The Black Widow

by Daniel Silva

  The car’s navigation system guided Saladin onto the Capital Beltway. He drove south, across the Dulles Access Road, past the shopping malls of Tysons Corner, to Interstate 66, where he once again headed west, toward the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains. The eastbound lanes were still clogged with morning commuter traffic, but before Saladin stretched several car-lengths of empty asphalt, a rarity for the metropolitan Washington motorist. Again, he kept diligently to the speed limit while other traffic overtook him. The last thing he needed now was a traffic stop; it would put at risk an elaborate plot that taken months of meticulous planning. Paris and Amsterdam had been dress rehearsals. Washington was Saladin’s ultimate target, for only the Americans had the power to unleash the chain of events he was attempting to bring about. A final review of the plan with his primary Washington operative was all that remained. It was dangerous—there was always the possibility the operative had been compromised—but Saladin wanted to hear from the man’s lips that everything was in place.

  He passed the exit for a town with the quintessentially American-sounding name of Gainesville. The traffic thinned, the terrain turned hilly, the blue peaks of the Shenandoah seemed within reach. He had been driving for three-quarters of an hour, and his right leg was beginning to throb from the effort of controlling his speed. To distract himself from the pain, he allowed his mind to drift. It settled quickly on the man he had seen in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel the previous evening.

  Gabriel Allon . . .

  It was possible Allon’s presence in Washington was entirely coincidental—after all, the Israeli had worked closely with the Americans for many years—but Saladin doubted that was the case. Several Israeli citizens had died in the Paris attack, along with Hannah Weinberg, a woman who was a personal friend of Allon’s and an asset of Israeli intelligence. It was entirely possible that Allon had taken part in the post-attack investigation. Perhaps he had learned of the existence of Saladin’s network. And perhaps he had learned, too, that the network was about to carry out an attack in America. But how? The answer to that question was quite simple. Saladin had to assume that Allon had managed to penetrate his network—it was, thought the Iraqi, Allon’s special talent. And if Allon knew about the network, the Americans knew about it, too. Most of Saladin’s operatives had infiltrated the country from abroad through the porous American visa and immigration system. But several operatives, including the man Saladin was about to meet, were American based, and therefore more vulnerable to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. They were critical to the operation’s success, but they were the weak link in the network’s long chain.

  The navigation system advised Saladin to leave Interstate 66 at Exit 18. He followed the instructions and found himself in a town called Markham. No, he thought, it was not a town, it was a tiny collection of houses with covered porches looking out upon overgrown lawns. He headed south along Leeds Manor Road, past fenced pastures and barns, until he came to a town called Hume. It was slightly larger than the first. Still, there were no shops or markets, only an auto repair shop, a country inn, and a couple of churches where the infidels worshiped their blasphemous version of God.

  The navigation system was now essentially useless; the address of Saladin’s destination was far too remote. He turned right onto Hume Road and followed it six-tenths of a mile, until he came to an unpaved track. It bore him across a pasture, over a ridge of wooded hills, and into a small dell. There was a black pond, its surface smooth as glass, and a timbered A-frame cottage. Saladin switched off the engine; the silence was like the silence of the desert. He opened the trunk. Concealed inside were a 9mm Glock 19 and a high-performance sound and flash suppressor, both of which had been purchased legally in Virginia by a member of Saladin’s network.

  The gun in his left hand, his cane in the right, Saladin cautiously entered the cottage. Its furnishings were rustic and sparse. In the kitchen he boiled a pot of water—it smelled as though it came unfiltered from the pond—and coaxed a cup of weak tea from an elderly bag of Twinings. Returning to the sitting room, he lowered himself onto the couch and gazed through the triangular picture window, toward the ridge of hills he had just crossed. After a few minutes a little Korean sedan appeared, trailing a cloud of dust. Saladin concealed the gun beneath an embroidered pillow that read GOD BLESS THIS HOUSE. Then he blew on his tea and waited.

  Saladin had never met the operative in person, though he knew him to be a green-carded Egyptian citizen named Qassam el-Banna, five foot nine inches in height, 165 pounds, tightly curled hair, light brown eyes. The man who entered the cottage matched that description. He appeared nervous. With a nod, Saladin instructed him to sit. Then in Arabic he said, “Peace be upon you, Brother Qassam.”

  The young Egyptian was clearly flattered. Softly, he repeated the traditional Islamic greeting of peace, though without the name of the man he was addressing.

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Saladin.

  “No,” answered the Egyptian quickly. “We’ve never met.”

  “But surely you’ve heard of me.”

  It was obvious the young Egyptian did not know how to answer the question, so he proceeded with caution. “I received a message instructing me to come to this location for a meeting. I was not told who would be here or why he wanted to see me.”

  “Were you followed?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The young Egyptian vigorously nodded his head.

  “And the moving company?” asked Saladin. “I trust there are no problems?”

  There was a brief pause. “Moving company?”

  Saladin gave him a reassuring smile. It was surprisingly charming, the smile of a professional.

  “Your caution is admirable, Qassam. But I can assure you it’s not necessary.”

