The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,91

seated with his hands bound before a choir-like formation of faceless black-clad executioners. Beneath the shelter of her abaya, she deleted the dreadful picture from her thoughts. She realized then that she was sweating. It was trickling down the length of her spine and dripping between her breasts. She was allowed to sweat, she told herself. She was a pampered Parisian, unused to the heat of the desert, and the room was no longer cool. The house was warming beneath the assault of the late-morning sun.

“You are a doctor,” the Iraqi said at last, holding his glass of tea between his thumb and forefinger, as a moment earlier he had held Natalie’s face. Yes, she said, laboring with her own glass of tea beneath her veil, she was a doctor, trained at the Université Paris-Sud, employed at the Clinique Jacques Chirac in the Paris banlieue of Aubervilliers. She then elaborated that Aubervilliers was a largely Muslim suburb and that most of her patients were Arabs from North Africa.

“Yes, I know,” said the Iraqi impatiently, making it abundantly clear he was familiar with her biography. “I’m told you spent a few hours caring for patients in a clinic in Raqqa yesterday.”

“It was the day before,” she corrected him. And obviously, she thought, gazing at the Iraqi through the black gauze of her veil, you and your friends were watching.

“You should have come here a long time ago,” he continued. “We have a great need for doctors in the caliphate.”

“My work is in Paris.”

“And now you are here,” he pointed out.

“I’m here,” she said carefully, “because I was asked to come.”

“By Jalal.”

She made no response. The Iraqi sipped his tea thoughtfully.

“Jalal is very good at sending me enthusiastic Europeans, but I am the one who decides whether they are worthy of entering our camps.” He made this sound like a threat, which Natalie supposed was his intention. “Do you wish to fight for the Islamic State?”

“Yes.”

“Why not fight for Palestine?”

“I am.”

“How?”

“By fighting for the Islamic State.”

His eyes warmed. “Zarqawi always said the road to Palestine runs through Amman. First, we will take the rest of Iraq and Syria. Then Jordan. And then, inshallah, Jerusalem.”

“Like Saladin,” she replied. And not for the first time she wondered whether the man known as Saladin sat before her now.

“You’ve heard this name?” he asked. “Saladin?”

She nodded. The Iraqi looked over his shoulder and mumbled something to one of the three men seated behind him. The man handed him a sheaf of papers held together by a paper clip. Natalie reckoned it was her ISIS personnel file, a thought that almost made her smile beneath her abaya. The Iraqi leafed through the pages with an air of bureaucratic distraction. Natalie wondered what sort of work he had done before the American invasion overturned virtually every aspect of Iraqi life. Had he been a clerk in a ministry? Had he been a schoolteacher or a banker? Had he sold vegetables in a market? No, she thought, he was no poor trader. He was a former officer in the Iraqi army. Or perhaps, she thought as sweat dripped down her back, he had worked for Saddam’s dreaded secret police.

“You are unmarried,” he declared suddenly.

“Yes,” answered Natalie truthfully.

“You were engaged once?”

“Almost.”

“To Ziad al-Masri? A brother who died in Jordanian custody?”

She nodded slowly.

“Where did you meet him?”

“At Paris-Sud.”

“And what was he studying?”

“Electronics.”

“Yes, I know.” He laid the pages of her file on the carpet. “We have many supporters in Jordan. Many of our brothers used to be Jordanian citizens. And none of them,” he said, “have ever heard of anyone named Ziad al-Masri.”

“Ziad was never politically active in Jordan,” she answered with far more calm that she might have thought possible. “He became radicalized only after he moved to Europe.”

“He was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir?”

“Not formally.”

“That would explain why none of our brothers from Hizb ut-Tahrir have heard of him, either.” He regarded Natalie calmly while another waterfall of sweat sluiced down her back. “You’re not drinking your tea,” he pointed out.

“That’s because you’re making me nervous.”

“That was my intention.” His remark provoked restrained laughter among the three men seated behind him. He waited for it to subside before continuing. “For a long time the Americans and their friends in Europe did not take us seriously. They belittled us, called us silly names. But now they realize we are a threat to them, and they are trying very hard to penetrate us. The British are the worst. Every time they