Kitabı oku: «The New Girl», sayfa 5

12
JERUSALEM

GABRIEL’S MOTORCADE WAS WAITING ON the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport when the Gulfstream touched down a few minutes after midnight. Sarah accompanied him to Jerusalem. He dropped her at the entrance of the King David Hotel.

“The room is one of ours,” he explained. “Don’t worry, we switched off the cameras and the microphones.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” She smiled. “What are your plans?”

“Against all better judgment, I’m going to undertake a rapid search for the daughter of His Royal Highness Prince Khalid bin Mohammed.”

“Where do you intend to start?”

“Since she was kidnapped in France, I thought it might be a good idea to start there.”

Sarah frowned.

“Forgive me, it’s been a long day.”

“I speak French very well, you know.”

“So do I.”

“And I attended the International School of Geneva when my father was working in Switzerland.”

“I remember, Sarah. But you’re going home to New York.”

“I’d rather go to France with you.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because you traded the secret world for the overt world a long time ago.”

“But the secret world is so much more interesting.” She checked the time. “My God, it’s late. When are you leaving for Paris?”

“The ten o’clock El Al to Charles de Gaulle. These days, I seem to have a standing reservation on it. I’ll pick you up at eight and take you back to the airport.”

“Actually, I think I’ll hang around Jerusalem for a day or two.”

“You’re not thinking about doing something foolish, are you?”

“Like what?”

“Making contact with Mikhail.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, Mikhail made it abundantly clear he’s very happy with what’s-her-name.”

“Natalie.”

“Oh, yes, I keep forgetting.” She kissed Gabriel’s cheek. “Sorry to drag you into all of this. Don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything more I can do.”

She climbed out of the SUV without another word and disappeared through the entrance of the hotel. Gabriel dialed the Operations Desk at King Saul Boulevard and informed the duty officer of his intention to travel to Paris later that morning.

“Anything else, boss?”

“Activate Room 435 at the King David. Audio only.”

Gabriel killed the connection and leaned his head wearily against the window. She was right about one thing, he thought. The secret world was much more interesting.

IT WAS A FIVE-MINUTE DRIVE from the King David Hotel to Narkiss Street, the quiet, leafy lane in the historic Jerusalem neighborhood of Nachlaot where Gabriel Allon, despite the objections of his security department and many of his neighbors, continued to make his home. There were checkpoints at either end of the street, and a guard stood watch outside the old limestone apartment building at Number 16. As Gabriel alighted from the back of his SUV, the air smelled of eucalyptus and, faintly, of Turkish tobacco. There was little mystery as to the source. Ari Shamron’s flashy new armored limousine was parked along the curb in the space reserved for Gabriel’s motorcade.

“He arrived around midnight,” the guard explained. “He said you were expecting him.”

“And you believed him?”

“What was I supposed to do? He’s the Memuneh.”

Gabriel shook his head slowly. He was two years into his term as director-general, and yet even the members of his security detail still referred to Shamron as “the one in charge.”

He headed up the garden walk, entered the foyer, and climbed the brightly lit stairs to the third floor. Chiara, in black leggings and a matching black pullover, was waiting in the open door of the apartment. She appraised Gabriel coolly for a moment before finally throwing her arms around his neck.

“I should go to Saudi Arabia more often.”

“When were you planning to tell me?”

“Right about now.” He followed Chiara inside. Scattered across the coffee table in the sitting room were cups and glasses and half-consumed plates of food, evidence of a tense late-night vigil. The television, tuned to CNN International, played silently. “Did I make the evening news?”

Chiara glared at him but said nothing.

“How did you find out?”

“How do you think?” She glanced toward the terrace, where Shamron was no doubt listening to every word they were saying. “He was even more worried than I was.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe.”

“He ordered Air Defense Command to track your plane. The tower at Ben Gurion alerted us when you landed. We expected you sooner, but apparently you made a slight detour on the way home.” Chiara gathered the dishes from the coffee table. She always tidied up when she was annoyed. “I’m sure you enjoyed seeing Sarah again. She was always fond of you.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Not that long ago.”

