by Daniel Silva
While major news in Italy, the seizure attracted little notice in France, least of all in the former fishing village of Saint-Tropez. But when French customs police raided two ships the following day—the Toulon-bound Africa Star and the Marseilles-bound Caribbean Endeavor—even sleepy Saint-Tropez was impressed. The Africa Star would yield three metric tons of hashish, the Caribbean Endeavor only two. But it would also surrender something that Gabriel and Paul Rousseau had not anticipated: a lead cylinder, forty centimeters in height, twenty in diameter, concealed inside a spool of insulated wire manufactured by a plant in an industrial quarter of Tripoli.
The cylinder bore no markings of any kind. Still, the French customs police, who were trained in how to handle potentially hazardous material, knew better than to open it. Calls were made, alarm bells rung, and by early evening the container had been transported securely to a French government laboratory outside Paris, where technicians analyzed the talcum-like powder they found inside. In short order they determined it was the highly radioactive substance cesium-137, or cesium chloride. Paul Rousseau and the interior minister were told of the discovery at eight that evening, and at twenty minutes past, with Gabriel trailing a step behind, they were rushing through the doors of the Élysée Palace to break the news to the president of the Republic. Saladin was coming for them once again, this time with a dirty bomb.
Part Three
The Darkest Corner
43
Surrey, England
Precisely how the Americans learned of the concealed shipment of cesium would never be determined to anyone’s satisfaction, least of all the French. It was one of those mysteries that would linger long after the operational dust had settled. Nevertheless, they did hear about it—that very night, in fact—and before the sun had risen they demanded that all the relevant parties traipse to Washington for an emergency summit. Graham Seymour and Amanda Wallace, the cousins, politely demurred. Faced with the prospect of a radiological dispersion device in the hands of Saladin’s network, they could not afford to be seen running off to the former colonies for help. They were all for transatlantic cooperation—in fact, they were dangerously dependent on it—but for them it was a simple matter of national pride. And when Gabriel and Paul Rousseau added their objections, the Americans quickly capitulated. Gabriel had been confident of such an outcome; he had a good idea of what the Americans were ultimately after. They wanted Saladin’s head on a pike, and the only way they were going to get it was by taking control of Gabriel’s operation. It was better to deny them a home-field advantage. The five-hour time difference alone would be enough to keep them off balance.
A small delegation was too much to hope for. They arrived on a Boeing jetliner emblazoned with the official seal of the United States and traveled to the site of the conference—a disused MI6 training facility located in a rambling Victorian manor house in Surrey—in a long noisy motorcade that slashed its way through the countryside as though it were dodging IEDs in the Sunni Triangle of occupied Iraq. From one of the vehicles emerged Morris Payne, the Agency’s new director. Payne was West Point, Ivy League law, private enterprise, and a former deeply conservative member of Congress from one of the Dakotas. He was big and bluff, with a face like an Easter Island statue and a baritone voice that rattled the beams in the old house’s vaulted entrance hall. He greeted Graham Seymour and Amanda Wallace first—they were the hosts after all, not to mention distant family—before turning the full force of his water-cannon personality on Gabriel.
“Gabriel Allon! So good to finally meet you. One of the greats. A legend, truly. We should have done this a long time ago. Adrian tells me you slipped into town without coming to see me. I won’t hold that against you. I know you and Adrian go way back. You’ve done good work together. I hope to continue that tradition.”
Gabriel reclaimed his hand and looked at the men surrounding the new director of the world’s most powerful intelligence service. They were young and lean and hard, ex-military like their boss, all well schooled in the sharp elbows of Washington bureaucratic combat. The change from the previous administration was striking. If there was a silver lining it was that they were reasonably fond of Israel. Perhaps too fond, thought Gabriel. They were proof that one needed to be careful what one wished for.
