Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 19

He ignored her objection. "He wasn't from Nablus like your mother. He was from the Western Galilee." He paused, then added, "From Sumayriyya."

Her expression darkened and she engaged in a series of tiny gestures that interrogators refer to as displacement activity. She adjusted her hijab, she tapped a nail against the rim of her coffee cup, she glanced nervously around the quiet Sunday street-anywhere but into the face of the man seated on the other side of the table, the man who would place her in the hands of Saladin.

"I don't know who you are," she said finally, "but I've never told you anything about my parents. In fact, I'm quite certain I've never seen you until this moment."

"Never?"

"No."

"Then how do I know these things about you?"

"Maybe you're from the DGSI?"

"Me? French intelligence? My French is dreadful. You said so yourself."

"Then maybe you're American. Or Israeli," she added.

"You're paranoid."

"That's because I'm a Palestinian. And if you don't tell me who you really are and what you want, I'm leaving. And there's a very good chance I might find the nearest gendarme and tell him about the strange man who knows things about me he shouldn't."

"It's never a good idea for Muslims to get involved with the French police, Leila. There's a good chance they'll open an S file on you. And if they do, they'll learn things that could prove detrimental to someone in your position."

She placed a five-euro note next to her coffee and started to rise, but once again he placed his hand on her arm-not lightly but with a grip that was shockingly firm. And all the while he was smiling for the benefit of the waiter and the pa.s.sersby, immigrants and native French, filing past through the soft sunlight.

"Who are you?" she murmured through clenched teeth.

"My name is Jalal Na.s.ser."

"Jalal from London?"

"Correct."

"Have we ever met before?"

"No."

"You lied to me."

"I had to."

"Why are you here?"

"I was asked to come."

"By whom?"

"You, of course." He relaxed his grip. "Don't be nervous, Leila," he said calmly. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm only here to help. I'm going to give you the chance you've been waiting for. I'm going to make your dreams come true."

Paul Rousseau's observation post was located directly above the cafe, and the sharp downward angle of the surveillance camera was such that Natalie and Jalal seemed like characters in an avant-garde French film. Audio coverage was supplied by Natalie's mobile phone, which meant that, when viewed live, there was a maddening two-second audio delay. But afterward, in the safe house at Seraincourt, Mordecai produced an edited version of the encounter in which sound and video were synchronized. With Eli Lavon at his side, Gabriel watched it three times from beginning to end. Then he adjusted the time code to 11:17:38 and clicked on the play icon.

"Why are you here?"

"I was asked to come."

"By whom?"

"You, of course."

Gabriel clicked PAUSE.

"Impressive performance," said Eli Lavon.

"His or hers?"

"Both, actually."

Gabriel clicked PLAY.

"I'm going to give you the chance you've been waiting for. I'm going to make your dreams come true."

"Who told you about these dreams of mine?"

"My friend Nabil. Perhaps you remember him."

"Very well."

"Nabil told me about the conversation you had after the demonstration in the Place de la Republique."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because Nabil and I work for the same organization."

"Which organization?"

"I'm not at liberty to say. Not here. Not now."

Gabriel clicked PAUSE and looked at Lavon. "Why not here?" he asked. "Why not now?"

"You didn't really think he would make his move in the cafe, did you?"

Gabriel frowned and pressed PLAY.

"Perhaps we can meet somewhere more private to talk at length."

"Perhaps."

"Are you free this evening?"

"I might be."

"Do you know La Courneuve?"

"Of course."

"Can you make your way there?"

"It's not far. I can walk."

"There's a large housing estate on the Avenue Leclerc."

"I know it."

"Be outside the pharmacy at nine. Don't bring your mobile phone or anything electronic. And dress warmly."

Gabriel paused the recording. "Sounds to me like they're going to be traveling by motorbike."

"Brilliant," said Lavon.

"Jalal or me?"

A silence fell between them. It was Lavon who finally broke it.

"What are you worried about?"

