The New Girl

by Daniel Silva

  Al Jazeera, which delivered the news to the wider world, could scarcely contain its glee. Nor could the Iranians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinians, Hezbollah, ISIS, or the widow of Omar Nawwaf. The White House instantly released a statement declaring its determination to work closely with Khalid’s successor. Downing Street murmured something similar a few minutes later, as did the Élysée Palace. The government of Israel, for its part, said nothing at all.

  But why had Khalid surrendered the throne for which he had fought so ruthlessly? The media could only speculate. The Middle East experts were unanimous in the opinion that Khalid had not abdicated voluntarily. The only question was whether the pressure had been applied from within the House of Saud or without. Few reporters or commentators made any attempt to hide their joy over his fall, especially those early supporters who had cheered his rise to power. “Good riddance,” declared the important columnist from the New York Times who had prematurely crowned Khalid the savior of the Arab world.

  Among the many mysteries that night were Khalid’s exact whereabouts. Had anyone bothered to ask the chief of Israeli intelligence, he could have told them definitively that Khalid flew to Paris immediately after his contentious meeting with his father and, absent his usual entourage, slipped anonymously into the Hôtel de Crillon. At five the following afternoon, he received a phone call. The voice at the other end, digitized and perversely affable in tone, issued a set of instructions, then the call went dead. Frantic, Khalid rang Sarah Bancroft in New York. And Sarah, at Khalid’s request, called Gabriel at King Saul Boulevard. Needlessly, as it turned out, for he was monitoring events in the Op Center and had overheard everything. The kidnappers wanted more than Khalid’s abdication. They wanted him.

  31

  Tel Aviv–Paris

  Actually, it was a bit more complicated than that. What the kidnappers wanted was for Gabriel to handle the final negotiations and logistics of Princess Reema’s release. They characterized their demand not as a threat but as a humanitarian gesture, one that would guarantee the safe return of the hostage, always the most perilous element of a kidnapping. They preferred to deal with a professional, they said, rather than a desperate and sometimes volatile father. Gabriel, however, was under no illusion as to why the kidnappers wanted him at the other end of the phone. The men behind the plot, whoever they were, whatever their motive, intended to kill him at the first opportunity. And Khalid, too.

  Not surprisingly, the demand did not meet with a favorable reception inside the walls of King Saul Boulevard. Uzi Navot said it was out of the question, a sentiment shared by the rest of Gabriel’s senior staff—including Yaakov Rossman, who threatened to handcuff Gabriel to his desk. Even Eli Lavon, the chief of the watchers and Gabriel’s closest friend, thought it a fool’s errand. Besides, Lavon added, now that Khalid had abdicated, he was no longer worth the effort, and certainly not worth the risk.

  Gabriel did not bother to consult with the prime minister. Instead, he called his wife. The conversation was brief, two or three minutes, no more. Afterward, he and Mikhail slipped quietly out of King Saul Boulevard and headed for Ben Gurion. There were no more flights to Paris that night. It was no matter; Khalid had sent a plane for them.

  It was shortly after one a.m. when they arrived at the Crillon. Christopher Keller was in the lounge bar, flirting with the pretty hostess in his Corsican-accented French.

  “Have you been upstairs yet?” asked Gabriel.

  “Why do you think I’m down here? He was driving me crazy.”

  “How’s he holding up?”

  “Sixes and sevens.”

  Khalid was staying in a grand apartment on the fourth floor. It was a shock to see him perform so ordinary a task as opening a door. He closed it again quickly and engaged the locks. The coffee table in the main sitting room was littered with the tins and wrappers of complimentary snacks from his personal bar. Somewhere his phone was playing an annoying electronic melody.

  “The damn thing won’t stop ringing.” He raised a hand in anger toward the enormous television. “They’re laughing at me! They’re saying I was forced to abdicate because of Omar Nawwaf.”

  “You can set the record straight later,” said Gabriel.

  “What good will it do?” The phone was ringing again. Khalid dispatched the call to voice mail. “Another so-called friend.”

  “Who was it?”

  “The president of Brazil. And before him it was the head of a Hollywood talent agency, wondering whether I still planned to invest in his company.” He paused. “Everyone except the people who took my daughter.”

  “If I had to guess, you’ll be hearing from them any minute.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because undoubtedly they know I’ve arrived.”

  “They’re watching the hotel?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “When they call back, I’ll offer them a hundred million dollars. That should be enough to convince them to live up to their end of the original bargain.”

  Gabriel smiled briefly. “If only it were that simple.”

  “Surely,” said Khalid after a moment, “you have no wish to die for a man like me.”

  “I don’t,” conceded Gabriel. “I’m here for your daughter.”

  “Can you get her back?”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “I understand,” replied Khalid. “You’re the director of the secret intelligence service of the State of Israel. And I’m the man who just gave away a throne, which means I’m no longer of any use to you.”

  “I have two young children.”

  “How lucky you are. I have only one.”

  A leaden silence fell over the room. It was broken by the cloying melody of Khalid’s phone. He snatched it up, then declined the call.

  “Who was it?” asked Gabriel.

