The Angel (18 page)

PART FOUR

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I
sabella slowed at the junction to the road that would approach her new armoury. Her mother had drilled many lessons
into her
during the year that they had spent together in Morocco, and this exhortation – that she must observe the surroundings before approaching a building containing material that could be
compromising
– was one that she particularly remembered.
She wa
tched the comings and goings – the taxis bearing tourists to the out-of-town shopping mall just off the Route de Safi, the trucks and vans of the local traders – until she was confident that she – and the street – were not observed.

She gunned the engine of the KLX, crossed the road, put
down the
kickstand and slid off the bike. She stood outside the
door to
the unit and waited again, listening. She could hear
the sc
reech of a buzz saw from one of the other units, but nothing nearer that
gave he
r cause for concern. She took the key from the string she wore around her neck, slid it into the lock and turned it, then heaved the door halfway up.

She took the key for the lockers, pushed it into the lock of the nearest cabinet and opened the door. This one was reserved for her AR-15 semi-automatic. She took the gun, hefted it in her hands and then held the stock against her shoulder. She hadn’t fired it for a while. Too long. She grabbed six hundred rounds of 5.56
ammunition
and put the boxes into the bag she had brought with her. She broke the rifle into two parts, separating the receiver from the barrel, and slipped them into the bag, too. She shut and locked
the locker
, pulled down the main door until it clicked shut,
and loc
ked that, too. Then, she put the bag on her shoulders,
straddled
the bike and gunned the 250 cc engine.

She rode away from the row of units, left the shops and outlets behind her, and headed south, out into the desert.

She passed through Mechouar-Kasbah, past the airport and then down on the R203. She went by the lush green of the Argan Golf Resort and continued for another twenty minutes until she was in the desert. The Moroccan Sahara was nearly two hundred miles away, and the arid landscape was a little too green to be called a real desert, but there were sand dunes and displaced rocks and, most important, isolation.

It was six in the evening, and the sun was falling quickly down into the horizon. It would be cold soon, but for now, the earth pulsed out enough heat for Isabella to sweat beneath her helmet.

She passed a Freightliner heading into the city, rode on for another ten minutes and then cut onto the dirt track that she remembered from her previous trips here. It descended into a wadi, the dried-out riverbed hidden from view by steep walls and a grove of thirsty acacia and yucca. She rested the bike against the wall of the wadi, opened the bag and reassembled the AR-15. She pushed a magazine into the well and walked a few extra steps away from the bike.

She practised for an hour. First, she went through a dry-
firing
exercise. She picked a rock a hundred feet away, and with the weapon cocked and on safety, she assumed the position of a patrol carry and walked forward. She brought the weapon up, aimed and practised the squeeze of the trigger. Then she dropped to the sandy bed and lay prone. She cradled the weapon, carefully placed a coin on the barrel and then squeezed the trigger so carefully that the
coin sta
yed balanced and in place. Her mother had explained that a good steady squeeze on the trigger was the most important thing, assuming that a weapon’s sights were aligned, to ensure an accurate shot. She clambered up and went through her reloading drills, both with and without retention of the magazine. She shouldered the weapon, pushed in an empty magazine, dry fired,
dropped th
e
magazine
and, in the same motion, brought a new magazine up. She guided the second magazine home with her index finger pointed straight up its side. She hit the bolt release and went back to dry
firing
. It was a smooth and well-practised drill, and although it wasn’t easy to time
precisely
, she felt that she had shaved another fraction of a second from her previous best time.

These exercises took her half an hour. By the time she was done, she was bathed in sweat. The sun was below the level of the horizon now, and she was beginning to get a little cold. She collected a jacket from her bag and then climbed back down to the riverbed again.

Finally, she fired the weapon with live ammunition.

She ended with a misfire routine, and then, two hours after she had arrived and with six hundred rounds down range, she decided that she was done.

She was pleased. Her mother had taught her a saying. Beatrix had said that an amateur practised something until she did it right, but a professional practised until she couldn’t do it wrong. Isabella worked to that standard. She felt that she was making progress.

She dropped to her knees and collected the spent rounds,
dropping
the brass into her bag so as to leave as little trace as
possible
. She broke down the rifle, stowed it in her bag and got
back onto
the bike again. She rode along the desiccated watercourse until she found an easier slope to get up and out of it, and then traversed the desert back to the road. She felt the smoother asphalt beneath her wheels, gunned the engine and headed back to the city.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I
sabella decided not to go back to the armoury that evening.
It wa
s getting colder, and she was a little clammy from the dried, cold sweat on her skin.

She lit candles as she heard the call to prayer from the nearby mosque. She took the bag through to the storage space that had once been the riad’s tiny hammam. She had fitted a gun safe against the wall, and she stored both pieces of the rifle inside, together
with th
e ammunition that she had not fired. She had just closed the safe when she heard the knocking at the front door.

She stayed stock-still, wondering if she had misheard it. She didn’t have visitors. She didn’t know anyone in Marrakech save Johnny Ink, the guy who had done her tattoo, and he didn’t know where she lived. No one did. She had never had a single visitor here.

