The Secret Servant

material and other support to Egyptian Islamists shortly after assuming power in an ill-considered gambit designed to bolster his base of popular support. The descriptions of torture as practiced by the Egyptian security services are based on accounts provided by victims who have lived to tell about it. The CIA program known as “extraordinary rendition,” the practice of clandestinely transferring suspected terrorists from one country to another for the purposes of incarceration or interrogation, has been well documented. It was put into place not by President George W. Bush but by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

The statistics used to illustrate the terrorist threat now confronting the United Kingdom are based on reports by the British police and intelligence services, as is the contention that Great Britain has supplanted the United States as al-Qaeda’s top target. The rise of militant Islam across Europe and the Continent’s rapidly changing demographics are, of course, factual. Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton has estimated that Europe will have a Muslim majority by the end of the century, and Zachary Shore, in his thoughtful study of Europe’s future titled Breeding Bin Ladens, stated that “ America may not recognize Europe in a few short decades.” Whether Europe will remain a strategic ally of the United States or become a staging ground for future attacks on American soil is not yet known. What is clear, however, are the intentions of al-Qaeda and the global jihadists. Mohammed Bouyeri, the unemployed Dutch-Moroccan immigrant from Amsterdam who murdered the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, stated them unambiguously in the manifesto he adhered to his victim’s body with the point of a knife: “I surely know that you, O America, will be destroyed. I surely know that you, O Europe, will be destroyed. I surely know that you, O Holland, will be destroyed.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel, like the previous books in the Gabriel Allon series, could not have been written without the assistance of David Bull, who truly is among the finest art restorers in the world. I spoke to many intelligence officers, diplomats, ambassadors, and Bureau of Diplomatic Security agents while preparing this manuscript-men and women who, for obvious reasons, I cannot thank by name. Suffice it to say that because of them I know far more about embassy security procedures-and the way in which the United States would respond to an attack like the one portrayed in the novel-than I would ever put in a work of entertainment during a time of war. I would be remiss, however, if I did not extend a warm thanks to Margaret Tutwiler, the former undersecretary of state who was serving as the American ambassador to Morocco on September 11, 2001. Her descriptions of that day, some terrifying, others uproariously funny, provided me with a unique perspective of what it is like to be inside an American embassy in a time of crisis. I am honored to call her a friend, and grateful for her service.

The remarkable Bob Woodward generously shared with me his knowledge of the cooperation between the CIA and Egyptian security services. The eminent Washington orthopedist Dr. Benjamin Schaeffer taught me how to crudely treat a bullet wound in the field, while Dr. Andrew Pate, the renowned anesthesiologist of Charleston, South Carolina, explained the side effects of repeated ketamine injections and the symptoms of idiopathic paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia. Martha Rogers, a former federal prosecutor and now a much-in-demand Washington defense attorney, reviewed the case against the fictitious Sheikh Abdullah. Alex Clarke, my British editor, accompanied me on a fascinating journey through Finsbury Park and Walthamstow in the days after last summer’s London airline bomb plot, while Marie Louise Valeur Jaques and Lars Schmidt Moller gave me a tour of Copenhagen that I will never forget. A special thanks to the housepainter who verbally assaulted my wife and children on the Groenburgwal in Amsterdam. He unwittingly provided the inspiration for an opening chapter.

I interviewed many Islamists while serving as a correspondent for United Press International in Cairo in the late 1980s, but Journey of the Jihadist by Fawaz A. Gerges gave me additional insights into the minds of Egypt ’s religious radicals, as did A Portrait of Egypt by Mary Anne Weaver. While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer and Menace in Europe by Claire Berlinski helped sharpen my thoughts on the dilemma facing Europe today, especially the Netherlands, while Londonistan by Melanie Phillips gave me a deeper understanding of the crisis now confronting Great Britain. Ghost Plane by Stephen Grey contained many compelling personal accounts of those who have become ensnared, in some cases innocently, in the CIA program of “extraordinary rendition.” Over Here, Raymond Seitz’s memoir of his tenure as American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, helped me create the world of Robert Halton.

I was spared much embarrassment by the sure and careful hand of my copy editor, Tony Davis, whose great-uncle John W. Davis served as American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s from 1918 to 1921. Had he defeated Calvin Coolidge for president in 1924, the post of American ambassador to London would have produced six presidents instead of just five. Louis Toscano, my personal editor and longtime friend, made countless improvements to the manuscript, as did my literary agent, Esther Newberg of ICM in New York. A special thanks to Chris Donovan, who ably shouldered some of the research burden, and to a friend in the FBI who helped me get my terminology straight. It goes without saying that none of this would have been possible without the support of the remarkable team of professionals at Putnam-Ivan Held, Marilyn Ducksworth, and especially my editor, Neil Nyren-but I shall say it in any case.

Last, I wish to extend the deepest gratitude and love to my children, Lily and Nicholas, who spent their August vacation roaming Europe’s extremist hot spots, and to my wife, the brilliant NBC News Today correspondent Jamie Gangel. She listened patiently while I worked out the plot and themes of the novel, skillfully edited each draft, and helped drag me across the finish line with minutes to spare on my deadline. Orwell once described writing a book as “a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” He neglected to mention that the only people who suffer more than the writer himself are the loved ones forced to live with him.

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