Nemesis (FBI Thriller 19)

Basara’s heart was beating as wildly as the imam’s, but he kept his voice calm and cold. “Get hold of yourself, old man. We have always seen to it they will find no evidence against you. You keep no papers, no computer files that can incriminate you or anyone we know.” The old man stayed silent, and Hercule took it like a punch to the gut. “Do you have any incriminating evidence at the house?”

“No, no, I’ve always taken great care. I did not lie. All is safely hidden elsewhere.”

Then why was he so scared? Ah, so that was it, the old idiot. “So you have damaging information at the mosque, then?”

Silence, then a strangled, “Yes, but they won’t be able to get a warrant to search a Muslim place of worship. It is the safest place I could think of.”

After the attempted bombing of their precious St. Paul’s, they would have no difficulty at all even getting a warrant to search beneath the imam’s precious prayer rug. “What records, exactly? The ledgers, our payments, receipts? Are there names mentioned? My name?”

“Yes! Some names, but not your own, not the name Samir Basara.”

You old fool, you have left them the keys to everything, in your own mosque.

“Hercule, they are ordering me to come out. I must hurry or they will break the door down.”

Hercule heard banging on the imam’s bathroom door. He yelled, “Smash the mobile! Now! Keep your mouth shut. All will be well.” Now, that was a lie of the first order. Hercule heard the door burst open, heard men’s voices. The mobile went dead.

The imam had had the time to destroy the mobile before the agents got hold of it. Not that it mattered. MI5 would find all the proof they needed at the mosque, probably right in the imam’s massive mahogany desk. He should have known. As discreet and smooth as the imam could be in public, he never guarded his speech at all on his home ground, at his beloved mosque. He thought he was invulnerable there. Now he would pay for his stupidity in prison. Good riddance, you old blighter.

Hercule let the thought go. He prided himself on his intelligence, and he was smart enough to know his life as Dr. Samir Basara was near its end as well. How long would it be before the imam’s paper trail led them directly back to him? A week? A month? Days?

He saw quicksand seething and surging everywhere ahead of him, knew if he didn’t act, it would suck him under. He had no intention of being tried as a traitor; he couldn’t imagine the humiliation, couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life rotting in prison. There would be no more television appearances for him, no more charismatic lectures at European universities, his views lauded and applauded. He could accept that—indeed, he’d planned for it. But what he couldn’t accept was that all of his meticulous planning, all the options he had weighed so carefully, had left his life falling apart. It enraged him. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t, let that happen. The Strategist would have his last final victory, despite everything, and he would see to it himself. Then he would disappear where no one could find him.

He had his escape plan well in hand; he’d been preparing it for fifteen years. He would face what was coming head-on, not bury his head like the imam, who refused to see beyond his own veined nose. Most of his fortune was safely tucked away in Switzerland. He had several passports ready, plenty of cash, and a lovely small villa in Sorrento, Italy, owned by a Swiss corporation, waiting for him. He would at least continue to be the Strategist, even in hiding, as feared as before.

He turned off the television and dialed Lady Elizabeth. She would be expecting him to call to show his concern, at any rate, now that the news about St. Paul’s was everywhere. Perhaps she had seen why Bahar had failed. When she picked up over voice mail, he could hear her breathing, her fear making it fast, choppy. He schooled his voice. “Elizabeth? I saw on television they tried to blow up Saint Paul’s. Please tell me you are all right.”

“Yes, yes, well, now I am. Samir, it’s been a nightmare, unbelievable—” And she told him the ceremony was about to begin when a man ran up the aisle, waving a badge and ordering them out. “He said a man had been placing explosives inside the cathedral and we were all to leave as quickly as possible. Now they’ve brought me back inside one of the cathedral anterooms. An MI5 agent said he needed to speak with me, that it was urgent, and I was to wait. Before I could ask him why me in particular, he rushed off. Why would MI5 want to speak to me, Samir? I mean, what could I possibly know about any of this?”

He’d stopped listening, punched off his phone. Why indeed? They knew he was seeing Lady Elizabeth Palmer. But how was that possible? Mifsud—he must have known about Lady Elizabeth. Had the imam boasted of her in his hearing? But why had Mifsud betrayed him in that way? It didn’t matter any longer. He had, it was done. He knew then he had no time left to prepare his leaving. It was time to disappear.