The Messenger Read online

  His cruelty is limitless, she thought. He speaks of my beheading but doesn’t have the decency to look away.

  “I’m not lying,” she said.

  “You’ll talk, Sarah. Everyone talks. There’s no use trying to resist. Please, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “I’m not doing anything. You’re the one who’s—”

  “I want to know who you’re working for, Sarah.”

  “I work for Zizi.”

  “I want to know who sent you.”

  “Zizi came for me. He sent me jewels and flowers. He sent me airline tickets and bought me clothing.”

  “I want to know the name of the man who contacted you on the beach at Saline.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I want to know the name of the man who spilled wine on my colleague in Saint-Jean.”

  “What man?”

  “I want to know the name of the girl with the limp who walked by Le Tetou during Zizi’s dinner party.”

  “How would I know her name?”

  “I want to know why you were watching me at my party. And why you suddenly decided to pin your hair up. And why you were wearing your hair up when you went jogging with Jean-Michel.”

  She was weeping uncontrollably now. “This is madness!”

  “I want to know the names of the three men who followed me on motorcycles later that day. I want to know the names of the two men who came to my villa to kill me. And the name of the man who watched my plane take off.”

  “I’m telling you the truth! My name is Sarah Bancroft. I worked at an art gallery in London. I sold Zizi a painting, and he asked me to come to work for him.”

  “The van Gogh?”

  “Yes!”

  “Marguerite Gachet at Her Dressing Table?”

  “Yes, you bastard.”

  “And where did you obtain this painting? Was it acquired on your behalf by your intelligence service?”

  “I don’t work for an intelligence service. I work for Zizi.”

  “You’re working for the Americans?”

  “No.”

  “For the Jews?”

  “No!”

  He exhaled heavily, then removed his spectacles and spent a long moment contemplatively polishing them on his cashmere scarf. “You should know that shortly after your departure from Saint Maarten, four men arrived at the airport and boarded a private plane. We recognized them. We assume they are headed here to Zurich. They’re Jews, aren’t they, Sarah?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Trust me, Sarah. They’re Jews. One can always tell.”

  He examined his spectacles and polished some more. “You should also know that colleagues of these Jews clumsily attempted to follow you tonight after you landed at the airport. Our driver easily dispensed with them. You see, we’re professionals, too. They’re gone now, Sarah. And you’re all alone.”

  He put on his spectacles again.

  “Do you think the so-called professionals for whom you’re working would be willing to sacrifice their lives for you? They’d be vomiting their secrets all over the floor to me by now. But you’re better than them, aren’t you, Sarah? Zizi saw that, too. That’s why he made the mistake of hiring you.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake. You’re the one making a mistake.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I’m leaving you now in the hands of my friend Muhammad. He worked for me in Group 205. Is this name familiar to you, Sarah? Group 205? Surely your handlers must have mentioned it to you during your preparation.”

  “I’ve never heard it before.”

  “Muhammad is a professional. He’s also a very skilled interrogator. You and Muhammad are going to take a journey together. A night journey. Do you know this term, Sarah? The Night Journey.”

  Greeted only by the sound of her weeping, he answered his own question.

  “It was during the Night Journey that God revealed Quran to the Prophet. Tonight you’re going to make a revelation of your own. Tonight you’re going to tell my friend Muhammad who you’re working for and everything they know about my network. If you tell him quickly, you will be granted a degree of mercy. If you continue with these lies, Muhammad will carve the flesh from your bones and cut off your head. Do you understand me?”

  Her stomach convulsed with nausea. Bin Shafiq appeared to be taking pleasure from her fear.

  “Do you realize you’ve been looking at my arm? Did they tell you about my scar? My damaged hand?” Another weary smile. “You’ve been betrayed, Sarah—betrayed by your handlers.”

  He opened the door and climbed out, then ducked down and looked at her one more time.

  “By the way, you very nearly succeeded. If your friends had managed to kill me on that island, a major operation of ours would have been disrupted.”

