The Secret Servant

man got quickly to his feet and melted into the darkness of the Heath. Gabriel ran his hand along the back and underside of the bench and found a mobile phone taped to the bottom of the seat on the left side. He quickly removed the battery and searched the phone for any concealed explosive charges. Then he reconnected the battery and pressed the POWER button. When the telephone was back online, he spoke quietly into his throat microphone.
    “Nokia E50.”
    “Number?” asked Uzi Navot.
    Gabriel recited it.
    “Any recent activity.”
    “It’s clean.”
    “Text activity?”
    “Nothing.”
    Gabriel stared down at the lights of London and waited for the phone to ring. Fifteen minutes later, he heard a thin, tinny version of the Adhan , the Muslim call to prayer. He silenced it with a press of a button and raised the phone to his ear. It took them only thirty seconds to deliver the next set of instructions. Gabriel dropped the phone into the rubbish bin next to the bench, then took hold of the duffel bags and started walking.
     
     
     
    At the makeshift command center inside the Israeli embassy, Uzi Navot laid down the handset of his secure radio and snatched up the receiver of his telephone. He quickly dialed a number for Thames House, the riverfront headquarters of MI5, and ten seconds later heard the voice of Graham Seymour.
    “Where is he now?” Seymour asked.
    “Heading across Hampstead Heath toward Highgate. They just told him that if he has a radio or a weapon on him at the next stop, Elizabeth Halton will be executed immediately. In a few seconds he’s going to be off the air.”
    “What can we do for you?”
    “Trace a telephone.”
    “Give me everything you have on it.”
    Navot gave Seymour the model and telephone number.
    “I don’t suppose they were foolish enough to leave any information in the calling history.”
    “The phone was clean, Graham.”
    “We’ll run it and see if we come up with anything. But I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of jihadists in our local telecommunications industry. They’re damned clever when it comes to covering their tracks with phones.”
    “Just give us anything you come up with.”
    Navot slammed down the phone and picked up the radio handset again. He grunted a few words in terse Hebrew, then looked at Shamron. He was pacing the room slowly, leaning heavily on his cane.
    “You’re wasting your time chasing that phone, Uzi. You should be chasing the watchers instead.”
    “I know, boss. But where are the watchers?”
    Shamron stopped in front of a computer monitor and peered at a grainy night-vision image of four young men playing football outside the padlocked Hampstead Heath running track.
    “At least one of them is right there in front of you, Uzi.”
    “We’ve had them under watch since before Gabriel arrived. No phone calls. No text messaging. Only football.”
    “Then you should assume that’s what the Sphinx told him to do,” Shamron said. “That’s the way I would have done it—an old-school, physical signal. If Gabriel is clean, keep playing football. If Gabriel is being followed, have an argument of some sort. If Gabriel has a radio, take a cigarette break.” Shamron poked at the screen. “Like that boy is doing right there.”
    “You think one of them is a spotter?”
    “I’d bet my life on it, Uzi.”
    “That means that there’s someone else in the heath who can see him—someone with a cell phone or a two-way pager.”
    “Exactly,” said Shamron. “But you’re never going to find him. He’s already gone by now. Your only option is to follow the spotter.”
    Navot looked at the screen. “I don’t have the resources to follow four men.”
    “You don’t have to follow four. You only have to follow one. Just make sure you pick the right one.”
    “Which one is that?”
    “Eli has good instincts about these things,” Shamron said. “Let Eli decide. And whatever you do, make sure you get another beacon on Gabriel before he leaves Highgate. If we lose him now, we might never find him again.”
    Navot reached for his radio. Shamron started pacing again.
     
     
     
    Gabriel jettisoned the Browning and the radio in a stand of trees at the center of the heath, then crossed the levee between the Highgate Ponds and made his way to Millfield Lane. Taped to the nearest lamppost was a snapshot of a dark blue BMW station wagon. The car itself was fifty yards farther along the lane, outside