“You know I never had any feelings for her.”

“It would have been completely understandable if you had. She’s very beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you, Chiara. Not even close.”

It was true. Chiara’s was a timeless beauty. In her face Gabriel saw traces of Arabia and North Africa and Spain and all the other lands through which her ancestors had passed before finding themselves behind the locked gates of Venice’s ancient ghetto. Her hair was dark and riotous and streaked with highlights of auburn and chestnut. Her eyes were wide and brown and flecked with gold. No, he thought, no woman would ever come between them. Gabriel only feared that one day Chiara would come to the realization she was far too young and beautiful to be married to a wreck like him.

He went onto the terrace. There were two wrought-iron chairs and a small table, upon which was the plate Shamron had commandeered for his ashtray. Six cigarette butts lay side by side, like spent cartridges. Shamron was in the process of igniting a seventh with his old Zippo lighter when Gabriel plucked the cigarette from his lips.

Shamron frowned. “One more won’t kill me.”

“It might.”

“Do you know how many of those I’ve smoked in my life?”

“All the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.”

“You shouldn’t borrow from Genesis when discussing a vice like smoking. It’s bad karma.”

“Jews don’t believe in karma.”

“Wherever did you get an idea like that?”

Shamron extracted another cigarette from his packet with a tremulous liver-spotted hand. He was dressed, as usual, in a pair of pressed khaki trousers, a white oxford cloth shirt, and a leather bomber jacket with an unrepaired tear in the left shoulder. He had damaged the garment the night a Palestinian master terrorist named Tariq al-Hourani planted a bomb beneath Gabriel’s car in Vienna. Daniel, Gabriel’s young son, was killed in the explosion. Leah, his first wife, suffered catastrophic burns. She lived now in a psychiatric hospital atop Mount Herzl, trapped in a prison of memory and a body ravaged by fire. And Gabriel lived here on Narkiss Street, with his beautiful Italian-born wife and two young children. From them, he hid his unending grief. But not from Shamron. Death had joined them in the beginning. And death remained the foundation of their bond.

Gabriel sat down. “Who told you?”

“About your flying visit to Saudi Arabia?” Shamron’s smile was mischievous. “I believe it was Uzi.”

Uzi Navot was the previous director-general and, like Gabriel, one of Shamron’s acolytes. In a break with Office tradition, he had agreed to remain at King Saul Boulevard, thus allowing Gabriel to function as an operational chief.

“How much were you able to beat out of him?”

“No coercion was necessary. Uzi was deeply concerned about your decision to return to the country where you spent nearly a month in captivity. Needless to say,” said Shamron, “I shared his opinion.”

“You traveled secretly to Arab countries when you were the chief.”

“Jordan, yes. Morocco, of course. I even went to Egypt after Sadat made his visit to Jerusalem. But I never set foot in Saudi Arabia.”

“I wasn’t in danger.”

“With all due respect, Gabriel, I doubt that was the case. You should have conducted the meeting on neutral ground, in an environment controlled by the Office. He has a tempestuous streak, the crown prince. You’re lucky you didn’t end up like that journalist he killed in Istanbul.”

“I’ve always found journalists to be much more useful alive than dead.”

Shamron smiled. “Did you read the piece they wrote about Khalid in the New York Times? They said the Arab Spring had finally come to Saudi Arabia. They said an untested boy was going to transform a country founded on a shotgun marriage between Wahhabism and a desert tribe from the Nejd.” Shamron shook his head. “I didn’t believe the story then, and I surely don’t believe it now. Khalid bin Mohammed is interested in two things. The first is power. The second is money. For the Al Saud, they are one and the same. Without power, there is no money. And without money, there is no power.”

“But he fears the Iranians as much as we do. For that reason alone, he can prove quite useful.”

“Which is why you agreed to find his daughter.” Shamron gave Gabriel a sidelong glance. “That is why he wanted to see you, isn’t it?”

