The Messenger

luxury motor yacht. I’m sure you and your team will find her more than comfortable.”
    “Where did you get it?”
    “We seized it a few years ago from a Panamanian drug runner named Carlos Castillo. Mr. Castillo now resides in a federal prison in Oklahoma, and we’ve been using his boat to do the Lord’s work down here in the Caribbean.”
    “How many times has it been used?”
    “Five or six times by the DEA, and we’ve used it twice.”
    Gabriel handed the photograph back to Carter. “It’s dirty,” he said. “Can’t you get me something with a clean provenance?”
    “We’ve changed her name and registry several times. There’s no way Zizi or any of his security goons can trace it back to us.”
    Gabriel sighed. “Where is it now?”
    “A marina on Fisher Island,” Carter said, pointing to the south. “It’s being provisioned right now. We have a CIA crew leaving Langley tonight.”
    “Nice try,” Gabriel said, “but I’ll use my own crew.”
    “You?”
    “We have a navy, Adrian. A very good one, in fact. I have a crew on standby in Haifa. And tell your boys to take out the listening devices. Otherwise, we’ll do it for them, and Sun Dancer won’t look very good when we give it back to you.”
    “It’s already been taken care of,” Carter said. “How are you planning to get your team over here?”
    “I was hoping a friend of mine from American intelligence would extend a helping hand.”
    “What do you need?”
    “Airlift and landing rights.”
    “How quickly can your crew get from Haifa to London?”
    “They can leave first thing in the morning.”
    “I’ll send one of our planes to London tonight. It will collect your team and bring them back here. We’ll set it down at Homestead and dispense with passports and customs. You can put out to sea on Sunday night and rendezvous with Zizi Monday afternoon.”
    “Sounds like we have ourselves a deal,” Gabriel said. “All we need now is Ahmed bin Shafiq.”
    “He’ll come,” Carter said with certainty. “The only question is will your girl be there when he does?”
    “She’s our girl, Adrian. Sarah belongs to all of us.”

PART THREE

The Night Journey

22.

Harbor Island, Bahamas

    T HERE SHE IS ,” Wazir bin Talal shouted above the roar of the Sikorsky’s rotor blades. He pointed out the right side of the aircraft. Alexandra, Zizi’s vast private yacht, was slicing through the waters west of the island. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
    “She’s very large,” Sarah shouted back at him.
    “Two hundred seventy-five feet,” said bin Talal, as though he had built it himself.
    Two hundred eighty-two, Sarah thought. But who’s counting? Yossi had described it as a floating emirate. She permitted them to enter her thoughts. Her last contact had been Sunday afternoon. Eli Lavon had bumped into her in Oxford Street while she was picking up a few odds and ends for the trip. We’ll be with you the entire time, he had told her. Don’t look for us. Don’t try to make contact unless it’s a force-ten calamity. We’ll come to you. Have a nice trip.
    She leaned back in her seat. She was still wearing the jeans and woolen sweater she put on that morning. Only ten hours removed from the chilly damp of London, her body was unprepared for the onslaught of tropical heat. The jeans felt as though they were glued to her thighs, and the sweater seemed to be sawing at the side of her neck. She glanced at bin Talal, who seemed to be having no difficulty adjusting to the abrupt change of climate. He had a wide face, two small dark eyes, and a goatee beard. Dressed as he was now, in his tailored gray suit and tie, he might have been mistaken for a financier. His hands, however, betrayed the true nature of his work. They looked like mallets.
    The roar of the rotor blade made further conversation impossible, and for this she was eternally grateful. Her loathing of him was now limitless. Since just after dawn he had been a constant presence at her side, menacing in his politeness. At the airport he had insisted on coming with her to the duty-free shops and had intervened with a company credit card when she bought a flask of aloe lotion. During the flight he had shown an endless interest in all aspects of her life. Please, Miss Sarah, tell me about your childhood…Please, Miss Sarah, tell me about your interest in art…Please, Miss Sarah, tell me why you decided to leave Washington and come to London… To escape him she had feigned