Lisa waved her hand from the telephone desk.
“I have twenty-eight on the telephone. Now it’s twenty-nine at the back of the room. Now thirty. Now it’s at thirty-one with Mr. O’Connor in the room. Thirty-two now. Thirty-three. No, I won’t take thirty-three and half, because I’m looking for thirty-four. And it looks as though I may have it with Mr. Isherwood. Do I? Yes, I do. It’s in the room, thirty-four million, with Mr. Isherwood.”
“Bid again,” said Hamdali.
“I would advise against it.”
“Bid again, Mr. Lovegrove, or my client will find an adviser who will.”
Lovegrove signaled thirty-five. In the space of a few seconds, the telephone bidders ran it past forty.
“Bid again, Mr. Lovegrove.”
“I would—”
“Bid.”
Mendenhall acknowledged Lovegrove’s bid of forty-two million pounds.
“Now it’s forty-three with Lisa on the telephone. Now it’s forty-four with Samantha. And forty-five with Cynthia.”
And then came the lull Lovegrove was looking for. He glanced at Terry O’Connor and saw the fight had gone out of him. To Hamdali he said, “How badly does your client want this painting?”
“Badly enough to bid forty-six.”
Lovegrove did so.
“The bid is now forty-six, in the room, with Mr. Lovegrove,” said Mendenhall. “Will anyone give me forty-seven?”
On the telephone desk, Cynthia began waving her hand as though she were trying to signal a rescue helicopter.
“It’s with Cynthia, on the phone, at forty-seven million pounds.”
No other telephone bidders followed suit.
“Shall we end this?” asked Lovegrove.
“Let’s,” said Hamdali.
“How much?”
“My client likes round numbers.”
Lovegrove arched an eyebrow and raised five fingers.
“The bid is fifty million pounds,” said Mendenhall. “It’s not with you, sir. Nor with Cynthia on the telephone. Fifty million, in the room, for the Titian. Fair warning now. Last chance. All done?”
Not quite. For there was the sharp crack of Mendenhall’s gavel, and the elated gasp of the crowd, and a final excited exchange with Mr. Hamdali that Lovegrove couldn’t quite hear because Oliver Dimbleby was shouting something into his other ear, which he couldn’t quite hear, either. And then there were the disingenuous handshakes with the losers, and the obligatory flirtation with the press over the identity of the buyer, and the long walk upstairs to Christie’s business offices, where the final paperwork was buttoned up with an air of funereal solemnity. It was approaching ten o’clock by the time Lovegrove signed his name to the last document. He emerged from Christie’s portentous doorway to find Oliver and the boys milling about in King Street. They were heading over to Nobu for a spicy tuna roll and a look-see at the latest Russian talent. “Join us, Nicky,” bellowed Oliver. “Revel in the company of your English brethren. You’ve been spending too much time in America. You’re no bloody fun any longer.”
Lovegrove was tempted but knew the outing was likely to end badly, so he saw them into a caravan of taxis and headed back to his hotel on foot. Walking along Duke Street, he saw a man emerge from Mason’s Yard and climb into a waiting car. The man was of medium height and build; the car was a sleek Jaguar sedan that reeked of British officialdom. So did the handsome silver-haired figure already seated in the back. Neither cast so much as a glance in Lovegrove’s direction as he walked past, but he had the uncomfortable impression they were sharing a private joke at his expense.
He felt the same way about the auction—the auction in which he had just played a starring role. Someone had been had tonight; Lovegrove was sure of it. And he feared it was his client. It was no skin off Lovegrove’s back. He had earned several million pounds just for raising his finger in the air a few times. Not a bad way to make a living, he thought, smiling to himself. Perhaps he should have accepted Oliver’s invitation to the post-auction bash. No, he thought, rounding the corner into Piccadilly, it was probably better he’d begged off. Things would end badly. They usually did whenever Oliver was involved.
