to get inside Rashid’s network and destroy it. I want you to make it go away.”
“Penetrating jihadist terror networks isn’t the same as penetrating the PLO. They’re far too clannish to accept outsiders into their midst, and their members are largely immune to earthly temptations.”
“A rose is a rose is a rose. And a network is a network is a network.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll grant you there are differences between jihadist and Palestinian terror networks, but the basic structure is the same. There are planners and foot soldiers, paymasters and quartermasters, couriers and safe houses. And at the points where all these pieces intersect, there is vulnerability just waiting to be exploited by someone as clever as you.”
A breath of wind carried the pipe smoke into Gabriel’s face. Blended exclusively for Carter by a tobacconist in New York, it smelled of burning leaves and wet dog. Gabriel waved it away and asked, “How would it work?”
“Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“No,” said Gabriel, “it means I want to know exactly how it would work.”
“You would operate as a virtual station of the Counterterrorism Center, in much the same way the Bin Laden Unit functioned before 9/11, but with one important difference.”
“The rest of the CTC won’t know I’m there.”
Carter nodded. “All document requests will be handled by my staff and me. And when it’s time for you to go operational, I’ll act as a clandestine traffic cop to make sure you don’t trip over any ongoing Agency operations, and they don’t trip over you.”
“I would need to see everything you have. Everything, Adrian.”
“You’ll be given access to the most sensitive intelligence available to the government of the United States, including the case files on Rashid and all the NSA intercepts. You’ll also be allowed to see all the intelligence on the three attacks that’s flowing to us from our sister services in Europe.” Carter paused. “I would think that information alone would be tempting enough for you to accept the assignment. After all, your liaison relationships with the Europeans aren’t terribly good at the moment.”
Gabriel didn’t respond directly. “It’s too much material to review on my own. I’d need help.”
“You can import as much help as you want, within reason. Given the sensitive nature of the intelligence, I’ll also need someone from the Agency looking over your shoulder. Someone who knows your mischievous ways. I have a candidate in mind.”
“Where is she?”
“Waiting in a café on Wisconsin Avenue.”
“You’re very sure of yourself, Adrian.”
Carter stopped walking and checked his pipe. “Were I to stoop to raw sentimentality,” he said after a moment, “I would remind you of the carnage you witnessed last Friday afternoon in Covent Garden and ask you to imagine it played out over and over again. But I won’t do that, because it would be unprofessional. Instead, I will tell you that Rashid has an army of martyrs just like Farid Khan waiting to do his bidding, an army he recruited with my help. I made Rashid. He’s my mistake. And I need you to destroy him before anyone else has to die.”
“You might find this difficult to believe, but I actually don’t have the authority to say yes to you. Uzi would have to sign off on it first.”
“He already has. So has your prime minister.”
“I suppose you’ve also had a quiet word with Graham Seymour.”
Carter nodded. “For obvious reasons, Graham would like to be kept abreast of your progress. He would also like advance warning if your operation happens to wash ashore in the British Isles.”
“You misled me, Adrian.”
“I’m a spy,” Carter said, relighting his pipe. “I lie as a matter of course. So do you. Now you just have to figure out a way to lie to Rashid. Just be careful how you go about it. He’s very good, our Rashid. I have the scars to prove it.”
Chapter 14
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
THE CAFÉ WAS LOCATED AT the northern end of Georgetown, at the foot of Book Hill Park. Gabriel ordered a cappuccino from the bar and carried it through a pair of open French doors into a small garden with vine-covered walls. Three of the tables were in shadow; the fourth, in brilliant sunlight. A woman sat there alone, reading a newspaper. She wore a black running suit that clung tightly to her slender frame, and a pair of spotless white training shoes. Her shoulder-length blond hair was brushed straight back from her forehead and held in place by an elastic band at the nape of her neck. Sunglasses concealed her eyes but not her remarkable beauty. She removed the glasses as Gabriel approached and tilted her face to be kissed. She seemed surprised to see him.
“I was hoping it would be you,” said Sarah Bancroft.
“Adrian didn’t tell you I was coming?”
“He’s much too old-fashioned for that,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She had a voice and manner of speech from another age. It was like listening to a character from a Fitzgerald novel. “He dropped me a secure e-mail last night and told me to be here at nine. I was to stay until ten-thirty. If no one appeared, I was to leave and go to work as normal. It’s a good thing you came. You know how much I hate being stood up.”
“I see you brought reading material,” Gabriel said, glancing at the newspaper.
“You disapprove?”
“Office doctrine forbids agents to read newspapers in cafés. It’s far too obvious.” He paused, then added, “I thought we trained you better than that, Sarah.”
“You did. But on occasion, I like to behave like a normal person. And a normal person sometimes finds it pleasurable to read a newspaper in a café on a sunny autumn morning.”
“With a Glock concealed at the small of her back.”
“Thanks to you, it’s my constant companion.”
Sarah gave a melancholy smile. The daughter of a wealthy Citibank executive, she had spent much of her childhood in Europe, where she had acquired a Continental education along with Continental languages and impeccable Continental manners. She had returned to America to attend Dartmouth, and later, after spending a year at the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she became the youngest woman ever to earn a PhD in art history at Harvard.
But it was Sarah Bancroft’s love life, not her sterling education, that led her into the world of intelligence. While finishing her dissertation, she began dating a young lawyer named Ben Callahan who had the misfortune of boarding United Airlines Flight 175 on the morning of September 11, 2001. He managed to make one telephone call before the plane plunged into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. That call was to Sarah. With Adrian Carter’s blessing, and with the help of a lost van Gogh, Gabriel inserted her into the entourage of a Saudi billionaire named Zizi al-Bakari in a daring bid to find the terrorist mastermind lurking within it. At the conclusion of the operation, she had joined the CIA and was assigned to the Counterterrorism
