There was cold pounding hard silence. Liggert was looking at his brother like he wanted to cut his brain out. He shook himself, sucked in a deep breath, and turned back to Savich and Griffin. “You two clowns done here?”
Savich said, “I haven’t said the most important thing I came to tell you all. Dalco tried to kill me last Thursday night. He tried to terrify me in my sleep, as he did to Brakey, and Walter Givens, and that boy Charles Marker, just as he’s trying to terrify some of you. He tried, but he failed. I was stronger than that madman. I took him to my own ground, and I scared the crap out of him. He hasn’t come again because he’s afraid of me. He knows I’ll kill him.
“He’s so afraid of me he didn’t come after me in McCutty’s woods. No, he sent a boy, Charles Marker, with his father’s gun to ambush us. He’s a coward, not man enough to come at me head-on again. Worse, look what he did to Brakey.
“Deliah, you’ve got to give him up. I can protect you. If you don’t, Walter Givens will spend the rest of his life in jail. Brakey will be indicted. Every shred of evidence points to him, and the federal prosecutor will even have motive, revenge for the cover-up of his father’s murder. Aren’t you more afraid of that than what Dalco might try next?”
Deliah Alcott didn’t move. Slowly, she shook her head.
Ms. Louisa cackled, raised her arthritic hands, and waved a finger at Savich. “You waltz in here, boy, and you make your threats and try to get poor Liggert to lose his temper, and what have you accomplished? Nothing. Who is this Dalco? What is he? You claim he’s tried to kill you. You know what I think? I don’t think he even exists.”
The old lady looked at each member of her family. “All I know for certain is that Morgana isn’t Dalco. She isn’t strong enough. Even if she were, can you imagine her making her precious Brakey into a murderer?” She picked up her knitting needles, dismissing them all, and lowered her head to the interminable scarf that looked like it had grown another foot.
Savich looked from Brakey, who was standing behind Ms. Louisa’s wheelchair, to Jonah, leaning against the windowsill next to an oversized pentagram, to Liggert. Savich smiled at him. “Are you Dalco, Liggert? Will you come to me again when I’m sleeping and try to kill me? Do you think you can?”
Griffin watched everyone’s faces as Savich goaded Liggert. Their expressions didn’t give anything away, but he smelled fear, ripe and dark, and a deep, smoldering rage that heated the very air. From Liggert? Probably.
“You don’t want to wait until I’m asleep, do you, Liggert? You want to have a try at me right now, but not here in your mom’s living room. You want to come outside? I’m not weak and small like your wife or your kids. I can fight back.
Liggert roared and lunged at Savich. His mother yelled.
Savich kicked out, no muss, no fuss, got Liggert square in the belly, sent him flying backward to fetch up against a table leg, gasping for breath.
Deliah ran to stand between them. “That’s enough, Agent Savich. Leave my house, and don’t come back without a warrant. Liggert is not Dalco!”
Savich said, “Dalco should know it’s over now. He should give himself up, for Brakey’s sake, or he should come try to get me. Those are his choices, and yours.”
He said nothing more. He and Griffin turned and left the Alcotts in their living room.
26 FEDERAL PLAZA
NEW YORK CITY
Tuesday morning
The speaker was blasting out John Eiserly’s voice when Special Agent in Charge Milo Zachery walked into the conference room that smelled of old bitter coffee and overripe pizza, but the agents focused on the MI5 agent’s voice didn’t seem to mind.
John was saying, “Kelly, as you know, we obtained a warrant to search Samir Basara’s flat—excuse me, the penthouse—on Wyverly Place within minutes after you called yesterday. He was gone, which means he was already prepared to make a fast getaway. The safe was open, and empty, probably missing his private papers, money, and another passport. He may have several passports, we don’t know, but he’ll have trouble accessing any accounts in his own name in England at least. We’re working on freezing any accounts he may have in Switzerland. Naturally he could have accounts in other names, in other places. Our forensic people are neck-deep finding that out. We’ve mobilized all our resources, alerted ports, airports, private airstrips. Still, it will be difficult to catch him if he’s intent on leaving England. He’s obviously spent a long time thinking it all through.”
“Sherlock here, John. You didn’t find anything to help us with a possible destination in the imam’s papers at the mosque?”
“Unfortunately, no. Basara isn’t mentioned directly, always by his moniker the Strategist, but there are a great number of financial reports to sort through. We found a set of books with enough illegal funding to put the imam in prison for a very long time. Once he stopped screaming about the sacrilege of our invading a holy place, he swore he knew nothing about anything. Not his fault. That bit will not fly, obviously.”
“Any idea where Basara went immediately after he left his penthouse?” Kelly asked.
“He left his Bentley, didn’t take a taxi, so we can’t be certain. He could have taken the Tube or a train to just about anywhere inside England.”
Sherlock said, “Or had another car. Didn’t you say, John, that he was obviously prepared to pick up and leave very quickly if his house of cards came down?”
“Yes, that’s probably what he did. No idea how we’d trace that.”
Cal said, “What about Lady Elizabeth Palmer? Was she helpful at all?”
John paused briefly. “She was horrified, at first simply refused to believe he could be an assassin or a terrorist. When I told her he’d set up to bomb Saint Paul’s, and wouldn’t you know she was standing right under the big dome as a bridesmaid, she very nearly fainted. Unfortunately, she wasn’t helpful with possible destinations. She knows a great deal about his personal habits, but knew nothing about his life as the Strategist. You know the last thing I heard her saying as I was leaving the room?”
“All right, John,” Sherlock said, “this better be good.”
“She should have listened to her father after all, should have known better than to take up with a man who liked to watch himself on the tele. Obviously he could have no sense of honor or fair play. And what would you expect from a commoner?”
Kelly said, “That wasn’t bad, John. Now, you spoke about Lady Elizabeth being surprised he was an assassin and a terrorist. We’ve been discussing this and believe, like you, that Basara was using terrorism as a cover to murder individuals, but we have no idea who he could have been after in Saint Patrick’s or the TGV or Saint Paul’s.”
John said, “If we don’t find him I’m afraid we’ll never know. But all three recent targets had highly placed government officials present.”
Sherlock said, “Okay, we know Basara hasn’t bought a commercial ticket, and you have his private Gulfstream and his pilot under wraps. If he took a boat, we may be out of luck. Private boat hires aren’t well monitored, and cameras at yacht harbors are few and far between. So we’ve been focusing our efforts the last few hours on contacting private jet charter companies to see if any male in our age range bought a ticket within the last twenty-four hours out of England to anywhere in the world. Many of them have been surprised to hear from the American FBI, until we mention Basara is a prime suspect in the attempted bombing of Saint Paul’s. That’s been getting their cooperation fast.”
John said, “Thanks for helping us cover those. What worries me is that if he managed to get to France, there are scores of European private jet outfits available to him—”