The Secret Servant (30 page)

H
arwich, ancient port of fifteen thousand souls at the confluence of the rivers Stour and Orwell, lay darkened and slumbering beneath a steady onslaught of rain. The waters of Ramsey Creek were empty of commercial craft, and only a handful of cars had gathered at the ferry terminal for the morning’s first passage to the Continent. The medieval town center was tightly shuttered and abandoned to the gulls.

It was into this setting that six field operatives from the foreign intelligence service of the State of Israel arrived at precisely 4:45
A.M
. on Christmas morning. By five o’clock they had confirmed that the warehouse in West Dock Road was indeed occupied, and by 5:15 they had managed to place a small wireless camera in the corner of a broken window at the back. They were now carefully dispersed among the surrounding streets. Yaakov had taken up a post hundred yards from the warehouse in the Station Road. Yossi was encamped in the Refinery Road. Oded and Mordecai had hastily concealed the surveillance van beneath an overpass of the A120. Mikhail and Chiara, who had spent that night atop the BMW bike, were sheltering in the back of the van, staring at the screen of the video receiver. The image there was poorly framed and prone to static. Even so, they could see clearly what was taking place inside the warehouse. Four men dressed in black were loading large drums of liquid into the back of a Vauxhall panel van, under the supervision of a slender Egyptian-looking man in a burgundy V-necked sweater.

At 5:40, the five men slipped out of camera range. Then, ten minutes later, they returned with the final component of their weapon of mass murder—a man in a blue-and-white tracksuit, bound and trussed in packing tape, his face bloodied and swollen.

“Please tell me he’s alive, Mikhail.”

“He’s alive, Chiara.”

“How can you tell?”

“They wouldn’t be putting him in with the bomb if he was dead.”

But the best evidence he was alive, Mikhail thought darkly, was his head. If Gabriel were dead, it wouldn’t still be attached to his shoulders. He didn’t share this observation with Chiara. She’d been through enough that night already.

At 5:55, the four men in black stripped down to their street clothes. Three climbed into a Mercedes cargo truck and departed. The fourth climbed behind the wheel of the Vauxhall panel van, while the Egyptian-looking man with the burgundy sweater joined Gabriel in the back. At precisely six
A.M
., the van turned into West Dock Street and made its way toward the entrance of the A120. Four vehicles followed carefully after it. Yaakov took the first shift at the point, while Chiara and Mikhail brought up the rear on the BMW bike. Mikhail sat on the back. The gunner’s seat.

Gabriel opened one eye, then, slowly, the other. He tried to move his limbs but could not. The crown of his head was pressing against something metallic. He was able to twist his neck just enough to see that the object was a steel drum. There were other drums, five more in fact, linked by a network of wires leading to a detonator switch on the console next to the driver. Ishaq was seated opposite Gabriel. His legs were crossed and a gun lay in his lap. He was smiling, as though proud of the clever way in which he had unveiled the method of Gabriel’s pending execution.

“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked.

“Paradise.”

“Does your driver know the way, or is he just following his nose?”

“He knows,” said Ishaq. “He’s been preparing for this ride for a very long time.”

Gabriel twisted his head around and looked at him. He was several years younger than Ishaq, clean shaven, and had both hands on the wheel like a novice out for his first drive alone.

“I want to sit up,” Gabriel said.

“It’s probably better if you stay down. If you sit up, it’s going to hurt.”

“I don’t care,” Gabriel said.

“Suit yourself.”

He took hold of Gabriel’s shoulders and propped him carelessly against the passenger-side wall of the cargo hold. Ishaq was right. It
did
hurt to sit up. In fact, it hurt so damned much he nearly fainted. But at least now he could see out through a portion of the windshield. It was still dark out, but one side of the sky was gradually turning a deep, luminous blue—the first light, Gabriel reckoned, of Christmas morning. Judging from the modest speed they were making, and the absence of any other traffic noise, they were traveling on a B-road. He glimpsed a road sign as it flashed past:
SHRUB END
3.
Shrub End?
Where in God’s name was Shrub End?