Gabriel handed Shamron the demand note, which he read by the flickering light of the Zippo. “It looks as though you’ve gotten yourself into the middle of a royal family feud.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like.”

“It’s not without risk.”

“Nothing worth doing is.”

“I agree.” Shamron closed the lighter with a snap of his thick wrist. “Even if you fail to find her, your efforts will pay dividends in the royal court of Riyadh. And if you succeed …” Shamron shrugged. “The crown prince will be forever in your debt. For all intents and purposes, he will be an asset of the Office.”

“So you approve?”

“I would have done exactly the same thing.” Shamron returned the note to Gabriel. “But why did Khalid offer you this opportunity to compromise him? Why turn to the Office? Why didn’t he ask his good friend in the White House for help?”

“Perhaps he thinks I might prove more effective.”

“Or more ruthless.”

“That, too.”

“You should consider one possibility,” said Shamron after a moment.

“What’s that?”

“That Khalid knows full well who kidnapped his daughter, and he’s using you to do his dirty work.”

“He’s proven himself more than willing to do his own.”

“Which is why you should make no more trips to Saudi Arabia.” Shamron looked at Gabriel seriously for a moment. “I was in Langley that night—do you remember? I watched the entire thing through the camera of that Predator drone. I saw them leading you and Nadia into the desert to be executed. I pleaded with the Americans to drop a Hellfire missile on you to spare you the pain of the knife. I’ve had many terrible nights in my life, but that might have been the worst. If she hadn’t stepped in front of that bullet …” Shamron looked at his big stainless-steel wristwatch. “You should get some sleep.”

“It’s too late now,” said Gabriel. “Stay with me, Abba. I’ll sleep on the way to Paris.”

“I didn’t think you could sleep on airplanes.”

“I can’t.”

Shamron watched the wind moving in the eucalyptus trees. “I never could, either.”

13

PRINCESS REEMA BINT KHALID ABDULAZIZ AL SAUD endured the many indignities of her captivity with as much grace as possible, but the bucket was the last straw.

It was pale blue and plastic, the sort of thing an Al Saud never touched. They had placed it in Reema’s cell after she had misbehaved during a visit to the toilet. According to a typewritten note taped to the side, Reema was to use it until further notice. Only when her conduct returned to normal would her bathroom privileges be restored. Reema refused to relieve herself in such a shameful manner and did so on the floor of her cell instead. At which point her captors, again in writing, threatened to withhold food and water. “Fine!” Reema shouted at the masked figure who delivered the note. She would rather starve to death than eat another wretched meal that tasted as though it had been cooked in its own can. The food was not fit for pigs, let alone the daughter of the future king of Saudi Arabia.

The cell was small—smaller, perhaps, than any room in which Reema had ever set foot. Her cot consumed most of the space. The walls were white and smooth and cold, and in the ceiling a light burned always. Reema had no concept of time, even day or night. She slept when she was tired, which was often, and dreamed of her old life. She had taken it all for granted, the unimaginable wealth and luxury, and now it was gone.

They did not chain her to the floor the way they did in the American movies her father used to allow her to watch. Nor did they gag her or bind her hands and feet or force her to wear a hood—only for a few hours, during the long drive after she was taken. Once she was safely in the cell, they were the ones to cover their faces. There were four in all. Reema could tell them apart by their size and shape and the color of their eyes. Three were men, one was a woman. None were Arabs.

Reema did her best to hide her fear but made no attempt to conceal the fact she was bored out of her mind. She asked for a television to watch her favorite programs. Her captors, in writing, refused. She asked for a computer to play games, or an iPod and headphones to listen to music, but again her request was denied. Finally, she asked for a pen and a pad. Her plan was to record her experiences in a story, something she might show to Miss Kenton after she was released. The woman appeared to consider Reema’s appeal carefully, but when her next meal arrived, there was a terse note of rejection. Reema ate the dreadful food nonetheless, for she was too famished to carry on with her hunger strike. Afterward, they allowed her to use the toilet, and when she returned to the cell the bucket was gone. It seemed all was right in Reema’s tiny world.