  “I thought you worked for Zizi in Montreal.”

  “Oh, yes. I nearly forgot.” He wound his scarf tightly around his throat. “Muhammad won’t find your little lies so amusing, Sarah. Something tells me you’re going to have a long and painful night together.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she asked: “What operation?”

  “Operation? Me? I’m only an investment banker.”

  She asked him again. “What’s the operation? Where are you going to strike?”

  “Speak my real name, and I tell you.”

  “Your name is Alain al-Nasser.”

  “No, Sarah. Not my cover name. My real name. Say it. Confess your sins, Sarah, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  She began to shake uncontrollably. She tried to form the words but could not summon the courage.

  “Say it!” he shouted at her. “Say my name, you bitch.”

  She lifted her head and looked him directly in the eyes.

  “Your—name—is—Ahmed—bin—Shafiq!”

  His head snapped back, as if he were avoiding a blow. Then he smiled at her in admiration.

  “You’re a very brave woman.”

  “And you’re a murderous coward.”

  “I should kill you myself.”

  “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

  He hesitated a moment, then treated her to an arrogant smile. “Suffice it to say we have some unfinished business at the Vatican. The crimes of Christianity and the Western world against Muslims will soon be avenged once and for all. But you won’t be alive to see this glorious act. You’ll be dead by then. Tell Muhammad what you know, Sarah. Make your last hours on earth easy ones.”

  And with that he turned and walked away. The Unimportant One wrenched her from the back of the car while holding an ether-soaked rag over her nose and mouth. She scratched at him. She flailed. She landed several futile kicks to his cast-iron shins. Then the drug took hold, and she felt herself spiraling toward the ground. Someone caught her. Someone placed her in the trunk of a car. A face appeared briefly and looked down at her, inquisitive and oddly earnest. The face of Muhammad. Then the hatch closed, and she was enveloped in darkness. When the car began to move, she passed out.

  33.

  Zug, Switzerland

  GUSTAV SCHMIDT, chief of counterterrorism for the Swiss federal security service, was an unlikely American ally in the war against

  Islamic extremism. In a country where elected politicians, the press, and most of the population were solidly opposed to the United States and its war on terror, Schmidt had quietly forged personal bonds with his counterparts in Washington, especially Adrian Carter. When Carter needed permission to operate on Swiss soil, Schmidt invariably granted it. When Carter wanted to make an al-Qaeda operative vanish from the Federation, Schmidt usually gave him the green light. And when Carter needed a place to put down a plane, Schmidt regularly granted him landing rights. The private airstrip at Zug, a wealthy industrial city in the heart of the country, was Carter’s favorite in Switzerland. Schmidt’s, too.

  It was shortly after midnight when the Gulfstream V executive jet sunk out of the clouds and touched down on
the snow-dusted runway. Five minutes later, Schmidt was seated across from Carter in the modestly appointed cabin. “We have a situation,” Carter said. “To be perfectly honest with you, we don’t have a complete picture.” He gestured toward his traveling companion. “This is Tom. He’s a doctor. We think we’ll need his services before the night is over. Relax, Gustav. Have a drink. We may be here awhile.”

  Carter then looked out the window at the swirling snow and said nothing more. He didn’t have to. Schmidt now knew the situation. One of Carter’s agents was in trouble, and Carter wasn’t at all sure he was going to get the agent back alive. Schmidt opened the brandy and drank alone. At times like these he was glad he had been born Swiss.

  A SIMILAR VIGIL was under way at that same moment at the general aviation terminal at Kloten Airport. The man doing the waiting was not a senior Swiss policeman but Moshe, the bodel from Paris. At 12:45 A.M., four men emerged from the terminal into the snowstorm. Moshe tapped the horn of his Audi A8, and the four men turned in unison and headed his way. Yaakov, Mikhail, and Eli Lavon climbed in the back. Gabriel sat up front.

  “Where is she?”

  “Heading south.”

  “Drive,” said Gabriel.

