Portrait of a Spy (33 page)

“Are you suggesting that Nadia al-Bakari is in league with al-Qaeda?” asked McKenna.

“I’m suggesting nothing of the sort. In fact, it is my opinion that when the secret history of the global war on terror is finally written, Nadia will be regarded as one of the most valuable assets who ever worked on the side of the West. Which is why I would hate to lose her because we got greedy and sent her into a situation we shouldn’t have.”

“Malik isn’t inviting her to South Waziristan,” McKenna said. “He’s asking to meet with her in one of the most famous hotels in the world.”

“Actually,” Carter replied, “we don’t know whether it’s going to be Malik al-Zubair or Nobody al-Nobody. But that’s beside the point.”

“What
is
the point?”

“It violates tradecraft. You remember tradecraft, don’t you, Jim? Rule one says we control as many environmental factors as possible. We choose the time. We choose the place. We pick out the furniture. We order the drinks. And, if possible, we serve the drinks. And we sure as hell don’t let someone like Nadia al-Bakari get within a country mile of a man like Malik.”

“But sometimes we play the hand we’re dealt,” McKenna countered. “Isn’t that what you told the president the day after we lost those seven CIA officers?”

Gabriel noticed a rare flash of anger in Carter’s eyes, but when he spoke again, his voice was as calm and underpowered as ever. “My father was an Episcopal minister, Jim. I don’t play cards.”

“Then what are you recommending?”

“This operation has worked better than any of us ever dared to hope,” Carter said. “Maybe we shouldn’t push our luck with a risky pass play late in the fourth quarter.”

Shamron appeared annoyed. He considered the use of American sports metaphors to be inappropriate for a business as vital as espionage. In Shamron’s opinion, intelligence officers did not blow fourth-quarter leads, or strike out, or fumble the ball. There was only success or failure—and the price of failure in a neighborhood like the Middle East was usually blood.

“Call it a day?” Shamron asked. “Is that what you’re saying, Adrian?”

“Why not? The president got his victory, and so did the Agency. Better still, everybody lives to fight another day.” Carter brushed the palms of his hands together twice and said,
“Halas.”

McKenna seemed perplexed. Gabriel explained the reference to him.

“
Halas
is the Arabic word for ‘finished.’ But Adrian knows all too well that this war will never be finished. It’s a forever war. And he’s afraid it will be a good deal bloodier if he allows a skilled mastermind like Malik to slip through his fingers.”

“No one wants Malik’s head on a pike more than I do,” Carter agreed. “He deserves it for the mayhem he caused in Iraq, and his removal from the face of the earth will make us all safer. Suicide bombers are a dime a dozen. But masterminds—true terror masterminds—are extremely hard to replace. Eliminate the masterminds like Malik, and you’re left with a bunch of jihadist wannabes trying to figure out how to mix their peroxide bombs in their mother’s basement.”

“So why not let Nadia make the meeting?” asked McKenna. “Why not let her listen to what Malik has to say about his future plans?”

“Because I’ve got that funny feeling at the back of my neck.”

“But they trust her. Why wouldn’t they? She’s Zizi’s daughter. She’s a descendant of Wahhab himself, for God’s sake.”

“I’ll grant you they trusted her
once
,” Carter replied, “but it’s an open question whether they trust her now that their network has been rolled up.”

“You’re jumping at shadows,” McKenna said. “But I suppose that’s to be expected. After all, you’ve been at this a very long time. For the last ten years, you’ve been reading their e-mail and listening to their phone conversations, looking for hidden meaning. But sometimes there is none. Sometimes a wedding is just a wedding. And sometimes a meeting in a hotel is just a meeting in a hotel. Besides, if we can’t get a heavily guarded businesswoman like Nadia al-Bakari in and out of the Burj Al Arab safely, then maybe we’re in the wrong business.”

Carter was silent for a moment. “Any chance we can keep this professional, Jim?”

“I thought we were.”

“Should I assume you’re speaking for the White House?”

“No,” said McKenna. “You should assume I’m speaking for the president.”

“Since you’re so in tune with the president’s thinking, why don’t you tell us all what the president wants.”

