Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

McKenna was clearly most comfortable when seated at a rectangular table, so at his suggestion, they moved into the formal dining room. It was obvious why Carter did not like him; McKenna was everything Carter was not. He was young. He was fit. He looked good behind a podium. He was also supremely sure of himself, regardless of whether that certainty was warranted or supported by the facts. McKenna had no blood on his hands and no professional sins in his past. He had never confronted his enemy over the barrel of a gun or questioned him in an interrogation room. He didn’t even speak any of his enemy’s languages. Yet he had read many briefing books about him and had spoken with great sensitivity about him in many meetings. His main contribution to the literature of counterterrorism was a piece he had once written for Foreign Affairs magazine in which he argued the United States could absorb another terrorist attack and emerge stronger for it. The piece had captured the attention of a charismatic senator, and when the senator became president, he placed much of the responsibility for the country’s safety in the hands of a political hack who had once spent a week at Langley getting coffee for the director.

There ensued an awkward moment over who would sit at the head of the table, Carter or McKenna. In the unwritten rules of the brotherhood, chairmanship of meetings was determined by geography, but there were no bylaws about what to do when confronted by a political interloper. Eventually, McKenna surrendered the head of the table to Carter and settled in next to Graham Seymour, who seemed to threaten him less than the quartet of Israelis. Carter placed his pipe and his tobacco pouch on the table for later deployment, then lifted the lid of a secure notebook computer. Stored on its hard drive was a copy of an NSA intercept. It was a phone call, placed at 10:36 a.m. Central European Time the previous day, between the Zurich branch of TransArabian Bank and the Paris offices of AAB Holdings. The parties to the call had been Samir Abbas, a banker with uncomfortably close ties to questionable Islamic charities, and his new client, Nadia al-Bakari. They had spoken for two minutes and twelve seconds, in formal Arabic. Carter distributed copies of an NSA translation. Then he pulled up the audio file on the computer and clicked play.

The first voice on the recording belonged to Nadia’s executive secretary, who asked Abbas to hold while she transferred the call. Nadia picked up exactly six seconds later. After the obligatory Islamic expression of peace, Abbas said he had just spoken to “an associate of the Yemeni.” It seemed the Yemeni’s enterprise had suffered a string of recent setbacks and was in desperate need of additional financing. The associate wished to appeal to Nadia personally and was willing to discuss future plans, including several pending deals in America. This associate, whom Abbas described as “extremely close” to the Yemeni, had suggested Dubai as a meeting site. Apparently, he was a frequent visitor to the fabulously rich emirate and even kept a modest apartment in the Jumeirah Beach district. Needless to say, the associate of the Yemeni was well aware of Miss al-Bakari’s security concerns and would be willing to meet her in a place where she would feel both safe and comfortable.

“Where?”

“The Burj Al Arab.”

“When?”

“A week from Thursday.”

“I’m supposed to be in Istanbul that day on business.”

“The associate’s schedule is very busy. It will be his one and only chance to meet with you for the foreseeable future.”

“When does he need an answer?”

“I’m afraid he needs it now.”

“What time would he like to see me?”

“Nine in the evening.”

“My bodyguards won’t permit any changes.”

“The associate assures me there won’t be any.”

“Then please tell him I’ll be at the Burj next Thursday evening at nine p.m. And tell him not to be late. Because I never invest money with people who are late for meetings.”

“I assure you he won’t be late.”

“Will there be anyone else in attendance?”

“Just me—unless, of course, you would rather go alone.”

“Actually, I would prefer it if you came.”

“Then I would be honored to be at your side. I’ll be waiting in the lobby. You have my mobile number.”

“I’ll see you next Thursday, Inshallah .”

“Inshallah , Miss al-Bakari.”

Carter clicked pause.

“The next recording is a call that was placed to Samir’s home just six hours earlier. He was sleeping soundly at the time and wasn’t pleased when the phone rang. His mood changed when he heard the voice at the other end. The gentleman never bothered to identify himself. He placed the call from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, using a cell phone that had no history and no longer seems to be operative. There’s some dropout and a great deal of background noise. Here’s a sample.”

Carter clicked play.

“Tell her we need more money. Tell her we’re willing to discuss future plans. Make it clear that we’re sending someone important.”

Pause.

“So who exactly is the close associate of the Yemeni who wishes to meet with Nadia?” Carter asked rhetorically. “This phone call appears to provide the answer. It took a bit of work because of the poor quality, but NSA was able to manipulate the recording and conduct voice-match analysis. They ran it through every database we have, including databases of radio and cell phone communications collected in Iraq during the height of the insurgency. One hour ago, they came up with a match. Anyone care to venture a guess as to the identity of the man Samir Abbas was speaking to?”

“I’m tempted to say it was Malik al-Zubair,” Gabriel said, “but that’s not possible. You see, Adrian, Malik is a rumor. Malik is a hunch on Dina’s part.”

“No, he’s not,” Carter conceded. “Dina was right. Malik is for real. He was in Jeddah two days ago. And he may or may not be coming to the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai next Thursday evening to have a word with his new patron, Nadia al-Bakari. The question is, what do we do about it?”

Carter rapped his pipe against the rim of his ashtray. The Shura Council was now in session.

IT WAS AN AMERICAN OPERATION, which meant it was an American decision to make. McKenna clearly had no intention of offering the first opinion, lest the ground shift suddenly beneath his feet, so he adroitly deferred to Carter, who began, in typical Carter fashion, with a detour. It was to a place called Forward Operating Base Chapman, a CIA post in remote eastern Afghanistan, where, in December 2009, a CIA asset named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi came calling to deliver a report to his handlers. A Jordanian physician with links to the jihadist movement, Dr. Balawi had been providing the CIA with critical information used to target al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan. His true mission, however, was to penetrate the CIA and Jordanian intelligence—a mission that came to a disastrous conclusion that day when he detonated a bomb hidden beneath his coat, killing seven CIA officers. It was among the worst single attacks against the Agency in its history, and certainly the worst during Adrian Carter’s long career as director of operations. It demonstrated that al-Qaeda was willing to expend extraordinary time and effort to exact revenge against the intelligence services that pursued it. And it proved that when spies ignore the basic rules of tradecraft, officers could end up dead.