The Secret Servant (16 page)

A
gust of cold wind froze Ibrahim Fawaz in his tracks as he pulled open the door of the al-Hijrah Mosque. This was his twenty-fifth winter in Holland and still he was not accustomed to the cold. Providence and fate had brought him here, to this garden of cinder block and cement in northern Europe, but in his heart he was still an
ibn balad
from Upper Egypt—a son of the soil and a child of the river. He stood in the vestibule for a moment, turning up his coat collar and tightening his scarf, then stepped tentatively into the street under the watchful gaze of two rosy-cheeked Amsterdam policemen. He exchanged pleasantries with them in fluent Dutch, then turned and set out along the Jan Hazenstraat.

The two police officers were now a permanent fixture outside the mosque. The al-Hijrah had been searched twice by Dutch investigators in the wake of the attack in London. Files and computers had been seized, and the imam and several of his associates had been questioned about their knowledge of Samir al-Masri and the other members of his cell. Tonight the imam had accused the infidels of using the attacks in London and the murder of Solomon Rosner as justification for a crackdown against Islam in the Netherlands. Ibrahim Fawaz had lived through a crackdown against Muslims before, one that had been conducted with a ruthlessness and a savagery that the Europeans, even in their worst nightmares, could scarcely imagine. The imam was only using the police investigation as a pretext to stir up trouble. But then that was what the imam did best. That was why the imam had been sent to Amsterdam in the first place.

A car overtook him. Ibrahim saw his shadow stretch on the pavement in front of him, then disappear as the car slid past. When it was gone, he found that he was in pitch-darkness. It seemed that three lamps near the end of the street were no longer burning. In the small park on the embankment of the canal, a man was seated alone on one of the benches. He had a pinched face, haunted dark eyes, and was as thin as Nile reed grass.
A heroin addict,
he thought. They were all over Amsterdam. They came from Europe and America to take advantage of Holland’s permissive drug laws, and the generous welfare benefits, and, once hooked, many never found the power or the will to leave again.

Ibrahim lowered his gaze to the pavement and rounded the corner. The sight that greeted him next was far more offensive to his Islamic sensibilities than that of a heroin addict sitting alone in a freezing park. It was also a sight he saw all too often in Amsterdam: two men in leather groping each other in the darkness against the side of a Volkswagen van. Ibrahim stopped suddenly, outraged by the shamelessness of the act he was witnessing, unsure of whether he should hurry past with his gaze averted or flee in the opposite direction.

He decided on the second course of action, but before he could move, the side door of the van slid open and a small troll-like figure reached out and seized him by the throat. Then the two men in leather suddenly lost all interest in each other and turned their passion on him. Someone clamped a hand over his mouth. Someone else squeezed the side of his neck in a way that made his entire body go limp. He heard the door slam shut and felt the van lurch forward. A voice in Arabic ordered him not to move or make a sound. After that, no one spoke. Ibrahim did not know who had taken him or where he was going. He was certain of only one thing: If he did not do exactly what his captors wanted, he would never see Amsterdam or his wife again.

He closed his eyes and began to pray. An image rose from the deepest well of his memory, the image of a bloody child suspended from the ceiling of a torture chamber.
Not again,
he prayed.
Dear Allah, please don’t let it happen again.

T
he landlords of Housekeeping referred to it as Site 22XB, but among the old hands it was known simply as Château Shamron. It stood one hundred yards from an isolated farm road, at the end of a rutted drive lined with bare plane trees. The roof was steeply pitched and, on that evening, was covered by a dusting of brittle snow. The shutters were missing several slats and drooped at a vaguely drunken angle. In the woodwork of the front doorjamb were four tiny perforations, evidence of a mezuzah removed a long time ago.

The party that arrived at the house that evening entered not by the front door but through the old servants’ entrance off the rear courtyard. They came in four vehicles—a Volkswagen van, two matching Renault sedans, and a rather flashy Audi A8—and had anyone inquired about the purpose of their visit, they would have spoken of a long-planned reunion of old friends. A cursory inspection of the house would have supported their story. The kitchen had been well stocked with food and liquor, and the hearth in the drawing room had been laid with seasoned firewood. A more careful check of the premises, however, would have revealed that the once formal dining room had been made ready for an interrogation and that the house contained several pieces of sophisticated communications equipment unavailable on any commercial market. Such an examination might also have revealed that the small limestone chamber in the basement had been turned into a holding cell—and that the cell was now occupied by an Egyptian man of late middle age who was blindfolded, shackled, and stripped to his underwear. Gabriel regarded him silently for a moment, then climbed the stairs to the pantry, where Yaakov was standing with Sarah at his side.

“How long has he been in there?” Gabriel asked.

“A little over an hour,” replied Yaakov.

“Any problems?”

Yaakov shook his head. “We got out of Amsterdam cleanly, and he behaved himself nicely during the ride.”

“Did you have to use drugs on him?”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“What about force?”

“I may have given him a couple love taps, but nothing he’ll ever remember.”

“Did anyone speak in front of him?”

“Just a few words in Arabic. Ibrahim did a bit of talking, though. He’s convinced he’s in the hands of the Americans.”

