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

by Daniel Silva

  Ishaq was reading quietly from a copy of the Quran when Gabriel heard the drone of the approaching bike. He focused his gaze on the gun, which lay in Ishaq’s lap, and coiled his bound legs for a single strike. The engine note rose steadily in volume for several more seconds, then went suddenly silent. Ishaq looked up from his Quran and peered out the windshield. When the bike didn’t appear, he looked at Gabriel in alarm, as though he had a premonition of what would come next. As he grabbed for the gun, there was an explosion of glass and blood in the front seat. The driver, hit several times in the head, slumped to the left and with a spasm of his lifeless hand took the wheel with him. Ishaq tried to level the gun at Gabriel as the van hurtled from the roadway, but Gabriel lifted his bound legs and kicked the weapon from Ishaq’s grasp. Ishaq made one last desperate lunge for it. And then the van began to roll.

  56

  He came to rest in wet earth, blinded with pain, struggling for breath. A woman was shouting into his face and pulling at the packing tape that bound him. Her voice was muffled by the helmet and her face invisible behind the dark visor. “Are you all right, Gabriel?” she was saying. “Can you hear me? Answer me, Gabriel! Can you hear me? Damn you, Gabriel! You promised me you wouldn’t die! Don’t die!”

  57

  RUNSELL GREEN, ENGLAND: 6:42 A.M., CHRISTMAS DAY

  There had been a fine old hedgerow along the side of the road. They had burst through it, like the tip of a pencil through tissue paper, and plunged into a farmer’s field. The van had come to rest on its roof and its contents were now strewn over the muddy ground like children’s toys on the floor of a nursery. Not fifty yards away from the van’s final resting spot, a gathering of fat pheasant were pulling at the earth as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. At the edge of the field, lights were coming on in a limestone cottage, the first moments of a Christmas morning the occupants would not soon forget.

  “Where’s Ishaq?” asked Gabriel as Chiara cut away the last of the packing tape.

  “Inside the van.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Barely,” she said. “You were thrown from the van early. He wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Put me on my feet.”

  “Just stay down, Gabriel. You’re hurt badly.”

  “Do what I say, Chiara. Put me on my feet.”

  Gabriel groaned in pain as she lifted him upright. He took a step forward and staggered. Chiara seized hold of his arm and kept him from falling.

  “Lie down, Gabriel. Wait for the ambulance.”

  “No ambulances. Help me walk.”

  Mikhail came over at an awkward trot, gun still in his hand, and together with Chiara helped Gabriel slowly toward the van. The driver hung upside down from his seat belt, blood flowing freely from his burst skull. Ishaq lay in the back, bleeding from his nose and mouth, left leg snapped above the knee like a broken matchstick. Gabriel looked at Mikhail.

  “Pull him out by the leg,” he said in Hebrew. “The broken leg.”

  “Don’t do this,” Chiara said.

  “Walk away.” Gabriel looked at Mikhail. “Do what I tell you or I’ll do it myself.”

  Mikhail ducked into the van through the open cargo doors and seized hold of the shattered leg. A moment later Ishaq lay writhing on the ground at Gabriel’s feet. Chiara, unable to bear the sight, walked away across the field. Gabriel looked down at Ishaq and asked, “Where’s my girl?”

  “She’s already dead,” Ishaq spat through the blood.

  Gabriel held out his hand to Mikhail. “Give me your gun.”

  Mikhail handed it over. Gabriel pointed it toward the broken leg and fired once. Ishaq’s screams echoed over the flat landscape and his fingers clawed at the sodden earth. The pheasants took flight and circled above Gabriel’s head.

  “Where’s my girl?” Gabriel repeated calmly.

  “She’s dead!”

  Another shot. Another scream of agony.

  “Where’s my girl, Ishaq?”

  “She’s already—”

  Pop.

  “Where’s my girl, Ishaq?”

  “Allahu Akbar!”

  Pop.

  “Where’s Elizabeth?”

  “Allahu Akbar!”

  Pop. Pop.

  “Tell me where she is, Ishaq.”

