Gabriel Allon: Prince of Fire, the Messenger, the Secret Servant

by Daniel Silva

  Fifteen minutes after entering the trees, he glimpsed the house for the first time. There were lights burning in the ground-floor windows, and a single window was illuminated on the second story. The guards were sheltering in the warmth of one of the jeeps. The engine was running and the headlights were doused. The gate was open.

  “Do you have a clean shot, Mikhail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one is best from your angle?”

  “The driver.”

  “It’s nearly fifty yards, Mikhail. Can you get him cleanly?”

  “I can get him.”

  “A head shot, Mikhail. We need to do it quietly.”

  “I have the shot.”

  “Line it up and wait for my signal. We shoot together. And God help us if we miss.”

  “SO ALLON asked you to help him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Instantly?”

  “Yes.”

  “No hesitation.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re evil. And I hate you.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  “You wanted the truth.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I quit my job at the Phillips Collection and moved to London.”

  GABRIEL TOOK careful aim at the man in the passenger seat.

  “Are you ready, Mikhail?”

  “Ready.”

  “Two shots, on my mark, in five, four, three, two…”

  Gabriel squeezed the trigger twice. Four holes appeared almost simultaneously in the windshield of the jeep. He sprinted up the track through the knee-deep snow, Navot at his heels, and approached the jeep cautiously with the Beretta in his outstretched hands. Mikhail had managed two fatal head shots on the driver, but Gabriel’s man had been hit in the cheek and upper chest and was still semiconscious.

  Gabriel shot him twice through the passenger-side window, then stood motionless for an instant, scanning the terrain for any sign their presence had been detected. It was Navot who noticed the guard coming out of the trees at the left side of the house and Mikhail who dropped him with a single head shot that sprayed blood and brain tissue across the virgin snow. Gabriel turned and headed across the clearing toward the chalet, with the other three men at his back.

  “TELL ME ABOUT this man Julian Isherwood.”

  “Julian is a dear sweet man.”

  “He is a Jew?”

  “Never came up.”

  “Julian Isherwood is a longtime agent of Israeli intelligence?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “So after leaving the Phillips Collection you went immediately to work as Julian Isherwood’s assistant director?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you were a complete amateur. When were you trained?”

  “At night.”

  “Where?”

  “At a country house south of London.”

  “Where was this country house?”

  “Surrey, I think. I never caught the name of the village.”

  “It was a permanent Israeli safe house?”

  “A rental. Very temporary.”

  “There were other people there besides Allon?”

  “Yes.”

  “They used other people to help train you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me some of their names.”

  “The people who came from Tel Aviv never gave me their names.”

  “And what about the other members of Allon’s London team?”

  “What about them?”

  “Give me their names.”

  “Please don’t make me do this.”

  “Give me their names, Sarah.”

  “Please, don’t.”

  He hit her hard enough to knock her from her chair. She hung there a moment, the handcuffs carving into her wrists, while he screamed at her for names.

  “Tell me their names, Sarah. All of them.”

  “There was a man named Yaakov.”

  “Who else?”

  “Yossi.”

  “Give me another name, Sarah.”

  “Eli.”

  “Another.”

  “Dina.”

  “Another.”

  “Rimona.”

  “And these were the same people who followed you in Saint Bart’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was the man who first approached you on the beach at Saline?”

  “Yaakov.”

  “Who was the woman who left the message in the bathroom for you at the restaurant in Saline?”

  “Rimona.”

  “Who was girl with the limp who came to Le Tetou restaurant right before you went to the restroom?”

  “Dina.”

  “They’re all Jews, these people.”

  “Would that come as a surprise to you?”

  “And what about you, Sarah? Are you a Jew?”

  “No, I’m not a Jew.”

  “Then why did you help them?”

  “Because I hate you.”

  “Yes, and look what it’s gotten you.”

  THEY ENCOUNTERED one more guard before reaching the chalet. He came from their right, around the corner of the house, and foolishly stepped into the open with his weapon still at his side. Gabriel and Mikhail fired together. The shots were muffled by the silencers, but the guard emitted a single piercing scream as the volley of rounds tore into his chest. Two faces, like figures in a shooting gallery, appeared suddenly in the illuminated windows of the house—one in a ground-floor window directly in front of Gabriel, a second on the upper floor at the peak of the roof. Gabriel took out the man in the first-floor window while Mikhail saw to the one on the second.

  They had now lost any remaining element of surprise. Gabriel and Mikhail both reloaded as they sprinted the final thirty yards toward the front door. Yaakov had much experience entering terrorist hideouts in the West Bank and Gaza and led the way. He didn’t bother trying the latch. Instead he sprayed a volley of rounds through the center of the door to take out anyone standing on the other side, then shot away the lock and the surrounding wood of the doorjamb. Navot, the largest of the four men, hurled his thick body against the door, and it collapsed inward like a falling domino.

