The Camelot Code by Sam Christer Page A

all those procedural channels and policies, but I could sure do with cutting through the red tape and getting a jump on our killer. Can I ask you something?’
    The young attaché says nothing.
    ‘Take a look at these for me.’ Irish opens a brown envelope and shows blow-up photos the lab rushed for him late last night. ‘This Lincoln is registered to the British Embassy; we checked the plates.’ He hands a print to Stevens. ‘We need to know who was driving it last Friday night and where it is now?’
    ‘Do you have a record book of that kind of thing?’ asks Mitzi. ‘A driver we can talk to?’
    Stevens hands the photograph back to Irish. ‘I’m sorry; you’re going to have to go through those dreadful
channels
. Probably best to have your Chief of Police contact the State Department and let them deal with it appropriately.’ He taps the face of his wristwatch. ‘Now, I’m afraid I have other duties to attend to.’
    Mitzi presses. ‘If you don’t have time, maybe your boss does?’
    ‘That’s not possible.’ He looks amused. ‘If you were better informed you would know that Sir Owain Gwyn’s tenure is up. He returned to Britain yesterday along with his staff.’ He pre-empts her next question. ‘I have stayed on merely to help the new ambassador settle in. And he won’t be here today, or the rest of this week for that matter.’
    She steps into the attaché’s personal space. ‘Do I look like a barn wall?’
    The consular agent looks confused. ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘I just wondered – what with all that whitewash you just slopped over me.’
    His tone alters. ‘I’m officially asking you to leave. If you don’t, I will call security and have you forcibly removed.’
    ‘We’re going.’ Mitzi pats him playfully on the cheek as she walks past. ‘Love your accent, honey. God save the freakin’ queen.’

34
     
NEW YORK
     
    For the past three years, Halem Hussain has been a trusted member of Nabil Tabrizi’s terror cell. Not for one moment has anyone within the group suspected he might be Antun Bhatti, a devoted member of the SSOA, a secret organization known to only a few people in the world.
    But today, things are different.
    Given the raid by the Counter-Terrorist Unit, he knows Nabil must consider him, and everyone else left alive, as the possible source of a leak to the authorities.
    He sits in a circle of hard chairs, in the damp basement of a safe house off Westchester Avenue, just a nervous spit from where the Cross Bronx Expressway hits Parkchester Metro and the Hugh J. Grant Circle. He’s a stranger to the place. Brought here by Nabil, they made five different changes of transport and went to extraordinary lengths to make sure they weren’t tailed.
    He and Malek the bomber have been searched and electronically ‘brushed’ for bugs by a man Nabil simply introduced as Aasif.
    The young cell commander looks strained and worried. He leans on his knees as he speaks. ‘One of our colleagues is dead. Others have been captured by the Americans. Yet,
the two of you
, Malek and Halem, escaped unhurt. No bullet wounds. No scratches. No arrests. Tell me why did Allah look so favourably upon you?’
    The small grey-haired bomb-maker, answers first. ‘When the Americans blew open the door I was in the toilet. This saved me from the blast and the gunfire. I praise Allah and I pray for those who were not as lucky as me. My work will bring glory to the rest of our team, I swear it.’
    Nabil studies the man by his side. ‘And you, Halem?’
    Antun doesn’t rush his answer. He hangs his head in shame.
    ‘Brother! I am waiting for your explanation.’
    Finally, he looks up. His eyes are moist. ‘I was frightened.’ He lets the admission sink in. ‘I was thrown to the floor when the Americans fired their explosives and I stayed there.’ He drops his head again, before continuing. ‘I was too scared to move and hoped they didn’t kill me. Then part of the roof collapsed and I took