Portrait of a Spy ga-11 Read online

  “But we don’t. And as we both know, this is an Israeli operation.”

  “Just watch your step up there. We don’t want you ending up on the evening news.”

  “Any other helpful advice?”

  “The chatter we’ve been picking up might be harmless or deceptive,” Carter said, rising to his feet. “But then again . . . it might not be.”

  He turned away without another word and headed back to his Escalade, trailed by the security man. Gabriel remained on the bench, watching the childless swing moving in the wind. After a few minutes, he left the park and walked south down the gentle slope of Thirty-fourth Street. A pair of motorcycles ridden by slender men in black helmets roared past and disappeared into the darkness. Just then, an image flashed in Gabriel’s memory—a distraught raven-haired woman, kneeling over the body of her father on the Quai Saint-Pierre in Cannes. The sound of the motorcycles dissipated, along with the memory of the woman. Gabriel thrust his hands into his coat pockets and walked on, thinking of nothing at all, as the trees wept leaves of gold.

  Chapter 20

  The Palisades, Washington, D.C.

  AT THAT SAME MOMENT, a car pulled to the curb in front of a clapboard house located in the Washington neighborhood known as the Palisades. The car, a Ford Focus, was owned by Ellis Coyle of the CIA, as was the clapboard house. A tiny structure, more cottage than home, it had pushed Coyle’s finances to the breaking point. After many years overseas, he had wanted to settle down in one of the affordable suburbs of northern Virginia, but Norah had insisted on living in the District in order to be closer to her practice. Coyle’s wife was a child psychologist, an odd career choice, he always thought, for a woman whose barren womb had yielded no young. Her idyllic commute, a pleasant four-block stroll along MacArthur Boulevard, stood in stark contrast with Coyle’s twice-daily crossing of the Potomac River. For a while, he had tried listening to New Age music to calm his nerves but found it made him only angrier. These days, it was books on tape. He had recently completed Martin Gilbert’s masterpiece on Winston Churchill. In fact, due to repair work on Chain Bridge, it had taken him scarcely a week. Coyle had always admired Churchill’s decisiveness. Lately, Coyle had been decisive, too.

  He switched off the engine. He was forced to park on the street because the home for which he had paid close to a million dollars had no garage. He had hoped the cottage would serve as a beachhead in the District, a starter home that he could use to trade up for a larger property in Kent or Spring Valley or perhaps even Wesley Heights. Instead, he had watched in frustration as prices spiraled far beyond the reach of his government salary. Only the wealthiest of Washington’s residents—the bloodsucking lawyers, the corrupt lobbyists, the celebrity journalists who ran down the Agency at every turn—could afford mortgages in those neighborhoods now. Even in the Palisades, the quaint wooden cottages were being torn down and replaced by mansions. Coyle’s neighbor, a successful lawyer named Roger Blankman, had recently built himself an Arts and Crafts monstrosity that cast a long shadow into Coyle’s formerly sunlit breakfast nook. Blankman’s ill-mannered children routinely strayed onto Coyle’s property, as did his army of landscapers, who were constantly making small improvements to the shape of Coyle’s junipers and hedges. Coyle returned the favor by poisoning Blankman’s impatiens. Coyle believed in the efficacy of covert action.

  Now he sat motionless behind the wheel, staring at the light burning in his kitchen window. He could imagine the scene that would be played out next, for it changed little from night to night. Norah would be sitting at the kitchen table with her first glass of Merlot, leafing through the mail and listening to some dreadful program on public radio. She would give him a distracted kiss and remind him that Lucy, their black Labrador retriever, needed to be taken out for her nightly constitutional. The dog, like the house in the Palisades, had been Norah’s idea, yet it had somehow become Coyle’s task to oversee its bowel movements. Lucy usually found inspiration in Battery Kemble Park, a hillside of thick woods that was best avoided by unaccompanied women. Sometimes, when Coyle was feeling particularly rebellious, he would leave Lucy’s feces in the park rather than carry it home. Coyle committed other acts of rebellion as well—acts that he kept secret from Norah and his colleagues at Langley.