  The other three stepped quickly into the small entrance hall. Gabriel covered the space to the left, Yaakov the center, and Mikhail the right. Gabriel, still wearing the night-vision goggles, saw the man he shot though the window lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Yaakov and Mikhail each fired immediately, and Gabriel heard the screams of two more dying men. They moved forward into the chalet, found the steps to the cellar, and headed down. We’ll start there, Gabriel had said. Torturers always like to do their work belowground.

  SHE WAS DESCRIBING for him the day of the sale, when there came from the floor above the sound of a disturbance. He silenced her with a brutal slap across her face, then stood up and, with the gun in his hand, moved quickly to the door. A few seconds later she heard shouts and screams and heavy footfalls on the steps. Muhammad turned and leveled the gun at her face. Sarah, still handcuffed to the table, reflexively lowered her head between her arms as he squeezed the trigger twice. In the tiny chamber the gun sounded like artillery. The rounds scorched the air above her head and embedded themselves in the wall at her back.

  He screamed at her in rage for having the indecency of choosing life over death and moved a step closer to fire again. Then the door came crashing inward as though it had been blown away by the concussion of a bomb blast. It slammed against Muhammad’s back and knocked him to the ground. The gun was still in his hand. He rose onto one knee and leveled it at her once more as two men came flashing through the doorway, their faces hidden by balaclavas and night-vision goggles. They shot Muhammad. They kept shooting him until they had no more rounds to fire.

  THEY CUT AWAY the handcuffs and the shackles and spirited her past the tattered bodies of
the dead. Outside she climbed childlike into Gabriel’s arms. He bore her across the snowy clearing and down the track to the road, where Lavon and Moshe were waiting with the cars. The silence of the forest was shattered by her wailing.

  “I had to tell them things.”

  “I know.”

  “They hit me. They told me they were going to kill me.”

  “I know, Sarah. I saw the room.”

  “They know about you, Gabriel. I tried to—”

  “It’s all right, Sarah. It’s our fault. We let you down.”

  “I’m sorry, Gabriel. I’m so sorry.”

  “Please, Sarah. Don’t.”

  “I saw him again.”

  “Who?”

  “Bin Shafiq.”

  “Where was he?”

  “In Zurich. He’s not finished, Gabriel.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s going to hit the Vatican again.”

  36.

  Zug, Switzerland

  TWO OF NAVOT’S WATCHERS managed to make it south over the Italian border before the weather closed the mountain passes. The other two went east into Austria. Navot himself joined with Moshe and went to Paris to throw a security net around Hannah Weinberg. Gabriel took Sarah to the private airstrip outside Zug. They sat like lovers as he drove, Gabriel with his arm around her shoulder, Sarah with her wet face pressed against the side of his neck. It was 4:30 when the plane rose into the clouds and disappeared. Carter and Gabriel were not on it.

  “All right, Gabriel, I’m listening.”

  “Sarah saw bin Shafiq in Zurich. He told her he was going to hit the Vatican again.”

  Carter swore softly beneath his breath.

  “Your president is in Rome today, is he not?”

  “He is indeed.”

  “What time is he due at the Vatican?”

  “High noon.”

  Gabriel looked at his wristwatch.

  “There’s a shuttle between Zurich and Rome that leaves on the hour. If we hurry, we can be on the seven-o’clock plane.”

  “Drive,” said Carter.

  Gabriel started the car and headed for Zurich. Carter called CIA Headquarters and asked to be connected to the chief of the U.S. Secret Service.

  THE FIRST thirty minutes of the drive Carter spent on the telephone. When the lights of Zurich appeared out of the mist at the northern end of the lake, he hung up the phone and looked at Gabriel.

  “Sarah will be on the ground at Ramstein Air Base in less than an hour. She’ll be taken to an American military hospital there for a complete examination.”

  “What does your doctor say?”

  “Her condition is as you might expect. Abrasions and contusions to her face. A slight concussion. Damage to her left eye. Deep abdominal bruises. Two cracked ribs. Two broken toes. I wonder why they did that.”

  “They dragged her down the stairs to the cellar.”

  “Oh, and the hypothermia. I suppose she got that from riding in the trunk. All in all, things could be a lot worse.”

  “Make sure you have someone with her,” Gabriel said. “The last thing we need now is Sarah inadvertently spilling our secrets to the doctors at Ramstein.”

  “Fear not, Gabriel. She’s in good hands.”

  “She says she talked.”

  “Of course she talked. Hell, I would have talked.”

  “You should have seen the room.”

  “Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t. That sort of stuff isn’t my cup of tea. I sometimes find myself longing for the good old days of the cold war, when torture and blood weren’t part of my business.” Carter looked at Gabriel. “I suppose it’s always been part of yours, hasn’t it?”

  Gabriel ignored him. “She told them everything to buy time. The question is, did Muhammad manage to report any of what she told them to his superiors before we arrived?”

  “You got his notebook?”

  Gabriel tapped the breast pocket of his leather jacket.

