Nemesis (34 page)

Sherlock, Kelly, and Cal, along with a half-dozen other agents, stood in the next room, watching Shadid closely through the one-way glass. All of them knew he was their last hope to get any useful information. They’d spoken to the teenage girl who’d blown up the house in Brooklyn the night before, Kenza the name on her passport. They’d found her lying in her hospital bed under guard, her right arm elevated and her wrist wired, her arm swathed in bandages to her elbow. Without the cap she’d worn the previous night, her short dark hair stood in spikes around her face. She looked like a young East Ender. How strange someone so young had already been twisted into a terrorist. They’d hoped they could use her pain, or the drugs they’d given her. They’d tried shaming her, threatening her, lying about Mifsud, the young man they were looking at through the glass, but she’d stared out at them through large dark eyes, eyes that had seen too much in her seventeen years, and looked contemptuous. It was only when they told her Shadid had given up the Strategist that she’d said anything at all. “You’re a lying bitch,” she’d said to Kelly in a clipped British accent, and then she’d closed her eyes and turned away on the pillow.

“Zachery said to give Shadid a little more time to think about his sins,” Kelly said to the other agents. “He’ll be coming in soon, to observe.” She waved a hand toward the muted flat-screen TV on the wall behind them that was tuned to an Al Jazeera newscast. “Isn’t it amazing that Al Jazeera already knows our three terrorists are British citizens? According to that pretty young Arabic woman in her bright red Western suit, the American FBI brutally attacked three Arabs, killed one and injured the other two. Yet another racially motivated violent act is perpetrated by American law enforcement. Someone had to have leaked it last night. It was a zoo.” She shook it off. “Okay, so how do we approach Shadid?”

Cal said, “Shadid’s very young. He’s never been arrested, certainly not for a terrorist act and not in the United States. We don’t need him to talk about last night, we’ve got him cold on that.” He grinned, said in a proper Oxford English accent, “Why don’t I play the part of a British lawyer, sent from the British consulate to defend one of Her Majesty’s put-upon citizens from the big, bad American FBI? I can at least try to keep him talking longer than he would otherwise.”

She stared. “That’s impressive, Agent McLain. Are you part British, like Agent Drummond here in our New York office?”

“Nope, pure mongrel American. I did some acting way back and my dad’s an incredible mimic. I inherited his talent . . . well, some of it. You should hear him sing Elton John.”

Kelly said thoughtfully, “Nothing he says would be admissible, but who cares? If you think you can pull it off, it can’t make him trust us any less than he already does. I doubt he saw you at the house, Cal, not well, anyway. Let’s try it. Sherlock, you up for being überbitch?”

“I’m up for anything now that I’ve had a shower and cleaned up. First, though, we need to get Cal dressed up a little, find him a fresh dress shirt and tie, and a briefcase, if he’s going to be coming straight from the British consulate.”

Ten minutes later, Kelly looked Cal up and down in his borrowed shirt, and Zachery’s leather briefcase. “The shirt’s a little tight, Cal, but it’ll do. Keep on the suit coat to cover it. Here, let me straighten the tie.” When she stepped back, she nodded. “You’ll do.”

The three of them walked into the interview room together. Kelly sat down, crossed her arms over her chest, and introduced herself and Sherlock. Then she eyed Cal and dropped all warmth. “Mr. Shadid, this is your counsel, sent by the British consulate, Mr. Jonathan Clark-Wittier.”

Good name,
Cal thought.
Where did she come up with that?
“Mr. Shadid,” he said, and nodded to the young man.

Kelly looked at the young man staring back at her, trying too hard to look uninterested. She turned to Sherlock. “Mr. Shadid and his imported fellow assassins tried to murder you last night, so why don’t you speak to him first?”

“A moment, Special Agent Giusti,” Cal said. “I would like to speak to this British citizen privately before you begin questioning him.”

Kelly, not looking away from Shadid, said, “You can forget that, Counselor. The man tried to kill federal officers, here on American soil. You’re here only as a courtesy.”

