The Secret Servant

kill the cancer as long as Egypt keeps churning out terrorists,” Gabriel said. “Ibrahim Fawaz was an exception. When he was tortured and humiliated by the regime, he chose to leave the extremist Islamist movement and get on with what remained of his life. But most of those who are tortured go in the opposite direction.”
    “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could snap our fingers and create a vibrant and viable democracy along the banks of the Nile. But that’s not going to happen any time soon, especially given our track record in Iraq. Which means we’re stuck with Mubarak and his thuggish regime for the foreseeable future. He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch—and yours, too, Gabriel. Or is it your wish to have an Islamic Republic of Egypt along your western flank?”
    “In many respects Egypt already is an Islamic republic. The Egyptian government is unable to provide the most basic services to its people and the Islamists have filled the void. They’ve penetrated the elementary schools and the universities, the bureaucracy and the trade unions, the arts and the press, even the courts and the legal guilds. No book can be published, and no film can be produced, that doesn’t first meet the approval of the clerics at al-Azhar. Western influences are slowly being extinguished. It’s only a matter of time before the regime is extinguished, too.”
    “Hopefully we’ll have found some other way to fuel our cars before that happens.”
    “You will,” said Gabriel. “And we’ll be left to face the beast on our own.”
    Gabriel tucked a few bills under his coffee cup and stood. They walked along the far edge of the park, past a row of food kiosks. Sarah was seated at a wooden table, eating a plate of chilled shrimp on black bread. She dropped it unfinished into a rubbish bin as Carter and Gabriel filed slowly past, then followed after them.
    “Speaking of Egypt, we nearly caught a break there last night,” Carter said. “The SSI arrested a Sword of Allah operative named Hussein Mandali. He had the misfortune of being caught while in possession of one of Sheikh Tayyib’s tape-recorded sermons—a sermon that had been recorded after the kidnapping. It turns out that Mandali was present at the recording session, which took place at an apartment in Zamalek. The apartment was owned by a Saudi benefactor of the Sword named Prince Rashid bin Sultan. The prince has been on our radar screens for some time. It seems that giving support to Islamic terrorists is something of a hobby for him, like his falcons and his whores.”
    Carter fished his pipe from the pocket of his greatcoat. “The SSI searched the apartment and found the premises recently vacated. We requested permission to question Mandali ourselves and were informed that he was unavailable for comment.”
    “That means he’s no longer presentable.”
    “Or worse.”
    “Still want to pack my Joe off to Egypt for an interrogation?”
    “You’ve prevailed on that point, Gabriel. The question is what do we do now?”
    “Maybe it’s time we had a word with Ishaq.”
    Carter stopped walking and looked at Gabriel directly. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
    Gabriel told Carter his plan as they walked through the heart of Copenhagen along a quiet cobblestone street.
    “It’s risky,” Carter said. “We also have no guarantee he’s going to call back again tonight. We asked the German police to conduct the search as quietly as possible, but it didn’t go unnoticed by German media, and there’s a good chance Ishaq noticed, too. If he’s smart—and we have no evidence to the contrary—he’s bound to suspect his phone call had something to do with it.”
    “He’ll call, Adrian. He’s trying to hold on to his family. And as for risk, no option before us is without risk.”
    Carter gave it another moment of thought. “We’ll have to come clean with the Danes,” he said finally. “And the president would have to approve it.”
    “So call him.”
    Carter handed Gabriel the phone. “He’s your friend,” he said. “ You call him.”
     
     
     
    One hour would elapse before the president gave Gabriel’s gambit his blessing. The operation’s first step came ten minutes after that, not in Copenhagen but in Amsterdam, where, at 12:45 P.M ., Ibrahim Fawaz stepped from the al-Hijrah Mosque after midday prayers and started back toward the open-air market in the Ten Kate Straat. As he was nearing his stall at the end of