Chapter 46
Langley, Virginia
THREE BUSINESS DAYS LATER, THE venerable Christie’s auction house, King Street, St. James’s, deposited the sum of fifty million pounds—less commissions, taxes, and numerous transactional fees—into the Zurich branch of TransArabian Bank. Christie’s received confirmation of the transfer at 2:18 p.m. London time, as did the two hundred men and women gathered in the subterranean op center known as Rashidistan. There arose in the room a loud cheer that echoed throughout the chambers of the American intelligence community and even inside the White House itself. The celebration did not last long, however, for there was a great deal of work to be done. After many weeks of toil and worry, Gabriel’s operation had finally borne fruit. Now the harvest would commence. And after the harvest, God willing, would come the feast.
The money spent a restful day in Zurich before moving on to TransArabian’s headquarters in Dubai. Not all of it, though. At the direction of Samir Abbas, who had power of attorney, two million pounds were wired into a small private bank on Zurich’s Talstrasse. Additionally, Abbas authorized large donations to a number of Islamic groups and charities—including the World Islamic Fund for Justice, the Free Palestine Initiative, the Centers for Islamic Studies, the Islamic Society of Western Europe, the Islamic World League, and the Institute for Judeo-Islamic Reconciliation, Gabriel’s personal favorite. Abbas also allotted himself a generous consulting fee, which, curiously, he drew in cash. He gave a portion of the money to the imam of his mosque to do with as he pleased. The rest he concealed in the pantry of his Zurich apartment, an act that was captured by the camera of his compromised computer and projected live onto the giant screens of Rashidistan.
Owing to TransArabian’s long-suspected links to the global jihadist movement, Langley and the NSA were already well acquainted with its ledger books, as were the terror-finance specialists at Treasury and the FBI. As a result, Gabriel and the staff in Rashidistan were able to monitor the money almost in real time as it flowed through a series of fronts, shells, and dummy corporations—all of which had been hastily created in lax jurisdictions in the days following Nadia’s meeting with Sheikh Bin Tayyib in the Nejd. The speed with which the money moved from account to account demonstrated that Rashid’s network possessed a level of sophistication that belied its size and relative youth. It also revealed—much to Langley’s alarm—that the network had already expanded far beyond the Middle East and Western Europe.
The evidence of Rashid’s global reach was overwhelming. There was the three hundred thousand dollars that appeared suddenly in the account of a trucking firm in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. And the five hundred thousand dollars paid to a commercial construction company in Caracas. And the eight hundred thousand dollars funneled to an Internet consulting firm based in Montreal—a firm owned by an Algerian previously linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The largest single payment—two million dollars—went to QTC Logistics, a freight forwarding and customs brokerage firm based in the judicially porous Gulf emirate of Sharjah. Within hours of the money’s arrival, the Rashidistan team was monitoring QTC’s phones and poring over its records dating back three years. The same was true of the Internet firm in Montreal, though the physical surveillance of the Algerian was delegated to the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. Gabriel argued strenuously against bringing the Canadians into the investigation but was overruled by Adrian Carter and his newfound ally at the White House, James A. McKenna. It was just one of many battles, large and small, that Gabriel would lose as the operation slipped further and further from his grasp.
As the intelligence streamed into the op center, the staff produced an updated network matrix that dwarfed the one assembled by Dina and Gabriel’s team following the first attacks. McKenna dropped by every few days just to marvel at
it, as did members of the various congressional committees involved in intelligence and homeland security. And on a snowy afternoon in late February, Gabriel spotted the president himself standing on the upper observation deck with the CIA director and Adrian Carter standing proudly at his side. The president was clearly pleased by what he saw. It was clean. It was smart. It was forward-leaning. A partnership between Islam and the West to defeat the forces of extremism. Brainpower over brute force.
The operation had been Gabriel’s creation, Gabriel’s work of art, yet it had so far failed to provide any firm leads regarding the whereabouts of the network’s operational mastermind or its inspirational leader. Which is why it came as a surprise to Gabriel when he started hearing rumors about pending arrests. He confronted Adrian Carter the next day in the center’s soundproof conference room. Carter spent a moment rearranging the contents of a file before finally confirming the rumors were true. Gabriel tapped the green badge hanging around his neck and asked, “Does this allow me to offer an opinion?”
