The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,86
diplomats, retirement home of many grounded spies. After leaving the safe house, Gabriel had told Carter about his unlikely partnership with Paul Rousseau and Fareed Barakat, and about an ISIS project manager in London named Jalal Nasser, and about an ISIS talent spotter in Brussels named Nabil Awad. Now, as they walked along Thirty-seventh Street, clinging to the thin shadows for cool, Gabriel told Carter the rest of it—that he and his team had made Nabil Awad disappear from the streets of Molenbeek without a trace, that they had kept him alive in the minds of ISIS in the tradition of the great wartime deceivers, that they had used him to feed Jalal Nasser the name of a promising recruit, a woman from a banlieue north of Paris. ISIS had sent her on an all-expenses-paid trip to Santorini and then spirited her to Turkey and across the border into Syria. Gabriel did not mention the woman’s name—not her cover name and certainly not her real name—and Carter had the professional good manners not to ask.
“She’s Jewish, this girl of yours?”
“Not so you’d know.”
“God help you, Gabriel.”
“He usually does.”
Carter smiled. “I don’t suppose this girl of yours referred to herself as Umm Ziad online, did she?”
Gabriel was silent.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Turbulence,” said Carter.
Gabriel knew the code name. Turbulence was an ultra-secret NSA computer surveillance program that constantly swept the Internet for militant Web sites and jihadist chat rooms.
“NSA identified her as a potential extremist not long after she popped up on the Web,” Carter explained. “They tried to plant surveillance software inside her computer, but it proved resistant to all forms of assault. They couldn’t even figure out where she was operating. Now we know why.” With a sidelong glance at Gabriel, he asked, “Who’s Ziad, by the way?”
“The dead boyfriend.”
“She’s a black widow, your girl?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Nice touch.”
They rounded the corner into P Street and walked beside a high stone wall bordering a cloistered convent. The redbrick pavements were empty except for Carter’s security detail. Two bodyguards walked before them, two behind.
“You’ll be happy to know,” said Carter, “that your new friend Fareed Barakat didn’t breathe a word of this to me when we spoke last. He never mentioned anything about Saladin, either.” He paused, then added, “I guess ten million dollars in a Swiss bank account only buys so much loyalty these days.”
“Does he exist?”
“Saladin? Without question, or someone like him. And there’s no way he’s Syrian.”
“Is he one of us?”
“A professional intelligence officer?”
“Yes.”
“We think he might be ex-Iraqi Mukhabarat.”
“So did Nabil Awad.”
“May he rest in peace.” Carter frowned. “Is he really dead, or was that shootout a ruse, too?”
With a shrug, Gabriel indicated it was the former.
“I’m glad someone still knows how to play rough. If I so much as say an unkind word to a terrorist, I’ll be indicted. Droning terrorists and their children is fine, though.”
“You know, Adrian, sometimes a live terrorist is better than a dead one. A live terrorist can tell you things, such as where and when the next attack will occur.”
“My president disagrees. He believes detaining terrorists only breeds more of them.”
“Success breeds terrorists, Adrian. And nothing succeeds quite like an attack on the American homeland.”
“Which brings us back to our original point,” said Carter, wiping a trickle of sweat from the side of his neck. “I will prevail upon the Pentagon to take care with their air campaign in Syria. In exchange, you will share anything your girl picks up during her vacation in the caliphate.”
“Agreed,” said Gabriel.
“I assume the French military is on board?”
“And the British,” said Gabriel.
“I’m not sure how I feel being the last to know about this.”
“Welcome to the post-American world.”
Carter said nothing.
“No air strikes on that building,” said Gabriel quietly. “And lay off the training camps until she comes out again.”
“When do you expect her?”
“The end of August, unless Saladin has other plans.”
“We should be so lucky.”
They had arrived back at the N Street safe house. Carter stopped at the foot of the curved front steps.
“How are the children?” he asked suddenly.
“I’m not sure.”
“Don’t blow it with them. You’re too old to have any more.”
Gabriel smiled.
“You know,” said Carter, “for about twelve hours, I actually thought you were dead. That was a profoundly lousy thing to do.”
“I had no other choice.”
“I’m sure,” said Carter. “But next time, don’t keep me in the dark. I’m not the enemy. I’m here to help.”
36
RAQQA, SYRIA
FROM THE OUTSET SHE MADE it clear to Jalal Nasser that