“Well?” asked Gabriel.
“It seems Mr. al-Siddiqi would be honored to attend the European Business Initiative.”
“Is that all?”
“No,” said Lavon, frowning. “He’d also like a word with Miss Nawaz in private.”
“About what?”
“Come inside,” Lavon replied. “We’ll know in a minute.”
S
HE HAD REQUESTED A REPRIEVE
of five minutes. Five minutes to lock away the last of her account files. Five minutes to tidy up her already tidy desk. Five minutes to return her chaotic heartbeat to something like normal. Her allotted time was now over. She rose to her feet, a little more abruptly than normal, and smoothed the front of her skirt. Or was she wiping the dampness from the palms of her hands? She checked to make sure she hadn’t left a streak of moisture on the fabric and then glanced at the bodyguards standing outside Mr. al-Siddiqi’s door. They were watching her intently. She supposed Mr. al-Siddiqi was watching her, too. Smiling, she walked the length of the corridor. Her knock was falsely decisive: three sharp blows that made her knuckle sting. “Come in,” was all he said.
She kept her eyes straight ahead as the bodyguard to her right—the tall one called Yusuf—punched the access code into the keypad on the wall. The deadbolts opened with a snap, and the door yielded silently to her touch. The room she entered was in semidarkness, illuminated only by a single halogen desk lamp. She noticed that the lamp had been moved slightly, but otherwise the desk was arranged in its typical fashion: the computer on the left, the leather blotter in the center, the multiline telephone on the right. Presently, the receiver was pressed tightly to the ear of Mr. al-Siddiqi. He wore a charcoal-gray suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie that shone like polished granite. His small dark eyes were focused at some point above Jihan’s head; his forefinger lay contemplatively along the side of his aquiline nose. He removed it long enough to aim it pistol-like at an empty chair. Jihan sat and arranged herself primly. She realized she was still smiling. Looking down, she checked her e-mail on her mobile phone and tried hard not to wonder who was on the other end of Mr. al-Siddiqi’s call.
Finally, he murmured a few words in Arabic and returned the receiver to its cradle. “Forgive me, Jihan,” he said in the same language, “but I’m afraid that couldn’t wait.”
“A problem?”
“Nothing beyond the usual.” He bunched his hands thoughtfully beneath his chin and looked at her seriously for a moment. “I have something I wish to discuss with you,” he said at last. “It is both personal and professional. I hope you will allow me to speak freely.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“You tell me, Jihan.”
The back of her neck felt as though it were on fire. “I don’t understand,” she said calmly.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Are you happy here in Linz?”
She frowned. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Because you don’t always seem terribly happy.” His small, hard mouth formed into something like a smile. “You strike me as a very serious person, Jihan.”
“I am.”
“And honest?” he asked. “Do you consider yourself an honest person?”
“Very.”
“You would never violate the privacy of our clients?”
“Of course not.”
“And you would never discuss our affairs with anyone outside the bank?”
“Never.”
“Not with a member of your family?”
“No.”
“Not with a friend?”
She shook her head.
“You’re sure, Jihan?”
“Yes, Mr. al-Siddiqi.”
He looked at the television. It was tuned, as usual, to Al Jazeera. The volume was muted.
“And what about loyalty?” he asked after a moment. “Do you consider yourself to be a loyal person?”
“Very.”
“To what are you loyal?”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Think about it now, please.” He glanced at his computer screen as if to give her a moment of privacy.
“I suppose I’m loyal to myself,” she said.
“Interesting answer.” His dark eyes moved from the computer screen to her face. “In what way are you loyal to yourself?”
“I try to live by a certain code.”
“Such as?”
“I would never intentionally try to hurt someone.”
“Even if he hurt you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Even if he hurt me.”
“And what if you suspected someone had done something wrong, Jihan? Would you try to hurt him then?”
She managed to smile in spite of herself. “Is this the personal part or the professional part of what you wanted to discuss?” she asked.
