Portrait of a Spy Page 34

“Your video confession is all over the Internet and television, Allon. If you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll have no choice but to put you on trial and publicly execute you.”

  “How sporting of you.”

  “I’m afraid the wheels of Saudi justice do not grind slowly.”

  “If I were you, I’d tell His Highness to rethink the part about a public execution. It might cost him his oil fields.”

  “The oil fields belong to the people of Saudi Arabia.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Gabriel. “What was I thinking?”

  For the next several nights, Gabriel’s cell echoed with the screams of men being tortured. Unable to sleep, he developed an infection that required a round of intravenous antibiotics. Several more pounds melted from his slight frame. He grew so thin that when he was delivered for his next interrogation session, even the falcon appeared concerned.

  “Perhaps you and I can come to an accommodation,” he suggested.

  “What sort of accommodation?”

  “You will answer my questions and, in time, I will see that you are returned to your loved ones with your head still attached.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because as of this moment, my dear one, I’m the only friend you have.”

  There is a truism about interrogations. Sooner or later, everyone talks. Not only terrorists, but professional intelligence officers as well. But it is how they talk, and what they say, that determines whether they will be capable of looking their colleagues in the eye if they are released. Gabriel understood this. So did the falcon.

  Together they spent the next week engaged in a delicate ballet of mutual deception. Khalid posed many carefully worded questions to which Gabriel responded with many half-truths and outright lies. The operations he betrayed did not exist. Nor did the paid assets, the safe houses, or the methods of secure communication; it had all been invented in the copious amounts of time Gabriel spent locked in his cell. There were some things he claimed not to know and others he refused to divulge. For example, when Khalid asked for the names of all undercover case officers based in Europe, Gabriel said nothing. He also refused to answer when asked for the names of the officers who had worked with him against Rashid and Malik. Gabriel’s intransigence did not anger the falcon. In fact, he seemed to respect Gabriel more for it.

  “Why not give me a few false names I can take to my superiors?” asked Khalid.

  “Because your superiors know me well enough to realize I would never betray my closest friends,” said Gabriel. “They would never believe the names were real.”

  There is another truism about interrogations. They sometimes reveal more about the man asking the questions than the one answering them. Gabriel had come to believe that Khalid was a true professional rather than a true believer. He was not an altogether unreasonable man. He had a conscience. He could be bargained with. Slowly, gradually, they were able to forge something like a bond. It was a bond of lies, the only kind possible in the secret world.

  “Your son was killed that night in Vienna?” Khalid asked suddenly one afternoon. Or perhaps it was already late at night; Gabriel had only a vague grasp of time.

  “My son has nothing to do with this.”

  “Your son has everything to do with this,” Khalid said knowingly. “Your son is the reason you followed that shahid into Covent Garden. He’s also the reason you allowed Shamron and the Americans to lure you back into the game.”

  “You have good sources,” said Gabriel.

  Khalid accepted the compliment with a smile. “But there’s one thing I still don’t understand,” he said. “How were you able to convince Nadia to work with you?”

  “I’m a professional, like you.”

  “Why didn’t you ask for our help?”

  “Would you have given it?”

  “Of course not.”

  The Saudi flipped through the pages of his notebook, frowning slightly, as if trying to decide where to take the questioning next. Gabriel, a skilled interrogator in his own right, knew the performance was all for his benefit. Finally, almost as an afterthought, the Saudi asked, “Is it true she was ill?”

  The question managed to take Gabriel by surprise. He found no reason to answer with anything but the truth. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “she didn’t have long to live.”

  “We’d heard rumors to that effect for some time,” the Saudi replied, “but we were never sure.”

  “She kept it a secret from everyone, including her staff. Even her closest friends knew nothing.”

  “But you knew?”

  “She took me into her confidence because of the operation.”

  “And the nature of this illness?” the Saudi asked, his pencil hovering over his notebook as if Nadia’s illness were but a small detail that needed clearing up for the official record.

