Zoe’s prediction proved correct, though the Frenchwoman would allow an additional twenty-four hours to elapse before announcing her conditional surrender. It came in the form of a grudging invitation. It seemed that, owing to an unexpected cancellation, Ms. al-Bakari was free for lunch in two days’ time. Would Ms. Reed be willing to make the trip to Paris on such short notice? The consummate professional, Zoe waited ninety annoying minutes before returning the call and accepting.
“Let me be clear about one thing,” Madame Dubois said. “This is not an interview. The luncheon will be completely off the record. If Ms. al-Bakari feels comfortable in your presence, she will consider taking the next step.”
“Where shall I meet her?”
“As you might expect, Ms. al-Bakari finds it difficult to conduct business in restaurants. We’ve taken the liberty of booking the Louis XV Suite at the Hôtel de Crillon. She’s expecting you at one-thirty. Ms. al-Bakari insists on paying. It’s one of her rules.”
“Does she have any others I should know about?”
“Ms. al-Bakari is sensitive about questions concerning the death of her father,” Madame Dubois said. “And I wouldn’t dwell on the subject of Islam and terrorism. She finds it terribly boring. À tout à l’heure, Ms. Reed.”
IN THE AFTERMATH, THE TEAM would recall the period of preparation that came next as among the most unpleasant they had ever endured. The cause was none other than Gabriel, whose brittle mood cast a pall over the rooms of Château Treville. He quibbled over the placement of observation posts, second-guessed backup plans, and even briefly considered requesting a change of venue. Under normal circumstances, the team would not have hesitated to push back, but they could sense that something about the operation had set Gabriel on edge. Dina reckoned it was Covent Garden and the terrible memories of the shot not taken, a theory that was dismissed by Eli Lavon. It was not London that weighed on Gabriel’s mind, Lavon explained, but Cannes. Gabriel had violated a personal canon that night; he had killed Zizi in front of his daughter. Zizi al-Bakari, financier of mass murder, had deserved to die. But Nadia, his only child, had not been obliged to witness it.
Only Zoe Reed remained shielded from Gabriel’s bout of bad temper. She spent an unhurried final day in New York, then, at five-thirty that afternoon, boarded Air France Flight 17 bound for Paris. An experienced traveler, she carried only a small overnight bag and a briefcase containing her notebook computer and research packet, which included a file of highly classified material, along with a detailed briefing paper on strategy for the luncheon. The items were handed to Zoe shortly after takeoff by her seatmate, an operative from the Office’s New York station, and were collected again shortly before landing.
Still in possession of a British passport, Zoe breezed through customs in the EU express line and took a car service into the city center. It was approaching nine when she arrived at the Crillon; after checking into her room, she changed into a tracksuit and went for a run along the footpaths of the Jardin des Tuileries. At eleven thirty, she presented herself at an exclusive salon next to the hotel for a wash and blow-dry, then returned to her room to dress for lunch. She departed her room early and was standing in the elegant lobby, hands clasped to conceal a bout of nerves, as the stately grandfather clock tolled quarter past the hour.
It was the quiet time of the year at the Crillon, the annual ceasefire between the running battle of the summer season and the celebrity-strewn ambush of the winter holidays. Monsieur Didier, the chief concierge, stood behind his barricade, gold half-moon reading glasses perched at the end of his regal nose, looking like the last man on earth anyone would ask for assistance. Herr Schmidt, the imported German day manager, stood a few feet away at reception, holding a telephone to his ear, while Isabelle, the special events coordinator, fussed with orchids in the sparkling entrance hall. Her efforts went largely unnoticed by the bored-looking Arab businessman sitting near the elevators and by the pair of lovers huddled over their café crèmes in the cold shadows of the interior courtyard. The businessman was actually an employee of AAB’s generously staffed security department. The lovers were Yaakov and Chiara. The hotel staff believed them to be an agreeable couple from Montreal who had popped into Paris on short notice to comfort a friend going through a messy divorce.
As the clock struck the bottom of the hour, Isabelle drifted over to the doorway and peered expectantly into the leaden Paris afternoon. Zoe glanced into the courtyard and saw Yaakov tapping a book of matches on the tabletop. It was the prearranged signal indicating that the motorcade—two S-Class Mercedes sedans for the hired help and a Maybach 62 for Her Highness—had departed AAB’s building on the Boulevard Haussmann and was en route to the hotel. At that moment, the cars were actually stuck in traffic along the narrow rue de Miromesnil. Once free of the obstruction, it took just five minutes for them to reach the entrance of the Crillon, where Isabelle, flanked by the better-looking half of the bell staff, now stood. The undercover AAB security man was no longer feigning boredom. He was now hovering at Zoe’s shoulder, making little effort to conceal the fact he was armed.
Outside, six car doors opened in unison, and six men, all former members of the elite Saudi National Guard, emerged. One was familiar to Gabriel and the rest of the team: Rafiq al-Kamal, the burly former chief of Zizi al-Bakari’s personal security detail, who now served in the same capacity for his daughter. It was al-Kamal who had conducted the advance sweep of the hotel earlier that morning. And it was al-Kamal who now walked a subservient step behind Nadia as she flowed from the back of her Maybach into the lobby where Zoe stood with a porcelain smile fixed upon her face and her heart beating against her breastbone.
There exist in the file rooms of King Saul Boulevard many photos of a younger version of Nadia, or, as Eli Lavon was fond of saying, Nadia before the fall. Zoe had been given access to some of the more illustrative shots during the flight from New York. They showed a petulant woman in her mid-twenties, darkly beautiful, spoiled, and superior. She was a woman who smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol behind her father’s back and who, in violation of Muhammad’s teachings, bared her flesh on some of the world’s most glamorous beaches. Her father’s death had straightened Nadia’s carriage and lent a serious light to her face, yet it had robbed her of none of her beauty. She wore a radiant dress of winter white, with her dark hair hanging straight between her shoulder blades like a satin cape. Her nose was long and straight. Her eyes were wide and nearly black. Pearls lay against the caramel-colored skin of her neck. A thick gold bracelet sparkled on her slender wrist. Her scent was an intoxicating blend of jasmine, lavender, and the sun. Her hand, when it closed around Zoe’s, was as cool as marble.
“It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you,” Nadia said in an accent that betrayed no origin other than unfathomable wealth. “I’ve heard so much about your work.”
She smiled for the first time, a cautious effort that did not quite extend to her eyes. Zoe felt slightly claustrophobic in the enclosure of the bodyguards, but Nadia conducted herself as though she were unaware of their presence.
“I’m sorry to make you come all the way to Paris on such short notice.”
“Not at all, Ms. al-Bakari.”
“Nadia,” she said, her smile genuine now. “I insist you call me Nadia.”
Al-Kamal appeared anxious to move the party out of the lobby, as did Madame Dubois,