by Barry Eisler
An unctuous real estate broker let her into the flat, a nice enough one-bedroom walk-up filled with late afternoon June sunlight, and showed her the operation of the appliances and the various other trivialities of everyday life there. The moment he’d left, she swept for bugs with some portable equipment her colleague Boaz had once provided her. Boaz was one of the few married men in the organization who had never made a pass at her. In fact, he treated her more like a sister than a colleague, and she trusted him more than almost anyone else. The place seemed clean, though she’d have to be careful to sweep it again later. The men she worked for were clever enough to delay a listening device’s activation until after a room had been declared secure.
When she was done unpacking, she showered and changed into a salmon-colored Akris linen sheath dress with an asymmetrical cut. Strappy pumps, a camel-and-cream patent leather handbag, and a matching bolero jacket for the evening chill. She used some makeup to accentuate her eyes, then added a pair of gold Cartier earrings as a finishing touch. This was a business meeting and she didn’t want to appear too enticing, but she did leave her hair down to avoid coming across as overly severe. She looked at herself in the mirror and was satisfied. Understated and professional, but also confident and stylish. Dressed for work, not to kill.
She spent some time exploring the neighborhood, which she had to admit was charming—rows of restored townhouses, some in the Victorian style, others painted in whimsical pastels of yellow and blue and pink; the antique shops and vintage clothing stores and fruit stalls of Portobello Road; a mix of tourists consulting maps and shoppers lugging bags and locals pushing babies in strollers. There were several routes by which she might come and go from the flat, and she knew her people must have selected the place in part for this reason. For any opposition surveillance to be effective, it would have to focus on her street, and because that was entirely residential, with no coffee shops or parks in which a team might unobtrusively wait, problems would be relatively easy to spot. She identified a few routes she could use to draw out followers, and used them to ensure she was clean while continuing to explore.
She stopped in an Apple Store in a swank shopping mall and checked out the Connaught on one of the display computers. She had never been there before. That was good: she knew her looks made her memorable, and she didn’t want to have to explain to a chatty employee what had brought her back to London. She wasn’t thrilled to discover the hotel was near the American Embassy, but she supposed prices at the Connaught bar would be a bit more than the average government worker would be prepared to pay, and anyway she wasn’t known to the Americans. She purged the browser when she was done and went back outside.
She was irritated at the way she’d been brought into this op, and was tempted to demonstrate her disdain and her independence by showing up late for the meeting. But that would have been both excessively immature and operationally stupid. Better to arrive early to reconnoiter before the meeting began. She did a final aggressive route to ensure she wasn’t being followed, then caught a cab not far from Holland Park Station. There were so many video monitors in London that public transportation offered no real operational advantage over a taxi. She had the driver drop her off at Berkeley Square. No sense in telling anyone her actual destination.
There was still some early summer light in the sky, and the brick and stone facades of Mayfair glowed pink with it, the windows of the area’s antique dealers and real estate brokers and galleries illuminated in equal measure by setting sun and silent streetlamps. She passed a few pedestrians, mostly well-dressed couples probably on their way to or from dinner in one of the neighborhood’s chic restaurants, their footfalls getting louder on the flagstone sidewalks as they approached, then fading away behind her. London was such a beautiful city in fine weather. A shame they didn’t get more of it, but she supposed it made it more special when they did.
She paused in front of an illuminated elliptical granite fountain, two leafy old trees rising from within it, and scanned the area. From here, she could easily see the impressive Georgian façade of the hotel, two liveried doormen flanking the entrance. She observed nothing out of the ordinary, but this meeting was scheduled, of course, so there wouldn’t have been any need to set up surveillance outside. Not that she was expecting trouble—it was more that she didn’t know what to expect at all.
One of the men held the door and welcomed her as she went inside, his colleague’s gaze dropping for the merest unprofessional instant to her ass as she passed. The interior was gorgeous—like an old British manor house, with a magnificent winding mahogany staircase as its centerpiece—without being the least bit stuffy. She freshened up in the restroom, familiarized herself with the location of emergency exits, and made her way into the bar.
It was only about half full—the hour was still early—but between the conversation and laughter, and the Billie Holiday playing from a hidden stereo system, it felt quite lively. There were dark paneled walls, softly lit by three tasteful chandeliers; a high, intricately carved ceiling; plush, eclectically colored chairs and cushions distributed haphazardly throughout; and a classic mirrored bar staffed by two men in ties and vests mixing cocktails with low-key assurance. She thought she caught the scent of vetiver. The atmosphere was lovely—elegant, effortless, and expensive. All of which brought an immediate pang of sadness and guilt. It was the kind of place John would have loved, and to which she would have loved to introduce him.
