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

by Daniel Silva

  The words had been spoken with such a profound seriousness that Gabriel knew further debate was pointless. It would be like arguing with a man who believed the earth was flat or that American astronauts had never landed on the moon. He felt suddenly like Winston Smith in Room 101 of the Ministry of Love. Freedom is slavery. Two and two make five. Murder of one’s father is divine duty.

  “You were good in Denmark,” Gabriel said. “Very professional. You must have been planning that for a long time. I don’t suppose killing your own father was part of the original plan, but you improvised extraordinarily well.”

  “Thank you,” Ishaq said earnestly.

  “Why weren’t you there for the finale? And why wasn’t I killed along with him?”

  Ishaq smiled calmly but made no response. Gabriel answered his own question.

  “You and the Sphinx had other plans for me, didn’t you—plans that were laid the moment my picture appeared in the London papers after the kidnapping?”

  “Who is this person you refer to as the Sphinx?”

  Gabriel ignored him and pushed on. “The Sphinx knew that if the Americans didn’t release Elizabeth, eventually her father would take matters into his own hands. He knew that Robert Halton would offer the only thing he had: money. He also knew that someone would have to deliver the money. He waited for Halton to make the offer, then he seized the opportunity to take his revenge.”

  “And yet you came anyway.” Ishaq was unable to prevent a note of astonishment from creeping into his voice. “Surely you knew this would be your fate. Why would you do such a thing? Why would you be willing to trade your life for another—for the spoiled daughter of an American billionaire?”

  “Where is she, Ishaq?”

  “Do you really think I would tell you, even if I knew where she was?”

  “You know exactly where she is. She’s an innocent, Ishaq. Even under your perverted notion of takfir, you have no right to kill her.”

  “She is the daughter of the American ambassador, the goddaughter of the American president, and spoke out in favor of the war in Iraq. She is a legitimate target, under our laws or anyone else’s.”

  “Only a terrorist would consider Elizabeth Halton a legitimate target. We had a deal. Thirty million dollars for Elizabeth’s life. I expect you to live up to that deal.”

  “You are in no position to make demands, Allon. Besides, our laws permit us to lie to infidels when necessary and to take the infidels’ money when it suits our needs. Thirty million dollars will go a very long way toward funding our global jihad. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll even be able to use it to buy a nuclear weapon—a weapon we can use to wipe your country off the map.”

  “Keep the money. Buy your fucking weapon. But let her go.”

  Ishaq pulled a frown, as if bored by the topic. “Let us return to my original question,” he said. “Where are Hanifah and Ahmed?”

  “They were in custody in Copenhagen. When you demanded that I deliver the money, we went to the Danes and asked for your wife and son as collateral. The Danes, of course, granted our request without hesitation. If I don’t come back alive from this—and if Elizabeth Halton is not freed—your family will disappear from the face of the earth.”

  He appeared shaken but put on a defiant face. “You’re lying.”

  “Whatever you say, Ishaq. But trust me, if anything happens to me, you’ll never see them again.”

  “Even if it is true that you have taken them to Israel as collateral, once the world learns they are being held, great pressure will be brought to bear in order to secure their release. Your government will have no recourse but to bend.” He stood abruptly and looked at his watch. “It is now two minutes to midnight. We have something we need from you before your execution. Give it to us without a struggle and your death will be relatively painless. If you insist on fighting us again, the boys will have their way with you. And this time, I won’t call them off.”

  He opened the door and took a step outside, then turned and looked at Gabriel once more. “It occurs to me that soon you will be a shaheed, too. If you convert to Islam before your death, your place in Paradise will be assured. I can help, if you wish. The procedure is really quite simple.”

  Ishaq, receiving no answer, closed the door and secured it with a padlock. Gabriel closed his eyes. Two and two make four, he thought. Two and two make four.

  54

  THAMES HOUSE: 4:15 A.M., CHRISTMAS DAY

  I think I may have found something.”

  Graham Seymour looked up. It was the Israeli girl with dark hair and a limp: Dina Sarid. He gestured toward the empty chair next to his desk in the operations room. The girl remained standing.

