The Black Widow Read online

  “If he makes contact with her.” Shamron slowly crushed out his cigarette. “Two and a half months is a long time.”

  “Two and a half months is nothing, and you know it. Besides, it fits the network’s profile. Safia Bourihane was dormant for many months after her return from Syria. So dormant, in fact, that the French lost interest in her, which is exactly what Saladin wanted to happen.”

  “I’m afraid the prime minister isn’t prepared to wait much longer. And neither am I.”

  “Really? It’s good to know you still have the prime minister’s ear.”

  “What makes you think I ever lost it?” Shamron’s old Zippo lighter flared. He touched the end of another cigarette to the flame.

  “How long?” asked Gabriel.

  “If Saladin’s network hasn’t made contact with Natalie by next Friday, the prime minister will announce your appointment live on television. And next Sunday you will attend your first cabinet meeting as chief of the Office.”

  “When was the prime minister planning to tell me this?”

  “He’s telling you now,” said Shamron.

  “Why now? Why the sudden rush to get me into the job?”

  “Politics,” said Shamron. “The prime minister’s coalition is in danger of fracturing. He needs a boost, and he’s confident you’ll give him one.”

  “I have no interest in coming to the prime minister’s political rescue, now or ever.”

  “May I give you a piece of advice, my son?”

  “If you must.”

  “One day soon you’re going to make a mistake. There will be a scandal or an operational disaster. And you’ll need the prime minister to save you. Don’t alienate him.”

  “I hope to keep the disasters and scandals to a minimum.”

  “Please don’t. Remember, a career without scandal—”

  “Is not a proper career at all.”

  “You were listening after all.”

  “To every word.”

  Shamron lifted his rheumy gaze toward the Golan Heights. “Where do you suppose he is?”

  “Saladin?”

  Shamron nodded.

  “The Americans think he’s somewhere near Mosul.”

  “I wasn’t asking the Americans, I was asking you.”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “I’d avoid using phrases like that when you’re briefing the prime minister.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Is it true she saved his life?” asked Shamron.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And for her reward, Saladin will send her to her death.”

  “We should be so lucky.”

  Just then, Gabriel’s phone flared. The screen lit his face as he read the message. Shamron could see he was smiling.

  “Good news?” he asked.

  “Very.”

  “What is it?”

  “It looks as though I’ve been granted another reprieve.”

  “By the prime minister?”

  “No,” said Gabriel, switching off the phone. “By Saladin.”

  47

  AMMAN, JORDAN

  GABRIEL RETURNED TO NARKISS STREET long enough to throw a few items of clothing into a suitcase. Then he crawled into the backseat of his SUV for a high-speed drive across the West Bank to Amman’s Queen Alia Airport, where one of His Majesty’s Gulfstreams was fueled and ready for takeoff. Fareed Barakat was stretched out on one of the leather seats, his necktie loosened, looking like a busy executive at the end of a long but lucrative day. The plane was taxiing before Gabriel had settled into his own seat, and a moment later it was airborne. It was still climbing as it passed over Jerusalem.

  “Look at the settlements,” said Fareed, pointing toward the orderly yellow streetlamps spilling down the ancient hills into the West Bank. “Every year, more and more. At the rate you’re building, Amman will soon be a suburb of Jerusalem.”

  Gabriel’s gaze was elsewhere, on the old limestone apartment house near the end of Narkiss Street where his wife and children slept peacefully because of people like him.

  “Maybe this was a mistake,” he said quietly.

  “Would you rather fly El Al?”

  “I can get a kosher meal, and I don’t have to listen to a lecture about the evils of Israel.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have any kosher food on board.”

  “Don’t worry, Fareed, I already ate.”

  “Something to drink? How about a film? His Majesty gets all the new American movies from his friends in Hollywood.”

  “I think I’ll just sleep.”

  “Wise decision.”

  Fareed switched off his light as the Gulfstream departed Israeli airspace, and soon he was sleeping soundly. Gabriel had never been able to sleep on airplanes, an affliction that not even the fully reclining seat of the Gulfstream could cure. He ordered coffee from the cabin crew and stared distractedly at the inane film that flickered on his private screen. His phone provided him no company. The plane had Wi-Fi, but Gabriel had powered off and dismantled his phone before crossing the Jordanian border. As a rule, it was better not to allow one’s mobile phone to attach itself to the wireless network of a monarch—or an Israeli network, for that matter.

  An hour from the eastern seaboard of the United States, Fareed woke gently, as though an invisible butler had tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Rising, he repaired to His Majesty’s private quarters, where he shaved and showered and changed into a fresh suit and tie. The cabin crew brought him a lavish English breakfast. He lifted the lid of the teapot and sniffed. The Earl Grey had been brewed to his requested strength.

  “Nothing for you?” asked the Jordanian as he poured.

  “I had a snack while you were sleeping,” lied Gabriel.

  “Feel free to use His Majesty’s facilities.”

  “I’ll just steal a towel as a souvenir.”

