Henry Porter: Empire State

‘No, no. That was used to deceive you, although we didn’t know that at the time either.’

‘But it predicted the hit on Norquist?’

‘Which was used to distract you.’

‘Did the confirmation about the Norquist hit appear on this other site?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then who told us about it? We had two sources saying he was going to be hit.’

‘It’s simple. I told Walter Vigo by phone from Heathrow, while waiting for Admiral Norquist to arrive.’

‘You know Walter Vigo?’

‘Yes, I thought Harland must have told you our history. I helped him with a problem in the East some years ago. Vigo was my SIS handler.’

It was another story, an age ago, and anyway Vigo was finally out of the picture. Or was he? That clumsy approach in the bar a couple of days before came to Herrick’s mind – the strange, almost plangent appeal, so completely out of character.

‘And now he’s working for you – right?’ she said. ‘The Mossad has contact with Vigo’s company, Mercator? That’s why he tried to get me to give him the stuff from the bookshop in London.’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Of course, Vigo had me followed from the bookshop and then you trail me around town here. You people are really plugged into this case, aren’t you? Did you know about the suspects in Europe all along? Was Vigo keeping you in the loop the whole way through RAPTOR?’

Eva shrugged.

‘So one way or another,’ Herrick continued, ‘it was the old alliance. America, Britain and Israel were working on RAPTOR even though the first two had no idea they were sharing with you people.’

‘We don’t have time for this,’ said Eva.

‘Let’s get this straight,’ Herrick said venomously. ‘This is my investigation and I do have time for it.’ She paused. ‘As I understand it, the significant point about the website you’ve been monitoring is that it started up again after three weeks of inactivity?’

‘Yes. That is true.’

‘And you believe it’s being run from New York?’

‘But not from these rooms,’ said Eva. She placed her shoulder bag on the reception desk and swept Herrick with a look of appraisal. ‘Harland said you were the most natural talent he’d ever seen.’

Herrick ignored this. ‘The site started up again last week when Rahe was here in New York. So he could well have had something to do with it?’

‘Maybe,’ she said.

‘The trouble is that we’ve never worked out who was running this thing,’ said Herrick. ‘We thought it was Rahe, but if you look at the money trail it must have been Loz calling the shots.’

‘Maybe both,’ said Eva. ‘Can I have one of your cigarettes?’

Isis handed her the crush-proof packet. Eva coaxed one out by tapping it on her palm and lit it with an oblong gold lighter. Then she walked to the window to look at the lightning illuminating the clouds on the northern horizon.

‘Did you know this building is hit five hundred times a year by lightning?’

Herrick couldn’t help but admire the woman’s self-possession, the absence of the need to explain or to excuse herself. She returned to the computer. ‘I guess that’s why Loz liked it,’ she said.

Eva turned. ‘Outside the bank, you looked sick. What was the problem?’

‘You were watching me then?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why? Why didn’t you just make yourself known? You could have joined in at the bank.’

‘I wanted to see what you would do.’ She stopped and tipped her ash into the waste-paper basket. ‘I admit… I was also interested in you. Are you Bobby’s girlfriend?’

Herrick turned from the screen. ‘I don’t do this, okay?’

‘So you are?’

Herrick shook her head. ‘I’m really not going to talk about it.’

‘But you were ill. There was something wrong. I saw you.’

‘There was nothing wrong. I was tired. I needed to eat. I do now, in fact.’

Eva revolved her bracelet on her wrist. ‘What are you doing? Let me see.’ She came to stand at Herrick’s shoulder. ‘Let’s look into the computer’s history.’

She pulled the keyboard towards her and began to work, eyes flicking from her hands to the screen. Then she straightened and stood back, allowing Herrick to see a list of web addresses. There was almost nothing for the last six months, but in November and December of the previous year someone had visited the official UN website and sites concerned with Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Herrick began to write down the pattern of research on a piece of Sammi Loz’s headed notepaper. She scrolled down the list of sites visited in the last three years, noting down about twenty of them.

‘Why’re you taking these notes?’ said Eva.

‘Force of habit,’ Isis replied. As she said it, her eyes drifted to the address printed at the bottom of the notepaper. She read it several times, then got up and walked to the door. ‘This is 6420,’ she called out. ‘This office is 6420!’

‘Yes,’ said Eva. ‘It’s still listed in the lobby as Loz’s place.’

‘No, you don’t understand! In the bank this afternoon there was a document in which the Empire State was given as the address of the account holder – an American named Larry Langer who was a member of the Rahe-Loz group in Bosnia – the Brothers. We assumed he’d given Loz’s address for the account records. But he didn’t. He gave 6410 – not 6420. That means they could have another space on this floor.’

‘Well, let’s go and take a look,’ said Eva, picking up her bag.

The storm had moved closer and the windows and polished floors flickered with lightning. But in the corridor, as they checked the office numbers, there was only the sound of their footsteps and the feathery exhalation of the air-conditioning. As they rounded a bend into one of the main corridors on the northern side, the lift bell pinged and they heard the doors open. Both instinctively withdrew into the corridor they had just searched. Herrick noticed Eva’s eyes, straining to interpret the new presence on the deserted sixty-fourth floor.

They waited. A pair of heavily booted feet were approaching them – the solid, purposeful walk of a man, but a man who didn’t know the floor well. They heard him pause three times to look at the door numbers.

Eva peered round the corner. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, ‘I think he’s a messenger looking for an office.’ Then she called out. ‘Can I help you?’

‘No, I’m doing fine,’ came the reply. Herrick didn’t need to see the man to know who it was. He was just a few paces away now and there was nowhere she could possibly hide. She stepped out to join Eva.

The clothes were the same: a scarf was wound loosely round his neck; the faded khaki shirt looked in need of pressing and the blue jeans were sagging and creased. His only concession to the city was an unstructured dark blue jacket.

‘This is Lance Gibbons of the CIA,’ Herrick said in answer to an enquiring look in Eva’s eyes. ‘We met in Albania. Mr Gibbons is a great believer in the value of the “extraordinary renditions” that come from torture victims.’

‘Cut the crap, Isis. You know I was right about Khan.’

‘It hardly matters now,’ snapped Herrick. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’d ask you the same question, but I wouldn’t get a straight answer,’ said Gibbons.

‘We were looking over Dr Loz’s offices with the permission of the FBI,’ said Eva coolly. ‘Are you here for the same purpose?’

‘Mam, last time I saw this piece of work,’ he said, jabbing his finger an inch away from Herrick’s chest, ‘a fucking towel-head A-rab was about to stick a needle in my arm, which meant I didn’t know shit from sawdust for three days and nights.’