A good-looking man was sitting alone in the far corner, his back to the wall and with a full view of the entrance. About forty, she thought, though she was ten meters away and the light was subdued, with short dark hair and a face that would have been aristocratic but for a certain roughness of the jaw. He was wearing a charcoal chalk-striped flannel suit that looked like it was made for him—literally and figuratively. He held a martini glass casually in one hand and was gazing off at nothing in particular. She’d rarely seen someone look so at home in a high-end bar and couldn’t deny his ease and confidence were attractive. Between the tactical seat and the air of authority, she was reasonably sure this was her contact. She was glad—she’d been half expecting something more along the lines of the Director and the two deputies.
She walked over to his table, demurring with a gesture when one of the staff offered to seat her. He watched her approach, his eyebrows lifting slightly as she got nearer. She noted a copy of Granta on his table, which she’d been told to look for.
“Pardon me,” Delilah said when she had reached him. “Is there an outlet near you? I need to recharge my mobile.”
This was her half of the bona fides she’d been instructed to exchange. The man smiled and said in a posh British accent, “I’m not certain, but you’re welcome to have a look if you like.”
She was flustered—she’d been so sure, but it hadn’t been the correct response. She shook it off and said, “Thank you, I think I have a little power left, but I’ll come back if I’m wrong.”
She started to turn away. The man chuckled and said, “Only joking. Is it an iPhone? I could use a charge myself.”
That was the prearranged response. She turned back and looked at him, mildly annoyed that he would turn an exchange of bona fides into a prank, and at his evident amusement at having done so.
“Won’t you sit down?” he said, gesturing to the chair next to him. “And can I buy you a drink?”
She looked at him for a moment longer, then eased herself into the plush chair next to him. “I can buy my own drink.”
His eyes positively twinkled with good humor. “I didn’t mean to suggest you couldn’t. Just trying to be hospitable.”
“Of course you are.”
“Look, I’m sorry. It’s just sometimes the lads at the office get so carried away with the secret handshakes and all that. Really, it’s too much. I knew the moment you walked in you were my girl.”
The acoustics, she noted, were ideal for a discreet conversation. The music was just loud enough, and pe
rvasive enough, to mask conversation from nearby tables, but not so loud you needed to shout over it.
“Did you?” she said, for the moment choosing to overlook the condescending “my girl.”
“Yes, of course. I was told I’d be meeting a stunning blonde. Not to say you’re the only one in London, of course, but what are the chances of such a creature showing up unaccompanied right here in the appointed place, an hour ahead of schedule like a good professional, with a casually watchful demeanor, as well? You checked the corners of the room first, the bar after. If you were just some socialite, you would have done things in reverse.”
Like most men, he seemed to be a talker. That suited her. You didn’t learn when you were talking, only when you were listening.
“Is that what I look like? A socialite?”
“Well, you’re certainly gorgeous enough, if you don’t mind my saying.”
She neither minded nor welcomed it. “What’s that you’re drinking?”
“Gordon’s martini, vermouth wash, olive garnish. Would you like one?”
She didn’t like to be steered and almost reflexively said no. But he seemed the kind of man who enjoyed sparring, and in fact she had the sense he was actively looking for buttons to push. So instead she said, “Shaken, not stirred?”
He chuckled again. “Of course. Where would we British be without our traditions?” He signaled one of the waiters, then pointed to his drink. “Another of these, Henry—thanks.”
“Henry?”
“Yes, and at the bar we have Joseph and Giuseppe. Giuseppe isn’t quite a local, as you might have guessed from the name, but his bartending skills are unsurpassed.”
She was appalled. “You’re known here.”
“Good God, yes. It’s practically my second home when I’m in London. It’s all right. They all think I’m a financier. Hide in plain sight and all that.”
She looked around. The clientele did indeed seem to be about half bankers in suits, half hipsters in skinny jeans. Still, there would have been no downside to meeting someplace where neither of them was known. She didn’t like his dilettante’s approach. Probably the worst an MI6 operative faced for a mistake was a declaration of persona non grata and expulsion from a host country. If Delilah screwed up, she’d almost certainly be killed, most likely after being raped and tortured. He could afford to treat all this as a game. She couldn’t.
“Why didn’t we just meet at your flat?” she said.
He blinked and laughed, but for once, the laugh wasn’t self-assured. “That would be a bit forward, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say it would be stupid. As stupid as meeting anywhere you’re known and will be remembered.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. She knew exactly what he was thinking, what they were all always thinking: What a bitch.
She didn’t care. She didn’t want his friendship. She didn’t even want his respect. What she wanted was compliance.
“I need to know you’re reliable,” she said. “So far, I’m not impressed.”
He cocked his head and smiled, but the smile looked strained. “Really? And what if I’m not?”
“Then I’ll tell my people I can’t be part of this op because our counterparts sent an amateur. They’ll tell your people. I don’t know what happens after that, but on the other hand, I don’t really care. Though I have a feeling your superiors already have their concerns about your attitude and your tradecraft, and, if I’m right, they won’t be pleased at all about this latest development.”
He watched her, his lips pursed and his eyes cold. The bonhomie suddenly gone, he looked quietly dangerous. Good.
“You don’t know the first thing about my attitude. Or about my superiors. Or about me.”
“I only know what I can see. Show me something better.”
