Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 34

"A shame," said Saladin. "But I can a.s.sure you there's no shortage of beautiful young women in the caliphate."

"So I've heard."

The young Egyptian was smiling for the first time. When Saladin lifted the embroidered pillow, exposing the silenced Glock, the smile evaporated.

"Don't worry, my brother," said Saladin. "It was just a precaution in case the FBI came through the door instead of you." He held out his hand. "Help me up. I'll see you out."

Gun in one hand, walking stick in the other, Saladin followed Qa.s.sam el-Banna outside to his car.

"If for some reason you are arrested on the way to the airport . . ."

"I won't tell them a thing," said the young Egyptian bravely, "even if they waterboard me."

"Haven't you heard, Brother Qa.s.sam? The Americans don't do that sort of thing anymore."

Qa.s.sam el-Banna climbed behind the wheel of his car, closed the door, and started the engine. Saladin rapped lightly on the window with the grip of his cane. The window slid down. The young Egyptian looked up inquisitively.

"There's just one more thing," said Saladin.

"Yes?"

Saladin pointed the silenced Glock through the open window and fired four shots in rapid succession. Then he reached into the interior, careful not to stain his jacket in blood, and eased the car into drive. A moment later it disappeared into the black pond. Saladin waited until the bubbling had stopped and the surface of the pond was once again as smooth as gla.s.s. Then he climbed into his own car and headed back to Washington.

53.

LIBERTY CROSSING, VIRGINIA.

UNLIKE SALADIN, GABRIEL Pa.s.sED a quiet if restless morning at the N Street safe house, watching a tiny mouthwash-green airplane creeping slowly across the screen of his Samsung mobile. Finally, at half past two in the afternoon, he climbed into the back of a black Suburban and was driven across Chain Bridge to the wealthy Virginia enclave of McLean. On Route 123 he saw a sign for the George Bush Center for Intelligence. The driver blew past the entrance without slowing.

"You missed your turn," said Gabriel.

The driver smiled but said nothing. He continued along Route 123, past the low-slung shopping centers and business parks of downtown McLean, before finally turning onto Lewinsville Road. He turned again after a quarter mile onto Tysons McLean Drive and followed it up the slope of a gentle rise. The road bent to the left, then to the right, before delivering them to a large checkpoint manned by a dozen uniformed guards, all heavily armed. A clipboard was consulted, a dog sniffed for bombs. Then the Suburban proceeded slowly to the forecourt of a large office building, the headquarters of the National Counterterrorism Center. On the opposite side of the court, connected by a convenient sky bridge, was the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The complex, thought Gabriel, was a monument to failure. The American intelligence community, the largest and most advanced the world had ever known, had failed to prevent the attacks of 9/11. And for its sins it had been reorganized and rewarded with money, real estate, and pretty buildings.

An employee of the center-a pantsuited, ponytailed woman of perhaps thirty-awaited Gabriel in the lobby. She gave him a guest pa.s.s, which he clipped to the pocket of his suit jacket, and led him to the Operations Floor, the NCTC's nerve center. The giant video screens and kidney-shaped desks gave it the appearance of a television newsroom. The desks were an optimistic shade of pale pine, like something from an IKEA catalog. At one sat Adrian Carter, Fareed Barakat, and Paul Rousseau. As Gabriel took his a.s.signed seat, Carter handed him a photograph of a dark-haired man in his mid-forties.

"Is this the fellow you saw at the Four Seasons?"

"A reasonable facsimile. Who is he?"

"Omar al-Farouk, Saudi national, not quite a member of the royal family, but close enough."

"Says who?"

"Says our man in Riyadh. He checked him out. He's clean."

"Checked him out how? Checked him with whom?"

"The Saudis."

"Well," said Gabriel cynically, "that settles it then."

Carter said nothing.

"Put him under watch, Adrian."

"Perhaps you didn't hear me the first time. Not quite a member of the royal family, but close enough. Besides, Saudi Arabia is our ally in the fight against ISIS. Every month," Carter added with a glance toward Fareed Barakat, "the Saudis write a big fat check to the king of Jordan to finance his efforts against ISIS. And if the check is one day late, the king calls Riyadh to complain. Isn't that right, Fareed?"

