Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

“You should know that your efforts have already earned us valuable political capital with the Americans,” he said. “Last night, the secretary of state quietly agreed to all our conditions for resuming the peace process with the Palestinians. She also hinted that the president might be willing to pay a visit to Jerusalem in the near future. We assume it will take place before the next election.”

“Don’t underestimate him.”

“I never have,” Shamron said, “but I’m not sure I envy him. The great Arab Awakening has occurred on his watch, and his actions will help to determine whether the Middle East tips toward people like Nadia al-Bakari or the jihadists like Rashid al-Husseini.” Shamron paused. “I’ll admit even I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I only know that killing a man like Malik will make it easier for the forces of progress and decency to prevail.”

“Are you saying the entire future of the Middle East depends on the outcome of my operation?”

“That would be hyperbolic on my part,” Shamron said. “And I’ve always tried to avoid hyperbole at all costs.”

“Except when it suits your purposes.”

Shamron gave a trace of a smile and lit one of his Turkish cigarettes. “Have you given any thought to who’s going to enforce the sentence that’s been imposed on Malik?”

“In all likelihood, that decision will be made by Malik himself.”

“Which is just one of many things about this operation that I don’t care for.” Shamron smoked in silence for a moment. “I know you’ve always preferred the finality of a firearm, but in this case, the needle is a far better option. A noisy kill will only make it harder for you and your team to escape. Hit him with a healthy dose of suxamethonium chloride. He’ll feel a pinprick. Then he’ll have trouble breathing as the paralysis sets in. Within a few minutes, he’ll be dead. And you’ll be boarding a private plane at the airport.”

“Suxamethonium has one thing in common with a bullet,” Gabriel said. “It stays in the body long after the victim is dead. Eventually, the medical examiners in Dubai will find it, and the police will be able to piece together exactly what happened.”

“It’s the price we pay for operating in modern hotels. Just do your best to shield that face of yours from the cameras. If your picture ends up in the newspaper again, it will complicate your return to civilian life.” Shamron observed Gabriel in silence for a moment. “That is what you wish to do, is it not?”

Gabriel made no reply. Shamron dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it out with his heel.

“You can’t fault me for trying,” Shamron said.

“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t.”

“I actually permitted myself to hope your answer might be different this time.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re allowing your wife to go to Dubai.”

“I didn’t have a choice. She insisted.”

“You tell the president of the United States to fire one of his closest aides but you acquiesce to an ultimatum from your wife?” Shamron shook his head and said, “Maybe I should have chosen her to be the next chief of the Office.”

“Make Bella Navot her deputy.”

“Bella?” Shamron smiled. “The Arab world would tremble.”

They parted, ten minutes later, at Lancaster Gate. Shamron returned to the Office safe flat while Gabriel headed to Heathrow Airport. By the time he arrived, he was Roland Devereaux, formerly of Grenoble, France, lately of Quebec City, Canada. He had the passport of a man who traveled too much and a demeanor to match. After sailing through check-in and passport control, he made his way under covert MI5 escort to the first-class passenger lounge of British Airways. There he found a quiet place far from the in-flight alcoholics and watched the news on television. Bored by an ill-informed discussion of the current terror threat, he opened his businessman’s notebook and from memory sketched a beautiful young woman with raven hair. It was a portrait of an unveiled woman, thought Gabriel. A portrait of a spy.

He tore the sketch into small pieces the instant his flight was being called and dropped them into three different rubbish bins as he walked to his gate. After settling into his seat, he made one final check of his e-mail. He had several; all were false but one. It was from a nameless woman who said she had loved him always. Switching off the BlackBerry, he felt a stab of uncharacteristic panic. Then he closed his eyes and ran through the operation one last time.

THE LEAVES OF THE PALM JUMEIRAH, the world’s largest man-made island, lay flat upon the torpid waters of the Gulf, sinking slowly beneath the weight of unsold luxury villas. In the monstrous pink hotel rising at the apex of the island, a gentle rain fell onto the marble floor of the sprawling lobby. Like nearly everything else in Dubai, the rain was artificial. In this case, however, it was unintended; the ceiling had sprung yet another leak. Rather than repair it, management had opted for a small yellow sign warning patrons, of which there were few, to watch their step.

Farther up the coastline, in the financial quarter, there was more evidence of the misfortune that had befallen the city-state. Construction cranes, once the very symbols of Dubai’s economic miracle, loomed motionless over half-finished office blocks and condominium towers. The luxury shopping malls were all but empty, and there were rumors of unemployed European expats sleeping in the sand dunes of the desert. Many had fled the emirate rather than face the prospect of a stay in its infamous debtors’ prison. At one point, an estimated three thousand abandoned cars had jammed the airport parking lot. Taped to some of the windshields were hastily scrawled notes of apology to creditors. A used car in Dubai had almost no value. Traffic jams, once a major problem, were virtually unheard of.

The Ruler still gazed down upon his fiefdom from countless billboards, but these days his expression seemed a bit dour. His plan to turn a sleepy fishing port into a center of global trade, finance, and tourism had been crushed by a mountain of debt. The Dubai dream had turned out to be unsustainable. What’s more, it had also produced an ecological disaster in the making. The residents of Dubai had the largest carbon footprint in the world. They consumed more water than anyone else on the planet, all of which came from energy-consuming desalinization plants, and burned untold amounts of electricity refrigerating their homes, offices, swimming pools, and artificial ski slopes. Only the foreign laborers did without air-conditioning. They toiled beneath the merciless sun—in some cases, for up to sixteen hours a day—and lived in squalid fly-infested bunkhouses without so much as a fan to cool them. So wretched was their existence that hundreds chose suicide each year, a fact denied by the Ruler and his business associates.

For the eighty thousand charmed citizens of Dubai, life could not have been much better. The government paid for their health care, housing, and education, and guaranteed their employment for life—provided, of course, they refrained from criticizing the Ruler. Their grandparents had subsisted on camel’s milk and dates; now an army of foreign workers powered their economy and saw to their every whim and need. The men floated imperiously about the city in pristine white kandoura s and ghutra s. Few expatriates ever spoke to an Emirati. When they did, the exchange was rarely pleasant.

There was a strict hierarchy inside the foreign community as well. The Brits and other well-to-do expatriates sequestered themselves in the smart districts of Satwa and Jumeirah while the proletariat of the developing world lived mainly on the other side of Dubai Creek, in the old quarter known as Deira. To wander its streets and squares was to walk through many different countries—here a province of India, here a village in Pakistan, here a corner of Tehran or Moscow. Each community had imported a little something from home. From Russia had come crime and women, both of which could be found in abundance at the Odessa, a discotheque and bar located not far from the Gold Souk. Gabriel sat alone at a darkened banquette near the back, a glass of vodka at his elbow. At the next table, a red-faced Brit was fondling an underfed waif from the Russian hinterland. None of the girls bothered Gabriel. He had the look of a man who had come only to watch.