The Secret Servant

can do so by obtaining a pass from the Ministry of Defence or by booking a table for lunch at the George & Dragon pub in Church End. Deepest apologies to the management of the Europa and d’Angleterre hotels for running intelligence operations from their fine establishments without obtaining prior consent.
    The Sword of Allah is entirely fictitious, though its background, creed, and operations are consistent with actual Egyptian terrorist groups such as al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad. Anwar Sadat did indeed provide 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.”

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
     
    T his 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 Møller gave me a tour of Copenhagen that I will never forget. A special thanks to the housepainter who