The Black Widow Read online

  “What are you going to do?” asked Gabriel.

  “It’s not my call. Not even close.”

  “Whose call is it?”

  “His,” said Carter, nodding toward a CNN live shot from the Oval Office. “He’s on his way down to the Situation Room. All the national security principals are there.”

  Just then, the phone in front of Carter rang. It was a decidedly one-sided conversation. “Understood,” was all Carter said. Then he hung up and stared at the winking blue light moving west along I-66.

  “What’s the decision?” asked Gabriel.

  “We’re going to let them run.”

  “Good call.”

  “Maybe,” said Carter. “Or maybe not.”

  Natalie followed I-66 to the Beltway and the Beltway to the Tysons Corner Center shopping mall. There were several spaces available on the coveted first level of Lot B, but Safia directed Natalie to the second level instead. “There,” she said, pointing to a deserted distant corner of the lot. “Park over there.”

  “Why so far from the mall?”

  “Just do what I tell you,” Safia hissed.

  Natalie pulled into the space and killed the engine. Safia scrutinized the instrument panel as a Ford Explorer passed behind them. It parked at the end of the same row, and two all-American males in their early thirties climbed out and headed toward the mall. Safia didn’t seem to notice them. She was looking at the instrument panel again.

  “Does this car have an internal trunk release?”

  “There,” said Natalie, pointing toward the button near the center of the dash.

  “Leave the doors unlocked.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told you to.”

  Safia climbed out without another word. Together, they made their way to the stairwell and descended to the Bloomingdale’s entrance of the mall. The all-Americans were pretending to shop for winter coats. Safia followed the signs to the women’s department and spent the next thirty minutes moving from boutique to boutique, rack to rack. Natalie explained to the saleswoman that her friend was looking for something appropriate for a business dinner—a skirt and jacket, but the jacket couldn’t be too tight. Safia tried on several of the saleswoman’s suggestions but rejected all of them.

  “Too tight,” she said in labored English, running her hands over her shapely hips and flat stomach. “Looser.”

  “If I had a body like yours,” the saleswoman said, “I’d want it as tight as possible.”

  “She wants to make a good impression,” explained Natalie.

  “Tell her to try Macy’s. She might have more luck there.”

  She did. Within a few minutes she found a five-button car-length jacket by Tahari that she declared suitable. She selected two—one red, the other gray, both size six.

  “They’re much too big for her,” said the saleswoman. “She’s a four at most.”

  Natalie wordlessly swiped her credit card through the scanner and scribbled her signature on the touch screen. The saleswoman covered the two jackets in a white plastic bag emblazoned with the Macy’s logo and handed them over. Natalie accepted the garment bag and followed Safia from the store.

  “Why did you buy two jackets?”

  “One is for you.”

  Natalie felt suddenly ill. “Which one?”

  “The red one, of course.”

  “I’ve never looked good in red.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  Outside in the mall, Safia checked her phone.

  “Do you need anything?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Makeup? Some jewelry?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How about some coffee?”

  Natalie didn’t feel much like drinking coffee, but she didn’t want to earn another reproach from Safia, either. They went next door to Starbucks, ordered two lattes, and sat in the seating area outside in the mall. Several Muslim women, all veiled, were conversing softly in Arabic, and many other women in hijabs, some middle-aged, some mere girls, were strolling the arcades. Natalie felt as though she were back in her banlieue. She looked at Safia, who was staring vacantly into the middle distance. She held her mobile phone tightly in her hand. Her coffee stood on the table next to her, untouched.

  “I need to use the restroom,” said Natalie.

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not allowed.”

  Safia’s phone pulsed. She read the message and stood abruptly.

  “We can go now.”

  They returned to Lot B and climbed the stairs to the second level. The distant corner was now filled with other cars. As they approached the red Impala, Natalie popped the trunk with her fob, but Safia quickly closed it again.

  “Hang the clothes in the back.”

  Natalie did as instructed. Then she slid behind the wheel and started the engine while Safia thumbed KEY BRIDGE MARRIOTT into Google Maps. “Follow the signs to the exit,” she said. “And then make a left.”

  The bullet-point reports from the FBI surveillance teams flashed onto the video screens at the NCTC like updates on an airport departure board. SUBJECTS PURCHASING GARMENTS AT MACY’S . . . SUBJECTS HAVING COFFEE AT STARBUCKS . . . SUBJECTS DEPARTING MALL . . . ADVISE . . . Huddled in the White House Situation Room, the president and his national security team had delivered their verdict. Listen, watch, wait. Let them run.

  “Good call,” said Gabriel.

  “Maybe,” said Adrian Carter. “Or maybe not.”

  At twelve fifteen the red Impala turned into the parking lot of the Key Bridge Marriott and slid into the same space it had abandoned two hours earlier. The hotel security cameras told part of the story. The terse dispatches from the FBI watchers told the rest. The subjects were exiting the vehicle. Subject one, the Israeli agent, collected the Macy’s bag from the backseat. Subject two, the Frenchwoman, lifted two large paper bags from the trunk.

  “What two bags in the trunk?” asked Gabriel.

  Carter was silent.

