The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon #7)(23)
The Egyptian’s eyes were beginning to lose focus. Gabriel wanted something from him before he died. He lifted the Egyptian by the front of his jumpsuit and slapped him hard across the face.
“Where are they taking her, Samir? Tell me what you’re going to do with the girl!”
The eyes focused for a moment.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know everything, Samir. Where are they taking the girl?”
He managed a mocking smile. “If you know everything, then why are you asking me?”
Gabriel hit him again, harder this time, and shook him so violently he feared he may have broken his neck. It didn’t matter. Samir was dying. Gabriel pointed the gun into his face and screamed, “Where are they taking her, you motherf*cker! Tell me before I blow your head off!”
But Samir only smiled again, not a mocking smile but the sublime grin of a man who had achieved his desire to die. Gabriel had brought him to death’s doorway and was only too happy to see him through to the other side. He placed the barrel of the Beretta to the terrorist’s face and was about to pull the trigger when he heard a voice behind him shouting: “Drop the gun and put your hands in the air.”
Gabriel released the Egyptian, then laid the Beretta on the ground and slowly raised his hands. His memory of what transpired next would be vague at best. He remembered being driven forward into the ground and could recall the sight of Samir’s dead eyes staring into this own. Then someone hit him in the back of the head, a heavy blow that seemed to split his skull in two. He felt a burst of excruciating pain and saw a flash of brilliant light. Then he saw a woman, a woman in a dark blue tracksuit, being led into a valley of ashes by murderers in black hoods.
The telephone call arrived in the Family Quarters on the second floor of the White House at 3:14 A.M. The president snatched the receiver from the cradle after the first ring and brought it quickly to his ear. He immediately recognized the voice at the other end of the line: Cyrus Mansfield, his national security advisor.
“I’m afraid there’s been another attack in London, Mr. President.”
“How bad?”
Mansfield answered the question to the best of his ability. The president closed his eyes and whispered, “My God.”
“The British are doing everything they can to seal off London and prevent them from escaping,” Mansfield said. “But as you might expect, the situation is extremely chaotic.”
“Activate the Situation Room. I’ll be downstairs in five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
The president hung up the phone and sat up in bed. When he switched on the bedside lamp, his wife stirred and looked at his face. She had seen the expression before.
“How bad?” she asked.
“London has been hit again.” He hesitated. “And Elizabeth Halton has been taken hostage.”
PART TWO
THE LAND OF STRANGERS
11
NEW SCOTLAND YARD: 12:26 A.M., SATURDAY
I wouldn’t complain too much about a nasty bump on the head.”
Graham Seymour’s limousine lurched out of the forecourt of New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, and turned into Broadway. The MI5 man looked very tired. He had a right to. Bombs had exploded in the Underground at Marble Arch, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, and Charing Cross. Six American diplomats and security men had been slaughtered in Hyde Park and the daughter of the American ambassador, Elizabeth Halton, was missing and presumed kidnapped. And thus far the only person to be arrested was Gabriel Allon.
“They asked me to put my hands in the air and drop the gun,” said Gabriel. “I complied with their order.”
“Do try to see it from their point of view. You were about to shoot a man in the head and were surrounded by eight other bodies. You’re damned lucky they even gave you a chance to surrender. They would have been well within their rights to use lethal force. That’s what they’re trained to do when confronted by a man they believe might be a suicide bomber.”
“Wouldn’t that have been perfect. The one person who tried to prevent the attacks, shot dead by London police.” Greeted by Graham Seymour’s angry silence, Gabriel pressed his case. “You should have listened to me, Graham. You should have raised the threat level and rousted a few of your known terrorists. Maybe Elizabeth Halton and the rest of the Americans would have stayed in their embassy instead of going for a morning jog in Hyde Park.”
“And I told you to stay out of it.”
“Is that why you left me sitting in that holding cell for sixteen hours, Graham? Is that why you let them file charges against me? Is that why you let them take my fingerprints and my photograph?”
“Forgive me for not coming to your rescue sooner, Gabriel. I’ve been a little busy.”
Gabriel looked out at the wet streets of Westminster. They were abandoned, except for the uniformed Met officers standing watch at every other corner. Graham Seymour did have a point. London had just experienced its bloodiest single day since the Second World War. Gabriel could hardly complain about spending most of it inside New Scotland Yard.
“How many dead, Graham?”
“The toll is much higher than the attacks of July 2005,” Seymour said. “So far we’re at three hundred dead, with more than two thousand injured. But these bombings obviously had a second purpose—to create an atmosphere of chaos in the capital that allowed the kidnappers to slip away undetected. Unfortunately, it worked to perfection. Whoever planned this attack was bloody diabolical—and damned good.”