The Secret Servant

of Egypt’s plight. But the president isn’t going to release the sheikh, no matter how many people you kill. It’s not going to happen. You alone have the power to make it stop. Spare Elizabeth Halton’s life. Give her back to me and I’ll give you back your family.”
    “And what happens to me?”
    “I’m not interested in you. In fact, I couldn’t give a shit about you. What I want is Elizabeth Halton. Leave her somewhere safe, tell me where I can find her, then make your way to Afghanistan or Pakistan or Wherever-the-fuck-istan you want to spend the rest of your life. Just give me the girl back. You love death, we love life. You’re strong, we’re weak. You’ve already won. Just let me have her back.”
    “I’m going to find you one day, you bastard. I’m going to find you and kill you.”
    “I guess that means you’re not interested in a deal. It’s been nice talking to you, Ishaq. If you happen to change your mind, you have ten minutes to call me back. Think about it carefully. Don’t make the wrong decision. Otherwise, your family is as good as dead. Ten minutes, Ishaq. Then the plane leaves for Cairo.”
    Gabriel hung up the phone for a second time. Carter gave him a pat on the back. It was drenched in sweat.
     
     
     
    Gabriel slipped from the conference room without a word and made his way to the toilets. He stood before the basin, hands braced on the edge of the cold porcelain, and gazed at his own reflection in the mirror. He saw himself not as he appeared now but as a boy of twenty-one, a gifted artist with the ashes of the Holocaust flowing in his veins. Shamron was standing over his shoulder, hard as an iron bar, urgent as a drumbeat. You will terrorize the terrorists, he was saying. You will be Israel’s avenging angel of death .
    But Shamron had neglected to warn Gabriel of the price he would one day pay for climbing into the sewer with terrorists and murderers: a son buried in a hero’s grave on the Mount of Olives, a wife lost in a labyrinth of memory in an asylum on Mount Herzl. Having lost his own family to the terrorists, he had vowed to himself that he would never target the innocent in order to achieve his goals. Tonight, if only for the purposes of deception, he had broken that promise. He felt no guilt over his actions, only a profound sense of despair. The creed of the global jihadists was not just; it was a mental illness. One could not reason with those who massacred the innocent in the belief that they were doing God’s will on earth. One had to kill them before they killed you. And if one had to threaten the family of a murderer to save an innocent life, then so be it.
    He splashed icy water on his face and stepped out into the corridor. Carter was leaning against the wall with the calm detachment of a man waiting for a long-delayed train.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “I will be when this is over,” Gabriel said. “Did NSA get a fix on him?”
    “It appears he was somewhere close to the interchange of the A3 and the A26.”
    “Which means he could now be heading in any direction at considerable speed,” said Gabriel. “What about the phone itself?”
    “It was different,” Carter said.
    “I suppose it’s now off the air?”
    Carter nodded.
    “Anything else?”
    “Washington is worried that you’re pushing him too hard.”
    “What would they have me do? Ask him nicely to release her?”
    “They just want you to give him a little room to maneuver.”
    “And what if he uses that room to kill Elizabeth Halton?”
    Carter led the way back to the conference room. As they passed through the doorway, Gabriel looked up at the wall clock. Three minutes remained until the next deadline. Lars Mortensen was drumming his fingers anxiously against the tabletop.
    “What are you going to do if he doesn’t call?”
    “He’ll call,” Gabriel said.
    “How can you be sure?”
    It was Ibrahim who answered for him. “Because of Jihan,” he said, fingers still working his prayer beads. “He’ll call because he doesn’t want his wife and son to suffer the same fate as Jihan.”
    Mortensen, perplexed by the response, looked to Carter for an explanation. Carter raised his hand in a gesture that said he would explain the reference at a more appropriate time. Gabriel resumed his pacing. Two minutes later, the telephone rang again. He snatched up the receiver and brought it quickly to his ear.
    “Ishaq,” he said with an artificial brightness. “I’m