  “Where are the bags from?”

  Carter shouted the question to the Operations Floor. The answer appeared on the screen a few seconds later.

  The bags were from L.L.Bean.

  “Shit,” said Gabriel and Carter in unison.

  Natalie and Safia had never gone to L.L.Bean.

  57

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  MUCH LATER, THE MEETING BETWEEN the American and French leaders would be recalled as the most interrupted ever. Three times, the American president was summoned to the Situation Room. Twice, he went alone, leaving the French president and his closest aides behind in the Oval Office. The third time, the French president went, too. After all, the two women in Room 822 of the Key Bridge Marriott both held French passports, though both documents were fraudulent. Eventually, the two leaders managed to spend an hour together without disruption before repairing to the East Room for a joint news conference. The American president was grim-faced throughout, and his answers were uncharacteristically rambling and unfocused. One reporter said the president appeared annoyed with his French colleague. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

  The French president departed the White House at three p.m. and returned to Blair House. At that same moment, the Department of Homeland Security issued a vaguely worded warning of a possible terrorist attack on U.S. soil, perhaps in metropolitan Washington. When the bulletin failed to attract sufficient attention—only one cable news outlet bothered to report it—the DHS secretary hastily called a press conference to repeat the warning for the cameras. His tense demeanor made it clear that this was no cover-your-backside statement. The threat was real.

  “Will there be any changes to the president’s schedule?” asked a reporter.

  “Not at this time,” replied the secretary cryptically.

  The secretary then listed several steps the federal government had taken to prevent or disrupt a potential attack, though he made no mention of the si
tuation unfolding across the Potomac River, where, at 12:18 p.m., two women—subjects one and two, as they were known—had returned to their hotel room after a brief shopping excursion to Tysons Corner Center. Subject one had hung a Macy’s bag in the closet while subject two had placed two suspect parcels—L.L.Bean shopping bags—on the floor near the window. Three times, the microphones heard subject one asking about the contents of the bags. Three times, subject two refused to answer.

  The entire national security apparatus of the United States was desperately asking the same question. How the bags had found their way into the trunk of the Impala, however, had been established rather quickly with the help of Tysons Corner’s massive array of security cameras. The delivery had occurred at 11:37 a.m., on the second level of Lot B. A hatted, coated man of indeterminate age and ethnicity had entered the parking garage on foot, an L.L.Bean bag in each hand, and had placed them in the Impala’s trunk, which he opened after gaining access to the car’s interior through an unlocked door. He then left the garage, once again on foot, and made his way to Route 7, where traffic cameras saw him climbing into a Nissan Altima with Delaware plates. It had been rented Friday afternoon at the Hertz outlet at Union Station. Hertz records identified the customer as a Frenchwoman named Asma Doumaz. The name was unfamiliar to the FBI.

  All of which said nothing about the actual contents of the bags, though the highly professional method of delivery suggested the worst. At least one senior FBI official, not to mention a top political aide to the president, recommended an immediate raid on the room. But calmer heads, including the president’s, had prevailed. The cameras and the microphones would alert the FBI the instant the two subjects were preparing to go operational. In the meantime, the surveillance devices had the potential to supply invaluable intelligence, such as the targets and identities of other members of the attack cells. As a precaution, FBI SWAT and hostage rescue teams had quietly moved into position around the hotel. For now, the Marriott’s management knew nothing.

  The signal from the cameras and microphones inside Room 822 flowed through the NCTC to the White House and beyond. The primary camera was concealed inside the entertainment console; it peered out at its subjects like a telescreen keeping watch over Winston Smith in his flat at the Victory Mansions. Subject two was lying seminude on the bed, smoking in violation of hotel rules and the laws of ISIS. Subject one, a devout nonsmoker, had requested permission to leave the room to get some fresh air, but subject two had denied it. It was, she said, haram to leave.

  “Says who?” asked subject one.

  “Says Saladin.”

  The mention of the mastermind’s name raised hopes at the NCTC and the White House that critical intelligence would soon flow from the mouth of subject two. Instead, she lit a fresh cigarette and with the remote switched on the television. The secretary of homeland security was at the podium.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “He says there’s going to be an attack.”

  “How does he know?”

  “He won’t say.”

  Subject two, still smoking, checked her phone—a phone that the FBI and NSA had been unable to penetrate. Then she squinted at the television. The secretary of homeland security had concluded his news conference. A panel of terrorism experts was analyzing what had just transpired.

  “What are they saying?”

  “The same thing,” said subject one. “There’s going to be an attack.”

  “Do they know about us?”

  “They would have arrested us if they knew.”

  Subject two didn’t appear convinced. She checked her phone, checked it again fifteen seconds later, and checked it again ten seconds after that. Clearly, she was expecting an imminent communication from the network. It came at 4:47 p.m.

  “Alhamdulillah,” whispered subject two.

  “What is it?”

  Subject two crushed out her cigarette and switched off the television. On the Operations Floor of the National Counterterrorism Center, several dozen analysts and officers watched and waited. Also present was the leader of an elite French counterterrorism organization, the chief of the Jordanian GID, and the future chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. Only the Israeli could not watch what unfolded next. He sat in his assigned seat at the kidney-shaped desk, elbows resting on the pale blond wood, hands over his eyes, and listened.

