by Daniel Silva
“Only if it prevents you from killing Nadia.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Her crime is far worse than yours.”
“Then I’ll remain a Jew.”
“So be it.”
Rashid rose to his feet. Malik switched off the camera.
The Empty Quarter was ablaze with light by the time the first figures emerged from the tent. There were ten in all—five in white, five in black. They climbed quickly into the caravan of jeeps and pickup trucks and circled the encampment at high speed collecting the security men. A moment later, they were streaking southeast across the Sands toward Yemen.
“How much do you want to bet that one of those bastards is Rashid?” Adrian Carter asked helplessly.
“All the more reason you should take the shot,” said Navot.
“The White House won’t allow it. Not on Saudi soil. And not without knowing exactly who’s down there.”
“They’re terrorists and friends of terrorists,” Shamron said. “Take the shot.”
“And what if one of them is Gabriel?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Shamron.
“How can you be so certain?”
Shamron pointed wordlessly toward one of the screens.
“Are you sure it’s him?” asked Carter.
“I’d recognize that walk anywhere.”
Chapter 66
The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
THE TALIB WALKED ALONG THE base of a vast star-shaped dune. He carried his automatic weapon in one hand and with the other led Nadia by the binding at her wrists. As they rounded the dune, she saw the hole that had been dug in the desert floor. Next to it was a pyramid of stones. In the razor-sharp sun, they looked as white as exposed bone. Nadia tried to be brave, as she imagined Rena had been brave in the final moments before her death. Then she felt the desert begin to spin, and she collapsed.
“It won’t be as bad as you think,” the talib said, pulling her gently to her feet. “The first few will cause great pain. Then, inshallah, you will lose consciousness and you won’t feel a thing.”
“Please,” said Nadia, “you must find some way to spare me this.”
“It is the will of God,” said the talib. “There is nothing to be done.”
“It is not the will of God, Ali. It is the will of evil men.”
“Walk,” was all he said. “You have to walk.”
“Would you do this to Safia?”
“Walk.”
“Would you, Ali?”
“If she violated the laws of God, I would have no choice.”
“And what about Hanan? Would you stone your own child?”
This time, the talib said nothing. After a few paces, he began to recite verses of the Koran softly to himself, but to Nadia he spoke not another word.
On the other side of the mountainous dune, Gabriel padded barefoot across the sand with Malik at his side. Four other men surrounded them. Three had been with Malik in Dubai; the fourth was Rafiq al-Kamal. The bodyguard had been assigned the task of carrying the knife that would be used for Gabriel’s execution and the video camera that would record it. Malik and the others carried automatic weapons. They were old Soviet-issue AK-47s, the kind you could buy for a few riyals even in the most remote villages of Yemen. As Gabriel worked his wrists carefully against the silver duct tape, he tried to calculate the odds of getting his hands on one of the weapons. They were not good, he thought, but death by gunfire was surely better than death by beheading. If he were to die in the Empty Quarter on this morning, he planned to die on his own terms. And, if possible, he was going to take Malik al-Zubair with him.
Emerging from the shadow of the dune, Gabriel saw Nadia for the first time since she had walked past him in the lobby of the Burj Al Arab. Cloaked in her death shroud, she appeared paralyzed by fear. So did the sparsely bearded young jihadi who was guarding her. Malik walked over and shoved the boy out of the way. Then he seized Nadia’s dark hair and pulled her toward Gabriel. “Look at what you’ve done,” he shouted over her screams. “This is what happens when you seduce our people into renouncing their faith.”
“She never renounced her faith, Malik. Let her go.”
“She worked for you against us. She has to be punished. And for your sins, you shall cast the first stone.”
“I won’t do it.” Gabriel looked searchingly toward the sky. One last deception. One last lie. “And neither will you, Malik.”
Malik smiled. It was genuine.
