Portrait of a Spy

terminal and gave a plastic smile.
    “Actually,” she said, “we do have a number of rooms available on the fourteenth floor. Do you recall the room where you and your wife stayed on your honeymoon?”
    “I believe it was 1437,” he said.
    She appeared crestfallen. “Unfortunately, that room is currently occupied, Mr. Colvin. However, the suite next to it is available, as is the one directly across the hall.”
    “I’ll take the one across the hall, please.”
    “It’s a bit more expensive.”
    “No problem,” said the Russian.
    “I’ll need to see your wife’s passport.”
    “She’s joining me tomorrow.”
    “Please ask her to stop by when she arrives.”
    “First thing,” he assured her.
    “Do you require assistance with your luggage?”
    “I can manage, thanks.”
    She gave him a pair of electronic room keys and pointed him toward the appropriate elevator. As promised, his room was directly across the hall from 1437. Entering, he immediately switched on the Do Not Disturb light and double-locked the door. Then he opened his suitcase. Inside were a few articles of clothing that stank of chickpeas and cumin. There was also a Beretta 9mm, a Glock .45, two hypodermic needles, two vials of suxamethonium chloride, a notebook computer, and an adjustable high-resolution snake camera. He mounted the camera to the bottom of the door and connected its wiring to the computer. After adjusting the angle of the view, he filled the hypodermic needles with suxamethonium chloride and the guns with bullets. Then he settled in before the computer and waited.
    For the next forty-five minutes, he was treated to a view of the Burj Al Arab not seen on its Web site or in its glossy brochures. Frantic room service waiters. Weary chambermaids. An Ethiopian nanny holding the hand of a hysterical child. An Australian businessman walking arm in arm with a Ukrainian prostitute. Finally, at ten sharp, he saw a beautiful Arab woman stepping from Room 1437 with a vigilant bodyguard at her back. When the woman and bodyguard were gone, a broad-shouldered man leaned out the doorway and looked both ways along the corridor. White kandoura and ghutra . Tinted eyeglasses rimmed in gold. A neatly trimmed beard with flecks of gray around the chin. The Russian picked up the Glock, the man-stopper, and quietly chambered a round.

Chapter 59
Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai

    T HE DETAILS OF N ADIA AL- B AKARI’S departure from the Burj Al Arab were handled not by Gabriel and his team but by Mansur, the chief of AAB’s travel department. There were no belongings for her to collect, because Mansur had seen to them personally. Nor were there any bills to pay, because they had already been forwarded to AAB headquarters in Paris. All Nadia had to do was make her way to the Burj’s circular drive, where her car waited just outside the front entrance. After climbing into the backseat, she asked her driver and Rafiq al-Kamal to give her a moment of privacy. Alone, she dialed a number that had been stored in the memory of her BlackBerry. Gabriel answered immediately in Arabic.
    “Tell me what he looked like.”
    “White kandoura . White ghutra . Tinted eyeglasses with gold rims. A neatly trimmed beard with a bit of gray.”
    “You did well, Nadia. Go to the airport. Go home.”
    “Wait!” she snapped. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
    Though Nadia did not know it, Gabriel was seated in the lobby, looking like a man who had come to Dubai for work rather than pleasure, which was indeed the case. On the table before him was a notebook computer. Attached to his ear was a hands-free mobile phone that doubled as a secure radio. He used it to alert his far-flung team that the operation had just hit its first snag.
    Nadia tapped her BlackBerry on the window and signaled that she was ready to leave. A few seconds later, as they were speeding over the causeway separating the Burj from the mainland, Rafiq al-Kamal asked, “Is there anything I need to know?”
    “That meeting never happened.”
    “What meeting?” asked the bodyguard.
    Nadia managed a smile. “Tell Mansur we’re on our way to the airport. Tell him to move up our departure slot if he can. I’d like to get back to Paris at a reasonable hour.”
    Al-Kamal pulled out his phone and dialed.
    “Maybe Allah really is on his side after all,” said Adrian Carter. He was staring in disbelief at Gabriel’s latest transmission from Dubai. It said that Malik al-Zubair, master