  One of his secrets was Renate. They had met a year earlier in the bar of a Brussels hotel. Coyle had come from Langley to attend a gathering of Western counterterrorism officials; Renate, a photographer, had come from Hamburg to take pictures of a human rights campaigner for her magazine. The two nights they spent together were the most passionate of Ellis Coyle’s life. They saw each other again three months later, when Coyle invented an excuse to travel to Berlin at taxpayer expense, and again a month after that, when Renate came to Washington to shoot a gathering at the World Bank. Their lovemaking reached new levels, as did their affection for one another. Renate, who was single, pleaded with him to leave his wife. Coyle, his face streaming with tears, said he wanted nothing more. He required just one thing. It would take a bit of time, he told her, but it would not be difficult. Coyle had access to secrets—secrets that he could spin into gold. His days at Langley were numbered. So, too, were the nights he would return to Norah and their little cottage in the Palisades.

  He stepped out of the car and headed inside. Norah was wearing a dowdy pleated skirt, heavy stockings, and a pair of half-moon glasses that Coyle found singularly unbecoming. He accepted her lifeless kiss and replied, “Yes, of course, dear,” when she reminded him that Lucy needed to be walked. “And don’t be long, Ellis,” she said, frowning at the electric bill. “You know how lonely I get when you’re away.”

  Coyle used the techniques taught to him by the Agency to smother his guilt. Stepping outside, he was treated to the sight of Blankman guiding his enormous Mercedes into the second bay of his three-car garage. Lucy growled low in her throat before pulling Coyle in the direction of MacArthur Boulevard. On the opposite side of the wide street was the entrance to the park. A brown wooden sign warned that bicycles were forbidden and that dogs had to remain leashed at all times. At the base of the sign, partially obscured by a clump of weeds, was a chalk mark. Coyle removed Lucy’s leash and watched her bound freely into the park. Then he rubbed out the mark with the toe of his shoe and followed.

  PART TWO

  THE INVESTMENT

  Chapter 21

  New York City

  A REMARKABLY ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF THE worrisome new terrorist chatter appeared the next morning in the New York Times. Gabriel read the story with more than passing interest on the Amtrak Acela from Washington to New York. His seatmate, a Washington political consultant, spent the entire journey shouting into her mobile phone. Every twenty minutes, a policeman in paramilitary garb strode through the carriage with a bomb-sniffing dog. It seemed the Department of Homeland Security had finally come to realize the trains of Amtrak were rolling terrorist catastrophes waiting to happen.

  A prickly rain greeted Gabriel as he emerged from Penn Station. Nevertheless, he spent the next hour hiking the streets of Midtown Manhattan. At the corner of Lexington Avenue and East Sixty-third Street, he saw Chiara peering into the window of a shoe store, a mobile phone pressed to her right ear. Had she been holding it to her left, it would have meant Gabriel was under surveillance. The right meant he was clean and that it was safe to proceed to the target.

  He walked across town to Fifth Avenue. Dina was perched on the stone wall bordering Central Park, a black-and-white kaffiyeh around her neck. A few paces farther south, Eli Lavon was buying a soft drink from a street vendor. Gabriel brushed past him without a word and headed toward the used-book stalls at the corner of East Sixtieth Street. An attractive woman stood alone at one of the trestle tables, as though killing a few minutes before an appointment. She kept her gaze downward for several seconds after Gabriel’s arrival, then looked at him for a long moment without speaking. She had dark hair, olive-complected skin, and wide brown eyes. A thin smile animated her fac
e. Not for the first time, Gabriel had the uncomfortable feeling he was being studied by a figure from a painting.

  “Was it really necessary for me to take the bloody subway?” Zoe Reed asked resentfully in her posh London accent.

  “We had to make certain you weren’t being followed.”

