The colonel declared this massive course reversal only minutes before, announcing his defiance of presidential orders from the top of his wrought-iron staircase with his most officious scowl in place. In attendance were two security guards and a SATCOM tech, the only three people on the command center floor at two o’clock in the morning. There would have been four, but the third security guard had gone to get coffee.
By way of justification, Walker cited self-defense. A longstanding American tradition held that military units always had the right to defend themselves when attacked, and one of Walker’s people was just struck down within these very walls. Unacceptable. Whether the commander-in-chief liked it or not, the Triple Seven was back in. The colonel had walked thinner lines to circumvent more well-founded orders in the past. Besides, he had never liked this president anyway.
Fueled by the twenty-ounce nonfat mocha that met her at the door, pale skin glowing in the light of her four monitors, Molly set about the task of finding Kattan’s mosque.
Immediately, she encountered the first barrier. There were more than 2,200 mosques, worship centers, Islamic institutes, and prayer rooms in the British Isles. The task of narrowing the field looked insurmountable.
“Confine your search to greater London,” said Nick. Both operatives still stood at the desk with Rami’s book, watching a transmission of Molly’s screen on their phones.
The analyst followed Nick’s command and her map zoomed in from all of Great Britain to London alone. Red dots appeared all over the city. “Three hundred fifty-four remaining, Nick. What else?”
“The Hashashin are an Ismaili sect. Eliminate all potentials without Ismaili affiliations.”
Molly complied, and the red dots rapidly dropped away until only four remained. Suddenly the problem looked manageable.
She started digging. The largest of the four mosques — the Ismaili Center of London in Cromwell Gardens, dated back less than thirty years to 1985. The Ismaili Community Center in Croydon was founded in 1979, and the Institute of Ismaili Studies on Euston in 1977. The Ismaili Jamatkhana on Fleet Street — a stone’s throw from the ancient Templar stronghold at Temple Church — dated back only a few years to 1990.
Drake frowned at his screen. “None of these are old enough. They’re nothing like the thirteenth-century catacombs we saw in Ankara.”
“Great Britain wasn’t always the bastion of religious freedom it is today,” said Nick, glancing up at his teammate. “We won’t see any religious records for a mosque dating back more than a century, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Molly, focus on the history of the structures themselves.”
Their shared feed flickered through Molly’s data searches. “The buildings at Cromwell Gardens and Croydon both were built on empty lots,” said the analyst. “Prior to that, one lot was a park and the other was a square.”
That left Euston and Fleet streets, and both appeared to have changed hands several times over the centuries. Prior to the great fire in the 1600s, the address on Fleet Street belonged to a shipping company, dealing exclusively in goods from the Ottoman Empire.
“Bingo,” said Drake.
“Circumstantial,” countered Nick. “If we keep digging, I’m sure we could find a Middle Eastern owner for the property on Euston at some time in its history.” He sighed. “One of these two buildings was a mosque long before mosques were all the rage in London. We have no way to tell which.”
“Oh! I do.” Molly sputtered the proclamation, like she was halfway through a sip of coffee when she made it.
Nick’s screen flashed, and the subterranean-utility plans for both structures appeared side by side. On top of these, Molly laid in the city utilities — electric on top of gas on top of sewage — and then she rendered them all in 3D. Finally, she reversed the image, eliminating everything but the dead space to produce a ghost footprint.
“Oh, she’s good,” said Nick, smiling at Drake. By seeking dead space, Molly had just produced a map of the earliest stone foundations for each structure.
The stonework beneath the Euston mosque was shaped like a simple unadorned wedge, slightly askew from the current building. The Jamatkhana on Fleet Street, however, still matched its original footprint, down to a bulbous protrusion on the southeast corner of the building.
“That’s it. The mihrab is still there in the ancient footprint.” Nick tapped the picture of the protrusion, centering all their screens on that section of the structure. The mihrab was a niche that pointed the way to Mecca, a telltale sign of a mosque.
“If my footprint is correct,” said Molly, “this building on Fleet Street was serving as a mosque for several centuries before it was officially declared a Jamatkhana. I think we found London’s Hashashin stronghold.”
They had no weapons, save for Nick’s Hashashin knife. Rami’s .357 and the Vector submachine gun were both at the bottom of the Thames, and Walker had no way to smuggle guns to them within any reasonable timeframe.
On the bright side, their clothes had dried, and Nick was happy to return the hand-me-downs to the church clothing bank. Drake opted to keep the blue and white Hawaiian shirt. He called it a one-in-a-million find and promised Nick that he would send Youssef a check that more than covered it.
The plan was to hot-wire a car, but neither wanted to set out without first saying good-bye to Rami and offering their thanks to Youssef. They walked the narrow hall until they came to the church’s small sanctuary. Here, the flooring between the two stories had been removed to make space for a traditional arched ceiling and a ten-foot-tall stained-glass window. The bright light of the rising sun shone through a depiction of Christ suffering on the cross, casting multicolored beams down on the mournful trio at the altar below.
Rami and a frail woman of the same age knelt on stools facing each other, heads bowed. Tears flowed freely down from eyes closed in prayer. Youssef stood over them, a hand on each of their shoulders, his eyes lifted to heaven and his mouth moving in quiet supplication. After a few moments, the priest lowered his head and whispered some unheard encouragement. Then he stood and raised them to their feet.
The woman left the altar first. Nick knew who she was — the mother of the girl he had left in a pool of blood in Rami’s hall, the girl whose body he had shunted aside with Rami’s door out of cold tactical necessity. He suddenly had the urge to fall at the mother’s feet, to beg her forgiveness for letting her daughter pay the price for the father he had killed, but his knees wouldn’t bend.
She stopped when she reached him and looked up, and in her swollen eyes, he saw the forgiveness he had not found the strength to ask for. She clasped his hands, patting them softly, and offered a brokenhearted smile. She did the same for Drake. Then she walked deliberately, step by step, into the hall.
Rami waited until she had gone and then turned to the two operatives. “You found it?” he asked, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. “The stronghold you were looking for?”
Nick nodded. “The Jamatkhana on Fleet Street. It’s very close to Paternoster Square, an ideal staging point.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Out of the question.”
“You’ve already done enough,” added Drake.
The professor pursed his lips. “I see. I suppose that means you plan to sit outside the mosque and wait for Kattan to appear, because you must realize that two big white men will not get past the front door.”
“And you can?”
Rami nodded.
Drake cocked his head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with a plot to avenge the girl, does it?”
“That is in the past now,” the professor assured him, slowly shaking his head.