‘The problem,’ Hussein finished, ‘is that we have whole roads of hotels running along the coast, and any one of them could be the building Holden thinks he saw being attacked in his dream. Or, of course, the target might be in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, northern Oman, Qatar, or even Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. If Holden’s right, and one of these hotels is a terrorist target, the biggest problem will be finding out which one.’
‘What about motive?’ Dawson asked. ‘The suicide bomber in Damascus claimed to have been acting for a political group that barely even exists.’
Hussein nodded. ‘The Jamiat Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun. It doesn’t make sense, but nobody can think of a valid reason why Assad should claim to be acting on their behalf if he wasn’t doing so. He was a suicide bomber, so obviously no one was going to ask him questions after the event. And the bomb at Manama was different in almost every way.’
‘Could the Manama weapon have been positioned by the Muslim Brotherhood?’
Hussein shook his head. ‘Nobody has claimed responsibility, but the Bahrain authorities think the bomb was part of a local feud between two underground groups called Sharaf and Bahraini Jihad.’
This was news to Dawson, but O’Hagan glanced at him with a suppressed smile. That explained why Ahmed had been so insistent about the positioning of the weapon: he and Petrucci had unwittingly been drawn into an ongoing fight.
‘As far as we can tell at the moment, these two bomb attacks were unconnected, the only common factor being that this man Holden was apparently able to foresee both of them. But,’ Hussein added, ‘it’s early days yet, so we might well find that the conclusion the Bahrainis have drawn is incorrect.’
I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting, O’Hagan thought.
‘I myself have interviewed Holden,’ Hussein added, ‘and he seems genuinely disturbed by these dreams he claims to be having. He’s been interviewed repeatedly, and his story remains the same. Even if he has a hidden agenda, there’s still the problem of his uncanny accuracy.’ He glanced round the room with a slightly apologetic smile. ‘That’s the crux of the matter. How could he be obtaining such accurate information about future events?’
‘I don’t think any of us really believe Holden’s claims,’ Dawson said, ‘but we can’t argue with the facts. We’d like to see him ourselves this afternoon, but no matter what he tells us, or what we think of him, we’ve been instructed to assist you as much as possible, and we’re assuming that the threat is real. We have explosive detection equipment with us, and we intend to check all likely targets — which will be the biggest and most expensive hotels along the coast.’
This was actually true: part of the equipment the CIA agents had brought out with them included half a dozen sophisticated detectors presently stored in Wilson’s hotel room.
‘How do these detectors work?’ Hussein asked.
‘You could call them highly sensitive sniffers,’ Dawson replied. ‘They analyse the air, but they can also examine swabs taken from suspect packages or materials. All explosives emit tiny particles and vapour, and this equipment is really sensitive — it can detect traces into the low nanogram level. That means they’re sensitive enough to detect one molecule of explosive in several million molecules of air. We’ll need to test the air at different locations in each building we investigate. That’s because your hotels are air-conditioned, so the air moves around constantly. Even so, it shouldn’t take more than about thirty minutes in each.’
Hussein smiled. ‘Even at that rate, Agent Hutchings, you have a considerable amount of work ahead of you.’
‘That’s why we want to interview Holden. We hope he can help us narrow the search.’
James Holden had just opened a can of beer when he heard a knock. He walked into the hall and peered through the spy-hole viewer. For a few moments he stared at the unfamiliar figure, then recognition dawned and he opened the door.
‘Hullo, John.’
‘Hi, James.’ Petrucci stepped inside and glanced round, looking and listening for the sight or sound of anyone else inside the property, and reminding himself of the layout. He’d only been there once before, over a year earlier. ‘Your wife not around?’
Holden shook his head. ‘No. Margaret and I have parted company, permanently this time. Sad for her, maybe, but good for me. Is everything on schedule?’
Petrucci nodded, again surprised at the arrogance of the man. Holden had always been the weakest link in the chain. After O’Hagan had originally devised the plan, it had taken him six months to recruit the five other members of the team who would carry out the operation, and another three months to find Holden.
He’d needed someone living permanently in Dubai, but a resident with no affection for either the country or its people and, of course, for whom money was important. Holden had seemed ideal, though it wasn’t until later that O’Hagan had realized exactly how ideal he was — the man was a very convincing actor. The big problem was his attitude: once he’d grasped the scope of their plan, he seemed to consider himself a full partner, demanding an equal share of the take. O’Hagan had agreed to this, but only to keep the Englishman in line. He’d told Petrucci immediately they’d left the apartment building thirteen months earlier that Holden was an expendable asset. And now this particular asset had just become a liability.
‘Yes.’ Petrucci pulled the CD-ROM out of his pocket. ‘I’ve brought some more information for you, for the next phase. Where’s your computer? I can’t leave this disk here, so you’ll have to copy the files.’
Holden led the way to his study and switched on the PC. When the password request appeared, he typed in an eight-digit code, then waited for the Windows desktop to appear.
The moment it did, Petrucci swung the lead-filled cosh down hard against the side of the Englishman’s head. Holden toppled to the floor without a sound.
‘Thanks very much for all your help,’ Petrucci murmured, then ignored the unconscious man and sat down. He picked up the CD-ROM and inserted it in the DVD drive. When its contents were displayed, he chose one file and double-clicked it. The program was a file-destruction utility that would overwrite every byte on the hard drive with random characters five times over. Fortunately, Holden’s computer had a fast processor and lots of memory, but even so it was going to take some time for the operation to finish.
Only then did Petrucci turn his attention back to the Englishman. He bent over him, seized his throat in a choke-hold and squeezed hard for nearly two minutes. Then he relaxed his grip and checked Holden’s neck for a pulse.
Petrucci checked his watch. Two fifty-five. If O’Hagan managed to delay his departure from the Old Fort until three, Petrucci would be gone long before anyone arrived at the flat. But if Hussein decided to leave earlier, it’d be a close-run thing.
He looked across at the computer screen. The program was approaching the end of its first over-writing operation. While it was running, he had other things to do.
He went to the kitchen, found a plastic carrier bag and returned to the study. He opened all the drawers on the computer table and rifled through their contents. He found a few floppy disks and CD-ROMs, two unmarked DVDs and a USB memory stick, and tossed them all into the bag. Beside the monitor were some CD cases, containing operating system and software-installation disks, and he took those as well. He checked all the other drawers and shelves in the study, but found no other types of storage media, then walked into the lounge and looked around. There were some DVD disks in cases next to the TV set, and he opened each to check that it contained a pre-recorded disk.