Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 12

"Your mother and father had seen this movie before, as children in Algeria, and they weren't about to wait for the ending. And so for the second time in their lives they packed their bags and fled, this time to Israel. And you, after a period of prolonged indecision, decided to join them."

"Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about myself?"

"Forgive me, Natalie, but we've had our eye on you for some time. It is a habit of ours. Our service is constantly on the lookout for talented young immigrants and Jewish visitors to our country. The diaspora," he added with a smile, "has its advantages."

"How so?"

"Languages, for one. I was recruited because I spoke German. Not cla.s.sroom German or audiotape German, but real German with the Berlin accent of my mother."

"I presume you also knew how to fire a gun."

"Not very well, actually. My IDF career was unremarkable, to say the least. I was much better with a paintbrush than I was with a gun. But this is unimportant," he added. "What I really want to know is why you were reluctant to come to Israel."

"I considered France my home. My career, my life," she added, "was in France."

"But you came here nonetheless."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I didn't want to be separated from my parents."

"You are a good child?"

"I am an only child."

"Like me."

She was silent.

"We like people of good character, Natalie. We're not interested in people who desert their wives and children and don't look after their parents. We employ them as paid sources if we have to, but we don't like having them in our midst."

"How do you know I'm-"

"A person of good character? Because we've been watching you, quietly and from a distance. Don't worry, we're not voyeurs unless we have to be. We've allowed you a zone of privacy, and we've averted our eyes whenever possible."

"You had no right."

"Actually," he said, "we had every right. The rules that govern our conduct give us a certain room to maneuver."

"Do they allow you to read other people's mail?"

"That is our business."

"I want those letters back."

"What letters are those?"

"The letters you took from my bedroom."

Gabriel looked reproachfully at Uzi Navot, who shrugged his heavy shoulders, as if to say it was possible-in fact, it was doubtless true-that certain private letters had been pinched from Natalie's apartment.

"Your property," said Gabriel apologetically, "will be returned as soon as possible."

"How thoughtful of you." Her voice contained a knife's edge of resentment.

"Don't be angry, Natalie. It's all part of the process."

"But I never applied to work for-"

"The Office," said Gabriel. "We only call it the Office. And none of us ever asked to join. We are asked to join. That's how it works."

"Why me? I know nothing of your world or what you do."

"I'll let you in on another little secret, Natalie. None of us do. One doesn't earn a master's degree in how to be an intelligence officer. One is smart, one is innovative, one has certain skills and personality traits, and the rest one learns. Our training is very rigorous. No one, not even the British, trains their spies as well as we do. When we're finished with you, you'll no longer be one of us. You'll be one of them."

"Who?"

Gabriel lifted his gaze toward the Arab village again. "Tell me something, Natalie. What is the language of your dreams?"

"French."

"What about Hebrew?"

"Not yet."

"Never?"

"No, never."

"That's good," said Gabriel, still staring at the village. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation in French."

19.

NAHALAL, ISRAEL.

BUT FIRST, BEFORE GOING ANY FURTHER, Gabriel gave Natalie another chance to leave. She could go back to Jerusalem, back to her work at Hada.s.sah, back to the overt world. Her file-yes, Gabriel admitted, she already had a file-would be shredded and burned. They would not blame her for turning her back on them; they would only blame themselves for having failed to close the deal. They would speak of her well, if at all. They would always think of her as the one who got away.

He said all this not in Hebrew but in French. And when she gave him her answer, after only a moment's deliberation, it was in the same language, the language of her dreams. She would stay, she said, but only if he told her why she was being asked to join their exclusive club.

"Shwaya, shwaya," said Gabriel. It was an Arabic expression that, in this context, meant little by little. Then, without providing Natalie an opening to object, he told her about the man called Saladin. Not the son of a Kurdish soldier of fortune who united the Arab world and reclaimed Jerusalem from the Crusaders, but the Saladin who in the span of a few days had shed infidel and apostate blood in Paris and Amsterdam. They did not know his real name, they did not know his nationality, though his nom de guerre surely was no accident. It suggested he was a man of ambition, a man of history who had visions of using ma.s.s murder as a means of unifying the Arab and Islamic world under the black flag of ISIS and the caliphate. His ultimate goals notwithstanding, he was clearly a terrorist mastermind of considerable skill. Under the noses of Western intelligence, he had built a network capable of delivering powerful vehicle-borne explosive devices to carefully chosen targets. Perhaps his tactics would remain the same, or perhaps he had bigger plans. Either way, they had to kill the network.

"And nothing kills a network faster," said Gabriel, "than to offer its leader a buyout."

"A buyout?" asked Natalie.

Gabriel was silent.

"Kill him? Is that what you mean?"