  “The White House.” Khalid rolled his eyes. “Again.”

  “Don’t you think you should take his call?”

  He waved his hand dismissively and fixed his gaze on the television. KBM meeting with the British prime minister at Downing Street. KBM before the fall.

  “I should never have listened to him,” he said to no one in particular.

  “Listened to whom?” asked Gabriel, but Khalid didn’t answer. The phone was ringing again. “Who is it now?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Gabriel accepted the phone and saw the given name of the Russian president.

  “Answer it,” said Khalid. “I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”

  Gabriel allowed the phone to ring for several more seconds. Then, with profound satisfaction, he tapped decline.

  For the remainder of that long night, the clock moved with the slowness of shifting tectonic plates. Khalid’s mood, however, careened wildly between rage at those who had betrayed him and fear for his daughter’s life. Each time his phone rang, he would seize it as though it were a live grenade and stare hopefully at the screen, only to toss it carelessly onto the coffee table when it turned out to be just another former friend or associate calling to wallow in schadenfreude. “I know, I know,” he would say to Gabriel. “Phones break, Prince Hothead.”

  Mikhail and Keller managed to get a few hours of sleep, but Gabriel remained at Khalid’s side. He had never believed in the fairy tale of KBM the great Arabian reformer, and yet when confronted with the terrible choice of losing his throne or his child, Khalid had acted like a human being rather than the spoiled, unimaginably rich tyrant whose lust for power and possessions had known no bounds. Whether he knew it or not, thought Gabriel, there was hope for Khalid yet.

  Finally, a dirty gray dawn crept into the magnificent sitting room. An hour or so later, while standing in one of the windows overlooking the Place de la Concorde, Gabriel witnessed a most remarkable spectacle. From the Musée du Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, police fought running battles with thousands of protesters, all clad in the yellow vests of street sweepers. Before long
, the entire first arrondissement was hung with a dense cloud of tear gas. Gabriel switched the television to France 2 and was informed that the “Yellow Vests” were enraged at the French president over a recent increase in the price of fuel.

  “This is what democracy looks like,” sneered Khalid. “The barbarians are at the gates.”

  Perhaps he had been mistaken, thought Gabriel. Perhaps Khalid was a lost cause after all.

  And there they stood, the spymaster and the fallen monarch, watching as the great experiment known broadly as Western civilization crumbled beneath their feet. Khalid was so entranced that for once he didn’t hear the ringing of his phone. Gabriel walked over to the coffee table and saw the device shivering amid the rubbish of the long night of waiting. He looked at the screen. The caller was not identified and there was no number.

  He tapped accept and raised the device to his ear. “It’s about time,” he said in English, making no effort to conceal his Israeli accent. “Now listen very carefully.”

  32

  Paris

  When dealing with kidnappers, be they criminals or terrorists, it is customary for the negotiator to hear out their demands. But that presumes the negotiator has something to offer in return for the captive’s freedom—money, for example, or a jailed comrade in arms. Gabriel, however, had nothing of value with which to barter, leaving him no choice but to immediately go on offense. He informed the kidnappers that Princess Reema would be free by day’s end. If she were harmed in any way—or if any attempt were made on Gabriel’s life or the life of the former Saudi crown prince—Israeli intelligence would hunt down every last member of the conspiracy and kill them. The best course of action, he concluded, would be to wrap things up as quickly as possible, with no melodrama or last-minute snags. Then he severed the connection and handed the phone to Khalid.

  “Are you mad?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

  “Do you realize what you’ve just done?”

  “I’ve given us a very slim chance of getting your daughter back without getting us killed in the process.”

  “Did they give you any instructions?”

  “I didn’t give them a chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought Arabs were supposed to be good negotiators.”

  Khalid’s eyes widened with rage. “They’ll never call back now!”

  “Of course they will.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Gabriel walked calmly to the window and watched the riot below. “Because I wasn’t bluffing. And they know it.”

  Much to Gabriel’s relief, he had to endure a wait of only twenty minutes before being proven at least partially correct. The instructions were delivered by a recorded text-to-speech message, in the manner of a spam call. The voice was female, cheerful, and vaguely erotic. It said that Gabriel and the former crown prince were to board the noon TGV from Paris to Marseilles. Additional instructions would be conveyed while they were in transit. They were not to involve the French police. Nor were they to travel with a security detail. Any deviation from the instructions would result in the child’s death. “You are being watched,” the voice warned before the connection went dead.

  The terms were hardly equitable, but under the circumstances they were the best Gabriel could expect. Besides, he had no intention of honoring them, and neither for that matter did the kidnappers.

  Khalid arranged for a hotel limousine. As they crawled eastward across Paris, they were jeered, cursed, and spat upon by the yellow-vested protesters. Tear gas stung their eyes as they hurried through the entrance of the Gare de Lyon. Mikhail and Keller were standing like strangers beneath the departure board, each looking in a different direction.

  Khalid gazed upward toward the glass atrium in wonder. “Wasn’t there a terrorist attack in this station a few years ago?”

  “Keep moving,” said Gabriel. “Otherwise, we’re going to miss our train.”