  He leveled the gun and prepared to fire again. This time a hand went up, and Ishaq, between cries of pain, began hurling information at Gabriel like stones. Number 17 Ambler Road. Two martyrs. Westminster Abbey. Ten o’clock. God is Great.

  58

  FINSBURY PARK, LONDON: 7:30 A.M., SUNDAY

  They barged into her cell with a demeanor she had never seen before. Cain spoke to her for the first time in more than two weeks. “You’re going to be released,” he blurted. “You have twenty minutes to prepare yourself. If you are not ready in twenty minutes, you will be killed.” And then he was gone.

  Abel appeared next, bearing a plastic bucket of warm water, a bar of soap, a washcloth and towel, a parcel of clean clothing, and a blond wig. He placed the bucket on the floor and the rest of the things on her cot, then removed her handcuffs and shackles. “Wash carefully and take your time dressing,” he explained calmly. “We brought you something nice to wear. We don’t want the world to think we mistreated you.”

  He went out and closed the door. She wanted to scream for joy. She wanted to weep with relief. Instead, model prisoner to the end, she did exactly what they told her to do. She used only fifteen minutes of her allotted time and was seated on the edge of her cot, knees together and trembling, when they entered her cell again.

  “You are ready?” Cain asked.

  “Yes,” she replied in a low, evenly modulated voice.

  “Come, then,” he said.

  She stood and followed them slowly up a flight of darkened stairs.

  Word of Gabriel’s successful extraction arrived at the Israeli embassy in Old Court Place at 7:48 A.M. It was transmitted via ordinary cell phone by Chiara, who was at that moment seated next to Gabriel in the back of a Volkswagen Passat with a smashed headlamp and crumpled fender. The call was taken by Shamron, who, upon hearing the news, covered his face with his hands and wept. So deep was Shamron’s emotion that for several seconds those gathered around were uncertain whether Gabriel was alive or dead. When it became clear that he was indeed alive and back in their hands, a great roar went up in the room. The brief celebration that followed was intercepted and recorded by the British eavesdroppers at GCHQ—which had monitored all Israeli communications that night—as were Shamron’s pleas for quiet as he listened to the next part of Chiara’s report. Shamron immediately placed two calls, the first to Adrian Carter in the American ops center beneath Grosvenor Square and the second to Graham Seymour, who was with the prime minister and the COBRA committee at Downing Street. Seymour quickly arranged for a police escort to bring Gabriel and the remnants of his team safely into London; then he rushed to the American embassy, as did Shamron. The two men were standing next to Adrian Carter as the battered Passat and its police escorts screeched to a stop at the North Gate.

  The car was immediately surrounded by two dozen of the uniformed Met officers standing guard outside the embassy grounds. Shamron’s view was momentarily blocked; then the sea of lime green parted and he glimpsed Gabriel for the first time. He had one arm draped over Yossi’s shoulder and the other over Oded’s. His face was contorted with pain and swelling, and his blue-and-white tracksuit was covered in blood and mud. They brought him through the gate and propped him upright for a moment before the three senior spymasters. Shamron kissed his cheek gently and murmured something in Hebrew that the others could not understand. Gabriel lifted his head slightly and looked at Graham Seymour.

  “If you tell me not to complain about a nasty bump on the head, I just may lose my temper.”

  “You’re a damned fool—and damned brave.” Seymour looked at Adrian Carter. “Let’s get him
inside, shall we?”

  Ambassador Robert Halton was waiting in the embassy’s ground floor atrium, along with FBI hostage negotiator John O’Donnell and several other members of the American team. As Gabriel came inside, still clinging to Yossi and Oded for support, they broke into restrained applause, as though they feared too much noise might inflict additional damage to him. Robert Halton walked over to Gabriel and put his hands carefully on his shoulders. “My God, what have they done to you?” He looked at Adrian Carter. “Let’s take him up to my office. The doctors can have a look at him there.”

  They shepherded him into a waiting elevator and whisked him up to the ninth floor. Yossi and Oded lowered him onto the couch in the ambassador’s office, but when the doctors tried to enter the room, Graham Seymour held them back and quickly closed the door.