Tellingly, Adrian Carter was not among those in the director’s close orbit. He was at that moment crawling out of an SUV along with the rest of the senior operators. Most were unfamiliar to Gabriel. One, however, he recognized. He was Kyle Taylor, the chief of the Agency’s Counterterrorism Center. Taylor’s presence was a troubling gauge of Langley’s intentions; it was said of Taylor that he would drone his mother if he thought it would earn him Carter’s job and his seventh-floor office. He wore his relentless ambition like a carefully knotted necktie. Carter, however, looked as though he had just been awakened from a nap. He walked past Gabriel with only the smallest of nods.
“Don’t get too close,” Carter whispered. “I’m contagious.”
“What do you have?”
“Leprosy.”
Morris Payne was now pumping Paul Rousseau’s hand as though trying to earn his vote. At Graham Seymour’s prompting, he moved into the old house’s formal dining room, which long ago had been converted into a safe-speech facility. There was a basket at the entrance for mobile phones and, on the Victorian sideboard, an array of refreshments that no one touched. Morris Payne sat down at the long rectangular table, flanked on one side by his hard young aides and on the other by Kyle Taylor, the drone master. Adrian Carter was relegated to the far end—the spot, thought Gabriel, where he could doodle to his heart’s content and dream of a job in the private sector.
Gabriel lowered himself into his assigned seat and promptly turned over the little name placard that some industrious MI6 functionary had placed there. To his left, and directly across from Morris Payne, was Graham Seymour. And to Seymour’s left was Amanda Wallace, who looked as though she feared being splattered by blood. Morris Payne’s reputation preceded him. During his brief tenure he had largely completed the task of transforming the CIA from an intelligence service into a paramilitary organization. The language of espionage bored him. He was a man of action.
“I know you’re all in crisis mode,” Payne began, “so I won’t waste anyone’s time. You’re all to be commended. You prevented a calamity. Or at least delayed one,” he added. “But the White House is insisting—and, frankly, we agree—that Langley needs to take the lead on this and bring the operation home. With all due respect, it makes the most sense. We have the reach and the capability, and we have the technology.”
“But we have the source,” responded Gabriel. “And all the reach and technology in the world won’t replace him. We found him, we burned him, and we recruited him. He’s ours.”
“And now,” said Payne, “you’re going to turn him over to us.”
“Sorry, Morris, but I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”
Gabriel glanced toward the end of the table and saw Adrian Carter attempting to suppress a smile. It was hardly an auspicious beginning. Unfortunately, it went rapidly downhill from there.
Voices were raised, the table pounded, threats issued. Threats of retaliation. Threats of cooperation suspended and critical aid withheld. Not long ago, Gabriel would have had the luxury of calling the director’s bluff. Now he had to proceed with caution. The British were not the only ones who were dependent on Langley’s technological might. Israel needed the Americans even more, and under no circumstances could Gabriel afford to alienate his most valuable strategic and operational partner. Besides, for all his bluster and bravado, Morris Payne was a friend who saw the world roughly as Gabriel did. His predecessor, a fluent speaker of Arabic, had made a point of referring to Jerusalem as al-Quds. Things could definitely be worse.
At Graham Seymour’s suggestion, they broke for food and drink. Afterward, the mood lightened considerably. Morris Payne admitted that during the flight across the Atlantic he h
ad taken the time to review Gabriel’s Agency file.
“I have to say, it was impressive reading.”
“I’m surprised you were able to squeeze it aboard your plane.”
Payne’s smile was genuine. “We both grew up on farms,” he said. “Ours was in a remote corner of South Dakota, and yours was in the Valley of Jezreel.”
“Next to an Arab village.”
“We didn’t have Arabs. Only bears and wolves.”
This time it was Gabriel who smiled. Payne picked at the edge of a dried-out tea sandwich.
“You’ve operated in North Africa before. Personally, I mean. You were involved in the Abu Jihad operation in Tunis in eighty-eight. You and your team landed on the beach and blasted your way into his villa. You killed him in his study in front of one of his children. He was watching videos of the intifada at the time.”