  “I assume by your presence I’m not.”

  “You’re clean.”

  “What a relief,” she said archly. “In that case, you can take me to the Pierre for a drink. I’ve been on the air since six this morning.”

  “I’m afraid your face is far too well known for that. You’ve become quite the star since coming to America.”

  “I was always a star,” she replied playfully. “It just doesn’t count unless you’re on television.”

  “I hear you’re getting your own show.”

  “Prime time, actually. It’s supposed to be witty news chat with an emphasis on global affairs and business. Perhaps you’d like to appear on the debut program.” She lowered her voice and added conspiratorially, “We can finally tell the world how we brought down the Iranian nuclear program together. It has all the elements of a blockbuster. Boy meets girl. Boy seduces girl. Girl steals boy’s secrets and gives them to the Israeli secret service.”

  “I don’t think anyone would find it credible.”

  “But that’s the beauty of American cable news, darling. It doesn’t have to be credible. It just has to be entertaining.” She brushed a drop of rain from her cheek, then asked, “To what do I owe this honor? Not another security review, I hope.”

  “I don’t do security reviews.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.” She picked up a novel from the table and turned the cover toward Gabriel. “Ever read him? His character is a bit like you—moody, egotistical, but with a sensitive streak women find irresistible.”

  “That one’s more to my taste,” he said, pointing toward a battered Rembrandt monograph.

  Zoe laughed. “Please let me buy it for you.”

  “It won’t fit in my carry-on. Besides, I already own a copy.”

  “Of course you do.” She returned the novel to its place and with feigned casualness glanced up Fifth Avenue. “I see you brought along two of your little helpers. I believe you referred to them as Max and Sally when we were at the safe house in Highgate. Not the most realistic cover names, if you ask me. Better suited to a pair of Welsh corgis than two professional spies.”

  “There is no safe house in Highgate, Zoe.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember. It was all just a bad dream.” She managed a fleeting smile. “Actually it wasn’t all bad, was it, Gabriel? In fact, it went quite smoothly until the end. But that’s the way it is with affairs of the heart. They always end disastrously and someone always gets hurt. Usually, it’s the girl.”

  She picked up the Rembrandt monograph and leafed through the pages until she came to a painting called Portrait of a Young Woman. “What do you suppose she’s thinking?” she asked.

  “She’s curious,” replied Gabriel.

  “About what?”

  “About why a man from her recent past has reappeared without warning.”

  “Why has he?”

  “He needs a favor.”

  “The last time he said that, it almost got her killed.”

  “It’s not that kind of favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “An idea for her new prime-time cable news program.”

  Zoe closed the book and returned it to the table. “She’s listening. But don’t try to mislead her. Remember, Gabriel, she’s the one person in the world who knows when you’re lying.”

  The rain ended as they entered the park. They drifted slowly past the Delacorte clock, then made their way to the foot of Literary Walk. For the most part, Zoe listened in studied silence, interrupting only to challenge Gabriel or to clarify a point. Her questions were posed with the intelligence and insightfulness that had made her one of the world’s most respected and feared investigative reporters. Zoe Reed had made just one mistake during her celebrated career—she had fallen in love with a glamorous Swiss businessman who, unbeknownst to her, was selling restricted nuclear materials to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Zoe had atoned for her sins by agreeing to join forces with Gabriel and his allies in British and American intelligence. The result of the operation was an Iranian nuclear program in ruins.

  “So you inject cash into the network,” she said, “and with a bit of luck, it moves through the bloodstream until it arrives at the head.”

  “I couldn’t have put it any better myself.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “You cut off the head.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I suppose that depends entirely on the circumstances.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Gabriel.”

  “It could mean the arrest of important members of the network, Zoe. Or it could mean something more definitive.”

  “Definitive? What an elegant euphemism.”

  Gabriel paused before the statue of Shakespeare but said nothing.

  “I won’t be a party to a killing, Gabriel.”

  “Would you rather be a party to another massacre like the one in Covent Garden?”

