Whitcombe led Nadia and her bodyguards into a waiting elevator and with the press of a button sent it upward to the ninth floor. Waiting in the foyer were R&C’s senior partners, including the newest addition to the team, Thomas Fowler, who was known in some circles as Yossi Gavish. He was wearing a gray chalk-stripe suit by Anthony Sinclair of Savile Row and a smile that promised lavish profits. He greeted Nadia as though she were an old friend; then, with Whitcombe trailing, he led her to R&C’s regal conference room. Whitcombe invited her bodyguards to have a seat in the corridor, which they did without objection. Then he followed Yossi and Nadia into the conference room and closed the doors with a reassuring thump.
The blinds were tightly drawn, the lighting tastefully subdued. There was a polished mahogany table around which sat the members of Gabriel’s team, who were polished as well. Even Gabriel was dressed for the occasion. He was seated in the power position of the table along the windows, with Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour to one side and Ari Shamron and Uzi Navot on the other. Shamron watched Nadia carefully as she lowered herself into a chair next to Sarah, who was almost unrecognizable in a dark wig and glasses.
Still playing the role of Thomas Fowler, Yossi made a round of animated but pseudonymous introductions. It was a mere formality; the room was soundproof and electronically impenetrable. As a result, Gabriel had no misgivings about playing an NSA intercept over the sound system. It had been recorded five days earlier, at 10:36 a.m. Central European Time. The first voice belonged to Samir Abbas of TransArabian Bank.
“The associate’s schedule is very busy. It will be his one and only chance to meet with you for the foreseeable future.”
“When does he need an answer?”
“I’m afraid he needs it now.”
“What time would he like to see me?”
“Nine in the evening.”
“My bodyguards won’t permit any changes.”
“The associate assures me there won’t be any.”
“Then please tell him I’ll be at the Burj next Thursday evening at nine p.m. And tell him not to be late. Because I never invest money with people who are late for meetings.”
Gabriel pressed the stop button on the remote control and looked at Nadia. “I would like to begin this meeting by thanking you. By saying yes to Samir, you bought us some much-needed time to contemplate our next move. We were all impressed, Nadia. You handled yourself amazingly well for an amateur.”
“I’ve been living in two different worlds for a long time, Mr. Allon. I’m not an amateur.” Her gaze traveled around the table before settling on Shamron. “I see your numbers have grown since the last time we were together.”
“I’m afraid this is just the traveling ensemble.”
“There are others elsewhere?”
“A multitude,” said Gabriel. “And at this moment, many of them are fretting over a single question.”
“What’s that?”
“Whether we should allow you to go to Dubai or whether we should call Samir back and tell him you’re too busy to make the trip.”
“Why would we tell him that?”
“I’ll answer that question in a moment,” Gabriel said. “But first I want you to listen to another recording.”
He reached for the remote and pressed play.
Chapter 52
The City, London
WHAT’S HIS NAME?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t matter. And knowing it would only place you in danger later.”
“You do think of everything.”
“We try, but sometimes even we make mistakes.”
She asked to hear the recording again. Gabriel pressed play.
“He sounds Jordanian to me,” Nadia said, listening intently.
“He is Jordanian.” Gabriel paused the recording. “He’s also one of the most brutal terrorists any of us have ever encountered. We’ve suspected for some time he was involved with Rashid’s network. Now we’re sure of it.”
“How?”
“The same way you know he’s a Jordanian.”
“The sound of his voice?”
Gabriel nodded. “Unfortunately, we know it too well. We heard it when he was dispatching shahids to bomb the cafés and buses of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And our American friends heard it on the airwaves of the Sunni Triangle when he was helping to bring chaos to Iraq. But it’s been a long time since we’ve heard from him—so long, in fact, that some members of our fraternity actually deluded themselves into believing he was dead. Unfortunately, this call proves he’s very much alive.”
Nadia seemed to have run out of questions for now. She looked at Carter and Graham Seymour and frowned.
“I see you’ve brought along your partners.”
“We felt it was time for you to get acquainted.”
“Who are they?”
“The dignified gentleman with gray hair is Graham. He’s British.”
“Obviously.” Her gaze shifted to Carter. “And him?”
“That’s Adrian.”
“American?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Her gaze swept across Gabriel and settled once again on Shamron.
“Where did you find this one?”
“In the deepest well of time.”
“Does he have a name?”
“He prefers to be called Herr Heller.”
“What does Herr Heller do?”
“Mostly, he steals secrets. Sometimes, he thinks of innovative ways to neutralize terrorist groups. It’s because of Herr Heller that you’re here now. It was his idea to ask you to penetrate Rashid’s network.”
“Does he think I should attend the meeting in Dubai next week?”
“It is an opportunity he finds hard to resist. But he has concerns about the authenticity of the invitation. And he would never allow you to go into a situation where he could not guarantee your safety.”
