The Secret Servant Read online

  “What’s he saying?”

  “No word yet from the kidnappers,” said Aburish. “And no clues about the woman’s whereabouts.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “The British are very good, but judging from the expression on that man’s face, he’s not holding any cards up his sleeve.” Aburish regarded Ramadan through his smudged eyeglasses. “You’re the resident expert on matters like these, Yusuf. Who do you think has kidnapped this woman? And what on earth do they want?”

  “I suppose we’ll know soon enough,” Ramadan said.

  “How goes the writing?”

  “It goes, Mahmoud, just not as quickly as I had hoped. In fact, I’m having drinks with my French publisher in a few minutes to tell him I won’t be able to deliver the manuscript on time. He’s not going to be pleased. Neither are my British and American publishers.”

  “Is there anything the institute can do?”

  “You’ve done more than you’ll ever know, Mahmoud.”

  Aburish gazed toward the television as Dame Eleanor McKenzie, the director general of MI5, stepped before the television cameras. Yusuf Ramadan, the man known to the Egyptian security services only as the Sphinx, slipped silently from the lounge and headed downstairs.

  Though Yusuf Ramadan had been far from forthright during his brief encounter with Mahmoud Aburish, he had been truthful about one thing. He was indeed having drinks with his French publisher that evening—at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysées, to be precise—but not until five o’clock. He had one appointment before then, however, on the Quai de Montebello directly across the Seine from Notre-Dame. The man waiting for him there was tall and heavily built, dressed in a dark cashmere overcoat with a silk scarf knotted rakishly at his throat. His real name was Nidal Mutawalli, though Ramadan referred to him only as Abu Musa. Like Ramadan, he was from the Fayoum Oasis. They had grown up together, attended school together, and then gone their separate ways—Ramadan into the world of books and writing, Abu Musa into the world of finance and money. The jihad and their shared hatred of the Egyptian regime and its American backers had reunited them. It was Abu Musa, Yusuf Ramadan’s childhood friend, who allowed him to keep his identity a secret from the Egyptian security services. They were, quite literally, two of the most dangerous men on earth.

  A light drizzle was drifting through the lamplight along the Seine embankments and beading like teardrops on the plastic sheets covering the stalls of the bouquinistes. Ramadan wandered over to a trestle table stacked with books and thumbed a worn volume of Chekhov. Abu Musa joined him a moment later and picked up a copy of L’Etranger by Camus.

  “Have you read him?” Abu Musa asked.

  “Of course,” said Ramadan. “I’m sure you’ll find it to your liking.”

  Ramadan moved on to the next table of books. Abu Musa joined him again a moment later, and again they exchanged a few harmless-sounding words. On it went like this for the next ten minutes as they moved slowly together down the row of booksellers, Ramadan leading, Abu Musa trailing after him. I’ve always enjoyed the poetry of Dryden…. I saw this play the last time I was in London…. The DVD has been shot and is ready to be handed over…. We’re ready to make the phone call on your orders….

  Ramadan picked up a copy of Hemingway and held it up for Abu Musa to see. “This has always been one of my favorites,” he said. “Allow me to give it to you as a gift.”

  He handed the bookseller a five-euro note, then, after jotting a brief inscription on the title page of the volume, presented it formally to Abu Musa with his hand over his heart. They parted a moment later as Emmanuel, the thirteen-ton bell in Notre-Dame’s south tower, tolled five o’clock. Abu Musa disappeared into the streets of the Latin Quarter; Yusuf Ramadan crossed to the other side of the river and walked in the Tuileries gardens, thinking about the question Mahmoud Aburish had posed to him earlier that afternoon. Who do you think has kidnapped this woman? And what on earth do they want? Because of the meeting that had just transpired in plain sight along the banks of the Seine, the Americans soon would be told the answers to those questions. Whether they chose to inform the rest of the world was none of Professor Ramadan’s concern—at least not yet.

