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

by Daniel Silva

  “The Gama’a and al-Jihad, of course, are with us still,” al-Zayyat said. “Their goal is to destroy the Mubarak regime, replace it with an Islamic republic, and then use Egypt as a base of operations to wage a global jihad against the West and Israel. Both groups are signatories of al-Qaeda’s declaration of war against the Crusaders and the Jews, and both are formally under the umbrella of Osama bin Laden’s command structure. Egyptians make up more than half of al-Qaeda’s core personnel, and they hold five of the nine positions in the ruling Shura Council. And, of course, Osama’s right-hand man is Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Jihad.”

  “So Egypt is no different than the Saudis,” Gabriel said. “You thought you could reach accommodation with the Islamic terrorists by giving them money and encouragement and deflecting their rage outward. And now they’re threatening to destroy you.”

  “You did the same thing, my friend. Don’t forget that the Office and Shabak gave money and support to Hamas in the early days because you thought the Islamists were a good counterweight to the secular leftists of the PLO.”

  “Point taken,” Gabriel said. “But please don’t tell me I’m supposed to pay you fifty thousand dollars to tell me that al-Qaeda is responsible for kidnapping the daughter of the American ambassador to London. I could have saved my money and just turned on CNN instead. They have lots of experts saying the same thing.”

  “It’s not just al-Qaeda,” al-Zayyat said. “It’s a joint operation, a merging of assets, if you will.”

  “Who’s the other partner?”

  The Egyptian walked over to the drinks cabinet and refilled his glass. “There were other groups besides the Gama’a and al-Jihad that formed in the seventies. More than fifty in all. Some were just cells of university students that couldn’t organize a bucket brigade. Others were good. Very good.” He took a drink of the whisky. “Unfortunately, a group that sprang up at the University of Minya was one of the good ones. They called themselves the Sword of Allah.”

  The Sword of Allah… Gabriel knew the name, of course. Anyone who worked in the field of Islamic terrorism did. In the late 1970s, after Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem, a group of university students, professors, and civil servants from the Upper Egyptian town of Minya had coalesced around a fiery Islamist cleric named Sheikh Tayyib Abdul-Razzaq. Sheikh Tayyib adopted a simple program for seizing power in Egypt: inflict as much terror and bloodshed on Egyptian society as possible and the regime would collapse under its own weight. In the early 1990s, he nearly succeeded. Flushed with the prospects of success, the sheikh decided to take his campaign global, long before there was such a thing known as al-Qaeda. He sent emissaries to Europe to open branch offices of the Sword among the burgeoning Muslim communities there and dispatched his older brother and closest advisor, Sheikh Abdullah Abdul-Razzaq, to suburban Washington to wage jihad against the most important patron of the Egyptian regime: the government of the United States. In 1998, Sheikh Abdullah was found guilty on charges of conspiring to bomb the State Department, the Capitol, and the headquarters of the FBI and was sentenced to life in prison. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer. Freeing the sheikh before his death was now one of the Sword’s top priorities.

  “Al-Qaeda has been itching to hit London again for a long time,” al-Zayyat said. “And, of course, Sheikh Tayyib wants to get his brother back from the Americans. They decided to merge the two priorities into a single terror spectacular. Al-Qaeda handled the bombings, while the Sword and its European networks saw to the hostage-taking side of the operation.”

  “What evidence do you have of Sword involvement?”

  “You had the proof in your own hands for a few seconds in Hyde Park,” the Egyptian said. “Samir al-Masri, former student of engineering at the University of Minya, is a member of the Sword of Allah and one of its more talented terrorist operatives.”

  “It would have been helpful, Wazir, if you’d told the Dutch he was living quietly in west Amsterdam.”

  “We didn’t know he was in Holland or we would have.” The Egyptian sat down on the couch next to his bag of money. “Samir left Egypt a few months after the Americans went into Iraq. When the insurgency started up, he joined forces with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and perfected his craft. Apparently he slipped out of Iraq shortly before Zarqawi’s death and made his way to Europe via Damascus. If you want to blame anyone for the fact that Samir was living quietly in west Amsterdam, blame the Syrians. And the Dutch, of course. Christ, they’ll let anyone into their country.”