  “That’s beneath even you, my love.”

  With a dip of his head, Gabriel conceded the point. Then he took Zoe by the elbow and led her down the walkway.

  “You’re forgetting one important thing,” she said. “I agreed to work with you and your friends on the Iran case, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forsaken my values. At my core, I remain a rather orthodox left-wing journalist. As such, I believe it is essential that we combat global terrorism in ways that don’t compromise our basic principles.”

  “That sort of pithy comment sounds wonderful from the safety of a television studio, but I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way in the real world.” Gabriel paused, then added, “You do remember the real world, don’t you, Zoe?”

  “You still haven’t explained what any of this has to do with me.”

  “We would like you to make an introduction. All you have to do is start the conversation. Then you recede quietly into the background, never to be seen again.”

  “Hopefully with my head still attached.” She was joking, but only a little. “Is it anyone I know?”

  Gabriel waited for a pair of lovers to pass before speaking the name. Zoe stopped walking and raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you serious?”

  “You know better than to ask a question like that, Zoe.”

  “She’s one of the richest women in the world.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “She also happens to be notoriously press shy.”

  “She has good reason to be.”

  Zoe started walking again. “I remember the night her father was killed in Cannes,” she said. “According to the press accounts, she was at his side when he was gunned down. The witnesses say she held him as he was dying. Apparently, it was bloody awful.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and saw Eli Lavon walking a few paces behind, a Moleskine notebook under his right arm, looking like a poet in search of inspiration. “Did you ever look into it?”

  “Cannes?” Zoe narrowed her eyes. “I scratched around the edges.”

  “And?”

  “I was never able to come up with anything firm enough to take to print. The running theory in London financial circles was that he was killed as a result of some kind of internal Saudi feud. Apparently, there was a prince involved, a low-level member of the royal family who’d had several run-ins with European police and hotel staff.” She looked at Gabriel. “I suppose you’re going to tell me there was more to the story.”

  “There are things I can tell you, Zoe, and things I cannot. It’s for your own protection.”

  “Just like last time?”

  Gabriel nodded. “Just like last time.”

  A few paces ahead, Chiara sat alone on a bench. Zo
e managed not to look at her as they passed. They walked a little farther, to the Wisteria Pergola, and huddled beneath the latticework. As the rain started up again, Gabriel explained exactly what he needed Zoe to do.

  “What happens if she gets angry and decides to tell my bosses I’m working on behalf of Israeli intelligence?”

  “She has far too much to lose to pull a stunt like that. Besides, who would ever believe such a wild accusation? Zoe Reed is one of the world’s most respected journalists.”

  “There’s a certain Swiss businessman who might not agree with that statement.”

  “He’s the least of our worries.”

  Zoe lapsed into a thoughtful silence, which was interrupted by the pinging of her BlackBerry. She fished it from her handbag, then stared at the screen in silence, her face distraught. A few seconds later, Gabriel’s own BlackBerry vibrated in his coat pocket. He managed to keep a blank expression on his face as he read it.

  “Looks like it wasn’t harmless chatter after all,” he said. “Do you still think we should fight these monsters in ways that don’t compromise your core values? Or would you like to return briefly to the real world and help us save innocent lives?”

  “There’s no guarantee she’ll even take my call.”

  “She will,” Gabriel said. “Everyone does.”

  He asked for Zoe’s BlackBerry. Two minutes later, after downloading a file from a Web site claiming to offer discount travel to the Holy Land, he returned it.

  “Conduct all your negotiations using this device. If there’s something you need to say to us directly, just say it near the phone. We’ll be listening all the time.”

  “Just like last time?”

  Gabriel nodded. “Just like last time.”

  Zoe slipped the BlackBerry into her handbag and rose. Gabriel watched as she walked away, followed by Lavon and Chiara. He sat alone for several minutes, reading the first news bulletins. It appeared as though Rashid and Malik had just taken another step closer to America.