House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17)(40)

“I suppose he’ll be leaving soon,” she said.

“I have a few more pieces to put into place.”

“Operational spadework?”

He smiled.

“And how long do you suppose he’ll be away?”

“Hard to say.”

“I hear you’re turning him into an arms dealer.”

“A very rich one.”

“He’ll need a girl. Otherwise, Jean-Luc Martel won’t believe he’s real.”

“Know much about him?”

“JLM?” She shrugged. “Only what I used to read in the newspapers.”

“Think he’s involved in drugs?”

“That was the rumor. I grew up in Marseilles, you know.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel flatly. “I think I might have read something about that once in your file.”

“And I treated my fair share of heroin overdoses when I was working there,” Natalie went on. “The word on the street was that it was Martel’s heroin. But I suppose you can’t believe everything.”

“Sometimes you can.”

A silence fell between them.

“So who’s the lucky girl?” asked Natalie at last.

“Mikhail’s girl? I have someone in mind for the part,” said Gabriel, “but I’m not sure she wants it.”

“Have you asked her?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Forgiveness.”

“For what?”

Just then, a gust of wind rose suddenly and extinguished the flame. They sat alone in the darkness, saying nothing at all, and watched the mountains burn.



It took Natalie only a few minutes to toss her belongings into a bag. Then, still dressed in her tracksuit, she settled into the back of Gabriel’s SUV and rode with him back to Tel Aviv. Doctrine dictated that she take up residence at a “jump site,” a safe flat where Office agents assumed the identities they would carry with them into the field. Instead, Gabriel dropped her at Mikhail’s flat off HaYarkon Street. He reckoned it wasn’t a complete breach of protocol; after all, Mikhail and Natalie would be posing as husband and wife. With a bit of luck, they might even learn to dislike each other a little bit. Then no one would doubt the authenticity of their cover.

It was approaching nine o’clock by the time Gabriel’s SUV started the long climb up the Bab al-Wad toward Jerusalem. Provided there were no accidents or security alerts—or calls from the prime minister—he would be at Narkiss Street by half past at the latest. The children would likely be asleep, but at least he could share a quiet meal with Chiara. But as they were approaching the western edge of the city, his mobile phone flared with an incoming message. He stared at it for a long moment, wondering whether he could pretend it had somehow been lost in transmission. Regrettably, he could not. He was about to make his second trip abroad as chief. But this time he was going to America.





22





Lincoln Memorial, Washington



Langley sent a plane for him, never a good sign. It was a Gulfstream G650 with a leather-and-teak interior, a large selection of in-flight movies, and baskets filled with unwholesome snack food. In the aft of the aircraft was a private stateroom. Gabriel stretched out on the narrow bed but could find no arrangement of his torso and limbs that did not cause him pain. The sky beyond his window never grew light; he was chasing the night westward. Sleepless, he had little else to do but wonder about the reason for his unexpected summons to Washington. He doubted it was social in nature. The new crowd in the White House wasn’t in the business of playing nice.

The plane touched down at Dulles Airport at half past three and taxied to a private hangar where a convoy of three armor-plated Suburbans waited, tailpipes gently smoking in the cold, damp air. The early hour meant that for once the traffic was light. As they crossed the Capital Beltway, Gabriel glanced toward the Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus, the former headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center. A thicket of trees blocked the view of the devastation. As yet, Congress had not allocated the billions of dollars necessary to rebuild Liberty Crossing, once a shining symbol of the chaotic post–9/11 expansion of the American national security state. Like the members of Paul Rousseau’s Alpha Group, the staffs of the ODNI and NCTC had been forced to seek accommodations elsewhere. Saladin, if nothing else, had made a lot of spies and analysts homeless.

The caravan of SUVs turned onto Route 123 and headed into McLean. Gabriel feared he was being taken to CIA Headquarters—he avoided it when he could—but they sped past the entrance without so much as slowing and made their way to the George Washington Memorial Parkway. It carried them along the Virginia side of the Potomac, to the glass-and-steel towers of Rosslyn. On the other side of the river rose the graceful spires of Georgetown University, but Gabriel’s eye was drawn to the ugly rectangular slab of the Key Bridge Marriott, where Natalie had spent many hours trapped in a room with a French-Algerian terrorist named Safia Bourihane. Through a concealed video camera, Gabriel had watched Natalie record a martyrdom video and then wrap her body in a suicide vest. Only later, at the cabin in Virginia, would she learn the vest was inoperative. Saladin had deceived her. And Gabriel, too.