  He walked for several minutes more in the gardens, checking his tail for signs of surveillance and thinking about his pending meeting with his French publisher on the Champs-Elysées. He supposed he had to come up with some suitable explanation as to why his book was now hopelessly behind schedule. He would think of something. The Sphinx was an extremely good liar.

  17

  U.S. EMBASSY, LONDON: 5:19 P.M., FRIDAY

  There was one telephone in the makeshift operations center that was never used for outgoing calls. It was attached to a sophisticated digital recording device and linked to the call-tracing network of the Metropolitan Police. The receiver itself was red, and the ringer volume was set to foghorn level. Only one person was allowed to touch it: Supervisory Special Agent John O’Donnell, head of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group and the Bureau’s chief hostage negotiator.

  The telephone had rung forty-seven times since the disappearance of Elizabeth Halton. Thus far none of the calls had been deemed credible by O’Donnell or his counterparts at the Met, though the demands of some of the callers had managed to provide a few brief interludes of comedy in what were otherwise very dark days. One caller said he would release Elizabeth Halton in exchange for the sum of one hundred thousand British pounds. O’Donnell agreed to the deal, and the man was arrested later that evening in the parking lot of a pub in West Sussex. One demanded a date with a famous American actress of questionable talent. One said he would free his American captive in exchange for tickets to that weekend’s Arsenal–Chelsea football match. One called because he was depressed and needed someone to talk to. O’Donnell chatted with him for five minutes to make sure Scotland Yard had a good trace and bade the man good evening as officers moved in for the arrest.

  The call that arrived at the embassy’s main switchboard shortly after six that evening was different from the start. The voice was male and electronically disguised, the first caller to employ such a device. “I have information about Elizabeth Halton,” he calmly told the switchboard operator. “Transfer me to the appropriate individual. If more than five seconds elapse, I will hang up and she will die. Do you understand me?”

  The operator made it clear that she did indeed understand and politely asked the caller to stand by. Two seconds later, O’Donnell’s phone sounded in the ops center. He snatched the red receiver from the cradle and brought it quickly to his ear. “This is John O’Donnell of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said crisply. “How can I help you?”

  “The beach at Beacon Point,” the electronically altered voice said. “Look beneath the overturned rowboat. This will be our first and only contact.”

  The line went dead.

  O’Donnell hung up the phone and listened to the call again on his recorder, then picked up the receiver of a separate dedicated line that rang automatically at Scotland Yard.

  “That sounded legit to me,” O’Donnell said.

  “I concur,” said the Met officer at the other end of the line.

  “Did you get a trace?”

  “It was placed with a mobile phone. Something tells me we’re not going to catch this one. He sounded like a real pro.”

  “Where’s Beacon Point?”

  “The south coast, about ten miles east of Plymouth.”

  “How far from central London?”

  “About a hundred and fifty miles.”

  “I want to be on site for the retrieval—whatever it is.”

  “The Royal Navy has been kind enough to leave a Sea King at the London Heliport for just this kind of scenario.”

  “Where’s the heliport?”

  “South bank of the Thames between the Battersea and Wandsworth bridges.”

  “Tell them to warm up the engines. Can you give me a lift through town?”
/>   “I’ll have a pair of patrol cars outside the embassy in two minutes.”

  “Send them to Upper Brook Street,” O’Donnell said. “There are no reporters back there.”

  “Right.”

  The flight to the south coast was ninety minutes in duration and thoroughly unpleasant because of high winds swirling ahead of a strong Atlantic storm front. As the Sea King swooped down toward Beacon Point, O’Donnell looked out his window and saw arc lamps blazing away on the little sand beach and blue police lights flashing along roads linking the surrounding villages of Kingston, Houghton, and Ringmore. The landing zone was a small patch of moorland behind the beach. O’Donnell was met there by the officer in charge, a stubby deputy chief constable from the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary aptly named Blunt. He briefed the FBI man as they walked down a sandy pathway to the beach.

