The Death Trade. Jack Higgins

would come up, although not something as dreadful as this. I left in the middle of the night, but obviously they’ll be after me.’

      ‘So you haven’t left anything at all that could lead to a computer trail?’

      ‘It’s all in my head, I told you.’

      ‘Which means they’re going to try very hard to get hold of you.’

      ‘Then I’ll have to see that they don’t.’

      They talked for a few minutes more, then he hung up.

      Bibi, who had been standing behind the room screen listening with a frown, a striped towel over her arm, now smiled and entered.

      ‘I’ve run a bath for you. You’ll feel much better after a nice long soak.’

      He smiled. ‘You’re right.’

      ‘I always am.’ She ushered him into the bathroom, then came out again, closing the door.

      A fantastic story. She’d always liked Ali LeBlanc. He was a decent man who’d looked after her well over the years, but what she’d overheard was too good to keep to herself, and there might even be money in it.

      But who should she tell? The Army of God charity on the waterfront was a front for Al Qaeda, everybody knew that. There was the Café Marco next door. Its owner, Omar Kerim, was a genial thief interested only in money; his underlings were constantly stealing it for him all over Beirut. She knew him well, had once worked for him.

      She made her decision, went into the kitchen, found a large linen shopping bag, and called, ‘I’m just going out to the market. I’ll be back soon.’

      She stepped into the lift and went down, while in the bath, head raised and slightly turned, Ali LeBlanc slept.

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

       2

      The wind roared as waves crashed in on the shore of the Nantucket beach but failed to drown the sound of the helicopter as it landed up at the house.

      Former President Jack Cazalet said to his Secret Service man, Dalton, ‘Have General Ferguson brought straight down.’

      Dalton nodded, mobile phone to his ear, and Cazalet turned to meet the demands of his cherished flatcoat, Murchison. He picked up another stick to toss into the sea, and it was instantly retrieved and dropped at his feet as the jeep braked and Major-General Charles Ferguson emerged.

      ‘The salt is bad for his skin, Mr President, he’ll need a good hosing. I’ve said that a few times over the years.’ He held out his hand.

      ‘So you have, old friend,’ Cazalet told him. ‘Which can only mean that Murchison is getting a bit long in the tooth. You can cut out the title, by the way – there can only be one Mr President.’

      ‘Who offered me the use of his helicopter when he heard I was coming to New York, and suggested I drop in and see you on the way. I’m supposed to offer an opinion or two on the Middle East to some UN select committee or other.’

      ‘Will the President be there, too?’

      ‘No, he’s on his way to the UK to spend a couple of days at the Prime Minister’s country retreat at Chequers. Then on to Berlin, Brussels, perhaps Paris.’

      ‘Oh, the times I’ve spent at Chequers.’ Cazalet laughed. ‘I used to love that place. I’ve been asked to put in an appearance at the UN myself – but I imagine you knew that.’

      ‘Yes, I can’t deny it,’ Ferguson said.

      ‘I expected nothing less from the commander of the British Prime Minister’s private army. Isn’t that what they still call you people in the death trade?’ He smiled. ‘You’ll stay the night, of course, and accept a lift in my helicopter to New York tomorrow?’

      ‘That’s more than kind,’ Ferguson said.

      Lightning flickered on the horizon, thunder rumbled, it started to pour with rain. ‘Another stormy night,’ said Cazalet. ‘Let’s get up to the house for the comforts of a decent drink, a log fire, and the turkey dinner Mrs Boulder has been slaving over all afternoon.’

      ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had in a very long time,’ Ferguson said.

      ‘In you get, then.’ Cazalet smiled. ‘Let’s see if we can reach the point where I’ve flattered you sufficiently that you can tell me why you’ve really come to see me.’

      The dinner was everything Cazalet had promised. The coffee and port were served, Murchison steamed on the rug in front of the fire, and Dalton sat at the end of the small bar by the archway to the kitchen at his usual state of readiness.

      ‘Well, it’s an interesting situation,’ Ferguson said. ‘It concerns a man named Simon Husseini. He was born in Iran to a French mother, his father an Iranian doctor who died of cancer years ago. Husseini followed in his father’s footsteps, and his work on medical isotopes has saved thousands of lives.’

      ‘Good for him,’ Cazalet said.

      ‘Yes. But as one of the world’s great experts in the field of uranium enrichment, his masters insisted that he extend his research into nuclear weapons research.’

      ‘And he agreed?’

      ‘No choice. He’s a widower, but his ancient mother is still alive and living with his 40-year-old daughter, who’s an invalid. They’re under house arrest in Tehran.’

      Cazalet was not smiling now. ‘The suffering some people have to go through. So how do things stand?’

      ‘Very badly. The word is he could be close to making a nuclear bomb, and, worse, one that is cheap and four times as effective as anything else on the planet.’

      Dalton looked startled, and Cazalet said, ‘God in heaven. How sound is this information? Is there real substance to it, or is it just bogeymen stuff put out by the Iranians to frighten the pants off us?’

      ‘That’s what we’ve got to establish,’ Ferguson said. ‘One of our people has a connection with Husseini, very tenuous at best, but it provides the hope, rather slight at the moment, I admit, of my people touching base with him.’

      ‘Then make it happen right this instant, General, before the whole damn world blows up in our faces.’

      Ferguson nodded. ‘I thought you’d say that, sir. In fact, as we’ve been talking, I’ve already changed my mind about this trip. The UN committee is just going to have to get on without me. As soon as we get to New York tomorrow, I’m heading straight back to London.’

      ‘Very sensible,’ Cazalet said. ‘And since it’ll be an early start, I think we’d better close the shop and go to bed. But not before you tell me about this connection of yours …’

      At the Holland Park safe house in London, Roper sat in his wheelchair in the computer room, drinking tea and smoking a cigarette, when Ferguson, wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, called him on Skype.

      ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘What time have you got?’

      ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning in London, people tucked up in their beds, the sane ones anyway.’

      Ferguson said, ‘I’m at Jack Cazalet’s beach house on Nantucket. It sounds like the storm of the century’s outside trying to get in.’

      ‘That must be interesting. How is the great man?’

      ‘Not best pleased at the news I bore about Husseini. At least, he wants us to get moving on it right away. Some of the people I’ve talked to seem not to want to believe it could even happen. I get an idea