"Kill, eliminate, a.s.sa.s.sinate, liquidate-you choose the word. I'm afraid they've never mattered much to me. I'm in the business of saving innocent lives."

"I couldn't possibly-"

"Kill someone? Don't worry, we're not asking you to become a soldier or a special operative. We have plenty of men in black who are trained to do that sort of work."

"Like you."

"That was a long time ago. These days I wage war against our enemies from the comfort of a desk. I am a boardroom hero now."

"That's not what they wrote about you in Haaretz."

"Even the respectable Haaretz gets it wrong every now and then."

"So do the spies."

"You object to the business of espionage?"

"Only when spies do reprehensible things."

"Such as?"

"Torture," she answered.

"We don't torture anyone."

"What about the Americans?"

"Let's leave the Americans out of this for now. But I'm wondering," he added, "whether you would have any philosophical or moral objection to taking part in an operation that would result in someone's death."

"This might come as a shock to you, Mr. Allon, but I've never pondered that question before."

"You're a doctor, Natalie. You're trained to save lives. You swear an oath. Do no harm. Just yesterday, for example, you treated a young man who was responsible for the deaths of two people. Surely, that must have been difficult."

"Not at all."

"Why not?"

"Because it's my job."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"The answer is no," she said. "I would not have any philosophical or moral objection to taking part in an operation that results in the death of the man responsible for the attacks in Paris and Amsterdam, as long as no innocent lives are lost in the process."

"It sounds to me, Natalie, as though you're referring to the American drone program."

"Israel uses air strikes, too."

"And some of us disagree with that strategy. We prefer special operations to air power whenever possible. But our politicians have fallen in love with the idea of so-called clean warfare. Drones make that possible."

"Not for the people on the receiving end."

"That's true. Far too many innocent lives have been lost. But the best way to ensure that doesn't happen is good intelligence." He paused, then added, "Which is where you come in."

"What are you asking me to do?"

He smiled. Shwaya, shwaya . . .

She had not touched her food, none of them had, so before going any further Gabriel insisted they eat. He did not heed his own counsel, for truth be told he had never been much of a lunch person. And so while the others partook of the buffet, courtesy of an Office-approved caterer in Tel Aviv, he spoke of his childhood in the valley-of the Arab raids from the hills of the West Bank, of the Israeli reprisals, of the Six-Day War, which took his father, of the Yom Kippur War, which took his belief that Israel was invulnerable. The founding generation believed that a Jewish state in the historical land of Palestine would bring progress and stability to the Middle East. Yet all around Israel, in the frontline states and in the Arab periphery, anger and resentment burned long after the state came into existence, and societies stagnated under the thumbs of monarchs and dictators. While the rest of the world advanced, the Arabs, despite their ma.s.sive petrowealth, went backward. Arab radio raged against the Jews while Arab children went barefoot and hungry. Arab newspapers printed blood libels that few Arabs could even read. Arab rulers grew rich while the Arab people had nothing but their humiliation and resentment-and Islam.

"Am I somehow to blame for their dysfunction?" asked Gabriel of no one in particular, and no one responded. "Did it happen because I lived here in this valley? Do they hate me because I drained it and killed the mosquitos and made it bloom? If I were not here, would the Arabs be free, prosperous, and stable?"

For a brief moment, he continued, it seemed peace might actually be possible. There was an historic handshake on the South Lawn of the White House. Arafat set up shop in Ramallah, Israelis were suddenly cool. And yet all the while the son of a Saudi construction billionaire was building an organization known as al-Qaeda, or the Base. For all its Islamic fervor, Osama bin Laden's creation was a highly bureaucratic enterprise. Its bylaws and workplace regulations resembled those of any modern company. They governed everything from vacation days to medical benefits to airline travel and furniture allowances. There were even rules for disability payments and a process by which a member's employment could be terminated. Those wishing to enter one of Bin Laden's Afghan training camps had to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. No corner of a potential recruit's life was spared scrutiny.

"But ISIS is different. Yes, it has its questionnaire, but it's nowhere near as thorough as al-Qaeda's. And with good reason. You see, Natalie, a caliphate without people is not a caliphate. It is a patch of empty desert between Aleppo and the Sunni Triangle of Iraq." He paused. Then for a second time he said, "Which is where you come in."

"You can't be serious."

His blank expression said that he was.

"You want me to join ISIS?" she asked, incredulous.

"No," he said. "You will be asked to join."

"By whom?"

"Saladin, of course."

A silence ensued. Natalie glanced from face to face-the mournful face of the avenged remnant, the familiar face of the chief of the Office, the face of a man who was supposed to be dead. It was to this face that she delivered her response.

"I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm Jewish, and I can't pretend to be anything else just because I speak their language."