The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(37)

“We can do that, too.”

Khalid sat down along one side of the small conference table and glanced around the interior of the room. “How fortunate we were both in London at the same time.”

“Yes,” agreed Gabriel. “I’m searching desperately for your daughter, and you’re having dinner with Uncle Abdullah and staying in the most expensive suite at the Dorchester.”

“How did you know I saw my uncle?”

Ignoring the question, Gabriel held out a hand and asked to see the demand letter. Khalid placed it on the table. It was a photocopy. The original, he said, had been delivered to the Saudi Embassy in Paris. The typeface and margins were identical to those of the first letter. So was the flat, matter-of-fact wording. Khalid had until midnight the following evening to abdicate. If he refused, he would never see his daughter again.

“Was there any proof of life?”

Khalid handed over a copy of the photograph. The child was holding the previous day’s edition of the Telegraph and staring directly into the lens of the camera. She had her father’s eyes. She looked exhausted and unkempt, but not at all frightened.

Gabriel returned the photograph. “No father should ever have to see a picture like that.”

“Perhaps I deserve it.”

“Perhaps you do.” Gabriel laid a photograph of his own on the table. A man sitting in a café in Annecy. “Do you recognize him?”

“No.”

“What about this man?” Gabriel laid a second photo on the table. It was the DGSI surveillance shot of Rafiq al-Madani sitting next to Khalid aboard Tranquillity.

“Where did you get this?”

“The Tatler.” Gabriel withdrew the photo. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“I don’t have friends. I have subjects, houseguests, and family.”

“Into which category does al-Madani fall?”

“He is a temporary ally.”

“I thought you were going to shut down the flow of money to the jihadis and the Salafists.”

Khalid’s smile was condescending. “You don’t know much about Arabs, do you?” He rubbed his thumb against his fingertips. “Shwaya, shwaya. Slowly, slowly. Little by little.”

“Which means you’re still funding the extremists with the help of your friend Rafiq al-Madani.”

“Which means I have to move carefully and with the support of someone like Rafiq. Someone who has the trust of important clerics. Someone who can provide me with the necessary cover. Otherwise, the House of Saud will crumble, and Arabia will be ruled by the sons of al-Qaeda and ISIS. Is that what you want?”

“You’re playing the same old double game.”

“I am holding a tiger by the ears. And if I let go, it will devour me.”

“It already has.” Gabriel called up a message on his BlackBerry. It was the message he had received while sitting in Christopher Keller’s kitchen. “It was al-Madani who told you about the second demand letter. He did so at three twelve p.m. London time.”

“I see you’re monitoring my phone.”

“Not yours, al-Madani’s. And five minutes after he called you, he sent an encrypted message to someone else. Because we were seeing his keystrokes, we had no problem reading it.”

“What does it say?”

“Enough to make it clear he knows where your daughter is.”

“May I see the message?”

Gabriel handed over his phone.

The Saudi swore softly in Arabic. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Perhaps you should find out where your daughter is first.”

“That’s your job.”

“My role in this affair is officially over. I’m not going to get myself into the middle of a Saudi family fight.”

“You know what they say about family, don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the other F-word.”

Gabriel smiled in spite of himself.

Khalid returned the BlackBerry. “Perhaps we can come to some sort of business arrangement.”

“Save your money, Khalid.”

“Will you at least help me?”

“You’d like me to interrogate one of your government officials?”

“Of course not. I’ll question him myself. It shouldn’t take long.” Khalid lowered his voice. “After all, I have something of a reputation.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Where shall we interrogate him?” asked Khalid.

“It has to be somewhere isolated. Somewhere the police won’t find us.” Gabriel paused. “Somewhere the neighbors won’t hear a bit of noise.”

“I have just the place.”

“Can you get him there without making him suspicious?”

Khalid smiled. “All I need is my phone.”





26

Haute-Savoie, France


Khalid had a Gulfstream waiting at London City Airport. They stopped at Paris–Le Bourget long enough to collect Mikhail and Sarah and then flew on to Annecy, where a caravan of black Range Rovers waited on the darkened tarmac. It was a drive of twenty minutes to Khalid’s private Versailles. The household staff, a mixture of French and Saudi nationals, stood like a choir in the soaring entrance hall. Khalid greeted them curtly before escorting Gabriel and the others into the chateau’s main public room—the great hall, as he referred to it. It was long and rectangular, like a basilica, and hung with a portion of Khalid’s collection, including Salvator Mundi, his dubious Leonardo. Gabriel studied the panel carefully, a hand to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side. Then he crouched and examined the brushstrokes in raked lighting.