Portrait of a Spy (19 page)

“I’m spending the afternoon with an old friend from London. He made a pile of money in private equity and bought himself a château in the Val-d’Oise. I’m afraid he’s throwing a small party in my honor.”

“A birthday party?”

“How did you know?”

“My security staff conducted a discreet background check before our lunch at the Crillon. As of today you are thirty—”

“Please don’t say it aloud. I’m trying to pretend it’s just a bad dream.”

Nadia managed to laugh. Then she asked the name of Zoe’s friend from London.

“Fowler. Thomas Fowler.”

“What firm is he with?”

“Thomas doesn’t do firms. Thomas is militantly independent. Apparently, you met him a few years ago in the Caribbean. One of the French islands. Can’t remember which. St. Barts, I think it was. Or maybe it was Antigua.”

“I’ve never set foot on Antigua.”

“So it must have been St. Barts.”

There was silence.

“Did I lose you?” asked Zoe.

“No, I’m still here.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Where did I meet him?”

“He said it was in a bar near one of the beaches.”

“Which bar?”

“Not sure about that.”

“Which beach?”

“Don’t think Thomas mentioned it.”

“Was Thomas alone that day?”

“Actually, he was with his wife. Lovely girl. Bit on the pushy side, but I suppose that comes with the territory.”

“Which territory is that?”

“Being the wife of a billionaire like Thomas.”

More silence, longer than the first.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember him.”

“He certainly remembers you.”

“Describe him, please.”

“Tallish chap. Built like a lamppost. A bit more interesting, once you get to know him. I think he did a deal a few years ago with an associate of your father.”

“Do you happen to recall this associate’s name?”

“Why don’t you ask Thomas for yourself?”

“What are you saying, Zoe?”

On the second floor of Château Treville was a somber music room with walls covered in red silk and lavish window treatments to match. At one end of the room was a harpsichord with gilded moldings and a pastoral oil painting on the lid. At the other was an antique French Renaissance table with walnut inlay where Gabriel and Eli Lavon sat staring into a pair of computers. On one was a blinking light showing Zoe Reed’s current location and altitude. On the other was a recording of the conversation she had conducted at 10:22 with Nadia al-Bakari. Ten times Gabriel and Lavon had listened to it. Ten times they could find no excuse not to proceed. It was now 11:55. Lavon frowned as Gabriel clicked the play icon one final time.

“Do you happen to recall this associate’s name?”

“Why don’t you ask Thomas for yourself?”

“What are you saying, Zoe?”

“I’m saying you should come to the party. I know Thomas would simply adore it, and it would give us a chance to spend some more time together.”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because your friend . . . forgive me, Zoe, but please tell me his name again.”

“Thomas Fowler. Like the character in the Graham Greene novel.”

“Who?”

“It’s not important. What’s important is that you come.”

“I wouldn’t want to be an imposition.”

“You wouldn’t be, for heaven’s sake. Besides, it’s my birthday, and I insist.”

“Where exactly is your friend’s home located?”

“Just north of Paris. The hotel’s arranged a car for me.”

“Tell the hotel to cancel it. We’ll take my car instead. It will give us a chance to talk.”

“Wonderful. Thomas says the dress code is château casual. But let’s go light on the security, shall we? Thomas is a bit of a fanny patter, but he’s otherwise quite harmless.”

“I’ll see you at noon, Zoe.”

The call went dead. Gabriel clicked on the stop icon and then looked up to find Yossi leaning in the doorway, looking every inch the prosperous private equity mogul who was spending the weekend at his French country retreat. “For the record,” he said in his lazy Oxford drawl, “I didn’t appreciate the bit about a lamppost.”

“I’m sure she meant it as a term of endearment.”

“How would you feel if someone compared you to a lamppost?”

“Endeared.”

Yossi smoothed the front of his Bond Street cashmere jacket. “Have we achieved château casual?”

“I believe we have.”

“Ascot or no ascot?”

“No ascot.”

“Ascot,” said Lavon. “Definitely ascot.”

Yossi went out. Gabriel reached for the computer mouse again, but Lavon stilled his hand.