  “There’s the memorial,” said Khalid suddenly, pointing toward a black slab of polished granite.

  The departure board clattered with an update. The train for Marseilles was boarding. Gabriel led Khalid to an automated ticket kiosk and instructed him to purchase two first-class seats. Khalid stared at the contraption, mystified.

  “I’m not sure I would know—”

  “Never mind.” Gabriel slid a credit card into the reader. His fingers moved deftly over the touchscreen, and the machine ejected two tickets and a receipt.

  “What now?” asked Khalid.

  “We get on the train.”

  Gabriel guided Khalid to the appropriate platform and into a first-class carriage. Mikhail was seated at one end, Keller at the other. Both were facing the center, which was where Gabriel directed Khalid. The carriage was about one-third full. None of the other passengers appeared to realize that the man who had just relinquished his claim to the throne of Saudi Arabia was sitting among them.

  “You know,” he said quietly into Gabriel’s ear, “I can’t remember the last time I took a train journey. Do you travel by rail often?”

  “No,” said Gabriel as the TGV jerked forward. “Never.”

  For the first three hours of the trip south, Khalid’s silenced phone vibrated almost without cease, but the kidnappers waited until the train reached Avignon before issuing their next set of instructions. Once again there was no name or number, only the automated female voice. She told Gabriel to hire a car at the Gare de Marseilles–Saint-Charles and drive to the ancient citadel town of Carcassonne. There was a pizzeria on the avenue du Général Leclerc called Plein Sud. They would drop the girl somewhere nearby. “And don’t bring the two bodyguards,” the voice warned flirtatiously. “Otherwise, the girl dies.”

  Gabriel rang King Saul Boulevard and ordered two Hertz cars, one for Mikhail and Keller, the other for Khalid and himself. They were both Renault hatchbacks. Mikhail and Keller departed first and headed north toward Aix-en-Provence. Gabriel headed westward along the coast, into the blinding late-afternoon sun.

  Khalid trailed a forefinger through the dust on the dashboard. “At least they could have given us a clean car.”

  “I should have told them it was for you. I’m sure they would have found something nicer.”

  “Why did you send your men toward Aix?”

  “To see whether the kidnappers will be stupid enough to follow them.”

  “And if they do?”

  “They’re likely to get a rather rude surprise. And our chances of getting out of this in one piece will increase dramatically.”

  Khalid was admiring the sea. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sure it looks better from the deck of the world’s largest yacht.”

  “Second largest,” Khalid corrected him.

  “We all have to economize.”

  “I suppose I’ll be spending much more time aboard it. Riyadh is no longer safe for me. And when my father dies—”

  “The new crown prince will treat you the same way you treated your predecessor and everyone else who posed a threat to you.”

  “That’s the way it works in my family. We give the word dysfunction a whole new meaning.” Khalid smiled in spite of himself. “I plan to devote the rest of my life to Reema. She loves Tranquillity. Perhaps we’ll take a trip around the world together.”

  “She’s going to need a great deal of medical and psychiatric care to recover from what she’s been through.”

  “You sound as though you speak from experience.”

  “Read my file.”

  “I have,” said Khalid. “It contained a reference to something that happened in Vienna. There was a bombing. They say—”

  “This might come as a surprise to you, but it’s not something I wish to discuss.”

  “So it’s true? Your wife and child were killed in front of you?”

  “No,” said Gabriel. “My wife survived.”

  The sun was blazing on the horizon—like a car, thought Gabrie
l, burning brightly in an otherwise quiet square in Vienna. He was relieved when Khalid abruptly changed the topic.

  “I’ve never been to Carcassonne.”

  “It was a Cathar stronghold in the Middle Ages.”

  “Cathar?”

  “They believed, among other things, that there were two gods, the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old. One was good, the other was evil.”

  “Which was which?”

  “What do you think?”

  “The God of the Jews was the evil one.”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to them?” asked Khalid.

  “Despite incredible odds, they founded a modern state in their ancient homeland.”

  “I was talking about the Cathars.”

  “They were wiped out in the Albigensian Crusade. The most famous massacre took place in the village of Montségur. Two hundred Cathar Perfects were hurled onto a great pyre. The place where it happened became known as the field of the burned.”

  “It seems Christians can be violent, too.”

  “It was the thirteenth century, Khalid.”

  Gabriel’s BlackBerry vibrated with an incoming call. It was Mikhail with an update. Gabriel listened, then ordered him to proceed to Carcassonne.

  “Were they followed?” asked Khalid.

  “No,” said Gabriel. “No such luck.”

  The sun was slipping below the horizon. Soon it would be gone. For that, if nothing else, he was grateful.

  33

  Mazamet, France

  In the forty-eight hours since Princess Reema’s hasty evacuation from the safe house in the Basque Country of Spain, she had been kept in a state of near-constant motion. Her memories of the odyssey were fragmentary, for they were fogged by regular injections of sedative. She recalled a warehouse stacked with wooden crates, and a filthy shed that smelled of goat, and a tiny kitchen where she had overheard a quarrel in the next room between two of her captors. It was the first time she had heard them speak. The language shocked her.