  “What else do you have besides Samir’s connection?”

  “The al-Hijrah Mosque.”

  “What about it?”

  “The imam there is a graduate of al-Azhar in Cairo and a member of the Sword of Allah.”

  “That’s still not enough.”

  “This discussion is academic,” al-Zayyat said. “In twenty-four hours you’ll have proof the Sword of Allah is behind this. That’s when they’ll offer to trade Elizabeth Halton for Sheikh Abdullah.”

  “How can you be so sure about the timing?”

  “The Sword has carried out a number of kidnappings inside Egypt. Most of the time the outside world doesn’t even hear about them. Their method of operation is always the same. They wait one week before making demands. And if they set a deadline for killing the girl, they’ll do it when the second hand reaches twelve. And there won’t be any extensions or delays.”

  “The Americans will never release Sheikh Abdullah.”

  “If they don’t, the Sword of Allah and al-Qaeda are going to send the American president’s goddaughter home in a bag—or what’s left of her, I should say. They’ll kill her the same way they took her. With a great deal of bloodshed.”

  “Have you told the Americans about any of this?”

  Al-Zayyat shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Orders from on high,” said al-Zayyat. “Our fearless leader is afraid his patrons in Washington will be angry when they find out the plot to kidnap the ambassador’s daughter originated in Egypt. He’s trying to delay the day of reckoning as long as possible. In the meantime, he’s directed the SSI and the other security services to gather as much intelligence as possible.”

  “Who’s the mastermind?”

  “If I had to guess, it goes all the way to the top.”

  “Zawahiri?”

  The Egyptian nodded.

  “But surely there’s someone between him and the operatives,” Gabriel said. “Someone like Khaled Sheikh Mohammad. Someone who made the trains run on time.”

  “There is.” Al-Zayyat held his tumbler of whisky up to the sunlight and contemplated its color for a moment without speaking. “And if I had to venture a guess as to his identity, I’d say it’s almost certainly the work of the Sphinx.”

  “Who’s the Sphinx?”

  “We’re not sure who he is, but we know his handiwork all too well. All told, he’s killed more than a thousand people inside Egypt—tourists, government ministers, wealthy friends of the regime. We assume he’s highly educated and very well connected. We believe he has agents of influence and spies at the highest level of Egyptian society and government, including inside my service. He operates through cutouts like Samir. We’ve never been able to get close to him.”

  “Could he have planned something like this from Egypt?”

  “Highly unlikely,” al-Zayyat said. “He’s probably in Europe. In fact, I’d be willing to wager a fair amount of money that he is. The Sword has been very quiet in Egypt for the last year. Now we know why.”

  “Where’s Sheikh Tayyib?”

  “The same place he’s been for the last fifteen years: underground. He moves between a string of hideouts in Upper Egypt and the oasis towns of the Western Desert. We also think he moves in and out of Libya and the Sudan.”

  “Find him,” Gabriel said.

  “Elizabeth Halton will be dead long before we ever find the sheikh.”

  “Start rounding up Sword operatives
and bringing them in for quiet chats. That’s your specialty, isn’t it, Wazir? Quiet chats with Islamic extremists?”

  “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” al-Zayyat replied. “Trust me, Allon, we’re kicking down doors as we speak, but the Sphinx knew we would. No one in Egypt knows where the girl is. I doubt even Sheikh Tayyib knows the operational details. Your best chance at finding her alive died with Samir al-Masri. The Sword is good at hiding people.”

  “Someone knows,” Gabriel said. “Someone has to know.”

  “The Sphinx knows. Find the Sphinx and you’ll find the girl.” The Egyptian put his hand on the grip of the briefcase. “So have I earned my fifty thousand yet?”

  “I want everything you have on the Sword of Allah,” Gabriel said. “Case files, membership rolls, known front organizations in Europe. Names, addresses, telephone numbers.”