  The plane touched down at Dulles Airport in a steel morning rain and taxied to a distant hangar. Three black SUVs waited there, along with a large all-American detail of security men. Gabriel and Fareed climbed into one of the vehicles and were whisked eastward along the Dulles Access Road toward the Capital Beltway. The Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus, ground zero of Washington’s post–9/11 national security sprawl, occupied several acres of land adjacent to the giant highway interchange. Their destination, however, was located a few miles farther to the east along Route 123. It was the George Bush Center for Intelligence, otherwise known as CIA Headquarters.

  After clearing the massive security checkpoint, they proceeded to an underground parking garage and boarded a restricted elevator that bore them to the seventh floor of the Original Headquarters Building. A security detail waited in the wood-paneled foyer to relieve them of their mobile phones. Fareed dutifully surrendered his device, but Gabriel refused. A brief standoff ensued before he was allowed to proceed.

  “Why didn’t I ever think of that?” murmured Fareed as they padded silently down a densely carpeted hall.

  “What do they think I’m going to do? Bug myself?”

  They were led to a conference room with windows overlooking the woods along the Potomac. Adrian Carter waited there alone. He was wearing a blue blazer and a pair of wrinkled chinos, a spymaster’s Saturday-morning attire. He looked decidedly displeased to see his two closest Middle East allies.

  “I don’t suppose this is a social call.”

  “I’m afraid not,” answered Gabriel.

  “What have you got?”

  “An airline ticket, a hotel reservation, and a rental car.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means the jayvee team is about to launch a major terrorist attack on the American homeland.”

  Carter’s face turned ashen. He said nothing.

  “Am I forgiven, Adrian?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you can help me stop it.”<
br />
  “Which flight is she coming in on?”

  “Air France Fifty-four.”

  “When?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “A few hours before the French president arrives,” Carter pointed out.

  “I doubt it’s a coincidence.”

  “Which hotel?”

  “Key Bridge Marriott.”

  “Rental car?”

  “Hertz.”

  “I don’t suppose they gave her a target, too.”

  “Sorry, Adrian, but that’s not Saladin’s style.”

  “It was worth asking. After all, she did save his life.”

  Gabriel frowned but said nothing.

  “I assume,” said Carter, “that you intend to let her get on that plane.”

  “With your approval,” said Gabriel. “And you would be wise to let her into the country.”

  “Put her under watch—is that what you’re suggesting? Wait for the other members of the attack cell to make contact? Roll them up before they can strike?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “What if she’s not the only operational asset? What if there are other teams? Other targets?”

  “You should assume there are other teams and targets, Adrian. A lot of them, in fact. Saladin told Natalie that she was going to be involved in something big—big enough to leave the United States with no choice but to put boots on the ground in Syria.”

  “What if they don’t make contact with her? Or what if she’s part of a second wave of attacks?”

  “Forgive me for not bringing you the entire plot gift wrapped, Adrian, but that’s not the way it works in the real world.”

  Fareed Barakat smiled. It wasn’t often he was given a front-row seat to a spat between the Americans and the Israelis.

  “How much does Jalal Nasser know?” asked Carter.

  “Should I call and ask him? I’m sure he’d love to help us.”

  “Maybe it’s time to pull him in for a little chat.”

  Fareed shook his head gravely. “Bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in all likelihood he doesn’t know the entire picture. Furthermore,” added Fareed, “if we arrest Jalal, it will send a signal to Saladin that his network has been compromised.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly the signal we should send him.”

  “He’ll lash out, Adrian. He’ll hit you any way he can.”

  Carter exhaled slowly. “Who’s handling the surveillance in London?”

  “We’re working jointly with the British.”

  “I need in on that, too.”

  “Three’s a crowd, Adrian.”

  “I don’t give a shit.” Carter frowned at his wristwatch. It was half past eight on a Saturday morning. “Why do these things always seem to break on the weekend?” Greeted by silence, he looked at Gabriel. “In a few minutes, several hundred employees of my government are going to learn that the Office has an agent deep inside ISIS. Are you prepared for that?”

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “Once she gets off that plane, she’s no longer your agent. She’ll be our agent, and it will be our operation. Are we clear?”

  “Perfectly,” said Gabriel. “But whatever you do, make damn sure nothing happens to her.”

  Carter reached for the phone and dialed. “I need to speak to the director. Now.”

  48

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  QASSAM EL-BANNA WOKE TO THE call to prayer. He had been dreaming, about what he could not recall—his dreams, like contentment, eluded him. From an early age, while still a boy in the Nile Delta of Egypt, he believed he was destined for greatness. He had studied hard in school, won admission to a mildly prestigious university in the eastern United States, and after a lengthy struggle had convinced the Americans to let him remain in the country to work. And for all his efforts he had been rewarded with a life of uninterrupted tedium. It was a distinctly American tedium of traffic jams, credit card debt, fast food, and weekend trips to the Tysons Corner mall to push his son past shop windows hung with photographs of unveiled, half-naked women. For a long time he blamed Allah for his plight. Why had he given him visions of greatness, only to make him ordinary? What’s more, Qassam was now forced by the folly of his ambition to reside in the House of War, in the land of the unbelievers. After much reflection he had come to the conclusion that Allah had placed him in America for a reason. Allah had provided Qassam el-Banna with a path to greatness. And with greatness would come immortality.

