The Black Widow

IN EVERY OPERATION THERE ARE loose threads, small problems that for one reason or another slip through the cracks. Jalal Nasser, talent spotter, recruiter, long arm of Saladin, fell into that category. An arrest was out of the question; a trial would expose not only Gabriel’s operation but the incompetence of the British and French security services as well. Nor was deportation an option. Were he to return to Jordan, he would have gone straight to the cellars of the Fingernail Factory — and then, in all likelihood, to an unmarked grave in a potter’s field. Such an outcome might have been acceptable during the earliest days of the global war on terror, but now that cooler, more civilized heads had prevailed, it was unthinkable. There would be international outrage, perhaps a lawsuit or even criminal prosecution of the spymasters involved. “Collateral damage,” intoned Fareed Barakat gravely. “And you know how His Majesty feels about collateral damage.”

There was a simple solution, a Shamronian solution. All that was required was the connivance of the native service, which, for the above stated reasons, was not difficult to obtain. In fact, the agreement was reached during a private interlude in Shamron’s kitchen, on the night of the party. Much later, it would be regarded as Gabriel’s first official decision as chief.

The other party to the agreement was Graham Seymour of MI6. The operation could not go forward, however, without the cooperation of Amanda Wallace, Seymour’s counterpart at MI5. He secured it over martinis in Amanda’s Thames House office. It wasn’t a difficult sale; MI5’s watchers had long ago grown weary of chasing Jalal through the streets of London. For Amanda, it was little more than a manpower decision. By moving Jalal off her plate, she would have additional resources to deploy against her primary target, the Russians.

“But no messes,” she cautioned.

“No,” agreed Seymour, shaking his gray head vigorously. “No messes, indeed.”

Within forty-eight hours, Amanda terminated all surveillance of the subject in question, which later, during the inevitable inquiry, she would describe as mere coincidence. Graham Seymour then rang Gabriel at King Saul Boulevard and informed him that the field was his. Secretly, he wished it were so, but that wouldn’t have been appropriate, not for a chief. That night he drove Mikhail to Ben Gurion Airport and placed him aboard a flight for London. Inside Mikhail’s false Russian passport, Gabriel had concealed a note. It was three words in length, the three words of Shamron’s eleventh commandment.

Don’t get caught. .

Jalal Nasser spent his final day in London in much the same way he had spent the previous hundred, seemingly unaware of the fact he was blown to kingdom come. He shopped in Oxford Street, he loitered in Leicester Square, he prayed in the East London Mosque. Afterward, he had tea with a promising recruit. Gabriel forwarded the recruit’s name to Amanda Wallace. It was, he thought, the least he could do.

By then, Jalal’s flat in Chilton Street had been emptied of its hidden cameras and microphones, leaving the team across the street with no option but to observe their quarry the old-fashioned way, with binoculars and a camera fitted with a telephoto lens. From afar, he seemed like a man without a care in the world. Perhaps it was a bit of performance art. But the more likely explanation was that Saladin had failed to inform his operative that the British, the Americans, the Israelis, and the Jordanians knew of his connection to the network and to the attacks in Paris, Amsterdam, and Washington. At King Saul Boulevard — and at Langley, Vauxhall Cross, and an elegant old building on the rue de Grenelle — this was seen as an encouraging sign. It meant that Jalal had no secrets to divulge, that the network, at least for the moment, was dormant. For Jalal, however, it meant that he was expendable, which is the worst thing a terrorist can be when his master is a man like Saladin.

At seven that evening the Jordanian spread a mat upon the floor of his tiny sitting room and prayed for the last time. Then, at seven twenty, he walked to the Noodle King on Bethnal Green Road, where, alone, he ate a final meal of fried rice and spicy chicken wings, watched over by Eli Lavon. Leaving the restaurant, he popped into the Saver Plus for a bottle of milk and then set off toward his flat, unaware that Mikhail was walking a few paces behind him.

Later, Scotland Yard would determine that Jalal arrived on his doorstep at twelve minutes past eight o’clock. It would also determine that, while fishing his keys from his coat pocket, he dropped them to the pavement. Stooping, he noticed Mikhail standing in the street. He left the keys where they lay and, slowly, stood upright. He was clutching the shopping bag defensively to his chest.

“Hello, Jalal,” said Mikhail calmly. “So good to finally meet you.”

“Who are you?” asked the Jordanian.