Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 2

"Do you require a.s.sistance with your luggage?"

"I can manage."

"We've upgraded you to a deluxe sea-view room. It's on the fourteenth floor." She handed him his packet of room keys and gestured toward the elevators like a flight attendant pointing out the location of the emergency exits. "Welcome back."

Mikhail carried his bag and briefcase into the elevator foyer. An empty carriage waited, its doors open. He stepped inside and, grateful for the solitude, pressed the call b.u.t.ton for the fourteenth floor. But as the doors were closing, a hand poked through the breach and a man entered. He was thickset, with a heavy ridge over his brow and a jawbone built to take a punch. His eyes met Mikhail's briefly in the reflection of the doors. A nod was exchanged, but no words pa.s.sed between them. The man pressed the b.u.t.ton for the twentieth floor, almost as an afterthought, and picked at his thumbnail as the carriage rose. Mikhail pretended to check his e-mail on his mobile and while doing so surrept.i.tiously snapped the blunt-headed man's photograph. He forwarded the photo to King Saul Boulevard, the location of the Office's anonymous Tel Aviv headquarters, while walking along the corridor to his room. A glance around the door frame revealed no evidence of tampering. He swiped his card key and, bracing himself for attack, entered.

The sound of Vivaldi greeted him-a favorite of arms smugglers, heroin dealers, and terrorists the world over, he thought as he switched off the radio. The bed had already been turned down, a chocolate lay on the pillow. He went to the window and saw the roof of Sami Haddad's car parked along the Corniche. Beyond was the marina, and beyond the marina the blackness of the Mediterranean. Somewhere out there was his back door. He was no longer allowed to come to Beirut without an offsh.o.r.e escape hatch. The next chief had plans for him-or so he had heard through the Office grapevine. For a secure inst.i.tution, it was a notoriously gossipy place.

Just then, Mikhail's mobile blossomed with light. It was a message from King Saul Boulevard stating that the computers could not identify the man who had joined him in the elevator. It advised him to proceed with caution, whatever that meant. He drew the blackout shade and the curtains and switched off the room lights one by one until the darkness was absolute. Then he sat at the foot of the bed, his gaze focused on the thin strip of light at the bottom of the door, and waited for the phone to ring.

It was not unusual for the source to be late. He was, as he reminded Mikhail at every opportunity, a very busy man. Therefore, it was no surprise that ten o'clock came and went with no call from Sami Haddad. Finally, at quarter past, the mobile flared.

"He's entering the lobby. He has two friends, both armed."

Mikhail killed the call and remained seated for an additional ten minutes. Then, gun in hand, he moved to the entrance hall and placed his ear against the door. Hearing nothing outside, he returned the gun to the small of his back and stepped into the corridor, which was deserted except for a single male member of the housekeeping staff. Upstairs, the roof bar was the usual scene-rich Lebanese, Emiratis in their flowing white kanduras, Chinese businessmen flushed with drink, drug dealers, wh.o.r.es, gamblers, adventure seekers, fools. The sea wind toyed with the hair of the women and made wavelets in the pool. The throbbing music, spun by a professional DJ, was a sonic crime against humanity.

Mikhail made his way to the farthest corner of the rooftop, where Clovis Mansour, scion of the Mansour antiquities-dealing dynasty, sat alone on a white couch facing the Mediterranean. He was posed as if for a magazine shoot, with a gla.s.s of champagne in one hand and a cigarette smoldering in the other. He wore a dark Italian suit and a white open-neck shirt that was handmade for him by his man in London. His gold wrist.w.a.tch was the size of a sundial. His cologne hung around him like a cloak.

"You're late, habibi," he said as Mikhail lowered himself onto the couch opposite. "I was about to leave."

"No, you weren't."

Mikhail surveyed the interior of the bar. Mansour's two bodyguards were picking at a bowl of pistachios at an adjacent table. The man from the elevator was leaning against the bal.u.s.trade. He was pretending to admire the view of the sea while holding a mobile phone to his ear.

"Know him?" asked Mikhail.

"Never seen him before. Drink?"

"No, thanks."

"It's better if you drink."

Mansour flagged down a pa.s.sing waiter and ordered a second gla.s.s of champagne. Mikhail drew a buff-colored envelope from his coat pocket and placed it on the low table.

"What's that?" asked Mansour.

"A token of our esteem."

"Money?"

Mikhail nodded.

"I don't work for you because I need the money, habibi. After all, I have plenty of money. I work for you because I want to stay in business."