He closed his eyes from the pain and heard an engine note not their own. It was high and tight, the sound of a high-performance motorcycle approaching from behind at considerable speed. He opened his eyes and watched as it flashed past in a cyclone of road spray. Then he looked at Ishaq again and for a second time asked where they were going. This time Ishaq only smiled. It was a martyr’s smile. Gabriel closed his eyes and thought of the motorcycle.
Go for the kill shot
, he thought. But then Mikhail knew no other kind.

Uzi Navot lowered the handset of the radio and looked at Shamron.

“Mikhail says they’re still in the same position that they were when they left the warehouse. One driving, one in the back with Gabriel. He says he can get the driver cleanly, but there’s no way he can get them both.”

“You have to make them stop, Uzi—someplace where an explosion won’t take innocent life.”

“And if they won’t stop?”

“Have a backup plan ready.”…

Gabriel tried not to think about them. He tried not to wonder how they had tracked him down, how long they had been watching and following, or how they planned to extract him. As far as Gabriel was concerned, they did not exist. They were nonpersons. Ghosts. Lies. He thought of anything else. The pain of his broken ribs. The burning numbness of his limbs. Shamron, leaning on his olive-wood cane.
We move like shadows, strike like lightning, and then we vanish into thin air
. Strike soon, Gabriel thought, because he feared he couldn’t keep his balance atop the bridge over Jahannam much longer.

He made a clock in his head and watched the second hand go round. He listened for other vehicles and read the road signs as they flashed past:
HECKFORDBRIDGE
…
BIRCH
…
SMYTH’S GREEN
…
TIP
-
TREE
…
GREAT BRAXTED
…Even Gabriel, Office-trained expert in European geography, could not place their whereabouts. Finally, he saw a sign for Chelmsford and realized they were heading toward London from the northeast, along the route of the ancient Roman road. As they were approaching a village called Langford, the driver slowed suddenly. Ishaq seized hold of his pistol and brought it up near his chest in a defensive position. Then he looked quickly at the driver.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured in Arabic.

“There’s an accident ahead. They’re waving for me to stop.”

“Police?”

“No, just the drivers.”

“Don’t stop.”

“It’s blocking the road.”

“Go around,” snapped Ishaq.

The driver turned the wheel hard to the left. The van heeled a few degrees to port as it tipped onto the shoulder and the machine-gun thumping of the tires over the rumble strips sent shock waves of pain through Gabriel’s body. As they shot past the wreck, he saw a tall balding man in his forties waving his arms plaintively and pleading for the van to stop. A man with pockmarked cheeks was standing next to him, gazing at his smashed headlight as though trying to concoct a suitable story for his wife. Gabriel looked at Ishaq as the van lurched back onto the road and sped on toward London.

“It’s Christmas, Ishaq. What kind of person leaves two motorists stranded on the road on Christmas morning?”

Ishaq responded by shoving Gabriel hard to the floor. Gabriel’s view was now limited to the soles of Ishaq’s shoes—and the base of the six barrels filled with explosives—and the wiring leading to the detonator switch on the console. Ishaq, in his rush to reach London on schedule, had inadvertently thwarted the first rescue attempt. The second, Gabriel knew, would involve no subterfuge. He closed his eyes and listened for the sound of the motorcycle.

Navot ordered Yossi and Yaakov back into the smashed cars and looked one final time at Shamron for guidance. “I’m afraid this has gone on long enough,” Shamron said. “Put them down in a field where no one else gets hurt. And get him out in one piece.”