“He wants what all presidents want. He wants a second term. Otherwise, the inmates will be running the asylum again, and all the progress we’ve made in the war against terrorism will be wiped away.”

“You mean
extremism
,” said Carter, correcting him. “But what about the meeting in Dubai?”

“Both the president and I would like her to attend—with the good guys looking over her shoulder, of course. Listen to what he has to say. Take his picture. Get his fingerprints. Record his voice. Determine whether he’s Malik or some other heavyweight member of the network.”

“And what do we tell our friends in the Emirati security services?”

“Our friends in the Emirates have been less-than-reliable allies on a number of issues ranging from terrorism to money laundering to the illicit arms trade. Besides, in my experience, one never quite knows just whom one is speaking to in the Emirates. He might be a committed opponent of the jihadists, or he might be a second cousin once removed.”

“So we say nothing?” Carter asked.

“Nothing,” McKenna replied.

“And if we determine it’s Malik?”

“Then the president would like him taken out of circulation.”

“What does that mean?”

“Use your imagination, Adrian.”

“I did that after 9/11, Jim, and you said publicly that I should be put in jail for it. So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to know
exactly
what the president is asking me to do.”

It was Shamron, not McKenna, who answered.

“He’s not asking
you
to do anything, Adrian.” Shamron looked at McKenna and asked, “Isn’t that correct?”

“I was told to watch my step around you.”

“I was told the same thing.”

McKenna seemed pleased by this. “The president is unwilling to authorize an American covert action in a quasi-friendly Arab country at a sensitive time like this,” he said. “He feels it could embarrass the regime and thus leave it vulnerable to the forces of change sweeping the Middle East.”

“But Israelis running amok in Dubai is another matter entirely.”

“It does happen to dovetail nicely with the facts.”

“What facts are those?”

“Malik has a great deal of Israeli blood on his hands, which means you have every reason to want him dead.”

“Well played, Mr. McKenna,” Shamron said. “But what do we get in return?”

“The gratitude of the most important and transformative American president in a generation.”

“Equity?” asked Shamron.

McKenna smiled and said, “Equity.”

Chapter 50
The Plains, Virginia

I
T WAS AT THIS POINT
in the proceedings that James A. McKenna, special assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, thankfully chose to take his leave. Carter summoned his secret brethren to the sitting room and asked whether anyone could recall where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 plot, had been hiding the night of his capture. They all did, of course, but it was Chiara who answered.

“He was in a house in Rawalpindi, just down the road from the headquarters of the Pakistani military.”

“Of all places,” Carter said, shaking his head. “And do you happen to remember how we got him?”

“You sent in an informant to confirm it was really him. After laying eyes on the target, the informant slipped into the bathroom and sent you a text message.”

“And a few hours later, the man who planned the worst terror attack in history was in handcuffs, looking shockingly like the guy who works on my wife’s Volvo. I took a great deal of grief for the things we did to KSM and the places we put him, but that picture of him being led away was worth it all. And all it took was a guy with a cell phone. Simple as that.”

“If we agree to do this,” Gabriel said, “you may rest assured Nadia won’t be running to the toilet to send any text messages.”

“
If
you agree to do it?” Carter inclined his head toward Shamron and Navot, who were seated next to each other on the couch, with their arms folded and their faces set in the same inscrutable mask. “They’re very good at hiding their thoughts,” Carter said, “but I can tell you exactly what’s running through their devious little minds. They want Malik in the worst way—maybe even more than the president and McKenna. And there’s no way they’re going to pass up a chance of getting him. So let’s skip the playing-hard-to-get portion of tonight’s performance and get down to the planning.”

Gabriel looked to his superiors for guidance. Navot was rubbing at the spot on the bridge of his nose where his fashionable eyeglasses pinched him. Shamron had yet to move. He was staring past Gabriel toward Chiara, as if offering her a chance to intervene. She didn’t take it.

“For the record,” Gabriel said, “we’re not going to Dubai to capture anyone. If it’s Malik, he won’t leave there alive.”

“I’m quite certain I didn’t hear McKenna mention anything about an arrest.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

“We are,” said Carter. “Think of yourself as a Hellfire missile, but without the collateral damage and innocent deaths.”