She heard the knock again.

Rap-rap rap rap.

Jaunty. Brisk. Friendly.

She opened the safe and took out the Springfield EMP that she had stored there. She had plenty of experience with bigger handguns, but this one fit nicely into the palm of her hand. She preferred the stopping power of a .45, but her mother had taught her that using the same calibre ammunition for both her pistols and rifles would lessen the chances of loading the wrong round when she could ill afford a mistake. Isabella had practised with the
Springfield
extensively and was very accurate with it. She readied it to fire and started across the courtyard to the vestibule.

Rap-rap rap rap.

She had paid for an entry system to be fitted to the front door. It was the only easy way to get into the property, and she wanted to make sure it was as secure as possible. There was a screen
fixed to
the wall that showed the feed from a camera that was positioned high above the door outside. The security light was activated by a motion sensor, and it had come on now, its harsh glow bleaching the upturned face of the man who was on the other side of the door.

Michael Pope?

What?

What was he doing here?

And how had he found her?

She paused. She could stay here, leave the door unanswered, but what good would that do her? He knew she was here. If he wanted to see her, he’d just come back. Or he’d wait outside, or leave an agent outside and wait for her to come out.

Whatever it was, it was better to find out now. Get it over and done with.

She pulled out the drawer of the table that stood next to the door and dropped the handgun inside.

She took a breath, looked up at the screen again and finally unlocked and opened the door.

The noise and clamour of the souk outside overran the
tranquillity
of the riad.

Pope smiled at her. ‘Isabella,’ he said.

‘Mr Pope, what are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘What about?’

‘It’s . . .’ He paused, looking left and right with awkward unease. ‘It’s quite sensitive, Isabella. Do you think that I could come inside?’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She paused, still uncertain. But he had helped her mother. He had rescued her from a very uncertain future, too. And then
she thoug
ht about the locket that she wore around her neck, and the trouble that he had gone to in order that she might have it. But even as she thought of that, the doubts came. Why had he gone to that trouble? It couldn’t be charity or because he was
feeling
philanthropic
. Surely there was an agenda. She suddenly had the thought that perhaps he had found her because of the locket. She wondered, knowing it was ridiculous but wondering it anyway, whether they could miniaturise a tracker so much that it could be concealed in the locket. Or was the locket a tracker?

She was confused, but it was no good standing here, with him on her stoop. He had built up some credit with her. She could spare him a little time. It would give her the opportunity to have her questions answered, too.

‘Come in.’

She offered him mint tea partly because she wanted to be
hospitable
and partly because she wanted to be able to observe him from the iPad in the kitchen that gave access to the CCTV cameras that
were arraye
d around the house. She boiled the kettle and picked the mint leaves and watched as he wandered around the courtyard, gazing down into the plunge pool and feeling the weight of the fruit that she was growing from a pair of large potted orange and fig trees. He was dressed casually in a loose-fitting suit, a white shirt that was open at the collar and a pair of brown desert boots. She looked for the telltale bulge of a concealed weapon, but she couldn’t see one. She would proceed on the basis that he was armed. It was very likely, and besides, it was prudent.

She put the mint leaves in the boiling water and let it steep, collecting two small glasses and a tray and taking the collection back to the table and chairs that were arranged at the edge of the pool.

‘This wasn’t where you lived before,’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Did your mother leave it to you?’

‘No. She left money. I bought it and refurbished it.’

‘I didn’t ask before. How old are you now, Isabella?’

‘Fifteen.’

He shook his head in evident admiration. ‘And you did all this. That’s very impressive.’

She waved it off impatiently.

‘Your mother would have been very proud of you.’ He nodded down to her chest. ‘You’re wearing it. The locket.’

She said nothing, studying him for any sign that might give away his purpose in coming to Marrakech to speak to her. Nothing was obvious.

‘Are you wondering how I found you?’

‘Not particularly,’ she said, although that was the question she wanted answered the most.

‘You don’t have anything to be ashamed about. I’ve had a very talented agent looking for you.’

‘Where did they find me?’

‘In the square.’

She only just managed to arrest the lowering of her brow before it became a frown. She was careful with her counter-surveillance routine. Her mother had drilled it into her. She might not
have bee
n able to avoid being seen in the square, and she couldn’t very easily ignore being there, but she should have been able to detect someone following her as soon as they got into the streets of the souk. That was lazy.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘Like I said, she is very good.’

‘Who said I was worrying?’

‘Her name is Hannah. She’d like to meet you.’

She could read him. All this forced bonhomie was to mask his awkwardness. He was awkward because whatever he was here to ask her was something that he found difficult to say. That made
her
feel nervous. ‘What are you doing here, Mr Pope?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What
am
I doing here?’ He stood and went back to the orange tree, running his finger over the skin of a particularly juicy fruit. ‘Do you watch the news?’

‘A little,’ she said. ‘The Internet, mostly. Is this about London?’