  “She suffered from a disorder called arteriovenous malformation,” Gabriel replied evenly. “It’s an abnormal connection between the veins and arteries in the brain. Her doctors had told her she couldn’t be treated. She knew it was only a matter of time before she suffered a devastating hemorrhagic stroke. It was possible she could have died at any moment.”

  “So she committed suicide in the desert by stepping in front of a bullet meant for you?”

  “No,” said Gabriel. “She sacrificed herself.” He paused, then added, “For all of us.”

  Khalid looked down at his file again. “Unfortunately, she’s become a martyr to our more progressive women. Questions are being raised about her philanthropic activities. Apparently, she was something of a reformer.”

  “Is that why you had her killed?”

  Khalid’s face remained expressionless. “Miss al-Bakari was killed by Rashid and Malik.”

  “That’s true,” said Gabriel, “but someone told them she was working for us.”

  “Perhaps they had a source close to your operation.”

  “Or perhaps you did,” Gabriel responded. “Perhaps Rashid and Malik were just pawns, a convenient means of eliminating a grave danger to the House of Saud.”

  “That is mere conjecture on your part.”

  “True,” said Gabriel, “but it’s supported by history. Whenever the al-Saud feel threatened, they turn to the bearded ones.”

  “The bearded ones, as you call them, are more of a threat to us than they are to you.”

  “Then why are you still supporting them? It’s been ten years since 9/11. Ten years,” Gabriel repeated, “and Saudi Arabia is still a cash machine for terrorists and Sunni extremist groups. There’s only one possible explanation. The deal with the devil has been renewed. The House of Saud is willing to turn a blind eye to Islamic terror as long as the sacred rage is directed outward, away from the oil fields.”

  “We’re not as blind as you think.”

  “I funneled tens of millions of dollars into a Sunni terrorist group in a deal struck on Saudi soil.”

  “Which is why you now find yourself here.”

  “Then I assume Sheikh Bin Tayyib is in custody somewhere in the building as well?”

  Khalid smiled uncomfortably but made no response. He posed a few more questions, none of any significance, then the session was concluded. Afterward, he took the unusual step of walking Gabriel back to his cell. He lingered for a moment in the corridor before unlocking the door. “I’m told the American president has taken an intense personal interest in your case,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say your stay with us is almost over.”

  “When am I leaving?”

  “Midnight.”

  “What time is it now?”

  The falcon smiled. “Five past.”

  A fresh suit of clothing had been laid upon the bed in Gabriel’s cell. Khalid gave him a moment of privacy to dress. Then he escorted Gabriel up several flights of stairs to an internal courtyard. An SUV idled in the moonlight. It was large and American, as were the four men standing around it. “I left two things for you in the breast pocket of the suit,”
Khalid said quietly as they crossed the courtyard. “One is the bullet that passed through Nadia and struck you. The other is a note for Adrian Carter. Think of it as a small parting gift to help you remember your stay with us.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some information he might find helpful. I’d appreciate it if you kept my name out of it.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “The information? I suppose you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that word.”

  “Didn’t you learn anything from her?” Khalid nodded toward the SUV. “I’d get in quickly, if I were you. His Highness has been known to change his mind.”

  Gabriel shook the Saudi’s hand before surrendering himself to the Americans. They drove at high speed to a military air base north of Riyadh and hustled him onto a waiting Gulfstream. There was an Agency doctor on board; he spent much of the flight pumping fluid into Gabriel’s emaciated body and fretting over the condition of the wound in his side. Finally, he permitted Gabriel to sleep. Tormented by dreams of Nadia’s death, he woke with a start as the plane bumped onto the runway at London City Airport. When the cabin door opened, he saw Chiara and Shamron waiting on the tarmac. He suspected they were the only two people on earth who looked worse than he did.

  Chapter 68

  The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

  SHAMRON SETTLED INTO THE SPARE bedroom. He gave every indication his stay was permanent. The nightmare in the Empty Quarter, he told Chiara, had given him one last mission.