“I’m afraid it does.”
“You’re about to make a mistake, Adrian.”
“It wouldn’t be my first.”
“My team and I went to a great deal of time and effort to put this operation in place. And now you’re going to blow it sky-high by pulling a few operatives off the street.”
“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Carter said impassively.
“Who’s that?”
“Someone who has the power to rule by executive fiat. I’m the deputy director for operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. I have superiors in this building. I have ambitious counterparts from other agencies with competing interests. I have a director of national intelligence, congressional committees, and James A. McKenna. And, last but not least, I have a president.”
“We’re spies, Adrian. We don’t make arrests. We save lives. You have to be patient, just like your enemies. If you continue to let the money flow, you’ll be able to stay one step ahead of them for years. You’ll watch them. You’ll listen to them. You’ll let them waste valuable time and effort plotting and planning attacks that will never take place. And you’ll make arrests only as a last resort—and only if they’re necessary to prevent a bomb from exploding or a plane from falling out of the sky.”
“The White House disagrees,” said Carter.
“So this is political?”
“I’d rather not speculate on the motives behind it.”
“What about Malik?”
“Malik is a rumor. Malik is a hunch on Dina’s part.”
Gabriel studied Carter skeptically. “You don’t believe that, Adrian. After all, you were the one who said the European bombings were planned by someone who cut his teeth in Baghdad.”
“And I stand by that. But the goal of this operation was never to find one man. It was to dismantle a terror network. Thanks to your work, we believe we have enough evidence to take down at least sixty operatives in a dozen countries. When was the last time anyone arrested sixty of the bad guys? It’s an amazing accomplishment. It’s your accomplishment.”
“Let’s just hope they’re the right sixty operatives. Otherwise, it might not stop the next attack. In fact, it might push Rashid and Malik to accelerate their planning.”
Carter unwound a paper clip, the last in all of Langley, but said nothing.
“Have you considered what this is going to mean for Nadia’s security?”
“It’s possible Rashid might find the timing of the arrests suspicious,” Carter admitted. “That’s why we plan to protect her with a series of well-placed leaks to the press.”
“What kind of leaks?”
“The kind that portray the arrests as the culmination of a multi-year investigation that began while Rashid was still in America. We believe it will sow discord inside his inner circle and leave the network paralyzed.”
“Do we?”
“That is our hope,” said Carter without a trace of irony in his voice.
“Why wasn’t I consulted about any of this?” asked Gabriel.
Carter held up his paper clip, which was now perfectly straight. “I thought that’s what we were doing now.”
The conversation was their last for several days. Carter kept to the seventh floor while Gabriel spent most of his time overseeing the withdrawal of his troops from the field. By the end of February, the Agency had assumed total responsibility for the physical and electronic surveillance of Nadia al-Bakari and Samir Abbas. Of Gabriel’s original operation nothing remained but a pair of empty safe houses—one in a small village north of Paris, another on the shores of Lake Zurich. Ari Shamron decided to stick Château Treville in his back pocket but ordered the Zurich house shut down. Chiara handled the paperwork herself before flying to Washington to be with Gabriel. They settled into an Office flat on Tunlaw Road, across the street from the Russian Embassy. Carter put a pair of watchers on them, just to be on the safe side.
With Chiara in Washington, Gabriel sharply curtailed the amount of time he spent in Rashidistan. He would arrive at Langley in time for the morning senior staff meeting, then spend a few hours peering over the shoulders of the analysts and the data miners before returning to Georgetown to meet Chiara for lunch. Afterward, if the skies were clear, they would do a bit of shopping or stroll the pleasant streets discussing their future. At times, it seemed they were merely resuming the conversation that had been interrupted by the bombing in Covent Garden. Chiara even raised the subject of working at Isherwood’s gallery. “Think about it,” she said when Gabriel objected. “That’s all I’m saying, darling. Just think about it.”