  SARAH WOKE to paralyzing cold, her ears ringing with the hiss of tires over wet asphalt. Where am I now? she thought, and then she remembered. She was in the trunk of a Mercedes, an unwilling passenger on Muhammad’s night journey to oblivion. Slowly, bit by bit, she gathered up the fragments of this day without end and placed them in proper sequence. She saw Zizi in his helicopter, glancing at his wristwatch as he sent her to her death. And Jean-Michel, her traveling companion, catching a few minutes of sleep along the way. And finally, she saw the monster, Ahmed bin Shafiq, warning her that his bloodbath at the Vatican was not yet complete. She heard his voice now; the drumbeat cadence of his questions.

  I want to know the name of the man who contacted you on the beach at Saline…

  He is Yaakov, she thought. And he is five times the man you are.

  I want to know the name of the girl with the limp who walked by Le Tetou during Zizi’s dinner party…

  She is Dina, she thought. The avenged remnant.

  I want to know the name of the man who spilled wine on my colleague in Saint-Jean…

  He is Gabriel, she thought. And one day very soon he’s going to kill you.

  They’re gone now, and you’re all alone…

  No, I’m not, she thought. They’re here with me. All of them.

  And in her mind she saw them coming for her through the snowfall. Would they arrive before Muhammad bestowed upon her a painless death? Would they come in time to learn the secret that Ahmed bin Shafiq had so arrogantly spit in her face? Sarah knew she could help them. She had information Muhammad wanted—and it was hers to give at whatever pace, and in whatever detail, she desired. Go slowly, she thought. Take all the time in the world.

  She closed her eyes and once again started to lose consciousness. This time it was sleep. She remembered the last thing Gabriel had said to her the night before her departure from London. Sleep, Sarah, he had said. You have a long journey ahead of you.

  WHEN SHE woke next the car was pitching violently. Gone was the hiss of tires moving over wet asphalt. Now it seemed they were plowing through deep snow over a rough track. This was confirmed for her a moment later when the tires lost traction and one of the occupants was forced to climb out and push. When the car stopped again, Sarah heard voices in Arabic and Swiss German, then the deep groan of frozen metal hinges. They drove on for a moment longer, then stopped a third time—the final time, she assumed, because the car’s engine immediately went silent.

  The trunk flew open. Two unfamiliar faces peered down at her; four hands seized her and lifted her out. They stood her upright and let go of her, but her knees buckled and she collapsed into the snow. This proved to be a source of great amusement to them, and they stood around laughing for several moments before once again lifting her to her feet.

  She looked around. They were in the middle of a large clearing, surrounded by towering fir and pine. There was an A-shaped chalet with a steeply pitched roof and a separate outbuilding of some sort, next to which were parked two four-wheel-drive jeeps. It was snowing heavily. To Sarah, still veiled, it seemed the sky was raining ash.

  Muhammad appeared and grunted something in Arabic to the two men holding her upright. They took a step toward the chalet, expecting Sarah to walk with them, but her legs were rigid with cold and would not function. She tried to tell them she was freezing to death but could not speak. There was one benefit to the cold: she had long forgotten the pain of the blows she had taken in her face and abdomen.

  They took her by the arms and waist and dragged her. Her legs trailed behind, and her feet carved twin trenches in the snow. Soon they were ablaze with the cold. She tried to remember what shoes she had put on that morning. Flat-soled sandals, she remembered suddenly—the ones Nadia had bought for her in Gustavia to go with the outfit she’d worn to Le Tetou.

  They went to the back of the chalet. Here the trees were closer, no more than thirty yards from the structure, and a single frozen sentry was standing watch, smoking a cigarette and stamping his boots against the cold. The outer wall of the house was overhung by the eaves of the roof and stacked with firewood. They dragged her through a doorway, then down a flight of cement stairs. Still unable to walk, Sarah’s frozen feet banged on each step. She began to cry in pain, a shivering tremulous wail to which her tormentors paid no heed.