"I'm worried that he's going to drive her to a secluded location, brutally interrogate her, and then cut her head off. Other than that, I have no concerns at all."

Another silence, longer than the first.

"What are you going to do?" Lavon asked finally.

Gabriel stared at the computer screen, one hand to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side. Then he reached down, reset the time code, and pressed PLAY.

"Leila? Is that really you? It's Jalal. Jalal Na.s.ser from London . . ."

30.

LA COURNEUVE, FRANCE.

THE CLEAR SKIES WERE BY that evening a pleasant memory. A cold, damp wind plucked at Natalie's hijab as she made her way along the Avenue Leclerc, and above her head a blanket of thick clouds obscured the moon and stars. The raw weather was more typical of the northern banlieues; a trick of the prevailing southwesterly winds gave them a distinctly gloomier climate than the center of Paris. It only added to the air of dystopian misery that hung like a gray shroud over the looming concrete towers of the cites.

One of the largest housing estates in the entire department rose before Natalie now, two enormous slabs in the brutalist style, one tall and rectangular, like a giant deck of playing cards, the other lower and longer, as if to provide architectural balance. Between the two structures was a broad esplanade planted with many youthful trees in green leaf. A flock of veiled women, some wearing full facial veils, conversed quietly in Arabic while a few feet away a quartet of teenage boys openly pa.s.sed a joint, knowing that a patrol by the French police was exceedingly unlikely. Natalie slipped past the women, returning their greeting of peace, and headed toward the parade of shops at the base of the tower. A supermarket, a hair salon, a small carryout restaurant, an optician, a pharmacy-all of life's needs met in one convenient location. That was the goal of the central planners, to create self-contained utopias for the working cla.s.ses. Few residents of the banlieues ventured into the center of Paris unless they were lucky enough to have jobs there. Even then, they joked that the short journey, ten minutes on the RER, required a pa.s.sport and proof of vaccination.

Natalie made her way to the entrance of the pharmacy. Outside was a pair of modular concrete benches, upon which sat several Africans in traditional flowing dress. She reckoned it was a few minutes before nine o'clock, but couldn't be sure; as instructed she had come without electronic devices, including her battery-powered wrist.w.a.tch. One of the Africans, a tall thin man with skin like ebony, offered Natalie his seat, but with only a polite smile she indicated she preferred to stand. She watched the evening traffic moving in the avenue, and the hidden women chattering softly in Arabic, and the now-stoned teenage boys, who in turn were eyeing her malevolently, as though they could see the truth beneath her veil. She drew a deep breath to slow the beat of her heart. I'm in France, she told herself. Nothing can happen to me here.

Several minutes elapsed, long enough for Natalie to wonder whether Jalal Na.s.ser had decided to abort the meeting. Behind her, the pharmacy door opened and from inside emerged a Frenchman who might have been mistaken for a North African. Natalie recognized him; he was one of her watchers from the French security service. He slipped past without a word and climbed into the backseat of a battered Renault. Approaching the car from behind was a motor scooter, black in color, large enough to accommodate two pa.s.sengers. It stopped outside the pharmacy, a few feet from where Natalie stood. The driver lifted the visor of his helmet and smiled.

"You're late," said Natalie, annoyed.

"Actually," said Jalal Na.s.ser, "you were early."

"How do you know?"

"Because I followed you."

He removed a second helmet from the rear storage compartment. Warily, Natalie accepted it. This was something they hadn't covered during her training at the farm in Nahalal, how to wear a helmet over a hijab. She slipped it on carefully, buckled the strap beneath her chin, and climbed onto the back of the bike. Instantly, it lurched forward into the traffic. As they shot through the canyons of the cites in a blur, Natalie wrapped her arms around Jalal Na.s.ser's waist and held on for her life. I'm in France, she rea.s.sured herself. Nothing can happen to me here. Then she realized her mistake. She wasn't in France, not anymore.

