House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17)(116)

“Can’t you at least pretend to be a little worried?” said Gabriel.

“About what?”

“That gun, for one thing. It looks a museum piece.”

“A damn fine weapon, the Kalashnikov. Besides, it worked just fine at the camp in the desert. Just ask your friend Dmitri Antonov. He’ll tell you.”

But Mikhail wasn’t listening; he was still drumming his fingers on the console.

“Is there any way you can make him stop?” asked Keller.

“I’ve tried.”

“Try harder.”

Yaakov removed his right hand from the shift and placed it atop Mikhail’s. The fingers went still.

“Much obliged,” said Keller.

A few yards beyond the square the town dwindled. They crossed a dry creek bed and entered a nether region separating civilization and wilderness. A few broken buildings rose from the brown earth on both sides of the highway, and off to the east, an island in a sea of stones, was the compound. From a distance, it was impossible to tell what it was—a home, a factory, a secret government installation, the hiding place of the world’s most dangerous terrorist. Its outer walls looked to be about ten or twelve feet high and were topped by spirals of concertina wire. The private track connecting it to the highway was unpaved, ensuring that any approaching vehicle would make a great deal of noise and raise a cloud of dust.

Gabriel brought a phone to his ear. It was connected to Adrian Carter at Langley.

“Can you see us?”

“You’re hard to miss.”

“Any change?”

“Two outside, three inside. They’re in the same room. One of them hasn’t moved in a while.”

Gabriel lowered the phone. Yaakov was staring at him in the rearview mirror.

“Once we make the turn,” he said, “we lose all element of surprise.”

“But we’re not going to surprise them, Yaakov. We’re expected.”

Yaakov guided the car onto the private road and started toward the compound.

“Switch on your high beams,” instructed Gabriel.

Yaakov did as he was told, illuminating the harsh, rocky landscape with white light. “They see us now.”

Gabriel raised a second phone to his ear, the one connected to Natalie, and told her to ring the doorbell.



Natalie had preloaded the text onto Mohammad Bakkar’s phone. Now, on Gabriel’s command, she thumbed it into the ether.

“Well?” he asked.

“He’s working on the reply.”

The message finally appeared.

“He says they’ll open the gate.”

“How nice of them. But tell them to hurry. The doctor is very anxious to see the brother.”

Natalie sent the message on Bakkar’s Samsung. Then she switched her own phone to speaker mode and waited for the sound of gunfire.



By then, Gabriel was already talking to Adrian Carter at Langley.

“Any change?”

“Two men getting ready to open the gate, one coming downstairs. Looks like he’s carrying a gun.”

“So much for Arab hospitality,” said Gabriel, and lowered the phone.

They were about fifty yards from the compound and closing at a moderate speed. The headlamps now shone directly on the gate. It was a two-leaf swing model, stainless steel. A cloud of dust settled around them like fog as Yaakov slowed to a stop. For several seconds, nothing happened.

Gabriel raised the Langley phone to his ear. “What’s going on?”

“Looks like they’re unlocking it.”

“Where’s the third man?”

“Waiting outside the entrance of the house.”

“And where’s the entrance relative to us?”

“Your two o’clock.”

Gabriel lowered the phone again as a crack appeared between the leaves of the gate. He relayed the satellite information to the other three men in the car and issued a terse set of instructions.

Keller frowned. “Mind saying that again in a language I can understand?”

Gabriel hadn’t realized he was speaking in Hebrew.

All at once the gate began to swing away, drawn by two pairs of hands. Yaakov balanced the Uzi Pro atop the steering wheel and aimed at the pair of hands to the right. Mikhail leveled a Kalashnikov at the hands on the left.

“Never mind,” said Keller. “No translation necessary.”

At last, the gate was sufficiently open to accommodate a car. Two men, each cradling an automatic rifle, stepped into the breach and waved Yaakov into the compound. Instead, he unleashed a torrent of fire through the windscreen toward the man on the right. Mikhail, in the front passenger seat, squeezed off several rounds with the Kalashnikov toward the man on the left. Neither guard managed to fire a shot in return, but as Yaakov accelerated through the open gate, a gun opened up from the entrance of the main building. Mikhail answered through the open front passenger window while Gabriel, directly behind him, fired off several rounds with the Jericho .45. Within seconds, the gun in the entranceway fell silent.

Yaakov braked hard and rammed the shift into park while Mikhail and Gabriel tumbled out of the car and started across the outer yard of the compound. Mikhail quickly drew away from Gabriel, and after a few paces Keller overtook him as well. The two elite soldiers paused briefly at the entrance, next to the body of the third gunman. Gabriel glanced down at the lifeless face. It was Nazir Bensa?d.