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“Is there anything I can do?” Dillon asked.
“Yes, actually. Since you’re an old IRA hand, the Prime Minister may value your opinion on al-Qaeda and ISIS and the possibility of them hitting the streets of London. If you can spare us the time, that is?”
Dillon, at his most Irish, said, “God save you, General, for giving me the opportunity to serve.”
“Get in, damn you,” Ferguson ordered, which Dillon did.
Ferguson turned, a smile on his face. “Impossible man, but what can one do? You’d better go and report to Major Roper, Hannah.”
He climbed in beside Doyle, the Daimler moved away, and Hannah turned and went in.
ROPER, SMOKING A CIGARETTE, a glass of whiskey in his hand, leaned back in his wheelchair, Sara sitting beside him enjoying a coffee.
“Where’s Dillon?” he asked.
“The general decided he should accompany them to Downing Street and that Sean might be useful because of his IRA experience.”
“Well, Dillon could certainly write the book on that.”
Hannah jumped to Dillon’s defense. “He had reason enough. His father died in a firefight in Belfast, so he was fighting a just cause.”
“So was I, defusing bombs all over Belfast, the kind that murdered your parents and crippled you.”
“I thought he was your friend.” Hannah was angry, face flushed.
“But he is,” Roper said. “Also an enigma. Fought the revolution worldwide, found it just as easy to work for the Israelis as he did the PLO. Learned Arabic when the IRA sent him to one of the Gaddafi training camps and discovered he had a gift for languages, and now he speaks several.”
She looked bewildered. “I didn’t know all of that.”
“And you probably don’t know this,” Roper said. “His attempt to blow up the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet almost succeeded. That was during the Gulf War.”
Hannah took a deep breath. “Damn him, he even plays the best barroom piano I ever heard.”
“A lively lad.”
They were on their way in to lunch, but they got no farther than the door when an alert call sounded. “Hang on,” Roper said. “Ferguson wants a word.”
Ferguson’s face came on the screen from his office on the third floor of the ministry. Hannah could see paneled walls, a picture or two, and a mahogany desk that somehow suited Ferguson’s personality. Henry Frankel and Dillon sat on either side of him.
Frankel said, “Just to let you know that President Cazalet has made it clear he intends to honor his speaking commitment, so we’ll need to keep the security high. He’s at Downing Street now with Blake Johnson, and I’ll be joining them soon.”
Sara said, “I imagine the White House will be annoyed that he’s not returning to the States.”
“Perhaps,” Ferguson told her. “But these are troubled times, and good friends need to stand together.”
“So what do we need to do? It’s like we’re going to war.”
Dillon cut in. “Someone once said that in war all a soldier knows is his own small part of the front. Al-Qaeda may be all over the world, but this is our part of the front. We’ve disposed of two Masters already, and now we have a third. Our battle is to give him what we gave them.”
“Well said, Sean,” Ferguson said.
“There you go,” Dillon said. “Calling me Sean again.”
“On your way, you rogue,” Ferguson told him. “And don’t forget to check underneath your car for bombs.”
“As if I would,” Dillon said, and the screen faded to black.
“ANY QUESTIONS?” Roper asked Sara, but it was Hannah who replied.
“If we’re going to war, who exactly are we going to war with?”
“You’ve got your studies,” Sara told her. “Nobody’s suggesting you should get involved in this.”
“But I live with you,” Hannah said. “For four years. That was the deal. I think I managed to prove myself last year when the going got tough.”
“You have a point,” Roper said. “And I know you also break the law by carrying a gun in your pocket. But your primary responsibility is the Royal College of Music, and don’t you forget it.”
“I won’t,” Hannah said. “But to take care, I need to know who the enemy is.”
“All right,” Roper said. “Besides the new Master, our own small part of the front, as Sean put it, has to do with the Muslim Brotherhood and the rascals at the Pound Street mosque. They had a go at us when Imam Hamid Bey was in charge there. His death was none of our doing—a car crash—but a new man has just moved in there. His name is Yousef Shah, an Oxford graduate and an unknown quantity. We’re going to be keeping a very close eye on him.”
“If I meet him, I’ll remember to give him Sean’s favorite greeting,” Hannah said. “God bless all here.”
Roper laughed, and said to Sara, “I think she’ll do just fine. But speaking of security, if we’re a target, then so are those close to us, probably. I think it’s time you checked in with your grandfather, Sara.”
SHE DID, but it was Sadie Cohen, the housekeeper, who answered the phone. “So you’ve finally remembered where you live.”
“We’ve been really busy, love,” Sara told her. “Things aren’t looking too good at the moment. General Ferguson was wondering whether you and Grandad would care to move in with us for a while just in case anyone might show an unhealthy interest.”
“You could be offering the Dorchester, but it wouldn’t do you any good. He’s on his way to Leeds. Some important person has taken ill, tickets sold out, could Professor Rabbi Nathan Gideon step in. He said he’d call you.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“He has a lot on his plate.”
“I’m sure, but never mind. We can’t leave you alone. It won’t do, not the way things are at the moment.”
“So you and Hannah won’t be here tonight?” Sadie asked.
“Well, that is the general idea.”
“Leaving the house with no one in it? What nonsense; I haven’t the slightest intention of doing that. Now you take care of yourself, and we’ll see you when we can,” and she cut off.
Sara said to Roper and Hannah, “I can’t leave it like that. I must go and try to make her see sense,” and she made for the door.
Roper called, “Just watch your back.”
Hannah took the silenced Colt .25 from her pocket. “I’ll take care of that department.”
“Yes, but who’s going to watch your back,” Roper said. “You’re getting to be worse than Sara. Tell her to use the Land Rover and take care.”
