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something.”
    â€œIn what way precisely?”
    â€œA man called Abu informed me that there is only one God and Osama is his Prophet. He had his Glock on me, and I was on my knees at the time.”
    Ferguson frowned. “Al-Qaeda was behind this?”
    â€œI should say so,” Dillon told him. “Sara saved me by stabbing Abu a couple of times, giving me the chance to shoot him. I’d managed to attract his backup man into taking a dive off the local wharf into the Thames, so you could argue that a fine time was enjoyed by one and all.”
    â€œIncluding Sara Gideon.” There was a small and quizzical smile on Roper’s face, a query: “Is she okay?”
    â€œAbsolutely,” Dillon said. “I’ve just delivered her to Highfield, where I imagine she’s gone straight to bed.”
    â€œWhich doesn’t surprise me at all, having heard all that,” Ferguson said. “So, al-Qaeda on our backs again, gentlemen. Rather unexpected, I’d have thought.”
    â€œBut they haven’t put anything our way for some time,” Roper said. “So why now?”
    â€œMaybe they’ve got wind of your interest in those Mediterranean rust buckets, Charles,” Dillon said. “That would certainly add a new dimension to things. There’s really nothing else that would interest them as regards our present activities.”
    â€œOh, I don’t know about that,” Roper told him. “This Simon Husseini business. Al-Qaeda would be happy to know why we are so interested in him.”
    â€œSo would I,” Dillon said. “But not now. I’m going to bed in the guest wing to get some sleep while the going’s good.”
    He departed, and Roper said, “Well, there you are, General. I wouldn’t mind knowing what Paris is all about, but I expect you’ll tell us in your own good time.”
    â€œWell, we certainly aren’t going to try to snatch him,” Ferguson told him. “That’s not on the agenda at all, because of his mother and daughter.”
    â€œWhich only leaves trying to turn him?”
    â€œLeave it, Major, I’m not prepared to discuss it. I’m going back to bed, which seems the fashionable thing to do.”
    He went out, and Roper smiled.
So that was it? Trying to bring Husseini on our side.
Someone should have told Ferguson the Cold War is over. The tactics it had bred wouldn’t work anymore, but the old boy was stubborn. Better to leave him to find out for himself.
    â€”
    A li Saif, at his desk in his room at Pound Street, had been in the extraordinary position of being able to follow most of the events that had taken place, from Dillon and Sara’s departure at Holland Park to the final bloodbath of Butler’s Wharf. The earpieces Farouk and Abu wore were the reason, for they were so sophisticated that Ali Saif had a ringside seat to everything via his incredible receiving equipment.
    He was part of the action at all times, heard Farouk’s howl of dismay as he went off the end of Butler’s Wharf and a great deal of what transpired in the courtyard of the warehouse between Abu, Dillon, and Sara.
    To him, the most shocking thing of all was Abu telling Dillon that there was one God and Osama was his Prophet, making it clear to Dillon, and through him Ferguson, that the real enemy in this affair was al-Qaeda. Very stupid of Abu to do that, but to be charitable, one should not speak ill of the dead.
    But the arrival of Teague and the disposal team and what he heard of them, until they bagged Abu, really shocked him. The sheer ruthlessness of these people showed Ferguson’s organization in a new light to him. He had never cared for the Iranian, a loudmouthed bully who preferred to get bad news sooner rather than later, so Ali Saif decided to give it to him in spite of the time.
    In his bedroom at Park Lane, Emza Khan, rudely awakened, snarled into the phone, “Who in the