Gabriel Allon: The Black Widow Part 16

DURING ONE OF HIS MANY visits to GID headquarters in Amman, Gabriel had taken possession of several portable hard drives. On them were the contents of Jalal Na.s.ser's notebook computer, downloaded during his return visits to Jordan or during secret raids on his flat in the Bethnal Green section of East London. The GID had found nothing suspicious-no known jihadists in his contacts, no visits to jihadist Web sites in his browsing history-but Fareed Barakat had agreed to let the Office have a second look. It had taken the cybersleuths of King Saul Boulevard less than an hour to find a clever trapdoor concealed within an innocuous-looking gaming application. It led to a heavily encrypted cellar filled with names, numbers, e-mail addresses, and casing photographs, including several of the Weinberg Center in Paris. There was even a shot of Hannah Weinberg leaving her apartment on the rue Pavee. Gabriel broke the news to Fareed gently, so as not to bruise his valuable partner's enormous ego.

"Sometimes," said Gabriel, "it helps to have a fresh pair of eyes."

"Or a smart Jewish boy with a PhD from Caltech," said Fareed.

"That, too."

Among the names that featured most prominently in this hidden trove was Nabil Awad, originally from the northern Jordanian city of Irbid, lately of the Molenbeek district of Brussels. Separated from the elegant city center by an industrial ca.n.a.l, Molenbeek had once been occupied by Roman Catholic Walloons and Protestant Flemings who worked in the district's many factories and warehouses. The factories were a memory, as were Molenbeek's original inhabitants. It was now essentially a Muslim village of one hundred thousand people, where the call to prayer echoed five times each day from twenty-two different mosques. Nabil Awad lived on the rue Ransfort, a narrow street lined with terraces of flaking nineteenth-century brick houses that had been carved into crowded tenements. He worked part-time in a copy center in central Brussels, but like many young men who lived in Molenbeek, his primary occupation was radical Islam. Among security professionals, Molenbeek was known as the jihadi capital of Europe.

The neighborhood was not the sort of place for a man with the refined tastes of Fareed Barakat. Nor, for that matter, was the sixty-euro-a-night hotel on the rue du Lombard where he met Gabriel. He had toned down his clothing for the occasion-an Italian blazer, dove-gray trousers, a dress s.h.i.+rt with French cuffs, no tie. After being admitted to the cramped little room on the hotel's third floor, he contemplated the electric teakettle as though he had never laid eyes on such a contraption. Gabriel filled it with water from the bathroom tap and joined Fareed in the window. Directly opposite the hotel, on the ground floor of a modern seven-story office block, was XTC Printing and Copying.

"What time did he arrive?" asked the Jordanian.

"Promptly at ten."

"A model employee."

"So it would seem."

The Jordanian's dark eyes swept the street, a falcon looking for prey.

"Don't bother, Fareed. You'll never find them."

"Mind if I try?"

"Be my guest."

"The blue van, the two men in the parked car at the end of the block, the girl sitting alone in the window of the coffeehouse."

"Wrong, wrong, and wrong."

"Who are the two men in the car?"

"They're waiting for their friend to come out of the pharmacy."

"Or maybe they're from the Belgian security service."

"The last thing we need to worry about is the Srete. Unfortunately," added Gabriel gloomily, "neither do the terrorists who live in Molenbeek."

"Tell me about it," muttered Fareed. "They produce more terrorists here in Belgium than we do."

"Now that's saying something."

"You know," said Fareed, "we wouldn't have this problem if it wasn't for you Israelis. You upended the natural order of things in the Middle East, and now we are all paying the price."

Gabriel stared into the street. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, after all," he said quietly.

"You and I working together?"

Gabriel nodded.

"You need friends wherever you can find them, habibi. You should consider yourself lucky."

The water boiled, the kettle shut down with a click.

"Would you mind terribly?" asked the Jordanian. "I'm afraid I'm helpless in the kitchen."

"Sure, Fareed. It's not as if I have anything better to do."

"Sugar, please. Lots of sugar."

Gabriel poured water into a mug, dropped a stale teabag into it, and added three packets of sugar. The Jordanian blew on the tea furtively before raising the mug to his lips.

"How is it?" asked Gabriel.

"Ambrosia." Fareed started to light a cigarette but stopped when Gabriel pointed toward the NO SMOKING sign. "Couldn't you have booked a smoking room?"

"They were sold out."

Fareed returned the cigarette to his gold case and the case to the pocket of his blazer. "Maybe you're right," he said with a frown. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."