“That’s not true,” said Gabriel after a moment.
“Which part?”
“I didn’t kill Abu Jihad in front of his family. His daughter walked into the study after he was already dead.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her to go take care of her mother. And then I left.”
A silence fell over the room. It was Morris Payne who broke it.
“Think you can do it again? In Morocco?”
“Are you asking whether we have the capability?”
“Humor me,” said Payne.
Morocco, replied Gabriel, was well within the operational reach of the Office.
“You have decent relations with the king,” Payne pointed out. “Relations that would be endangered if something went wrong.”
“So do you,” replied Gabriel.
“Do you intend to work with the Moroccan services?”
“Did you work with the Pakistanis when you went after Bin Laden?”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“In all likelihood,” said Gabriel, “Saladin is hiding in circumstances similar to the way Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. What’s more, he enjoys the protection of a drug lord, a man who undoubtedly has friends in high places. Telling the Moroccans about the operation would be like telling Saladin himself.”
“How sure are you he’s really there?”
Gabriel placed the two composite sketches on the table. He tapped the first one, Saladin as he had appeared in the spring of 2012, not long after ISIS had set up shop in Libya.
“He looks an awful lot like the man I saw in the lobby of the Four Seasons in Georgetown before the attack. Check the hotel security footage. I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion.” Gabriel tapped the second sketch. “And this is the way he looks now.”
“According to a drug dealer named Jean-Luc Martel.”
“We don’t always get to choose our assets, Morris. Sometimes they choose us.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Not at all.”
“Are you prepared to ride into battle with him?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
It was obvious he didn’t. “What if Saladin doesn’t bite?”
“He just lost a hundred million euros worth of hashish. And the cesium.”
The American looked at Paul Rousseau. “Have your people been able to identify the source?”
“The most likely explanation,” said Rousseau, “is that it came from Russia or one of the other former Soviet republics or satellites. The Soviets were rather indiscriminate in their use of cesium, and they left canisters of the stuff scattered all over the countryside. It’s also possible it came from Libya. The rebels and militias overran Libya’s nuclear facilities when the regime collapsed. The IAEA was particularly concerned about the Tajoura research facility. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”
Payne indicated he had. “When is your government planning to make an announcement?”
“About what?”
“The cesium!” snapped Payne.
“We’re not.”
Payne appeared incredulous. It was Gabriel who explained.
“An announcement would needlessly alarm the public. More important, it would alert Saladin and his network to the fact that their radiological material had been discovered.”
“What if another shipment of cesium got through? What happens if a dirty bomb goes off in the middle of Paris? Or London? Or Manhattan, for that matter?”
“Going public won’t make that any more or less likely. Keeping quiet, however, has its advantages.” Gabriel placed a hand on Graham Seymour’s shoulder. “Have you had a chance to read his file, Director Payne? Graham’s father worked for British intelligence during the Second World War. The Double Cross Committee. They didn’t tell the Germans when they arrested their spies in Britain. They kept those captured spies alive in the minds of their German controllers and used them to feed deceptive information to Hitler and his generals. And the Germans never tried to replace those captured spies because they believed they were still on the job.”
“So if Saladin thinks the material got through, he won’t try to send more—is that what you’re saying?”
Gabriel was silent.
“Not bad,” said the American, smiling.
“This isn’t our first rodeo.”
“Did you have rodeos in the Jezreel Valley?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “We did not.”
After that, there was just one final piece of business to attend to. It was not something that could be addressed in front of a roomful of spies. It was a bilateral issue, one that needed to be handled at the highest level, chief to chief. A quiet side room wouldn’t do. Only the walled garden, with its crumbled fountains and weedy footpaths, provided the necessary level of privacy.
Despite the fact it was midsummer, the weather was cool and gray and the overgrown hedges dripped with the rain of a recent shower. Gabriel and Morris Payne walked side by side, slowly, thoughtfully, separated by an inch at most. Viewed from the leaded windows of the old manor house, they made an unlikely pairing—the big, beefy American from the Dakotas, the diminutive Israeli from the ancient Valley of Jezreel. Morris Payne, jacketless, gestured broadly as he made his points. Gabriel, listening, rubbed the small of his back and when appropriate nodded in agreement.
