Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 38

KEY BRIDGE MARRIOTT.

THERE WAS A MOMENT'S CONFUSION regarding who would wear which suicide vest. It seemed peculiar to Natalie-the vests appeared identical in every way-but Safia was insistent. She wanted Natalie to wear the vest with the small st.i.tch of red thread along the inside of the zipper. Natalie accepted it without argument and carried it into the bathroom, warily, as though it were a cup br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with scalding liquid. She had treated the victims of weapons like these, the poor souls like Dina Sarid whose limbs and vital organs had been shredded by nails and ball bearings or ravaged by the unseen destructive power of the blast wave. And she had heard the macabre stories about the damage done to those who had been seduced into strapping bombs to their bodies. Ayelet Malkin, her friend from Hada.s.sah Medical Center, had been sitting in her apartment one afternoon in Jerusalem when the head of a suicide bomber landed like a fallen coconut on her balcony. The thing had lain there for more than an hour, glaring at Ayelet reproachfully, until finally a policewoman zipped it into a plastic evidence bag and carted it off.

Natalie sniffed the explosive; it smelled of marzipan. She held the detonator lightly in her right hand and then threaded her arm carefully through the sleeve of the red Tahari jacket. The left arm was even more of a challenge. She didn't dare use her right hand for fear of accidentally hitting the detonator b.u.t.ton and blowing herself and a portion of the eighth floor to bits. Next she fastened the jacket's five decorative b.u.t.tons using only her left hand, smoothed the front, and straightened the shoulders. Examining her appearance in the mirror, she thought Safia had chosen well. The cut of the jacket concealed the bomb perfectly. Even Natalie, whose back was aching beneath the weight of the ball bearings, could see no visible evidence of it. There was only the smell, the faint smell of almonds and sugar.

She looked around the interior of the bathroom, around the edges of the mirror, at the overhead light fixture. Surely, the Americans were watching and listening. And surely, she thought, Gabriel was watching, too. She wondered what they were waiting for. She had come to Was.h.i.+ngton in an attempt to identify targets and other members of the attack cells. Thus far, she had learned almost nothing because Safia had very deliberately withheld even the most basic information about the operation. But why? And why had Safia insisted that Natalie wear the suicide vest with the red st.i.tch in the zipper? Again, she glanced around the bathroom. Are you watching? Do you see what's going on in here? Obviously, they intended to let it play out a little longer. But not too long, she thought. The Americans wouldn't allow a proven terrorist like Safia, a black widow with blood on her hands, to walk around the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton wearing a suicide vest. As an Israeli, Natalie knew that such operations were inherently dangerous and unpredictable. Safia would have to be shot cleanly through the brain stem with a large-caliber weapon to ensure that she did not retain the capacity to squeeze her detonator with a dying spasm. If she did, anyone close to her would be cut to pieces.

Natalie scrutinized her face one last time in the mirror, as if committing her own features to memory-the nose she detested, the mouth she thought too large for her face, the dark alluring eyes. Then, quite unexpectedly, she saw someone standing beside her, a man with pale skin and eyes the color of glacial ice. He was dressed for a special occasion, a wedding, perhaps a funeral, and was holding a gun in one hand.

Actually, you're more like me than you realize . . .

She switched out the light and went into the next room. Safia was sitting at the end of the bed, dressed in her suicide vest and her gray jacket. She was staring blankly at the television. Her skin was pale as milk, her hair lay heavy and limp against the side of her neck. The young woman who had carried out a ma.s.sacre of innocents in the name of Islam was obviously frightened.

"Are you ready?" asked Natalie.

"I can't." Safia spoke as though a hand were squeezing her throat.

"Of course you can. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Safia held a cigarette between the trembling fingers of her left hand. With her right she was clutching her detonator-too tightly, thought Natalie.

"Maybe I should drink a little vodka or whisky," Safia was saying. "They say it helps."

"Do you really want to meet Allah smelling of alcohol?"

"I suppose not." Her eyes moved from the television to Natalie's face. "Aren't you afraid?"

"A little."

"You don't look afraid. In fact, you look happy."

"I've been waiting for this for a long time."

"For death?"

"For vengeance," said Natalie.

"I thought I wanted vengeance, too. I thought I wanted to die . . ."

The invisible hand had closed around her throat again. She appeared incapable of speech. Natalie removed the cigarette from Safia's fingertips, crushed it out, and laid the b.u.t.t next to the twelve others she had smoked that afternoon.

"Shouldn't we be leaving?"

"In a minute."

"Where are we going?"

She didn't answer.

"You have to tell me the target, Safia."

"You'll know soon enough."

Her voice was as brittle as dead leaves. She had the pallor of a corpse.

"Do you think it's true?" she asked. "Do you think we'll go to paradise after our bombs explode?"

