by Ward Larsen
FIFTY-SEVEN
The Israeli embassy was situated on Rue Rabelais, for Slaton conveniently located in the nearby eighth arrondissement. By no coincidence, it was but three streets removed from the Élysée Palace, where, at that moment, the leadership of France was reacting to a terrorist assault of unprecedented scope.
Slaton arrived in a taxi, and was dropped at the embassy’s front entrance in the middle of a downpour. He had no trouble being admitted to the building—Neumann, the lead katsa he’d met outside Malika’s flat two night ago, was waiting to collect him.
She greeted him cheerfully, and said, “I hope whatever we’re doing tonight will turn out better than our last adventure.”
“If that’s an apology, it’s not necessary. We all underestimated her.”
She escorted Slaton around a stanchion, and they bypassed the security station under the watchful eyes of three screeners. Slaton had not been here in years, and he saw that major renovations had taken place. The most obvious improvements related to security: Upholstered office dividers had been replaced by a maze of ill-disguised steel barriers, blocking access to the consulate’s more sensitive areas, and the new windows fronting the street looked thick and multilayered. There were also more cameras than in a Vegas casino, and no effort was made to hide them.
He followed Neumann through winding corridors, finally ending in a wing whose splendid trimmings suggested something beyond analysts’ offices and visa queues. Portraits of former ambassadors lined the hallway above gilded Louis Quinze furnishings, and in a central rotunda was a fine oil rendering of the Old City of Jerusalem. Neumann turned in to a well-equipped conference room, undoubtedly the ambassador’s domain on better days. Bloch and Talia were waiting on one side of a long table. Bloch looked weary—retirement had clearly insulated him from grueling workdays. Talia, on the other hand, appeared ready for a dinner date. Their eyes settled on him, and for a fleeting moment Slaton wondered how he must appear. Probably like I’ve just come from a bombing, he thought.
Neumann closed the door, but she remained in the room and took a seat, meaning she’d been cleared in on Bloch’s “new information.” As was the tendency in operational settings, the greetings were perfunctory, and Bloch set the course.
“Regrettably, the French police have confirmed your assessment, David—Uday and Sarah are dead.”
“Have they questioned the guard or the driver who ran off?”
“The driver has disappeared, and the man discovered in the service closet hasn’t regained consciousness. Apparently you were a bit too enthusiastic in your efforts—not for the first time, I might add.”
Slaton didn’t apologize. “Will he survive?”
“The doctors think there is a good chance.”
“Has either man been identified?”
“No, but the French are certain the one in the hospital is not DGSI.”
“They were amateurs,” Slaton said.
“Very possibly, but for the moment it is a dead end. We have more important concerns. In our interviews with Uday, we learned that Baland provided a secret DGSI report to ISIS documenting France’s susceptibilities to terrorism.”
“Baland mentioned it to me.”
“I suspect he did not tell you the entire story. Baland apparently provided only a small part of the greater report. What he gave up was telling—it exclusively involved Jewish interests in France.”
“What?”
“In the last few hours it’s already begun to happen. Attacks in Toulon, Montparnasse, and Reuilly, and only moments ago a Jewish museum in Montmartre. ISIS is wasting no time. I would imagine they see Baland’s information as perishable, given Uday’s defection, meaning they will strike as many of these targets as possible in the coming days.”
Slaton sat in silence. Baland had indeed held back on him.
“That is not the most troubling news,” Bloch continued. He looked to Neumann, who picked up.
“I recently paid a visit to Gabrielle Baland,” she said.
Slaton’s eyes narrowed as he tried to associate the name. He drew a blank. “Is that Baland’s wife?”
“His mother—it was relatively easy to track her down. She’s a widow in her late seventies, lives in Lyon. I went to see Madame Baland, explaining that I was a friend of Zavier’s from school days who wanted to catch up with him. She said she hasn’t seen her son in years.”
“Was there a falling-out?”
“Very much so. She knew he was living in Paris, and that he held an important position. But they are completely estranged. No birthday cards, holiday visits, or phone calls—no contact of any kind.”
All at once Slaton thought he saw where this was going. “You said she hasn’t seen him in years. Let me guess … fifteen?”
Neumann nodded.
Talia said, “We recorded their conversation. You should hear it firsthand.”
She addressed a laptop on the table, and soon muted voices captured by a hidden microphone began playing. Talia turned the screen so they could all see it, providing an English translation of the conversation.
Neumann: “I am sorry to hear that you and Zavier had a split. How long ago was it?”
Mme Baland: “Twelve years? No, fifteen I think. It seems like a lifetime.”
Neumann: “I don’t wish to pry, but was there some event that precipitated your estrangement?”
Mme Baland: “There was never difficulty between Zavier and I. But the troubles began right after he returned from Egypt.”
Neumann: “Egypt? Was he there on holiday?”
Mme Baland: “I never knew. He left very suddenly, and when he returned … I sensed a change in him. I saw Zavier only twice before he left Lyon, and even then we barely spoke. I asked him what had happened, but he wouldn’t tell me. He was simply a different man.”
