Читать книгу The New Girl - Daniel Silva - Страница 22

THOUGH PRINCESS REEMA DID NOT know it, her father had already retained the services of a dangerous and sometimes violent man to find her. He passed the remainder of that night in the company of an old friend for whom sleep was no longer possible. And at dawn, after kissing his sleeping wife and children, he traveled by motorcade to Ben Gurion Airport, where yet another flight awaited him. His name did not appear on the passenger manifest. As usual, he was the last to board. A seat had been reserved for him in first class. The seat next to it, as was customary, was empty.

A flight attendant offered him a preflight beverage. He requested tea. Then he asked for the passenger in 22B to be invited to take the seat next to him. Ordinarily, the flight attendant would have explained that passengers from economy class were not allowed in the aircraft’s forward cabin, but she offered no objection. The flight attendant knew who the man was. Everyone in Israel did.

The flight attendant headed aft, and when she returned, she was accompanied by a woman of forty-three with blond hair and blue eyes. A murmur arose in the first-class cabin as the woman lowered herself into the seat next to the man who had boarded the plane last.

“Did you really think my security department would allow me to get on a plane without first reviewing every name on the manifest?”

“No,” replied Sarah Bancroft. “But it was worth a try.”

“You deceived me. You asked me about my travel plans, and I foolishly told you the truth.”

“I was trained by the best.”

“How much of it do you remember?”

“All of it.”

Gabriel smiled sadly. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

IT WAS A FEW MINUTES after four o’clock when the flight landed in Paris. Gabriel and Sarah cleared passport control separately—Gabriel falsely, Sarah under her real name—and reunited in the busy arrivals hall of Terminal 2A. There they were met by a courier from Paris Station, who handed Gabriel the key to a car. It was waiting on the second level of the short-term car park.

“A Passat?” Sarah dropped into the passenger seat. “Couldn’t they have given us something a little more exciting?”

“I don’t want exciting. I want reliability and anonymity. It’s also rather fast.”

“When was the last time you drove a car?”

“Earlier this year, when I was in Washington working on the Rebecca Manning case.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

“Not with the car.” Gabriel opened the glove box. Inside was a Beretta 9mm pistol with a walnut grip.

“Your favorite,” remarked Sarah.

“Transport thinks of everything.”

“What about bodyguards?”

“They make it hard to operate effectively.”

“Is it safe for you to be in Paris without a security detail?”

“That’s what the Beretta is for.”

Gabriel reversed out of the space and followed the ramp to the lower level. He paid the attendant in cash and did his best to shield his face from the security camera.

“You’re not fooling anyone. The French are going to figure out that you’re in the country.”

“It’s not the French I’m worried about.”

Gabriel followed the A1 through the gathering dusk to the northern fringes of Paris. Night had fallen by the time they arrived. The rue la Fayette bore them westward across the city, and the Pont de Bir-Hakeim carried them over the Seine to the fifteenth arrondissement. Gabriel turned onto the rue Nélaton and stopped at a formidable security gate manned by heavily armed officers of the National Police. Behind the gate stood a charmless modern office block. A small sign warned that the building belonged to the Interior Ministry and was under constant video surveillance.

“It reminds me of the Green Zone in Baghdad.”

“These days,” said Gabriel, “the Green Zone is safer than Paris.”

“Where are we?”

“The headquarters of the Alpha Group. It’s an elite counterterrorism unit of the DGSI.” The direction générale de la sécurité intérieure, or DGSI, was France’s internal security service. “The French created the Alpha Group not long after you left the Agency. It used to be hidden inside a beautiful old building on the rue de Grenelle.”

“The one that was destroyed by that ISIS car bomb?”

“The bomb was in a van. And I was inside the building when it exploded.”

“Of course you were.”

“So was Paul Rousseau, Alpha Group’s chief. I introduced you to him at my swearing-in party.”

“He looked more like a professor than a French spy.”

“He was once, actually. He’s one of France’s foremost scholars of Proust.”

“What’s the Alpha Group’s role?”

“Human penetration of jihadist networks. But Rousseau has access to everything.”

A uniformed officer approached the car. Gabriel gave him two pseudonymous names, one male, the other female, both French and both inspired by the novels of Dumas, a particularly Rousseauian touch. The Frenchman was waiting in his new lair on the top floor. Unlike the other offices in the building, Rousseau’s was somber and wood-paneled and filled with books and files. Like Gabriel, he preferred them to digital dossiers. He was dressed in a crumpled tweed jacket and a pair of gray flannel trousers. His ever-present pipe belched smoke as he shook Gabriel’s hand.

“Welcome to our new Bastille.” Rousseau offered his hand to Sarah. “So good to see you again, Madame Bancroft. When we met in Israel, you told me you were a museum curator from New York. I didn’t believe it then, and I surely don’t believe it now.”

“It’s true, actually.”

“But obviously there’s more to the story. Where Monsieur Allon is concerned, there usually is.” Rousseau released Sarah’s hand and contemplated Gabriel over his reading glasses. “You were rather vague on the phone this morning. I assume this isn’t a social call.”

“I heard you recently had a bit of unpleasantness in the Haute-Savoie.” Gabriel paused, then added, “A few miles west of Annecy.”

Rousseau raised an eyebrow. “What else have you heard?”

“That your government chose to cover up the incident at the request of the victim’s father, who happens to own the largest château in the region. He also happens to be—”

“The future king of Saudi Arabia.” Rousseau lowered his voice. “Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Paul.”

The Frenchman nibbled thoughtfully at the stem of his pipe. “The unpleasantness, as you call it, was quickly designated a criminal act rather than an act of terrorism. Therefore, it fell outside the purview of the Alpha Group. It is none of our affair.”

“But you must have been at the table during the first hours of the crisis.”

“Of course.”

“You also have access to all the information and intelligence gathered by the National Police and the DGSI.”

Rousseau pondered Gabriel at length. “Why is the abduction of the crown prince’s daughter of interest to the State of Israel?”

“Our interest is humanitarian in nature.”

“A refreshing change of pace. On whose behalf have you come?”

“The future king of Saudi Arabia.”

“My goodness,” said Rousseau. “How the world has changed.”