Ishaq was reading quietly from a copy of the Quran when Gabriel heard the drone of the approaching bike. He focused his gaze on the gun, which lay in Ishaq’s lap, and coiled his bound legs for a single strike. The engine note rose steadily in volume for several more seconds, then went suddenly silent. Ishaq looked up from his Quran and peered out the windshield. When the bike didn’t appear, he looked at Gabriel in alarm, as though he had a premonition of what would come next. As he grabbed for the gun, there was an explosion of glass and blood in the front seat. The driver, hit several times in the head, slumped to the left and with a spasm of his lifeless hand took the wheel with him. Ishaq tried to level the gun at Gabriel as the van hurtled from the roadway, but Gabriel lifted his bound legs and kicked the weapon from Ishaq’s grasp. Ishaq made one last desperate lunge for it. And then the van began to roll.

H
e came to rest in wet earth, blinded with pain, struggling for breath. A woman was shouting into his face and pulling at the packing tape that bound him. Her voice was muffled by the helmet and her face invisible behind the dark visor. “Are you all right, Gabriel?” she was saying. “Can you hear me? Answer me, Gabriel! Can you
hear
me? Damn you, Gabriel! You promised me you wouldn’t die!
Don’t die!
”

T
here had been a fine old hedgerow along the side of the road. They had burst through it, like the tip of a pencil through tissue paper, and plunged into a farmer’s field. The van had come to rest on its roof and its contents were now strewn over the muddy ground like children’s toys on the floor of a nursery. Not fifty yards away from the van’s final resting spot, a gathering of fat pheasant were pulling at the earth as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. At the edge of the field, lights were coming on in a limestone cottage, the first moments of a Christmas morning the occupants would not soon forget.

“Where’s Ishaq?” asked Gabriel as Chiara cut away the last of the packing tape.

“Inside the van.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes.”

“Is he conscious?”

“Barely,” she said. “You were thrown from the van early. He wasn’t so lucky.”

“Put me on my feet.”

“Just stay down, Gabriel. You’re hurt badly.”

“Do what I say, Chiara. Put me on my feet.”

Gabriel groaned in pain as she lifted him upright. He took a step forward and staggered. Chiara seized hold of his arm and kept him from falling.

“Lie down, Gabriel. Wait for the ambulance.”

“No ambulances. Help me walk.”

Mikhail came over at an awkward trot, gun still in his hand, and together with Chiara helped Gabriel slowly toward the van. The driver hung upside down from his seat belt, blood flowing freely from his burst skull. Ishaq lay in the back, bleeding from his nose and mouth, left leg snapped above the knee like a broken matchstick. Gabriel looked at Mikhail.

“Pull him out by the leg,” he said in Hebrew. “The
broken
leg.”

“Don’t do this,” Chiara said.

“Walk away.” Gabriel looked at Mikhail. “Do what I tell you or I’ll do it myself.”

Mikhail ducked into the van through the open cargo doors and seized hold of the shattered leg. A moment later Ishaq lay writhing on the ground at Gabriel’s feet. Chiara, unable to bear the sight, walked away across the field. Gabriel looked down at Ishaq and asked, “Where’s my girl?”

“She’s already dead,” Ishaq spat through the blood.

Gabriel held out his hand to Mikhail. “Give me your gun.”

Mikhail handed it over. Gabriel pointed it toward the broken leg and fired once. Ishaq’s screams echoed over the flat landscape and his fingers clawed at the sodden earth. The pheasants took flight and circled above Gabriel’s head.

“Where’s my girl?” Gabriel repeated calmly.

“She’s dead!”

Another shot. Another scream of agony.

“Where’s my girl, Ishaq?”

“She’s already—”

Pop
.

“Where’s my girl, Ishaq?”

“Allahu Akbar!”

Pop
.

“Where’s Elizabeth?”

“Allahu Akbar!”

Pop. Pop.

“Tell me where she is, Ishaq.”

He leveled the gun and prepared to fire again. This time a hand went up, and Ishaq, between cries of pain, began hurling information at Gabriel like stones. Number 17 Ambler Road. Two martyrs. Westminster Abbey. Ten o’clock. God is Great.