  “According to British Telecom records, twenty-seven calls have been placed from the telephone in the Northumberland Road residence to a phone located at Number Fourteen Reginald Street in Luton during the past eighteen months. Five of these calls were placed after the disappearance of Elizabeth Halton.”

  Seymour frowned. Luton, a heavily Muslim suburb north of London, was one of MI5’s worst problems.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “According to your matrix, the telephone in Luton is located in the home of a man named Nabil Elbadry. Mr. Elbadry runs an import-export business and several other enterprises. He does not appear on any of your lists of known terrorist sympathizers or jihadi activists.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Seymour asked.

  “When I saw the name a few minutes ago, I knew I’d seen it somewhere before.”

  “Where?”

  “In a cache of Sword of Allah files we obtained from the Egyptian SSI.”

  Seymour felt his stomach begin to burn. “Keep going, Miss Sarid.”

  “Five years ago, the Egyptians arrested a man named Kemel Elbadry in Cairo. Under interrogation at the Torah Prison complex, he admitted to taking part in several Sword of Allah operations inside Egypt.”

  “What does this have to do with Nabil Elbadry from Luton?”

  “According to Kemel’s file, he had a brother named Nabil who immigrated to England in 1987. That corresponds exactly with the details on Nabil Elbadry’s immigration records.”

  “Is Kemel still in custody?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Executed?”

  “Unclear.”

  Graham Seymour stood up and called for quiet in the operations room.

  “Nabil Elbadry,” he shouted. “Number Fourteen Reginald Street, Luton. I want to know everything there is to know about this man and his business interests and I want to know it in five minutes or less.”

  He looked at the girl. She nodded her head once and limped slowly back to the conference room.

  The boys in black came for him ten minutes after Ishaq left the cell. As they led him up the narrow stairs, Gabriel prepared himself for another beating. Instead, upon his arrival in the warehouse, he was lowered rather cordially into a folding aluminum chair.

  He looked straight ahead and saw the lens of a video camera. Ishaq, now playing the role of director and cinematographer, ordered the four men in black to stand at Gabriel’s back. Three held Heckler & Koch compact submachine guns. One held a knife ominously. Gabriel knew his time had not yet come. His hands were cuffed in front. Infidels about to suffer the profound indignity of beheading always had their hands bound in back.

  Ishaq made a few minor changes to the arrangement of his props, then stepped from behind his camera and handed Gabriel his script. Gabriel looked down. Then, like an actor unhappy with his lines, he tried to hand it back.

  “Read it!” Ishaq demanded.

  “No,” replied Gabriel calmly.

  “Read it or I’ll kill you now.”

  Gabriel let the script fall from his hands.

  It took Graham Seymour’s task force only ten minutes to assemble a detailed inventory of all business interests and properties registered to Nabil Elbadry of Reginald Street, Luton. His eyes stopped halfway down the list. A company in which El
badry was a minority partner owned a warehouse in West Dock Street in Harwich, not far from the ferry port. Seymour stood and went quickly to the map. Harwich was approximately forty miles from the spot where the Essex police had discovered the abandoned boat. He walked back to his desk and dialed the Israeli command post in Kensington.

  Ishaq snatched up the fallen pages, then, after composing himself, read the statement on Gabriel’s behalf. Gabriel had committed many crimes against Palestinians and Muslims, Ishaq declared, and for these crimes he would soon face the justice of the sword. Gabriel did not listen to the entire recitation of his sins. Instead he looked down at the floor of the warehouse and wondered why Ishaq had not bothered to obscure his face before stepping in front of the camera. He knew the answer, of course: Ishaq was a martyr in the making and they were going to die together. When Ishaq was finished reading Gabriel’s death sentence, he walked over to the camera and checked to make certain it had recorded properly. Satisfied, he signaled the boys in black to commence their next beating. It seemed to last an eternity. The stab of the needle was an act of mercy. Gabriel’s eyes fell shut and he felt himself drowning in black water.

