The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(45)

“I’ll do what I can.”

“I understand,” replied Khalid. “You’re the director of the secret intelligence service of the State of Israel. And I’m the man who just gave away a throne, which means I’m no longer of any use to you.”

“I have two young children.”

“How lucky you are. I have only one.”

A leaden silence fell over the room. It was broken by the cloying melody of Khalid’s phone. He snatched it up, then declined the call.

“Who was it?” asked Gabriel.

“The White House.” Khalid rolled his eyes. “Again.”

“Don’t you think you should take his call?”

He waved his hand dismissively and fixed his gaze on the television. KBM meeting with the British prime minister at Downing Street. KBM before the fall.

“I should never have listened to him,” he said to no one in particular.

“Listened to whom?” asked Gabriel, but Khalid didn’t answer. The phone was ringing again. “Who is it now?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Gabriel accepted the phone and saw the given name of the Russian president.

“Answer it,” said Khalid. “I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”

Gabriel allowed the phone to ring for several more seconds. Then, with profound satisfaction, he tapped decline.



For the remainder of that long night, the clock moved with the slowness of shifting tectonic plates. Khalid’s mood, however, careened wildly between rage at those who had betrayed him and fear for his daughter’s life. Each time his phone rang, he would seize it as though it were a live grenade and stare hopefully at the screen, only to toss it carelessly onto the coffee table when it turned out to be just another former friend or associate calling to wallow in schadenfreude. “I know, I know,” he would say to Gabriel. “Phones break, Prince Hothead.”

Mikhail and Keller managed to get a few hours of sleep, but Gabriel remained at Khalid’s side. He had never believed in the fairy tale of KBM the great Arabian reformer, and yet when confronted with the terrible choice of losing his throne or his child, Khalid had acted like a human being rather than the spoiled, unimaginably rich tyrant whose lust for power and possessions had known no bounds. Whether he knew it or not, thought Gabriel, there was hope for Khalid yet.

Finally, a dirty gray dawn crept into the magnificent sitting room. An hour or so later, while standing in one of the windows overlooking the Place de la Concorde, Gabriel witnessed a most remarkable spectacle. From the Musée du Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, police fought running battles with thousands of protesters, all clad in the yellow vests of street sweepers. Before long, the entire first arrondissement was hung with a dense cloud of tear gas. Gabriel switched the television to France 2 and was informed that the “Yellow Vests” were enraged at the French president over a recent increase in the price of fuel.

“This is what democracy looks like,” sneered Khalid. “The barbarians are at the gates.”

Perhaps he had been mistaken, thought Gabriel. Perhaps Khalid was a lost cause after all.

And there they stood, the spymaster and the fallen monarch, watching as the great experiment known broadly as Western civilization crumbled beneath their feet. Khalid was so entranced that for once he didn’t hear the ringing of his phone. Gabriel walked over to the coffee table and saw the device shivering amid the rubbish of the long night of waiting. He looked at the screen. The caller was not identified and there was no number.

He tapped accept and raised the device to his ear. “It’s about time,” he said in English, making no effort to conceal his Israeli accent. “Now listen very carefully.”





32

Paris


When dealing with kidnappers, be they criminals or terrorists, it is customary for the negotiator to hear out their demands. But that presumes the negotiator has something to offer in return for the captive’s freedom—money, for example, or a jailed comrade in arms. Gabriel, however, had nothing of value with which to barter, leaving him no choice but to immediately go on offense. He informed the kidnappers that Princess Reema would be free by day’s end. If she were harmed in any way—or if any attempt were made on Gabriel’s life or the life of the former Saudi crown prince—Israeli intelligence would hunt down every last member of the conspiracy and kill them. The best course of action, he concluded, would be to wrap things up as quickly as possible, with no melodrama or last-minute snags. Then he severed the connection and handed the phone to Khalid.

“Are you mad?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

“Do you realize what you’ve just done?”

“I’ve given us a very slim chance of getting your daughter back without getting us killed in the process.”

“Did they give you any instructions?”

“I didn’t give them a chance.”

“Why not?”

“I thought Arabs were supposed to be good negotiators.”

Khalid’s eyes widened with rage. “They’ll never call back now!”

“Of course they will.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Gabriel walked calmly to the window and watched the riot below. “Because I wasn’t bluffing. And they know it.”