The Messenger

certain that we can maintain plausible deniability in Riyadh.”

“You disappoint me, Adrian. I always thought of you as a reasonable fellow.”

“What have I done now?”

“I thought you were going to ask me to kill Zizi al-Bakari and be done with it.”

“Kill Zizi?” Carter shook his head. “Zizi is untouchable. Zizi is radioactive.”

GABRIEL RETURNED TO his outpost by the window and peered into the street as a pair of lovers hurried along the pavement through the swirling rain. “We’re not contract killers,” he said. “We can’t be hired to do dirty jobs you can’t do yourself. You want bin Shafiq dead but you’re not willing to risk the fallout. You’re setting us up to take the fall.”

“I could remind you of a few salient facts,” said Carter. “I could remind you that this president has remained steadfastly at your side while the rest of the world has treated you as the Jew among nations. I could remind you that he allowed you to build the Separation Fence while the rest of the world accused you of behaving like South Africans. I could remind you that he allowed you to lock Arafat away in the Mukata while the rest of the world accused you of behaving like Nazi storm troopers. I could remind you of the many other times this president has carried your dirty water, but I won’t, because that would be impolitic. It would also suggest that this request is a quid pro quo of some sort, which it most certainly is not.”

“Then what is it?”

“A recognition,” said Carter. “A recognition that we Americans don’t have the stomach or the backbone to do the things we have to do to win this fight. Our fingers have been burned. Our image has taken a terrible beating. We’ve taken a look in the mirror, and we don’t like what we see. Our politicians would like us to make reservations on the first flight out of Iraq so they can start spending money on the sorts of things that win votes. Our people want to go back to their fat, happy lives. They want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that there really isn’t an organized force in their world that is actively plotting and planning their destruction. We’ve paid a terrible price for climbing into the gutter with the terrorists and fighting them on their level, but I’m sure you always knew we would. No one’s paid a higher price than you.”

“So you want us to do it for you. I suppose that’s what they call outsourcing. How American of you, Adrian.”

“Under the current circumstances, the United States cannot target a former high-ranking Saudi intelligence officer for assassination because to do so would shatter our relationship with Riyadh. Nor can we arrest and prosecute Zizi al-Bakari, for the reasons I’ve given you.”

“So you want the problem to go away?”

“Precisely.”

“Sweep it under the rug? Postpone the reckoning until a more convenient date?”

“In so many words.”

“You think this is the way to defeat your Hydra? Chop off a head and hope for the best? You have to burn out the roots, the way Hercules did. You have to attack the beast with arrows dipped in gall.”

“You want to take on the House of Saud?”

“Not just the House of Saud,” Gabriel said. “The Wahhabi fanatics with whom they made a covenant of blood two hundred years ago on the barren plateau of Najd. They’re your real enemy, Adrian. They’re the ones who created Hydra in the first place.”

“A wise prince chooses the time and place of the battle, and this is not the time to tear down the House of Saud.”

Gabriel lapsed into a moody silence. Carter was peering into the bowl of his pipe and making minor adjustments in the disposition of his tobacco, like a don waiting for an answer from a dull student.

“Do I need to remind you that they targeted Shamron?”

Gabriel gave Carter a dark look that said he most certainly did not.

“Then why the hesitation? I would have thought you’d be straining at the leash to get bin Shafiq after what he did to the old man.”

“I want him more than anyone, Adrian, but I never strain at the leash. This is a dangerous operation-too dangerous for you even to attempt. If something goes wrong, or if we’re caught in the act, it will end badly-for all three of us.”

“Three?”

“You, me, and the president.”

“So obey Shamron’s Eleventh Commandment, and you’ll be fine. Thou shalt not get caught.”

“Bin Shafiq is a ghost. We don’t even have a picture.”

“That’s not entirely true.” Carter reached into his manila file folder again and came out with another photograph, which he dropped onto the coffee table for Gabriel to see. It showed a man with narrow black eyes, his face partially concealed by a kaffiyeh. “That’s bin Shafiq, almost twenty years ago, in Afghanistan. He was our friend then. We were on the same side. We supplied the weapons. Bin Shafiq and his masters in Riyadh supplied the money.”

“And the Wahhabi ideology that helped give birth to the Taliban,” Gabriel said.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” said Carter contritely. “But we have something more valuable than a twenty-year-old photograph. We have his voice.”

Carter picked up a small black remote, aimed it at a Bose Wave radio, and pressed the Play button. A moment later two men began to converse in English: one with the accent of an American, the other of an Arab.

“I take it the Saudi is bin Shafiq?”

Carter nodded.

“When was it recorded?”

“In 1988,” Carter said. “In a safe house in Peshawar.”

“Who’s the American?” Gabriel asked, though he knew the answer already. Carter hit the Stop button and looked into the fire. “Me,” he said distantly. “The American at the CIA safe house in Peshawar was me.”

“Would you recognize bin Shafiq if you saw him again?”

“I might, but our sources tell us he had several rounds of plastic surgery before going operational. I would recognize the scar on his right forearm, though. He got hit by a piece of shrapnel during a trip to Afghanistan in 1985. The scar runs from just above the wrist to just below the elbow. No plastic surgeon could have done anything about that.”

“Inside the arm or outside?”

“Inside,” Carter said. “The injury left him with a bit of a withered hand. He had several operations to try to repair it, but nothing ever worked. He tends to keep it in his pocket. He doesn’t like to shake hands. He’s a proud Bedouin, bin Shafiq. He doesn’t respect physical infirmity.”

“I don’t suppose your sources in Riyadh can tell us where he’s hiding within Zizi’s empire?”

“Unfortunately they can’t. But we know he’s there. Put an agent into the House of Zizi, and eventually bin Shafiq will walk through the back door.”

“Put an agent close to Zizi al-Bakari? How do you propose we do that, Adrian? Zizi has more security than most heads of state.”

“I wouldn’t dream of interfering in matters operational,” Carter said. “But rest assured that we’re willing to be patient and that we intend to see it through to the end.”

“Patience and follow-through aren’t typical American virtues. You like to make a mess and move on to the next problem.”

There was another long silence, broken this time by the clatter of Carter’s pipe against the rim of the ashtray.

“What do you want, Gabriel?”

“Guarantees.”

“There are no guarantees in our business. You know that.”

“I want everything you have on bin Shafiq and al-Bakari.”

“Within reason,” Carter said. “I’m not going to give you a truckload of dirt on prominent figures in Washington.”