Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 18

The one place where no members of the team were present was Dilbeek. Though scarcely a mile from the center of Brussels, it was a decidedly rural suburb ringed by small farms. "In other words," declared Eli Lavon, who reconnoitered the drop site on the morning after Nabil Awad's interrogation, "it's a spy's nightmare." A fixed observation point was out of the question. Nor was it possible to surveil the target from a parked car or a cafe. Parking was not permitted on that stretch of the Kerselaarstraat, and the only cafes were in the center of the village.

The solution was to conceal a miniature camera in the patch of overgrown weeds on the opposite side of the road. Mordecai monitored its heavily encrypted transmission from a hotel room in central Brussels and routed the signal onto a secure network, which allowed the other members of the team to watch it, too. It was soon appointment viewing, a ratings bonanza. In London, Tel Aviv, Amman, and Paris, highly trained and motivated professional intelligence officers stood motionless before computer screens, staring at a tangle of gorse at the base of a concrete power pole. Occasionally, a vehicle would pa.s.s, or a cyclist, or a pensioner from the village out for a morning const.i.tutional, but for the most part the image appeared to be a still photograph rather than a live video feed. Gabriel monitored it from the makes.h.i.+ft op center at Chteau Treville. He thought it the most unsightly thing he had ever produced. He referred to it as Can by a Pole and cursed himself inwardly for having chosen the Dilbeek drop site over the other three options. Not that they were any better. Clearly, Jalal Na.s.ser had not selected the sites with aesthetics in mind.

The wait was not without its lighter moments. There was the Belgian shepherd, a colossal wolflike creature, which shat in the gorse bush daily. And the metal-detecting pensioner who unearthed the can and, after a careful inspection, dropped it where he had found it. And the biblical thunderstorm, four hours in duration, that threatened to wash away the can and its contents, not to mention the village itself. Gabriel ordered Mordecai to check on the condition of the flash drive, but Mordecai convinced him it wasn't necessary. He had placed it inside two watertight ziplock plastic baggies, Nabil Awad's usual technique. Besides, Mordecai argued, a check was far too risky. There was always the possibility that the courier might arrive at the very moment of the inspection. There was also the possibility, he added, that they were not the only ones watching the drop site.

The target of this undertaking, Jalal Na.s.ser, Saladin's director of European operations, provided no clue as to his intentions. By then, it was early summer, and Jalal had been freed from his backbreaking course load at King's College-a single seminar having something to do with the impact of Western imperialism on the economies of the Arab world-which left him free to pursue jihad and terrorism to his heart's content. By all outward appearances, however, he was a man of taxpayer-financed leisure. He dawdled over his morning coffee at his favorite cafe on the Bethnal Green Road, he shopped in Oxford Street, he visited the National Gallery to view forbidden art, he watched an American action film at a theater in Leicester Square. He even took in a musical-Jersey Boys, of all things-which left the London teams wondering whether he planned to bomb the production. They saw no evidence that he was under British surveillance, but in Orwellian London looks could be deceiving. MI5 didn't have to rely solely on watchers to surveil suspected terrorists. The eyes of CCTV never blinked.

His bachelor flat in Chilton Street had been entered, searched, and compromised in every conceivable way. They watched him eat, they watched him sleep, they watched him pray, and they peered quietly over his shoulder with the silence of curious children while he toiled late into the night at his computer. He had not one laptop but two, one that was connected to the Internet and an identical model with no links to the cyber universe whatsoever, or so he believed. If he was communicating with elements of Saladin's network, it was not readily apparent. Jalal Na.s.ser might have been a committed jihadist terrorist, but online he was a model resident of Great Britain and a loyal subject of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

But was he aware of the flash drive that lay at the base of a power pole in a pastoral suburb of Brussels called Dilbeek? And did he know that the man who had supposedly placed it there was now in Jordan tending to a gravely ill father? And did he find the confluence of events-the dead drop and the sudden travel of a trusted lieutenant-a bit too coincidental for comfort? Gabriel was certain it was so. And the proof, he declared, was the failure of the courier to clean out the drop site. Gabriel's mood darkened with each pa.s.sing hour. He stalked the many rooms of Chteau Treville, he walked the footpaths of the gardens, he scoured the watch reports. Mainly, he stared at a computer screen, at an image of a concrete power pole rising from a tangle of gorse bush, quite possibly the most hideous image in the history of a proud service.

Late in the afternoon of the third day, the deluge that had flooded Dilbeek laid siege to the banlieues north of Paris. Eli Lavon had been caught on the streets of Aubervilliers, and when he returned to Chteau Treville he might have been mistaken for a lunatic who had decided to take a swim fully clothed. Gabriel was standing before his computer as though he had been bronzed. His green eyes, however, were burning brightly.