Neumann: “A different man. You say that with conviction, as if—”
Mme Baland: “Would you care for more tea, dear?”
Talia stopped the recording.
Neumann said, “From that point she no longer wanted to talk about her son. I didn’t feel like I could press any harder.”
“There is more,” Bloch added. “Talia was able to extract a record of his travel. On September 15, 2002, Zavier Baland traveled from Paris to Cairo on Air France. He returned five days later.”
Talia said, “It matches perfectly. When he returned, Baland became estranged from the one person in France who knew him well.”
Neumann added, “I learned little more from the interview that night, but as I was leaving his mother turned very cautious. I think she knows what happened. In those critical days so many years ago, her son left her forever and was replaced by … something else.”
The room went silent, and Slaton saw three sets of eyes on him. Each was convinced.
“We went back and searched where we could,” said Bloch. “Baland moved to Paris one week after returning from Cairo. We tracked down his first landlord, and ascertained that he changed his address with a number of government agencies. One month later he applied for a position with the national police force, and was hired soon after.”
Slaton stared at Bloch, trying to wrap his mind around it. “You’re telling me the man I shot in Gaza fifteen years ago was the real Zavier Baland?”
“It would appear so,” said Bloch. “You might recall, the mission you undertook to kill Samir was weeks in the making. There must have been a leak—we’ve had our share. When Samir realized we were coming after him, he somehow convinced Baland to travel to Gaza, by way of Egypt, and traded places with him on the morning when you were waiting. Effectively, your marksmanship helped him escape Gaza and take up a new life.”
A profound silence descended on the room.
Talia broke it with, “And if all of this is true … it means the terrorist Ali Samir recently sent information to ISIS regarding Jewish targets in France. Information that is being acted on as we speak.”
“And in just over twenty-four hou
rs,” Bloch added, “he will become the new director of DGSI.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
Baland walked back into DGSI headquarters, having taken leave from the ongoing hunt at Élysée Palace. He made a few inquiries downstairs, ensuring that everyone knew he would be in his old office—even if his thoughts had slipped from the search, he could not ignore it completely.
He sank heavily behind his desk, and made no attempt to check his messages. In the guise of Zavier Baland, Ali Samir sat alone reflecting deeply on what LeFevre had just told him. They are brother and sister.
No words had ever affected him so profoundly.
Jalil, he reflected. My only son.
He had never known the boy—never even seen him, in fact. His wife had been pregnant when he’d escaped Gaza, and she’d given birth two weeks after attending the funeral he had so artfully arranged.
No, he corrected, I have seen him once.
That mental image stormed into his head. The CCTV video of the bombing in Grenoble. He remembered watching Jalil walk back to the car. Remembered seeing his sister press the button to activate his suicide vest. It seemed a singularly callous act … but had he not done much the same to his own twin brother? Perhaps. Malika, however, had been explicitly cruel. Not only had she killed Jalil, but in her final actions she had demonstrated a complete lack of faith in him.
She probably had her reasons. Jalil had been raised by his mother, no doubt made into a lamb. But Malika—she was something else. She is every bit as ruthless as I am, Baland thought, more with disbelief than pride. He’d had no hand in her upbringing, at least not in any proper way. He had been too busy constructing bombs to be a father, a talent he’d resurrected today at The Peninsula.
Yet still she is like me.
The door to his office suddenly opened, and Baland stirred back to the present. He recognized a man named Trevant, who was in charge of building security.
“Pardon, Monsieur Director,” Trevant said, prematurely using the title. “I thought you were at the Élysée command center. I have come to update the security keypads. If you wish me to come back later—”
“No, not at all,” Baland said, waving him in. There were two secure fixtures in the room, a small wall safe and one drawer in the heavy desk. Both had locks necessitating a fingerprint scan and a four-digit code to gain access.
Trevant said, “I have already reprogrammed the units in the director’s suite with your fingerprint, and I cleared the old code. You may create a new one whenever you wish.”
“Yes, I remember how to do it.” Baland watched the man connect a small electronic device to the wall safe. “You are working late tonight, Trevant.”
“Not at all, sir. I work two of these shifts every week.”
Baland should have known that … the keepers of DGSI security worked in the dead of night. How much more have I missed? He felt a darkness come over him, something he’d not felt in a very long time. He looked at the computer screen beside him and saw e-mails piling up in his in-box. Some would have seemed important a month ago. He pushed away from his desk and watched the man work.
“Tell me, do you have children, Trevant?”
A hesitation. “Of course, sir. Two boys.”
“Are they good?”
Trevant laughed uneasily. “As good as any, I suppose. One of them wants to be a policeman, but the other … he finds a bit of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Trevant paused in his task. He smiled awkwardly at the man who was so many steps above him. “He stays out too late, I think, and has difficulty holding a job. But Luc will straighten out—he has never been arrested or anything like that. I look after him, and someday, God willing, he will look after me.”
After an uncomfortable silence, Trevant went back to his lock. A series of beeps punctuated the stillness, and he said, “Voilà! You have two days in which to move any secure items to your new office.”
“Yes … thank you.”
