Portrait of a Spy (43 page)

The miniature GPS tracking beacon lodged in Gabriel’s body told an entirely different story. It was the story of a man who, having been found alive in the Empty Quarter, had been flown by helicopter to Riyadh and deposited at the sprawling compound run by the Mabahith, the secret police division of the Interior Ministry. A week into his stay, it appeared as though he were taken out for a slow drive across Riyadh to the desert east of the city. For several anxious hours, the staff at Rashidistan feared the worst, that he had been executed and buried in the Wahhabi tradition, in a grave with no marker. Eventually, the Agency’s analysts were able to confirm, with palpable relief, that his new location was in fact Riyadh’s main sewage treatment plant. It meant that Gabriel had finally passed the beacon from his intestinal tract. It also meant that he was now off the grid and entirely beyond Langley’s reach.

The bullet had broken two of Gabriel’s ribs and damaged his right lung. The Saudis waited until he was sufficiently recovered before commencing their interrogation. It was conducted by a tall, angular man with a face like a falcon. His olive-drab uniform was starched and pressed, but contained little in the way of insignia. He called himself Khalid. He’d gone to school in England and had the diction of a BBC newsreader.

He began by asking for Gabriel’s name and a brief description of how he had ended up in the Empty Quarter clinging to the corpse of a Saudi woman. Gabriel gave his name as Roland Devereaux of Quebec City. He claimed that he had been kidnapped by Islamic extremists while on business in Dubai, that he had been beaten unconscious and driven into the desert to be killed. There had been an argument among the terrorists that led to an exchange of gunfire. He didn’t know the nature of the argument because he spoke no Arabic.

“None at all?”

“I can order coffee.”

“How do you like it?”

“Medium sweet.”

“What was the nature of your business in Dubai?”

“I work for a freight-forwarding firm.”

“And the woman who died in your arms?”

“I’d never seen her before.”

“Did you ever learn her name?”

Gabriel shook his head, then asked whether his embassy knew where he was.

“Which embassy is that?” asked the Saudi.

“The Canadian Embassy, of course.”

“Oh, yes,” Khalid said, smiling. “What was I thinking?”

“Have you contacted them?”

“We’re working on it.”

The officer jotted a few words in his notebook and departed. Gabriel was handcuffed and returned to his cell. After that, no one spoke to him for many days.

When next Gabriel was taken to the interrogation room, he arrived to find a stack of file folders piled ominously on the table. Khalid the falcon was smoking, something he had refrained from during their first encounter. This time, he posed no questions. Instead, he launched into a monologue not unlike the one Gabriel had endured at the feet of Rashid al-Husseini. In this case, however, the subject was not the inevitable triumph of Salafist Islam but the long and controversial career of an Israeli intelligence officer named Gabriel Allon. Khalid’s account was remarkably accurate. Particular attention was paid to Gabriel’s role in the killing of Abdul Aziz al-Bakari and to his subsequent use of Zizi’s daughter as a means of penetrating the terror network of Rashid al-Husseini and Malik al-Zubair.

“It was Nadia who died in your arms in the Empty Quarter,” the Saudi said. “Malik was there, too. We’d like you to tell us how it all happened.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your video confession is all over the Internet and television, Allon. If you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll have no choice but to put you on trial and publicly execute you.”

“How sporting of you.”

“I’m afraid the wheels of Saudi justice do not grind slowly.”

“If I were you, I’d tell His Highness to rethink the part about a public execution. It might cost him his oil fields.”

“The oil fields belong to the people of Saudi Arabia.”

“Oh, yes,” said Gabriel. “What was I thinking?”

For the next several nights, Gabriel’s cell echoed with the screams of men being tortured. Unable to sleep, he developed an infection that required a round of intravenous antibiotics. Several more pounds melted from his slight frame. He grew so thin that when he was delivered for his next interrogation session, even the falcon appeared concerned.

“Perhaps you and I can come to an accommodation,” he suggested.

“What sort of accommodation?”

