On the wall above John O’Donnell’s workstation was a large digital clock with red numerals set against a black background. Gabriel, however, had eyes only for the telephone. It was a modern device, with access to twenty lines, including extension 7512, which was available nowhere else in the building. Extension 7512 was O’Donnell’s private reserve. Now it belonged to Gabriel, along with O’Donnell’s warm chair and O’Donnell’s wrinkled legal pad.
The clock rolled over to 17:59 and the seconds began their methodical march from:00 to:59. Gabriel kept his eyes on the phone-on the green light in the box marked 7512, and on the small crack in the receiver, inflicted by O’Donnell during a blind rage early in the crisis. A minute later, when the clock rolled over to 18:00:00, there was an audible gasp in the room. Then, at 18:01:25, Gabriel heard one of O’Donnell’s team members begin to weep. He did not share the pessimism of his audience. He knew the terrorists were cruel bastards who were just using the opportunity of the deadline to have a spot of fun at the expense of their American and Israeli opponents.
At 18:02:17, the telephone finally rang. Gabriel, unwilling to cause his audience any additional stress, answered before it could ring a second time. He spoke in English, with his heavy Hebrew accent, so there would be no misunderstanding about who was on the line.
“The answer is yes,” he said.
“Be ready at ten o’clock tomorrow night. We’ll give you the instructions then.”
Under normal circumstances, a professional negotiator like O’Donnell would have begun the delay tactics: trouble assembling the money, trouble getting the permission of local authorities for the handover, anything to keep the hostage alive and the kidnappers talking. But this was not a normal situation-the terrorists wanted Gabriel-and there was no point delaying the inevitable. The sooner it started, the sooner it would be over.
“You’ll call on this number?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I look forward to hearing from you.”
Click.
Gabriel stood, pulled on his leather jacket, and started toward the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Carter.
“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t just leave.”
“I can’t stay here, Adrian. I have work to do.”
“Let us give you a lift. We can’t have you wandering around London unprotected.”
“I think I can look after myself, Adrian.”
“At least let me rustle you up a gun.”
“What are you boys carrying these days?”
“Browning Hi-Power,” said Carter. “It doesn’t have the grace and beauty of your Berettas, but it’s quite lethal. Would you like one magazine or two?”
Gabriel frowned.
“I’ll bring you two,” said Carter. “And an extra box of ammo for laughs.”
Five minutes later, with Carter’s loaded Browning pressing against the base of his spine, Gabriel slipped past the Marine guard at the North Gate and turned into Upper Brook Street. The sidewalk along the embassy fence was closed to pedestrian traffic and lined with Metropolitan Police officers in lime green jackets. Gabriel crossed to the opposite side of the street and headed toward Hyde Park. He spotted the motorcyclist two minutes later as he rounded the corner into Park Lane. The bike was a powerful BMW and the figure seated atop it was long-legged and helmeted. Gabriel noticed the bulge beneath the leather jacket-the left side, for the right-handed cross draw. He continued north to Marble Arch, then headed west along the Bayswater Road. As he was approaching Albion Gate he heard the roar of the BMW bike at his back. It came alongside him and braked to an abrupt stop. Gabriel swung his leg over the back and wrapped his arms around the rider’s waist. As the bike shot forward he heard the sound of a woman singing. Chiara always sang when she was at the controls of a motorcycle.
48
She drove for fifteen minutes through the streets of Belgravia and Brompton to make certain they were not being followed, then made her way to the Israeli embassy, located in Old Court Place just off Kensington High Street. Shamron was waiting for them in the office of the station chief, a foul-smelling Turkish cigarette in one hand and a handsome olive-wood cane in the other. He was angrier than Gabriel had seen him in many years.
“Hello, Ari.”
“What do you think you’re playing at?”
“How did you get here so quickly?”
“I left Ben-Gurion this morning after learning about your exploits in Denmark. It was my intention to ease your way through Heathrow and bring you home again. But when I placed a call to the station to let them know I had arrived, I was told you had just left Downing Street.”
“I tried to steal some matches for you, but I was never alone.”
“You should have consulted with us before agreeing to this!”
“There wasn’t time.”
“There was abundant time! You see, Gabriel, it would have been a very short consultation. You would have asked for clearance to undertake this mission and I would have told you no. End of consultation.” He crushed out his cigarette and looked at Gabriel malevolently for a long moment without speaking. “But to back out of this arrangement now is not an option. Can you imagine the headlines? Vaunted Israeli intelligence service, afraid to rescue the American girl. You’ve left us no choice but to proceed. But that’s exactly what you intended, isn’t it? You are a manipulative little bastard.”
“I learned from the master.”
Shamron stuck another cigarette between his lips, cocked the lid of his old Zippo lighter, and fired. “I held my tongue when you decided to return to Amsterdam to kidnap and interrogate this man Ibrahim Fawaz. I held my tongue again when you went to Copenhagen and tried to negotiate with his son. If I had obeyed my first instinct, which was to bring you home, it wouldn’t have come to this. You had no right to agree to this assignment without first obtaining the permission of your director and your prime minister. If it were anyone but you, I would bring you up on charges and throw you into the Judean Wilderness to atone for your sins.”
“You can do that when I get home.”
“You’re liable to come home in a box. You don’t need to commit suicide in order to get out of being the next chief, Gabriel. If you don’t want the job, just say so.”
“I don’t want the job.”
“I know you don’t really mean that.”
“God, but you’re sounding more and more like a Jewish mother every day.”
“And you are providing me ample proof that you are not up to the job. By way of deception, thou shalt do war-this is our creed. We are not shaheeds, Gabriel. We leave the suicide missions to Hamas and all the other Islamic psychopaths who wish to destroy us. We move like shadows, strike like lightning, and then we vanish into thin air. We do not volunteer to serve as delivery boys for rich Americans, and we certainly don’t sacrifice ourselves for no good reason. You are one of the elite. You are a prince of a very small tribe.”
“And what do we do about Elizabeth Halton? Let her die?”
“If it is the only way to end this madness, then the answer is yes.”
“And if it were your daughter, Ari? If it were Ronit?”
“Then I would shake hands with the Devil himself in order to get her back again. But I wouldn’t ask the Americans to do it for me. Blue and white, Gabriel. Blue and white. We do things for ourselves, and we do not help others with problems of their own making. The Americans threw in their lot with the secular dictatorships of the Middle East a long time ago, and now the oppressed are rising up and taking their revenge on symbols of American power. On September eleventh it was the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Now it is the innocent daughter of the American ambassador to London.”