“Hellfire missiles don’t need passports, hotel rooms, and airline tickets. They also don’t have a problem operating in Arab countries. We do.” Gabriel paused. “You
do
realize that Dubai is an Arab country, don’t you, Adrian?”

“I think I may have read something about that.”

Gabriel hesitated. They were now about to enter sensitive territory dealing with capabilities and operational tendencies. Intelligence agencies guard these secrets jealously and expose them to allies only under duress. For the Office, it was akin to heresy. With a nod, Gabriel delegated the task to Uzi Navot, who slipped on his eyeglasses again and stared at Carter for a long moment without speaking.

“We live in a complex world, Adrian,” he said finally, “so sometimes it helps to simplify things. As far as we are concerned, there are two types of countries—places where we can operate with impunity and places where we can’t. We call the first category
base
countries.”

“Like the United States,” Carter acknowledged with a smile.

“And the United Kingdom,” Navot added with a glance toward the deputy director of MI5. “Despite your best efforts, we come and go as needed and do pretty much as we please. If we get into trouble, we have a network of safe houses and bolt-holes that were put in place by the man seated at my side. In the event of a disaster, God forbid, our agents can take sanctuary in an embassy or ask for help from a friendly secret policeman like Graham.”

Shamron gave Navot a murderous look. Navot carried on as though he hadn’t noticed.

“We refer to the second category as
target
countries. These are hostile lands. No embassies. No safe houses. The secret policemen aren’t friendly. In fact, were they to get their hands on us, they would torture us, shoot us, hang us on television for their people to see, or put us in jail for a very long time.”

“What do you need?” asked Carter.

“Passports,” said Gabriel, taking over for Navot. “The kind that allow us to enter Dubai without an advance visa.”

“What flavor?”

“American, British, Canadian, Australian.”

“Why Canadian and Aussie?” asked Graham Seymour.

“Because we’re going to need a large team, and I need to spread them out geographically.”

“Why not use your own false passports?”

This time it was Shamron who answered. “Because they require a great deal of time, effort, and scheming to produce. And we would prefer not to waste them on an operation that we’re carrying out for the sake of American
equity
.”

Carter couldn’t help but smile at the slight directed toward James McKenna. “We’ll get you all the passports you need,” he said.

“And credit cards to go with them,” added Gabriel. “Not the prepaid kind. I want real credit cards from real banks.”

Carter nodded his head, as did Graham Seymour.

“What else?” Carter asked.

“Dubai’s geography presents us with challenges,” Navot said. “As far as we’re concerned, there’s only one way in and out.”

“The airport,” said Carter.

“That’s right,” Gabriel replied. “But we can’t be held hostage by commercial flights. We need our own airplane, American registry, clean provenance.”

“I’ll get you a G5.”

“A Gulfstream isn’t big enough.”

“What do you want?”

Gabriel told him. Carter stared at the ceiling, as if calculating the impact of the request on his operational budgets.

“Next I suppose you’ll tell me you want an American crew, too.”

“I do,” Gabriel said. “I also need weapons.”

“Make and model?”

Gabriel recited them. Carter nodded. “I’ll bring them in through the embassy. Does that cover everything?”

“Everything but the star of the show,” said Gabriel.

“Judging by the sound of her voice on that intercept, you’re not going to have any difficulty convincing her to do it.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Gabriel said, “because she deserves to know that the full faith and credit of the American government are behind her.” Gabriel paused, then added, “And so do we.”

“I’ve promised you passports, money, guns, and a Boeing Business Jet with an American crew. What other gesture of American support would you like?”

“I’d like a word with your boss.”

“The director?”

Gabriel shook his head. Carter went to the secure phone and dialed.

It was approaching ten p.m. when the Escalade entered the White House grounds through the Fifteenth Street gate. A uniformed Secret Service agent gave Carter’s credentials a cursory glance, then instructed the driver to pull forward for a quick sniff from Oscar, the omnivorous Alsatian that had tried to take a chunk out of Gabriel’s leg during his last visit. The beast found nothing disagreeable about Carter’s official vehicle other than the right-front tire, against which he urinated forcefully before returning to his crate.