She thought of Miss Kenton often. Reema had fooled them all—Miss Halifax, Herr Schröder, the mad Spanish woman who tried to teach Reema to paint like Picasso—but not Miss Kenton. She had been standing in the window of the staff room on the afternoon Reema left the school for the last time. The attack had happened in France, on the road between Annecy and her father’s château. Reema remembered a van parked along the side of the road, a man changing a tire. A car had smashed into theirs, an explosion had blown open the doors. Salma, the bodyguard who pretended to be Reema’s mother, had been shot. So had the driver and all the other bodyguards in the Range Rover. Reema they forced into the back of the van. They covered her head with a hood and gave her a shot to make her sleep, and when she woke she was in the small white room. The smallest room she had ever seen in her life.

But why had they abducted her? In the movies, the kidnappers always wanted money. Reema’s father had all the money in the world. It meant nothing to him. He would pay the kidnappers what they wanted, and Reema would be released. And then her father would send out men to find the kidnappers and kill them all. Or perhaps her father might kill one or two himself. To Reema he was very kind, but she had heard about the things he did to people who opposed him. He would show no mercy to the people who kidnapped his only child.

And so Princess Reema bint Khalid Abdulaziz Al Saud endured the many indignities of her captivity with as much grace as possible, secure in the knowledge she would soon be released. She ate their dreadful food without complaint and behaved herself when they took her down the darkened corridor to the toilet. After one visit she returned to her cell to find a pen and a notebook lying at the foot of her cot. You’re dead, she wrote on the first page. Dead, dead, dead …

14
JERUSALEM–PARIS

THOUGH PRINCESS REEMA DID NOT know it, her father had already retained the services of a dangerous and sometimes violent man to find her. He passed the remainder of that night in the company of an old friend for whom sleep was no longer possible. And at dawn, after kissing his sleeping wife and children, he traveled by motorcade to Ben Gurion Airport, where yet another flight awaited him. His name did not appear on the passenger manifest. As usual, he was the last to board. A seat had been reserved for him in first class. The seat next to it, as was customary, was empty.

A flight attendant offered him a preflight beverage. He requested tea. Then he asked for the passenger in 22B to be invited to take the seat next to him. Ordinarily, the flight attendant would have explained that passengers from economy class were not allowed in the aircraft’s forward cabin, but she offered no objection. The flight attendant knew who the man was. Everyone in Israel did.

The flight attendant headed aft, and when she returned, she was accompanied by a woman of forty-three with blond hair and blue eyes. A murmur arose in the first-class cabin as the woman lowered herself into the seat next to the man who had boarded the plane last.

“Did you really think my security department would allow me to get on a plane without first reviewing every name on the manifest?”

“No,” replied Sarah Bancroft. “But it was worth a try.”

“You deceived me. You asked me about my travel plans, and I foolishly told you the truth.”

“I was trained by the best.”

“How much of it do you remember?”

“All of it.”

Gabriel smiled sadly. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

IT WAS A FEW MINUTES after four o’clock when the flight landed in Paris. Gabriel and Sarah cleared passport control separately—Gabriel falsely, Sarah under her real name—and reunited in the busy arrivals hall of Terminal 2A. There they were met by a courier from Paris Station, who handed Gabriel the key to a car. It was waiting on the second level of the short-term car park.

“A Passat?” Sarah dropped into the passenger seat. “Couldn’t they have given us something a little more exciting?”

“I don’t want exciting. I want reliability and anonymity. It’s also rather fast.”

“When was the last time you drove a car?”

“Earlier this year, when I was in Washington working on the Rebecca Manning case.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

“Not with the car.” Gabriel opened the glove box. Inside was a Beretta 9mm pistol with a walnut grip.

“Your favorite,” remarked Sarah.

“Transport thinks of everything.”