  “How long will it take you to get your teams in place, Uzi?”

  “I moved everyone that way after the Essex police found the boat. I can have three teams in Harwich in twenty minutes or less. The question is, what do we do when we get there?”

  “First we determine whether he’s really there and, if so, whether he is still alive. Then we wait.”

  “Wait? For what, boss?”

  “We came here to get the American girl, Uzi. And we’re not leaving without her.”

  55

  HARWICH, ENGLAND: 5:30 A.M., CHRISTMAS DAY

  Harwich, ancient port of fifteen thousand souls at the confluence of the rivers Stour and Orwell, lay darkened and slumbering beneath a steady onslaught of rain. The waters of Ramsey Creek were empty of commercial craft, and only a handful of cars had gathered at the ferry terminal for the morning’s first passage to the Continent. The medieval town center was tightly shuttered and abandoned to the gulls.

  It was into this setting that six field operatives from the foreign intelligence service of the State of Israel arrived at precisely 4:45 A.M. on Christmas morning. By five o’clock they had confirmed that the warehouse in West Dock Road was indeed occupied, and by 5:15 they had managed to place a small wireless camera in the corner of a broken window at the back. They were now carefully dispersed among the surrounding streets. Yaakov had taken up a post hundred yards from the warehouse in the Station Road. Yossi was encamped in the Refinery Road. Oded and Mordecai had hastily concealed the surveillance van beneath an overpass of the A120. Mikhail and Chiara, who had spent that night atop the BMW bike, were sheltering in the back of the van, staring at the screen of the video receiver. The image there was poorly framed and prone to static. Even so, they could see clearly what was taking place inside the warehouse. Four men dressed in black were loading large drums of liquid into the back of a Vauxhall panel van, under the supervision of a slender Egyptian-looking man in a burgundy V-necked sweater.

  At 5:40, the five men slipped out of camera range. Then, ten minutes later, they returned with the final component of their weapon of mass murder—a man in a blue-and-white tracksuit, bound and trussed in packing tape, his face bloodied and swollen.

  “Please tell me he’s alive, Mikhail.”

  “He’s alive, Chiara.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “They wouldn’t be putting him in with the bomb if he was dead.”

  But the best evidence he was alive, Mikhail thought darkly, was his head. If Gabriel were dead, it wouldn’t still be attached to his shoulders. He didn’t share this observation with Chiara. She’d been through enough that night already.

  At 5:55, the four men in black stripped down to their street clothes. Three climbed into a Mercedes cargo truck and departed. The fourth climbed behind the wheel of the Vauxhall panel van, while the Egyptian-looking man with the burgundy sweater joined Gabriel in the back. At precisely six A.M., the van turned into West Dock Street and made its way toward the entrance of the A120. Four vehicles followed carefully after it. Yaakov took the first shift at the point, while Chiara and Mikhail brought up the rear on the BMW bike. Mikhail sat on the back. The gunner’s seat.

  Gabriel opened one eye, then, slowly, the other. He tried to move his limbs but could not. The crown of his head was pressing against something metallic. He was able to twist his neck just enough to see that the object was a steel drum. There were other drums, five more in fact, linked by a network of wires leading to a detonator switch on the console next to the driver. Ishaq was seated opposite Gabriel. His legs were crossed and a gun lay in his lap. He was smiling, as though proud of the clever way in which he had unveiled the method of Gabriel’s pending execution.

  “Where are we going?” Gabriel asked.

  “Paradise.”

  “Does your driver know the way, or is he just following his nose?”

  “He knows,” said Ishaq. “He’s been preparing for this ride for a very long time.”

  Gabriel twisted his head around and looked at him. He was several years younger than Ishaq, clean shaven, and had both hands on the wheel like a novice out for his first drive alone.

  “I want to sit up,” Gabriel said.

  “It’s probably better if you stay down. If you sit up, it’s going to hurt.”

