Daniel Silva - The Messenger

The helicopter started to lose altitude. Sarah looked out the window again and saw that they were descending toward the airport. At the end of the airfield were a handful of private jets. One was being fueled for takeoff. Zizi was once more extolling the wealth of Herr Klarsfeld, but Sarah heard none of it. She was now thinking only of escape. There is no Herr Klarsfeld, she told herself. And there is no Manet . She was being put on an airplane to oblivion. She remembered Zizi’s benediction the afternoon she accepted his job offer. As you can see I’m very generous to the people who work for me, but I get very angry when they betray me . She had betrayed him. She had betrayed him for Gabriel. And now she would pay with her life. Zizi’s rules .

She looked down at the airfield, wondering if Zizi had somehow left a crack through which she might escape. Surely there would be a customs officer to check her passport. Maybe an airport official or a policeman or two. She rehearsed the lines she would say to them. My name is Sarah Bancroft. I am an American citizen, and these men are trying to transport me to Switzerland against my will . Then she looked at Zizi and his chief of security. You’ve taken that scenario into account, haven’t you? You’ve paid off the customs officials and bribed the local police . Zizi didn’t countenance delays, especially not for a hysterical infidel woman.

The Sikorsky’s skids bumped down on the tarmac. Bin Talal opened the cabin door and climbed out, then reached back inside and offered Sarah his hand. She took it and climbed down the staircase, into a vortex of swirling wind. Fifty yards from the helicopter stood a waiting Falcon 2000, engines screaming in preparation for takeoff. She looked around: no customs officials, no policeman. Zizi had closed her only window. She looked back into the cabin of the Sikorsky and saw him for the last time. He gave her a genial wave, then looked at his gold Rolex, like an attending physician marking the time of death.

Bin Talal seized her bags, reminded her to duck her head, then took her by the arm and led her toward the Falcon. On the staircase she tried to pull away from him, but he squeezed her upper arm in a painful viselike grip and conveyed her up the steps. She screamed for help, but the sound was drowned out by the whining of the jet engines and the thumping of the Sikorsky’s rotor blade.

She staged one more rebellion at the top of the staircase, which bin Talal suppressed with a single shove between her shoulder blades. She stumbled inside, into a small cabin luxuriously appointed in polished wood and soft tan leather. It reminded her of a coffin. At least her journey to oblivion was going to be comfortable. She gathered herself for one more revolt and flew at the Saudi in a rage. Now, shielded from view by the outside world, there was no discretion in his response. He gave her a single open-handed blow that landed hard on her right cheekbone and sent her whirling to the cabin floor. The Saudis knew how to treat mutinous women.

She heard ringing in her ears and for a moment was blinded by exploding stars. When her vision cleared she saw Jean-Michel standing over her, drying his hands on a linen towel. The Frenchman sat on her legs and waited until bin Talal had pinned her arms to the floor before producing the hypodermic needle. She felt a single stab, then molten metal flowing into her veins. The skin of Jean-Michel’s face slid from his skull, and Sarah slipped beneath the surface of cold black water.

THE ZODIAC ENTERED THE waters of Great Bay one hour later. The four men on board were dressed in sport jackets and trousers, and each carried a small overnight bag for the benefit of local authorities. After docking at Bobby’s Marina, the men climbed into a waiting taxi and proceeded to the airport at considerable speed. There, after clearing passport control, all on false travel documents, they boarded a waiting Gulfstream V private jet. The crew had already filed a flight plan and requested a takeoff slot. One hour later, at 11:37 A.M. local time, the plane departed. Its destination was Kloten Airport. Zurich, Switzerland.

AS THE GULFSTREAM rose over the waters of Simpson Bay, Adrian Carter made three telephone calls: one to the director of the CIA, the second to the arm of the Agency that specialized in clandestine travel, and a third to an Agency physician who specialized in treating wounded agents under less than optimum conditions. He then opened his wall safe and removed one of three billfolds. Inside was a false passport, along with corresponding identification, credit cards, a bit of cash, and photographs of a family that did not exist. Ten minutes later he was walking across the west parking lot toward his Volvo sedan. The headquarters man was a field man once more. And the field man was going to Zug.

IN DOWNTOWN MUNICH, Uzi Navot was enjoying a late lunch with a paid informant from the German BND when he received an urgent call from Tel Aviv. It came not from the Operations Desk but directly from Amos Sharrett. Their conversation was brief and one-sided. Navot listened in silence, grunting occasionally to convey to Amos that he understood what he was to do, then rang off.

Navot was unwilling to let the German security man know the Office was in the midst of a full-blown crisis, so he remained at the restaurant for another thirty minutes, picking his thumbnail to shreds beneath the table while the German had strudel and coffee. At 3:15 he was behind the wheel of his E-Class Mercedes, and by 3:30 he was speeding westward along the E54 motorway.

Think of it as an audition, Amos had said. Pull this off cleanly and Special Ops is yours . But as Uzi Navot raced toward Zurich through the fading afternoon light, personal promotion was the last thing on his mind. It was Sarah he wanted-and he wanted her in one piece.

BUT SARAH, lost in a fog of narcotics, was unaware of the events swirling around her. Indeed she had no conception of even the state of her own body. She did not know she was reclining in an aft-facing chair of an eastbound Falcon 2000, operated by Meridian Executive Air Services of Caracas, wholly owned by AAB Holdings of Riyadh, Geneva, and points in between. She did not know that her hands were cuffed and her ankles shackled. Or that a crimson welt had arisen on her right cheek, compliments of Wazir bin Talal. Or that seated opposite her, separated by a small polished table, Jean-Michel was leafing through a bit of Dutch pornography and sipping a single-malt scotch he’d picked up duty-free at the Saint Maarten airport.

Sarah was aware only of her dreams. She had a vague sense the images playing out for her were not real, yet she was powerless to seize control of them. She heard a telephone ring and when she picked up the receiver she heard the voice of Ben, but instead of hurtling toward the South Tower of the World Trade Center he had landed safely in Los Angeles and was bound for his meeting. She entered a stately town house in Georgetown and was greeted not by Adrian Carter but by Zizi al-Bakari. Next she was in a shabby English country house, occupied not by Gabriel and his team but by a cell of Saudi terrorists plotting their next strike. More images followed, one upon the next. A beautiful yacht slicing through a sea of blood. A gallery in London hung with portraits of the dead. And finally an art restorer with ashen temples and emerald eyes, standing before a portrait of a woman handcuffed to a dressing table. The restorer was Gabriel, and the woman in the portrait was Sarah. The image burst into flames, and when the flames receded, she saw only the face of Jean-Michel.

“Where are we going?”