Portrait of a Spy

demand that you free the brothers being held illegally at Guantánamo Bay.”
    “No Palestinian prisoners? You disappoint me.”
    “I wouldn’t want to interfere with the ongoing negotiations between you and the brothers of Hamas.”
    “Ask for something reasonable, Malik—something I can actually give you.”
    “We never negotiate with terrorists. Release our brothers, and we will release your spy with no further harm.”
    “What have you done to her?”
    “I can assure you it was nothing compared to the pain suffered by our brothers each and every day in the torture chambers of Cairo and Amman and Riyadh.”
    “Haven’t you been reading the papers, Malik? The Arab world is changing. Pharaoh is gone. The House of Saud is cracking. The little Hashemite king of Jordan is frightened for his life. The decent people of the Arab world have achieved in a matter of months what al-Qaeda and its ilk couldn’t accomplish with years of senseless slaughter. Your time has passed, Malik. The Arab world doesn’t want you. Let her go.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Allon.” He paused for a moment, as if pondering a way out of the impasse he had created. “But there is one other possibility.”
    Gabriel listened to Malik’s instructions. So did Shamron, Navot, and Adrian Carter.
    “What happens if we don’t accept?” Gabriel asked.
    “Then she will suffer the traditional punishment for apostasy. But don’t worry. You’ll be able to watch her death on the Internet. The Yemeni plans to use it as a recruiting device to replace all the operatives we lost because of her.”
    “I need proof she’s still alive.”
    “I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me,” Malik said. And then the line went dead.
    Gabriel’s BlackBerry rang a few seconds later. It was Adrian Carter.
    “He’s definitely still in the Emirates.”
    “Where?”
    “NSA hasn’t been able to triangulate it yet, but they think he might be out in the western desert, near the Liwa oasis. We have a bird over the area now and two more headed that way.”
    Gabriel removed a small device from an internal pouch of his overnight bag. It was about the size of an average antibiotic tablet. On one side was a miniature metallic switch. He flipped it, then asked, “Can you see the signal?”
    “Got it,” said Carter.
    Gabriel swallowed the device. “Can you still see it?”
    “Got it.”
    “The Fish Souk, ten minutes.”
    “Got it.”
    Gabriel was still wearing the business attire of his cover identity. He briefly considered changing into something more appropriate for a night in the desert, but realized that wouldn’t be necessary. His captors would surely do that for him. He placed his wristwatch in his bag along with his BlackBerry, wallet, passport, weapon, and a few meaningless scraps of pocket litter. He was no longer in possession of syringes or suxamethonium chloride, only Advil and anti-diarrhea medicine. He took enough Advil to temporarily dull the pain of any injuries he might suffer in the next few hours and enough of the anti-diarrhea medicine to turn his bowels to concrete for a month. Then he locked the bag in the closet and headed downstairs to the street.
    Six minutes remained for Gabriel to make the short walk to the Fish Souk. It was located near the mouth of Dubai Creek along the Corniche. Despite the late hour, there were groups of young men taking the night air along the waterfront—Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, and four Arabs who were not Arabs at all. Gabriel stood next to a streetlamp to make himself clearly visible, and within a few seconds, a Denali SUV stopped directly in front of him. Behind the wheel was one of the Malik clones. Another was seated in the back. So was Rafiq al-Kamal, Nadia al-Bakari’s former chief of security.
    It was al-Kamal who gestured for Gabriel to climb in and al-Kamal, thirty seconds later, who delivered the first blow—an elbow to Gabriel’s chest that nearly stopped his heart. Then they forced him to the floor and pummeled him until there was no strength left in their arms. The harvest was over, thought Gabriel, as he slipped into unconsciousness. Now it was time for the feast.

Chapter 63
The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia

    T HE MAPS REFER TO IT ominously as the Rub’ al-Khali—literally, the Quarter of Emptiness. The Bedouin, however, know it by another name. They call it the Sands. Covering an area the size of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, it stretches from Oman