I don't know where you'll go, thought Natalie, but it won't be into the loving arms of G.o.d.

"Why wouldn't it be true?" she asked.

"I sometimes wonder whether it's just . . ." Again, her voice faltered.

"Just what?"

"Something men like Jalal and Saladin say to women like us to turn us into martyrs."

"Saladin would put on the vest if he were here."

"Would he really?"

"I met him after you left the camp in Palmyra."

"I know. He's very fond of you." An edge of jealousy crept into her voice. It seemed she was still capable of at least one emotion other than fear. "He told me you saved his life."

"I did."

"And now he's sending you out to die."

Natalie said nothing.

"And what about the people we kill tonight?" Safia asked. "Or the people I killed in Paris?"

"They were unbelievers."

The detonator suddenly felt hot in Natalie's hand, as though she were clutching a live ember. She wanted nothing more than to rip the suicide vest from her body. She glanced around the interior of the room.

Are you watching? What are you waiting for?

"I killed the woman in France," Safia was saying. "The Weinberg woman, the Jew. She was going to die of her injuries, but I shot her anyway. I'm afraid-" She cut herself off.

"Afraid of what?"

"That I'm going to meet her again in paradise."

Natalie could summon no response from the well of lies within her. She placed a hand on Safia's shoulder, lightly, so as not to startle her. "Shouldn't we be going?"

Safia stared dully at her mobile phone, drugged by the opiate of fear, and then rose unsteadily to her feet-so unsteadily, in fact, that Natalie was afraid she might inadvertently press her detonator trying to maintain her balance.

"How do I look?" she asked.

Like a woman who knows she has only minutes to live, thought Natalie.

"You look beautiful, Safia. You always look beautiful."

With that, Safia moved to the doorway and opened it without hesitation, but Natalie was searching for something amid the twisted sheets and blankets of the bed. She had hoped to hear the sound of a large-caliber weapon dispatching Safia on her journey to paradise. Instead, she heard Safia's voice. The fear had evaporated. She sounded faintly annoyed.

"What are you waiting for?" she demanded. "It's time."

60.

THE WHITE HOUSE.

THE STATE DINNER WAS SCHEDULED to begin at eight o'clock that evening. The French president and his wife arrived punctually at the North Portico, having made the crossing from Blair House in record time, under the tightest security anyone had ever seen. They hurried inside, as if trying to escape a sudden deluge, and found the president and the first lady, both formally attired, waiting in the Entrance Hall. The president's smile was dazzling, but his handshake was damp and full of tension.

"We have a problem," he said sotto voce as the cameras flashed.

"Problem?"

"I'll explain in a minute."

The photo opportunity was much shorter than usual, fifteen seconds exactly. Then the president led the party to the Cross Hall. The first lady and her French counterpart turned to the left, toward the East Room. The two leaders headed to the right, toward the West Wing. Downstairs in the Situation Room it was standing room only-princ.i.p.als in their a.s.signed seats, deputies and aides lining the walls. On one of the display screens, two women, one blond, the other dark-haired, were walking along a hotel corridor. The president quickly brought the French leader up to date. A few minutes earlier, Safia Bourihane had produced a pair of suicide vests. A hasty evacuation of the hotel had been rejected as too time-consuming and too risky. A direct a.s.sault on the room had been ruled out as well.

"So what are we left with?" asked the French president.

"Undercover SWAT and hostage rescue teams are standing by outside the front of the hotel and in the lobby. If they're afforded an opportunity to kill Safia Bourihane with no collateral loss of innocent life, they will request permission to take the shot."

"Who gives the approval?"

"Me and me alone." The president looked at his French counterpart soberly. "I don't need your permission to do this, but I'd like your approval."

"You have it, Mr. President." The French leader watched as the two women entered the elevators. "But may I offer one small piece of advice?"

"Of course."

"Tell your snipers not to miss."

By the time the Tunisian reached the exit for Route 123, the second Freightliner was directly behind him, exactly where it was supposed to be. He checked the clock. It was five minutes past eight. They were a minute ahead of schedule, better than the alternative but not ideal. The clock was Saladin's trademark. He believed that in terror, as in life, timing was everything.

Six times the Tunisian had performed dry runs, and six times the traffic signal at Lewinsville Road had temporarily halted his advance, as it did now. When the light changed to green he meandered up the suburban lane at a leisurely pace, followed by the second Freightliner. Directly ahead was the intersection of Tysons McLean Drive. Again, the Tunisian checked the clock. They were back on schedule. He turned to the left and the overloaded truck labored up the slope of the gentle hill.