“This isn’t Pakistan or Yemen, Allon. This is Saudi Arabia. And the Americans would never fire a Hellfire missile against the territory of their great ally, the House of Saud. Besides, no one knows where you are. You are completely alone.”
“Are you sure about that, Malik?”
Clearly, he wasn’t. Still clutching a handful of Nadia’s hair, he tilted his face to the sky. So did the others, including al-Kamal. He was standing about three feet to Gabriel’s left, holding the knife and the camera.
“Listen carefully,” Gabriel said. “Can you hear it? It’s circling just overhead. It’s watching with its cameras. Let her go, Malik. Otherwise, we’re all going to die in a flash of fire. You’ll go to your God; Nadia and I will go to ours.”
“There is no God but God, Allon. There is only Allah.”
“I hope you’re right, Malik, because you’re about to see His face. Do you want to be a martyr? Or do you prefer to leave the martyrdom to others?”
Malik flung Nadia aside and swung the Kalashnikov wildly toward Gabriel’s head. Gabriel easily sidestepped the blow and delivered a vicious knee to Malik’s groin that sent him sprawling to the sand. Then Gabriel pivoted with his arms extended and his hands formed like the blade of an ax. The blade connected squarely with Rafiq al-Kamal’s neck, crushing his larynx. Gabriel looked at Nadia and at the pile of bone white stones. Then he flailed his arms like a madman against the sky and screamed, “Take the shot! Take the shot! It’s Malik, damn it! Take the shot!”
Adrian Carter hung up the phone with the White House and buried his face in his hands. Uzi Navot watched for a few seconds longer, then closed his eyes. Only Shamron refused to look away. It was his fault, all of it. The least he could do was see it through to the end.
Malik had risen to one knee and was groping blindly about for his fallen Kalashnikov. Gabriel was still raging at the merciless sky. He heard the metallic clack-clack of the rifle’s cocking handle and saw the barrel rise. Then, from the corner of one eye, he glimpsed the ghostlike flash of Nadia’s sparkling white death shroud as she came hurtling toward him. As she passed before the gun, two crimson flowers bloomed violently in the center of her chest, though her face appeared oddly serene as she collapsed onto Gabriel. Malik tore her away and pointed the Kalashnikov downward at Gabriel’s face, but before he could pull the trigger again, the side of his head exploded in a flash of pink. Several more gunshots followed until only the young jihadi remained standing. He peered down at Gabriel, his face eclipsing the sun, then looked mournfully at Nadia.
“It was God’s will that she die today,” he said, “but at least she did not suffer.”
“No,” said Gabriel, “she did not suffer.”
“Are you hit?” asked the boy.
“One round,” said Gabriel.
“Will they come for you?”
“Eventually.”
“Can you hold out until they arrive?”
“I think so.”
“I have to leave you here alone. I have a wife. I have a child on the way.”
“Boy or girl?” asked Gabriel, his strength beginning to ebb.
“Girl.”
“Have you chosen a name?”
“Hanan.”
“Be kind to her,” said Gabriel. “Treat her always with respect.”
The boy stepped away; the sun beat upon Gabriel’s face. He heard an engine turning over, then glimpsed a cloud of dust moving across the sea of sand. After that, there was only the empty silenc
e of the desert. He waved his arms one final time toward the sky to tell them he was still alive. Then he closed Nadia’s eyes and wept against her breast as her body turned slowly to stone.
PART FOUR
THE AWAKENING
Chapter 67
Paris-Langley-Riyadh
MORE THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS WOULD elapse before AAB Holdings finally revealed to the world that its chairwoman and chief executive, Nadia al-Bakari, was missing and presumed kidnapped. According to a company statement, she had been traveling by limousine at the time of her disappearance, en route from Dubai’s famed Burj Al Arab hotel to the airport. Two calls had been placed from the car, both from the phone of her longtime security chief. During the first, he had instructed the head of AAB’s travel department to move up the departure of the company’s aircraft by fifteen minutes, from 11:00 p.m. to 10:45. Seven minutes later, he had phoned again to say Miss al-Bakari was feeling ill and would return to the hotel to spend the night. It was her wish, he said, that the rest of the staff return to Paris as planned. Needless to say, Emirati authorities now regarded the second call as highly suspect, though they had yet to determine whether the security man was part of a conspiracy or merely another victim. The bodyguard was missing, as was the driver of the car.
