Portrait of a Spy (39 page)

“Fueled and ready for takeoff. The rest of her staff is boarding now.”

“And where is the star of the show at this moment?”

“Heading northeast on Sheikh Zayed Road at forty-six miles per hour.”

“May I see her?”

Carter snatched up a phone. A few seconds later, a winking red light appeared on one of the wall monitors, moving northeast across the grid of Dubai city. Shamron twirled his lighter anxiously as he watched its steady progress.

Two turns to the right, two turns to the left . . .

The first Range Rover eased into the drive of the Burj Al Arab two minutes after Nadia’s departure. A second appeared soon after, followed by a Mercedes GL and a pair of Denalis. Gabriel keyed into his secure radio, but Mikhail was on the air first.

“They’re leaving the room,” he said.

Gabriel didn’t have to ask how many. The answer was outside in the drive. Five SUVs for five men. Gabriel had to establish which of the five was Malik before any of the men set foot outside the hotel. And there was only one way to do it. He gave the order.

“There are five of them and one of me,” Mikhail replied.

“The longer you talk, the greater the chances we’ll lose him.”

Mikhail keyed out without another word. Gabriel glanced down at his laptop to check Nadia’s location.

She was halfway to the airport.

Mikhail secured the room and stepped into the corridor. The Glock was now at the small of his back with the suppressor screwed into place. The loaded syringe was in the outside pocket of his coat. He glanced to his right and saw the five men in white
kandoura
s and
ghutra
s stepping around a corner into the elevator vestibule. He walked normally for a few seconds but quickened his pace after hearing the chime indicating that a carriage had arrived. By the time he reached the vestibule, the five men had entered the elevator and the gleaming gold doors were beginning to close. He shouldered his way inside, mumbling an apology, and stood at the front of the carriage as the doors closed for a second time. In the reflection, he could see five matching men. Five matching beards flecked with gray. Five pairs of matching eyeglasses rimmed in gold. Five prayer scars that looked recently irritated. There was just one difference. Four of the men were staring directly at Mikhail. The fifth seemed to be looking down at his shoes.

Malik . . .

Twenty-two floors above, Samir Abbas, fund-raiser for the global jihadist movement, was catching up on a bit of legitimate work for TransArabian Bank when he heard a knock at the door. He had been expecting it; the Egyptian had said he would send someone when the meeting with Nadia was over. As it turned out, he sent not one man but two. They were dressed like Emiratis, but their accents betrayed them as Jordanians. Abbas admitted them without hesitation.

“The meeting went well?” he asked.

“Very well,” said the older of the two men. “Miss al-Bakari has agreed to make another donation to our cause. We have a few details we need to discuss with you.”

Abbas turned to lead them into the seating area. Only when he felt the garrote biting into his neck did he realize his mistake. Unable to draw a breath or utter a sound, Abbas clawed desperately at the thin metal wire carving into his skin. The lack of oxygen quickly sapped his strength, and he was able to offer only token resistance as the men pushed him facedown to the floor. It was then Abbas felt something else carving into his neck, and he realized they intended to take his head. It was the punishment for infidels and apostates and the enemies of jihad. Samir Abbas was none of those things. He was a believer, a secret soldier in the army of Allah. But in a moment, for reasons he did not understand, he would be a
shahid
.

Mercifully, Abbas began to lose consciousness. He thought of the money he had hidden in the pantry of his flat in Zurich, and he hoped that Johara or the children might one day find it. Then he forced himself to go still and to submit to the will of God.

The knife made a few more vicious strokes. Abbas saw a burst of brilliant white light and assumed it was the light of Paradise. Then the light was extinguished and there was nothing at all.

Chapter 60
Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai

T
HE ELEVATOR STOPPED TWICE BEFORE
reaching the lobby. A sunburned British woman boarded on the eleventh floor, a Chinese businessman on the seventh. The new arrivals forced Mikhail to retreat deeper into the carriage. He was now standing so close to Malik he could smell the coffee on his breath. The Glock was pressed reassuringly against Mikhail’s spine, but it was the syringe in his coat pocket that occupied his thoughts. He was tempted to shove the needle into Malik’s thigh. Instead, he stared at the ceiling, or at his watch, or at the numbers flashing on the display panel—anywhere but at the face of the murderer standing next to him. When the doors finally opened a third time, he followed the British woman and the Chinese businessman toward the bar.

