Daniel Silva - The Secret Servant

“Was it bad?” Mikhail asked. “The beatings, I mean.”

“They were just having a bit of fun,” said Gabriel dismissively. He was in no mood to relive the previous night. “It was nothing compared to what Ibrahim endured at the hands of the Egyptian secret police.”

“Did it feel good to shoot him like that?”

“Ishaq?”

The younger man nodded.

“No, Mikhail, it didn’t feel good. But then, it didn’t feel bad either.” Gabriel lifted his hand and pointed toward the north entrance of the Abbey. “Look at all those people over there. Many of them would soon be dead if I hadn’t acted the way I did.”

“If we don’t hit our targets, they still may die.” Mikhail looked at Gabriel. “You sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself that you were morally justified in torturing him.”

“I suppose I am. I crossed a line. But then we’ve all crossed a line. The Americans crossed a line after 9/11, and now they’re trying to find their way back to the other side. Unfortunately, the goals of the terrorists haven’t changed-and the generation soon to emerge from the killing fields of Iraq is going to be much more violent and volatile than the ones who came out of Afghanistan.”

“We dare to fight back, and the terrorists accuse us of being the real terrorists.”

“It’s their secret weapon, Mikhail. Get used to it.”

Gabriel heard a crackle in his earpiece. He looked toward the north entrance of the Abbey and saw the vast doors swing slowly open. Graham Seymour had arranged for the Abbey’s staff to admit the Christmas worshippers earlier than was customary, a simple maneuver that would drastically reduce the number of potential targets. Gabriel only hoped the shaheed s didn’t deduce from the change that they were walking into a trap.

“Where was I?” Gabriel asked.

“You were talking about secret weapons.”

“Last night, Mikhail. Where was I last night?”

“Harwich.”

“I’ve always wanted to visit Harwich,” Gabriel said. “How much did Chiara see?”

“Only the end, when they were loading you into the van.” Mikhail put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I wish you would have let me shoot that bastard for you.”

“Relax, Mikhail. It’s Christmas.”

“Not for us,” Mikhail said. “I only hope Ishaq wasn’t lying.”

“He wasn’t,” said Gabriel.

“What if they bring her somewhere else?”

“They won’t. You have your cigarettes?”

Mikhail tapped the left-hand pocket of his jacket.

“And your lighter?” asked Gabriel.

“I have everything. We just need Elizabeth.”

“She’s coming,” said Gabriel. “It will be over soon.”

The car was a Ford Fiesta, pale gray and well worn. Abel, the one with green eyes, handled the driving, while Cain sat next to her in the backseat. Absent their balaclava masks, she saw their faces for the first time and was shocked by their youth. They wore heavy coats, were carefully shaven, and smelled of sandalwood cologne. Cain was squeezing her arm with his left hand and holding a gun in his right. Elizabeth tried not to look at the weapon or to even think about it. Instead she stared silently out her window. It had been more than two weeks since she had been outside; two weeks since she had seen another human other than Cain and Abel and their masked accomplices; two weeks since she had seen the sun or had possessed even the most basic sense of time. The window was her portal on reality. Cain and Abel were from the world of the damned, she thought. On the other side of the glass was the land of the living.

For a few minutes her surroundings were unfamiliar. Then the entrance of the Camden Town Underground station flashed past, and from there she was able to track their route south across London. Despite the pleasant weather, the streets were oddly quiet. In the Tottenham Court Road she saw holiday wreaths and realized it was probably Christmas morning.

They crossed Oxford Street and headed down Charing Cross to Trafalgar Square, then made their way along Whitehall to Westminster. As they turned into Victoria Street, Elizabeth saw a crowd milling about beneath the North Tower of the Abbey. Standing beneath a leafless tree, next to a tired-looking man in an ushanka hat, was a tall, distinguished-looking figure in a fedora who bore a sharp resemblance to her father. It wasn’t her father, of course. Her Colorado-born father would never be caught dead in a hat like that.

A moment later they turned into Abbey Orchard Street. Abel pulled into an illegal spot and shut down the engine. Cain slipped the gun into his coat pocket and squeezed her arm tightly.

“We’re going to take a very short walk,” he said. “At the end of it, you will be released. Get out of the car slowly and put both your hands in the pockets of your raincoat. We will lead you where we want you to go. Keep your eyes on the ground and don’t say a word. If you don’t do exactly what we tell you, I’ll shoot you in the heart. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she said calmly.

Cain reached across Elizabeth Halton’s lap and opened her door. She swung her legs out of the car and stepped into the street, her first step toward freedom.

The hands of Big Ben lay at 9:57 when Gabriel’s earpiece crackled. The voice he heard was Adrian Carter’s.

“Victoria Street,” said Carter calmly. “She’s about to cross Storey’s Gate into the Sanctuary. She’s wearing a blond wig and a tan raincoat.”

“ Shaheed s?”

“One on each arm.”

“Halton has just condemned two men to death, Adrian. Is he sure?”

“He’s sure.”

“Get him out of there. Now. ”

Carter took Robert Halton by the elbow and led him toward Great George Street, with Sarah trailing two paces behind. Gabriel and Mikhail stood in unison and started walking. Sarah was watching them. Look away , he thought. Keep walking and look away.

They paused for a few seconds on the corner of Parliament Square to allow a London bus to rattle past, then quickly crossed the street and entered the grounds of the Abbey. Mikhail walked on Gabriel’s left, his breath shallow and fast, the footfalls sharp and crisp, like an echo of Gabriel’s own. Gabriel’s Beretta was on his left hip and the butt was pressing painfully against a broken rib. A split second is all he would have. A split second to get his weapon off his hip and into firing position. When he was a boy, like Mikhail, he could do it in the time it took most men to clap their hands. And now? He walked on.

They passed through the thin shadows beneath the trees where Carter and Halton had been standing a few seconds earlier. When they emerged again into the sunlight, they saw Elizabeth and her escorts for the first time, moving deliberately along the sidewalk close to the northern façade of the Abbey. Her eyes were concealed behind a large pair of movie-starlet sunglasses, and her hands were in her coat pockets. A shaheed was holding each arm. Their free hands were shoved into the outward-facing pockets of their heavy jackets.

“They’ve got their fingers on the detonator switches, Mikhail. You see it?”

“I see it.”

“Do you see the people behind them? When we start shooting, you can’t miss.”

“I won’t miss.”

“You have your cigarettes?”

“I’m ready.”

“Keep walking.”

Two hundred worshippers were still standing outside the North Tower, waiting patiently to be admitted. Gabriel put a hand on Mikhail’s elbow and nudged him along the fringes of the crowd, onto the intersecting walkway. Elizabeth and the terrorists were directly in front of them, forty yards away and closing fast. One second, thought Gabriel. One second.