“You will answer my questions and, in time, I will see that you are returned to your loved ones with your head still attached.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because as of this moment, my dear one, I’m the only friend you have.”

There is a truism about interrogations. Sooner or later, everyone talks. Not only terrorists, but professional intelligence officers as well. But it is
how
they talk, and what they say, that determines whether they will be capable of looking their colleagues in the eye if they are released. Gabriel understood this. So did the falcon.

Together they spent the next week engaged in a delicate ballet of mutual deception. Khalid posed many carefully worded questions to which Gabriel responded with many half-truths and outright lies. The operations he betrayed did not exist. Nor did the paid assets, the safe houses, or the methods of secure communication; it had all been invented in the copious amounts of time Gabriel spent locked in his cell. There were some things he claimed not to know and others he refused to divulge. For example, when Khalid asked for the names of all undercover case officers based in Europe, Gabriel said nothing. He also refused to answer when asked for the names of the officers who had worked with him against Rashid and Malik. Gabriel’s intransigence did not anger the falcon. In fact, he seemed to respect Gabriel more for it.

“Why not give me a few false names I can take to my superiors?” asked Khalid.

“Because your superiors know me well enough to realize I would never betray my closest friends,” said Gabriel. “They would never believe the names were real.”

There is another truism about interrogations. They sometimes reveal more about the man asking the questions than the one answering them. Gabriel had come to believe that Khalid was a true professional rather than a true believer. He was not an altogether unreasonable man. He had a conscience. He could be bargained with. Slowly, gradually, they were able to forge something like a bond. It was a bond of lies, the only kind possible in the secret world.

“Your son was killed that night in Vienna?” Khalid asked suddenly one afternoon. Or perhaps it was already late at night; Gabriel had only a vague grasp of time.

“My son has nothing to do with this.”

“Your son has everything to do with this,” Khalid said knowingly. “Your son is the reason you followed that
shahid
into Covent Garden. He’s also the reason you allowed Shamron and the Americans to lure you back into the game.”

“You have good sources,” said Gabriel.

Khalid accepted the compliment with a smile. “But there’s one thing I still don’t understand,” he said. “How were you able to convince Nadia to work with you?”

“I’m a professional, like you.”

“Why didn’t you ask for our help?”

“Would you have given it?”

“Of course not.”

The Saudi flipped through the pages of his notebook, frowning slightly, as if trying to decide where to take the questioning next. Gabriel, a skilled interrogator in his own right, knew the performance was all for his benefit. Finally, almost as an afterthought, the Saudi asked, “Is it true she was ill?”

The question managed to take Gabriel by surprise. He found no reason to answer with anything but the truth. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “she didn’t have long to live.”

“We’d heard rumors to that effect for some time,” the Saudi replied, “but we were never sure.”

“She kept it a secret from everyone, including her staff. Even her closest friends knew nothing.”

“But
you
knew?”

“She took me into her confidence because of the operation.”

“And the nature of this illness?” the Saudi asked, his pencil hovering over his notebook as if Nadia’s illness were but a small detail that needed clearing up for the official record.

“She suffered from a disorder called arteriovenous malformation,” Gabriel replied evenly. “It’s an abnormal connection between the veins and arteries in the brain. Her doctors had told her she couldn’t be treated. She knew it was only a matter of time before she suffered a devastating hemorrhagic stroke. It was possible she could have died at any moment.”

“So she committed suicide in the desert by stepping in front of a bullet meant for you?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “She sacrificed herself.” He paused, then added, “For all of us.”

Khalid looked down at his file again. “Unfortunately, she’s become a martyr to our more progressive women. Questions are being raised about her philanthropic activities. Apparently, she was something of a reformer.”

“Is that why you had her killed?”

Khalid’s face remained expressionless. “Miss al-Bakari was killed by Rashid and Malik.”

“That’s true,” said Gabriel, “but someone told them she was working for us.”

“Perhaps they had a source close to your operation.”

“Or perhaps you did,” Gabriel responded. “Perhaps Rashid and Malik were just pawns, a convenient means of eliminating a grave danger to the House of Saud.”