  “We’ve determined that the beach and surrounding grounds are free of bombs or any other weaponry,” he said. “About twenty minutes ago we used a remote-control robotic device to have a look under the overturned boat.”

  “Anything there?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Nothing that we could see with the camera, but it’s possible something could be buried beneath it. We decided to wait until you arrived before moving the boat.”

  They clambered out of the dunes and stopped about twenty yards from the boat. An eight-foot dinghy with peeling gray and white paint, it was surrounded by a half-dozen policemen in blast-protection suits and visors. With a terse nod, Blunt spurred them into action, and the boat was soon resting on its hull. Taped to the seat in the stern was a DVD in a clear plastic case. Blunt retrieved it and immediately handed it to O’Donnell, who carried it back to the helicopter and inserted it into a laptop computer. As the image flickered to life on the screen, O’Donnell swore beneath his breath and looked at the British police official.

  “I need a favor from you.”

  “Anything,” said Blunt, his tone grave.

  “Tell your men it was just a hoax. Apologize to them for the inconvenience, and thank them on behalf of the American people and Ambassador Halton for their fine work tonight.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. O’Donnell.”

  O’Donnell glanced at the screen. “This DVD does not exist. Now do you understand?”

  Blunt nodded. He understood perfectly.

  18

  ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE: 7:12 A.M., SATURDAY

  The Gulfstream V executive jet touched down at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington and taxied to a secure hangar with floors as smooth as polished marble. Gabriel descended the airstair, Samsonite bag in hand, and headed toward a waiting Suburban with Virginia license plates. The two CIA security men inside did not speak as he tossed the suitcase into the backseat and climbed in after it. Gabriel was used to this sort of behavior by the Americans. They were trained by their counter-intelligence people to believe that Office agents viewed every encounter with Agency personnel, no matter how mundane, as an opportunity for intelligence gathering. He was tempted to pose an inappropriate question or two, just to keep the myth alive. Instead he asked only where they were taking him.

  “Headquarters,” said the man in the passenger seat.

  “I don’t want to go to Headquarters.”

  “You’ll go into the building black. No one will know you’re there.”

  “Why can’t we meet in a safe house, the way we usually do?”

  “Your contact doesn’t have time to leave the building today. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  Gabriel was about to object again but stopped himself. Twice in the past year his photograph had appeared in the world’s newspapers, once for his actions inside the Vatican, and again for his attempt to prevent the kidnapping of Elizabeth Halton. Making his first appearance at Langley didn’t seem to matter much in comparison. Besides, if Shamron and the prime minister had their way, it wouldn’t be his last.

  There was little traffic on the road at that hour on a Saturday, and it took them just thirty minutes to make the drive from Andrews to the woods of Langley. After a brief pause at the heavily fortified gatehouse for a credential check, they headed up the long immaculate drive toward the OHB, the Original Headquarters Building. Because Gabriel was entering the building “black,” they sped past the main entrance and turned into an underground parking garage. One of the security men helped Gabriel with the Samsonite bag; the other led the way into a secure elevator. A card key was inserted, buttons were pushed, and a moment later they were ascending rapidly toward the seventh floor. When the doors opened, two more security men were waiting in the foyer, guns visible beneath their blazers. Gabriel was escorted along a carpeted corridor to a secure door, beyond which lay a suite of spacious offices occupied by the most powerful intelligence officers in the world. The man standing in the anteroom, dressed in gray flannel trousers and a wrinkled oxford cloth shirt, looked as though he had wandered in by mistake.

  “How was the flight?” asked Adrian Carter.

  “You have a very nice plane.”

  He shook Gabriel’s hand warmly and looked at the bag.

  “Planning to stay long, or just a day or two?”

  “Only as long as I’m welcome,” Gabriel said.

  “I hope you brought more than clean shirts and underwear.”

  “I did.”

