did for Gus …”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the style. Their bombs have been mainly old-fashioned dynamite, except for the occasional Semtex used on the Continent, which indicates that they have access to plastique in small quantities. The explosive used on Gus was dynamite. We know these people are Iraqis …”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re getting more information about Hisham Silwani.”

  “Want to ask you about him, Tony.”

  “What in particular?”

  “Five had him on a rope since when? 1983?”

  “’83, yes.”

  “Buggers didn’t share him with us …”

  “They got severely rapped over the knuckles for that …”

  “I’m sure. Go away, don’t be bad boys again. Now, Young Worboys, they recruited him in ’83. In all those years what was he doing for them?”

  “Most of the time Ishmael, as we’re now supposed to call him, was providing priceless information regarding the Irish problem. That’s why they baited a trap for him, and that was the main objective. Ishmael has links inside the Irish terrorist factions that we couldn’t get near in a hundred years. Apart from the time of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he was passin
g high-level intelligence to Five that really paid off. He was very important to them and, having seen some of the product, I can understand their reticence about sharing him. For instance, we are aware of two murders in the North of Ireland which were carried out in error. Because they thought they’d fingered informers inside the organizations concerned. They hadn’t. The informer was Ishmael. Simple as that. In the Baghdad pecking order, friend Ishmael handled liaison between their Leader and a number of what we call terrorist groups—Abu Nidal, PLO and certainly IRA. You’ve no idea how much these people talk to one another. Ishmael held a lot of secrets which were passed on to us. For that alone, Ishmael’s a hero.

  “Our main and biggest quibble with Five is that they ran him through a senior officer from our shop—Gus. If this had come out while Gus was still alive, there’d have been hell to pay. We’d have probably docked the man’s pension.”

  “And Jasmine?” Herbie asked.

  “That’s what I’m coming to, Herb. We know that Jasmine’s not here in the U.K. So we had another go with those phony telephone numbers. They computed. The meeting place was being set up in New York.”

  “Ah.” Kruger’s big hand went up to his chin. For a second or so he looked like a caricature of Rodin’s The Thinker. Then: “So you really think Jasmine’s in New York—or the States somewhere?”

  “What I think is that she was one of the team working out of New York. Which also means she’s either dead or she’s one of the two who escaped and are holed up somewhere.”

  “He or she,” Bex said softly.

  “What d’you mean, Chief Inspector?” Worboys’s forehead creased and he looked ten years older.

  “Was going to tell you about that, Tony.” Herb did his Halloween grin, reserved for only special occasions. “If you read Gus’s reports, Jasmine’s a she. If you listen to Carole, it’s a he that she had a little fling with and never forgave herself.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Wouldn’t yoke about something like that to you.”

  “You mean there’s a genuine doubt about the sex.”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt there was sex.”

  “I mean the gender.”

  “There is doubt, yes.” Kruger was getting into his stride. “Doubt, but what we think—what Bex and I think—is they both had a little hokey pokey.”

  “Both?”

  “Sure, and you know that’s wrong, hokey pokey?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “The song and dance. The hokey pokey. The real name is Hokey Cokey. World War II song. Americans learned it over in the U.K. from us Brits. Took it back home and got the wrong words. Now they all sing Hokey Pokey and it’s really Hokey Cokey.”

  “Herb”—Worboys tried to sound patient—“will you get on with the sex business? You say they both—Gus and Carole—had sex with Jasmine?”

  “No. No, we think Carole strayed from paths of righteousness with Ishmael and Gus made the beast with two backs with Jasmine.”

  “Beast with …?”

  “Shakespeare.” Herbie sounded pleased and lofty. “Othello. Bard of Avon calling.”

  “Then who was playing silly fools? Gus or Carole?”

  “We think possibly Gus. We think Gus trained Jasmine somewhere else, without telling you. Typical Gus. Had a devious mind. I think he took Ishmael to Warminster and did stuff with him, then went away for a couple of days and Ishmael got his leg over Carole. That’s what we think.”

  “We do?” Bex queried.

  “I do, and I think you’d go along with it eventually.”

  “Eventually’s right.”

  Worboys cut across all the conversation. “Please, the two of you. Just work it out between you, and know that here’s the money’s on Jasmine being either dead or alive in the U.S.A.—we think alive, naturally. Also, there’s no problem about finding out what sex Jasmine is, or was. Gus, as I recall, recruited Jasmine from the Technical Department. We had changed over to computerized records by then. All I have to do is look it up. I’ll have to use one of the sensitive machines, but it shouldn’t take long. Back in a couple of minutes.” Worboys left the room. Herbie twiddled his thumbs and sang, “Oh-oh, the Hokey Cokey, / Oh-oh, the Hokey Cokey, / Oh-oh, the Hokey Cokey, / That’s what it’s all about.” Then he turned to Bex and said, “Young Worboys thinks Jasmine’s alive, naturally.”

  “Naturally,” Bex repeated, and they both retreated into silence.

