Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

Emerging from the shadow of the dune, Gabriel saw Nadia for the first time since she had walked past him in the lobby of the Burj Al Arab. Cloaked in her death shroud, she appeared paralyzed by fear. So did the sparsely bearded young jihadi who was guarding her. Malik walked over and shoved the boy out of the way. Then he seized Nadia’s dark hair and pulled her toward Gabriel. “Look at what you’ve done,” he shouted over her screams. “This is what happens when you seduce our people into renouncing their faith.”

“She never renounced her faith, Malik. Let her go.”

“She worked for you against us. She has to be punished. And for your sins, you shall cast the first stone.”

“I won’t do it.” Gabriel looked searchingly toward the sky. One last deception. One last lie. “And neither will you, Malik.”

Malik smiled. It was genuine.

“This isn’t Pakistan or Yemen, Allon. This is Saudi Arabia. And the Americans would never fire a Hellfire missile against the territory of their great ally, the House of Saud. Besides, no one knows where you are. You are completely alone.”

“Are you sure about that, Malik?”

Clearly, he wasn’t. Still clutching a handful of Nadia’s hair, he tilted his face to the sky. So did the others, including al-Kamal. He was standing about three feet to Gabriel’s left, holding the knife and the camera.

“Listen carefully,” Gabriel said. “Can you hear it? It’s circling just overhead. It’s watching with its cameras. Let her go, Malik. Otherwise, we’re all going to die in a flash of fire. You’ll go to your God; Nadia and I will go to ours.”

“There is no God but God, Allon. There is only Allah.”

“I hope you’re right, Malik, because you’re about to see His face. Do you want to be a martyr? Or do you prefer to leave the martyrdom to others?”

Malik flung Nadia aside and swung the Kalashnikov wildly toward Gabriel’s head. Gabriel easily sidestepped the blow and delivered a vicious knee to Malik’s groin that sent him sprawling to the sand. Then Gabriel pivoted with his arms extended and his hands formed like the blade of an ax. The blade connected squarely with Rafiq al-Kamal’s neck, crushing his larynx. Gabriel looked at Nadia and at the pile of bone white stones. Then he flailed his arms like a madman against the sky and screamed, “Take the shot! Take the shot! It’s Malik, damn it! Take the shot!”

Adrian Carter hung up the phone with the White House and buried his face in his hands. Uzi Navot watched for a few seconds longer, then closed his eyes. Only Shamron refused to look away. It was his fault, all of it. The least he could do was see it through to the end.

Malik had risen to one knee and was groping blindly about for his fallen Kalashnikov. Gabriel was still raging at the merciless sky. He heard the metallic clack-clack of the rifle’s cocking handle and saw the barrel rise. Then, from the corner of one eye, he glimpsed the ghostlike flash of Nadia’s sparkling white death shroud as she came hurtling toward him. As she passed before the gun, two crimson flowers bloomed violently in the center of her chest, though her face appeared oddly serene as she collapsed onto Gabriel. Malik tore her away and pointed the Kalashnikov downward at Gabriel’s face, but before he could pull the trigger again, the side of his head exploded in a flash of pink. Several more gunshots followed until only the young jihadi remained standing. He peered down at Gabriel, his face eclipsing the sun, then looked mournfully at Nadia.

“It was God’s will that she die today,” he said, “but at least she did not suffer.”

“No,” said Gabriel, “she did not suffer.”

“Are you hit?” asked the boy.

“One round,” said Gabriel.

“Will they come for you?”

“Eventually.”

“Can you hold out until they arrive?”

“I think so.”

“I have to leave you here alone. I have a wife. I have a child on the way.”

“Boy or girl?” asked Gabriel, his strength beginning to ebb.

“Girl.”

“Have you chosen a name?”

“Hanan.”

“Be kind to her,” said Gabriel. “Treat her always with respect.”

The boy stepped away; the sun beat upon Gabriel’s face. He heard an engine turning over, then glimpsed a cloud of dust moving across the sea of sand. After that, there was only the empty silence of the desert. He waved his arms one final time toward the sky to tell them he was still alive. Then he closed Nadia’s eyes and wept against her breast as her body turned slowly to stone.

MORE THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS WOULD elapse before AAB Holdings finally revealed to the world that its chairwoman and chief executive, Nadia al-Bakari, was missing and presumed kidnapped. According to a company statement, she had been traveling by limousine at the time of her disappearance, en route from Dubai’s famed Burj Al Arab hotel to the airport. Two calls had been placed from the car, both from the phone of her longtime security chief. During the first, he had instructed the head of AAB’s travel department to move up the departure of the company’s aircraft by fifteen minutes, from 11:00 p.m. to 10:45. Seven minutes later, he had phoned again to say Miss al-Bakari was feeling ill and would return to the hotel to spend the night. It was her wish, he said, that the rest of the staff return to Paris as planned. Needless to say, Emirati authorities now regarded the second call as highly suspect, though they had yet to determine whether the security man was part of a conspiracy or merely another victim. The bodyguard was missing, as was the driver of the car.

As expected, the news sent shockwaves through already jittery global financial markets. Share prices tumbled in Europe, where AAB’s portfolio was vast, and trading on Wall Street opened sharply lower. Hardest hit, though, was Dubai, Inc. Having spent untold billions portraying itself as an oasis of stability in a turbulent region, the emirate now appeared to be a place where even heavily guarded billionaires were not safe. The Ruler took to the airwaves to declare his city-state secure and open for business, but investors weren’t so sure. They pummeled Dubai-based firms and sovereign wealth funds with a merciless wave of selling that left the city of gold teetering once more on the brink of insolvency.

When an additional twenty-four hours passed with no word on Nadia’s fate, the press was left with no option but to speculate wildly on what might have transpired. One theory held that she was murdered by a Russian criminal gang who had lost millions investing in AAB Holdings. Another posited that she had offended powerful interests in Dubai with her call for better treatment of the emirate’s migrant laborers. Still another suggested the kidnapping was but a ruse, that Nadia al-Bakari, one of the world’s richest women, had simply gone into hiding for reasons no one could imagine.

Regrettably, it was this final theory that gained the most traction in certain quarters of the press, and before long, there was a rash of Nadia sightings at glamorous locations around the globe. The last had her living on a remote island in the Baltic Sea with the son of Sweden’s wealthiest man.

That report appeared on the same day the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finally announced that her body had been found in the Empty Quarter. The bodies of several men had been found with her, according to the Saudis, including that of her security chief. All had been killed by gunfire, as had Miss al-Bakari. As of yet, Saudi authorities had no suspects.

In keeping with past utterances by the Saudi regime, the statement told only part of the story. It did not say, for example, that Saudi intelligence was already acutely aware of the circumstances surrounding Miss al-Bakari’s murder. Nor did it mention that a Saudi military patrol had recovered her body within a few hours of her death, along with the only survivor of the incident. Seriously wounded, this survivor was now the subject of intense, if secret, backchannel negotiations between the Central Intelligence Agency and friendly elements of the House of Saud. Thus far, the talks had produced no breakthroughs. In fact, as far as the government of Saudi Arabia was concerned, the man in question did not exist. They promised to mount a search for him, but held out little in the way of hope. The Empty Quarter, they said, did not treat intruders kindly. Inshallah , they would find his corpse, but only if the Bedouin did not get to him first.