The Black Widow Read online

  It was no accident the Impala was bright red; the FBI had quietly intervened in the booking. In addition, the Bureau’s technicians had fitted the car with a beacon and bugged its interior. As a result, the analysts on duty on the Operations Floor at the National Counterterrorism Center heard Natalie singing softly to herself in French as she drove along the Dulles Access Road toward Washington. On one of the giant video screens, the traffic cameras tracked her every move. On another blinked the blue light of the beacon. Her mobile phone was emitting a signal of its own. Her French phone number appeared in a shaded rectangular box, next to the blinking blue light. The Office had real-time access to her voice calls, texts, and e-mails. And now that the phone was on American soil, connected to an American cellular network, the NCTC had access to them, too.

  The bright red car passed within a few hundred feet of the Liberty Crossing campus and continued along Interstate 66 to the Rosslyn section of Arlington, Virginia, where it turned into the surface parking lot of the Key Bridge Marriott. There the blinking blue light of the beacon came to a stop. But after an interval of thirty seconds—long enough for a woman to adjust her hair and retrieve a suitcase from the trunk of a car—the shaded rectangular box of the mobile phone moved toward the hotel’s entrance. It paused briefly at the reception desk, where the device’s owner, an Arab woman in her early thirties, veiled, French passport, stated her name for the clerk. There was no need to present a credit card; ISIS had already paid for her room charges and incidentals. Weary from a long day of travel, she gratefully accepted an electronic key card and wheeled her suitcase slowly across the lobby toward the elevators.

  After pressing the call button, Natalie became aware of the attractive woman, late twenties, shoulder-length blond hair, knock-off Vuitton luggage, watching her from a barstool in the chrome-and-laminate lounge. Natalie assumed the woman to be an American intelligence officer and boarded the first available elevator without making eye contact. She pressed the button for the eighth floor and moved to the corner of the carriage, but as the doors were closing a hand appeared in the breach. The hand belonged to the attractive blonde from the lounge. She stood on the opposite side of the carriage and stared straight ahead. Her heavy lilac fragrance was intoxicating.

  “What floor?” asked Natalie in English.

  “Eight is fine.” The accent was French, the voice vaguely familiar.

  They said nothing more to one another as the elevator climbed slowly upward. When the doors opened on the eighth floor, Natalie exited first. She paused briefly to take her bearings and then set off along the corridor. The attractive blond woman walked in the same direction. And when Natalie stopped outside Room 822, the woman stopped, too. It was then Natalie looked into her eyes for the first time. Somehow, she managed to smile.

  They were the eyes of Safia Bourihane.

  In preparation for Natalie’s arrival, the FBI had stationed a pair of agents, a man and a woman, in the same lounge of the Key Bridge Marriott. It had also hacked into the hotel’s security system, giving the NCTC unfettered access to some three hundred cameras. Both the agents and the cameras had noticed the attractive blond woman who joined Natalie in the elevator. The agents had made no attempt to follow the two women, but the cameras had shown no such restraint. They tracked their movement down the half-lit corridor, to the door of Room 822. It, too, had been penetrated by the FBI. There were four microphones and four cameras. All watched and listened as the women entered. In French, the blond woman murmured something the microphones couldn’t quite catch. Then, ten seconds later, the shaded rectangular box vanished from the giant display at the NCTC.

  “Looks like the network just made contact with her,” said Carter, watching as the two women settled into the room. “Too bad about the phone going dark.”

  “But not unexpected.”

  “No,” agreed Carter. “It would have been too much to hope for.”

  Gabriel asked to see a replay of the elevator video. Carter gave the order, and a few seconds later it appeared on the screen.

  “Pretty girl,” said Carter.

  “Natalie or the blond?”

  “Both, actually, but I was referring to the blond. Think she’s a natural?”

  “Not a chance,” replied Gabriel. He asked to see a close-up of the blond woman’s face. Again, Carter gave the order.

  “Recognize her?”

  “Yes,” said Gabriel with a glance toward Paul Rousseau, “I’m afraid I do.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s someone who has no business being in this country,” said Gabriel ominously. “And if she’s here, it means there are many more just like her.”

  55

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  THE FRENCH PRESIDENT AND HIS glamorous ex–fashion model of a wife arrived at Joint Base Andrews at seven that evening. The motorcade that bore the couple from suburban Maryland to Blair House—the Federal-style guest mansion located across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House—was the largest anyone could recall. The many street closures snarled the Potomac River crossings and turned downtown Washington into a parking lot for thousands of commuters. Unfortunately, the disruption to life in the capital was only going to get worse. Earlier that morning, the Washington Post had reported that the security operation surrounding the Franco-American summit was the most extensive since the last inauguration. The primary threat, the newspaper said, was an attack by ISIS. But even the venerable Post, with its many sources inside the U.S. intelligence community, was unaware of the true nature of the peril hanging over the city.