"Well?" asked Lavon.

Gabriel reached down, tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and clicked on the play icon on the screen. A few seconds later a motorcyclist flashed across it, right to left, in a black blur.

"Do you know how many motorcyclists have pa.s.sed by that spot today?" asked Lavon.

"Thirty-eight," answered Gabriel. "But only one did this."

He replayed the video in slow motion and then clicked on the pause icon. At the instant the image froze, the visor of the motorcyclist's helmet was pointed directly at the base of the power pole.

"Maybe he was distracted by something," said Lavon.

"Like what?"

"A beer can with a flash drive inside it."

Gabriel smiled for the first time in three days. He tapped a few keys on the computer, and the live image reappeared on the screen. Can by a Pole, he thought. It was suddenly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

They saw him for a second time at seven that evening and again at half past eight, as dusk was darkening the image like a painting being slowly devoured by surface grime and yellowed varnish. On both occasions he swept across the screen from left to right. And both times, upon slow-motion reexamination, his head turned almost imperceptibly toward the gorse bush at the base of the concrete power pole. When he returned for a third time it was long past dark, and the image was black as pitch. This time, he stopped and killed the bike's lights. Mordecai switched the camera from optical to infrared, and a moment later Gabriel and Eli Lavon watched as a yellow-and-red man-shaped blob slipped quickly in and out of the gorse at the edge of the Kerselaarstraat.

The USB flash drive was identical to the model used by Nabil Awad for previous communications, with one critical additional feature: its printed circuit board had been fitted with a tracking device that allowed the team to monitor its movements. From Dilbeek it moved to the city center of Brussels, where it spent a restful evening in a rather good hotel. Then, in the morning, it boarded the 8:52 Eurostar at Brussels Midi, and by ten o'clock it was moving along a platform at St. Pancras International in London. Yaakov Rossman managed to snap a photo of the courier as he crossed the arrivals hall. Later, they would ident.i.ty him as an Egyptian national who lived off the Edgware Road and worked as a production a.s.sistant for Al Jazeera television.

The flash drive made the journey to East London on foot and at noon changed hands with admirable discretion on the pavements of Brick Lane. A few minutes later, in a bachelor flat in Chilton Street, it was inserted into a computer with no connection to the Internet, or so believed its owner. At which point a new wait commenced, the wait for Jalal Na.s.ser, Saladin's man in Europe, to come to Paris to meet his new girl.

28.

PARIS.

NATALIE TOOK CONSCIOUS NOTE OF him for the first time on Sat.u.r.day, at half past two o'clock, as she was crossing the Luxembourg Gardens. At that instant she realized she had seen him on several prior occasions, including the previous afternoon, at the cafe across the street from her flat in Aubervilliers. Shaded by a Pernod umbrella, he had nipped at a gla.s.s of white wine, feigned absorption in a worn paperback, and stared at her without reservation. She had mistaken his attentions for l.u.s.t and had left the cafe earlier than intended. In retrospect, she supposed her actions had made a positive impression.

But it was not until that perfect sun-dappled Sat.u.r.day that Natalie was certain the man was following her. She had intended to take the entire day off from work, but a pandemic of strep throat in the cites had compelled her to spend the morning at the clinic. She had left at noon and ridden an RER into the city center. And while pretending to window-shop in the rue Vavin she had seen him on the opposite side of the street, pretending to do the same. A few minutes later, on the footpaths of the Luxembourg Gardens, she had employed another one of the techniques she had learned at the farm in Nahalal-a sudden stop, a turn, a hasty retracing of her steps. And there he was again. She walked past him with her eyes averted. Even so, she could feel the weight of his gaze upon her face. A few paces behind him, dressed like an aging revolutionary poet, was the blurry-faced watcher from the Office, and behind him were two French surveillance men. Natalie returned quickly to the rue Vavin and entered a boutique she had visited a few minutes earlier. Instantly, her phone rang.

"Have you forgotten that we're having coffee today?"

Natalie recognized the voice. "Of course not," she answered quickly. "I'm just running a few minutes late. Where are you?"

"Cafe de Flore. It's on-"

"I know where it is," she interrupted with a flash of French superiority. "I'm on my way."

The connection went dead. Natalie dropped the phone into her bag and went into the street. Her pursuer was not there, but on the opposite pavement was one of the French surveillance men. He followed her through the Luxembourg Quarter to the boulevard Saint-Germain, where Dina Sarid was waving to her from a sidewalk table of one of Paris's most famous coffeehouses. She was brightly veiled and wearing a pair of large movie starlet sungla.s.ses.

"Even with that getup," said Natalie softly as she kissed Dina's cheek, "you still look like an Ashken.a.z.i Jew in a hijab."