  “Twenty minutes ago, a team of Met special operatives raided the house in the Ambler Road where Ishaq claimed Elizabeth was being held. She wasn’t there, but they found plenty of evidence that she had been recently. The Sphinx led us on a wild-goose chase across western Europe, and all the while she’s been here in England, right under our noses. The question is, where is she now?”

  “The information Ishaq gave Gabriel about Elizabeth’s location was correct,” said Adrian Carter. “So it stands to reason that the information about what they intend to do with her is also correct.”

  “It is,” said Gabriel. “They’re going to execute her outside Westminster Abbey before the start of Christmas services. She’s to be murdered by a pair of suicide bombers, who will take many innocent lives along with their own. I was supposed to be part of the second act, a massive car bombing that would have killed hundreds of your first responders.”

  “A bloodbath in front of our most important national symbol on the morning of our Savior’s birth,” said Graham Seymour. “One that is intended to spark an armed uprising in Egypt and bring this country to its knees.” He hesitated, then said: “And one that we cannot allow to happen. As of this moment there are several hundred people congregated outside the north entrance of the Abbey, waiting to be admitted for a service of carols and readings that begins at ten-thirty. Our only option is to seal off Westminster and quickly evacuate everyone from the area.”

  “A move that will automatically condemn Elizabeth to death,” said Gabriel. “If the shaheeds arrive in Westminster to find the Abbey evacuated and under siege, they’ll resort to their backup plan, which is to kill her instantly, no matter where they are.”

  “Forgive my bluntness,” said Seymour, “but that is a vastly better outcome than their primary plan.”

  “I didn’t go through Hell to give up on her now,” Gabriel said. “There is another way.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ishaq told us that Elizabeth would be accompanied by two men,” Gabriel said. “He told us—”

  Graham Seymour held up his hand. “Don’t go any further, Gabriel. It’s madness.”

  “We wait for the shaheeds to arrive, Graham. And then we kill them before they can kill Elizabeth.”

  “We?”

  “What do you think you’re going to do? Shoot them like snipers from a long way off? Shoot them like gentlemen from twenty paces? You have to let them get close. And then you have to kill them before they can hit their detonator switches. That means headshots at close range. It’s not pleasant, Graham. And if the gunmen hesitate for an instant, it will end in disaster.”

  “The Met has a unit called SO19: the Blue Berets. They’re special firearms officers, trained for this very sort of thing. If memory serves, we sent them to Israel for training.”

  “You did,” said Shamron. “And they’re very good. But they’ve never been placed in a live situation like this. You need gunmen who’ve done something like this before—gunmen who aren’t going to fold under the pressure.” Shamron paused, then added: “You need gunmen like Gabriel and Mikhail.”

  “Gabriel can barely stand up,” Seymour said.

  “Gabriel will be fine,” Shannon said without bothering to consult him. “Let us finish what we started.”

  “How are you going to be sure it’s really her?”

  Gabriel looked at Robert Halton. “If anyone can tell, it’s her own father. Put him in the yard on the north side of the Abbey with a miniature radio. He’ll be able to see anyone approaching from Whitehall or Victoria. When he sees Elizabeth, send the signal to us. Mikhail and I will take care of the rest.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Seymour said. “How are they going to get Elizabeth to walk to her own execution?”

  Gabriel thought of what Ibrahim had said the night of his death in Denmark. “They’ll tell her she’s about to be released,” he said. “That way she’ll go willingly and do exactly what they tell her.”

  “Bastards,” Seymour said softly. He glanced at his watch. “I take it you have all the firearms and ammunition you need?”

  Gabriel nodded slowly.

  “What about communications?”

  “They can borrow radios from our embassy security staff,” Carter said. “Our DS agents work routinely with the Met on protective details. We can all tie in on the same secure frequency.”

  Seymour looked at Gabriel. “What do we do about him? He can’t go to Westminster looking like that?”