For the moment, though, Gabriel could think only of Nadia’s security. With Carter’s approval, he reviewed the Agency’s plans for Nadia’s long-term protection and even had a hand in drafting the material that would be leaked to the American press. Mainly, he waged a tireless campaign from within Rashidistan to prevent the arrests from happening, telling anyone who would listen that the Agency, by bowing to political pressure, was about to make a catastrophic blunder. Carter stopped attending meetings where Gabriel was present. There was no point. The White House had ordered Carter to bring down the hammer. He was now in constant contact with friends and allies in a dozen countries, coordinating what was to be the single biggest haul of jihadist militants and operatives since the fall of Afghanistan.
On a Friday morning in late March, Gabriel pulled him aside long enough to say that he was planning to leave Washington to return to England. Carter suggested Gabriel stay a little longer. Otherwise, he was going to miss the big show.
“When does it start?” asked Gabriel gloomily.
Carter looked at his watch and smiled.
Within hours the dominoes began to fall. They toppled so quickly, and on such a wide scale, that the press struggled to keep pace with the unfolding story.
The first arrests took place in the United States, where FBI SWAT teams executed a series of simultaneous raids in four cities. There was the cell of Egyptians in Newark that was planning to derail a New York–bound Amtrak train. And the cell of Somalis in Minneapolis that was plotting chemical attacks against several downtown office buildings. And the cell of Pakistanis in Denver that was in the final stages of a plot to murder hundreds of people with a series of attacks on crowded sporting facilities. Most alarming, however, was Falls Church, Virginia, where a six-member cell was in the final stages of a plan to attack the new U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. On one of the suspect’s computers, the FBI found casing photos of tourists and schoolchildren waiting to be admitted. Another suspect had recently rented an isolated warehouse to begin preparing the peroxide-based bombs. The money had come from the Algerian in Montreal, who was arrested at the same time, along with eight other Canadian residents.
In Europe, the haul was even larger. In Paris, the terrorists were plotting to attack the Eiffel Tower and the Musée d’Orsay. In London, they had targeted the Millennium Wheel and Parliament Square. And in Be
rlin, they were preparing a Mumbai-style assault on visitors to the Holocaust memorial near the Brandenburg Gate. Copenhagen and Madrid, victimized by the first round of attacks, yielded additional cells. So did Stockholm, Malmö, Oslo, and Rome. Across the Continent, bank accounts were frozen and businesses were shut down. All thanks to Nadia’s money.
One by one, prime ministers, presidents, and chancellors appeared before the press to proclaim that disaster had been averted. The American president spoke last. Resolute, he described the threat as the most serious since 9/11 and hinted that more arrests were coming. When asked to describe how the cells had been uncovered, he deferred to his counterterrorism adviser, James McKenna, who refused to answer. He went to great pains, however, to point out that the breakthrough had been achieved without resorting to tactics used by the previous administration. “The threat has evolved,” declared McKenna, “and so have we.”
The following morning, the New York Times and the Washington Post carried lengthy articles describing a multi-agency intelligence and law enforcement triumph nearly a decade in the making. In addition, both papers ran editorials lauding the president’s “twenty-first century vision for the struggle against global extremism,” and by that evening, on the cable talk shows, members of the opposing political party looked disheartened. The president had done more than eliminate a dangerous terror network, said one noteworthy strategist. He had just guaranteed himself another four years in office. The race for 2012 was over. It was time to start thinking about 2016.
Chapter 47
The Palisades, Washington, D.C.
THAT SAME EVENING, THE CIA director summoned the staff to the Bubble, Langley’s futuristic auditorium, for a pep rally. Ellis Coyle chose not to attend. Such events, he knew, were as predictable as his nights at home with Norah. There would be the usual drivel about pride restored and an Agency on the mend, an Agency that had finally found its place in a world without the Soviet Union. Coyle had heard the same speech from seven previous directors, all of whom had left the CIA weaker and more dysfunctional than they had found it. Drained of talent, weakened by the reorganization of the American intelligence community, the Agency was a smoldering ruin. Even Coyle, a professional dissembler, could not sit in the Bubble and pretend that the arrest of sixty suspected terrorists heralded a brighter future—especially since he knew the truth about how the breakthrough had been achieved.