58
FINSBURY PARK, LONDON: 7:30 A.M., SUNDAY
They barged into her cell with a demeanor she had never seen before. Cain spoke to her for the first time in more than two weeks. “You’re going to be released,” he blurted. “You have twenty minutes to prepare yourself. If you are not ready in twenty minutes, you will be killed.” And then he was gone.
Abel appeared next, bearing a plastic bucket of warm water, a bar of soap, a washcloth and towel, a parcel of clean clothing, and a blond wig. He placed the bucket on the floor and the rest of the things on her cot, then removed her handcuffs and shackles. “Wash carefully and take your time dressing,” he explained calmly. “We brought you something nice to wear. We don’t want the world to think we mistreated you.”
He went out and closed the door. She wanted to scream for joy. She wanted to weep with relief. Instead, model prisoner to the end, she did exactly what they told her to do. She used only fifteen minutes of her allotted time and was seated on the edge of her cot, knees together and trembling, when they entered her cell again.
“You are ready?” Cain asked.
“Yes,” she replied in a low, evenly modulated voice.
“Come, then,” he said.
She stood and followed them slowly up a flight of darkened stairs.
Word of Gabriel’s successful extraction arrived at the Israeli embassy in Old Court Place at 7:48 A.M. It was transmitted via ordinary cell phone by Chiara, who was at that moment seated next to Gabriel in the back of a Volkswagen Passat with a smashed headlamp and crumpled fender. The call was taken by Shamron, who, upon hearing the news, covered his face with his hands and wept. So deep was Shamron’s emotion that for several seconds those gathered around were uncertain whether Gabriel was alive or dead. When it became clear that he was indeed alive and back in their hands, a great roar went up in the room. The brief celebration that followed was intercepted and recorded by the British eavesdroppers at GCHQ—which had monitored all Israeli communications that night—as were Shamron’s pleas for quiet as he listened to the next part of Chiara’s report. Shamron immediately placed two calls, the first to Adrian Carter in the American ops center beneath Grosvenor Square and the second to Graham Seymour, who was with the prime minister and the COBRA committee at Downing Street. Seymour quickly arranged for a police escort to bring Gabriel and the remnants of his team safely into London; then he rushed to the American embassy, as did Shamron. The two men were standing next to Adrian Carter as the battered Passat and its police escorts screeched to a stop at the North Gate.
The car was immediately surrounded by two dozen of the uniformed Met officers standing guard outside the embassy grounds. Shamron’s view was momentarily blocked; then the sea of lime green parted and he glimpsed Gabriel for the first time. He had one arm draped over Yossi’s shoulder and the other over Oded’s. His face was contorted with pain and swelling, and his blue-and-white tracksuit was covered in blood and mud. They brought him through the gate and propped him upright for a moment before the three senior spymasters. Shamron kissed his cheek gently and murmured something in Hebrew that the others could not understand. Gabriel lifted his head slightly and looked at Graham Seymour.
“If you tell me not to complain about a nasty bump on the head, I just may lose my temper.”
“You’re a damned fool—and damned brave.” Seymour looked at Adrian Carter. “Let’s get him inside, shall we?”
Ambassador Robert Halton was waiting in the embassy’s ground floor atrium, along with FBI hostage negotiator John O’Donnell and several other members of the American team. As Gabriel came inside, still clinging to Yossi and Oded for support, they broke into restrained applause, as though they feared too much noise might inflict additional damage to him. Robert Halton walked over to Gabriel and put his hands carefully on his shoulders. “My God, what have they done to you?” He looked at Adrian Carter. “Let’s take him up to my office. The doctors can have a look at him there.”
They shepherded him into a waiting elevator and whisked him up to the ninth floor. Yossi and Oded lowered him onto the couch in the ambassador’s office, but when the doctors tried to enter the room, Graham Seymour held them back and quickly closed the door.
“Twenty minutes ago, a team of Met special operatives raided the house in the Ambler Road where Ishaq claimed Elizabeth was being held. She wasn’t there, but they found plenty of evidence that she had been recently. The Sphinx led us on a wild-goose chase across western Europe, and all the while she’s been here in England, right under our noses. The question is, where is she now?”