Which sent Hannah running out of the door smiling.
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THE LATE AFTERNOON RAIN came with a sudden rush at Highfield Court that sent Sadie Cohen running upstairs to see that no windows were open. She checked all the bedrooms, finishing with Hannah’s, where she found one open a little.
“Naughty girl,” she muttered. “Typical.”
Not that she meant it, for she had come to realize for some time now that Hannah was the daughter she’d never had. Hannah, who’d lost her mother and father to the car bomb in Northern Ireland that had killed them and crippled her, returned her affection completely. The fact that she was Catholic and Sadie Jewish was irrelevant.
Sadie slammed the window down, peering out because this was her favorite view, high up on the fourth floor of the house, the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square no more than a couple of hundred yards away.
It never failed to please, and she looked down at the garden, which was at its best, flowers in season, poplar trees swaying, but then she frowned at a flash of yellow down there. A man in an oilskin jacket stepped out of the rhododendron bushes, stood there in the rain, then stepped back into cover.
Sadie went downstairs, entered the kitchen, opened a large wooden drawer, and took out a sawed-off shotgun and a packet of cartridges. She loaded the weapon quickly, then went out in the hall, approached the front door cautiously, and waited, the shadow of a man outside.
Her Codex sounded, and as she pulled it out one-handed to answer, the shadow vanished from view.
“Sadie Cohen,” she said.
“Hi, love,” Hannah replied. “Sara and I are on our way. Should be with you in fifteen minutes.”
“You’ll be welcome,” Sadie told her. “Because we appear to have a guest in the garden. Could be others, too.”
“Remain inside,” Hannah told her. “Intruder,” she said to Sara, and called Roper. “Where’s Dillon?”
“When he turned up and found you gone, he said he’d join you,” Roper told her. “I’ll check and tell him to put his foot down.”
“Dillon’s on his way,” she told Sara, who said, “That’s a comfort. I bet it’s the Brotherhood. They’ve tried before, three or four pretending to be seeing to waterworks or drains or something like that.”
Hannah produced her Colt .25 and checked it. “Well, the bastards can bring it on as far as I’m concerned.”
“I couldn’t agree more, love.” Sara was smiling. “Isn’t it great to be a woman?”
“Absolutely,” Hannah told her.
“So as the great Bette Davis said, ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,’” and Sara put her foot down hard as they roared away.
SADIE TURNED OFF the hall light, but as the darkness had increased considerably and very quickly, she switched on the garden lights. The conservatory was in darkness, and she stood there beside the Schiedmayer concert grand in the study, waiting and watching.
There was some sort of movement out there. She waited, then switched on the conservatory lights, illuminating two men in yellow oilskin uniforms peering in the window.
They backed away hurriedly into the darkness, and Sadie was filled with fury, turned the key, and flung open the door.
“Who the hell are you?” she called. “Get out of this house.” She went down the terrace steps, cocking the sawed-off. “I’ll shoot without hesitation,” which she did, firing one barrel into the night sky.
One of the men jumped out of the thicket behind her, grabbing at her wrist, forcing the sawed-off up, and tearing it from Sadie’s grip. A second came to his aid, trying to control her as she kicked, and two more men in yellow oilskins ran in through the open gates to help them.
The Land Rover arrived just after that, swerving in, Sara braking so hard that she sprayed gravel over everyone. She slid from the driver’s side, drawing her Colt, and Hannah joined her on the other side, weapon in hand.
“All right,” Sara cried. “That’s enough.”
The one who had picked up the sawed-off said, “I don’t think so, Captain Gideon. If you and the girl don’t put down your weapons, I will blow your housekeeper’s head off.”
On the instant, Hannah shot off the lower half of his left ear.
He cried out, blood spurting, and dropped the shotgun, and Dillon seemed to slide in at the wheel of the Mini at the same time, spraying another wave of gravel.
“My goodness, but you girls have been having fun,” he said, as he got out.
“What kept you, cousin?” Hannah demanded.
One of the men reached down to grab the shotgun, and Dillon kicked him in the face. The man fell over, and the others cried out in protest.
Dillon said, “Line up and shut up, or someone else could lose half an ear.” He turned to Hannah. “There you go, stealing my favorite party trick.”
“It runs in the family,” she told him. “The way they treated Sadie, they got what they deserved.”
“On that point, I wouldn’t argue with you.” Dillon turned to the lineup. “Who’s going to tell me who sent you, although I don’t expect to be surprised.”
They stared at him stony faced, and no one said a word except Dillon, who told them exactly what he thought of them in harsh but fluent Arabic. They stared at him in astonishment, and he returned to English.
“So let’s try again, and I would suggest that one half ear a night is enough.”
The man with the ear bleeding into the handkerchief he held against it said, “Imam Yousef Shah, although I suspect you know that.”
“As it happens, I do, so what would your name be?”
“Hamid Abed.”
“Well, keep better company is my advice. Take them to their van, Hannah. Send them on their way, and you have my permission to shoot anybody who makes a false move. Keep an eye on her, Sara, while I help Sadie indoors. She’s shaking.”
Hannah shepherded them outside to their yellow van and waited for them to scramble in. Hamid still held the handkerchief to his ear as he turned to her.
“You use that gun like a soldier. Who taught you to do that, memsahib?”
“The Provisional IRA,” she told him.
“Allah preserve me.” He was shocked. “And the leg? You are crippled?”
“Car bomb,” she said. “When it comes down to it, you lot are just beginners. Off you go, Hamid Abed, and try to behave yourself in the future.”
The van drove away; Hannah turned and walked back to Sara, who said, “What was that all about?”
“He wanted to know where I learned to shoot.”
“And you told him the IRA?”
