The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,128

to Route 7, where traffic cameras saw him climbing into a Nissan Altima with Delaware plates. It had been rented Friday afternoon at the Hertz outlet at Union Station. Hertz records identified the customer as a Frenchwoman named Asma Doumaz. The name was unfamiliar to the FBI.

All of which said nothing about the actual contents of the bags, though the highly professional method of delivery suggested the worst. At least one senior FBI official, not to mention a top political aide to the president, recommended an immediate raid on the room. But calmer heads, including the president’s, had prevailed. The cameras and the microphones would alert the FBI the instant the two subjects were preparing to go operational. In the meantime, the surveillance devices had the potential to supply invaluable intelligence, such as the targets and identities of other members of the attack cells. As a precaution, FBI SWAT and hostage rescue teams had quietly moved into position around the hotel. For now, the Marriott’s management knew nothing.

The signal from the cameras and microphones inside Room 822 flowed through the NCTC to the White House and beyond. The primary camera was concealed inside the entertainment console; it peered out at its subjects like a telescreen keeping watch over Winston Smith in his flat at the Victory Mansions. Subject two was lying seminude on the bed, smoking in violation of hotel rules and the laws of ISIS. Subject one, a devout nonsmoker, had requested permission to leave the room to get some fresh air, but subject two had denied it. It was, she said, haram to leave.

“Says who?” asked subject one.

“Says Saladin.”

The mention of the mastermind’s name raised hopes at the NCTC and the White House that critical intelligence would soon flow from the mouth of subject two. Instead, she lit a fresh cigarette and with the remote switched on the television. The secretary of homeland security was at the podium.

“What’s he saying?”

“He says there’s going to be an attack.”

“How does he know?”

“He won’t say.”

Subject two, still smoking, checked her phone—a phone that the FBI and NSA had been unable to penetrate. Then she squinted at the television. The secretary of homeland security had concluded his news conference. A panel of terrorism experts was analyzing what had just transpired.

“What are they saying?”

“The same thing,” said subject one. “There’s going to be an attack.”

“Do they know about us?”

“They would have arrested us if they knew.”

Subject two didn’t appear convinced. She checked her phone, checked it again fifteen seconds later, and checked it again ten seconds after that. Clearly, she was expecting an imminent communication from the network. It came at 4:47 p.m.

“Alhamdulillah,” whispered subject two.

“What is it?”

Subject two crushed out her cigarette and switched off the television. On the Operations Floor of the National Counterterrorism Center, several dozen analysts and officers watched and waited. Also present was the leader of an elite French counterterrorism organization, the chief of the Jordanian GID, and the future chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. Only the Israeli could not watch what unfolded next. He sat in his assigned seat at the kidney-shaped desk, elbows resting on the pale blond wood, hands over his eyes, and listened.

“In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful . . .”

Natalie was making her suicide video.

58

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

IT WAS AN UNUSUALLY QUIET day for Dominion Movers of Alexandria, Virginia—just one small job, a single woman who was trading her rented wreck on Capitol Hill for a cramped cottage in North Arlington, a steal at $700,000. The job had required only one truck and two employees. One of the men was a Jordanian national, the other was from Tunisia. Both were members of ISIS and had fought and trained in Syria. The woman, who worked as an aide to a prominent Republican senator, knew none of this, of course. She served the men coffee and cookies and on completion of the job tipped them well.

The two men left North Arlington at five thirty and started back to the company’s headquarters on Eisenhower Avenue in Alexandria. Owing to the heavy rush-hour traffic, they did not arrive until six fifteen, a few minutes later than they hoped. They parked the truck, a 2011 Freightliner model, outside the warehouse and entered the business office through a glass doorway. Fatimah, the young woman who answered the company’s phones, was absent and her desk was bare. She had flown to Frankfurt the previous evening and was now in Istanbul. By morning, she would be in