  “I’m sure we can find something for him to wear here,” Carter said. “We have two hundred people down in the basement who came to London from Washington with suitcases filled with clothing.”

  “What about his face? He looks bloody awful.”

  “Fixing his face, I’m afraid, would require a Christmas miracle.”

  Graham Seymour frowned, walked over to the ambassador’s desk, and dialed the phone.

  “I need to speak to the prime minister,” he said. “Now.”

  59

  WESTMINSTER ABBEY: 9:45 A.M., CHRISTMAS DAY

  The Gothic towers of Westminster Abbey—England’s national house of worship, setting for royal coronations since William the Conqueror, and burial ground for British monarchs, statesmen, and poets—sparkled in the crisp winter sunlight. The bright interval promised by the forecasters the previous morning had finally materialized.

  Gabriel did not wonder if it was a good omen or bad. He was only pleased to have the radiant warmth of the sun against his swollen cheek. He was seated on a bench in Parliament Square, dressed in borrowed clothes and borrowed wraparound sunglasses over his battered eyes. The doctors at the embassy had given him enough codeine to temporarily dull the pain of his injuries. Even so, he was leaning slightly against Mikhail for support. The younger man’s leather jacket was still damp from a night pursuing Gabriel across Essex by motorcycle. His right hand was tapping a nervous rhythm against his faded blue jeans.

  “Stop,” said Gabriel. “You’re giving me a fucking headache.”

  Mikhail stopped for a moment, then started up again. Gabriel stared toward the triangular-shaped lawn on the north side of the Abbey. Adrian Carter was standing beneath a bare-limbed tree along Victoria Street, wearing the ushanka hat he had worn the afternoon they had walked together in the Tivoli gardens of Copenhagen. Standing next to him, with a fedora on his head, dark glasses over his eyes, and a wire in his ear, was Ambassador Robert Halton. And next to Halton was Sarah Bancroft, formerly of the Phillips Collection museum in Washington, D.C., lately of the Central Intelligence Agency, and now a fully indoctrinated citizen of the night. Of all those present, only Sarah truly had a sense of the atrocity that was about to occur. Would she watch? Gabriel wondered. Or this time would she take the opportunity to look the other way?

  He glanced around the sunlit streets of Westminster. Eli Lavon and Dina Sarid were loitering in Great George Street, Yaakov and Yossi were flirting with Major Rimona Stern outside the Houses of Parliament, and Mordecai was standing in the shadow of Big Ben with a tourist guidebook open in his hands. Graham Seymour was in an unmarked command vehicle on the other side of Victoria Street in Storey’s Ga
te, along with the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the chief of SO19, the special operations division. Twenty of SO19’s best gunmen had been summoned at short notice and were now scattered around the Abbey and the surrounding streets of Westminster. Gabriel could hear their clipped communications in his ear, but thus far he had only been able to pick out a half dozen of them. It didn’t matter if he knew their identities. It only mattered that they knew his.

  “Was it bad?” Mikhail asked. “The beatings, I mean.”

  “They were just having a bit of fun,” said Gabriel dismissively. He was in no mood to relive the previous night. “It was nothing compared to what Ibrahim endured at the hands of the Egyptian secret police.”

  “Did it feel good to shoot him like that?”

  “Ishaq?”

  The younger man nodded.

  “No, Mikhail, it didn’t feel good. But then, it didn’t feel bad either.” Gabriel lifted his hand and pointed toward the north entrance of the Abbey. “Look at all those people over there. Many of them would soon be dead if I hadn’t acted the way I did.”

  “If we don’t hit our targets, they still may die.” Mikhail looked at Gabriel. “You sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself that you were morally justified in torturing him.”

  “I suppose I am. I crossed a line. But then we’ve all crossed a line. The Americans crossed a line after 9/11, and now they’re trying to find their way back to the other side. Unfortunately, the goals of the terrorists haven’t changed—and the generation soon to emerge from the killing fields of Iraq is going to be much more violent and volatile than the ones who came out of Afghanistan.”

  “We dare to fight back, and the terrorists accuse us of being the real terrorists.”