  “We’ll debrief Sarah when she’s recovered.”

  “She might not remember everything she told them. She was filled with drugs.”

  They drove in silence for a moment. Despite the early hour, there was morning commuter traffic on the road. Industrious Swiss moneymen, thought Gabriel. He wondered how many of them worked for companies linked however tenuously to AAB Holdings of Riyadh, Geneva, and points in between.

  “Do you think they’re going to let me on this plane, Adrian?”

  “Gustav assures me we’ll have no problems with our departure.”

  “Maybe not you, but I have a colorful history here in Zurich.”

  “You have a colorful history everywhere. Don’t worry, Gabriel. They’ll let you on the plane.”

  “You’re sure your friend Gustav will keep it quiet?”

  “Keep what quiet?” Carter managed a weary smile. “We have a cleanup team en route to Uri as we speak. Gustav will keep the property secured until they arrive. And then…” He shrugged. “It will be as if nothing ever happened.”

  “What are you going to do with the bodies?”

  “We have more than secret detention facilities in eastern Europe. They’ll get a proper burial, which is more than they deserve. And maybe some day, when this war without end is actually over, we’ll be able to tell one of their relatives where they can claim the bones.” Carter smoothed his mustache. “You have one, don’t you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A secret cemetery? Somewhere out in the Jordan Valley?”

  Gabriel took a long look into his rearview mirror but said nothing.

  “How many bodies, Gabriel? Do you remember?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “How many then? The team needs to know where to look.”

  Gabriel told him. Two in the four-wheel-drive. Two in the clearing in front of the chalet. One in the first-floor window. One in the second-floor window. Two in the center hall. Two at the bottom of the stairs. And Muhammad.

  “Eleven men,” Carter said. “We’ll run their names. We’ll find out who they were and what they were planning. But I think it’s safe to assume right now that you took down a major cell tonight, along with a very senior man in bin Shafiq’s operation.”

  “We didn’t get the one we wanted.”

  “Something tells me you’ll find him.”

  “At least two of them were Europeans, and Uzi heard one of them speaking in a Swiss-German accent.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll be buried with the jihadists. I suppose it’s how they would have wanted it.” Carter glanced at his watch. “Can’t you drive any faster?”

  “I’m going eighty, Adrian. How much did you tell the Secret Service?”

  “I told them we have alarmingly credible evidence that the forces of global jihad are planning to attack the president at the Vatican this afternoon. Heavy emphasis was placed on the words ‘alarmingly credible evidence.’ Secret Service got the message loud and clear, and I hope to have a moment or two with the president later this morning. He’s staying at the ambassador’s residence.”

  “He might want to consider canceling.”

  “That isn’t going to happen,” Carter said. “The Vatican is now the most visible symbol in the world of the dangers of Islamic terrorism. This president isn’t going to pass up a chance to reinforce his message on that stage.”

  “He’s going to get an earful from Lucchesi.”

  “He’s ready for it,” Carter said. “As for security, Secret Service is already making arrangements with the Italians to change the president’s travel plans. Coincidentally, they were thinking about it before they received my call. Rome is a mess. They’re expecting two million people in the streets today.”

  “How are they going to get him into the Vatican?”

  “The motorcade of visiting heads of state usually enters the Holy See through St. Anne’s Gate, then heads up the Via Belvedere to the San Damaso Courtyard. He’s met there by the commandant of the Swiss Guard a
nd escorted into the Apostolic Palace. The bodyguards of the visiting heads of state have to stay down in the courtyard. Vatican protocol. The head of state goes up alone, protected only by the Guard. I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. Secret Service always stashes a couple of men in the official party—nice Catholic boys who want to meet the Holy Father.”

  “So what sort of changes are you making?”

  “The president is going to chopper to the Vatican and land on the Pope’s helipad.”

  “It’s in the far western corner, right against the wall. If someone is waiting down on the Viale Vaticano with another missile…”

  “Secret Service says the area can be secured.”

  “How many nice Catholic boys are you going to stash in the president’s official delegation?”

  “More than usual.” Carter looked at his watch again. “We should probably enter the airport a few minutes apart. Langley booked us in separate seats.”

  “You’re ashamed of me, Adrian?”

  “Never prouder, actually. You and your boys showed a lot of guts going into the chalet.”

  “We didn’t have a choice, Adrian. We never have a choice.”

  Carter closed his eyes for a moment. “You know, it’s possible bin Shafiq was just shooting off his mouth, or bluffing for some reason.”

  “Why would he bluff, Adrian? He was going to kill her.”

  37.

  Vatican City

  IT’S A GOOD THING your friend the monsignor asked us to give you a lift,” the Carabinieri captain said. “Otherwise you would have never made it from Fiumicino to the Vatican.”

  Gabriel looked out the window of the helicopter. Rome lay beneath him. The Villa Borghese had been taken over as a staging area by the demonstrators and was now a sea of humanity. The first marchers were spilling from the bottom of the park into the Via Veneto.