"My superiors prefer it if money changes hands."

"Your superiors are cheap blackmailers."

"I'd look inside the envelope before calling them cheap."

Mansour did. He raised an eyebrow and slipped the envelope into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

"What have you got for me, Clovis?"

"Paris," said the antiquities dealer.

"What about Paris?"

"I know who did it."

"How?"

"I can't say for certain," said Mansour, "but it's possible I helped him pay for it."

4.

BEIRUT-TEL AVIV

IT WAS HALF PAST TWO in the morning by the time Mikhail finally returned to his room. He saw no evidence to suggest it had been disturbed in his absence; even the little foiled chocolate lay at precisely the same angle atop his pillow. After sniffing it for traces of a.r.s.enic, he nibbled at a corner thoughtfully. Then, in an uncharacteristic fit of nerves, he hauled every piece of furniture that wasn't bolted down into the entrance hall and piled it against the door. His barricade complete, he opened the curtains and the blackout shade and searched for his bolt-hole among the shipping lights in the Mediterranean. Instantly, he reproached himself for entertaining such a thought. The escape hatch was to be utilized only in cases of extreme emergency. Possession of a piece of intelligence did not fall into that category, even if the piece of intelligence had the potential to prevent another catastrophe like Paris.

They call him Saladin . . .

Mikhail stretched out on the bed, his back propped against the headboard, the gun at his side, and stared at the shadowy ma.s.s of his fortifications. It was, he thought, a truly undignified sight. He switched on the television and surfed the airwaves of a Middle East gone mad until boredom drove him toward the doorstep of sleep. To keep himself alert he guzzled a cola from the fridge bar and thought about a woman he had foolishly let slip through his fingers. She was a beautiful American of flawless Protestant pedigree who had worked for the CIA and, occasionally, for the Office. She was living in New York now, where she oversaw a special collection of paintings at the Museum of Modern Art. He'd heard she was seeing a man quite seriously, a bond trader, of all things. He contemplated calling her, just to hear the sound of her voice, but decided it would be unwise. Like Russia, she was lost to him.

What's his real name, Clovis?

I'm not sure he ever had one.

Where's he from?

He might have been from Iraq once, but now he's a son of the caliphate . . .

Finally, the sky beyond Mikhail's window turned blue-black with the coming dawn. He put his room in order and thirty minutes later slumped bleary-eyed into the back of Sami Haddad's car.

"How did it go?" asked the Lebanese.

"Total waste of time," replied Mikhail through an elaborate yawn.

"Where now?"

"Tel Aviv."

"It's not such an easy drive, my friend."

"Then perhaps you should take me to the airport instead."

His flight was at half past eight. He sailed through pa.s.sport control as a smiling, somewhat drowsy Canadian and settled into his first-cla.s.s seat aboard a Middle East Airlines jet bound for Rome. To shield himself from his neighbor, a Turkish salesman of disreputable appearance, he pretended to read the morning papers. In reality, he was considering all the possible reasons why an aircraft operated by the government of Lebanon might fail to reach its destination safely. For once, he thought glumly, his death would have consequences, for the intelligence would die with him.

How much money are we talking about, Clovis?

Four million, maybe five.

Which is it?

Closer to five . . .

The plane landed in Rome without incident, though it took Mikhail the better part of two hours to clear the organized stampede that was Fiumicino's pa.s.sport control. His stay in Italy was brief, long enough for him to switch ident.i.ties and board another airplane, an El Al flight bound for Tel Aviv. An Office car waited at Ben Gurion; it whisked him north to King Saul Boulevard. The building at the western end of the street was, like Paul Rousseau's outpost on the rue de Grenelle, a lie in plain sight. No emblem hung over its entrance, no bra.s.s lettering proclaimed the ident.i.ty of its occupant. In fact, there was nothing at all to suggest it was the headquarters of one of the world's most feared and respected intelligence services. A closer inspection of the structure, however, would have revealed the existence of a building within a building, one with its own power supply, its own water and sewer lines, and its own secure communications system. Employees carried two keys. One opened an unmarked door in the lobby; the other operated the lift. Those who committed the unpardonable sin of losing one or both of their keys were banished to the Judean Wilderness, never to be seen or heard from again.

Like most field agents, Mikhail entered the building through the underground parking garage and then made his way upward to the executive floor. Because the hour was late-the security cameras recorded the time as half past nine-the corridor was as quiet as a school that had been emptied of children. From the half-open door at the end of the hall stretched a slender rhombus of light. Mikhail knocked softly and, hearing no reply, entered. Stuffed into an executive leather chair behind a desk of smoked gla.s.s was Uzi Navot, the soon-to-be former chief of the Office. He was frowning at an open file as though it were a bill he could not afford to pay. At his elbow was an open box of Viennese b.u.t.ter cookies. Only two remained, not a good sign.