Trevant was gone minutes later, and Baland reached down and opened the secure drawer in his desk. It was full from front to back with files. Only one interested him—directly at the head, the all-important binder. He extracted the same section he had earlier, and paired it with Uday’s addition. With well-manicured fingertips he neatly squared it all on the blotter in front of him. Forty printed pages, and on top of that the well-traveled memory stick. The same information Chadeh had held for a brief time in Raqqa.
“Is this what it has come to?” he whispered.
He’d had a good run in France and nearly succeeded. Nearly carved out a respectable life. But now, with all that was happening around him, it was folly to think his secret would not be exposed. Since the day Malika had first cornered him on the Pont Neuf, he’d known this day would come. Baland had postponed the reckoning to the best of his ability, but with each passing day his options seemed to narrow. He was like a juggler who’d gone beyond his comfort level. Too many knives in the air. He might silence Slaton, but how many others in Mossad knew the truth? So, too, a handful of zealots in Raqqa. And of course there was Malika. He could never contain a secret so widely dispersed.
He felt an old fury rise from deep within. Malika, his fratricidal daughter, had been instrumental in his ruin. But she was not its source. That went undeniably further back. To a childhood spent in dusty streets cleaning up after violence, and so many years thereafter making others do the same. It all rushed back in a torrent of hate. Just when he’d thought they were out of his life forever, the old oppressors had returned to seize him by the throat. The directorship. Jacqueline and the girls. A mostly honest career. All would soon be lost to the tormentors of so many generations of his people.
The Jews.
I never really escaped, he thought. We have only come full circle.
The man who’d tried not to be Ali Samir for so very long regarded the information in front of him. If nothing else, the last fifteen years had granted him opportunity—a chance to hurt them in Europe more than anyone since Hitler. He flicked through the pages and saw endless opportunity. Chadeh’s first wave of attacks had to be nearing its end, and with Uday having ruined ISIS’ comm networks, no others would be ordered soon. Baland, however, was in a perfect position to pick up where Chadeh left off.
His longtime constraint—his sense of duty to France—had effectively been displaced. It occurred to him that he would first have to claim the directorship, but that would happen just over a day from now. After that, he could order attacks against Jews with one hand, and mismanage the French response with the other. For a week, maybe two, he would have free rein in running both sides of the campaign. Baland thought back across history and wondered if there was any precedent. A war in which one man commanded both armies.
He inserted the memory stick into the computer at the side of his desk. The old hatred burned brighter as the screen flickered to life. The execution of his plan might have to wait another day, but the planning could begin immediately.
The only question was where to begin.
FIFTY-NINE
“The only question is where does this end?” said Bloch from his chair in the embassy conference room. “In just over twenty-four hours a ceremony will be held in which Ali Samir takes charge of DGSI.”
Slaton said, “That can’t be allowed to happen.”
“Certainly not.”
Talia said, “What I don’t understand is the motivation. Baland, or Samir, or whatever we call him—what is he after?”
“A point worth considering,” said Bloch.
“You know what’s really mind-bending?” Slaton offered. “I don’t think Malika realizes who he is. She believes she’s been running an op on her uncle, when all this time—”
“My God!” Talia blurted. “It’s actually her father.”
Bloch said, “It explains why she has been so ruthless. To her, Baland is a traitor to the cause her father died for.”
“That makes sense,” Slaton agreed. “But
it brings up something else. Aside from being blackmailed by Malika, Samir has been playing by the rules since putting his brother under my gun sight. For fifteen years he’s been a model policeman. Could he really have waited this patiently for a chance to strike against Israel? And in such an indirect way? In Gaza, Samir never attacked France or Western interests. He was at war with Israel, plain and simple.”
“What are you suggesting?” Bloch queried. “That he has become a responsible citizen?”
“The way he sacrificed his brother—I don’t think it started out that way. But by everything we know, he’s been on the level since he came to France. He’s got a wife and two daughters. Give any man an opportunity for a positive, productive life, even one who starts out as a reprehensible terrorist … he just might take it.”
Silence prevailed, until Talia said, “If we give this information to the French, what will they do?”
“Actually,” Bloch said, “I have already discussed that option with Director Nurin. Our evidence is compelling, but it is not overwhelming. Baland will fight it. He’ll say the idea of an alternate identity is as absurd as it sounds. Remember, he is not without influence. He has already eliminated two of his most damning witnesses, and as we speak there is no evidence to link him to the deaths of Uday and Sarah. If he can eliminate Malika before she is interrogated, and perhaps the two men he involved in the bombing—he might survive with his reputation intact.”
“And he’ll know it was Israel who threw him under the bus.”
“Director Nurin used a more crass phrase, but his conclusion was the same.” Bloch steepled his hands on the conference table before locking his gaze on Slaton. “The government of Israel has taken a narrow view of this situation. Our duty above all else is to protect Jewish interests. If Ali Samir is reborn as the head of French counterterrorism, the damage he could inflict, both here and in Israel … it is incalculable.”
“But would he go back to his old ways?” Slaton asked.
“That is the unanswerable question. We are talking about a man who only hours ago received a long list of willing jihadists. Men and women awaiting the call to duty.”