“She knows it’s us, and she’s still coming. Besides,” Lavon added, “it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

Gabriel looked at the other computer screen. The elevation reading on the icon indicated that Zoe was sinking slowly toward the lobby. This was confirmed a few seconds later when Gabriel heard the sound of the elevator doors opening, followed by the clatter of Zoe’s heels as she headed across the lobby. She bade good day to Herr Schmidt, thanked Isabelle for the complimentary fruit basket that had been left in her room the previous evening, and blew a kiss to Monsieur Didier, who was at that moment attempting to secure a reservation at the Jules Verne for Chiara and Yaakov—a reservation which, regrettably, they would later be forced to cancel. Next came a burst of traffic noise as Zoe stepped outside, followed in turn by the heavy thud of a limousine door closing. The ensuing silence was coffinlike. It was broken by the pleasant voice of a woman with unimpeachable jihadist credentials.

“It’s so lovely to see you again, Zoe,” said Nadia al-Bakari. “I brought your friend a bottle of Latour as a château-warming gift. I hope he likes red.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Don’t be silly.”

And with that, the icon was once again in motion, pursued by three other flashing beacons representing the surveillance teams. A moment later, they were all headed westward along the Champs-Élysées at a speed of thirty-three miles per hour. As they neared the Arc de Triomphe, Zoe offered to switch off her BlackBerry. “Don’t bother,” said Nadia quietly. “I trust you now, Zoe. No matter what happens, I will always consider you a friend.”

Chapter 28
Seraincourt, France

T
HE
BANLIEUES
OF NORTHEASTERN
P
ARIS
seemed to stretch for an eternity, but gradually the vulgar apartment blocks fell away and the first patches of green appeared. Even in winter, with the sky low and heavy, the French countryside looked as though it had been groomed for a family portrait. They roared through it in the black Maybach sedan with no escort vehicles, at least none that Zoe could see. Rafiq al-Kamal, the pumice-faced security chief, sat scowling in the front passenger seat. He wore his usual dark suit but, in deference to the informality of the occasion, no necktie. Nadia wore a rich cream-colored cashmere sweater, trim-fitting tan suede trousers, and low-heeled boots suitable for walking along wooded country lanes. To hide her nerves, she spoke without pause. About the French. About the appalling fashions that winter. About an article she had read in the
Financial Journal
that very morning regarding the deplorable financial straits of the Euro-zone economies. The heat inside the car was tropical. Zoe was perspiring beneath her clothing, but Nadia appeared slightly chilled. Her hands were curiously bloodless. Noticing Zoe’s interest, she blamed it on the damp Parisian weather, of which she spoke without interruption until a road sign warned that they were approaching the village of Seraincourt.

At that instant, a motorcycle overtook them. It was a high-powered Japanese model of the sort that compelled the driver to lean forward at an uncomfortable-looking angle. He looked into Zoe’s window as he passed, as though curious about the occupants of so fine an automobile, then made an obscene gesture at the driver before vanishing behind a cloud of road spray.
Hello, Mikhail
, thought Zoe.
So nice to see you again
.

She drew the BlackBerry from her handbag and dialed. The voice that answered was vaguely familiar. Of course it was, she reminded herself quickly. It belonged to her old friend Thomas Fowler from London. Thomas who made a bundle investing in God only knew what. Thomas who met Nadia a few years ago at a seaside bar in St. Barts. Thomas who was now giving Zoe directions to his showy new château—right on the rue de Vexin, left on the rue des Vallées, right on the Route des Hèdes. The gate was on the left side of the road, he said, just beyond the old vineyard. Never mind the warning sign about the dogs. It was just a bluff, for security’s sake. Thomas was concerned about security. Thomas had good reason to be.

Zoe severed the connection and returned the BlackBerry to her handbag. Looking up again, she caught Rafiq al-Kamal eyeing her warily in his mirror. Nadia was gazing gloomily out her window at the passing countryside.
Smile
, thought Zoe.
We’re going to a party, after all. It’s important you try to smile
.