Sherlock was aware Mifsud Shadid was staring at her, hate beaming out of dark eyes, for her specifically and for her as simply one of the enemy. She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and pulled a full-bodied sneer out of her bag. “Mr. Shadid, how old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen? Is that your sister in the hospital with a shattered wrist?”

“I am twenty-one years old, not fifteen!”

“No, you’re not, you turned twenty a month ago.”

“She is not my sister!”

Interesting,
Kelly thought. His eyes fell to his hands, clasped in front of him on the scarred table, to the shackles encircling his wrists.

Sherlock shook her head, marveled aloud, “And you consider yourself a fighter? A professional? I don’t think so. I’ve got to say, though, that young girl you brought with you to set the bomb in the house? To burn all of us alive? She was the only one of you who showed some grit and courage. Is that how a fighter behaves, cowering in the bushes after sending a little girl to her almost certain death?”

She lunged forward, banged her fist on the table, making him jump. His eyes flew to her face. “You expected to kill me? You couldn’t kill this stuffed-shirt lawyer the British consulate sent to defend your wretched hide, not even if I handed you my gun.”

Young Mifsud Shadid yelled, “I will kill you myself, you whore! You are an enemy of Islam, a blight to be erased and forgotten, cursed in life and in death.”

What a lovely British accent,
Kelly thought. It sounded to her trained ear straight out of Manchester.

“Yeah, yeah, quite your party line,” Sherlock said, and looked like she wanted to yawn. Then her face hardened. “Mr. Shadid, why did you bring along your sister to do the dirty work for you?”

“I told you, Kenza is not my sister!”

“That is enough, Agent,” Cal said. “You are bludgeoning this young man with accusations, insulting him—”

“We are not in a court of law, Mr. Clark-Wittier,” she snapped out at him, without giving him the courtesy of a look back.

Mifsud said, “Kenza is well trained, and her heart is with us. Not even you saw her slip into that house. You should not have heard her slip out. She would have succeeded if you hadn’t been waiting for us with those floodlights and so many guns.”

Sherlock was shaking her head. “And you can’t imagine why we were armed and ready for you? Did you believe us fools? Or didn’t you question it at all? Did you believe the Strategist and the imam are very sophisticated, that they know what they were doing? I mean, they did manage to blow up that high-speed train in France, did they not? But then look what the Strategist did—he sent only the three of you to attack me, a well-guarded FBI agent; I don’t think that shows much talent at all.

“The old man who died last night, Mohammad Hosni, was he your handler, your boss, your grandfather?” She paused for an instant, but got no reaction from Shadid.

“You spoke of Kenza being so quiet. Well, she wasn’t, because I heard her. I’ll tell you, Mifsud, I still can’t believe you had to rely on a little girl to plant the bomb so that you and grandpa could shoot us dead if we managed to come running out of the burning house.” She gave him a contemptuous look. “Impressed by the imam and the Strategist? I don’t think so, look at the three pitiful tools he sent.”

I
f you had a gun you’d shoot me dead, wouldn’t you, Shadid?
But he kept himself silent. Sherlock gave a slight nod to Kelly.

Kelly picked it up. “Perhaps, Agent Sherlock, we’ve reduced the Strategist to using amateurs. I mean, after the three of you flew into New York yesterday, what did you do? Eat pizza and sleep in your rental car? Wouldn’t the Strategist and Imam Al-Hädi ibn Mirza spring for a cheap hotel room?”

“See here, Agent Sherlock,” Cal said, jumping to his feet, “enough of these puerile insults. You are not asking legitimate questions of this young man—”

Kelly snorted. “Maybe you’d better define
puerile
for him, Mr. Clark-Wittier, he doesn’t look very bright. His actions sure prove me right, don’t they? What will the Strategist say about you, Mr. Shadid, after seeing the three of you screw everything up?”

Sherlock said, “I don’t know if you care, Mifsud, but Kenza will never use her hand again, too many bones shattered from my bullet in her wrist.”