Five minutes into the conversation, they stopped and turned to face one another, as if in confrontation. Morris Payne jabbed a thick forefinger into Gabriel’s chest, hardly an encouraging sign, but Gabriel only smiled and returned the favor. Then he raised his left hand above his head and moved it in a circular fashion while the right hovered palm-down at his hip. This time it was Morris Payne who nodded in assent. Those watching from inside understood the significance of the moment. An operational accord had been struck. The Americans would handle the skies and cyber, the Israelis would run the show on the ground and, if presented the opportunity, send Saladin quietly into the night.
With that, they turned and started back toward the house. It was clear to those watching from inside that Gabriel was saying something that displeased Morris Payne greatly. There was another pause and more fingers pointed toward chests. Then Payne turned his big Easter Island face toward the gray sky and gave a capitulatory exhalation of breath. Passing through the meeting room, he snared his jacket from the back of his chair and headed outside, followed by his unsmiling executive staff and, a few paces behind, by Adrian Carter and Kyle Taylor. Gabriel and Graham Seymour waved to them from the portico as though bidding farewell to unwanted company.
“Did you get everything you wanted?” asked Seymour through a frozen smile.
“We’ll see in a minute.”
The scrum of Americans was now beginning to divide into smaller cells, with each cell making for one of the waiting SUVs. Morris Payne stopped suddenly and called out for Carter to join him. Carter detached himself from the rest of the operators and, watched enviously by Kyle Taylor, climbed into the director’s SUV.
“How did you manage that?” asked Seymour as the motorcade rumbled into life.
�
��I asked nicely.”
“How long do you reckon he’ll survive?”
“That,” said Gabriel, “depends entirely on Saladin.”
44
King Saul Boulevard, Tel Aviv
Next morning the whole of King Saul Boulevard charged into battle. Even Uzi Navot, who had been tending other operational fires during Gabriel’s many prolonged absences, was drawn into the intense planning. It was, as the Americans liked to say, all hands on deck. The Office had fought for and won the right to retain control of the operation. But with that victory had come the enormous responsibility of getting it right. Not since the American raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad had there been a targeted killing operation of this magnitude. Saladin pulled the levers of a global terror network that had proven itself capable of striking virtually at will—a network that had managed to obtain the radiological material for a dirty bomb and smuggle it to the doorstep of Western Europe. The stakes, they reminded themselves at every turn, could not be any higher. The security of the civilized world quite literally hung in the balance. So, too, did Gabriel’s career. Success would only burnish his reputation, but a failure would wipe away all that had come before and add his name to the list of disgraced chiefs who had overreached and then stumbled.
If Gabriel was concerned about potential damage to his personal legacy, he didn’t show it. Not even to Uzi Navot, who wore a groove in the patch of carpet stretching from his door to the office that once had been his. There was a rumor he had actually tried to talk Gabriel out of it, that he had advised his old rival to make a gift of Jean-Luc Martel and Saladin to the Americans and turn his attention to matters closer to home, like the Iranians. The risks of the operation were far too great, worried Navot, and the rewards too small. At least that was the version of the conversation that flashed through the corridors and cipher-protected rooms of King Saul Boulevard. But Gabriel, according to this account, had held fast to his operation. “And why wouldn’t he?” asked a sage from Travel. Saladin had bested Gabriel that terrible night in Washington. And then, of course, there was Hannah Weinberg, Gabriel’s friend and sometime accomplice, whom Saladin had killed in Paris. No, said the sage, Gabriel was not going to leave Saladin to his friends in Washington. He was going to put him in the ground. In fact, if given the chance, he was likely to do the deed himself. It wasn’t business for Gabriel any longer. It was strictly personal.