"The matre d' doesn't agree. I was lucky to get a table."

Natalie laid a napkin across her lap. "I think I'm being followed."

"You are."

"When were you going to tell me?"

Dina only smiled.

"Is he the one we want?"

"Absolutely."

"How do you want me to play it?"

"Hard to get. And remember," added Dina, "no kissing on the first date."

Natalie opened her menu and sighed. "I need a drink."

29.

AUBERVILLIERS, FRANCE.

LEILA? IS THAT REALLY YOU? It's Jalal. Jalal Na.s.ser from London. Remember me? We met a few weeks ago. May I join you? I was just going to have a coffee myself."

He blurted all this in cla.s.sical Jordanian Arabic while hovering over Natalie's usual table at the cafe opposite her apartment. It was late the following morning, a Sunday, the air cool and soft, the sun adrift in a cloudless sky. The traffic in the street was light; consequently, Natalie had seen him walking along the pavement from a long way off. Pa.s.sing her table, he had stopped abruptly-as Natalie had stopped on the footpaths of the Luxembourg Gardens-and spun around as though his shoulder had been tapped. He approached her slowly and established himself so that the sun was at his back and his long shadow fell upon Natalie's open newspaper. Looking up, she shaded her eyes and regarded him coolly, as if for the first time. His hair was tightly curled and neatly styled, his jawline was square and strong, his smile was restrained but warm. Women found him attractive, and he knew it.

"You're blocking the light," she said.

He grasped the back of an empty chair. "May I?"

Before Natalie could object, he pulled the chair away from the table and settled himself proprietarily into it. And there it was, she thought. All the preparation, all the training-and now he sat before her, the one they wanted, the one who would place her in the hands of Saladin. All at once she realized her heart was tolling like an iron bell. Her discomfort must have been apparent, because he placed a hand on the sleeve of her modest silk blouse. Met by her reproachful glare, he hastily removed it.

"Forgive me. I don't want you to be nervous."

But she wasn't nervous, she told herself. And why should she be? She was in her usual cafe across the street from her apartment. She was a respected member of the community, a healer who cared for the residents of the cites and spoke to them in their native language, though with a distinct Palestinian accent. She was Dr. Leila Hadawi, graduate of the Universite Paris-Sud, fully accredited and licensed to practice medicine by the government of France. She was Leila from Sumayriyya, Leila who loved Ziad. And the handsome creature who had just intruded on her Sunday-morning coffee, who had dared to touch the hem of her sleeve, was of no consequence.

"I'm sorry," she said, folding her newspaper absently, "but I didn't catch your name."

"Jalal," he repeated. "Jalal Na.s.ser."

"Jalal from London?"

"Yes."

"And you say we've met before?"

"Briefly."

"That would explain why I don't remember you."

"It might."

"And where exactly did we meet?"

"It was in the Place de la Republique, two months ago. Or maybe it was three. There was a demonstration against-"

"I remember it." She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "But I don't remember you."

"We spoke afterward. I told you that I admired your pa.s.sion and commitment to the issue of Palestine. I said I wanted to discuss it with you further. I wrote down my contact information on the back of a leaflet and gave it to you."

"If you say so." Feigning boredom, she gazed into the street. "Do you use this tired approach on all the women you see sitting alone in cafes?"

"Are you accusing me of making this entire thing up?"

"I might be."

"How did I know you were at the demonstration in the Place de la Republique if I wasn't there?"

"I haven't figured that out yet."

"I know you were there," he said, "because I was there, too."

"So you say."

He flagged down the waiter and ordered a cafe creme. Natalie turned her head and smiled.

"What's so funny?"

"Your French is atrocious."

"I live in London."

"We've established that."

"I'm a student at King's College," he explained.

"Aren't you a bit old to still be a student?"

"My father tells me the same thing."

"Your father sounds like a wise man. Does he live in London, too?"

"Amman." He fell silent as the waiter placed a coffee before him. Then, casually, he asked, "Your mother is from Jordan, is she not?"

This time, the silence was Leila's. It was the silence of suspicion, the silence of an exile. "How do you know my mother is from Jordan?" she asked at last.

"You told me."

"When?"

"After the demonstration, of course. You told me your mother's family lived in Nablus. You said they fled to Jordan and were forced to live in the refugee camp at Zarqa. I know this camp, by the way. I have many friends from this camp. I used to pray in the mosque there. Do you know the mosque in Zarqa camp?"

"Are you referring to the al-Falah Mosque?"

"Yes, that's the one."

"I know it well," she said. "But I'm quite certain I never mentioned any of this to you."

"How could I know about your mother if you didn't tell me?"

Again, she was silent.

"You also told me about your father."

"Not possible."