  Qassam lifted his Samsung from the bedside table and silenced the muezzin’s tinny nasally wail. Amina had slept through it. Amina, he had discovered, could sleep through anything—the cry of a child, thunder, fire alarms, the tap of his fingers on the keyboard of his laptop. Amina, too, was disappointed, not with Allah but with Qassam. She had come to America with reality-TV visions of a life in Bel Air, only to find herself living around the corner from a 7-Eleven off Carlin Springs Road. She berated Qassam daily for failing to earn more money and consoled herself by driving them deeper into debt. Her latest acquisition was a new luxury car. The dealership had approved the sale despite their abysmal credit rating. Only in America, thought Qassam.

  He slipped soundlessly from bed, unfurled a small mat, and prayed for the first time that day. He pressed his forehead only lightly to the floor to avoid giving himself a dark callused prayer mark—it was known as a zabiba, the Arabic word for raisin—like the marks on the religious men from his village. Islam had left no visible marks on Qassam. He did not pray in any of the Northern Virginia mosques and avoided other Muslims as much as possible. He even tried to play down his Arabic name. At his last place of employment, a small IT consulting firm, he had been known as Q or Q-Ban, which he liked because of its vaguely Hispanic and hip-hop sensibilities. He was not one of those Muslims with his face on the ground and his ass in the air, he would say to his colleagues over beers in his faintly accented English. He came to America because he wanted to escape all that. Yes, his wife wore a hijab, but that had more to do with tradition and fashion than faith. And, yes, he had named his son Mohamed, but it had nothing to do with the Prophet. That much, at least, was true. Qassam el-Banna had named his son after Mohamed Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 plot. Atta, like Qassam, was a son of the Nile Delta. It was not the only trait they had in common.

  His prayers complete, Qassam rose and went quietly downstairs to the kitchen, where he popped a capsule of French roast into the Keurig. Then, in the living room, he performed two hundred push-ups and five hundred abdominal crunches. His twice-daily workouts had reshaped his body. He was no longer the skinny kid from the Delta; he had the body of a cage fighter. In addition to his exercises, he had become a master of both karate and Brazilian jujitsu. Qassam el-Banna, Q-Ban, was a killing machine.

  He finished the workout with a few lethal movements of each discipline and then headed back upstairs. Amina was still sleeping, as was Mohamed. Qassam used the third bedroom of the little duplex as his office. It was a hacker’s paradise. Entering, he sat down at one of the three computers and quickly surfed a dozen e-mail accounts and social media pages. A few more keystrokes took him to a doorway of the dark net, the murky Internet world hidden beneath the surface Web that can be accessed only if the user has the proper protocol, ports, passwords, and software applications. Qassam, an IT professional, had everything he needed—and more.

  Qassam passed easily through the door and soon found himself standing before another. The proper password admitted him, a line of text wished him peace and inquired as to his business. He typed his answer into the designated box and after a brief delay was presented with a waiting message.

  “Alhamdulillah,” he said softly.

  His heart beat faster—faster than during his rigorous workout. Twice, he had to reenter the password because in his haste he had typed it incorrectly. At first, the message appeared as gibberish—lines, letters, and numbers, with no apparent purpose—but th
e proper password instantly turned the gibberish into clear text. Qassam read it slowly, for the message could not be printed, saved, copied, or retrieved. The words themselves were coded, too, though he knew precisely what they meant. Allah had finally put him on the path to greatness. And with greatness, he thought, would come immortality.

  Gabriel declined Carter’s invitation to accompany him to the White House. His only previous meeting with the president had been a tense affair, and his presence in the West Wing now would only be an unhelpful distraction. It was far better to let Adrian tell the administration that the American homeland was about to be attacked by a group that the president had once written off as weak and ineffectual. To hear such news from the mouth of an Israeli would only invite skepticism, something they could not afford.

  Gabriel did, however, accept Carter’s offer of the N Street safe house and an Agency SUV and security detail. After leaving Langley, he headed to the Israeli Embassy in far Northwest Washington. There, in the Office’s secure communications crypt, he checked in with his teams in Paris and London before ringing Paul Rousseau at his office on the rue de Grenelle. Rousseau had just returned from the Élysée Palace, where he had delivered the same message that Adrian Carter was conveying to the White House. ISIS was planning an attack on American soil, in all likelihood while the French president was in town.

  “What else has he got on his schedule other than the White House meeting with the president and the state dinner?”

  “A cocktail reception at the French Embassy.”

  “Cancel it.”

  “He refuses to make any changes in his schedule.”

  “How courageous of him.”

  “He seems to think so.”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  “I arrive Monday night with the advance team. We’re staying at the Four Seasons.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Done.”

  From the embassy Gabriel headed to the safe house for a few hours of badly needed sleep. Carter woke him in late afternoon.