The waiter arrived with her martini. He deftly placed a leather coaster on the table, set the drink precisely in the coaster’s center, nodded formally, and moved off.
Delilah lifted the drink, thinking, Your move.
A long moment went by. He said, “All right. What do I call you?”
“Bertha.”
His eyes widened slightly. “You don’t look like a Bertha.”
“What do I call you?”
“Kent, actually.”
“You don’t look like a Kent.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What does a Kent look like?”
“I’m kidding, Kent.”
There was a long pause, and then he laughed. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I was also kidding about the name. Call me Delilah.”
He lifted his drink. “All right, Delilah. Sorry we got off to a bad start. Cheers.”
They touched glasses and drank. The drink was lovely—cold, crisp, and strong.
“Right,” Kent said. “Down to business, then. How much have they told you?”
“Very little.”
“Well, regrettably, there’s not all that much to tell. Our target is named Fatima Zaheer. Nationality, British; extraction, Pakistani; age, thirty; politics, radical.”
“And she’s of interest because… ”
“She’s the oldest of four siblings—three brothers, one of whom, named Imran, is her fraternal twin. The two younger brothers were killed five years ago outside the family home in Peshawar in an American drone strike.”
Delilah’s own brother, her only sibling, had been killed in Lebanon when Delilah was sixteen. Her parents had never recovered from it.
“That’s terrible,” she heard herself say.
Kent nodded. “Fatima and Imran were living in London at the time. After the death of their brothers, the two of them returned to Pakistan to care for their parents, who, as you can imagine, were devastated by the loss of their two children. Eventually, Fatima returned to London. Imran never did. There are indications he’s become a leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and is currently in hiding somewhere in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The Americans have been hunting him with drones for years, so far without success. We believe Fatima knows where he is, or at least that she might inadvertently fix him. If we can acquire something actionable from her, we can pass it along to the Americans, who ought to be able to use it.”
“But the TTP is mostly a Pakistani problem. Why are the Americans so interested?”
“Ah, that. It turns out our man Imran is somewhat special. Before answering the call of jihad, he received a degree in chemical engineering at the University College London. After that, a promising few years in a research lab at INEOS, a British-headquartered chemical multinational. His expertise lies in aerosols.”
“Aerosols.”
“Yes. A very dangerous expertise when combined with, say, anthrax. Or cyanide. Or sarin. The sorts of matériel al Qaeda is known to traffic in, but has hitherto been unable to transform into a means of achieving mass casualties.”
“So he’s wanted for his knowledge? But you can learn these things on the Internet.”
“Some you can, yes, and half of what you find will get you killed. In fact, we believe Internet information is responsible for eliminating a not insignificant percentage of our potential problems, by blowing up the idiots who try to make their pipe bombs based on diagrams they find on jihadist blogs.” He smiled. “It’s even possible the unreliable information on some of those blogs was planted there by certain Western intelligence organizations. But don’t quote me on that.”
She wasn’t surprised. Mossad ran similar operations, with similar results. “The worry is that Imran is graduating a higher percentage of his students?”
“Precisely. And equipping them with advanced degrees in very unhelpful subjects.”
She took a sip of her martini and considered. “The two brothers. They were terrorists?”
He shifted in his chair. “According to the Americans, yes.”
“The Americans count as a terrorist every military-age male killed in a drone strike.”
He took a sip of his drink. “But candidly? No. No evidence they were terrorists, just two kids in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their deaths were tragic, not least because the tragedy really did radicalize the surviving brother and sister. It’s like all those prisoners the Yanks mistakenly ‘detained’ in Guantanamo. Were they innocent? Yes. And after a decade of abuse and encagement, how many of them could be counted on to return to their innocent civilian lives upon release? If they weren’t terrorists when they went in, they certainly would be when they got out.”
It was a familiar story, and Delilah hated it. It made her own work seem so pointless. No, not just pointless. Pernicious. Part of some huge, insensate machine capable of nothing but fighting fire with fire, and causing a conflagration in the process.
“You say Fatima was radicalized, too. In what way?”
“We believe she’s a recruiter. As you know, London has a substantial Muslim population. Fatima’s a poet—getting quite renowned, in fact. Written up in the London Review of Books, and The New Yorker set to publish one of her pieces. She’s also become something of a freelance journalist, a chronicler of the Muslim diaspora for various leftie publications like The Guardian. In addition to all that, what happened to her family has conferred upon her a kind of… status in the community. We believe she’s putting local radicals in touch with her brother, who provides training. These radicals then return to Britain and perhaps elsewhere, where they reside as sleeper cells.”
“I was told you’ve tried offering her two insiders as potential recruits.”
“Yes, without success. She has a keen nose for deception. We were hoping a different approach might produce better results. Instead of a potential recruit, a possible friend. Instead of a local Muslim, a foreigner. Instead of a man, a woman.”
It all sounded a bit desperate to Delilah, but no more so, she supposed, than other ops she’d worked on, many of which had borne fruit.