  “I don’t care,” Gabriel said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He took hold of Gabriel’s shoulders and propped him carelessly against the passenger-side wall of the cargo hold. Ishaq was right. It did hurt to sit up. In fact, it hurt so damned much he nearly fainted. But at least now he could see out through a portion of the windshield. It was still dark out, but one side of the sky was gradually turning a deep, luminous blue—the first light, Gabriel reckoned, of Christmas morning. Judging from the modest speed they were making, and the absence of any other traffic noise, they were traveling on a B-road. He glimpsed a road sign as it flashed past: SHRUB END 3. Shrub End? Where in God’s name was Shrub End?

  He closed his eyes from the pain and heard an engine note not their own. It was high and tight, the sound of a high-performance motorcycle approaching from behind at considerable speed. He opened his eyes and watched as it flashed past in a cyclone of road spray. Then he looked at Ishaq again and for a second time asked where they were going. This time Ishaq only smiled. It was a martyr’s smile. Gabriel closed his eyes and thought of the motorcycle. Go for the kill shot, he thought. But then Mikhail knew no other kind.

  Uzi Navot lowered the handset of the radio and looked at Shamron.

  “Mikhail says they’re still in the same position that they were when they left the warehouse. One driving, one in the back with Gabriel. He says he can get the driver cleanly, but there’s no way he can get them both.”

  “You have to make them stop, Uzi—someplace where an explosion won’t take innocent life.”

  “And if they won’t stop?”

  “Have a backup plan ready.”…

  Gabriel tried not to think about them. He tried not to wonder how they had tracked him down, how long they had been watching and following, or how they planned to extract him. As far as Gabriel was concerned, they did not exist. They were nonpersons. Ghosts. Lies. He thought of anything else. The pain of his broken ribs. The burning numbness of his limbs. Shamron, leaning on his olive-wood cane. We move like shadows, strike like lightning, and then we vanish into thin air. Strike soon, Gabriel thought, because he feared he couldn’t keep his balance atop the bridge over Jahannam much longer.

  He made a clock in his head and watched the second hand go round. He listened for other vehicles and read the road signs as they flashed past: HECKFORDBRIDGE…BIRCH…SMYTH’S GREEN…TIP-TREE…GREAT BRAXTED…Even Gabriel, Office-trained expert in European geography, could not place their whereabouts. Finally, he saw a sign for Chelmsford and realized they
were heading toward London from the northeast, along the route of the ancient Roman road. As they were approaching a village called Langford, the driver slowed suddenly. Ishaq seized hold of his pistol and brought it up near his chest in a defensive position. Then he looked quickly at the driver.

  “What’s wrong?” he murmured in Arabic.

  “There’s an accident ahead. They’re waving for me to stop.”

  “Police?”

  “No, just the drivers.”

  “Don’t stop.”

  “It’s blocking the road.”

  “Go around,” snapped Ishaq.

  The driver turned the wheel hard to the left. The van heeled a few degrees to port as it tipped onto the shoulder and the machine-gun thumping of the tires over the rumble strips sent shock waves of pain through Gabriel’s body. As they shot past the wreck, he saw a tall balding man in his forties waving his arms plaintively and pleading for the van to stop. A man with pockmarked cheeks was standing next to him, gazing at his smashed headlight as though trying to concoct a suitable story for his wife. Gabriel looked at Ishaq as the van lurched back onto the road and sped on toward London.

  “It’s Christmas, Ishaq. What kind of person leaves two motorists stranded on the road on Christmas morning?”

  Ishaq responded by shoving Gabriel hard to the floor. Gabriel’s view was now limited to the soles of Ishaq’s shoes—and the base of the six barrels filled with explosives—and the wiring leading to the detonator switch on the console. Ishaq, in his rush to reach London on schedule, had inadvertently thwarted the first rescue attempt. The second, Gabriel knew, would involve no subterfuge. He closed his eyes and listened for the sound of the motorcycle.

  Navot ordered Yossi and Yaakov back into the smashed cars and looked one final time at Shamron for guidance. “I’m afraid this has gone on long enough,” Shamron said. “Put them down in a field where no one else gets hurt. And get him out in one piece.”