There was no formal precedent for what they were attempting to do, no established doctrine, no Office tradition upon which to draw. During the endless rehearsal sessions, Gabriel likened it to an unveiling, with Nadia as the potential buyer and Gabriel himself as the painting propped upon a display pedestal. The event would be preceded by a brief journey—a journey, he explained, that would take Nadia and the team from the present into the not-too-distant past. The nature of this trip would have to be carefully calibrated. It would have to be pleasant enough so as not to scare Nadia away, yet forceful enough to leave her no opportunity to turn back. Even Gabriel, who had devised the strategy, placed their chances of success at no better than one in three. Eli Lavon was still more pessimistic. But then Lavon, a student of biblical disasters, was a worrier by nature.

At that moment, though, the prospect of failure was the farthest thing from Lavon’s thoughts. Bundled in several layers of wool, remnants of operations past, he was plodding along the grassy shoulder of the rue des Vallées, a walking stick in one hand, his head seemingly in the clouds. He paused briefly to stare at the passing Maybach limousine—to do otherwise would have been odd—but paid no attention to the little Renault hatchback that followed in the big sedan’s wake like a poor relation. Behind the Renault the road was deserted, which is precisely what Lavon was hoping for. He lifted his hand to his mouth and, feigning a cough, informed Gabriel that the target was proceeding as instructed, with no surveillance other than that of the home team.

By then, the Maybach had already made the turn onto the Route des Hèdes and was sweeping past the old vineyard at flank speed. It ducked through the imposing front gate of the château, then headed up the long straight gravel drive, at the end of which stood Yossi in a pose of idleness only money could buy. He waited until the car had come to a stop before advancing slowly toward it, but froze when al-Kamal emerged in an aggressive black blur. The Saudi bodyguard stood beside the car for several seconds, his eyes flickering over the façade of the grand manor house, before finally opening the rear passenger door at a strict forty-five-degree angle. Nadia emerged slowly and in stages—a costly boot upon the gravel, a jeweled hand across the top of the door, a flash of silken hair that seemed to gather the remaining light of the afternoon.

For reasons Gabriel did not share with the others, he had decided to mark the occasion with a photograph, which resides in the file rooms of King Saul Boulevard to this day. Snapped by Chiara from a window on the second floor, it shows Nadia taking her first step across the forecourt with Zoe at her side, one hand stretched hesitantly toward Thomas Fowler, the other clutching the bottle of Latour by the neck. Her brow is already slightly furrowed, and in her eyes is the faintest flicker of recognition. It was true that she had once seen this man on the island of St. Barts, in a charming little patio bar overlooking the salt marshes of Saline. Nadia had been drinking daiquiris that day; the man, burned by the sun, had nursed a beer a few tables away. He had been accompanied by a scantily dressed woman with sandstone-colored hair and generous hips—the same woman who was now stepping from the front entrance of the house in clothing that matched Nadia’s in cost and style. A woman who was now holding on to Nadia’s hand as though she had no intention of ever letting go. “I’m Jenny Fowler,” said Rimona Stern. “I’m so thrilled you’re joining us. Please come inside before we all catch our death.”

The first leg of Nadia’s journey complete, they turned in unison and started toward the entrance of the house. The bodyguard briefly attempted to follow, but Nadia, in her first act of conspiracy, stilled him with a gesture of her hand and a few reassuring words of murmured Arabic. If she thought her hosts would not understand, she was mistaken; the Fowlers were both fluent Arabic speakers, as was the petite woman with dark hair waiting beneath the chandelier in the grand main foyer. Again Nadia’s expression was one of distant recollection. “I’m Emma,” said Dina Sarid. “I’m an old friend of the Fowlers. It’s so nice to meet you.”

Nadia grasped the outstretched hand, another stage of the journey complete, and allowed Dina to draw her into the vaulted great room. Standing before a row of French doors, her gaze fixed on the elaborate terraced garden, was a woman with pale blond hair and skin the color of alabaster. Hearing the sound of footsteps, the woman turned slowly and stared at Nadia for a long moment with expressionless blue eyes. She didn’t bother to offer a false name. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.

“Hello, Nadia,” Sarah Bancroft said finally. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

Nadia recoiled slightly and seemed frightened for the first time. “My God,” she said after a moment of hesitation. “Is it really you? I was afraid you were . . .”