Earlier that afternoon, in the elegant salon of Chteau Treville, there had been an intense debate regarding the level of surveillance required for that evening's meeting. Gabriel, perhaps owing to the burden of pending command, had wanted as many eyes as possible on his agent, both human and electronic. Only Eli Lavon dared to offer a countervailing opinion. Lavon knew the possibilities of surveillance, and its pitfalls. Clearly, he argued, Jalal Na.s.ser intended to take his potential recruit on a surveillance-detection run before baring his jihadist soul to her. And if he discovered they were being followed, the operation would be doomed before it left port. Nor was it possible, said Lavon, to conceal a tracking beacon on Natalie, because the technologically minded operatives of ISIS and al-Qaeda knew how to find them.

It was a brotherly row, but heated. There were voices raised, mild insults exchanged, and a piece of fruit, a banana of all things, hurled in frustration-though afterward Lavon insisted that Gabriel's lightning-fast duck, while impressive, had been wholly unnecessary, for it was only a warning shot across the bow. Lavon prevailed in the end, if only because Gabriel, in his operational heart, knew that his old friend was correct. He was magnanimous in defeat, but no less worried about sending his agent into the meeting entirely alone. Despite his unthreatening appearance, Jalal Na.s.ser was a ruthless and committed jihadi killer who had served as a project manager for two devastating terror attacks. And Natalie, for all her training and intelligence, was a Jew who happened to speak Arabic very well.

And so, at two minutes past nine that evening, as Natalie swung her leg over the back of Jalal Na.s.ser's Piaggio motorbike, only French eyes were watching, and only from a distance. The battered Renault followed for a time and was soon replaced by a Citron. Then the Citron dropped away too, and only the cameras watched over them. They tracked them northward, past Le Bourget Airport and Charles de Gaulle, and eastward through the villages of Thieux and Juilly. Then, at nine twenty, Paul Rousseau rang Gabriel to say that Natalie had vanished from their radar screens.

At which point Gabriel and his team settled in for another long wait. Mordecai and Oded engaged in a furious game of table tennis; Mikhail and Eli Lavon waged war over a chessboard, Yossi and Rimona watched an American film on television. Only Gabriel and Dina refused to distract themselves with trivial pursuits. Gabriel paced alone in the darkened garden, worrying himself to death, while Dina sat alone in the makeshift operations room, staring at a black computer screen. Dina was grieving. Dina would have given anything to be in Natalie's place.

After putting the last of the Paris suburbs behind them, they rode for an hour through sleeping cropland and postcard villages, seemingly without aim or purpose or destination. Or was it two hours they journeyed? Natalie couldn't be sure. Her view of the world was limited. There were only Jalal's square shoulders, and the back of Jalal's helmet, and Jalal's narrow waist, to which she clung with guilt, for she was thinking of Ziad, whom she loved. For a time she tried to maintain a grasp of their whereabouts, noting the names of the villages they entered and exited, and the numbers of the roads along which they sped. Eventually, she surrendered and tilted her head heavenward. Stars shone in the black sky; a low luminous moon chased them across the landscape. She supposed she was back in France again.

At last, they arrived at the outskirts of a midsize town. Natalie knew it; it was Senlis, the ancient city of French kings located at the edge of the Forest of Chantilly. Jalal sped through the cobbled alleyways of the medieval center and parked in a small courtyard. On two sides were high walls of gray flint, and on the third, darkened and shuttered, was a two-story building that showed no sign of habitation. Somewhere a church bell tolled heavily, but otherwise the town was eerily quiet. Jalal dismounted and removed his helmet. Natalie did the same.

"Your hijab, too," he murmured in Arabic.

"Why?"

"Because this isn't the sort of place for people like us."

Natalie unpinned her hijab and tucked it into the helmet. In the darkness Jalal scrutinized her carefully.

"Is something wrong?"

"You're just . . ."

"Just what?"

"More beautiful than I imagined." He locked the two helmets in the bike's rear storage compartment. Then, from his coat pocket, he removed an object about the size of an old-fashioned pager. "Did you follow my instructions about phones and electronic devices?"

"Of course."