“What about bodyguards?”

“They make it hard to operate effectively.”

“Is it safe for you to be in Paris without a security detail?”

“That’s what the Beretta is for.”

Gabriel reversed out of the space and followed the ramp to the lower level. He paid the attendant in cash and did his best to shield his face from the security camera.

“You’re not fooling anyone. The French are going to figure out that you’re in the country.”

“It’s not the French I’m worried about.”

Gabriel followed the A1 through the gathering dusk to the northern fringes of Paris. Night had fallen by the time they arrived. The rue la Fayette bore them westward across the city, and the Pont de Bir-Hakeim carried them over the Seine to the fifteenth arrondissement. Gabriel turned onto the rue Nélaton and stopped at a formidable security gate manned by heavily armed officers of the National Police. Behind the gate stood a charmless modern office block. A small sign warned that the building belonged to the Interior Ministry and was under constant video surveillance.

“It reminds me of the Green Zone in Baghdad.”

“These days,” said Gabriel, “the Green Zone is safer than Paris.”

“Where are we?”

“The headquarters of the Alpha Group. It’s an elite counterterrorism unit of the DGSI.” The direction générale de la sécurité intérieure, or DGSI, was France’s internal security service. “The French created the Alpha Group not long after you left the Agency. It used to be hidden inside a beautiful old building on the rue de Grenelle.”

“The one that was destroyed by that ISIS car bomb?”

“The bomb was in a van. And I was inside the building when it exploded.”

“Of course you were.”

“So was Paul Rousseau, Alpha Group’s chief. I introduced you to him at my swearing-in party.”

“He looked more like a professor than a French spy.”

“He was once, actually. He’s one of France’s foremost scholars of Proust.”

“What’s the Alpha Group’s role?”

“Human penetration of jihadist networks. But Rousseau has access to everything.”

A uniformed officer approached the car. Gabriel gave him two pseudonymous names, one male, the other female, both French and both inspired by the novels of Dumas, a particularly Rousseauian touch. The Frenchman was waiting in his new lair on the top floor. Unlike the other offices in the building, Rousseau’s was somber and wood-paneled and filled with books and files. Like Gabriel, he preferred them to digital dossiers. He was dressed in a crumpled tweed jacket and a pair of gray flannel trousers. His ever-present pipe belched smoke as he shook Gabriel’s hand.

“Welcome to our new Bastille.” Rousseau offered his hand to Sarah. “So good to see you again, Madame Bancroft. When we met in Israel, you told me you were a museum curator from New York. I didn’t believe it then, and I surely don’t believe it now.”

“It’s true, actually.”

“But obviously there’s more to the story. Where Monsieur Allon is concerned, there usually is.” Rousseau released Sarah’s hand and contemplated Gabriel over his reading glasses. “You were rather vague on the phone this morning. I assume this isn’t a social call.”

“I heard you recently had a bit of unpleasantness in the Haute-Savoie.” Gabriel paused, then added, “A few miles west of Annecy.”

Rousseau raised an eyebrow. “What else have you heard?”

“That your government chose to cover up the incident at the request of the victim’s father, who happens to own the largest château in the region. He also happens to be—”

“The future king of Saudi Arabia.” Rousseau lowered his voice. “Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Paul.”

The Frenchman nibbled thoughtfully at the stem of his pipe. “The unpleasantness, as you call it, was quickly designated a criminal act rather than an act of terrorism. Therefore, it fell outside the purview of the Alpha Group. It is none of our affair.”

“But you must have been at the table during the first hours of the crisis.”

“Of course.”

“You also have access to all the information and intelligence gathered by the National Police and the DGSI.”

Rousseau pondered Gabriel at length. “Why is the abduction of the crown prince’s daughter of interest to the State of Israel?”

“Our interest is humanitarian in nature.”

“A refreshing change of pace. On whose behalf have you come?”

“The future king of Saudi Arabia.”

“My goodness,” said Rousseau. “How the world has changed.”