A Devil Is Waiting - Jack Higgins [35]
He turned to the others. “Only a woman could be so practical.”
“This Ali Selim that Daniel has mentioned—he’s not here yet, I presume?”
“No, but he’s what most people are waiting for, and he explains the police presence,” Roper said. “There are many young Muslims in the crowd, the sort of people he’s been urging to fight the good fight for a new Muslim empire, and pointing out that it’s their duty to break as many wicked Western laws as possible.”
Holley said, “To the Arab world, the British government is the villain of the piece here, for harassing a devout holy man.”
“What if that’s exactly what he is?” Sara said.
Claude Duval said, “What he is, Sara, is Al Qaeda’s most important mover and shaker in London. He’s been responsible for recruiting scores of young British Muslims for training camps in Waziristan.”
Roper said, “The Prime Minister and the government have handled him with kid gloves so far, but yesterday he made a very unhelpful speech regarding the President’s visit here on Friday. That can’t be allowed.”
“If you examine the crowd carefully,” Holley said to Sara, “you’ll notice a decidedly rough element.”
Tony Doyle put in, “So as soon as Selim starts preaching fire and brimstone, they’ll begin throwing things, the Muslims will respond, and we’ll have a riot situation because the police will have to contain it.”
“Looking like Fascist bullyboys to the Arab world,” Roper said. “Which is exactly what Ali Selim wants.” There was an outcry just beyond the crowd. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, here he comes.”
Henri Legrande had been standing as close as he dared to the van, hoping to hear something useful, and found himself among those who were not interested in getting involved in this unfolding drama but wanted to see what was going on. At the sound of Ali Selim’s approach, pressure from behind caused a surge forward and scuffling broke out.
Henri, involved in the pushing and shoving, voiced his displeasure in bad language, French style. Claude Duval, close by in the melee, hearing him, called in French, “What do you expect, they’re English!”
They were swept apart, and Henri lost himself in the crowd fast. He had not been close enough to hear the exchanges between Roper and the others, so he did not realize who Duval was, but there had been something about him, a face from the past perhaps.
The group of Muslims who forced their way through the crowd covered a wide age range. Some wore Western clothes, others wholly traditional, and there were those who wore a mixture of both. Ali Selim sat in a palanquin carried on the shoulders of six men. He wore a large white skullcap, his long black hair flecked with silver, as was his beard, and his face was fiercely intelligent. A young woman ran alongside, a hand on the palanquin. She was all in black, as if mourning, and wore a silk chador, a loose shirt, and leggings. She had big eyes and high cheekbones in an olive face.
As the group passed, Selim’s eyes swept over Roper and his party, showing no interest, no emotion, as if they didn’t exist, and two people plunged on into the crowd, joined up with others waiting beside a stand. The palanquin was lowered, disappearing from view, and a moment later Ali Selim was standing high above the crowd to a roar of acclaim and an equally loud chorus of jeers and shouts. His voice boomed through a loudspeaker.
“I have a right to be here, to speak the truth. As a British citizen, I am affronted that the President of the United States can be welcomed here in the city of my birth without any consultation with those citizens who think as I do. He is a war criminal who deserves only execution as retribution for the thousands of innocents who have died in an unjust war. Praise be to he who becomes his executioner!”
An egg hit him on the side of the face, and as he turned he was caught by another, and then some sort of ball struck him in the mouth, which immediately started to bleed. He disappeared quickly, and the crowd roared as fighting began.
The riot police surged past the van, their shields up, batons ready, and Roper