Daniel Silva - The Secret Servant

“So call him.”

Carter handed Gabriel the phone. “He’s your friend,” he said. “ You call him.”

One hour would elapse before the president gave Gabriel’s gambit his blessing. The operation’s first step came ten minutes after that, not in Copenhagen but in Amsterdam, where, at 12:45 P.M., Ibrahim Fawaz stepped from the al-Hijrah Mosque after midday prayers and started back toward the open-air market in the Ten Kate Straat. As he was nearing his stall at the end of the market, a man came alongside him and touched him lightly on the arm. He had pockmarks across his cheeks and spoke Arabic with the accent of a Palestinian. Five minutes later, Ibrahim was sitting next to the man in the back of a Mercedes sedan.

“No handcuffs or hood this time?”

The man with pockmarked cheeks shook his head slowly. “Tonight we’re going to take a nice comfortable ride together,” he said. “As long as you behave yourself, of course.”

“Where are we going?”

The man answered the question truthfully.

“Copenhagen? Why Copenhagen?”

“A friend of yours is about to cross a dangerous bridge there, and he needs a good man like you to serve as his guide.”

“I suppose that means he’s heard from my son.”

“I’m just the delivery boy. Your friend will fill in the rest of the picture for you after we arrive.”

“What about my daughter-in-law and my grandson?”

The man with pockmarked cheeks said nothing. Instead he glanced into the rearview mirror and, with a flick of his head, ordered the driver to get moving. As the car slipped away from the curb, Ibrahim wondered if they were really going to Copenhagen or whether their true destination was the torture chambers of Egypt. He thought of the words Sheikh Abdullah had spoken to him in another lifetime. Rely on God, the sheikh had said. Don’t be defeated.

Denmark’s not-so-secret police are known as the Security Intelligence Service. Those who work there refer to it only as “the Service,” and among professionals like Adrian Carter it was known as the PET, the initials of its impossible-to-pronounce Danish name. Though its address was officially a state secret, most residents of Copenhagen knew it was headquartered in an anonymous office block in a quiet quarter north of the Tivoli gardens. Lars Mortensen, PET’s profoundly pro-American chief, was waiting in his office when Carter was shown inside. He was a tall man, as Danish men invariably are, with the bearing of a Viking and the blond good looks of a film star. His sharp blue eyes betrayed no emotion other than a mild curiosity. It was rare for an American spy of Adrian Carter’s stature to pop into Copenhagen for a visit-and rarer still that he did so with just five minutes’ warning.

“I wish you would have told us you were coming,” Mortensen said as he nodded Carter into a comfortable Danish Modern armchair. “We could have arranged for a proper reception. To what do we owe the honor?”

“I’m afraid we have something of a situation on our hands.” Carter’s careful tone was not lost on his Danish counterpart. “Our search for Elizabeth Halton has led us onto Danish soil. Well, not us, exactly. An intelligence service working on our behalf.”

“Which service?”

Carter answered the question truthfully. The look in Mortensen’s blue eyes turned from curiosity to anger.

“How long have they been in Denmark?”

“Twenty-four hours, give or take a few hours.”

“Why weren’t we informed?”

“I’m afraid it fell into the category of a hot pursuit.”

“Telephones work during hot pursuits,” Mortensen said. “So do fax machines and computers.”

“It was an oversight on our part,” Carter said, his tone conciliatory. “And the blame lies with me, not the Israelis.”

“What exactly are they doing here?” Mortensen narrowed his blue eyes. “And why are you coming to us now?”

The Danish security chief tapped a silver pen anxiously against his knee while he listened to Carter’s explanation.

“Exactly how many Israelis are now in Copenhagen?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest.”

“I want them on their way out of town in an hour.”

“I’m afraid at least one of them is going to have to stay.”

“What’s his name?”

Carter told him. Mortensen’s pen fell silent.

“I have to take this to the prime minister,” he said.

“Is it really necessary to involve the politicians?”

“Only if I want to keep my job,” Mortensen snapped. “Assuming the prime minister grants his approval-and I have no reason to think he won’t, given our past cooperation with your government-I want to be present tonight when Fawaz calls.”

“It’s likely to be unpleasant.”

“We Danes are tough people, Mr. Carter. I think I can handle it.”

“Then we would be pleased to have you there.”

“And tell your friend Allon to keep his Beretta in his holster. I don’t want any dead bodies turning up. If anyone dies anywhere in the country tonight, he’ll be our top suspect.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Carter.

The curiosity returned to Mortensen’s eyes. “What’s he like?”

“Allon?”

Mortensen nodded.

“He’s a rather serious chap and a bit rough around the edges.”

“They all are,” said Mortensen.

“Yes,” said Carter. “But, then, who can blame them?”

There are few ugly buildings in central Copenhagen. The glass-and-steel structure on the Dag Hammarskjölds Allé that houses the American embassy is one of them. The CIA station there is small and somewhat cramped-Copenhagen was an intelligence backwater during the Cold War and remains so today-but its secure conference room seats twenty comfortably, and its electronics are fully up-to-date. Carter thought they needed a code name, and Gabriel, after a brief deliberation, suggested Moriah, the hill in Jerusalem where God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Carter, whose father was an Episcopal minister, thought the choice inspired, and from that point forward they were referred to in all Agency communications as the Moriah Team and nothing else.

Ibrahim Fawaz arrived from Amsterdam at six that evening, accompanied by Oded and Yaakov. Lars Mortensen appeared at 6:15 and accepted Gabriel’s act of contrition for the sin of failing to obtain Danish authorization before barging onto Danish soil. Gabriel then requested permission for the rest of his team to remain in Denmark to see the operation through, and Mortensen, clearly starstruck to be in the presence of the legend, immediately agreed. Mordecai and Sarah joined them after breaking camp at the Hotel d’Angleterre, while Eli Lavon came gratefully in from the cold of Nørrebro, looking like a man who had been on near-constant surveillance duty for more than a week.

The hours of the early evening were the province of Mortensen and the Danes. At seven o’clock they disabled the phone line leading to the Nørrebro apartment and forwarded all calls to a number inside the CIA station. Fifteen minutes later two Danish agents-Mortensen wisely chose female agents to avoid a cultural confrontation-paid a quiet visit to the apartment for the expressed purpose of asking a few “routine” questions concerning the whereabouts of one Ishaq Fawaz. Mordecai’s original “glass” was still active and, much to Mortensen’s dismay, it was used by the Moriah Team to monitor the proceedings. They were fifteen minutes in duration and ended with the sound of Hanifah and Ahmed being taken into Danish custody for additional questioning. Hanifah was immediately relieved of her cell phone and the phone was ferried at high speed to the embassy, where Mordecai, with Carter and Mortensen looking over his shoulder, hastily mined it for any nuggets of useful intelligence.