“The information Ishaq gave Gabriel about Elizabeth’s location was correct,” said Adrian Carter. “So it stands to reason that the information about what they intend to do with her is also correct.”
“It is,” said Gabriel. “They’re going to execute her outside Westminster Abbey before the start of Christmas services. She’s to be murdered by a pair of suicide bombers, who will take many innocent lives along with their own. I was supposed to be part of the second act, a massive car bombing that would have killed hundreds of your first responders.”
“A bloodbath in front of our most important national symbol on the morning of our Savior’s birth,” said Graham Seymour. “One that is intended to spark an armed uprising in Egypt and bring this country to its knees.” He hesitated, then said: “And one that we cannot allow to happen. As of this moment there are several hundred people congregated outside the north entrance of the Abbey, waiting to be admitted for a service of carols and readings that begins at ten-thirty. Our only option is to seal off Westminster and quickly evacuate everyone from the area.”
“A move that will automatically condemn Elizabeth to death,” said Gabriel. “If the shaheeds arrive in Westminster to find the Abbey evacuated and under siege, they’ll resort to their backup plan, which is to kill her instantly, no matter where they are.”
“Forgive my bluntness,” said Seymour, “but that is a vastly better outcome than their primary plan.”
“I didn’t go through Hell to give up on her now,” Gabriel said. “There is another way.”
“Which is?”
“Ishaq told us that Elizabeth would be accompanied by two men,” Gabriel said. “He told us—”
Graham Seymour held up his hand. “Don’t go any further, Gabriel. It’s madness.”
“We wait for the shaheeds to arrive, Graham. And then we kill them before they can kill Elizabeth.”
“We?”
“What do you think you’re going to do? Shoot them like snipers from a long way off? Shoot them like gentlemen from twenty paces? You have to let them get close. And then you have to kill them before they can hit their detonator switches. That means headshots at close range. It’s not pleasant, Graham. And if the gunmen hesitate for an instant, it will end in disaster.”
“The Met has a unit called SO19: the Blue Berets. They’re special firearms officers, trained for this very sort of thing. If memory serves, we sent them to Israel for training.”
“You did,” said Shamron. “And they’re very good. But they’ve never been placed in a live situation like this. You need gunmen who’ve done something like this before—gunmen who aren’t going to fold under the pressure.” Shamron paused, then added: “You need gunmen like Gabriel and Mikhail.”
“Gabriel can barely stand up,” Seymour said.
“Gabriel will be fine,” Shannon said without bothering to consult him. “Let us finish what we started.”
“How are you going to be sure it’s really her?”
Gabriel looked at Robert Halton. “If anyone can tell, it’s her own father. Put him in the yard on the north side of the Abbey with a miniature radio. He’ll be able to see anyone approaching from Whitehall or Victoria. When he sees Elizabeth, send the signal to us. Mikhail and I will take care of the rest.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Seymour said. “How are they going to get Elizabeth to walk to her own execution?”
Gabriel thought of what Ibrahim had said the night of his death in Denmark. “They’ll tell her she’s about to be released,” he said. “That way she’ll go willingly and do exactly what they tell her.”
“Bastards,” Seymour said softly. He glanced at his watch. “I take it you have all the firearms and ammunition you need?”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“What about communications?”
“They can borrow radios from our embassy security staff,” Carter said. “Our DS agents work routinely with the Met on protective details. We can all tie in on the same secure frequency.”
Seymour looked at Gabriel. “What do we do about him? He can’t go to Westminster looking like that?”
“I’m sure we can find something for him to wear here,” Carter said. “We have two hundred people down in the basement who came to London from Washington with suitcases filled with clothing.”
“What about his face? He looks bloody awful.”
“Fixing his face, I’m afraid, would require a Christmas miracle.”
Graham Seymour frowned, walked over to the ambassador’s desk, and dialed the phone.
“I need to speak to the prime minister,” he said. “Now.”