The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,77
calculated acts of violence. The attacks in Paris and Amsterdam were carried out by our network. We have many more attacks planned, some in the coming days.”
He said all this while gazing down the length of the cathedral. Natalie delivered her response to the apse.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“I would like you to work for us.”
“I couldn’t be involved with something like Paris or Amsterdam.”
“That’s not what you told my friend Nabil. You told Nabil that you wanted the kufar to know what it felt like to be afraid. You said you wanted to punish them for their support of Israel.” He turned and looked directly into her eyes. “You said you wanted to pay them back for what happened to Ziad.”
“I suppose Nabil told you about Ziad, too.”
He took the brochure from her hand, consulted it briefly, and then led her down the center of the nave, toward the western facade. “You know,” he was saying, “I think I actually met him once.”
“Really? Where?”
“At a meeting of some brothers in Amman. For reasons of security we weren’t using our real names.” He stopped and craned his neck toward the ceiling. “You’re afraid. I can see it.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I am afraid.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t serious. It was only talk.”
“You are a salon jihadist, Leila? You prefer to carry signs and shout slogans?”
“No. I just never imagined something like this might happen.”
“This isn’t the Internet, Leila. This is the real thing.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
From across the cathedral the old woman signaled that it was time to leave. Jalal lowered his gaze from the ceiling to Natalie’s face.
“And if I say yes?” she asked.
“You’ll need to travel to the caliphate for training. We’ll handle all the arrangements.”
“I can’t be away for long.”
“A few weeks are all we need.”
“What happens if the authorities find out?”
“Trust me, Leila, they’ll know nothing. We have routes we use. False passports, too. Your time in Syria will be our little secret.”
“And then?”
“You return to France and your job at the clinic. And you wait.”
“For what?”
He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You know, Leila, you’re lucky. You’re going to do something incredibly important. I envy you.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “My friend Mona told me the same thing.”
“What was she talking about?”
“It was nothing,” said Natalie. “Nothing at all.”
31
AUBERVILLIERS, FRANCE
THAT NIGHT NATALIE COULD NOT sleep. For a time she lay awake in her bed, committing to memory every word Jalal Nasser had spoken. Afterward, she wrestled with her sheets while her mind raced with thoughts of what lay ahead. To distract herself she watched a tedious documentary on French television, and when that didn’t work, she opened her laptop and surfed the Internet. Not the jihadist sites, though; Jalal had warned her to avoid those. Natalie was now a servant of two masters, a woman with two lovers. When sleep finally claimed her, it was Jalal who visited her in her dreams. He strapped a suicide vest to her nude body and kissed her softly. You’re lucky, he said. You’re going to do something incredibly important.
She awoke groggy and agitated and afflicted with a migraine that no amount of medication or caffeine would alleviate. A benevolent God might have seen fit to give her a quiet day at the clinic, but a parade of human malady kept her running from examination room to examination room until six that evening. As she was leaving work, Roland Girard, the clinic’s ersatz administrative director, invited her for coffee. Outside, he helped her into the front seat of his Peugeot sedan, and for the next forty-five minutes he spoke not a word as he followed a meandering path toward the center of Paris. As they were passing the Musée d’Orsay, his mobile phone pinged with an incoming message. After reading it he drove across the Seine and made his way to the rue de Grenelle in the Seventh Arrondissement, where he nosed the car through the security gate of a handsome cream-colored building. Natalie glimpsed the brass plaque as it flashed past her window. It read SOCIÉTÉ INTERNATIONALE POUR LA LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE.
“An evening of Balzac?”
He switched off the engine and led her inside. In the foyer she glimpsed the Arab-looking Frenchman whom she had seen leaving the pharmacy in La Courneuve, and in the stairwell she passed a habitué of the café across the street from her apartment. The uppermost floor of the building felt like a bank after hours. A stern-looking woman sat behind an