He did, and Holley wrote it down. "I won't call him now, but you could confirm my arrival. Tell him I don't want to be picked up. I'll get a taxi at Heathrow."
"I'll let him know. Stay in touch, and may Allah protect you, my brother."
"I could be spending the rest of my life in the Lubyanka or even Station Gorky. Now I've been offered a chance to earn my way out of it. I'd say the hand of God has got something to do with that. Take care, Malik."
He lay back on the bed, pillowed his head, and stared up at the ceiling, taking a very deep breath, his stomach churning.
"Now it begins," he said softly. "Now it begins."
LONDON
11
It was just after two-thirty the following afternoon when Holley's taxi drew up outside the Albany Regency just off Curzon Street. Stormy weather had caused the flight from Moscow to take longer than usual, but he was here in Mayfair and London in the rain. He had changed the euros Ivanov had given him for sterling, paid the cabdriver generously, and went up the steps to the entrance, where a doorman in a top hat and green frock coat greeted him and a young uniformed porter relieved him of his suitcase.
He found the hotel pretty much as he had remembered it. Slightly old-fashioned, which was its charm, but maintained well, and expensive enough to ensure that the clientele was respectable.
His reservation was waiting, and all Holley had to do was sign the reservation form and produce his passport for identification purposes. The Russians had used the same date and place of birth as on his real passport but hadn't put his mother and her address in Leeds on the next-of-kin page. There would have been no point. During one of his sessions with Lermov during his second year of confinement, the Colonel had told him his mother had died. It was a bad memory and one he preferred to forget.
The young porter accompanied him to the fifth floor and showed him to the suite, which was pleasant and functional, with a sliding window to a small balcony with a good view of Curzon Street and Shepherd's Market. Holley tipped the boy, unpacked quickly, and put his things away. He noticed himself in the full-length mirror when he opened the wardrobe. The black suit, the striped tie, and white shirt made him look exactly right. Banker or lawyer, businessman or accountant. Eminently respectable.
There was a small refrigerator next to the television. He opened it and selected a double-vodka miniature, poured it into a plastic cup, added a little tonic water, and toasted himself in the mirror.
"Here we go, off to bloody war again, old lad." He drank it down and went out.
Shepherd's Market had always been one of his favorite places in London. The narrow streets, the pubs, the restaurants, and the shops selling everything from paintings and prints to antiques. "Selim Malik" was painted in gold above the door of one such shop, a narrow window on each side, one offering a triangle of truly remarkable Buddhas and the other an exquisite Bokhara silk rug. The door was shut, but there was an intercom beside it, and Holley pressed a button, confident he was on camera.
Which proved true, because before he could open his mouth a voice said in Arabic, "Praise be to Allah."
A moment later, the door opened, and he was pulled inside to a tight embrace. "Daniel, it is you. Six years since I've seen you, and you look good."
"Older, Selim, older, but you never change."
Selim was small, perhaps five-five, with long, curling hair that had once been black but was now silvery gray and swept behind the ears, no mustache but a fringe of beard, and a dark olive face. He had good-humored eyes that lit up his personality when he was happy, as he was now. He wore a velvet jacket from another age, a ruffled shirt, and baggy velvet trousers.
"Everything is change, Daniel. I was sixty-five this year, imagine that. Come into my study and have a glass of champagne with me to celebrate."
"So you're still that kind of Arab?"
"Allah is merciful. You've booked in at the hotel? Everything is taken care of? I have a running account there. They're very good."
The study was partly rococo and partly Victorian, with overstuffed chairs and two enormous sofas and an Axminster carpet that must have cost a fortune. A large round table in beaten brass was almost at floor level, and a bottle of Cristal champagne in an ice bucket sat upon it, with seventeenth-century Venetian goblets to drink it with.
"Sit down," he urged. "And you do the honors. I'll be back." He went out, and Daniel thumbed off the cork and poured. Selim returned with a black bag and a laptop, which he put on the table. "A present for you. But let's have a drink first."
He drank it straight down and poured another. "Allah be praised to see you out of that terrible prison. You must feel like Edmond Dantes escaping from the Chateau d'If."
"I think he did sixteen years, but I may be wrong," Daniel said.
"You haven't seen Hamid?" He chuckled. "Forgive me. To you, he was always Malik."
"An old habit. No, I haven't seen him, but we've spoken. I can buy my freedom. The Russians want me to do them a big favor right here in London. If I can bring it off, I'm rid of them for good."
"You think you can trust them?"
"Not really, but I must go with the flow, and hope."
"You know best. Don't tell me anything-I would rather not know what it is. Please open the bag and see if it's what you wanted."
Holley did and pulled out an ankle holster and a Colt.25 with a couple of boxes of ammunition. "Hollow-point," Selim said.
Next was a cardboard box containing a Walther PPK with a Carswell silencer, the new, short version. Last of all came a nylon-and-titanium bulletproof vest.
"This is wonderful," Holley told him.
"There should be a knife in there as well."
Holley groped around and found it, slim, dark, and deadly, with a razor-sharp blade leaping to attention when a button was pressed.
"Excellent. That's taken care of me perfectly."
"Not quite." Selim leaned over and opened a zip to a side pocket of the bag. He took out an envelope. "Expense money. Ten fifty-pound notes, and another five hundred pounds in twenties. There is more where that came from, so ask when you need it. Here's a company credit card. I've taped the PIN number on the back. Learn it and destroy. There's always the chance that you're going to need a credit card these days."
"What can I say?"
"Not much. Have you eaten?"
"No."
"Well, let me buy you a late lunch round the corner at the Lebanese. Great, great cooking, unless you have other plans."
"No, not for a while yet. I'd love to have a meal with you." He stowed the items back into the bag. "I'll leave these here for the moment and get them when I come back."
"That's fine." As they went through the shop, Selim said, "What's the plan, to get started at once or take your time?"
"Actually, I'm probably going to Mass," Daniel Holley said. "But don't ask me to explain."
He left the hotel in the early-evening rain, borrowing an umbrella, walked to the end of Curzon Street, hailed a black cab, and told the driver to take him to Kilburn. Darkness was falling and the traffic busy, but they were there quite quickly, and he asked to be dropped at Kilburn High Road. He walked the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, according to the times inscribed on the board at the gate, he was already too late for that evening's services. He hesitated, but a hint of light at the church windows encouraged him to go forward.
Walking through the Victorian-Gothic cemetery, with angels and effigies of one kind or another looming out of the darkness, he realized that he couldn't remember much from his first visit, but, then, it had been so brief. He turned the ring on the door and went in.