  “It’s in a suitcase in the trunk of my car,” the Egyptian said. “But it’s going to cost you.”

  Gabriel sighed. “How much, Wazir?”

  “Another fifty thousand.”

  “I don’t happen to have another fifty thousand on me.”

  The Egyptian smiled. “I’ll take an IOU,” he said. “I know you’re good for it.”

  The Samsonite suitcase that Wazir al-Zayyat produced from the trunk of his rented Volkswagen contained the lifeblood of one of the world’s most violent terror organizations and was therefore a steal at fifty thousand. When the Egyptian was gone, Gabriel opened a directory of known Sword members and started reading. Five minutes later he came across a name that was familiar to him. He located a photocopy of the corresponding file and examined the photograph. It was dated and of poor quality; even so, Gabriel could tell it was the same man he had encountered a week earlier in Amsterdam. I’m the person you’re looking for in Solomon Rosner’s files, the man had said to him that night. And I’ve come to help you.

  16

  PARIS: 3:45 P.M., FRIDAY

  The knock was cautious and contrite. Dr. Yusuf Ramadan, professor of Near Eastern history at American University in Cairo, looked up from his work and saw a woman standing in the doorway of his office. Like all female employees of the Institute of Islamic Studies, she was veiled. Even so, the professor averted his eyes slightly as she spoke.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Professor, but if it’s all right with you, I’ll be leaving now.”

  “Of course, Atifah.”

  “Can I get you anything before I go? More tea, perhaps?”

  “I’ve had too much already.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “In fact, I’m going to be leaving soon myself. I’m meeting a colleague from the Sorbonne for coffee at four-thirty.”

  “Don’t forget your umbrella. It’s still raining.”

  “It’s been raining for five days.”

  “Welcome to Paris. Peace be upon you, Professor Ramadan.”

  “And you, Atifah.”

  The woman slipped out of the office and quietly closed the door. Ramadan spent another ten minutes tapping away at the keyboard of his laptop computer, then placed the computer and his research files into his briefcase and stood up. He was slender and bearded, with receding curly hair, soft brown eyes, and the fine aquiline features often associated with Egyptian aristocracy. He was not of aristocratic birth; indeed, the man now regarded as one of Egypt’s most influential intellectuals and writers was born the son of a postal clerk in a poor village at the edge of the Fayoum Oasis. Brilliant, charismatic, and a self-professed political moderate, he had taken a leave of absence from the university eighteen months earlier and signed on as a visiting scholar in residence with the institute. The ostensible purpose of his stay in Paris was to complete his masterwork, a critical reexamination of the Crusades that promised to be the standard against which all future books on the subject would be measured. When he was not writing, Professor Ramadan could often be seen in the lecture halls of the Sorbonne, or on French television, or even in the corridors of government power. Embraced wholeheartedly by the intelligentsia and media of Paris, his opinions were much in demand on matters ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the American occupation of Iraq and, of course, the scourge of Islamic terror, a topic with which he was intimately familiar.

  He walked over to his narrow window and looked down into the boulevard de la Chapelle. Dark and raw, a halfhearted drizzle: Paris in winter. It had been many days since the sun had made its last appearance, and even then it was only a furtive peak from behind the blanket of cloud. Ramadan longed to be back in Cairo: the thunder of the traffic, the smells both putrid and magical, the music of a thousand muezzins, the kiss of the desert wind at night…It had been six months since his last visit. Soon, he thought. Soon it would be over and he would go home again. And if things went according to plan, the country to which he would return would be very different from the one he had left behind. Strange to think that it had all been set in motion here, in dreary Paris, from his tiny office in the eighteenth arrondissement.

  He pulled on his overcoat and hat, then snatched up his briefcase and umbrella and stepped into the corridor. As he passed by the staff lounge he saw several colleagues gathered around the television, watching a briefing by the commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police. Mahmoud Aburish, the tubby, owl-like director of the institute, motioned for Ramadan to join him. Ramadan walked over and looked up at the screen.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “No word yet from the kidnappers,” said Aburish. “And no clues about the woman’s whereabouts.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “The British are very good, but judging from the expression on that man’s face, he’s not holding any cards up his sleeve.” Aburish regarded Ramadan through his smudged eyeglasses. “You’re the resident expert on matters like these, Yusuf. Who do you think has kidnapped this woman? And what on earth do they want?”