“The Strategist will kill you!” Mifsud yelled, and leapt to his feet, shaking his fist at them, his shackles clanging. “There was no way for you to know we would attack, we were very careful when we followed you.” Tears came into his eyes, choking him. “It was a trap, you were waiting for us to come, you wanted us to come. We couldn’t know there would be so many of you—”

Sherlock gave him another push. “Of course we knew you were following us. The Strategist failed you, didn’t he? As did your precious imam. They sent you into a trap. Which one of those brilliant men selected Nasim Conklin to blow up the security line at JFK? Which one of them sent the three of you?”

Shadid flew out of control. “You shut your mouth, you accursed woman! Your laws are absurd, sending two useless women to insult me. As for the imam, yes, I know of him. So does every true Muslim in London. He is a great man, a holy man. The British will never be able to arrest him, he is too well protected by their own laws.”

Kelly buffed her fingernails on her sleeve as she said in a bored voice, “Sit down, Mr. Shadid, calm yourself. You should know that Imam Al-Hädi ibn Mirza isn’t going to be giving any more orders. We’ve heard the good news that the imam has been formally arrested in London. MI5 is providing his lodging now, no cell phones or visitors allowed. Your great holy man has had his teeth pulled. Next comes his head,” and she made a chopping motion.

“There is no hangman’s noose in England!”

“Oh, yes, true enough, Mr. Shadid,” Kelly said. “But from where you come from, all you need is a knife, do you not, to cut off a hand, an ear, a head?”

Mifsud Shadid spat toward Kelly again, but Mr. Clark-Wittier’s leather case was in the way. “No, you are lying to me. What you are saying is impossible.”

Kelly shook her head at him. “Your counsel here can tell you it’s true. As we speak, MI5 is searching the imam’s office and home on Camden Street.” She rose and slammed her fist on the table in front of Mifsud. “Your imam was as convinced as you that he was untouchable. I doubt he took all the precautions. They will find names, times, and places. They will find your names, too, won’t they? Your precious imam will never again see the light of day, and neither will you.”

Kelly leaned close. “In spite of her tender years, Kenza will be imprisoned for life, or, more likely, she’ll get a shiv in her back within her first few months in prison. All civilized countries hate terrorists, and that includes their criminals in prison. Kenza won’t be able to protect herself, not with a shattered wrist. She’ll end up in a potter’s field, a cheap gravestone to mark where her bones lie.”

Mifsud was breathing fast and hard, his mouth working.

One more push,
Sherlock thought, and said, “MI5 passed us a report that the Strategist has a young Muslim girl as a mistress. Is it Kenza?”

“No! That is a lie!” Mifsud leapt to his feet, chains banging against the table. Then he sank back down in his chair, lowered his face in his hands. “No,” he whispered, “that is another of your lies. Kenza hasn’t even met him. He is too important for the likes of her.” He raised his face to Sherlock. “She would not sleep with anyone, Kenza and I—” He shook his head, shut his mouth.

Cal rose. “Mr. Shadid, I am here to advise you. If you wish to survive, if you wish that young girl, Kenza, to survive, you need to tell the FBI agents everything you know or suspect or have heard about the people who sent you here. Otherwise”—he shrugged—“I shall not be able to help you.”

Sherlock sat back in her chair, tapped her pen on the tabletop. “Did the Strategist force her to sleep with him, Mr. Shadid? And did she tell you? Did it make you angry?”

Kelly said, “If you tell us what you know, I will personally ensure that Kenza is kept protected. I will not allow her to be killed.”

Shadid was shaking his head, crying. He swiped a shackled hand over his eyes. “She said nothing to me because you are lying, it’s all lies. Listen to me, the Strategist would never shame Kenza, she is honest and loyal, a fighter. He would never shame any Muslim girl, no, he consorts with an Englishwoman, a Christian noblewoman, he flaunts her in everyone’s face.”

Jackpot.

In the next room, the agents turned to their laptops and started pulling up London society pages and online social event calendars, looking for an English noblewoman on the arm of a rich Algerian who would turn out to be a terrorist.