  He appointed himself Gabriel’s personal bodyguard, physician, and grief counselor. He offered advice that was not solicited and suffered his patient’s depression and mood swings in stoic silence. Rarely did he allow Gabriel to stray out of his sight. He stalked him through the rooms of the cottage, walked with him along the sand beach in the cove, and even followed him when he went into the village to do the marketing. Gabriel told the shopkeepers that Shamron was his uncle from Milan. In public, he spoke to Shamron only in Italian, of which Shamron understood not a word.

  Within days of Gabriel’s return to Cornwall, the weather turned rainy, which suited all their moods. Chiara cooked elaborate meals and watched with relief as Gabriel regained some of the weight he had lost in the Saudi prison. His emotional state, however, remained unchanged. He slept little and seemed incapable of talking about what had happened in the desert. Uzi Navot dispatched a doctor to examine him. “Guilt,” said the doctor after spending an hour alone with Gabriel. “Enormous, unfathomable, unremitting guilt. He promised to protect her, but in the end, he let her down. He doesn’t like to fail women.”

  “What can we do?” Chiara asked.

  “Give him time and space,” the doctor said. “And don’t ask too much of him for a while.”

  “I’m not sure having Ari around is helping matters.”

  “Good luck trying to dislodge him,” the doctor said. “Gabriel will eventually recover, but I’m not so sure about the Old Man. Let him stay as long as he wants. He’ll know when it’s time to leave.”

  A daily routine eluded Gabriel. Unable to sleep at night, he slept in daylight, when his conscience allowed it. He moped, he stared at the rain and the sea, he walked in the cove. Sometimes, he sat on the veranda and worked with charcoal on paper. The sketches he produced were all of the operation. Many were of Nadia. Alarmed, Chiara secretly photographed the sketches and e-mailed the pictures to the doctor for analysis. “He’s his own best therapist,” said the doctor reassuringly. “Let him work it out on his own.”

  Nadia was with them always. They made no effort to keep her at bay; even if they had tried, events in the Middle East would have made it impossible. From Morocco to the Emirates, the Arab world was aflame with a new wave of popular unrest. This time, even the old Sunni monarchies appeared vulnerable. Emboldened by Nadia’s brutal murder, Arab women poured into the streets by the thousands. Nadia was their martyr and patron saint. They chanted her name and carried signs bearing her photograph. In a macabre twisting of her message and beliefs, some said they wanted to emulate her by dying as martyrs, too.

  The keepers of the old order tried to tarnish Nadia’s reputation by branding her an Israeli spy and provocateur. Because of Gabriel’s confession, which played ceaselessly on the Internet and the pan-Arab news networks, the charges against Nadia were widely dismissed. Her cultish following grew even larger when Zoe Reed of CNBC devoted an entire edition of her prime-time program to Nadia’s posthumous impact on the Arab Awakening. During the broadcast, Zoe revealed that she had conducted several private meetings with Nadia during which the Saudi heiress acknowledged secretly funneling tens of millions of dollars to reform-minded organizations across the Arab and Islamic world. The program also accused the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia of complicity in her death—an accusation that brought a swift denunciation from the House of Saud, along with the usual threats about withholding oil from the West. This time, no one paid much attention. Like every other regime in the region, the al-Saud were now hanging on for dear life.

  By then, it was June and the Americans were clamoring for a post-operational debriefing. Chiara imposed strict limitations on the amount of time the inquisitors would be allowed to spend with their subject—two hours in the morning, two hours in the late afternoon, three days in all. Posing as tourists, they stayed at a dreadful little bed-and-breakfast in Helston that Gabriel had chosen personally. The sessions were held at the dining room table. Shamron remained at Gabriel’s side throughout, like a defense attorney at a deposition. There was no recording.

  Chiara feared the debriefings would reopen wounds that were just then beginning to heal. Instead, they proved to be precisely the sort of therapy Gabriel so desperately required. The strictures of professionalism imposed a cold and emotionless tone on the proceedings. The debriefers posed their questions with the dryness of policemen investigating a minor traffic mishap, and Gabriel responded in kind. Only when the debriefers asked him to describe the moment of Nadia’s death did his voice catch with emotion. When Shamron asked for a change of subject, the debriefers produced a photo of a young Saudi who had recently graduated from the terrorist rehabilitation program and placed it carefully on the table.