  Worboys was out of the office for much longer than five minutes. Herbie, who was counting, by constant glances at his watch, made it thirty-seven minutes before he came back, looking irritated and slightly red of face.

  “Impossible” was his first comment. He sat down behind his desk. “Jesus, Herb, old Gus really had things tied as tight as a—”

  “Careful, Tony, you got ladies here. What’s the score?”

  “The score, as you call it, is that everyone’s been cut out of the loop. Jasmine shows in the active database cross-referenced with CSIS ‘No Subscription’ files, and that’s exactly what we have. No bloody subscription. There’re half a dozen files under the old Chief’s work name, and they’re empty. Transferred to the present Chief. Took me ten minutes to work out Jasmine and that’s disappeared. There is a cross-ref to Ajax, and Ajax is Gus. The file’s empty. So, I went through the normal personnel files. Checked on people working and active in the Technical Department. That database was set up in early 1984 with a nice little tag which said, ‘No previous lists available,’ which means, Herb, that the old Chief and Gus had a pact with the devil. The Old Man saw to it that all references to Jasmine were filleted from the database. The only records of people working in that department go back to ’84. Nothing before then. Together they wiped out the lot. There’s no way we can get at who Jasmine really is, or was. All we know is that he, she or it was handled solely by Gus, and he’s not around to tell us anymore.”

  “Neither is the old Chief, Tony. Gus wore rubber pockets so he could steal soup. Lovely man. Great professional, but dead cagey. Silent as the grave.”

  “Well, that’s that. I think we should talk about friend Ramsi al-Disi, who you’ll have to put through the wringer.”

  “When’s he coming to us?” from Bex.

  Worboys looked at his watch. “With luck he’ll be there by now. The idea was to get him quietly into the guest suites—well separated from Carole—while you were up here.”

  “What did the Italians get?”

  “Sweet damn all. But we’ve seen the transcripts, and we think that Mr. al-Disi knows more than is good for him. The problem is that we also think the man isn’t aware of all the information he has piled up in his head. He has to be coaxed, and you have to do the coaxing.”

  “He knows but he doesn’t know?”

  “Herb, you know what I’m talking about. He has said that both teams were together in Iraq for a year or so before they left for London and New York. The very fact that they were together means he has a mountain of information. The Italians, I fear, did not persist but, give them their due, they felt we could do better. Get more out of him. So, it’s up to you to do the real probing.”

  “Play magicians’ psychological tricks,” Herbie Kruger said, low and to nobody in particular. Then: “He speak any English?”

  “Quite good English, actually. Very correct.”

  “Good.” Herbie gave a massive shrug. “Wish I spoke good English. Make life easier.”

  In New York, Khami had taken Walid up on his offer and gone shopping again. She was out until midafternoon and brought back a mixture of garments frivolous and sexy, together with a small pile of gifts for Walid, which included two sets of handcuffs, a beautiful grooming set and a large box of male colognes, aftershaves and similar items. Her best gift for him was a dark blue silk robe.

  “I liked the color.” She smiled. “This blue will suit you, Walid. I also buy you a pair of very fine driving gloves. Feel the soft leather.”

  “Where am I going
to drive, my peach?”

  “Probably nowhere, but the sensation of soft leather against my skin is very appealing.”

  He wanted what he called an undress parade straightaway, and they were just getting started when the telephone rang.

  Walid made a dive for the phone and answered with a curt “Yes.”

  “This is Yussif. I’m downstairs. I wonder if I can come up to see you. It’s most important.”

  Walid made shooing motions to Khami, signaling that she should get into the bedroom and put more clothes on. “Please, yes. Come straight up. We were hoping you would visit us today. In fact, we’ve been lost without you.”

  The man who called himself Yussif was tall and distinguished-looking, with a striking hawklike nose and brilliant pale blue eyes. He was very formal to both of them and they called room service for coffee and some cakes.

  It was not until the food had been delivered that Yussif began to talk in earnest.

  “It is a miracle that you have been spared,” he began. “The police still stick to their story that your comrades were dead when they arrived, when the police arrived.”

  “That cannot be true.” Khami now wore a modest dress, which covered her shoulders and reached almost to her ankles. “They were all alive when we left. On our return, the police were swarming all over the place.”

  “We know they tried to fight back. In their press statements the NYPD say that some had weapons in their hands.”

  “It is a catastrophe.” Walid made a motion meant to convey horror and grief.

  “No. We have the pair of you, and I think you will be able to do all that is necessary. Two people can, at a stretch, carry out Magic Lightning, but we have to plan now. See, I have brought the necessary information. The tools you will need for the work will be made available when you get to Washington.”

  “Magic Lightning is to take place in Washington?”

  The man from Yussif smiled, nodded and then did something incredibly stupid. As he spoke, he realized that he was giving away information not meant for their ears. “Washington,” he said. “Washington, London, Paris and Rome. It is all being coordinated. This must all happen within the next four days. See.” He brought out a map of the center of Washington, D.C., and the plan of a building.