  The Egyptian was silent.

  “Do you know who I am?” Saladin asked again.

  “Yes, I believe I do.”

  “Then answer my question.”

  “There are no problems at the moving company. Everything is in place.”

  Again, Saladin smiled. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  He debriefed the young Egyptian with the patience of a skilled professional. Saladin’s professionalism, however, was twofold. He was an intelligence officer turned master terrorist. He had honed his skills in the badlands of Anbar Province, where he had plotted countless car bombings and suicide attacks, all while sleeping in a different bed every night and evading the drones and the F-16s. Now he was about to lay siege to the American capital from the comfort of the Four Seasons Hotel. The irony, he thought, was exquisite. Saladin was prepared for this moment like no other terrorist in history. He was America’s creation. He was America’s nightmare.

  No detail of the operation was too small to evade Saladin’s scrutiny—the primary targets, the backup targets, the weapons, the vehicle-borne bombs, the suicide vests. The young Egyptian answered each question fully and without hesitation. Jalal Nasser and Abu Ahmed al-Tikriti had been wise to choose him; he had a brain like a computer hard drive. The individual operatives knew portions of the plot, but Qassam el-Banna knew almost everything. If he happened to fall into the hands of the FBI while driving back to Arlington, it would be a disaster. For that reason alone, he would not be leaving the isolated cottage outside Hume alive.

  “Have all the operatives been told their targets?” asked Saladin.

  “Everyone but the Palestinian doctor.”

  “When does she arrive?”

  “Her flight is scheduled to land at four thirty, but it’s running a few minutes ahead of schedule.”

  “You checked?”

  He nodded. He was good, thought Saladin, as good as Mohamed Atta. Too bad he would never achieve the same fame. Mohamed Atta was spoken of with reverence in jihadi circles, but only a handful of people in the movement would ever know the name Qassam el-Banna.

  “I’m afraid,” said Saladin, “there’s been a slight change in the plan.
”

  “Regarding?”

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “I want you to leave the country tonight and make your way to the caliphate.”

  “But if I make a reservation at the last minute, the Americans—”

  “Will suspect nothing,” Saladin said firmly. “It’s too dangerous for you to stay here, Brother Qassam. You know too much.”

  The Egyptian made no reply.

  “You’ve cleaned out your computers?” asked Saladin.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And your wife knows nothing of your work?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Will she join you?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “A shame,” said Saladin. “But I can assure you there’s no shortage of beautiful young women in the caliphate.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The young Egyptian was smiling for the first time. When Saladin lifted the embroidered pillow, exposing the silenced Glock, the smile evaporated.

  “Don’t worry, my brother,” said Saladin. “It was just a precaution in case the FBI came through the door instead of you.” He held out his hand. “Help me up. I’ll see you out.”

  Gun in one hand, walking stick in the other, Saladin followed Qassam el-Banna outside to his car.

  “If for some reason you are arrested on the way to the airport . . .”

  “I won’t tell them a thing,” said the young Egyptian bravely, “even if they waterboard me.”

  “Haven’t you heard, Brother Qassam? The Americans don’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

  Qassam el-Banna climbed behind the wheel of his car, closed the door, and started the engine. Saladin rapped lightly on the window with the grip of his cane. The window slid down. The young Egyptian looked up inquisitively.

  “There’s just one more thing,” said Saladin.

  “Yes?”

  Saladin pointed the silenced Glock through the open window and fired four shots in rapid succession. Then he reached into the interior, careful not to stain his jacket in blood, and eased the car into drive. A moment later it disappeared into the black pond. Saladin waited until the bubbling had stopped and the surface of the pond was once again as smooth as glass. Then he climbed into his own car and headed back to Washington.

  53

  LIBERTY CROSSING, VIRGINIA

  UNLIKE SALADIN, GABRIEL PASSED a quiet if restless morning at the N Street safe house, watching a tiny mouthwash-green airplane creeping slowly across the screen of his Samsung mobile. Finally, at half past two in the afternoon, he climbed into the back of a black Suburban and was driven across Chain Bridge to the wealthy Virginia enclave of McLean. On Route 123 he saw a sign for the George Bush Center for Intelligence. The driver blew past the entrance without slowing.

  “You missed your turn,” said Gabriel.

  The driver smiled but said nothing. He continued along Route 123, past the low-slung shopping centers and business parks of downtown McLean, before finally turning onto Lewinsville Road. He turned again after a quarter mile onto Tysons McLean Drive and followed it up the slope of a gentle rise. The road bent to the left, then to the right, before delivering them to a large checkpoint manned by a dozen uniformed guards, all heavily armed. A clipboard was consulted, a dog sniffed for bombs. Then the Suburban proceeded slowly to the forecourt of a large office building, the headquarters of the National Counterterrorism Center. On the opposite side of the court, connected by a convenient sky bridge, was the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The complex, thought Gabriel, was a monument to failure. The American intelligence community, the largest and most advanced the world had ever known, had failed to prevent the attacks of 9/11. And for its sins it had been reorganized and rewarded with money, real estate, and pretty buildings.