At length, Navot looked up and with a dismissive movement of his hand instructed Mikhail to sit. He wore a striped dress shirt that had been cut for a thinner man and a pair of the rimless spectacles beloved by German intellectuals and Swiss bankers. His hair, once strawberry blond, was gray stubble; his blue eyes were bloodshot. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing his ma.s.sive forearms, and contemplated Mikhail for a long moment with thinly veiled hostility. It wasn't the reception Mikhail had expected, but then one never knew quite what to expect when one encountered Uzi Navot these days. There were rumors his successor intended to keep him on in some capacity-blasphemy in a service that regarded regular turnover at the top almost as a matter of religious doctrine-but officially his future was unclear.

"Any problems on the way out of Beirut?" Navot asked at last, as though the question had occurred to him suddenly.

"None," answered Mikhail.

Navot snared a stray cookie crumb with the tip of a thick forefinger. "Surveillance?"

"Nothing we could see."

"And the man who rode the hotel elevator with you? Did you ever see him again?"

"At the roof bar."

"Anything suspicious?"

"Everyone in Beirut looks suspicious. That's why it's Beirut."

Navot flicked the cookie crumb onto the plate. Then he removed a photograph from the file and dealt it across the desktop toward Mikhail. It showed a man sitting in the front seat of a luxury automobile, at the edge of a seaside boulevard. The windows of the car were shattered. The man was a b.l.o.o.d.y tattered mess, and quite obviously dead.

"Recognize him?" asked Navot.

Mikhail squinted in concentration.

"Look carefully at the car."

Mikhail did. And then he understood. The dead man was Sami Haddad.

"When did they get him?"

"Not long after he dropped you at the airport. And they were just getting started."

Navot spun another photo across the desk, a ruined building on an elegant street in downtown Beirut. It was Gallerie Mansour on the rue Madame Curie. Limbs and heads littered the pavement. For once the carnage wasn't human. It was Clovis Mansour's magnificent professional inventory.

"I was hoping," Navot resumed after a moment, "that my last days as chief would pa.s.s without incident. Instead, I have to deal with the loss of our best contract employee in Beirut and an a.s.set we spent a great deal of time and effort recruiting."

"Better than a dead field agent."

"I'll be the judge of that." Navot accepted the two photographs and returned them to the file. "What did Mansour have for you?"

"The man who was behind Paris."

"Who is he?"

"They call him Saladin."

"Saladin? Well," Navot said, closing the file, "at least that's a start."

Navot remained in his office long after Mikhail had taken his leave. The desk was empty except for his leather-bound executive notepad, on which he had scrawled a single word. Saladin . . . Only a man of great self-esteem would grant himself a code name like that, only a man of great ambition. The real Saladin had united the Muslim world under the Ayyubid dynasty and recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Perhaps this new Saladin was similarly inclined. For his coming-out party he had flattened a Jewish target in the middle of Paris, thus attacking two countries, two civilizations, at the same time. Surely, thought Navot, the success of the attack had only whetted his l.u.s.t for infidel blood. It was only a matter of time before he struck again.

For the moment, Saladin was a French problem. But the fact that four Israeli citizens had perished in the attack gave Navot standing in Paris. So, too, did the name that Clovis Mansour had whispered into Mikhail's ear in Beirut. In fact, with a bit of skilled salesmanship, the name alone might be enough to secure the Office a seat at the operational table. Navot was confident in his powers of persuasion. A former field agent and recruiter of spies, he had the ability to spin straw into gold. All he needed was someone to look after the Office's interest in any joint Franco-Israeli undertaking. He had but one candidate in mind, a legendary field agent who had been running operations on French soil since he was a boy of twenty-two. What's more, the operative in question had known Hannah Weinberg personally. Unfortunately, the prime minister had other plans for him.

Navot checked the time; it was ten fifteen. He reached for his phone and dialed Travel.

"I need to fly to Paris tomorrow morning."

"The six o'clock or the nine?"

"The six," said Navot despondently.

"When are you coming back?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Done."

Navot rang off and then placed a final call. The question he posed was one he had asked many times before.

"How long before he's finished?"

"He's close."

"How close?"

"Maybe tonight, tomorrow at the latest."