"And every month," Fareed replied, "certain wealthy Saudis funnel money and other support to ISIS. The Saudis aren't alone. Qataris and Emiratis are doing it, too."

Carter was unconvinced. He looked at Gabriel and said, "The FBI doesn't have the resources to watch everyone who gives you a funny feeling at the back of your neck."

"Then let us watch him for you."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." Carter's mobile chirped. He looked at the screen and frowned. "It's the White House. I need to take this in private."

He entered one of the fishbowl conference rooms at the edge of the Operations Floor and closed the door. Gabriel looked up at one of the video screens and saw a mouthwash-green airplane approaching the American coastline.

"How good are your sources inside Saudi Arabia?" he asked Fareed Barakat quietly.

"Better than yours, my friend."

"Do me a favor then." Gabriel handed Fareed the photograph. "Find out who this a.s.shole really is."

Fareed snapped a photo of the photo with his mobile phone and forwarded it to the GID headquarters in Amman. At the same time, Gabriel sent a message to King Saul Boulevard ordering surveillance of a guest at the Four Seasons Hotel named Omar al-Farouk.

"You realize," murmured Fareed, "that we are totally busted."

"I'll send Adrian a nice fruit basket when this is all over."

"He's not allowed to accept gifts. Believe me, my friend, I've tried."

Gabriel smiled in spite of himself and looked at the video screen. The mouthwash-green airplane had just entered American airs.p.a.ce.

54.

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

IT TOOK AN HOUR FOR Dr. Leila Hadawi to navigate the frozen welcome mat at Dulles Airport's pa.s.sport control-forty minutes in the long, mazelike line, and another twenty minutes standing before the dais of a Customs and Border Protection officer. The officer was clearly not part of the operation. He questioned Dr. Hadawi at length about her recent travels-Greece was of particular interest-and about the purpose of her visit to the United States. Her response, that she had come to visit friends, was one he had heard many times before.

"Where do the friends live?"

"Falls Church."

"What are their names?"

She gave him two Arabic names.

"Are you staying with them?"

"No."

"Where are you staying?"

And on it went until finally she was invited to smile for a camera and place her fingers on the cool gla.s.s of a digital scanner. Returning her pa.s.sport, the customs officer hollowly wished her a pleasant stay in the United States. She made her way to baggage claim, where her suitcase was circling slowly on an otherwise empty carousel. In the arrivals hall she searched for a man with coal-black hair and matching eyewear, but he was nowhere in sight. She was not surprised. While crossing the Atlantic, he had told her that the Office would be relegated to a secondary role, that the Americans were now in charge and would be taking the operational lead.

"And when I'm given my target?" she had asked.

"Send us a text through the usual channel."

"And if they take my phone away from me?"

"Take a walk. Handbag over the left shoulder."

"What if they don't let me take a walk?"

She wheeled her bag outside and, a.s.sisted by a well-built American with a military-style haircut, boarded a Hertz shuttle bus. Her car, a bright red Chevrolet Impala, was in its a.s.signed s.p.a.ce. She placed her bag in the trunk, climbed behind the wheel, and hesitantly started the engine. The n.o.bs and dials of the instrument panel seemed entirely alien to her. Then she realized she had not driven an automobile since the morning she had returned to her apartment in Jerusalem to find Dina Sarid sitting at her kitchen table. What a disaster it would be, she thought, if she were to kill or seriously injure herself in an accident. She punched a destination into her mobile phone and was informed that her drive of twenty-four miles would take well over an hour because of unusually heavy traffic. She smiled; she was glad for the delay. She removed her hijab and tucked it carefully into her handbag. Then she slipped the car into gear and headed slowly toward the exit.

It was no accident the Impala was bright red; the FBI had quietly intervened in the booking. In addition, the Bureau's technicians had fitted the car with a beacon and bugged its interior. As a result, the a.n.a.lysts on duty on the Operations Floor at the National Counterterrorism Center heard Natalie singing softly to herself in French as she drove along the Dulles Access Road toward Washington. On one of the giant video screens, the traffic cameras tracked her every move. On another blinked the blue light of the beacon. Her mobile phone was emitting a signal of its own. Her French phone number appeared in a shaded rectangular box, next to the blinking blue light. The Office had real-time access to her voice calls, texts, and e-mails. And now that the phone was on American soil, connected to an American cellular network, the NCTC had access to them, too.