  By that evening, the intense efforts to prevent an attack were centered on a hotel at the foot of Key Bridge in Arlington, Virginia. In a room on the eighth floor were two women, one an agent of Israeli intelligence, the other an agent of a man called Saladin. The presence of the second woman on American soil had set off alarm bells inside the NCTC and throughout the rest of the U.S. homeland security apparatus. A dozen different government agencies were trying desperately to discover how she had managed to get into the country and how long she had been there. The White House had been advised of the situation. The president was said to be livid.

  At half past eight that evening, the two women decided to leave the hotel for dinner. The concierge advised them to avoid Georgetown—“It’s a zoo because of the traffic”—and directed them instead to a chain bar-and-grill in the Clarendon section of Arlington. Natalie drove there in the bright red Impala and parked in a public lot off Wilson Boulevard. The bar-and-grill was a no-reservations establishment, infamous for the size of its portions and the length of its lines. The wait for a table was thirty minutes, but there was a small round high-top available in the bar. The menu was ten pages of spiral-bound plastic laminate. Safia Bourihane leafed desultorily through it, mystified.

  “Who can eat so much food?” she asked in French, turning another page.

  “Americans,” said Natalie, glancing at the well-fed clientele around her. The room was high-ceilinged and impossibly loud. As a result, it was the perfect place to talk.

  “I think I’ve lost my appetite,” Safia was saying.

  “You should eat something.”

  “I ate on the train.”

  “What train?”

  “The train from New York.”

  “How long were you in New York?”

  “Just a day. I flew there from Paris.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I told you I would go back to France one day.”

  Safia smiled. With her blond hair and snug-fitting dress, she looked very French. Natalie imagined the woman Safia might have become were it not for radical Islam and ISIS.

  A waitress came and took their drink orders. They both asked for tea. Natalie was annoyed by the interruption. Safia, it seemed, was in a talkative mood.

  “How did you manage to get back to France?”

  “How do you think?”

  “On a borrowed passport?”

  Safia nodded.<
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  “Who did it belong to?”

  “A new girl. She was the right height and weight, and her face was close enough.”

  “How did you travel?”

  “By bus and train mostly. Once I was back in the EU, no one even looked at my passport.”

  “How long were you in France?”

  “About ten days.”

  “Paris?”

  “Only at the end.”

  “And before Paris?”

  “I was hidden by a cell in Vaulx-en-Velin.”

  “Did you use the same passport to come here?”

  She nodded.

  “No problems?”

  “None at all. The American customs agents were quite nice to me, actually.”

  “Were you wearing that dress?”

  The tea arrived before Safia could answer. Natalie opened her menu for the first time.

  “What’s the name on the passport?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “What happens if we’re detained? What if they ask me your name and I can’t tell them?”

  Safia appeared to give the questions serious thought. “It’s Asma,” she said finally. “Asma Doumaz.”

  “Where’s Asma from?”

  Safia pulled her lips down and said, “Clichy-sous-Bois.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “What are you going to have to eat?”

  “An omelet.”

  “Do you think they can make a proper omelet?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  “Are you going to have anything to start?”

  “I was thinking about the soup.”

  “It sounds terrible. Have a salad instead.”

  “They look enormous.”

  “I’ll share it with you. But don’t get any of those horrible dressings. Just ask for oil and vinegar.”

  The waitress reappeared, Natalie did the ordering.

  “You speak English very well,” said Safia resentfully.

  “My parents both speak English, and I studied it at school.”

  “I didn’t learn anything at my school.” Safia glanced at the television over the bar. It was tuned to CNN. “What are they talking about?”

  “The threat of an ISIS attack during the French president’s visit.”

  Safia was silent.

  “Have you been given your target?” asked Natalie quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it a suicide operation?”

  Safia, her eyes on the television screen, nodded slowly.

  “What about me?”

  “You’ll be given yours soon.”

  “By whom?”

  Safia gave a noncommittal shrug.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No.”

  Natalie looked at the television.

  “What are they saying now?” asked Safia.

  “The same thing.”

  “They always say the same thing.”

  Natalie slid off her barstool.

  “Where are you going?”

  Natalie nodded toward the passageway leading to the restrooms.

  “You went before we left the hotel.”

  “It’s the tea.”

  “Don’t be long.”

  Natalie placed her handbag over her shoulder, her left, and wove her way slowly across the bar, through the maze of high-top tables. The women’s lounge was unoccupied. She entered one of the stalls, locked the door, and began counting slowly to herself. When she reached forty-five, she heard the restroom door open and close, followed by the hiss of water rushing into a basin and the blast of a hand dryer. To this symphony of bathroom sounds Natalie added the thunderous flush of an industrial toilet. Stepping from the stall, she saw a woman standing before the mirror applying makeup to her face. The woman was in her early thirties. She wore tight stretch jeans and a sleeveless pullover that did not flatter her powerful physique. She had the broad shoulders and muscular arms of an Olympic skier. Her skin was dry and porous. It was the skin of a woman who had lived in the desert or at altitude.

