The Secret Servant (9 page)

But Samir only smiled again, not a mocking smile but the sublime grin of a man who had achieved his desire to die. Gabriel had brought him to death’s doorway and was only too happy to see him through to the other side. He placed the barrel of the Beretta to the terrorist’s face and was about to pull the trigger when he heard a voice behind him shouting: “Drop the gun and put your hands in the air.”

Gabriel released the Egyptian, then laid the Beretta on the ground and slowly raised his hands. His memory of what transpired next would be vague at best. He remembered being driven forward into the ground and could recall the sight of Samir’s dead eyes staring into this own. Then someone hit him in the back of the head, a heavy blow that seemed to split his skull in two. He felt a burst of excruciating pain and saw a flash of brilliant light. Then he saw a woman, a woman in a dark blue tracksuit, being led into a valley of ashes by murderers in black hoods.

The telephone call arrived in the Family Quarters on the second floor of the White House at 3:14
A.M
. The president snatched the receiver from the cradle after the first ring and brought it quickly to his ear. He immediately recognized the voice at the other end of the line: Cyrus Mansfield, his national security advisor.

“I’m afraid there’s been another attack in London, Mr. President.”

“How bad?”

Mansfield answered the question to the best of his ability. The president closed his eyes and whispered, “My God.”

“The British are doing everything they can to seal off London and prevent them from escaping,” Mansfield said. “But as you might expect, the situation is extremely chaotic.”

“Activate the Situation Room. I’ll be downstairs in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

The president hung up the phone and sat up in bed. When he switched on the bedside lamp, his wife stirred and looked at his face. She had seen the expression before.

“How bad?” she asked.

“London has been hit again.” He hesitated. “And Elizabeth Halton has been taken hostage.”

I
wouldn’t complain too much about a nasty bump on the head.”

Graham Seymour’s limousine lurched out of the forecourt of New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, and turned into Broadway. The MI5 man looked very tired. He had a right to. Bombs had exploded in the Underground at Marble Arch, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, and Charing Cross. Six American diplomats and security men had been slaughtered in Hyde Park and the daughter of the American ambassador, Elizabeth Halton, was missing and presumed kidnapped. And thus far the only person to be arrested was Gabriel Allon.

“They asked me to put my hands in the air and drop the gun,” said Gabriel. “I complied with their order.”

“Do try to see it from their point of view. You were about to shoot a man in the head and were surrounded by eight other bodies. You’re damned lucky they even gave you a
chance
to surrender. They would have been well within their rights to use lethal force. That’s what they’re trained to do when confronted by a man they believe might be a suicide bomber.”

“Wouldn’t that have been perfect. The one person who tried to prevent the attacks, shot dead by London police.” Greeted by Graham Seymour’s angry silence, Gabriel pressed his case. “You should have listened to me, Graham. You should have raised the threat level and rousted a few of your known terrorists. Maybe Elizabeth Halton and the rest of the Americans would have stayed in their embassy instead of going for a morning jog in Hyde Park.”

“And I told you to stay out of it.”

“Is that why you left me sitting in that holding cell for sixteen hours, Graham? Is that why you let them file charges against me? Is that why you let them take my fingerprints and my photograph?”

“Forgive me for not coming to your rescue sooner, Gabriel. I’ve been a little busy.”

Gabriel looked out at the wet streets of Westminster. They were abandoned, except for the uniformed Met officers standing watch at every other corner. Graham Seymour did have a point. London had just experienced its bloodiest single day since the Second World War. Gabriel could hardly complain about spending most of it inside New Scotland Yard.

“How many dead, Graham?”

“The toll is much higher than the attacks of July 2005,” Seymour said. “So far we’re at three hundred dead, with more than two thousand injured. But these bombings obviously had a second purpose—to create an atmosphere of chaos in the capital that allowed the kidnappers to slip away undetected. Unfortunately, it worked to perfection. Whoever planned this attack was bloody diabolical—and damned good.”

“What have you picked up about the identity and affiliation of the bombers?”

“They’re all second-generation British boys from Finsbury Park and Walthamstow in East London. All four are of Egyptian heritage, and all four were members of a small storefront mosque in Walthamstow called the al-Salaam Mosque.”

“The Mosque of Peace,” Gabriel said. “How appropriate.”

“The imam has disappeared and so have several other members of the flock. Based on what we know now, it appears local boys handled the bombing operation, while your boy Samir and his associates saw to the kidnapping.”

“Have you been able to trace the vans?”

“They were all purchased by companies owned or controlled by a man called Farouk al-Shahaki. He’s a London-born entrepreneur of Egyptian heritage with business interests across Britain and in the Middle East.”