The bright red car pa.s.sed within a few hundred feet of the Liberty Crossing campus and continued along Interstate 66 to the Rosslyn section of Arlington, Virginia, where it turned into the surface parking lot of the Key Bridge Marriott. There the blinking blue light of the beacon came to a stop. But after an interval of thirty seconds-long enough for a woman to adjust her hair and retrieve a suitcase from the trunk of a car-the shaded rectangular box of the mobile phone moved toward the hotel's entrance. It paused briefly at the reception desk, where the device's owner, an Arab woman in her early thirties, veiled, French pa.s.sport, stated her name for the clerk. There was no need to present a credit card; ISIS had already paid for her room charges and incidentals. Weary from a long day of travel, she gratefully accepted an electronic key card and wheeled her suitcase slowly across the lobby toward the elevators.

After pressing the call b.u.t.ton, Natalie became aware of the attractive woman, late twenties, shoulder-length blond hair, knock-off Vuitton luggage, watching her from a barstool in the chrome-and-laminate lounge. Natalie a.s.sumed the woman to be an American intelligence officer and boarded the first available elevator without making eye contact. She pressed the b.u.t.ton for the eighth floor and moved to the corner of the carriage, but as the doors were closing a hand appeared in the breach. The hand belonged to the attractive blonde from the lounge. She stood on the opposite side of the carriage and stared straight ahead. Her heavy lilac fragrance was intoxicating.

"What floor?" asked Natalie in English.

"Eight is fine." The accent was French, the voice vaguely familiar.

They said nothing more to one another as the elevator climbed slowly upward. When the doors opened on the eighth floor, Natalie exited first. She paused briefly to take her bearings and then set off along the corridor. The attractive blond woman walked in the same direction. And when Natalie stopped outside Room 822, the woman stopped, too. It was then Natalie looked into her eyes for the first time. Somehow, she managed to smile.

They were the eyes of Safia Bourihane.

In preparation for Natalie's arrival, the FBI had stationed a pair of agents, a man and a woman, in the same lounge of the Key Bridge Marriott. It had also hacked into the hotel's security system, giving the NCTC unfettered access to some three hundred cameras. Both the agents and the cameras had noticed the attractive blond woman who joined Natalie in the elevator. The agents had made no attempt to follow the two women, but the cameras had shown no such restraint. They tracked their movement down the half-lit corridor, to the door of Room 822. It, too, had been penetrated by the FBI. There were four microphones and four cameras. All watched and listened as the women entered. In French, the blond woman murmured something the microphones couldn't quite catch. Then, ten seconds later, the shaded rectangular box vanished from the giant display at the NCTC.

"Looks like the network just made contact with her," said Carter, watching as the two women settled into the room. "Too bad about the phone going dark."

"But not unexpected."

"No," agreed Carter. "It would have been too much to hope for."

Gabriel asked to see a replay of the elevator video. Carter gave the order, and a few seconds later it appeared on the screen.

"Pretty girl," said Carter.

"Natalie or the blond?"

"Both, actually, but I was referring to the blond. Think she's a natural?"

"Not a chance," replied Gabriel. He asked to see a close-up of the blond woman's face. Again, Carter gave the order.

"Recognize her?"

"Yes," said Gabriel with a glance toward Paul Rousseau, "I'm afraid I do."

"Who is she?"

"She's someone who has no business being in this country," said Gabriel ominously. "And if she's here, it means there are many more just like her."

55.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA.

THE FRENCH PRESIDENT AND HIS glamorous exfashion model of a wife arrived at Joint Base Andrews at seven that evening. The motorcade that bore the couple from suburban Maryland to Blair House-the Federal-style guest mansion located across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House-was the largest anyone could recall. The many street closures snarled the Potomac River crossings and turned downtown Washington into a parking lot for thousands of commuters. Unfortunately, the disruption to life in the capital was only going to get worse. Earlier that morning, the Washington Post had reported that the security operation surrounding the Franco-American summit was the most extensive since the last inauguration. The primary threat, the newspaper said, was an attack by ISIS. But even the venerable Post, with its many sources inside the U.S. intelligence community, was unaware of the true nature of the peril hanging over the city.