“He’s the second one from the left,” he said into his phone.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure enough to hit him right now if you tell me to.”

“Not here.”

“Don’t let him leave. Do it now while we have a chance.”

Gabriel went off the air. Mikhail entered the bar, counted slowly to ten, and walked out.

Gabriel was packing up his laptop and conducting a false telephone conversation in rapid French as Malik and his four comrades came floating through the lobby in their white robes. Outside, they engaged in a swirl of handshakes and formal kisses before making their way separately toward the SUVs. Despite the final element of physical deception, Gabriel had no problem tracking Malik as he climbed into the back of one of the Denalis. When the five cars were gone, a pair of Toyota Land Cruisers took their place. Mikhail managed to look vaguely bored as he slipped past the valet and climbed into the front passenger seat of the first. Gabriel entered the second. “Put on your seat belt,” Chiara said as she accelerated away. “These people drive like maniacs.”

The news that Malik was under Office surveillance reached Rashidistan at 10:12 p.m. Dubai time. It provoked a brief outburst of emotion among the skeleton crew, but not among the three spymasters gathered around the pod in the center of the room. Shamron seemed particularly aggrieved as he watched the winking red light making its way along Sheikh Zayed Road.

“It occurs to me that we haven’t heard from our friend Samir Abbas in some time,” he said, eyes still on the wall monitor. “Would it be possible to call his mobile phone from a number he would recognize?”

“Anyone in particular?” asked Carter.

“Make it his wife,” Shamron said. “Samir always struck me as the family type.”

“You just referred to him in the past tense.”

“Did I?” Shamron asked absently.

Carter looked at one of the techs and said, “Make it happen.”

The residents of Dubai are not only among the richest people in the world, but they are also statistically some of its worst drivers. A collision—be it with another car, pedestrian, or object—occurs every two minutes in the emirate, resulting in three fatalities a day on average. The typical driver thinks nothing of slashing across multiple lanes of heavy traffic or tailgating at a hundred miles per hour while talking on his cell phone. As a result, few people took notice of the high-speed chase that occurred shortly after ten p.m. on the road to Jebel Ali. It was just another night at the races.

The road had four lanes in each direction with a grassy median down the center and traffic signals that most locals dismissed as unwanted advice. Gabriel clung to the armrest as Chiara ably maneuvered the big Land Cruiser through the herd of other vehicles just like it. Because it was a Thursday evening, the beginning of the weekend in the Islamic world, the traffic was heavier than on a typical night. Enormous sport-utility vehicles were the norm rather than the exception. Most were driven by bearded men wearing white
kandoura
s and
ghutra
s.

The five cars of Malik’s motorcade were engaged in something like a rolling shell game. They weaved, they swerved, they flashed their high beams for slower traffic to give way—all perfectly appropriate conduct on the anarchic roads of Dubai. Chiara and the three other drivers of the chase team did their best to maintain contact. It was a perilous business. Despite the lawlessness of the roads, the Emirati police didn’t look kindly upon foreigners who got into accidents. Malik knew this, of course. Gabriel wondered what else Malik knew. He was beginning to worry that the elaborate security measures were more than simply precautions, that Malik, as usual, was one step ahead of his enemies.

They were approaching the port of Jebel Ali. They shot past the glittering Ibn Battuta theme park and shopping mall, then a desalinization plant: Dubai in a snapshot. Gabriel scarcely noticed the landmarks. He was watching the carefully choreographed maneuver occurring on the road directly ahead. Four of the SUVs were now side by side across the four lanes of traffic. They had reduced their speed and were engaged in a blocking tactic. The fifth, the Denali in which Malik was riding, was accelerating rapidly.

“He’s getting away, Chiara. You have to get past them.”

“Where?”