They saw him at eleven that morning when he left the shop to collect four takeaway coffees for his colleagues, and again at one that afternoon when he took his lunch break at a cafe around the corner. Finally, at six, they watched as he left the shop for the last time, trailed by the meekest-looking soul in all of Brussels and by a couple-a tall tweedy man and a woman with childbearing hips-who could scarcely keep their hands off one another. Though he did not know it, his life as he knew it was almost at its end. Soon, thought Gabriel, he would exist only in cybers.p.a.ce. He would be a virtual person, ones and zeros, digital dust. But only if they could get him cleanly, without the knowledge of his comrades or the Belgian police, without a trace. It would be no easy feat in a city like Brussels, a city of irregular streets and dense population. But as the great Ari Shamron once said, nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Six bridges span the wide industrial ca.n.a.l that separates the center of Brussels from Molenbeek. To cross any of them is to leave the West and enter the Islamic world. As usual, Nabil Awad made the pa.s.sage over a graffiti-sprayed pedestrian footbridge upon which few native Belgians ever dared to set foot. On the Molenbeek side, parked along an unsightly quay, was a battered van, formerly white, with a sliding side door. Nabil Awad seemed not to notice it; he had eyes only for the lanky man, a non-Arab, walking along the pea-soup-green waters of the ca.n.a.l. It was rare to see a Western face in Molenbeek at night, and rarer still that the owner of the face did not have a friend or two for protection.

Nabil Awad, ever vigilant, paused next to the van to allow the man to pa.s.s, which was his mistake. For at that instant the side door slid open on well-greased runners, and two pairs of trained hands wrenched him inside. The man with the non-Arab face climbed into the front pa.s.senger seat, the van eased away from the curb. As it pa.s.sed through the Muslim village known as Molenbeek, past sandaled men and veiled women, past halal markets and Turkish pizza stands, the man in back, now blindfolded and bound, struggled for his life. It was no use; his life as he knew it was over.

At half past six that evening, two men of late middle age, one an elegantly dressed Arab with a bird-of-prey face, the other vaguely Jewish in appearance, departed the hotel on the rue du Lombard and climbed into a car that seemed to materialize from thin air. The hotel's housekeeping staff entered the room a few minutes later, expecting the usual disaster after a brief stay by two men of suspect appearance. Instead, they found it in pristine condition, save for two dirty cups resting on the windowsill, one stained with tea, the other filled with cigarette b.u.t.ts, a clear violation of hotel policy. Management was furious, but not surprised. This was Brussels, after all, the crime capital of Western Europe. Management added one hundred euros to the bill for additional cleaning and spitefully tacked on a hefty room-service charge for food and drink that had never been ordered. Management was confident there would be no complaints.

25.

NORTHERN FRANCE.

PAUL ROUSSEAU'S PARTIc.i.p.aTION IN WHAT came next was limited to the acquisition of a safe property near the Belgian border, the cost of which he buried deep within his operating budget. He warned Gabriel and Fareed Barakat to avoid using any tactic on their prisoner that might remotely be construed as torture. Even so, Rousseau was flying dangerously close to the sun. There was no provision in French law to allow for the extrajudicial capture of a Belgian resident from Belgian soil, even if the Belgian resident was suspected of involvement in an act of terror committed in France. Were the operation ever to become public, Rousseau would surely perish in the resulting scandal. It was a risk he was willing to take. He regarded his counterparts in the Belgian Srete as incompetent fools who had countenanced the establishment of an ISIS safe haven in the heart of Europe. On numerous occasions, the Srete had failed to pa.s.s along vital intelligence regarding threats against French targets. As far as Rousseau was concerned, he was merely returning the favor.

The safe property was a small isolated farmhouse near Lille. Nabil Awad did not know this, for he had pa.s.sed the journey blinded by a hood and deafened by earplugs. The cramped dining room had been prepared for his arrival-a metal table, two chairs, a lamp with a bulb like the sun, nothing more. Mikhail and Yaakov secured Nabil Awad to one of the chairs with duct tape, and on Fareed Bakarat's signal, a barely perceptible nod of his regal head, they removed the hood. Instantly, the young Jordanian recoiled in fear of the dreaded Mukhabarat man seated calmly on the opposite side of the table. For someone like Nabil Awad, a Jordanian from a modest family, it was the worst place in the world to be. It was the end of the line.

The ensuing silence was several minutes in length and unnerved even Gabriel, who was watching from the darkened corner of the room with Eli Lavon at his side. Nabil Awad was already trembling with fear. That was the thing about the Jordanians, thought Gabriel. They didn't have to torture; their reputation preceded them. It allowed them to think themselves superior to their kindred service in Egypt. The Egyptian version of the Mukhabarat hung its prisoners on hooks before bothering to say h.e.l.lo.

With another small nod, Fareed instructed Mikhail to return the hood to the prisoner's head. The Jordanians, Gabriel knew, were great believers in sensory deprivation. A man deprived of the ability to see and hear becomes disoriented very quickly, sometimes in mere minutes. He grows anxious and depressed, he hears voices and experiences hallucinations. Soon, he suffers from a kind of madness. With a whisper, he can be convinced of almost anything. His flesh is melting from his bones. His arm is missing. His father, long dead, is sitting beside him, watching his humiliation. And all of this can be accomplished without beatings, without electricity, without water. All that is required is a bit of time.