  They came to another door, which was tightly closed and secured by a padlock. A guard opened the lock, then the door, then threw a light switch. Muhammad entered the room first. The guards brought Sarah next.

  A SMALL square chamber, no more than ten feet on either side. Porcelain-white walls. Photographs. Arab men at Abu Ghraib. Arab men in cages at Guantánamo Bay. A hooded Muslim terrorist holding the severed head of an American hostage. In the center of the room a metal table bolted to the floor. In the center of the table an iron loop. Attached to the loop a pair of handcuffs. Sarah screamed and flailed against them. It was useless, of course. One pinned her arms to the table while the second secured the handcuffs to her wrists. A chair was thrust into the back of her legs. Two hands forced her into it. Muhammad tore the veil from her face and slapped her twice.

  “ARE YOU ready to talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “No more lies?”

  She shook her head.

  “Say it, Sarah. No more lies.”

  “No—more—lies.”

  “You’re going to tell me everything you know?”

  “Every—thing.”

  “You’re cold?”

  “Freezing.”

  “Would you like something warm to drink?”

  She nodded.

  “Tea? You drink tea, Sarah.”

  Another nod.

  “How do you take your tea, Sarah?”

  “You can’t—be serious.”

  “How do you take your tea?”

  “With cyanide.”

  He smiled mirthlessly. “You should be so lucky. We’ll have tea, then we’ll talk.”

  THEY ALL THREE exited the room. Muhammad closed the door and put the padlock back into place. Sarah lowered her head to the table and closed her eyes. In her mind an image formed—the image of a clock counting down the minutes to her execution. Muhammad was bringing her tea. Sarah opened the glass cover of her imaginary clock and moved the hands back five minutes.

  34.

  Canton Uri, Switzerland

  THEY BROUGHT THE TEA Arab-style in a small glass. Sarah’s hands remained cuffed. To drink she had to lower her head toward the table and slurp noisily while Muhammad gazed at her in revulsion. His own tea remained untouched. It stood between his open notebook and a loaded pistol.

  “You can’t make me vanish and expect no one to notice,” she said.

  He looked up and blinked several times rapidly. Sarah, free of th
e abaya, examined him in the harsh light of the interrogation chamber. He was bald to the crown of his angular head, and his remaining hair and beard were cropped to precisely the same length. His dark eyes were partially concealed behind a pair of academic spectacles, which flashed with reflected light each time he looked up from his notepad. His expression was open and strangely earnest for an interrogator, and his face, when he was not screaming or threatening to strike her, was vaguely pleasant. At times he seemed to Sarah like an eager young journalist posing questions to a politician standing at a podium.

  “Everyone in London knows I went to the Caribbean with Zizi,” she said. “I spent almost two weeks on Alexandra. I was seen with him at restaurants on Saint Bart’s. I went to the beach with Nadia. There’s a record of my departure from Saint Maarten and a record of my arrival in Zurich. You can’t just make me disappear in Switzerland. You’ll never get away with it.”

  “But that’s not the way it happened,” Muhammad said. “You see, shortly after your arrival tonight, you checked into your room at the Dolder Grand Hotel. The clerk examined your passport, as is customary here in Switzerland, and forwarded the information to the Swiss police, as is also customary. In a few hours you will awaken and, after taking coffee in your room, you will go to the hotel gym for your morning workout. Then you will shower and dress for your appointment. A car will collect you at 9:45 and take you to Herr Klarsfeld’s residence on the Zurichberg. There you will be seen by several members of Herr Klarsfeld’s household staff. After viewing the Manet painting, you will place a call to Mr. al-Bakari in the Caribbean, at which point you will inform him that you cannot reach accord on a sale price. You will return to the Dolder Grand Hotel and check out of your room, then proceed to Kloten Airport, where you will board a commercial flight back to London. You will spend two days relaxing at your apartment in Chelsea, during which time you will make several telephone calls on your phone and make several charges on your credit cards. And then, unfortunately, you will vanish inexplicably.”