“Where is he?”

“He boarded a flight for Pakistan last night. We’ve asked the Pakistani ISI to find him.”

“Good luck,” said Gabriel. “Were you able to follow them on street surveillance cameras as they left Hyde Park?”

“For a time,” Seymour said. “Then they turned into an alley with no camera coverage and we lost them. We found the vans in a garage in Maida Vale that had been rented by one of the suicide bombers.”

“Any claim of responsibility?”

“Too many to keep track of at the moment. Clearly it has all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack. I suppose we’ll learn more when the kidnappers make their demands.”

“It would be better for everyone if you found Elizabeth Halton
before
her captors start making demands.”

“We’re operating under the assumption she’s still somewhere inside the British mainland. We’ve got men at every airport, train station, and ferry terminal in the country. The Coastguard is attempting to seal our shoreline, no easy undertaking since it measures nearly eight thousand miles in length. SO13 are questioning informants and those suspected of terrorist sympathies, along with known associates of the suicide bombers. They’re also conducting house-to-house searches in predominantly Muslim districts of the city. Our Muslim countrymen are already getting angry. If we’re not careful, things could get out of hand very quickly.” Seymour looked at Gabriel. “Too bad you didn’t manage to wound one or two of those terrorists you killed in Hyde Park. We need information badly.”

“I may have,” Gabriel said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I fired several shots into the back of one of those vans. Keep an eye out for Arabs coming into hospital trauma centers with unexplained bullet wounds.”

The limousine turned into Millbank and headed along the Thames toward Lambeth Bridge. Seymour’s mobile phone chirped. He brought it to his ear, murmured a few words, then rang off. “The Americans,” he said by way of explanation. “As you might expect, they’re on war footing. They’ve put the embassy and all its personnel and dependents on lockdown status. They’ve also issued a terrorist travel alert for the United Kingdom, which hasn’t exactly gone over well with Downing Street or the Foreign Office, since it puts us on a par with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. Two hundred investigators from CIA, FBI, and the departments of State and Justice touched down at Heathrow earlier this evening and set up shop at Grosvenor Square. They have an open line to the State Department Task Force in Washington and another one to COBRA, the special committee chaired by the Home Secretary that oversees the British government response to a national emergency such as this.”

“Are they behaving themselves?”

Seymour exhaled heavily. “As well as can be expected, given the circumstances. For now, this is essentially a matter for the British police, which means there’s little for them to do except sit on the sidelines and pressure us to look harder and faster. They’ve made it clear that despite the appalling loss of British life, our first priority must be finding Elizabeth Halton. They’ve
also
made clear that they have no intention of negotiating for her release.”

“If they do negotiate, no American diplomat anywhere in the world will ever be safe again,” Gabriel said. “It’s a difficult lesson we learned a long time ago.”

“We prefer a more subtle interpretation of that principle. If a good-faith negotiation can bring that woman back alive, then I don’t see the harm in it.”

“I suppose that depends entirely on what you have to give up to get her back.”

Gabriel looked out the window at the Thames.
Eight thousand miles of coastline, countless marinas and private airfields…
He knew from personal experience that a terrorist with enough intelligence and money could move a hostage almost at will. A year earlier, his wife had been kidnapped from her bedroom in an exclusive British psychiatric hospital. She was on a boat bound for France before anyone even knew she was missing.

“It seems you and the Americans have everything in hand,” he said. “Which means there’s nothing left for me to do but leave London and pretend I was never here.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, Gabriel.”

“Which part?”

“Both.”

Seymour removed a copy of that morning’s
Times
from his briefcase and handed it to Gabriel. The banner headline read:
TERROR AND KIDNAPPING IN LONDON
. But it was the headline at the bottom of the page that seized Gabriel’s attention:
ISRAEL INTELLIGENCE OFFICER INVOLVED IN AMBUSH IN HYDE PARK
. Beneath the headline was a grainy image of Gabriel pointing his Beretta into the face of Samir al-Masri. Inside was a second photograph: the mug shot taken of him in New Scotland Yard in the hours after the attack.

“The photograph of you in the park was taken by a passerby with a mobile phone camera. Poor quality, but quite dramatic. Congratulations, Gabriel. I suppose you now have another group of terrorists that would like your head on a platter.”

Gabriel switched on his reading lamp and scanned the article. It contained his real name, along with a largely accurate depiction of his professional exploits.

“Is your service responsible for this?”

“Trust me, Gabriel, I have enough headaches at the moment. I don’t need one more. The sourcing is vague, but obviously the leak must have come from someone at the Met. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a senior officer attempting to curry favor with an important newspaper. Regardless of how it happened, it does mean that you’re not going to be allowed to leave the country until all the questions of your involvement in this affair are sorted out and aired in a proper forum.”