Good
, thought Gabriel. That was exactly what he wanted Ibrahim to think. He led Sarah into the drawing room, where Dina and Rimona were reading the Sword of Allah dossiers before a crackling fire, then slipped through a pair of double doors into the dining room. It was empty, except for the rectangular table and two high-backed chairs. Mordecai was balanced on one of the chairs, fitting a miniature transmitter into the cobwebbed chandelier.

“This one’s the backup.” He leaped down off the chair and wiped his dusty hands against the legs of his trousers. “The primary microphone is down here.” He tapped the tabletop. “Put Ibrahim in this chair. That way the mic won’t miss a thing he says.”

“What about the secure link?”

“It’s up and running,” Mordecai said. “I’ll feed the signal live to King Saul Boulevard and they’ll bounce it to Langley. Based on what we’re picking up from the Americans, you’re the hottest ticket in town tonight.”

Mordecai walked out of the room and closed the doors behind him. Sarah looked around at the blank walls. “Surely there’s a good story behind this place,” she said.

“Before the war, it was owned by a prominent Jewish family named Rosenthal,” Gabriel said.

“And when the war broke out?”

“It was confiscated by an SS officer, and the Rosenthal family was deported to Auschwitz. A daughter managed to survive and reclaim the property, but in the fifties she gave up on trying to stay here and emigrated to Israel. The German people weren’t terribly kind to their fellow countrymen who managed to survive the Holocaust.”

“And the house?”

“She never sold it. When Shamron found out she still owned it, he convinced her to let us have use of it. Shamron always had a way of tucking things away for a rainy day. Houses, passports, people. We used it as a safe house and staging point during the Wrath of God operation. Eli and I spent many long nights here—some good, some not so good.”

Sarah lowered herself into the chair that would soon be occupied by Ibrahim Fawaz and folded her hands on the table. “What’s going to happen here tonight?” she asked.

“That depends entirely on Ibrahim. If he cooperates and tells me the truth, then things will go very smoothly. If he doesn’t…” Gabriel shrugged. “Yaakov is one of Shabak’s most skilled interrogators. He knows how to talk to men who aren’t afraid of death. It’s possible things might get unpleasant.”

“How unpleasant?”

“Are you asking me whether we will torture him?”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“My goal tonight is to create an ally, Sarah, and one doesn’t create an ally with clubs and fists.”

“What if Ibrahim doesn’t want to be your ally?”

“Then he might soon find himself in a place where men aren’t shy about using extremely violent methods to extract information. But let us hope it doesn’t come to that—for all our sakes.”

“You don’t approve of torture?”

“I wish I could say it doesn’t work, but that’s not the case. Done properly, by trained professionals, placing physical and emotional stress on captured terrorists very often produces actionable intelligence that saves lives. But at what cost to the societies and security services that engage in it? A very high cost, unfortunately. It puts us in the same league as the Egyptians and the Jordanians and Saudis and every other brutal Arab secret police force that tortures its opponents. And ultimately it does harm to our cause because it turns believers into fanatics.”

“You condemn torture but have no qualms about killing?”

“No qualms?” He shook his head slowly. “Killing takes its toll, too, but I’m afraid killing is our only recourse. We have to kill the monsters before they kill us. And not with boots on the ground, as you Americans like to say, because that only gives the terrorists another moral victory when we invade their territory. The killing has to take place in the shadows, where no one can see it. We have to hunt them down ruthlessly. We have to terrorize
them.
” He looked at her again. “Welcome to our war, Sarah. You are now a true citizen of the night.”

“Thanks to you, I’ve been a citizen of the night for several months now.”

There was a knock at the door. It was Yaakov.

“I think he’s ready to talk.”

“You’re sure?”

Yaakov nodded.

“Give him ten more minutes,” Gabriel said. “Then bring him to me.”

They bore him carefully up the stairs and deposited him, still blindfolded and with his hands bound behind his back, in his designated seat. He made no protest, requested nothing, and revealed no sign of any fear. Indeed, he seemed to Gabriel like a martyr heroically waiting for the executioner’s ax to fall. It had been dark in the cellar; now, in the proper light, Gabriel could see his skin was covered in dark blotches. After allowing several minutes to elapse, he reached across the table and removed the blindfold. The Egyptian squinted in the sudden light, then opened his eyes slowly and glared malevolently at Gabriel across the divide.

“Where am I?”

“You are in a great deal of trouble.”

“Why have you kidnapped me?”

“No one has
kidnapped
you. You have been taken into custody.”

“By whom? For what reason?”

“By the Americans. And we both know the reason.”

“If I am in the hands of the Americans, then why are
you
here?”

“Because, obviously, I was the one who told them about you.”

“So much for your assurances about protecting me.”

“Those assurances were nullified the moment it became clear that you lied to me.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Really?”

“I told you everything I knew about the plot. If you and your British friends had acted more quickly, you might have been able to prevent it.” The Egyptian appraised him silently for a moment. “I enjoyed reading about your checkered past in the newspapers, Mr. Allon. I had no idea I was dealing with such an important man that night in Amsterdam.”