  “I suppose we’ll know soon enough,” Ramadan said.

  “How goes the writing?”

  “It goes, Mahmoud, just not as quickly as I had hoped. In fact, I’m having drinks with my French publisher in a few minutes to tell him I won’t be able to deliver the manuscript on time. He’s not going to be pleased. Neither are my British and American publishers.”

  “Is there anything the institute can do?”

  “You’ve done more than you’ll ever know, Mahmoud.”

  Aburish gazed toward the television as Dame Eleanor McKenzie, the director general of MI5, stepped before the television cameras. Yusuf Ramadan, the man known to the Egyptian security services only as the Sphinx, slipped silently from the lounge and headed downstairs.

  Though Yusuf Ramadan had been far from forthright during his brief encounter with Mahmoud Aburish, he had been truthful about one thing. He was indeed having drinks with his French publisher that evening—at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysées, to be precise—but not until five o’clock. He had one appointment before then, however, on the Quai de Montebello directly across the Seine from Notre-Dame. The man waiting for him there was tall and heavily built, dressed in a dark cashmere overcoat with a silk scarf knotted rakishly at his throat. His real name was Nidal Mutawalli, though Ramadan referred to him only as Abu Musa. Like Ramadan, he was from the Fayoum Oasis. They had grown up together, attended school together, and then gone their separate ways—Ramadan into the world of books and writing, Abu Musa into the world of finance and money. The jihad and their shared hatred of the Egyptian regime and its American backers had reunited them. It was Abu Musa, Yusuf Ramadan’s childhood friend, who allowed him to keep his identity a secret from the Egyptian security services. They were, quite literally, two of the most dangerous men on earth.

  A light drizzle was drifting through the lamplight along the Seine embankments and beading like teardrops on the plastic sheets covering the stalls of the bouquinistes. Ramadan wandered over to a trestle table stacked with books and thumbed a worn volume of Chekhov. Abu Musa joined him a moment later and picked up a copy
of L’Etranger by Camus.

  “Have you read him?” Abu Musa asked.

  “Of course,” said Ramadan. “I’m sure you’ll find it to your liking.”

  Ramadan moved on to the next table of books. Abu Musa joined him again a moment later, and again they exchanged a few harmless-sounding words. On it went like this for the next ten minutes as they moved slowly together down the row of booksellers, Ramadan leading, Abu Musa trailing after him. I’ve always enjoyed the poetry of Dryden…. I saw this play the last time I was in London…. The DVD has been shot and is ready to be handed over…. We’re ready to make the phone call on your orders….

  Ramadan picked up a copy of Hemingway and held it up for Abu Musa to see. “This has always been one of my favorites,” he said. “Allow me to give it to you as a gift.”

  He handed the bookseller a five-euro note, then, after jotting a brief inscription on the title page of the volume, presented it formally to Abu Musa with his hand over his heart. They parted a moment later as Emmanuel, the thirteen-ton bell in Notre-Dame’s south tower, tolled five o’clock. Abu Musa disappeared into the streets of the Latin Quarter; Yusuf Ramadan crossed to the other side of the river and walked in the Tuileries gardens, thinking about the question Mahmoud Aburish had posed to him earlier that afternoon. Who do you think has kidnapped this woman? And what on earth do they want? Because of the meeting that had just transpired in plain sight along the banks of the Seine, the Americans soon would be told the answers to those questions. Whether they chose to inform the rest of the world was none of Professor Ramadan’s concern—at least not yet.

  He walked for several minutes more in the gardens, checking his tail for signs of surveillance and thinking about his pending meeting with his French publisher on the Champs-Elysées. He supposed he had to come up with some suitable explanation as to why his book was now hopelessly behind schedule. He would think of something. The Sphinx was an extremely good liar.