The Secret Servant

Ramadan would consider spending the day as a paid consultant and commentator. He immediately agreed without bothering to ask the fee and, ten minutes later, was taking his seat once more on the set.
    “Welcome back, Professor Ramadan. What do you think these latest attacks mean?”
    “They mean that the United States had better open a channel of communication to the Sword of Allah soon,” Ramadan said. “Otherwise I’m afraid a good deal more blood will be shed here in Europe.”

29
     
    C OPENHAGEN : 3:03 P.M. , T UESDAY
     
    T hey decided a crash meeting was in order and settled on Copenhagen’s airport Hilton Hotel as a suitable site. Adrian Carter arrived first and was sitting in the lounge bar as Gabriel and Sarah strode into the lobby. He directed them toward the elevators with a weary glance, and a moment later they were huddled around the television in Carter’s junior executive suite. Carter turned up the volume very loud. The room had been swept by CIA security, but Carter was a traditionalist when it came to matters of tradecraft and, like Gabriel, regarded electronic gadgetry as a necessary but unfortunate corruption of a once-noble art.
    “Zurich, Paris, Vienna: three airport attacks, identical in design and perfectly coordinated.” Carter, staring at the images of carnage and destruction on the screen, shook his head slowly. “One hundred and twenty-nine people confirmed dead, five hundred injured, and Europe’s air transport system in tatters.”
    “And what about Europe’s politicians?” asked Gabriel.
    “Publicly, they’re saying all the right things: deplorable, barbaric, outrageous. Privately, they’re pleading with us to make a deal with the devil. They’re telling us to end this thing before more blood is shed on their soil. Even our close friend at Downing Street is beginning to wonder whether we should find some way of negotiating our way out of this. The Sphinx, whoever he might be, is a mass murderer and a ruthless bastard, but his timing is impeccable.”
    “Any chance that the president is going to bend?”
    “Not after this. In fact, he’s more determined than ever that this affair end without a negotiated settlement. That means we have no option but to find Elizabeth Halton before the deadline.” Carter’s gaze moved from the screen to Gabriel. “And as of this moment, your Joe appears to be our best and only hope.”
    “He’s not my Joe, Adrian.”
    “He is now, at least as far as official Washington is concerned.” Carter lowered the volume a decibel or two. “You caused quite a storm in Washington last night, Gabriel. Your interrogation with Ibrahim Fawaz is now required listening from Langley to the J. Edgar Hoover Building to the National Security Council.”
    “How were the reviews?”
    “Mixed,” said Carter. “Expert opinion is divided over whether Ibrahim was being truthful or whether he was having you on for a second time. Expert opinion thinks you may have hitched your star to him too quickly. Expert opinion also fears you may have treated him far too gingerly.”
    “What does expert opinion have in mind?”
    “A second interrogation,” said Carter.
    “Conducted by whom?”
    “By Agency men with proper Christian names instead of an Israeli assassin.”
    “So you’re telling me that I’m being fired?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
    “You didn’t have to come all the way to Copenhagen to fire me, Adrian. A secure phone call would have sufficed.”
    “I felt I owed it to you. After all, I was the one who roped you into this.”
    “How decent of you. But tell me something, Adrian. Tell me exactly what your Agency interrogators think they’re going to get from Ibrahim that I didn’t get from him.”
    “Full and forthright answers, for starters. Expert opinion believes he was being highly deceptive and evasive in his answers.”
    “Oh, really? Did they come up with this on their own, or did the computers do it for them?”
    “It was a combination of the two, actually.”
    “How much more forthright would you like Ibrahim to be? He’s agreed to help us find Elizabeth Halton, and he’s given us the number of a telephone in Copenhagen that his son is calling every evening.”
    “No, he’s given us a number he says his son is calling.”
    “And tonight we’ll find out whether he’s telling the truth.”
    “Higher authority isn’t willing to wait that long. They want Ibrahim chained to a wall now.