Free The Judas Gate by Jack Higgins Page B

give you their email addresses. Just remember: these are ruthless men, all out to make a buck. They don’t know what a scruple is. I’d go armed at all times.’
    ‘Give me the names of this unsavoury lot,’ Roper said.
    ‘Dak Khan, José Fernandez and Jemal Hamid. I’ll give you their emails later.’
    Billy Salter said, ‘So while you and Harry are over in Pakistan, what do we do?’
    ‘Try to behave yourselves,’ Ferguson told him. ‘And watch Dillon for me. We won’t be away long.’
    Holley’s Codex sounded. He answered it and found Josef Lermov. Holley waved frantically at Roper and mouthed ‘speaker’. Roper turned it on and Lermov’s voice boomed a little.
    ‘I thought I’d let you know that there’s been a terrible accident in Chechnya. Mullah Ibrahim Nadim met a bad end on a country road outside some small town with anunpronounceable name. A car bomb killed him, two bodyguards and his driver.’
    Holley felt no remorse for the part he had played in the affair. ‘Well, he wanted paradise, so at least he got that. Inshallah. It was his time.’
    ‘You know,’ Lermov said, ‘during the Battle of Algiers, Muslim girls threw away their traditional clothes, cut their hair and wore make-up and pretty frocks to fool French paratroopers into believing they were Europeans. That way, they were able to visit coffee shops and leave bombs under the seats.’
    ‘Yes, I know that. Very ingenious,’ Holley said. ‘What’s the point?’
    ‘The point, my dear Daniel, is that Chechnyan Muslim women appear to have adopted the same idea. An unfortunate Colonel in the GRU’s Planning Cabinet apparently made the mistake of enjoying the charms of such a woman.’
    ‘And how is he?’
    ‘Dead. He shot her and then shot himself.’ ‘Well, there you are, that’s the way it goes,’ Holley told him.
    ‘Prime Minister Putin has asked me to tell you he owes you one, Daniel.’
    Holley laughed. ‘Now that really does frighten me, Josef. Thank him for the kind thought, but I think I’ll still lock my door at nights.’
    Lermov hung up. Harry Salter said, a kind of admiration in his voice, ‘What a cool bastard you are, my old son. I’ll have to keep my eye on you.’
    ‘Well, that will keep me safe, if nothing else,’ Holley told him. ‘What happens now?’
    ‘Luncheon,’ Ferguson said. ‘Is that all right with everybody?’
    ‘Not me,’ Roper said, ‘you’ve given me the rush job of all time. I’ve got a million things to do. You lot just get on with it.’
    ‘So where shall we eat?’
    Ferguson asked. ‘What about the Al Bustan in Shepherd Market?’ Holley said. ‘Great Lebanese food.’ ‘Let’s go,’ Ferguson said.
    Selim Lancy had been keeping an eye on his namesake at his shop, which was easy enough to do in the congested and narrow streets of the market. There were also numerous cafés with tables outside, and he was sitting at one, observing the shop, when the party from Holland Park arrived at the Al Bustan, which was just on the corner. It was a surfeit of riches, for the Preacher had followed up his photo of Holley with further ones covering Ferguson’s most important people. And now here they were, just dropped into his lap.
    The waiters pushed tables close so they could sit together under an awning outside the restaurant, and wine was ordered. It was all very good-humoured.
    Lancy sat down at a small table on the edge of things, but not too close. He didn’t need to be close, for the hearing enhancer he slipped into his right eeavesdrop. He ordered wine himself and began reading his newspaper.
    It was Ferguson who gave it away by asking Holley, ‘How long since you were last in Peshawar, Daniel?’
    ‘Five months ago,’ Holley said. ‘Flying visit. I was only there three days. Long enough to complete business, then get out. You wouldn’t want to linger, and you shouldn’t, General.’
    A moment later, Ferguson had to answer his Codex. He listened for a few moments, then