  An employee of the center—a pantsuited, ponytailed woman of perhaps thirty—awaited Gabriel in the lobby. She gave him a guest pass, which he clipped to the pocket of his suit jacket, and led him to the Operations Floor, the NCTC’s nerve center. The giant video screens and kidney-shaped desks gave it the appearance of a television newsroom. The desks were an optimistic shade of pale pine, like something from an IKEA catalog. At one sat Adrian Carter, Fareed Barakat, and Paul Rousseau. As Gabriel took his assigned seat, Carter handed him a photograph of a dark-haired man in his mid-forties.

  “Is this the fellow you saw at the Four Seasons?”

  “A reasonable facsimile. Who is he?”

  “Omar al-Farouk, Saudi national, not quite a member of the royal family, but close enough.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says our man in Riyadh. He checked him out. He’s clean.”

  “Checked him out how? Checked him with whom?”

  “The Saudis.”

  “Well,” said Gabriel cynically, “that settles it then.”

  Carter said nothing.

  “Put him under watch, Adrian.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first time. Not quite a member of the royal family, but close enough. Besides, Saudi Arabia is our ally in the fight against ISIS. Every month,” Carter added with a glance toward Fareed Barakat, “the Saudis write a big fat check to the king of Jordan to finance his efforts against ISIS. And if the check is one day late, the king calls Riyadh to complain. Isn’t that right, Fareed?”

  “And every month,” Fareed replied, “certain wealthy Saudis funnel money and other support to ISIS. The Saudis aren’t alone. Qataris and Emiratis are doing it, too.”

  Carter was unconvinced. He looked at Gabriel and said, “The FBI doesn’t have the resources to watch everyone who gives you a funny feeling at the back of your neck.”

  “Then let us watch him for you.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Carter’s mobile chirped. He looked at the screen and frowned. “It’s the White House. I need to take this in private.”

  He entered one of the fishbowl conference rooms at the edge of the Operations Floor and closed the door. Gabriel looked up at one of the video screens and saw a mouthwash-green airplane approaching the American coastline.

  “How good are your sources inside Saudi Arabia?” he asked Fareed Barakat quietly.

  “Better than yours, my friend.”

  “Do me a favor then.” Gabriel handed Fareed the photograph. “Find out who this asshole really is.”

  Fareed snapped a photo of the photo with his mobile phone and forwarded it to the GID headquarters in Amman. At the same time, Gabriel sent a message to King Saul Boulevard ordering surveillance of a guest at the Four Seasons Hotel named Omar al-Farouk.

  “You realize,” murmured Fareed, “that we are totally busted.”

  “I’ll send Adrian a nice fruit basket when this is all over.”

  “He’s not allowed to accept gifts. Believe me, my friend, I’ve tried.”

  Gabriel smiled in spite of himself and looked at the video screen. The mouthwash-green airplane had just entered American airspace.

  54

  DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  IT TOOK AN HOUR FOR Dr. Leila Hadawi to navigate the frozen welcome mat at Dulles Airport’s passport control—forty minutes in the long, mazelike line, and another twenty minutes standing before the dais of a Customs and Border Protection officer. The officer was clearly not part of the operation. He questioned Dr. Hadawi at length about her recent travels—Greece was of particular interest—and about the purpose of her visit to the United States. Her response, that she had come to visit friends, was one he had heard many times before.

  “Where do the friends live?”

  “Falls Church.”

  “What are their names?”

  She gave him two Arabic names.

  “Are you staying with them?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  And on it went until finally she was invited to smile for a camera and place her fingers on the cool glass of a digital scanner. Returning her passport, the cust
oms officer hollowly wished her a pleasant stay in the United States. She made her way to baggage claim, where her suitcase was circling slowly on an otherwise empty carousel. In the arrivals hall she searched for a man with coal-black hair and matching eyewear, but he was nowhere in sight. She was not surprised. While crossing the Atlantic, he had told her that the Office would be relegated to a secondary role, that the Americans were now in charge and would be taking the operational lead.

  “And when I’m given my target?” she had asked.

  “Send us a text through the usual channel.”

  “And if they take my phone away from me?”

  “Take a walk. Handbag over the left shoulder.”

  “What if they don’t let me take a walk?”

  She wheeled her bag outside and, assisted by a well-built American with a military-style haircut, boarded a Hertz shuttle bus. Her car, a bright red Chevrolet Impala, was in its assigned space. She placed her bag in the trunk, climbed behind the wheel, and hesitantly started the engine. The nobs and dials of the instrument panel seemed entirely alien to her. Then she realized she had not driven an automobile since the morning she had returned to her apartment in Jerusalem to find Dina Sarid sitting at her kitchen table. What a disaster it would be, she thought, if she were to kill or seriously injure herself in an accident. She punched a destination into her mobile phone and was informed that her drive of twenty-four miles would take well over an hour because of unusually heavy traffic. She smiled; she was glad for the delay. She removed her hijab and tucked it carefully into her handbag. Then she slipped the car into gear and headed slowly toward the exit.