  Natalie went to the second sink and opened the tap. When she looked up into the mirror, the woman was staring at her in the glass.

  “How are you, Leila?”

  “Who are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am.”

  “Unless you’re one of them. Then it matters a great deal to me.”

  The woman applied powder to the rough skin of her face. “I’m Megan,” she said to her reflection. “Megan from the FBI. And you’re wasting valuable time.”

  “Do you know who that woman is?”

  Nodding, the woman put away the powder and went to work on her lips. “How did she get into the country?”

  “On a false passport.”

  “Where did she come in?”

  Natalie answered.

  “Kennedy or Newark?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did she get down to Washington?”

  “The train.”

  “What’s the name on the passport?”

  “Asma Doumaz.”

  “Have you been given a target?”

  “No. But she’s been given hers. It’s a suicide operation.”

  “Do you know her target?”

  “No.”

  “Have you met any other members of the attack cells?”

  “No.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “She took it from me. Don’t try to send me any messages.”

  “Get out of here.”

  Natalie switched off the tap and went out. Warily, Safia watched her approach the table. Then her eyes moved to the athletic-looking woman with open-air skin who reclaimed her seat at the bar.

  “Did that woman try to talk to you?”

  “What woman?”

  Safia nodded toward the bar.

  “Her?” Natalie shook her head. “She was on the phone the whole time.”

  “Really?” Safia expertly dressed the salad with the oil and the vinegar. “Bon appétit.”

  56

  KEY BRIDGE MARRIOTT, ARLINGTON

  THE ROOM WAS A SINGLE, the bed scarcely large enough for two. Safia slept rather well for a woman who knew she would soon be dead, though once during the night she sat bolt upright and engaged in a somniloquous explanation about how to properly wear a suicide vest. Natalie listened carefully to Safia’s mumbled words, searching for clues about her target, but soon Safia was asleep again. Eventually, sometime after three in the morning, Natalie slept, too. She woke to find Safia clinging marsupial-like to her back. Outside, the weather was gray and wet, and the overnight change of pressure had left Natalie with a throbbing headache. She swallowed two tablets of pain reliever and drifted into a pleasant half-sleep until the scream of a jetliner woke her a second time. It seemed to pass within a few feet of their window. Then it banked low over the Potomac and disappeared into the clouds before reaching the end of the runway at Reagan National Airport.

  Natalie rolled over and saw Safia sitting up in bed, staring at her mobile phone.

  “How did you sleep?” Safia asked, her eyes still on the screen.

  “Well. You?”

  “Not bad.” Safia switched off the phone. “Get dressed. We have work to do.”

  After showering and dressing, they headed downstairs to the lobby to partake of the complimentary breakfast. Safia had no appetite. Neither for that matter did Natalie. She drank three cups of coffee for the sake of her headache and forced down a container of Greek yogurt. The restaurant was full of tourists and two clean-cut men who looked as though they were in town for business. One of the men couldn’t keep his eyes off Safia. The other was watching the news on the overhead television. A network icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen read LIVE. The American and French presidents were seated before the fireplace in the Oval Office. The American president was speaking. The French president didn’t look happy.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Safia.

 
“Something about working with our friends and allies in the Middle East to defeat ISIS.”

  “Is he serious?”

  “Our president doesn’t seem to think so.”

  Safia’s eyes met the eyes of her not-so-secret admirer on the other side of the restaurant. She looked quickly away.

  “Why does that man keep looking at me?”

  “He finds you attractive.”

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

  Natalie nodded.

  “It’s annoying.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish I could put on my hijab.”

  “It wouldn’t help.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’d still be beautiful.” Natalie scraped the last of the yogurt from the bottom of the plastic container. “You really should eat something.”

  “Why?”

  Natalie had no answer. “Where are we going this morning?” she asked.

  “Shopping.”

  “What do we need?”

  “Clothes.”

  “I have clothes.”

  “Nice clothes.”

  Safia glanced at the television screen, where the White House press secretary was herding the reporters from the Oval Office. Then she stood without another word and walked out of the restaurant. Natalie followed a few paces behind, her handbag over her right shoulder. Outside, the rain had subsided to a cold drizzle. They hurried across the parking lot and climbed into the Impala. Natalie shoved the key into the ignition and started the engine while Safia pulled her mobile from her purse and thumbed TYSONS CORNER into Google Maps. When the blue route line appeared on the screen, she pointed toward Lee Highway. “Make a right.”

  On the Operations Floor at the NCTC, Gabriel and Adrian Carter watched as the bright red Impala eased into a westbound lane of I-66, followed by a Ford Explorer containing two officers from the FBI’s Special Surveillance Group. On the neighboring video screen, the blue light of the beacon flashed on a giant digital map of metropolitan Washington.