This was the portion of the approach the Tunisian had never driven, though he and the Jordanian had practiced it on a sophisticated computer simulator. The road bent gradually to the left, then, at the top of a hill, sharply to the right, where it led to an elaborate security checkpoint. By now, the highly trained and heavily armed guards were already aware of his presence. The Americans had been attacked by vehicle-borne bombs before-at the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996-and they were no doubt prepared for just such an attack on this critical facility, the nerve center of their counterterrorism apparatus. But unfortunately for the Americans, Saladin had prepared, too. The engine blocks of the trucks were encased in pig iron, the winds.h.i.+elds and tires were bulletproof. Short of a direct hit by an ant.i.tank missile, the trucks were unstoppable.

The Tunisian waited until he had made the first slight left turn before slamming the accelerator to the floor. On the right a line of neon-orange pylons funneled inbound traffic into one lane. The Tunisian made no effort to avoid them, thus signaling to the Americans that his intentions were far from innocent.

He rounded the sharp right turn without slowing, and for an instant he feared the top-heavy truck would overturn. Before him several American security guards were gesturing wildly for him to stop. Several others already had their weapons trained on him. All at once he was blinded by a searing white light-arc lights, perhaps a laser. Then came the first gunshots. They bounced off the winds.h.i.+eld like hail. The Tunisian gripped the wheel with his left hand and the detonator switch with his right.

"In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful . . ."

The men and women on the Operations Floor of the National Counterterrorism Center were unaware of the situation at the facility's front gate. They had eyes only for the giant video screen at the front of the room, where two women-one blond, the other dark-haired: subjects one and two, as they were known-had just boarded a hotel elevator in nearby Arlington. The shot was from above and at a slight angle. The blond woman, subject two, appeared catatonic with fear, but the dark-haired woman seemed curiously serene. She was staring directly into the lens of the camera, as though posing for a final portrait. Gabriel stared back at her. He was on his feet, a hand pressed to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side. Adrian Carter stood next to him, a phone to each ear. Fareed Barakat was twirling an unlit cigarette nervously between his manicured fingers, his onyx-black eyes fastened to the video screen. Only Paul Rousseau, who had no taste for blood, could not watch. He was staring at the carpet as if searching for lost valuables.

Outside the hotel, the bright red Impala was parked in the surface lot, watched over clandestinely by the agents of the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group. The blue light of the beacon winked on the NCTC's screens like a channel marker. The car's hidden microphones captured the faint drone of traffic moving along North Fort Myer Drive.

Two undercover SWAT agents were chatting amiably just outside the hotel's entrance. Two more waited near the taxi stand. In addition, there were SWAT agents inside the hotel, two in the chrome-and-laminate lobby lounge, and two at the concierge stand. Each SWAT agent carried a concealed Springfield .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol with an eight-round magazine and an additional round in the chamber. One of the agents at the concierge stand, a veteran of the Iraq surge, was the designated shooter. He planned to approach the target, subject number two, from behind. If ordered by the president-and if no innocent lives would be lost-he would employ lethal force.

All eight members of the SWAT team tensed as the elevator doors opened and the two women, subjects one and two, stepped out. A new camera followed them across the foyer to the edge of the lobby. There the blond woman stopped abruptly and placed a restraining hand on the arm of the dark-haired woman. Words were exchanged, inaudible inside the NCTC, and the blond woman pondered her mobile phone. Then something happened that no one was expecting-not the FBI teams inside and outside the hotel, not the president and his closest aides in the Situation Room, and surely not the four spymasters watching from the Operations Floor at the NCTC. Without warning, the two women turned away from the lobby and set out along a ground-floor corridor, toward the back of the hotel.

"They're going the wrong way," said Carter.

"No, they're not," replied Gabriel. "They're going the way Saladin told them to go."

Carter was silent.

"Tell the SWAT teams to follow them. Tell them to take the shot."

"They can't," snapped Carter. "Not inside the hotel."

"Take it now, Adrian, because we're not going to get another chance."

Just then, the Operations Floor flashed with an intense burst of white light. An instant later there came a sound like a sonic boom that shook the building violently. Carter and Paul Rousseau were momentarily confused; Gabriel and Fareed Barakat, men of the Middle East, were not. Gabriel rushed to the window as a mushroom cloud of fire rose over the facility's main security checkpoint. A few seconds later he saw a large cargo truck careening at high speed into the forecourt separating the NCTC from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Gabriel whirled around and shouted like a madman at those closest to the windows to move to safety. He glanced briefly at the giant video screen and saw the two women, subjects one and two, entering the parking garage of the Key Bridge Marriott. Then there was a second explosion, and the video screen, like everything else, turned to black.

In the Situation Room of the White House, the screens went black, too. So did the videoconference link with the director of the NCTC.

"What just happened?" asked the president.

It was the secretary of homeland security who answered.

"Obviously, there's some sort of problem with the feed."