“The details of my involvement in this affair are quite clear, Graham. I came to London to warn you that a cell of terrorists from Amsterdam was probably in England preparing for a major attack. You chose to ignore that warning. Would you like me to air that in front of a proper forum?”

Seymour appeared to give the question serious thought before responding. “You are charged with several serious offenses, including entering Britain on a false passport, illegal possession of a firearm, and the unlawful discharge of that firearm in a public place.”

“I discharged my illegal firearm into three terrorist murderers.”

“It doesn’t matter. You have to remain in Britain until we get this sorted out. To release you now would be to invite wailing and gnashing of teeth from all quarters.” Seymour gave a weak smile. “Don’t worry, Gabriel. We’ve arranged comfortable quarters for you. You’re lucky. You get to leave London. The rest of us have to stay here and live with the aftermath of this attack.”

“Does my service know I’m in custody?”

“They will shortly. We’ve just notified the legal liaison officer at your embassy, as well as your declared chief of station.”

The car turned into the driveway of Thames House, MI5’s imposing riverfront headquarters. Vauxhall Cross, the headquarters of MI6, the foreign intelligence service, stood on the opposite side of the river overlooking the Albert Embankment.

“My driver will run you out to one of our safe houses,” Seymour said. “Don’t even consider attempting to escape. He’s well armed and an excellent shot.”

“Where would I go, Graham? I don’t have a passport.”

“I’m sure you could come up with one.”

Seymour reached for the door but stopped himself. “Is there anything else you can tell us, Gabriel? Anything that might help us locate Elizabeth Halton?”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Everything except the name of your source in Amsterdam.”

“I promised to protect him, Graham. You remember what it means to protect a source.”

“At times like these, sources aren’t for protecting. They’re to be used and burned.”

“I’d rather not torch this one, Graham. He risked his life by coming to us.”

“Have you at least considered the possibility that he’s somehow linked to this affair?”

“He’s not.”

“I hope you’re right,” Seymour said. “It’s been my experience that sources rarely tell the whole truth. In fact, more times than not, they lie. That’s what sources do. That’s why they’re sources in the first place.”

Gabriel’s temporary home turned out to be a charming limestone cottage, surrounded by two hundred acres of private land, in the rolling hills of the Cotswolds. The manager of the facility, a bluff, ginger-haired MI5 veteran called Spencer, briefed Gabriel on the rules of his stay the following morning over a leisurely meal in the light-filled breakfast room. Gabriel would be granted access to television, radio, and the London papers, though, of course, no telephones. All the rooms of the main cottage were available for his use, though he was to keep interaction with the household staff to a bare minimum. He could walk the grounds alone, but if he wished to go into the village, it would be necessary to arrange an escort. All his movements would be monitored and recorded. Any attempt to escape would end in failure and result in the revocation of all privileges.

Gabriel occupied his time by carefully monitoring the progress of the British investigation. He rose early each morning and read the stack of London newspapers that awaited him in the breakfast room with his tea and toast. Then he would retire to the library and search the British and American television news channels for reliable information about the identity of the perpetrators and the fate of Elizabeth Halton. Seventy-two hours after her abduction there was still no authenticated claim of responsibility and no demands from her captors. Ambassador Halton made a stoic appeal for his daughter’s release, as did the American president and the British prime minister. As the days ground slowly on, the television experts began to speculate that the ambassador’s daughter had already been murdered by her captors or was somehow killed in the initial attack. Gabriel regarded the speculation as premature and almost certainly incorrect. He had seen the elaborate operation in action. Eventually, he knew, the kidnappers would surface and make their demands.

On the afternoon of his fourth day in captivity, he arranged for a ride into the village and spent an hour roaming the shops of the high street. He bought a wool sweater for Chiara and a handsome oak walking stick for Shamron. When he returned to the cottage, he found Spencer waiting for him in the gravel forecourt, waving a single sheet of paper as though it held news of great import from a distant corner of the realm. It did. The British had agreed to drop all charges against Gabriel in exchange for his testimony at the official inquiry into the attacks. A seat was being held for him on that evening’s flight to Tel Aviv and arrangements had been made for private and expedited boarding. A car would collect him in an hour. The car, however, turned out to be a convoy. The vehicles were of American manufacture, as was the distinguished-looking man, clothed in diplomatic gray, seated in the back of the limousine. “Good afternoon, Mr. Allon,” said Ambassador Robert Halton. “Let me give you a lift to the airport. I’d like a word.”