He nodded. ‘It is.’

‘I was there.’

‘Where?’

‘In the station. My train was just pulling out when the bomb went off.’

His mouth dropped open. ‘Jesus,’ he started. ‘Are you –’

She regretted mentioning it as soon as the words left her lips. The last thing she needed was his paternalism. ‘It’s all right. I was fine. But I saw what happened. I know what it was like. I had to come out through the station right afterwards.’

‘Isabella, I didn’t—’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, holding his eye. ‘Really. I’m
fine
. But, yes, to answer your question, I know what’s been going on.’

‘Things are bad at home.’

‘Your home, Mr Pope,’ she corrected. ‘Not mine. This is
my home.’

‘Of course.’ She had put him on the wrong foot. He groped around for a neutral place to start the conversation. ‘I’d like to
tell you
some things that are secret, Isabella. Very delicate things. Do you mind? If I tell you them, you must promise that you’ll keep them to yourself.’

‘Who am I going to tell?’ she said, waving her hand around the riad. ‘It’s just me here. I haven’t got any friends. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to in days.’

‘All right.’ He let the orange fall free and came and sat back down again. ‘You know that I’m in charge of the unit your mother worked for before . . . well, before she was betrayed. You know that?’

She nodded.

‘The authorities are investigating the attacks. We have intelligence to suggest that there will be others. It’s urgent that we find those responsible before they can strike again.’

‘Go on.’

‘We have a very strong indication to suggest that one man was responsible for financing the operation. It was complicated to arrange, and it wouldn’t have been cheap, but this man is very rich.’

‘And you want to talk to him.’

‘Very much.’

‘So go and arrest him.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not as easy as that.’ He paused. ‘The evidence we used to find him couldn’t be used in court.’

She gazed at him evenly. ‘You tortured someone?’

Her brazen lack of feeling, the matter-of-factness of her response, took him aback again. She could see that the effect she was having on him was slowing the whole conversation down.
She resol
ved to dial it back a little.

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t really matter. We’re confident that the information is correct, but we can’t act on it. Legally, I mean.’

‘He’s in the Middle East?’

‘No. Switzerland.’

‘So speak to the Swiss.’

‘We can’t do that. They won’t give him to us. And I doubt he’d make himself available for a cosy chat.’

‘Who is he?’

‘His name is Salim Hasan Mafuz Muslim al-Khawari. He has properties all around the world, but he is currently at a large house on the shores of Lake Geneva. Apart from being rich, he is very
cautious
. His property is very well defended. He has a team of guards with him at all times.’

‘Why is he in Switzerland?’

‘There are probably several reasons, but one of them appears to centre on his son, Khalil Muhammad Turki al-Khawari. He’s a
student
at an exclusive boarding school close to Geneva. He is
fifteen
, nearly sixteen, very rich, very arrogant and quite stupid.’

‘This is why you want to talk to me?’

He smiled. ‘Yes. We don’t think there’s a realistic chance that we could get to Salim safely. So we’ve had to think laterally. We think it might be possible to arrange it so that you are put into the same school as Khalil. We know that his sixteenth birthday is next week. There’s a party at his father’s house. We would like you to try to befriend the boy so that you are invited to the party.’ He paused, looked at her, then added apologetically, ‘If you were prepared to do it, of course.’

‘What would I have to do?’

‘We would give you a very small device that we would like you to leave in the house.’

‘A bug?’

‘Sort of.’

She paused, considering it.

‘You saw what happened in the station,’ he started. ‘We need to stop that from happening again.’

She almost told him that appealing to her sense of civic duty wouldn’t work. She had no sense of civic duty. She was born in the United Kingdom, but she didn’t owe it anything. No, if anything, things were the other way around:
it
owed
her
. She held her tongue. If she was going to allow herself to be involved, it would be for another motive.

‘This man – his father – is dangerous?’

‘Probably. But you wouldn’t be on your own. I would be there, and two of my agents would be posing as your mother and father. Hannah – the agent I mentioned earlier – would be one of them.’

‘Sounds very elaborate,’ she said. ‘You’ve been planning. Did you think I would say yes?’

‘I didn’t know what you would say. And if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t mind at all if you said no. Really – I mean that. I have no right to be here asking you this. Most people would consider it unethical, and that’s only if they’re being charitable. But things are very serious. That’s the only reason I’m asking.’

‘I’m not most people. And I’m not a child. I can look after myself.’

‘I know you can. I remember what you did in the hospital.’

And then I was sick,
she thought.
And I needed your help to get away. That won’t be necessary again.

She looked around at the riad. She had worked out a nice, regular routine for herself. She had continued the training that her mother had started. She had added to it. The languages she was learning, for example. But no one had come for her. Manage Risk had lost her, or they had forgotten, or they didn’t care. No one was coming to avenge the old man and the guards she had shot. And if that was true, then why was she hiding?

She did have a reason to consider his request. Her mother had spent a year training her. She had continued that training. But how would she be able to test herself? She wouldn’t.