And he was gone, with a rush of air like a train roaring out of a tunnel.
55
Sam watched her as she read it, his heart sinking to new depths.
‘They made you say all this?’
‘I didn’t have any choice.’ He told her what Farmer had said. ‘They would have found out about Karza. And that would have been his death sentence. I did it for him.’
He searched her face for some expression, something to show she understood. One by one he was disappointing everyone who mattered to him and he couldn’t bear it if she was next. ‘I hope you don’t think any the worse of me.’
‘You need to be careful. You shouldn’t have got their backs up in the first place.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your position, right inside the Party, the contact with the prime minister and his officials. From now on, do nothing to upset them. Stay on message: remind them what an asset you are. That’s the way you’re going to save Karza and make a big difference.’
Sam didn’t know what she meant.
She came and sat close, put a hand on his face. The effect was electric. ‘You are very alone, aren’t you?’
He felt the tears welling again. This so wasn’t the image he wanted to project right now. He nodded. Yes, he did feel desperately alone.
She smiled. ‘That’s how we all feel. This is how it is. Before, you were getting on with your life without a thought about your brothers. This has brought you closer to them.’
‘I have just one brother.’
‘No, you don’t. You have thousands of brothers — millions — and they feel like you. But they are with you. You’ve got them — and they have you. Do you understand that?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And you have me.’
She looked at him with a gaze that melted his anguish. But then he was jolted with another realization. He slapped the newspaper. ‘The people who — the men I met, they’ll see this and they’ll…’ He felt ineffectual and weak.
‘I know what you’re thinking, but that won’t happen.’
He wanted to believe her, but couldn’t begin to imagine how this could end other than badly. Very badly.
56
Tom got to the van just as the cops came past in their cruisers, three of them, in a big hurry, bouncing across the ruts. Tom put himself in plain view: appearing to skulk furtively wouldn’t help him. He raised a friendly hand and smiled as they went by.
As soon as they were past he jumped into the van, fired up the engine, yanked the shift into drive and floored it. If the police were definitely there for Jefferson he needed to put as much distance as he could between them and himself. He kept going south until he hit the Loop, went east to the next exit, then dropped into a side road and pulled up at the kerb.
He turned on the interior light and checked himself over. There was a fair bit of Jefferson’s blood on him. He looked into the back of the van, evidently Kyle’s mobile headquarters. There was a stack of listening kit, a bunk, some cabinets and a fridge. He helped himself to a Coke, which felt wonderfully cool to his parched throat. Then he checked the closet and found a pair of camo cargo shorts and a khaki T-shirt. He changed into them, then took out the pay-as-you-go phone and dialled Woolf. It went to voicemail. He didn’t fancy risking that so he tried Phoebe.
‘Tom!’
‘Can you talk?’
‘I’m just on my way to Invicta.’
‘I need a name checked out. Asim Zuabi. He’s an imam based in Houston, Texas. Whatever you have on him.’
‘Okay, hold while I text that in.’
‘How long does it take?’
‘Only a few minutes. Tom?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thanks for not blowing us. I do want to say how sorry—’
‘Never mind, it’s fine. Just get me the info. How’s Rolt?’
‘I’ve hardly seen him. He’s been caught up in a whirlwind of meetings in Whitehall. The hostel bombing has changed everything. They’re taking him very seriously. There are some in the cabinet wanting him to join some kind of crisis task force. Hang on while I see what we’ve got on your man.’
While Tom waited, he took out Jefferson’s phone and looked at the call log. All the names in his contacts were abbreviated to one or two letters. One number he had dialled twice, and received four calls from, in the previous twelve hours belonged to a CF.
Phoebe was back on.
‘Okay, Zuabi’s showing no POI status: not a Person of Interest. Appears to have no form at all. He arrived in the US as a refugee from Syria in 2006, and seems to have carved out a presence for himself in something called the Southern States Caucus for Interfaith Learning. Otherwise, no profile. He’s not even showing up on the FBI’s Watch List.’
‘Okay, thanks. Look, if you’ve got the time to go deeper, he seems to be heading up a very generously endowed new mosque, part of the regeneration of a rundown part of Houston. It’s massive. Be good to know where the money’s come from. And something else: I need a caller ID.’
He read off CF’s number. There was a pause.
‘It’s a gun shop. Confederate Firearms, proprietor one Lester Colburn. There’s a red flag against him. He also runs a website called Refugee Resettlement Watch. I don’t much like the sound of that. Look, Tom, you can obviously handle yourself, but these are very murky waters.’
‘Yeah, I know. Hey — thanks.’
‘Can I ask how this connects with Invicta?’
‘I’ll have to get back to you about that. Thanks again.’
He killed the call and searched Confederate Firearms on his phone. For your weapon of choice, look no further. We have the most extensive range in the county… friendly attentive service. He looked at his watch: 4 a.m. A bit too early to go and buy a gun, even in Texas.
57
Confederate Firearms was in the Northside district of Houston: a windowless, metal, single-storey structure in a street of anonymous warehouses. He parked Kyle’s van and went inside.
Even to someone with his experience of weaponry, the sheer scale of the place was breathtaking. Rack after rack of rifles, pistols and assault weapons and even a ‘ladies’ section in one corner with small, pink-finished handguns for girls. Welcome to Texas.
Colburn was behind the counter: late fifties or thereabouts, thin, with a florid John Wayne kind of face and small, squinting eyes that stared at Tom suspiciously. He was flanked by two larger men, one of whom looked younger, their checked shirts bulging over their belts.
‘Good morning!’ Tom figured a friendly demeanour, plus the accent, might help break the ice, along with a few knowledgeable but generic questions about the merchandise. He glanced up at a wooden plaque with the motto ‘sic semper tyrannis’. ‘Thus always to tyrants’.
Colburn nodded. ‘That there’s the state motto of Virginia, my home state.’
‘And the words shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln, I believe.’
Colburn nodded again, slowly. ‘God rest his soul.’
‘Lincoln’s or Booth’s?’