The Black Widow. Daniel Silva
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In Washington the American president condemned the bombing as “a wanton act of murder and barbarism,” though, curiously, he made no mention of the perpetrators’ motives or of Islam, radical or otherwise. His congressional opponents quickly laid blame for the attack squarely at his feet. Had he not precipitously withdrawn American troops from Iraq, they said, ISIS would never have taken root in neighboring Syria. The president’s spokesman later dismissed suggestions that the time had come for American ground troops to take the fight directly to ISIS. “We have a strategy,” he said. Then, with a straight face, he added, “It is working.”
In the Netherlands, however, Dutch authorities had no interest in apportioning blame, for they were far too busy searching for survivors amid the rubble, and for the woman, approximately thirty years of age, blond hair, long legs, narrow hips, blue jeans, hooded sweatshirt, fleece vest, who had driven the bomb van into the market. For two days her name remained a mystery. Then a second video appeared on the same social media Web site, narrated by the same man who spoke with an East London accent. This time, he was not alone. Two veiled women stood next to him. One remained silent, the other spoke. She identified herself as Margreet Janssen, a convert to Islam from the Dutch coastal city of Noordwijk. She had planted the bomb, she said, to punish the blasphemers and the infidels in the name of Allah and Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Later that day the AIVD, the Dutch security and intelligence service, confirmed that Margreet Janssen had traveled to Syria eighteen months previously, had remained there for approximately six months, and had been allowed to return to the Netherlands after convincing the Dutch authorities that she had renounced her ties to ISIS and the global jihadist movement. The security service placed the woman under electronic and physical surveillance, but the surveillance was subsequently dropped when she exhibited no signs of continued involvement in radical Islamic activities. Obviously, said an AIVD spokesman, it was an error in judgment.
Within minutes the cyberrooms of the digital caliphate were ablaze with excited chatter. Margreet Janssen was suddenly the new symbol of the global jihad, a former Christian from a European country who was now a lethal member of the community of believers. But who was the other woman in the video? The one who did not speak? The answer came not from Amsterdam but from a fortress-like building in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. The second woman, said the chief of the DGSI, was Safia Bourihane, one of the perpetrators of the attack on the Weinberg Center.
Before terminating its surveillance of Margreet Janssen, the AIVD had assembled a dense dossier of watch reports, photographs, e-mails, text messages, and Internet browsing histories, along with secondary files on friends, family members, associates, and fellow travelers in the global jihadist movement. Paul Rousseau received a copy of the dossier during a meeting at AIVD headquarters in The Hague, and upon his return to Paris he presented it to Gabriel in a quiet brasserie on the rue de Miromesnil, in the Eighth Arrondissement. The dossier had been digitized and stored on a secure flash drive. Rousseau slid it across the table beneath a napkin, with all the discretion of a gunshot in an empty chapel. It was no matter; the brasserie was deserted except for a small bald man wearing a well-cut suit and a lavish lavender necktie. He was drinking a glass of Côtes du Rhone and reading a copy of Le Figaro. It was filled with the news from Amsterdam. Gabriel slipped the flash drive into his coat pocket, making no effort to conceal his action, and asked Rousseau about the mood at AIVD headquarters.
“Somewhere between panic and resignation,” answered Rousseau. “They’re ramping up their surveillance of known Islamic extremists and searching for the man who built the bomb and the other elements of the network.” He lowered his voice and added, “They were wondering whether I had any ideas.”
“Did you mention Saladin?”
“It might have slipped my mind,” said Rousseau with a sly smile. “But at some point we’re going to have to go on the record with our friends here in Europe.”
“They’re your friends, not mine.”
“You have a history with the Dutch services?”
“I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting the Netherlands.”
“Somehow, I find that difficult to believe.” Rousseau glanced at the small bald man sitting on the other side of the brasserie. “A friend of yours?”
“He runs a shop across the street.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw him leave and lock the door.”
“How observant of you.” Rousseau peered into the darkening street. “Antiquités Scientifiques?”
“Old microscopes and the like,” explained Gabriel.
“Interesting.” Rousseau contemplated his coffee cup. “It seems I wasn’t the only foreign visitor to AIVD headquarters yesterday. An American came, too.”
“Agency?”
Rousseau nodded.
“Local or Langley?”
“The latter.”
“Did he have a name?”
“Not one that my Dutch hosts wished to share with me. They did suggest, however, that American interest was high.”
“How refreshing.”
“Apparently, the White House is concerned that an attack on the American homeland this late in the president’s second term might prove injurious to his legacy. The Agency is under enormous pressure to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
“I guess ISIS isn’t the jayvee team after all.”
“To that end,” Rousseau continued, “the Agency is expecting full and complete cooperation from America’s friends and partners here in Europe. The man from Langley is due in Paris tomorrow morning.”
“It might be wise for you to spend some time with him.”
“My name is already on the guest list.”
Gabriel handed Rousseau a slip of paper, folded in quarters.
“What’s this?”
“A list of additional files we need.”
“How much longer?”
“Soon,” said Gabriel.
“That’s what you said yesterday, and the day before.” Rousseau slipped the list into the breast pocket of his tweed jacket. “Are you ever going to tell me where you and your helpers are working?”
“You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?”
“We haven’t tried.”
“Somehow,” said Gabriel, “I find that difficult to believe.”
He rose without another word and went into the street. Rousseau watched him walk away along the darkened pavement, followed discreetly by two of Alpha Group’s best surveillance men. The little bald man with the lavender necktie laid a few bills on his table and departed, leaving Rousseau alone in the brasserie with no company other than his mobile phone. Five minutes elapsed before it finally illuminated. It was a text message from Christian Bouchard. “Merde,” said Rousseau softly. Allon had lost them again.
IT WAS WITH A PAIR of routine countersurveillance moves—a reversal of course along a one-way street, a brief stop in a bistro that had a rear service exit off the kitchen—that Gabriel slipped away from the finest watchers of Paul Rousseau’s Alpha Group. Afterward, he made his way, on foot, by Métro, and in a taxi, to a small apartment building along the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. According to the intercom panel, the occupant of 4B was someone named Guzman. Gabriel thumbed the button, waited for the snap of the automatic