Gabriel placed a file on the table and slid it across the divide so that it came to rest in front of Ibrahim. The Egyptian looked down at it for a long moment, then lifted his gaze once more to Gabriel.

“Where did you get this?”

“Where do you think?”

He managed a superior smile. “The Americans, the Jews, and the Egyptian secret police: the unholy trinity. And you wonder why you are loathed by the Arabs.”

“Our time together is limited, Ibrahim. You can waste it delivering another one of your lectures, or you can use it wisely by telling me everything you know about the kidnapping of the American woman.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“You’re lying, Ibrahim.”

“I am telling you the
truth
!”

“You are a member of the Sword of Allah.”

“No, I
was
a member. I left the Sword when I left Egypt.”

“Yes, I remember. You came to Europe for a better life—isn’t that what you told me? But it isn’t true, is it? You were dispatched to Europe by your friend Sheikh Tayyib to establish an operational cell in Amsterdam. The al-Hijrah Mosque, the West Amsterdam Islamic Community Center: they’re both Sword of Allah fronts, aren’t they, Ibrahim?”

“If I am an active member of the Sword of Allah, then why was I working with your spy, Solomon Rosner? Why did I tell him about the plot to shoot down your jetliner? And why did I warn you about Samir al-Masri and his friends from the al-Hijrah Mosque?”

“All valid questions. And you have exactly thirty minutes to answer them to my satisfaction. Thirty minutes to tell me everything you know about the operation to kidnap Elizabeth Halton. Otherwise, I’ll be asked to leave and the Americans will take over. They’re angry right now, Ibrahim. And you know what happens when Americans get angry. They resort to methods that go against their nature.”

“You Israelis do far worse.”

Gabriel cast a desultory glance at his wristwatch. “You’re wasting time. But then, maybe that’s your plan. You think you can hold out until the deadline expires. Four days is a very long time to hold out, Ibrahim. It cannot be done. Start talking, Ibrahim. Confess.”

“I have nothing to confess.”

His words were spoken with little conviction. Gabriel pressed his advantage. “Tell me everything you know, Ibrahim, or the Americans will take over. And if the Americans don’t get the information they want from you using their methods, they’re going to put you on a plane to Egypt and let the SSI take over the questioning.” He looked at the burn marks on the Egyptian’s arms. “You know all about their methods, don’t you, Ibrahim?”

“The cigarettes were the kindest thing they did to me. Rest assured that nothing you say frightens me. I don’t believe there are any Americans—and I don’t believe anyone’s going to send me to Egypt to be interrogated. I am a citizen of the Netherlands. I have my rights.”

Gabriel leaned back in his chair and thumped the side of his fist twice against the double doors. A moment later Sarah was standing at his side and staring unabashedly at Ibrahim, who averted his gaze in shame and squirmed anxiously in his chair.

“Good evening, Mr. Fawaz. My name is Catherine Blanchard, and I am an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. One mile from here, there is a plane fueled and waiting to take you to Cairo. If you have any further questions, I’ll be right outside the door.”

Sarah left the room and closed the doors behind her. Ibrahim glared at Gabriel in anger.

“How dare you let that woman see me like this?”

“Next time you won’t doubt my word.”

The Egyptian looked down at the file. “What does it say about me?”

“It says you were one of the original members of the first Sword of Allah cell in Minya. It says you were a close associate of Sheikh Tayyib Abdul-Razzaq and his brother, Sheikh Abdullah. It says you organized a terrorist cell at the University of Minya and recruited a number of young students to the radical Islamist cause. It says you wanted to bring down the regime and replace it with an Islamic state.”

“Guilty on all counts,” said Ibrahim. “All but one very important count. There was indeed a Sword cell at the university, but it had nothing to do with terrorism. The Sword of Allah turned to terror only
after
Sadat’s assassination, not before.” He looked down at the file again. “What else does it say?”

“It says you were arrested the night of Sadat’s murder.”

“And?”

“That’s the last entry.”

“That’s hardly surprising. What happened after my arrest is not something they would want to put down on paper.” Ibrahim looked up from the file. “Would you like to know what happened to me that night? Would you like me to fill in the missing pages of that file you wave in front of me as though it were proof of my guilt?”

“You have thirty minutes to tell me the truth, Ibrahim. You may use them any way you wish.”

“I wish to tell you a story, my friend—the story of a man who lost everything because of his beliefs.”

“I’m listening.”

“May I have some coffee?”

“No.”

“Will you at least remove the handcuffs?”

“No.”

“My arms hurt terribly.”

“Too bad.”

He had been a professor once and spoke like one now. He started his account not with the story of a man but with the struggle of a generation, a generation that had been raised to believe in secular isms—Nasserism, Baathism, Communism, Pan-Arabism, Arab Socialism—only to learn, in June 1967, that all the isms were merely a mask for Arab weakness and decay.

“You were the ones who unleashed the storm,” he said. “The Palestinians had their Catastrophe in forty-eight. For us, it was sixty-seven—six days in June that shook the Arab world to its core. We had been told by Nasser and the secularists that we were mighty. Then you Jews proved in a matter of hours that we were nothing. We went in search of answers. Our search led us home again. Back to Islam.”