But time, thought Gabriel, was not necessarily on their side. Nabil Awad was at that moment on another bridge, a bridge separating his old life from the life he would soon be living on behalf of Fareed Barakat. He had to cross that bridge quickly, without the knowledge of the other members of the network. Otherwise, this phase of the operation-the phase that had the potential to derail all that had come before-would be a colossal waste of time, effort, and valuable resources. For now, Gabriel was reduced to the role of spectator. His operation was in the hands of his former enemy.

At last, Fareed spoke, a brief question, delivered in a rich baritone that seemed to shake the very walls of the little French dining room. There was no menace in the voice, for none was necessary. It said that he was powerful, privileged, and moneyed. It said that he was a relative of His Majesty and, as such, was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. It said that you, Nabil Awad, are nothing. And if I should choose to take your life, I will do so without batting an eye. And then I will enjoy a nice cup of tea.

"Who is he?" was the question Fareed posed.

"Who?" came the weak and defeated voice from beneath the hood.

"Saladin," answered Fareed.

"He recaptured Jerusalem from the-"

"No, no," said Fareed, interrupting, "not that Saladin. I'm talking about the Saladin who ordered you to bomb the Jewish target in Paris and the market in Amsterdam."

"I had nothing to do with those attacks! Nothing! I swear it."

"That's not what Jalal told me."

"Who's Jalal?"

"Jalal Na.s.ser, your friend from London."

"I don't know anyone by that name."

"Of course you do, habibi. Jalal has told me everything already. He said you were the operational planner for both Paris and Amsterdam. He said you are Saladin's trusted lieutenant in Western Europe."

"That's not true!"

"Which part?"

"I don't know anyone named Jalal Na.s.ser, and I'm not an operational planner. I work in a print shop. I'm no one. Please, you have to believe me."

"Are you sure, habibi?" asked Fareed softly, as though disappointed. "Are you sure that's your answer?"

From beneath the hood there was only silence. With a glance, Fareed instructed Mikhail and Yaakov to remove the prisoner. Gabriel, from his post in the corner of the room, watched as his two trusted officers obeyed Fareed's command. For now, it was the Jordanian's operation. Gabriel was only a bystander.

A room had been prepared in the cellar. It was small and cold and damp and stank of mildew. Mikhail and Yaakov chained Nabil Awad to the cot and locked the reinforced soundproof door. An overhead light, protected by a metal cage, burned brightly. It was no matter; the sun had set on Nabil Awad. With the opaque hood s.h.i.+elding his eyes, he lived in a world of permanent night.

It did not take long for the darkness and the silence and the fear to bore a hole in Nabil Awad's brain. Fareed monitored the feed from the camera inside the makes.h.i.+ft cell. He was looking for the telltale signs-the fidgeting, the squirming, the sudden starts-that signaled the onset of emotional distress and confusion. He had personally conducted countless interrogations in the bleak cellars of GID headquarters, and he knew when to ask questions and when to let the darkness and the silence do their work for him. Some of the terrorists Fareed had interrogated had refused to break, even under brutal questioning, but he judged Nabil Awad to be fas.h.i.+oned of weaker stuff. There was a reason he was in Europe instead of bombing and killing and cutting off heads in the caliphate. Awad was no action-figure jihadist. He was a cog, which is precisely what they needed.

After two hours Fareed requested that the prisoner be brought up from the cellar. He posed three questions. What was your precise role in the Paris and Amsterdam attacks? How do you communicate with Jalal Na.s.ser? Who is Saladin? Again, the young Jordanian claimed to know nothing about terrorism or Jalal Na.s.ser or the mysterious man who called himself Saladin. He was a loyal Jordanian subject. He did not believe in terrorism or jihad. He did not go to the mosque with any regularity. He liked girls, smoked cigarettes, and drank alcohol. He worked in a copy shop. He was a nothing man.

"Are you sure, habibi?" asked Fareed before returning Nabil Awad to his cell. "Are you sure that's your answer?"

And on it went, all through the long night, every two hours, sometimes a quarter-hour less, sometimes more, so that Nabil Awad could not set an internal clock and thus prepare himself for Fareed's quiet onslaught. With each appearance the young Jordanian was more skittish, more disoriented. Each time, he was asked the same three questions. What was your precise role in the Paris and Amsterdam attacks? How do you communicate with Jalal Na.s.ser? Who is Saladin? His answers never varied. He was nothing. He was no one.