As expected, the news sent shockwaves through already jittery global financial markets. Share prices tumbled in Europe, where AAB’s portfolio was vast, and trading on Wall Street opened sharply lower. Hardest hit, though, was Dubai, Inc. Having spent untold billions portraying itself as an oasis of stability in a turbulent region, the emirate now appeared to be a place where even heavily guarded billionaires were not safe. The Ruler took to the airwaves to declare his city-state secure and open for business, but investors weren’t so sure. They pummeled Dubai-based firms and sovereign wealth funds with a merciless wave of selling that left the city of gold teetering once more on the brink of insolvency.
When an additional twenty-four hours passed with no word on Nadia’s fate, the press was left with no option but to speculate wildly on what might have transpired. One theory held that she was murdered by a Russian criminal gang who had lost millions investing in AAB Holdings. Another posited that she had offended powerful interests in Dubai with her call for better treatment of the emirate’s migrant laborers. Still another suggested the kidnapping was but a ruse, that Nadia al-Bakari, one of the world’s richest women, had simply gone into hiding for reasons no one could imagine.
Regrettably, it was this final theory that gained the most traction in certain quarters of the press, and before long, there was a rash of Nadia sightings at glamorous locations around the globe. The last had her living on a remote island in the Baltic Sea with the son of Sweden’s wealthiest man.
That report appeared on the same day the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finally announced that her body had been found in the Empty Quarter. The bodies of several men had been found with her, according to the Saudis, including that of her security chief. All had been killed by gunfire, as had Miss al-Bakari. As of yet, Saudi authorities had no suspects.
In keeping with past utterances by the Saudi regime, the statement told only part of the story. It did not say, for example, that Saudi intelligence was already acutely aware of the circumstances surrounding Miss al-Bakari’s murder. Nor did it mention that a Saudi military patrol had recovered her body within a few hours of her death, along with the only survivor of the incident. Seriously wounded, this survivor was now the subject of intense, if secret, backchannel negotiations between the Central Intelligence Agency and friendly elements of the House of Saud. Thus far, the talks had produced no breakthroughs. In fact, as far as the government of Saudi Arabia was concerned, the man in question did not exist. They promised to mount a search for him, but held out little in the way of hope. The Empty Quarter, they said, did not treat intruders kindly. Inshallah, they would find his corpse, but only if the Bedouin did not get to him first.
The miniature GPS tracking beacon lodged in Gabriel’s body told an entirely different story. It was the story of a man who, having been found alive in the Empty Quarter, had been flown by helicopter to Riyadh and deposited at the sprawling compound run by the Mabahith, the secret police division of the Interior Ministry. A week into his stay, it appeared as though he were taken out for a slow drive across Riyadh to the desert east of the city. For several anxious hours, the staff at Rashidistan feared the worst, that he had been executed and buried in the Wahhabi tradition, in a grave with no marker. Eventually, the Agency’s analysts were able to confirm, with palpable relief, that his new location was in fact Riyadh’s main sewage treatment plant. It meant that Gabriel had finally passed the beacon from his intestinal tract. It also meant that he was now off the grid and entirely beyond Langley’s reach.
The bullet had broken two of Gabriel’s ribs and damaged his right lung. The Saudis waited until he was sufficiently recovered before commencing their interrogation. It was conducted by a tall, angular man with a face like a falcon. His olive-drab uniform was starched and pressed, but contained little in the way of insignia. He called himself Khalid. He’d gone to school in England and had the diction of a BBC newsreader.