  “Do you recognize him?”

  “Yes,” said Gabriel. “He’s the one who killed Malik and the others.”

  “His name is Ali al-Masri,” said one of the Americans.

  “Where is he?”

  “Living quietly in Jeddah. He’s fallen out of the orbit of Sheikh Bin Tayyib and seems to have left the jihadist movement for good. His wife just gave birth to a little girl.”

  “Hanan,” said Gabriel. “The child’s name is Hanan.”

  The session was their last. That evening, Chiara lifted her ban on television during dinner so they could watch the Arab world unraveling. The regimes in Syria and Jordan were teetering, and there were reports the Saudis had ordered the National Guard to fire on protesters in Riyadh and Jeddah, killing dozens. Prince Nabil, the powerful Saudi interior minister, blamed the unrest on the Shiite regime in Iran and on followers of Nadia al-Bakari. His comments had the unintended effect of raising her profile among the demonstrators to new heights.

  The following morning, Nadia became a posthumous hero to the art world as well when the Museum of Modern Art in New York announced that it had been entrusted with her entire collection. In return for the works, estimated to be worth at least five billion dollars, MoMA had agreed to allow Nadia’s estate to appoint the first curator. As she strode to the podium to meet the New York press for the first time, the denizens of the art world breathed an enormous sigh of relief. They did not know much about Sarah Bancroft, but at least she was one of them.

  She called Chiara the next day. She had heard from Adrian Carter that Gabriel’s recovery wasn’t going well and had an idea she thought might help. It was a job offer. A commission. Chiara accepted it without bothering to consult with Gabriel. She asked only
for the dimensions and a deadline. The dimensions were large. The deadline was tight. Two months was all he would have. Chiara wasn’t worried; her husband had relined and restored a Titian in a matter of days. Two months was an eternity. He began work the following morning by adhering a bolt of white canvas to a stretcher he made himself. Then he placed Chiara at one end of the couch and manipulated her limbs like those of a wooden sketch model until they conformed to the image in his memory. He spent a week working out the composition on paper. Satisfied, he began to paint.

  The days of midsummer were very long. The portrait gave them purpose. Gabriel worked for several hours in the morning, took a break at midday for a meal and a walk in the cove, then worked again in the evening until the sun dropped into the sea. Much to his dismay, Shamron watched over him constantly. Chiara watched, too, but from a distance. Just as she had hoped, the work proved to be Gabriel’s salvation. There were some people who dealt with grief by talking to therapists, she thought, and others who felt compelled to write about it. But for Gabriel, the healing balm of oil on canvas had always been best, just as it had been for his mother before him. Standing before the easel, he had total control. Missteps could be corrected with a few strokes of the brush, or hidden beneath a layer of obliterating paint. No one bled. No one died. No one sought vengeance. There was only beauty and truth as he saw it.

  He worked without an underdrawing and with a palette influenced by the colors he had seen in the Empty Quarter. Blending the meticulous draftsmanship of the Old Masters with the freedom of the Impressionists, he created a mood that was both classical and contemporary. He hung pearls around her neck and adorned her hands with diamonds and gold. A clock face shone moonlike over her shoulder. Orchids lay at her bare feet. For several days, he struggled with the background. In the end, he chose to depict her rising out of Caravaggesque darkness. Or was she actually sinking into the darkness? That would be determined by the uprising raging on the streets of the Arab world.

  Despite the intensity of the work, Gabriel’s appearance improved dramatically. He gained weight. He slept more. The pain of his injuries receded. With time, he felt strong enough to return to the cliff tops. Each day, he roamed a little farther, leaving Shamron no choice but to watch from a distance. His mood darkened as Gabriel slipped slowly from his grasp. He knew it was time to leave; he just didn’t know how to go about it. Chiara quietly tried to arrange a crisis of some sort that would require him to return to King Saul Boulevard. Failing, she had no choice but to enlist the help of Gilah, who sounded as if she were thoroughly enjoying Shamron’s prolonged absence. Reluctantly, she decreed that her husband could remain in Cornwall only until the painting was finished. Then he would have to come home.