“Find a way.”

Chiara swerved hard to the left. Then to the right. Each time an SUV blocked the way.

“Force your way between them.”

“Gabriel!”

“Do it!”

She tried. There was no way through.

They were nearing the end of the Jebel Ali Free Zone. Beyond it lay the expanse of desert separating Dubai from the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Gabriel could no longer see Malik’s Denali; it was but a distant star in a galaxy of other taillights. Directly ahead, a stoplight switched from green to amber. The four SUVs slowed instantly, surely a first in Dubai, and came to a stop. As car horns began to sound, one of the Malik replicas stepped out and stared at Gabriel for a long moment before dragging his thumb knifelike across his own throat. Gabriel took a quick radio roll call of the team and determined all were safe and accounted for. Then he dialed Nadia’s BlackBerry. There was no answer.

Chapter 61
Dubai

T
HE
B
OEING
B
USINESS
J
ET OWNED
and operated by AAB Holdings departed Dubai International Airport at 10:40 that evening. All available evidence suggested that Nadia al-Bakari, the company’s chairwoman, was not on board at the time.

Her BlackBerry had gone off the air at 10:14 p.m., as her car was crossing Dubai Creek, and was no longer emitting a signal of any kind. In the moments preceding the break, she had been chatting amiably with Rafiq al-Kamal. The last audio captured by the device was a muffled thumping that could have been anything from a death struggle to the sound of Nadia tapping her forefinger on the screen, something she often did while riding in cars. The transmitters hidden in her handbag and clothing were, at the moment of the disruption, far beyond the range of the listening posts inside the Burj Al Arab and therefore provided no clues as to what had transpired.

Only the GPS beacons remained functional. Eventually, they ceased moving at an empty lot along the Dubai-Hatta Road, not far from the polo club. Gabriel found the Chanel suit at 10:53 p.m. and the watch a few minutes later. He carried the items over to the Land Cruiser and examined them in the light of the dash. The fabric of the suit was torn in several places and there were bloodstains on the collar. The crystal of the watch was smashed, though the inscription on the back remained clearly legible.
To the future, Thomas
.

He told Chiara to start back to the hotel, then sent a message to Langley on his BlackBerry. The reply came two minutes later. Gabriel swore softly as he read it.

“What does it say?”

“They want us to leave for the airport immediately.”

“What about Nadia?”

“There is no Nadia,” Gabriel said, slipping the BlackBerry into his coat pocket. “Not as far as Langley and Shamron are concerned. Not anymore.”

“So we leave her behind?” asked Chiara angrily, her eyes on the road. “Is that what they want us to do? Use her money and her name and then throw her to the wolves? Do you know what they’re going to do to her?”

“They’re going to kill her,” Gabriel said. “And she won’t be given the courtesy of a decent death. That’s not the way they conduct their business.”

“Maybe she’s already dead,” Chiara said. “Maybe that’s what Malik’s friend was trying to tell you.”

“She might be,” Gabriel conceded, “but I doubt it. They wouldn’t have bothered to remove her clothing and her jewelry if they intended to kill her quickly. It suggests they wanted to have a word with her in private, which is understandable. After all, they lost their network because of her.”

Gabriel’s BlackBerry chimed a second time. It was Langley again, asking for confirmation he had received the message to abort. Gabriel ignored it and stared sullenly out the window at the lights of the financial district.

“Is there anything we can do for her?” asked Chiara.

“I suppose that depends entirely on Malik.”

“Malik is a monster. And you can be sure he knows you’re here in Dubai.”

“Even monsters can be reasoned with.”

“Not jihadists. They’re beyond reason.” She drove in silence for a moment with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching the fabric of Nadia’s bloodstained suit. “I know you made her a promise,” she said finally, “but you made a promise to me, too.”

“Should I let her die, Chiara?”

“God, no!”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Why do I have to make this decision?”

“Because you’re the only one who can.”

Chiara was wrenching at the fabric of Nadia’s suit, tears streaming down her cheeks. Gabriel asked whether she wanted him to drive. She seemed not to hear him.