Perhaps the scar would be minimal, Malika thought as she studied her wound in the dim light of a naked bulb. Working by the reflection of a broken mirror, she changed the dressing for the third time. Just as she was finishing, the sound of a siren rose outside.
From the tiny slatted vent that served as her window she looked out across the rain-wet streets of Clichy-sous-Bois. She saw nothing unusual, which was to say she saw tenements and smoking street grills and countless young men loitering in packs. Hearing a siren here was like hearing a seagull at the beach. Malika turned away not even waiting for the sound to fade. If Baland had found her, he would never be so overt.
The room was little more than an attic, a no-questions-asked hideaway above a taxi garage in one of the most distressed banlieues of eastern Paris. The garage was owned by a grizzled old Tunisian whose son was in prison—according to the French for trafficking guns, according to the old man for having parents from Africa. The attic was always open to friends of the caliphate, particularly those taking flight from the flics. For more than a year now, Malika had been a frequent flyer.
She retrieved the dog-eared newspaper the old man had slipped under her door, and noted it was today’s issue. There was an article on page 2 about the continuing search for Claude Michelis’ assailant. The police expressed boundless confidence, this in spite of little new evidence. She crumpled the newspaper and fed it into her pot stove—she was running out of fuel, and the damp, drafty room made her yearn for the desert.
She settled on the bed, the mattress folding around her like a taco, and began eating from a tin of cookies. They were sickeningly sweet, but she kept at it. Lately she seemed hungry all the time, and she wondered if she might be getting diabetes. It wasn’t easy, keeping the weight on. Her youthful metabolism fought to rid her of every calorie, but so far she’d managed. The worst had been putting on fifty pounds to begin with, a binge she’d begun in Gaza two years ago.
It had been surprisingly effectual. Who from her old village would recognize her now? The anonymity her new shape permitted her was even more useful than she’d imagined. With her drab dress, poor hygiene, and tangled hair, she was invisible on the streets of Paris, and on the better avenues given a wide berth. Her redoubtably surly nature only amplified her isolation. Men ignored her, women tilted up their noses. All precisely as she wanted.
She wondered how long it would take to reverse the process. Six months? A year? She didn’t like the idea of plastic surgery, but her hooked nose ought to be dealt with, and a bit of dental work seemed inevitable. All the better when the time came to disappear. She had enough money for it—she’d been skimming ISIS operational funds for over a year now. It wasn’t any great amount, but that was also by design—large accounts would only draw attention. She’d set aside enough to live on. Two years, maybe three. Enough to be reborn once her raison d’être was fulfilled.
Her thoughts turned to Slaton. She had necessarily bunkered up for the last day and a half, letting her wound heal while the police spun their wheels. But she couldn’t wait forever. Her plan, years in the making, was tantalizingly close to success. There was an excellent chance that he was still in Paris. If so, it was time to finish the job.
And Malika knew exactly where to start.
* * *
Baland was caught off balance by Slaton’s disappearance, but tried not to lose his advantage. He spent a full thirty minutes with Uday and his girlfriend, asking the most pertinent questions, before ushering them out of the office—it was nearly time to make a phone call to an assassin.
He had used the more spacious director’s suite for the meeting, even if wasn’t officially his, for the gravitas it conveyed. Once he was alone, Baland strolled to the wet bar in the corner. He picked up a decanter of amber liquid and held it to the light, then removed the top and drew in the aroma. The scent brought recognition: a nice double-malt Scotch Michelis had been particularly fond of.
He wondered what had spooked Slaton. A number of answers came to mind, but none were more than speculation. He supposed such men had overdeveloped cautionary instincts. Baland considered putting in an order to triangulate the call he was about to make, but decided against it. He remained in a delicate position, and wanted no chance of the conversation being recorded.
Standing pensively at the bar, he used his private phone to place the call at the prescribed time. Slaton answered right away.
“I’m not tracing your phone,” Baland said straightaway.
“It’s not my phone. And I didn’t think you would.”
Baland pulled a tumbler from the shelf, and from a full ice bucket he began distractedly transferring ice cubes one by one. The clinking sound must have carried over the phone, because Slaton said, “I thought you were a good Muslim.”
Baland poured a brace. “Voilà! You now know the full catalogue of my secrets.”
“Why don’t I believe that?”
Baland tipped back the glass once. The Scotch really was good. “Uday and I had a long conversation.”
“Good. Have you reached an accord?”
“We are in general agreement. His past aside, he has done France a great service. The caliphate is reeling, and will soon be more so. He tells us that new attacks have been ordered on French soil, but with his help we may be able to forestall the worst of it. We are treating his arrival as a straightforward defection, the details of which will remain clouded. Uday and I have agreed it is in our mutual best interest to keep my relationship with the caliphate quiet.”
“I hope you can keep it that way—but that’s between the two of you.”
“Is it?” Baland asked. “You know as much about me as anyone.”
“I have no interest in you or your past dealings.”
“And Mossad?”
“What about them?”
Baland thumped his glass down firmly, a rattle of wet ice. “I am not a fool! Mossad had sole custody of Uday for fifteen hours. Don’t tell me he wasn’t interrogated!”
“He was.”
“So you see my dilemma. Director Nurin will someday try to leverage my misfortune for the good of Israel.”
“Probably. In his shoes, wouldn’t you do the same thing?”
Baland didn’t reply.
“Look, it’s very likely that someday you will hear from Mossad. But we’re talking about Israel, not some band of organized criminals masquerading as a religious movement. Israel and France keep largely parallel interests. I’m sure that in your new capacity you’ll someday come across information that might reflect poorly upon Israel. A scheming mind might even expect you to search for it … as insurance, one might say.”