And all the while the jihadist's mobile phone pinged and flared with incoming traffic from a half-dozen different messaging and social media feeds. The phone was in the capable hands of Mordecai, a specialist in all things electronic, who was systematically mining its memory for valuable content. Two teams, one at GID headquarters, the other at King Saul Boulevard, were rapidly a.n.a.lyzing the intelligence haul. Together, they were drafting the responses that Mordecai sent from the phone itself, responses that would keep Nabil Awad alive in the minds of his friends, family, and fellow travelers in the global jihadist movement. One misstep, one stray word, could doom the entire operation.

It was high-wire work and a remarkable display of interservice cooperation. But then, the global war against Islamic extremism made for strange bedfellows, none stranger than Gabriel Allon and Fareed Barakat. In their youth they had been on opposite sides of the great ArabIsraeli divide, and their countries had fought a terrible conflict in which the goal of Fareed's side was to slaughter as many Jews as possible and drive the rest into the sea. Now they were allies in a new kind of war, a war against those who killed in the name of Fareed's ancient ancestor. It was a long war, perhaps a war without end.

On that night the war was being waged not in Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan but in a small isolated farmhouse near Lille, not far from the Belgian border. It was fought at two-hour intervals-sometimes two and a quarter, sometimes less-and three questions at a time. What was your precise role in the Paris and Amsterdam attacks? How do you communicate with Jalal Na.s.ser? Who is Saladin?

"Are you sure, habibi? Are you sure that's your answer?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

But he was not sure, not at all, and with each hooded appearance before Fareed Barakat his confidence weakened. So, too, did his will to resist. By morning he was talking to a cellmate who did not exist, and by early afternoon he could no longer walk the flight of steep stairs leading from the cellar. It was then Fareed removed the hood from his captive's head and laid before him a photograph of a round-faced, veiled woman. Other photos followed-a weathered man wearing a black-and-white keffiyeh, a boy of sixteen or so, a beautiful young girl. They were the ones who would pay the price for Nabil Awad's actions. The old ones would die in shame, the young ones had no future. That was the other thing about the Jordanians, thought Gabriel. They had the power to ruin lives. Not just the life of a terrorist but generations of lives. No one knew this better than Nabil Awad, who was soon sobbing in Fareed's powerful embrace. Fareed promised to make everything all right. But first, he said gently, they were going to have a little talk.

26.

NORTHERN FRANCE.

IT WAS AN ALL-TOO-FAMILIAR story-a story of disillusion and dissatisfaction, of needs unmet, of economic and marital hopes dashed, of rage against the Americans and Jews over their perceived mistreatment of Muslims. Half the jihadists in the world could have told the same sad tale; it was, thought Gabriel, well-trod territory. Yes, there were a few bright minds and young men from good families in the upper ranks of the global jihadist movement, but the foot soldiers and the cannon fodder were, for the most part, radical losers. Political Islam was their salvation, and ISIS was their paradise. ISIS gave purpose to lost souls and promised an afterlife of eternal copulation to those who perished for the cause. It was a powerful message for which the West had no antidote.

Nabil Awad's version of the story began in Irbid, where his father tended a stall in the central market. Nabil was a diligent student and upon graduation from secondary school was admitted to London's University College. The year was 2011; Syria was burning, British Muslims were seething. No longer under the thumb of the Jordanian Mukhabarat, Nabil quickly began a.s.sociating with Islamists and radicals. He prayed at the East London Mosque and joined the London chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Sunni Islamic organization that supported the resurrection of the caliphate long before anyone had heard of a group called ISIS. The Hizb, as it was known colloquially, was active in more than fifty countries and counted more than a million followers. One was a Jordanian from Amman named Jalal Na.s.ser, whom Nabil Awad met during a Hizb gathering in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets. Jalal Na.s.ser had already crossed the line-the line between Islamism and jihadism, between politics and terror. In time, he took Nabil Awad with him.

"When exactly did you meet him?" asked Fareed.

"I don't remember."

"Of course you do, habibi."

"It was the spring of 2013."

"I knew you could do it," said Fareed with a paternal smile. He had removed the bindings from Nabil Awad's wrists, and had given him a cup of sugary tea to keep his energy up. Fareed was drinking tea, too-and smoking, which Nabil Awad, a Salafist, did not approve of. Gabriel was no longer present; he was watching a video feed of the interrogation on a laptop in the next room, along with the other members of his team. Two other teams were monitoring the interrogation as well, one at GID headquarters, the other at King Saul Boulevard.

With a nudge, Fareed encouraged Nabil Awad to expound on his relations.h.i.+p with Jalal Na.s.ser, which he did. At first, he said, Jalal was guarded around his fellow Jordanian, wary. He was afraid he was an agent of the GID or MI5, the British security service. But gradually, after several conversations that bordered on interrogations, he took Nabil into his confidence. He said that he had been dispatched to Europe by ISIS to help build a network capable of striking targets in the West. He said he wanted Nabil to help him.

"How?"

"By looking for recruits."