  “In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful . . .”

  Natalie was making her suicide video.

  58

  ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

  IT WAS AN UNUSUALLY QUIET day for Dominion Movers of Alexandria, Virginia—just one small job, a single woman who was trading her rented wreck on Capitol Hill for a cramped cottage in North Arlington, a steal at $700,000. The job had required only one truck and two employees. One of the men was a Jordanian national, the other was from Tunisia. Both were members of ISIS and had fought and trained in Syria. The woman, who worked as an aide to a prominent Republican senator, knew none of this, of course. She served the men coffee and cookies and on completion of the job tipped them well.

  The two men left North Arlington at five thirty and started back to the company’s headquarters on Eisenhower Avenue in Alexandria. Owing to the heavy rush-hour traffic, they did not arrive until six fifteen, a few minutes later than they hoped. They parked the truck, a 2011 Freightliner model, outside the warehouse and entered the business office through a glass doorway. Fatimah, the young woman who answered the company’s phones, was absent and her desk was bare. She had flown to Frankfurt the previous evening and was now in Istanbul. By morning, she would be in the caliphate.

  Another doorway led to the warehouse floor. There were two additional Freightliners, both painted with the Dominion logo, and three white Honda Pilots. Inside the Hondas was an arsenal of AR-15 assault rifles and .45-caliber Glock pistols, along with a backpack bomb and a suicide vest. Each Freightliner had been fitted with a thousand-pound ammonium nitrate/fuel oil bomb. The devices were exact replicas of the massive bomb that had devastated London’s Canary Wharf in February 1996. It was no coincidence. The man who built the Canary Wharf bomb, a former Irish Republican Army terrorist named Eamon Quinn, had sold his design to ISIS for $2 million.

  The other members of the attack cell were already present. Two wore ordinary Western clothing, but the others, eleven in all, wore black tactical suits and white athletic shoes, a sartorial homage to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For operational reasons, the Tunisian and the Jordanian remained in their blue Dominion coveralls. They had one last delivery to make.

  At seven o’clock all fifteen men prayed together one last time. The other members of the attack cell departed shortly thereafter, leaving only the Tunisian and the Jordanian behind. At half past the hour, they climbed into the cabs of the Freightliners. The Tunisian had been selected to drive the lead truck. In many respects, it was the more important assignment, for if he failed, the second truck could not reach its target. He had named the truck Buraq, the heavenly steed that had carried the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem during the Night Journey. The Tunisian would take a similar journey tonight, a journey that would end, inshallah, in paradise.

  It began, however, on an unsightly industrial section of Eisenhower Avenue. He followed it to the connector and followed the connector to the Beltway. The traffic was heavy but moving just below the speed limit. The Tunisian eased into the right travel lane and then glanced into his side-view mirror. The second Freightliner was about a quarter mile behind, exactly where it was supposed to be. The Tunisian stared straight ahead and began to pray.

  “In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful . . .”

  Saladin observed the obligatory evening prayer as well, though with far less fervor than the men in the warehouse, for he had no intention of achieving martyrdom this night. Afterward, he dressed in a dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a solid navy-blue tie. His suitcase was packed. He wheeled it into the corridor and, using his can
e for support, limped to the elevator. Downstairs, he collected a printed receipt at the front desk before going outside to the motor court. The car was waiting. He instructed the valet to place his suitcase in the trunk and then climbed behind the wheel.

  Directly across the street from the Four Seasons, outside the entrance of a CVS drugstore, was a rented Buick Regal. Eli Lavon sat in the front passenger seat, Mikhail Abramov behind the wheel. They had passed that long day watching the front of the hotel, sometimes from the comfort of the car, sometimes from the pavement or a café, and, briefly, from inside the hotel itself. Of their target, the alleged Saudi national Omar al-Farouk, they had caught not a glimpse. A call to the hotel operator had confirmed, however, that Mr. al-Farouk, whoever he was, was indeed a guest of the establishment. He had instructed the switchboard to hold his calls. A walk past his door had revealed a DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from his latch.

  Mikhail, a man of action rather than observation, was drumming his fingers anxiously on the center console, but Lavon, a battle-scarred veteran of many such vigils, sat with the stillness of a stone Buddha. His brown eyes were fixed on the exit of the hotel, where a black BMW sedan was waiting to turn into M Street.

  “There’s our boy,” he said.

  “You sure that’s him?”

  “Positive.”

  The BMW rounded a traffic island of small trees and shrubs and sped off down M Street.

  “That’s definitely him,” agreed Mikhail.

  “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  “Where do you think he’s going?”

  “Maybe you should follow him and find out.”

  Saladin turned right onto Wisconsin Avenue and then made a quick left into Prospect Street. On the north side was Café Milano, one of Georgetown’s most popular restaurants. Directly opposite was one of Washington’s costliest parking lots. Saladin left the car with an attendant and entered the restaurant. The maître d’ and two hostesses stood behind a pulpit-like counter in the foyer.