Jack Higgins - A Devil is Waiting

‘Good morning, Owen,’ Abu said. ‘Did you enjoy your run in Hyde Park with Jean?’

Owen had got past being surprised at how up-to-date Abu’s information was, particularly about Rubat. He had got used to the idea that he was under some sort of surveillance.

‘She’s excellent company!’

‘What’s the feedback regarding the extension to the Bacu?’

Owen gave him chapter and verse. ‘Frankly, it’s exactly what I expected the company to say. Yemen makes everyone nervous these days, including my own people in Rubat.’

‘Our orders demand that we persist.’

‘I’m doing the best I can. As you know, I’m a guest at the terrace reception for the President. I’ve invited her to join me, with a promise to introduce her to various Saudi dignitaries.’

‘I like that,’ Abu said. ‘It’s good for business from a Talbot International point of view. It could possibly have an effect on their attitude to the Bacu extension. You’ve done well.’

‘We aim to please.’

‘Kelly has filled me in on the Murphy business in New York.’

‘Yes, I suggested he speak to you personally,’ Owen said.

‘You were quite right. We need to do something about Ferguson and his Holland Park set-up. The wretched people he employs have been a thorn in our sides for years. Now we have Ferguson’s latest recruit, this Sara Gideon. Jewish, I understand. She probably has ties to Mossad.’

‘I wouldn’t blame her. That bus bombing that killed her parents in Jerusalem saw off fourteen Palestinians as well. It was rather careless of Hamas.’

‘Take care,’ Abu said. ‘Or we may start to wonder whose side you’re on.’

‘That’s easy. I’m on Owen Rashid’s side. What’s our next move?’

‘I’ll order Kelly to activate some of his sleepers here in London. He’s boasted of them enough, so let’s see if we can give Ferguson and his people a few problems.’

Owen said, ‘Let’s be practical. Ferguson and Miller spent years fighting a war in Ireland. Dillon and Holley were on the other side and have now crossed over. Their friend Harry Salter may be a wealthy developer now, but he was a notorious gangster in his day, and his nephew has taken after him. And the Gideon girl’s record speaks for itself. What do you think you’ll be able to accomplish?’

‘I’ve been doing some research. Are you familiar with the Irish National Liberation Army? Their members were recruited from the professional classes. Years ago, they killed an MP with a car bomb as he drove out of Parliament. No one was ever caught.’

‘All right, but that was a long time ago,’ Owen said. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying some things never go out of style. I’m going to speak to Kelly. I want this Charles Ferguson business taken care of once and for all.’

Owen Rashid, with plenty to think about, went into the bathroom and stood under a hot shower, cursing the day he’d got involved with Al Qaeda, but he was, and would have to make the best of it.

As he finished dressing and moved into his office area, the phone sounded. It was Kelly, and he wasn’t pleased.

‘I don’t like being ordered around by that creep Abu. He sounds like an undertaker.’

‘I suppose that’s what he is in a way,’ Owen told him. ‘You could always resurrect one of your sleeper cells and give instructions to bump him off.’

‘If only it were that simple,’ Kelly said. ‘Just like I have visions of getting Charles Ferguson and his entire outfit all together in a van, so it would only take one bomb planted underneath to get rid of them all.’

‘And pigs might fly,’ Owen said. ‘Anyway, Abu thinks we need something special. He’s discovered that INLA once killed a Member of Parliament with a car bomb.’

‘But that was years ago.’

‘Well, he’s impressed – not only that they got away with it but that the cell consisted of middle-class professionals.’

‘Yeah, that was a newspaper story that got out of hand.’ Kelly laughed harshly. ‘Each time it reprinted, a bit more was added, until in the end, it was better than the midnight movie.’

Owen Rashid found himself genuinely interested. ‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’ve always suspected a friend of mine was involved. He wasn’t Irish, and his only connection with the IRA was a girl named Mary Barry, whom he loved beyond rubies.’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘In 1976, like a lot of IRA volunteers, I was sent to a training camp in the middle of the Algerian desert, courtesy of Colonel Gaddafi. We were trained in all kinds of weaponry and shown how to make what they now call improvised explosive devices, car bombs and such.’

‘So what’s this got to do with anything?’ Owen Rashid demanded.

‘Our instructor was named Henri Legrande. He spent three years in the Foreign Legion in the Algerian War. Joined at eighteen, got wounded and decorated, and discharged on his twenty-first birthday. Then he was recruited by Algerians and got well paid to give people like me the benefit of his experience for six months.’

‘What happened to him when you left the camp?’

‘We were his last group. He had an English aunt in London who’d left him well provided for, and her estate included an antiques shop with a flat above it in Shepherd Market.’

‘That’s not far from here,’ Owen said. ‘Lots of shops like that there.’

‘He decided to go to London University to study literature and fine arts, of all things. It was still a popular destination with Irish students like Mary Barry, the daughter of a friend of mine. I told her to look him up.’

‘And they fell in love.’

‘She moved in with him, and had two years of bliss before she went home to Belfast one day, got involved in a street protest, was manhandled by soldiers, handed over to the police, and was found dead in a cell the following morning. Choked on her own vomit. There was a suggestion of abuse, but nothing was ever proved.’

‘Well, there wouldn’t be, would there?’ Owen said.

‘We all know that, but there was nothing to be done. I was on the run at the time, took a chance and went to the funeral. St Mary’s, Bombay Street in Belfast, the church packed. Just before the service, the door banged and there was Henri over from London. The look on his face would have frightened the devil. He had a single red rose in his hand, walked straight up the aisle, ignoring the priest, placed the rose between her folded hands, leaned over, kissed her, and walked out.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Went after him, took him for a drink. I asked him if he intended to return to France. He told me he would never leave London, because as long as he stayed, her presence would always be with him.’

‘True love.’ Owen reached for a cigarette and lit it. ‘So you suppose that he was responsible for the death of that MP all those years ago as an act of revenge?’

‘It was more complicated than that. I told you that Henri had given us a thorough training on the construction of explosive devices.’

‘What about it?’

‘One of the car bombs he demonstrated was of Russian origin and was unusual in that it used mercury as part of the trigger mechanism. Three months after Mary’s death, the army colonel whose men had been involved in that riot was killed with the same sort of car bomb right here in London.’

‘Which could hardly be a coincidence,’ Owen said.

‘Not when you consider that two months later, the Royal Ulster Constabulary chief superintendent who’d been commanding the police station where Mary had died met a similar fate.’

‘I’d say that’s pretty convincing proof, but why would Legrande target the Member of Parliament? He didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Mary Barry, did he?’