“I’m working on it. Now give me the next number.”
It appeared Mohammad Bakkar had not had the Samsung long. The first incoming call listed in the directory was the previous evening at 7:19 p.m. The time corresponded to the call that Jean-Luc Martel had received while sitting with Keller in the bar of the Palais Faraj in Fez. So, too, did the number. It seemed that the man who had called Martel to arrange the meeting at the camp in the desert had immediately called Mohammad Bakkar to say the meeting was on. Bakkar had then placed a call of his own, at 7:21.
“Give me that number,” said Gabriel.
Keller recited it.
“Read it again.”
Keller did.
“That’s Nazir Bensa?d.”
Bensa?d was the Moroccan jihadist and ISIS member who had followed Martel and the team from Casablanca to Fez, and from Fez into the Middle Atlas Mountains.
“Bakkar called someone else a few minutes after that,” said Keller.
“What’s the number?”
Keller relayed it to him.
“Does it appear anywhere else?”
Keller put the question to Natalie, who quickly searched the directories. Bakkar had placed another call to the number at 5:17 that afternoon. He had received one at 5:23.
Keller relayed the information to Gabriel.
“Who do you suppose that is?”
“The guest of honor?”
Gabriel severed the connection and raised Adrian Carter at Langley over the secure link.
“Where’s Nazir Bensa?d?” he asked.
“His phone is back in Fez. Whether Nazir is still attached to it is unclear.”
Gabriel then gave Carter the number Mohammad Bakkar had called three times—once the previous day at 7:21 p.m., and twice that afternoon, before the meeting in the desert.
“Any idea who it belongs to?” asked Carter.
“If I had to guess,” said Gabriel, “it’s Saladin.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Directory assistance.”
“Why didn’t we think of that? I’ll give it to the NSA. In the meantime,” said Carter, “tell your team not to lose that phone.”
Twenty minutes after they passed the encampment of Berber nomads, Mohammad Bakkar’s phone reconnected to Morocco’s cellular network. It received no old texts or voice mails, and no new communication of any kind. Keller passed the news along to Gabriel and then asked for instructions. Gabriel ordered them to follow the N13 north to the village of Rissani, at the edge of the Tafilalt Oasis. Once there, they were to switch to the N12 and make their way westward to Agadir.
“I assume Saladin will be waiting for us when we arrive?”
“Doubtful,” said Gabriel.
“So why are we going there?”
“Because Agadir is a lot nicer than the Temara interrogation center.”
“What about the guns?”
“Dump them in the desert. In all likelihood, you’re going to run into roadblocks.”
“And if we do?”
“Improvise.”
The connection went dead.
“What were his instructions?” asked Eli Lavon.
“He wants us to improvise.”
“What about the weapons?”
“He thinks we should hang on to them,” said Keller. “Just in case.”
It was after midnight by the time they reached the village of Khamlia. As Dina turned north on the N13, a pair of helicopters thundered overhead on an easterly course.
“Could be a routine patrol,” said Keller.
“Could be,” said Eli Lavon skeptically.
The Kalashnikov that Keller had taken from the camp was hidden in a duffel bag in the rear storage compartment; the Berretta was at the small of his back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the headlamps of the Jeep Cherokee, trailing about a hundred yards behind. He wondered how Olivia would fare during a prolonged interrogation by Moroccan gendarmes. Not well, he reckoned.
Turning around, he saw flashing emergency lights approaching them at speed. The vehicles sped past in a blur.
“That didn’t look good,” said Lavon. “Are you sure Gabriel doesn’t want us to dump the guns?”
Keller didn’t answer. He was staring at Mohammad Bakkar’s phone, which was vibrating in his hand. It was an incoming text message, Arabic script, from the same number Bakkar had called that afternoon. Keller held up the device for Natalie to see. Her eyes widened as she read.
“What does it say?” asked Keller.
“He wants to know if we’re dead.”
“Really? I wonder who that could be from.”
Keller picked up the satphone and started to dial, but stopped when he saw a gendarme standing in the middle of the highway, a traffic torch in his hand.
“What should I do?” asked Dina.
“By all means,” said Keller, “you should stop.”
Dina eased to the side of the road and braked to a halt. Behind her, Yossi Gavish did the same in the Jeep Cherokee.
“What should I tell them?” asked Dina.
“Improvise,” suggested Keller.
“What happens if they don’t believe me?”
Keller looked down at the message on Mohammad Bakkar’s phone.
“If they don’t believe you,” he said, “they die.”
62
Rissani, Morocco
Dina spoke to the gendarme in German, very quickly, and with fear in her voice. She said that she and her friends had been camping in the desert, that there had been explosions of some sort, and gunfire. Fearful for their lives, they had fled the camp with only the clothes on their backs.
“In French, Madame. Please, in French.”
“I don’t speak French,” answered Dina in German.
“English?”
“Yes, I speak English.”
But it was so heavily accented she might as well have still been speaking German. Frustrated, the gendarme checked her passport while his partner circled the vehicle slowly. The beam of his torch lingered for a moment on Keller’s face, long enough for Keller to consider reaching for the Beretta. Finally, the gendarme moved to the back of the SUV and rapped a knuckle on the glass.
“Open it,” he said in Arabic, but his partner overruled him. He returned Dina’s passport and asked where they were planning to go next. And when Dina answered in German, he waved her forward with his red-tipped torch. The Jeep Cherokee, too.
Keller handed Bakkar’s phone to Natalie. “Answer him.”
“What should I say?”
“Tell him we’re dead, of course.”
“But—”
“Hurry,” Keller interjected. “We’ve kept him waiting long enough.”
Natalie sent a one-word reply: aiwa. It was the Arabic word for “yes.” Instantly, the person at the other end of the exchange began working on a reply. It appeared a few seconds later. One word, Arabic script.
“What does it say?” asked Keller.
“Alhamdulillah. It means—”
“Thanks be to God.”
“More or less.”
“What it really means,” said Keller, “is that we’ve got him.”
“Or someone close to him.”
“Good enough.”
Keller rang Gabriel on the satellite phone and told him what had just transpired.
“You might have checked with me before sending that message.”
“I didn’t have time.”
“Keep him talking.”
“How?”
“Ask if he’s hurt.”
Keller told Natalie to send the message. A minute passed before the Samsung pinged with the reply.
“He’s hurt,” she said.