“I’ve stayed at the Burj Al Arab many times. It never struck me as a particularly dangerous place. Unless it’s filled with Brits,” she added with a glance at Graham Seymour. “Your countrymen tend to let their hair down a bit too much when they’re in Dubai.”
“So I’ve heard.”
She looked at Gabriel again and said, “I read in the newspapers that the terrorists suffered a major setback last week. The American president sounded very pleased.”
“He had a right to.”
“I assume my money had something to do with it.”
“Your money had everything to do with it.”
“So you’ve dealt Rashid’s network a serious blow.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“But not a permanent blow?”
“Nothing about this business is permanent, Nadia.”
“Do you have enough information to locate Rashid?”
“Not at the moment.”
“What about the man whose name you won’t tell me?”
Gabriel shook his head. “We don’t know what name he’s using, what kind of passport he’s carrying, or even what he looks like.”
“But you do know that he would like to see me next Thursday evening in Dubai.” Nadia drew a cigarette from her handbag and ignited it. “It seems to me the choice is obvious, Mr. Allon. Having destroyed the network, you must now cut off the head. Otherwise, you’ll all be back here in a year or two, trying to figure out how to break a new network.”
Gabriel stared directly at Shamron without speaking. Finally, with an almost imperceptible nod of his head, Shamron nudged him forward.
“We lie for a living,” Gabriel said, looking at Nadia again, “but we consider ourselves men of our word. To that end, we made a promise to you, and we would like to keep it.”
“What promise was that?”
“We asked you to help us by funneling money into a terrorist network. But we never said anything about asking you to identify a murderer face-to-face.”
“The si
tuation has changed.”
“But our commitment to you hasn’t.”
She blew a slender stream of smoke toward the ceiling and smiled. “Your concern for my safety is admirable, but it is entirely unwarranted. As you know, I am one of the most heavily protected private citizens in the world. While I’m on the ground in Dubai, I will be surrounded at all times by a very large team of security guards. They will search any room I enter and pat down anyone who comes into my presence. I’m the perfect person for an assignment like this because no harm can come to me.”
Gabriel shot another glance in Shamron’s direction. Once again, Shamron responded with a nod.
“It’s not just your physical safety that concerns us,” Gabriel said. “We also have to take into account your emotional and psychological well-being. There are some assets who think nothing of giving up someone from their own community for money or spite or respect or a dozen other reasons I could name. And there are others who find it a deeply traumatic experience that affects them profoundly for years afterward.”
“I don’t consider jihadist terrorists to be members of my community or my faith, just as they surely don’t consider me to be members of theirs. Besides, haven’t you already used my money to identify and arrest more than sixty suspected terrorists?” She paused, then added, “Forgive me, Mr. Allon, but it seems to me that you are making a distinction without a difference.”
Gabriel leaned forward, closing the gap between himself and his agent. He wanted no misunderstandings, no ambiguity, and absolutely nothing lost in translation.
“Do you understand what will happen to this man if he turns out to be the one we’re looking for?”
“I shouldn’t think you would need to ask a question like that.”
“Can you live with a memory like that?”
“I already do.” She managed a smile. “Besides, as you know, Mr. Allon, nothing lasts forever.”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair and spent a moment contemplating his hands. This time he didn’t bother looking to Shamron for guidance. The decision was his and his alone.
“We need time to prepare you.”
Nadia drew a leather portfolio from her handbag and looked at her schedule. “I’m in Moscow tomorrow, Prague the next day, and Stockholm the day after that.”
“How’s your weekend look?”
“I was planning to go to Casablanca for a bit of sun.”
“We might need you to cancel that trip.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said stubbornly. “But I do happen to be free for the rest of the afternoon.”
Gabriel accepted a file folder from Uzi Navot. Inside was the last known photograph of Malik al-Zubair, along with several computer-generated photo illustrations. Gabriel laid them out in a row on the table.
“This is the man who may or may not be coming to see you next Thursday night at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai,” he said, pointing to the old photograph. His hand moved to the photo illustrations. “Here he is with twenty extra pounds. Here he is with a beard. Here he is without a beard. With a mustache. With a prayer scar. Without a prayer scar. With eyeglasses. With short hair. Long hair. Gray hair. No hair at all . . .”
Chapter 53
The City, London
THE FINANCIAL JOURNAL OF LONDON had lost much of its luster since being acquired by the Russian oligarch Viktor Orlov, yet it caused a commotion in the City the next morning when it reported that the mercenary house of Rogers & Cressey was assembling the pieces of a major project in Dubai. The story gained additional momentum when Zoe Reed of CNBC reported that the venture was being bankrolled in part by AAB Holdings, the Saudi investment firm controlled by the reclusive heiress Nadia al-Bakari. Reached for comment in Paris, AAB’s underworked spokeswoman Yvette Dubois issued a textbook non-denial denial, but in London that evening, the lights burned late in R&C’s Cannon Street offices. Veteran observers of the firm weren’t surprised. R&C, they said, always did its best work in the dark.