“That is mere conjecture on your part.”

“True,” said Gabriel, “but it’s supported by history. Whenever the al-Saud feel threatened, they turn to the bearded ones.”

“The bearded ones, as you call them, are more of a threat to us than they are to you.”

“Then why are you still supporting them? It’s been ten years since 9/11. Ten
years
,” Gabriel repeated, “and Saudi Arabia is still a cash machine for terrorists and Sunni extremist groups. There’s only one possible explanation. The deal with the devil has been renewed. The House of Saud is willing to turn a blind eye to Islamic terror as long as the sacred rage is directed outward, away from the oil fields.”

“We’re not as blind as you think.”

“I funneled tens of millions of dollars into a Sunni terrorist group in a deal struck on Saudi soil.”

“Which is why you now find yourself here.”

“Then I assume Sheikh Bin Tayyib is in custody somewhere in the building as well?”

Khalid smiled uncomfortably but made no response. He posed a few more questions, none of any significance, then the session was concluded. Afterward, he took the unusual step of walking Gabriel back to his cell. He lingered for a moment in the corridor before unlocking the door. “I’m told the American president has taken an intense personal interest in your case,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say your stay with us is almost over.”

“When am I leaving?”

“Midnight.”

“What time is it now?”

The falcon smiled. “Five past.”

A fresh suit of clothing had been laid upon the bed in Gabriel’s cell. Khalid gave him a moment of privacy to dress. Then he escorted Gabriel up several flights of stairs to an internal courtyard. An SUV idled in the moonlight. It was large and American, as were the four men standing around it. “I left two things for you in the breast pocket of the suit,” Khalid said quietly as they crossed the courtyard. “One is the bullet that passed through Nadia and struck you. The other is a note for Adrian Carter. Think of it as a small parting gift to help you remember your stay with us.”

“What is it?”

“Some information he might find helpful. I’d appreciate it if you kept my name out of it.”

“Is it any good?”

“The information? I suppose you’ll just have to trust me.”

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that word.”

“Didn’t you learn anything from her?” Khalid nodded toward the SUV. “I’d get in quickly, if I were you. His Highness has been known to change his mind.”

Gabriel shook the Saudi’s hand before surrendering himself to the Americans. They drove at high speed to a military air base north of Riyadh and hustled him onto a waiting Gulfstream. There was an Agency doctor on board; he spent much of the flight pumping fluid into Gabriel’s emaciated body and fretting over the condition of the wound in his side. Finally, he permitted Gabriel to sleep. Tormented by dreams of Nadia’s death, he woke with a start as the plane bumped onto the runway at London City Airport. When the cabin door opened, he saw Chiara and Shamron waiting on the tarmac. He suspected they were the only two people on earth who looked worse than he did.

Chapter 68
The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

S
HAMRON SETTLED INTO THE SPARE
bedroom. He gave every indication his stay was permanent. The nightmare in the Empty Quarter, he told Chiara, had given him one last mission.

He appointed himself Gabriel’s personal bodyguard, physician, and grief counselor. He offered advice that was not solicited and suffered his patient’s depression and mood swings in stoic silence. Rarely did he allow Gabriel to stray out of his sight. He stalked him through the rooms of the cottage, walked with him along the sand beach in the cove, and even followed him when he went into the village to do the marketing. Gabriel told the shopkeepers that Shamron was his uncle from Milan. In public, he spoke to Shamron only in Italian, of which Shamron understood not a word.

Within days of Gabriel’s return to Cornwall, the weather turned rainy, which suited all their moods. Chiara cooked elaborate meals and watched with relief as Gabriel regained some of the weight he had lost in the Saudi prison. His emotional state, however, remained unchanged. He slept little and seemed incapable of talking about what had happened in the desert. Uzi Navot dispatched a doctor to examine him. “Guilt,” said the doctor after spending an hour alone with Gabriel. “Enormous, unfathomable, unremitting guilt. He promised to protect her, but in the end, he let her down. He doesn’t like to fail women.”