  Carter gave a fatigued smile and led Gabriel wordlessly into his office.

  Gabriel accepted a cup of black coffee and lowered himself onto Carter’s couch. Carter picked up a remote control from the edge of his tidy desk and fired it at a bank of television monitors. Elizabeth Halton’s image immediately appeared on one of the screens. She was seated on the floor of a featureless room, dressed in the same cold-weather running suit she had been wearing in Hyde Park the morning of her kidnapping. In her hands was a copy of the Times, headlined with her own abduction. Four men were standing behind her: black jumpsuits, black balaclavas, green headbands with crossed swords and crescent moons. The one directly behind Elizabeth had a large knife in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. He was reading a statement in Egyptian-accented Arabic.

  “I take it you don’t require translation,” Carter said.

  Gabriel, listening intently, shook his head. “He says he’s from the Sword of Allah. He says they want you to release Sheikh Abdullah Abdul-Razzaq from prison and return him to Egypt by six P.M. London time next Friday. He says that if you don’t comply with their demands, the ambassador’s daughter will die. There will be no extensions, no negotiations, and no more contact. If there is any attempt at a rescue, Elizabeth Halton will be killed immediately.”

  The image turned to hash. Carter killed it with a flick of his remote and looked at Gabriel.

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I learned about the Sword of Allah connection yesterday. It’s why I’m here.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Sources and methods, Adrian. Sources and methods.”

  “Come now,” Carter said mildly. “A woman’s life is at stake. Now is not the time to be territorial.”

  “Just because we are technically at peace with Egypt doesn’t mean we don’t spy on them. We need to know whether the regime is going to stand or fall. We need to know whether we are about to be facing a hostile Islamic republic armed with advanced American weaponry. And we don’t always get the information we need from our friends here at Langley.”

  “Your spy is SSI, I take it?”

  Gabriel gave a sigh of resignation. “Our spy is in the business of keeping Mubarak and his regime alive.”

  Carter took that as confirmation of his suspicions. “Why is it that we’ve spent upward of fifty billion dollars propping up that regime, but you found out about the Sword connection before we did?”

  “Because we’re better than you, Adrian, especially in the Middle East. We’ve always been better and we always will be. You have your unquestioned military might and the power of your eco
nomy, but we have a nagging fear that we might not survive. Fear is a far more powerful motivation than money.”

  Carter placed the remote thoughtfully on his desk and sat down in his executive swivel chair.

  “When did you get the video?” Gabriel asked.

  Carter told him.

  “Has word gotten out to the British media?”

  “Not yet,” Carter said. “It’s our wish that it doesn’t—at least not right away. We’d like to preserve the luxury of planning our response without the media screaming at us at every turn.”

  “I wouldn’t count on MI5 and Scotland Yard safeguarding your secret for long. Someone will leak it, just the way they leaked my involvement and arrest.”

  “Don’t be too hard on Graham Seymour,” Carter said. “We need him and so do you. We brethren of the secret world don’t burn each other at the stake at times like these. We band together and bind our wounds. We have to. The barbarians are at the gates.”

  “The barbarians broke down the gates a long time ago, Adrian. They’re living among us now and devouring our children.” Gabriel sipped his coffee. “What is the position of the president?”

  “It’s not one I’d wish on my worst enemy,” Carter replied. “As you know, he is a deeply religious man, and he takes his responsibilities as Elizabeth’s godfather very seriously. That said, he knows that if he complies with the demands of the kidnappers, no American diplomat anywhere in the world will ever be safe again. He also knows that if Sheikh Abdullah Abdul-Razzaq is allowed to return to Egypt, the Mubarak government will find itself in a very precarious state. For all its problems, Egypt is still the most important country in the Arab world. If Egypt goes Islamic it will have a disastrous ripple effect across the entire region—disastrous for my country and yours. That means Elizabeth Halton is going to die one week from now, unless we can somehow find her and free her first.”