Had they been privy to R&C’s soundproof conference rooms and secure phone lines, they would have heard a language quite unlike any spoken elsewhere in the business world. Its etymology could be traced to a massacre at the Munich Olympic Games in September 1972 and to a secret operation of vengeance that followed. The world had changed much since then, but the principles enshrined in the series of assassinations remained inviolable. Aleph, Bet, Ayin, Qoph: four letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Four operational rules that were as timeless and durable as the man who had written them.
Within certain sections of R&C’s offices, he was known as Herr Heller. But once he entered the rooms reserved for Gabriel and his team, he was referred to as Ari, or the Old Man, or the Memuneh, the Hebrew word meaning “the one in charge.” Owing to a scrap of paper bearing Uzi Navot’s signature, Shamron was in fact the nominal commander of the operation, but for practical reasons, he ceded responsibility for the planning and execution to Gabriel and his able deputy, Eli Lavon. It was not a difficult concession for Shamron to make. Gabriel and Lavon shared Shamron’s methodology along with his basic instincts and deepest fears. To hear them speak was to hear the voice of the Memuneh. And to watch them meticulously plan the demise of a monster like Malik was to see Shamron in the prime of his life.
For many reasons, the operation would be among the most difficult Gabriel and his team had ever carried out. The hostile nature of the environment was only one obstacle. They did not know for certain the target would be there, or, if he did appear, whether they would be presented with an opportunity to kill him that did not risk exposure. Like Adrian Carter, Gabriel did not approve of games of chance. Therefore, on the first day of the planning, he drew a line in the sand that was not to be crossed. They were to leave the suicide missions to their enemies. If their prey could not be taken down without risk to the hunting party, they were to tag him and wait for another opportunity. And under no circumstances would they take a shot at anyone unless they were certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the man they were aiming at was Malik al-Zubair.
They worked around the clock to eliminate as many other variables as possible. Housekeeping, the Office division responsible for safe accommodations, secured three apartments in Dubai, while Transport prepositioned a half-dozen cars and motorcycles at various points around the city-state. King Saul Boulevard also managed to create a reasonable bolt-hole. Its name was the Neptune, a Liberian-registered cargo vessel that in reality was a floating radar and eavesdropping station operated by AMAN, Israel’s military intelligence service. On board was a team of Sayeret Matkal commandos capable of rapid seaborne deployment. Securing the vessel for the operation had cost Navot dearly, and he made it clear that it was to be used only as a last resort. Nor were the Americans or the British ever to know of its existence, since the Neptune spent much of its time soaking up Anglo-American signals traffic flying through the airwaves of the Persian Gulf.
But the team’s primary source of anxiety during those days of hasty preparation revolved around the safety of their asset, Nadia al-Bakari. Once again, Gabriel laid down unmovable markers. The time Nadia spent on the ground in Dubai would be brief and highly choreographed. She would be surrounded at all times by two rings of security—one ring consisting of her own bodyguards and a second provided by the Office. After the meeting at the Burj Al Arab, she would return immediately to the airport and board her plane. At that point, the clandestine Office security ring would melt away, and Nadia would once again be entrusted to the sole care of her own detail.
Their preparation time with her was limited, as they had known it would be. After agreeing to cancel her trip to Morocco, she returned to London on Saturday to attend an intimate dinner party at the Fowlers’ Mayfair town house at which no food was actually consumed. On Sunday, she was in Milan for an important fashion show, but she managed to find her way back to Cannon Street on Monday for a final briefing. At the conclusion, they gave her a Prada handbag, a Chanel suit, and a Harry Winston wristwatch. The han
dbag contained a well-hidden transmitter capable of broadcasting securely to a range of five kilometers. A backup transmitter was sewn into the lining of the Chanel suit, along with two miniature GPS tracking beacons. A third tracking beacon was hidden inside the Harry Winston watch. It was the same watch that Nadia’s father had given to Sarah five years earlier as an inducement to come to work for him. A jeweler employed by Identity had buffed out the original inscription and replaced it with To the future, Thomas. Nadia’s eyes glistened as she read it. Leaving, she embraced Gabriel in a way that made Shamron visibly uncomfortable.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me about our girl?” he asked Gabriel as they stood in the window watching Nadia climb into her car.
“She’s one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. And if any harm comes to her, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Now tell me something I don’t know,” Shamron said.
“She knows who killed her father. And she forgives him.”
The team assumed that their enemies were watching and their friends were listening, and so they conducted themselves accordingly. For the most part, they remained barricaded inside the Cannon Street offices of Rogers & Cressey, with all outside errands handled by British personnel who had no direct connection to the operation. Shamron spent most of his time in an Office flat on Bayswater Road that was known to MI5. Gabriel dropped by once a day to walk with him on the footpaths of Kensington Gardens. On their last day in London, the British followed them. So did the Americans.
“I’ve always preferred to do my killing alone,” Shamron said, looking glumly at the watchers trailing them along the edge of the Long Water. “I’m surprised your friend the president didn’t insist on going to the U.N. for a resolution.”