William Parker sent a simple e-mail to Scott. Jovan Knez? Delić? Laboodovey? Parker had a good idea of what he was going to get on Delić. Rasim Delić had commanded the ARBiH — the Bosnian Army — his Muslim troops famously slaughtering bound Serbian prisoners of war. Delić had also led smaller death squads called Crni Labudovi. The Black Swans. Delić had been prosecuted as a war criminal, been sentenced to jail, but died of a heart attack in Sarajevo while awaiting the outcome of his appeal. Most of his Black Swans had never been apprehended or identified.
Parker sipped the coffee, waiting for a reply. It didn’t take long.
Knez: junior officer of Delić
Rasim Delić: Convicted war crimes criminal, now deceased
Crni Labudovi: Black Swans, Jihadist killers
Believed to be funded by Saudi CP via your friend
Beware.
A Saudi crown prince. Parker looked at the reply. Your friend. So Yousef did more than just kill Americans. Christians of all types were fair game. Parker needed to visit with someone very quickly.
He tossed the still-hot coffee in the trash can near the door to the small shop, pulled up the collar to his coat, and cut across the traffic to the Hammersmith tube station.
In the shadow of the pillar in front of the city hall across the street, a man watched.
It took some time for Parker to cross back over the city to the neighborhood of Walthamstow. It didn’t matter how long he was away. The newspaper would have to wait. Parker had an article in his PDA that was ready to be downloaded, so it wouldn’t affect his output. Far more important, he had to get to Zabara’s wife.
The flat was on the second floor, a walk-up, with only two bedrooms, each of which was no bigger than the queen-sized beds in them. She would be there with the child. There was really no other place for them to go.
The brick had been painted over and had started to peel back, showing the red clay color under the felt green covering. Tall, cracked, paned windows showed the sheets that were being used for drapery on the second floor. The wood of the windows was painted in a darker green, but that was peeling away as well. The front door was in a stoop. Parker stopped, swept the street with his eyes, and pulled out the key.
“Zdravo!” he yelled up the stairs. She wouldn’t expect him this time of day. She didn’t go out. Her late sister’s child was her life, and these few rooms in this flat were now her entire world.
“Zdravo! Zdravo!”
“Yes. What is it?” She put her hand up to her mouth. “Amirah.” She whispered the name. It was clear that the child must still be sleeping. “You just left. Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you.” He took two stairs at a time. They were wood, without carpet, a dark wood worn to a polish by years and years of steps. He figured the building survived the blitz, if not more. It creaked like the old lady it was.
“Yes, what?” Her tone serious. She was always serious. Some people never had the luxury of acting any other way.
“There was a man who came to the newspaper.”
“Who?”
“Jovan Knez?”
“Yes, I have heard of him. He was an officer in the Crni Labudovi.”
“Did Sadik know him?” His mind raced ahead: Would the mission be derailed in the first few days?
“He knew of him, but no. He spoke of Knez and the other Black Swans always in the third person like in they, or them.”
Of course. She was here because Zabara was not a Black Swan. He and his wife long ago had their fill of the Black Swans and their tactics. In fact, Zabara had begun cooperating with MI6 because he’d dreamed of leaving such violence behind.
“Okay. Good. I need your help.”
“Yes, I know.”
CHAPTER 20
“Hello?”
The international cell phone only had a few minutes on it. She was to call the given number exactly at midnight. She would never know who was on the other end.
“Yes.”
“I was to call.”
“Yes, how is the training?”
“It is fine,” she lied. It had been five days of hell. The Cessna 206 floatplane pulled hard to the right adjusting for the turn of the propeller. It had scared her far more than expected. The landings on the blue waters had to be just right. It was a volcanic lake, deep, with aqua green borders that followed the shoreline. An airplane that flipped over and sunk would be down a thousand feet before they could guess it was even missing.
“Does the land agree with you?”
“It smells.”
“What?”
“It smells like rotten eggs.” She was young, and this world was far from Danish Abad. At night, she slept on the floor in the bathroom. The carpeted floor felt — and smelled — too strange. To bathe, she filled the small trashcan with water and squatted in the tub as she wiped herself. A shower was too foreign. She hated this place.
“You will soon be with your brothers.”
“I have this dream.” Now that she had gained the skill of flying the airplane she saw the mission in her mind’s eye every night. “It was snowing. I did not know snow.” In New Zealand she first saw the white peaks and on one flight they flew up into the mountains and through a snowstorm. “Not until I came here.”
“Yes.” The voice was brief and distant.
“You will be proud of me.”
“Yes, Allah be great.”
There was silence. The wording on even this phone call needed to be considered. He said nothing. With the silence, she knew the error.
“You leave Sunday.” The voice was very businesslike. Almost cold. It was not like when she left Pakistan. She left Danish Abad being hailed as a heroine.
“An electronic ticket has been set. Air New Zealand Flight AC6105.” He didn’t go into further details. She had been trained to know that was all that was needed.
The phone went dead. She pulled the chip out, tossed the phone into a nearby trash bin behind her motel, and broke the chip into three small pieces. The fragments would be tossed, each separately, onto the side of the road miles apart.
Air New Zealand Flight AC6105 would connect to Air Canada.
CHAPTER 21
The London taxicab’s horn blared as it swerved, just missing William Parker as he crossed over from Green Park. Parker cut across several more lanes of traffic, weaving through the cars, and walked into an alleyway behind Old Park Lane. At the end of the alleyway he kept up his pace, turned the corner, cut through a vegetable market with an old woman wrapped in a shawl standing guard over a table of pumpkins and gourds, stopped, looked behind, and then entered an adjacent street.
Parker stopped at the corner, stepping into the doorway of a flat to avoid the chilly blast of wind before staring across several more lanes of traffic. Calmly, he walked out, slowly, steadily, crossing over South Audley Street to the building on the other side. The front doors to the ornate Victorian structure faced directly to the corner of the block, and above the doors in gold a lion and unicorn held up the crown and standard. The Royal Warrant of the Queen showed the store was on the approved list. Below the warrant and above the doors, the store’s name, James Purdey & Sons, was engraved into white marble.