Baland’s eyes narrowed. “You really have cut the cord, kidon.”
“I’ve had strong differences with Mossad in recent years … but Israel will always be my homeland. What I’m saying is that arrangements can be made. Deals can be forged.”
“Can they?”
“Trust me—Director Nurin revels in them.”
“So he will keep my little secret for a price? Why should I believe it?”
“From what I can see, you don’t have much choice.” Slaton paused before adding, “But as a display of goodwill, the director wants me to pass along that Israel will not share the ISIS personnel database for one week. That should give you time to vet the list and act accordingly. In return, Nurin asks that you restrict the dissemination of what you find during that period to France and her former colonies.”
“In other words, he doesn’t want me to tell the Americans.”
“Like I said, Nurin is a deal maker. Israel could benefit greatly from passing this information to certain allies. I’m only the messenger, but it does seem like they deserve something for the risks they’ve taken.”
“And you, David? What of the risks you have taken?”
“Irrelevant. My part here is done.”
“What about Malika? She’s still out there.” Baland let that settle for a few beats. “She brought you here, and has already tried to kill you once. Can you and your family be safe while she remains at large?”
The silence this time was extended, and Baland found himself envisioning the fluid gray eyes he’d seen at Le Quinze.
“What do you know about my family?” Slaton said in a level tone.
Baland knew he’d hit his mark. He poured a second brace and wandered to the wide window that provided the director’s office a reaching view of Levallois-Perret. “You have a wife and a son very far from here. I know because Malika asked for my help in tracking down a certain satellite account in the middle of the Pacific. Only recently did I realize who it involved.”
“So we both have good reason to be rid of Malika. But you have the police forces of an entire nation at your disposal.”
“And you are the kind of man who leaves little to chance. If the two of us pooled our abilities … certainly Malika would never escape. She is the last problem we both face.”
“What do you propose?” Slaton asked.
“First that we find a way to lure her out. Then the two of us can devise a strategy to finalize things.” Slaton said nothing, which Baland took for assent. He continued, “I think Uday might be of use in finding her. He has long served as Malika’s go-between—chances are, he has more information than he realizes. I’ve procured rooms for Uday and Sarah at The Peninsula. They will remain under heavy guard, but I think at this stage in our relationship it would be useful to treat them more as guests than detainees.”
“A few nights in a five-star suite? That sounds like something right out of Director Nurin’s playbook.”
“I will take that as a compliment. This afternoon I must extract everything possible from Uday regarding these new attacks—it is my duty to make that the priority. I will also be in touch with the Defense Ministry regarding a certain mosque in Raqqa. But later, I think, we should convene a more quiet conversation. Let’s meet tonight at seven, in the lobby of The Peninsula. Uday and Sarah will join us. If we can together find a way to deal with Malika, everyone will be better off.”
“All right, I’ll be there. But there’s one thing you should understand very clearly.”
Baland stood staring at the building’s forecourt far below. The blue, white, and red tricolor snapped rigid on its pole. “And what might that be?”
“That glass you’re looking through is not as thick as it ought to be.”
Baland stiffened.
The connection went dead, and his eyes darted between distant buildings. He saw people milling about the streets and in the windows of nearby office complexes. The tree-lined Boulevard du Château was thick with parked cars, as was the distant Hôpital Américain. He stood rooted in place, his basal instincts in seizure as he awaited a tiny projectile to penetrate the glass. Then his policeman’s brain took hold and convinced him otherwise. Baland slowly took the phone from his ear.
“No,” he whispered to himself. “Malika might do it that way. But you won’t because you have no reason.”
* * *
Eight hundred yards distant, Slaton backed out of a nook between cement columns in a fourth-floor parking garage. He headed straight for the stairs, pocketing his most recent purchase, a small but powerful set of binoculars. He turned off the phone he’d stolen from Baland’s guard, removed its SIM card and then its battery. On the way to street level he dropped one piece in the trash bins of three successive floors. His Mossad-issued phone remained off as well—he’d been carrying it too long for continuous use.
Slaton hit the sidewalk in full stride and turned west. Choppy gusts and a sheeting rain lashed his dark blue windbreaker, and his hair was soon matted and disheveled. The jacket was a thin item, purchased one year ago for use on Windsom during tropical rain showers—little use against a tempestuous North Sea squall. As he made turn after turn, carefully checking the streets around him, the irony did not escape Slaton: At that moment, the South Seas could not have seemed farther away.
* * *
Far outside of the City of Light, and three miles aloft, the chartered jet carrying Bloch and Talia suffered through a holding pattern thirty miles south of Le Bourget Airport. A line of storms was passing over the airfield, and the pilots, in a decision Bloch thought conservative, had decided to wait things out.
“We need to land now!” he complained to the flight attendant.
“I’ve passed along your concerns to the pilots,” the young man said, “but they tell me the weather is too severe at the moment. It is a matter of safety.”
Bloch was about to argue the point when Talia touched his hand and raised a finger, as if to say, Wait a minute. As soon as the flight attendant had gone, she said in a hushed tone, “I know we’re not supposed to do this, but we must be holding at a low altitude … it works.” She waved her phone at him. “We have a signal.”
Without even looking to see where the flight attendant was, Bloch took out his own phone and turned it on. He had three bars of reception. Better yet, the Gulfstream didn’t appear to be falling out of the sky.
“Thank God!” said Bloch. Slaton’s number was already loaded, and he immediately placed the call. It ended in frustration ten seconds later.
“He must have turned his phone off!”
Talia looked crestfallen. “I’m sure he’s only being cautious.”
Bloch didn’t reply, but he knew she was right—for someone in Slaton’s position, it was a perfectly reasonable act. Only hours later would they realize how regrettable such precautions could be.