The Secret Servant

began talking about how to kill him? Three weeks. And that was for an assassination, not a kidnapping. And you know what Shamron always says about kidnap operations.”
    “He says it’s much easier to leave a dead man on a sidewalk than it is to get a live one into a getaway car.” Gabriel smiled. “Shamron does have a way with words, doesn’t he?”
    Sarah brought the pot of coffee to the table and sat down next to Gabriel. Lavon lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling in frustration.
    “The police in this city are on high alert because of the links between the Amsterdam cell and the attack in London,” he said. “We need to watch Ibrahim for at least another week. We have to plan a primary escape route, a backup escape route, and a backup to the backup escape route. We have to put the snatch zone under twenty-four-hour surveillance, so we know there won’t be any surprises on the night of the operation. Have I forgotten anything?”
    “The dry runs,” said Gabriel. “We should make at least three dry runs. And in a perfect world we would do all those things. But in the real world, Elizabeth Halton has less than five days to live. We prepare as much as we can, but we take him tonight.”
    “And we pray to God we all don’t end up in jail, which is what’s going to happen if we make a mistake.” Lavon gazed despondently at his wristwatch. “Let’s take a walk over to the Oud West. Who knows? It might be our last opportunity for a very long time.”
     
     
     
    The bustling outdoor market that ran for several blocks along the Ten Kate Straat reflected the altered demographics of Amsterdam’s Oud West neighborhood. There were dates and lentils, barrels filled with olives and chickpeas, shwarma stands and falafel vendors, and three different halal butchers. Gabriel paused briefly in the open-air shoe store and picked through a pile of counterfeit American basketball shoes, the ultimate status symbol of the young, even among the street toughs of west Amsterdam. At the stall on the opposite side of the street, Sarah was scrutinizing a canvas book bag emblazoned with the face of Che Guevara, while Lavon was feigning interest in a hooded sweatshirt that proclaimed FREE PALESTINE NOW !
    Lavon looked at Gabriel and gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head, the signal that he had detected no surveillance. A moment later they were all three walking side by side toward the far end of the market. The stall where Ibrahim Fawaz worked in the afternoon was occupied by an elderly Moroccan man in a white djellaba. Sarah paused to examine an electric teakettle while Gabriel and Lavon walked on to the end of the market. On the opposite side of the street, in a drab, postwar building, was the al-Hijrah Mosque. Two bearded men were conversing outside on the pavement, under the watchful gaze of two uniformed Amsterdam policemen. Twenty yards away was a dark van with blacked out windows.
    “It hasn’t moved in forty-eight hours,” Lavon said.
    “Dutch security?”
    Lavon nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say they have a static post in the building across the street as well.”
    Gabriel looked back toward the kitchen supplies stall and motioned for Sarah to join them. Then they turned to the left and walked along the Jan Hazenstraat. It was a quiet street lined with squat, mismatched tenement buildings and small storefronts. At the far end, overlooking a broad canal, was a tiny park with a few benches, a swing set, and a pair of rusted hobbyhorses on steel springs. Gabriel rounded the corner to the left and paused: more apartment blocks, but no storefronts or cafés, nothing that would be open after dark.
    “Evening prayers begin tonight at six thirty-seven,” Lavon said. “Which means that Ibrahim will be passing by this spot at approximately seven o’clock. Once he comes around the corner, no one in the van or the static post will be able to see him. We just have to make sure we get him without making any noise. I recommend we put the getaway vehicle on this corner where the Dutch agents can’t see it. Then we have to do something that makes Ibrahim slow down long enough so that we can get him cleanly.”
    Gabriel thought of the night he and Ibrahim had walked along the Amstel River together and a single image flashed in his memory—Ibrahim Fawaz lowering his gaze in disgust as two men strolled toward them arm in arm.
    “He doesn’t like homosexuals,” Gabriel said.
    “Few