Portrait of a Spy

over that fence.”

“What are you saying?”

“We wait until Gabriel stops moving.”

“And then?”

“They walk.”

“In the Empty Quarter?” Carter asked incredulously.

“That’s what they’re trained to do.”

“What happens if they run into a Saudi military patrol?”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to say Kaddish for the patrol,” said Shamron. “Because if they bump into Mikhail Abramov and Yoav Savir, they will cease to exist.”

There was an all-night gas station and market in Liwa that catered to foreign laborers and truck drivers. The Indian behind the counter looked as though he hadn’t slept in a month. Yoav, the Arab who was not an Arab, bought enough food and water for a small army, along with a few cheap ghutras and some loose-fitting cotton clothing favored by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. He told the Indian that he and his friends planned to spend a day or two in the dunes communing with God and nature. The night manager told him about a particularly inspiring formation north of Liwa, along the Saudi border. “But be careful,” he said. “The area is full of smugglers and al-Qaeda. Very dangerous.” Yoav thanked the Indian for the warning. Then he paid the bill without haggling and headed outside to the Land Cruisers.

They started northward as the Indian had suggested, but once clear of the town, made an abrupt turn to the south. The dunes were the color of rose and as high as the Judean Hills. They drove for an hour, keeping always to the hard sand flats, before coming to a stop near the Saudi border fence. With dawn fast approaching, they covered the Land Cruisers in camouflage netting and changed into the clothing they had bought in Liwa. Yoav and the other Sayeret men looked like Arabs, but Mikhail looked like a Western explorer who had come in search of the lost city of Arabia. His expedition commenced thirty minutes later, when the green smudge of light that was Gabriel Allon finally stopped moving at a point forty miles due west of the team’s position. They loaded their packs with as much weaponry and water as they could carry. Then they scaled the Saudi border fence and started walking.

Chapter 64 The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia

THE TENT HAD BEEN ERECTED in the cleft of an enormous horseshoe-shaped dune. It was made of black goat hair in the tradition of the Bedouin and surrounded by several sun-bleached pickup trucks and jeeps. A few feet from the entrance, four veiled women with henna tattoos on their hands brewed coffee with cardamom seeds around a small fire. None seemed to notice the beaten man in blue coveralls who stumbled from the back of a Denali SUV, shivering in the cold morning air.

The cleft of the dune was still in darkness, but light glowed faintly above its ridgeline and the stars were in full retreat. Prodded by al-Kamal, Gabriel started unsteadily toward the tent. His head throbbed but his thoughts remained clear. They were focused on a lie. He would pay it out slowly, morsel by morsel, like cakes sweetened with honey. He would make himself irresistible to them. He would buy time for Mikhail and the Sayeret team to home in on the signal emanating from the device in his bowels. He pushed the beacon from his thoughts. There was no beacon, he reminded himself. There was only Nadia al-Bakari, a woman of impeccable jihadist credentials whom Gabriel had blackmailed into doing his bidding.

Malik was now standing in the opening of the tent. He had traded his gleaming white kandoura for a gray thobe. His feet were bare, though his head was wrapped in a red-checkered ghutra. He regarded Gabriel menacingly, as though debating where to place the first blow, then stepped to one side. Al-Kamal responded by shoving Gabriel forcefully between the shoulder blades, propelling him headlong into the tent.

The undignified nature of his arrival seemed to bring enormous pleasure to the men gathered inside. Eight in all, they were seated in a semicircle, drinking the cardamom-scented coffee from thimble-sized cups. A few wore the traditional curved jambia daggers of Yemeni men, but one was peering into the screen of a notebook computer. His face was familiar to Gabriel, as was the sound of his voice when finally he spoke. It was the voice of a man to whom Allah had granted a beautiful and seductive tongue. It was the voice of Rashid.

To the thermal-imaging cameras of the Predator drone circling overhead, the gathering in the goat-hair Bedouin tent appeared as eleven amoeba-like orbs of light. Nearby there were several other human heat sources as well. There were four figures seated around a small fire. There was a ring of security posts scattered amid the dunes. And there were two figures about a thousand yards from the tent’s southern flank—one lying supine on the desert floor, the other seated cross-legged. As dawn slowly broke, Shamron asked Carter whether it might be possible to have a look at the two figures through a normal lens. Another five minutes would elapse until there was sufficient light, but when the image appeared on the screens of Langley, it was remarkably clear. It showed a raven-haired woman in white being guarded by a bearded man holding what appeared to be an AK-47. A short distance away, on the other side of a large dune, a cylindrical hole had been dug in the desert floor. Next to the hole was a pile of stones.

When the staff at Rashidistan regained its composure, Carter said, “There’s no way Mikhail and the Sayeret team can get there in time. And even if they do, they’re going to be spotted.”

“Yes, Adrian,” Shamron said, “I realize that.”

“Let me call Prince Nabil at the Interior Ministry.”

“Why would you waste time doing that?”

“Maybe he can do something to prevent them from being killed.”

“Maybe,” said Shamron. “Or maybe this is all Nabil’s doing.”

“You think Nabil sold her out to Rashid and Malik?”

“As far as Nabil is concerned, she’s a heretic and a dissident. What better way to get rid of her than hand her over to the bearded ones to be executed?”

Carter swore softly. Shamron looked at the image from the desert.

“I take it the Predators are fully armed?” he asked.

“Hellfire missiles,” replied Carter.

“Have you ever fired one into Saudi Arabia?”

“Not a chance.”

“I assume you would need clearance from the president before doing so.”

“You assume correctly.”

“Then please call him now, Adrian.”

Chapter 65 The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia

RASHID BEGAN WITH A LECTURE. He was part poet, part preacher, part professor of jihad. He warned that Israel would soon go the way of Pharaoh’s regime in Egypt. He predicted sharia was coming to Europe whether Europe wanted it or not. He declared that the American century was finally over, al-hamdu lillah. It was one of the few Arabic expressions he used. The rest was delivered in his impeccable colloquial English. It was like being tutored in the principles of the Salaf by a kid from Best Buy.

He spoke not to Gabriel but to a digital camera mounted atop a tripod. Occasionally, he wagged a long finger for emphasis or pointed it toward his famous captive, who was seated a few feet away, squinting slightly in the