He began by asking for Gabriel’s name and a brief description of how he had ended up in the Empty Quarter clinging to the corpse of a Saudi woman. Gabriel gave his name as Roland Devereaux of Quebec City. He claimed that he had been kidnapped by Islamic extremists while on business in Dubai, that he had been beaten unconscious and driven into the desert to be killed. There had been an argument among the terrorists that led to an exchange of gunfire. He didn’t know the nature of the argument because he spoke no Arabic.
“None at all?”
“I can order coffee.”
“How do you like it?”
“Medium sweet.”
“What was the nature of your business in Dubai?”
“I work for a freight-forwarding firm.”
“And the woman who died in your arms?”
“I’d never seen her before.”
“Did you ever learn her name?”
Gabriel shook his head, then asked whether his embassy knew where he was.
“Which embassy is that?” asked the Saudi.
“The Canadian Embassy, of course.”
“Oh, yes,” Khalid said, smiling. “What was I thinking?”
“Have you contacted them?”
“We’re working on it.”
The officer jotted a few words in his notebook and departed. Gabriel was handcuffed and returned to his cell. After that, no one spoke to him for many days.
When next Gabriel was taken to the interrogation room, he arrived to find a stack of file folders piled ominously on the table. Khalid the falcon was smoking, something he had refrained from during their first encounter. This time, he posed no questions. Instead, he launched into a monologue not unlike the one Gabriel had endured at the feet of Rashid al-Husseini. In this case, however, the subject was not the inevitable triumph of Salafist Islam but the long and controversial career of an Israeli intelligence officer named Gabriel Allon. Khalid’s account was remarkably accurate. Particular attention was paid to Gabriel’s role in the killing of Abdul Aziz al-Bakari and to his subsequent use of Zizi’s daughter as a means of penetrating the terror network of Rashid al-Husseini and Malik al-Zubair.
“It was Nadia who died in your arms in the Empty Quarter,” the Saudi said. “Malik was there, too. We’d like you to tell us how it all happened.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your video confession is all over the Internet and television, Allon. If you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll have no choice but to put you on trial and publicly execute you.”
“How sporting of you.”
“I’m afraid the wheels of Saudi justice do not grind slowly.”
“If I were you, I’d tell His Highness to rethink the part about a public execution. It might cost him his oil fields.”
“
The oil fields belong to the people of Saudi Arabia.”
“Oh, yes,” said Gabriel. “What was I thinking?”
For the next several nights, Gabriel’s cell echoed with the screams of men being tortured. Unable to sleep, he developed an infection that required a round of intravenous antibiotics. Several more pounds melted from his slight frame. He grew so thin that when he was delivered for his next interrogation session, even the falcon appeared concerned.
“Perhaps you and I can come to an accommodation,” he suggested.
“What sort of accommodation?”
“You will answer my questions and, in time, I will see that you are returned to your loved ones with your head still attached.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because as of this moment, my dear one, I’m the only friend you have.”
There is a truism about interrogations. Sooner or later, everyone talks. Not only terrorists, but professional intelligence officers as well. But it is how they talk, and what they say, that determines whether they will be capable of looking their colleagues in the eye if they are released. Gabriel understood this. So did the falcon.
Together they spent the next week engaged in a delicate ballet of mutual deception. Khalid posed many carefully worded questions to which Gabriel responded with many half-truths and outright lies. The operations he betrayed did not exist. Nor did the paid assets, the safe houses, or the methods of secure communication; it had all been invented in the copious amounts of time Gabriel spent locked in his cell. There were some things he claimed not to know and others he refused to divulge. For example, when Khalid asked for the names of all undercover case officers based in Europe, Gabriel said nothing. He also refused to answer when asked for the names of the officers who had worked with him against Rashid and Malik. Gabriel’s intransigence did not anger the falcon. In fact, he seemed to respect Gabriel more for it.