Henry Porter: Empire State

‘Does your plan include an attack on the UN?’ asked Herrick.

Loz flashed her an appreciative smile. ‘You’re very smart, Isis. I told you that we were made for each other.’

She nodded. ‘I should have guessed why you made so much of your contact with Benjamin Jaidi. You were staring your enemy in the eyes. What’s that quote about the riddle of steel and stone?’

Loz held his head back and stared at the rain. ‘It goes like this. “This riddle of steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of non-violence, of racial brother-hood, this lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errands forestalled.” Secretary General Jaidi likes that quotation but not for the reason I do. If you think about it, there is not one true statement in that quotation. It is all lies. Racial brotherhood… try being an Arab or an African. Home of all people and all nations… capital of everything… None of it is true. The only time the deliberations stopped the planes flying was in Bosnia when Muslims were being killed by Serbs as the West stood by. That’s when the United Nations stands back.’

‘Actually, I agree with most of what you say,’ said Herrick.

‘That’s because you are an intelligent woman,’ said Loz. ‘And you understand in your heart that that place cannot go on. Things must be changed from the outside. It is full of corruption. It is owned by you and the Jews and the Americans. You run it as though it is your back yard. How many times do you think the Americans have vetoed Security Council resolutions against Israel?’

Herrick shrugged and said she didn’t know.

‘Of course you do not because you do not notice these things. But we Arabs count. The answer is thirty-four times in the last three decades. What chance do the Palestinians have with that record?’

‘Are you using planes?’ she said calmly.

‘We are soldiers, we fight on the ground.’

‘So guns and explosives – bombs?’

‘No, Isis, I do not tell you. You will see soon enough. You will see everything from here, and you will hear about the other things we plan. Patience, little girl.’

Harland had used up most of his illicit supply of painkillers and was now feeling distinctly seedy. His sister Harriet was keeping him company through his sleepless nights by reading to him from the diary of Samuel Pepys, which she insisted had the right combination of titillation and longueurs. She’d told him she would leave as soon as he dropped off, but that didn’t look like happening soon because Harland couldn’t get used to the sensation of sleeping on his front, especially now the painkillers had upset his stomach.

‘Hold on one moment,’ he said to Harriet.

She smiled radiantly. ‘What, darling?’

‘I think I should check on someone. Haven’t heard from her since this afternoon.’ He eased himself from the bed, swung his legs to the floor, then groped for the phone secreted in his sponge-bag. He dialled Herrick and waited. The phone rang ten times before she answered.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ she replied.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Staring at the rain. There’s a big storm here.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Sure. I had a nice glass of wine with Ollins in the bar. He’s a real charmer. Now I’m back in the hotel room with a bottle of red and a book. It’s great. I couldn’t be happier, nor more relaxed.’

‘Isis, are you all right?’

‘Sure, I’m just a bit sleepy. Early start tomorrow. Got to hang up now.’

‘Isis? Isis?’

She had gone.

‘Something’s wrong,’ he said, looking at Harriet. ‘I mean, this is a woman who makes you look straight-laced and dowdy. She is utterly driven. Doesn’t sleep until she’s attacked a problem a thousand different ways. I’ve never seen anyone like her before – not in my former line of work, anyway.’

‘You sound smitten,’ said Harriet.

Harland brushed this aside. ‘The point is that everything she said was untrue. For instance, she said she had been to a bar with Ollins. She said he was charming. Whatever his merits, Special Agent Ollins is not charming. In the circumstances, it is utterly unlike her to curl up with a book and a bottle of red wine. So it follows that when she said she couldn’t be happier or more relaxed she meant she was exactly the opposite. She has to be in some kind of trouble.’

Harriet saw he was serious. ‘What’re you going to do?’

‘I’ll phone Teckman, then try Ollins.’

Standing in the centre of the room, Herrick lowered the phone and deliberately pressed the button to end the call that Loz, with some pleasure, had insisted she take while he pressed Foyzi’s gun to her neck.

‘That was good, Isis. You’re quite the actress.’ Loz laid an arm across her shoulder and gave the gun back to Foyzi. ‘Another time and another place, we would have been a sublime match. As the Prophet said, “to taste each other’s little honey.” ’

She looked into his eyes and saw an oscillation in his pupils and what she decided was a profound and insane puzzlement. ‘Do you know what you’re doing? I mean, do you have any real understanding of other people’s pain?’

‘Of course I do. Look at Karim. I have done everything that a man could do for his friend. I have cleaned and mended his body, lavished my skill on his injuries. That is an understanding of pain and it is proof of the debt I owed him.’

‘What makes Karim different from the people you’re going to kill tomorrow? When Langer explodes his bomb or Ajami spreads the poison that infects the bodies of children and pregnant women, or Aziz Khalil coughs out his germs, they will in all probability kill people who have a much greater capacity for good than you, Karim or I have. Why is Karim to be saved and those people destroyed?’

Loz looked mildly unsettled. ‘I do not have to answer to you.’

‘But you do,’ she said vehemently, chopping the air with one hand. The other slipped the open phone into her pocket. ‘I was the one who saved Karim Khan, not you. I risked my career to stop this man being tortured. If you don’t believe me, ask Gibbons. He knows what I did. He knows I risked my father’s life to free Khan and place him in your hands.’ Her hand went to her pocket and pressed a button at the right-hand corner of the keypad. ‘You owe me an explanation and you have a duty to yourself to reconcile these things in your head – hatred and love of humanity. Because the love you profess for Karim and Yahya is mere egotism unless you recognise that the part of them you love is the human part, the thing we all have in common.’

Loz wagged his finger. ‘If I spent any time with you I would go mad from these arguments of yours.’

‘It is not me that drives you mad,’ she said sadly, ‘it is reason.’ She stopped and, raising her voice, asked, ‘What good do you think will come of blowing up the UN building tomorrow? What do Langer and Khalil and Ajami and Latiah and Fatah think they’re doing? Sure, they’re going to kill an awful lot of people at the UN, but what good will that do? The world will look at Islam and say Muslims cannot be trusted. You will achieve nothing but the exclusion and revilement of your own people.’

Foyzi had moved round Herrick as she was speaking. Without warning, his hand dived into her pocket and pulled out the cell phone. He showed it to Loz and pointed at the number displayed on the screen. Loz looked at her furiously, took the phone and threw it against the floor, where Foyzi crushed it under his boot. Then Loz whistled round and caught her on the side of her face with the flat of his hand. Again and again he hit her until she crumpled to the floor. Finally he took the automatic from Foyzi and beat the back of her head and neck with it.