The Secret Servant

quickly cut in. “Yes, I remember, Hussein—you got it from a man in a coffeehouse in Imbaba. But what was this man’s name?”
    “He didn’t…tell me.”
    “Which coffeehouse?”
    “I can’t…remember.”
    “You’re sure, Hussein?”
    “I’m…sure.”
    Al-Zayyat stood without another word and nodded to the interrogators. As he stepped into the corridor he could hear Mandali begging for mercy. “Do not fear the henchmen of Pharaoh,” the sheikh was telling him. “Place your faith in Allah, and Allah will protect you.”

31
     
    C OPENHAGEN : 5:34 P.M. , T UESDAY
     
    T here had been no time for Housekeeping to acquire proper safe lodging for Gabriel’s team in Copenhagen, and so they had settled instead at the Hotel d’Angleterre, a vast white luxury liner of a building looming over the sprawling King’s New Square. Gabriel and Sarah arrived shortly after 5:30 and made their way to a room on the fourth floor. Mordecai was seated at the writing desk in stocking feet, headphones over his ears, eyes fixed on a pair of receivers like a doctor reading a brain scan for signs of life. Gabriel slipped on the spare set, then looked at Mordecai and grimaced.
    “It sounds as though there’s a pile driver in the room.”
    “There is,” Mordecai said. “And his name is Ahmed. He’s banging a toy against the floor a few inches from the phone.”
    “How long has it been going on?”
    “An hour.”
    “Why doesn’t she ask him to stop?
    “Maybe she’s deaf. God knows I will be soon if he doesn’t stop.”
    “Any activity on the line yet?”
    “Just one outgoing call,” Mordecai said. “She called Ibrahim in Amsterdam to complain about Ishaq’s prolonged absence. Unless it was an elaborate ruse, she doesn’t know anything.”
    Gabriel looked at his wristwatch. It was 5:37. A spy’s life, he thought. Mind-numbing boredom broken by brief interludes of sheer terror. He slipped on the headset and waited for Hanifah’s telephone to ring.
     
     
     
    They adopted the uncomfortable silence of strangers at a wake and together endured an evening of frightening banality. Ahmed ramming his toy against the kitchen floor. Ahmed pretending to be a jet airplane. Ahmed kicking a ball against the wall of the sitting room. At 8:15, there was an ear-shattering crash. Though they were never able to accurately identify the object lost, it was of sufficient value to launch Hanifah into a hysterical tirade. A remorseful Ahmed responded by asking whether his father was going to telephone that night. Gabriel, who was pacing the floor as though looking for lost valuables, froze and awaited the answer. He’ll call if he can, Hanifah said. He always does. Ibrahim, it seemed, had been telling the truth after all.
    At 8:20, Ahmed was ordered into a bath. Hanifah cleaned up the disaster in the sitting room, then switched on the television. Her choice of channels was illuminative, for it soon became clear she was watching al-Manar, the official television network of Hezbollah. For the next twenty minutes, while Ahmed splashed about in his tub, they were forced to sit through a sermon by a Lebanese cleric who extolled the bravery of the Sword of Allah and called for more acts of terror against the infidel Americans and their Zionist allies.
    At 8:43, the sermon was interrupted by the shrill scream of the telephone. Hanifah answered it quickly and, in Arabic, said, “Ishaq, is that you?” It was not Ishaq but a very confused Danish man looking for someone named Knud. Hearing the voice of an Arabic-speaking woman—and, no doubt, the clerical rant in the background—he apologized profusely and hastily rang off. Hanifah returned the receiver to the cradle and shouted at Ahmed to get out of the bath. The Hezbollah preacher shouted back that the time had come for the Muslims of the world to finish the job Hitler had started.
    Mordecai looked at Gabriel in exasperation. “Both of us don’t have to sit through this shit,” he said. “Why don’t you get out of here for a few minutes?”
    “I don’t want to miss his call.”
    “That’s what the recorders are for.” Mordecai handed Gabriel his coat and gave him a little shove toward the door. “Go get something to eat. And take Sarah with you. You two make a nice couple.”
     
     
     
    A string quartet was sawing away indifferently at a Bach minuet downstairs in the parlor. Gabriel and Sarah slipped past them without a glance and struck out across the square toward