The Black Widow

A car moved past in the street. The driver had the look of an indigenous South American — a Bolivian, maybe Peruvian. He seemed not to notice the three Israeli intelligence operatives sitting in the parked Buick Regal across the street from the house owned by an Egyptian jihadi who had slipped through the cracks of America’s vast post–9/11 security structure.

“What did Qassam do before he got into the moving business?”

“IT.”

“Why are so many of them in IT?”

“Because they don’t have to study un-Islamic subjects like English literature or Italian Renaissance painting.”

“All the things that make life interesting.”

“They aren’t interested in life, Eli. Only death.”

“Think he left his computers behind?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“What if he smashed his hard drives?”

Gabriel was silent. Another car moved past in the street, another South American behind the wheel. America, he thought, had its banlieues, too.

“How are you going to play it?” asked Lavon.

“I’m not going to knock on the door and invite myself in for a cup of tea.”

“But no rough stuff, though.”

“No,” said Gabriel. “No rough stuff.”

“You always say that.”

“And?”

“There’s always rough stuff.”

Gabriel picked up one of the AR-15s and checked to make sure it was properly loaded.

“Front door or back?” asked Lavon.

“I don’t do back doors.”

“What if they have a dog?”

“Bad swing thought, Eli.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stay in the car.”

Without another word, Gabriel climbed out and started swiftly across the street, gun in one hand, Mikhail at his side. It was funny, thought Lavon, watching him, but even after all these years he still moved like the boy of twenty-two who had served as Israel’s angel of vengeance after Munich. He scaled the chain-link fence with a straddling sidestep and then hurled himself toward the el-Bannas’ front door. There was a sharp splintering of wood, followed by a female scream, abruptly smothered. Then the door slammed shut and the lights of the house went dark. Lavon slid behind the wheel and surveyed the quiet street. So much for no rough stuff, he thought. There was always rough stuff.

71 HUME, VIRGINIA

NATALIE’S BODY SEEMED TO LIQUEFY with fear. She clutched the detonator tightly in her hand, lest it slip from her grasp and sink like a coin to the bottom of a wishing well. Inwardly, she reviewed the elements of her fabricated curriculum vitae. She was Leila from Sumayriyya, Leila who loved Ziad. At a rally in the Place de la République, she had told a young Jordanian named Nabil that she wanted to punish the West for its support of Israel. Nabil had given her name to Jalal Nasser, and Jalal had given her to Saladin. Inside the global jihadist movement, a story such as hers was commonplace. But it was just that, a story, and somehow Saladin knew it.

But how long had he known? From the beginning? No, thought Natalie, it wasn’t possible. Saladin’s lieutenants would never have allowed her to be in the same room with him if they suspected her loyalty. Nor would they have placed his fate in her hands. But they had entrusted her with Saladin’s life, and to her shame she had preserved it. And now she stood before him with a bomb strapped to her body and a detonator in her right hand. We don’t do suicide missions, Gabriel had said after her return from the caliphate. We don’t trade our lives for theirs. She placed her thumb atop the trigger switch and, testing the resistance, pressed it lightly. Saladin, watching her, smiled.

“You are very brave, Maimonides,” he said to her in Arabic. “But then I always knew that.”

He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Natalie, fearing he was reaching for a gun, pressed harder on the switch. But it was not a gun, it was a phone. He tapped the screen a few times, and the device emitted a sharp hissing sound. Natalie realized after a few seconds that the sound was water rushing into a basin. The first voice she heard was her own.

“Do you know who that woman is?”

“How did she get into the country?”

“On a false passport.”

“Where did she come in?”

“New York.”

“Kennedy or Newark?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did she get down to Washington?”

“The train.”

“What’s the name of the passport?”

“Asma Doumaz.”

“Have you been given a target?”

“No. But she’s been given hers. It’s a suicide operation.”

“Do you know her target?”

“No.”

“Have you met any other members of the attack cells?”

“No.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“She took it from me. Don’t try to send me any messages.”