Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

Two members of the team were not on board. Mikhail was headed toward an isolated beach west of Jebel Ali; Gabriel, to the old quarter of Dubai known as Deira. After leaving his Toyota Land Cruiser along the Corniche, he walked to the shabby little apartment house near the Gold Souk and climbed the staircase that stank of chickpeas and cumin. Alone in the apartment, he sat at the peeling kitchen table, staring at the screen of his BlackBerry. To help pass the time, he replayed the operation in his mind. Somewhere along the line, there had been a leak or an act of betrayal. He was going to find the person responsible. And then he was going to kill him.

It was another twenty minutes before Mikhail heard the crackle of a voice in his earpiece. It spoke a word or two, no more. Even so, he recognized it. He had heard it many times before—in the hellholes of Gaza, in the hills of southern Lebanon, in the alleyways of Jericho and Nablus and Hebron. He flashed his headlights twice, briefly illuminating the chalky white beach, and drummed his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel as a blacked-out Zodiac bobbed ashore. Four men slipped out, each carrying nylon gear bags. They looked like Arabs. They moved like Arabs. They even wore cologne that made them smell like Arabs. But they were not Arabs. They were members of the elite Sayeret Matkal. And one of them, Yoav Savir, was Mikhail’s former commanding officer.

“Long time no see,” Yoav said as he climbed into the front passenger seat. “What happened?”

“We lost someone very important.”

“What’s his name?”

“Her,” said Mikhail. “Her name is Nadia.”

“Who’s got her?”

“Malik.”

“Which Malik?”

“The only Malik that matters.”

“Shit.”

The lights of the giant Shaybah oil-drilling facility glowed like neon green embers on the wall monitors of Rashidistan. The image was being transmitted live by an unmanned Predator drone, now under the control of a crew at Langley. At Carter’s direction, the aircraft banked eastward, over the string of oases along the Saudi-Emirates border, then followed the main highway back toward Dubai city, its night-vision and thermal-imaging cameras searching the desert floor for any sign of life where ordinarily there was none. As the Predator approached the port of Jebel Ali, its cameras settled briefly on a small Zodiac heading back out to sea, a single figure aglow in the stern. No one in Rashidistan paid much attention to the image because they were monitoring a conversation on Gabriel’s BlackBerry. The computers recognized the number of the caller. They also recognized his voice. It was Malik al-Zubair. The only Malik that mattered.

“I’M SURPRISED YOU ANSWERED. PERHAPS it’s true what they say about you.”

“What’s that, Malik?”

“That you are courageous. That you are a man of your word. Personally, I remain skeptical. I’ve never met a Jew who was not a coward and a liar.”

“I never realized Zarqa had such a large Jewish community.”

“Thankfully, there are no Jews in Zarqa, only victims of the Jews.”

“Where is she, Malik?”

“Who?”

“Nadia,” said Gabriel. “What have you done with her?”

“Why would you assume we have her?”

“Because there’s only one place where you could have gotten this telephone number.”

“Clever Jew.”

“Let her go.”

“You’re not in a position to make demands at the moment.”

“I’m not demanding anything,” Gabriel said calmly. “I’m asking you to let her go.”

“As a humanitarian gesture?”

“Call it whatever you like. Just do the decent thing.”

“You murdered her father in front of her and you’re asking me to do the decent thing?”

“What do you want, Malik?”

“We demand that you release all the brothers who were arrested by the Americans and their allies after your little deception. In addition, we demand that you free the brothers being held illegally at Guantánamo Bay.”

“No Palestinian prisoners? You disappoint me.”

“I wouldn’t want to interfere with the ongoing negotiations between you and the brothers of Hamas.”

“Ask for something reasonable, Malik—something I can actually give you.”

“We never negotiate with terrorists. Release our brothers, and we will release your spy with no further harm.”

“What have you done to her?”

“I can assure you it was nothing compared to the pain suffered by our brothers each and every day in the torture chambers of Cairo and Amman and Riyadh.”

“Haven’t you been reading the papers, Malik? The Arab world is changing. Pharaoh is gone. The House of Saud is cracking. The little Hashemite king of Jordan is frightened for his life. The decent people of the Arab world have achieved in a matter of months what al-Qaeda and its ilk couldn’t accomplish with years of senseless slaughter. Your time has passed, Malik. The Arab world doesn’t want you. Let her go.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Allon.” He paused for a moment, as if pondering a way out of the impasse he had created. “But there is one other possibility.”

Gabriel listened to Malik’s instructions. So did Shamron, Navot, and Adrian Carter.

“What happens if we don’t accept?” Gabriel asked.

“Then she will suffer the traditional punishment for apostasy. But don’t worry. You’ll be able to watch her death on the Internet. The Yemeni plans to use it as a recruiting device to replace all the operatives we lost because of her.”

“I need proof she’s still alive.”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me,” Malik said. And then the line went dead.

Gabriel’s BlackBerry rang a few seconds later. It was Adrian Carter.

“He’s definitely still in the Emirates.”

“Where?”

“NSA hasn’t been able to triangulate it yet, but they think he might be out in the western desert, near the Liwa oasis. We have a bird over the area now and two more headed that way.”

Gabriel removed a small device from an internal pouch of his overnight bag. It was about the size of an average antibiotic tablet. On one side was a miniature metallic switch. He flipped it, then asked, “Can you see the signal?”

“Got it,” said Carter.

Gabriel swallowed the device. “Can you still see it?”

“Got it.”

“The Fish Souk, ten minutes.”

“Got it.”

Gabriel was still wearing the business attire of his cover identity. He briefly considered changing into something more appropriate for a night in the desert, but realized that wouldn’t be necessary. His captors would surely do that for him. He placed his wristwatch in his bag along with his BlackBerry, wallet, passport, weapon, and a few meaningless scraps of pocket litter. He was no longer in possession of syringes or suxamethonium chloride, only Advil and anti-diarrhea medicine. He took enough Advil to temporarily dull the pain of any injuries he might suffer in the next few hours and enough of the anti-diarrhea medicine to turn his bowels to concrete for a month. Then he locked the bag in the closet and headed downstairs to the street.

Six minutes remained for Gabriel to make the short walk to the Fish Souk. It was located near the mouth of Dubai Creek along the Corniche. Despite the late hour, there were groups of young men taking the night air along the waterfront—Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, and four Arabs who were not Arabs at all. Gabriel stood next to a streetlamp to make himself clearly visible, and within a few seconds, a Denali SUV stopped directly in front of him. Behind the wheel was one of the Malik clones. Another was seated in the back. So was Rafiq al-Kamal, Nadia al-Bakari’s former chief of security.