Her question seemed to throw him off balance. His gaze wandered to the silent television. “And what about your country?” he asked. “Are you loyal to your country?”
“I’m very fond of Germany,” she replied.
“You carry a German passport and speak the language like a native, Jihan, but you are not a German. You are Syrian.” He paused, then added, “Like me.”
“Is that why you hired me?”
“I hired you,” he said pointedly, “because I needed someone with your linguistic ability to help me function here in Austria. You’ve proven to be very valuable to me, Jihan, which is why I’m considering creating a new position for you.”
“What sort of position?”
“You would work directly for me.”
“In what capacity?”
“In whatever capacity I require.”
“I’m not a secretary, Mr. al-Siddiqi.”
“Nor would I treat you as one. You would help me manage the investment portfolios of my clients.” He scrutinized her for a moment as if trying to read her thoughts. “Would that be of interest to you?”
“Who would serve as the account manager?”
“Someone new.”
She lowered her gaze and delivered her response to her hands. “I’m very flattered you would consider me for such a position, Mr. al-Siddiqi.”
“You don’t seem terribly excited about the idea. In fact, Jihan, you seem rather uncomfortable.”
“Not at all,” she replied. “I’m just wondering why you would want someone like me in such an important position.”
“Why
not
you?” he countered.
“I have no experience managing assets.”
“You have something far more valuable than experience.”
“What’s that, Mr. al-Siddiqi?”
“Loyalty and honesty, the two qualities I value most in an employee. I need someone I can trust.” He made a steeple of his long, slender fingers and braced it against the tip of his nose. “I
can
trust you, can’t I, Jihan?”
“Of course, Mr. al-Siddiqi.”
“Does that mean you’re interested?”
“Very,” she said. “But I’d like a day or two to think about it.” “I’m afraid I can’t wait that long for an answer.”
“How long do I have?”
“I’d say you have about ten seconds.” Again he smiled. It looked as though he had taught himself the expression by practicing in front of a mirror.
“And if I say yes?” asked Jihan.
“I’ll need to perform a background check on you before proceeding.” He was silent for a moment. “You wouldn’t have a problem with that, would you?”
“I assumed I underwent a background check before you hired me.”
“You did.”
“Then why must there be another?”
“Because this one will be different.”
He made it sound as though it were a threat. Perhaps it was.
In the sitting room of the Attersee safe house, Gabriel had unwittingly adopted the same pose as Waleed al-Siddiqi: fingertips pressed to the tip of his nose, eyes staring straight ahead. They were fixed not on Jihan Nawaz but on the computer that was emitting the sound of her voice. Eli Lavon was seated next to him, gnawing at something on the inside of his cheek. And next to Lavon sat Yaakov Rossman, the team’s most accomplished speaker of Arabic. As usual, Yaakov appeared to be contemplating an act of violence.
“It could be a coincidence,” Lavon said without conviction.
“It could be,” repeated Gabriel. “Or it’s possible Mr. al-Siddiqi doesn’t like the company Jihan has been keeping.”
“It’s not against the rules for her to have a friend.”
“Unless the friend works for the intelligence service of the State of Israel. Then I suspect he’d have a problem with it.”
“Why would he assume Dina is Israeli?”
“He’s Syrian, Eli. He automatically assumes the worst.”
From the computer came the sound of Jihan departing Mr. al-Siddiqi’s office and returning to her desk. Gabriel set the toggle bar to 5:09 and clicked
PLAY
.
“
Do you consider yourself an honest person?
”
“
Very
.”
“
You would never violate the privacy of our clients?
”
“
Of course not
.”
“
And you would never discuss our affairs with anyone outside the bank?
”
“
Never
.”
“
Not with a member of your family?
”
“
No."
“
Not with a friend?
”
Gabriel clicked the
STOP
icon and looked at Lavon.
“Let us stipulate it doesn’t sound encouraging,” Lavon said.
“How about this?”
Gabriel clicked
PLAY
.
“
In what way are you loyal to yourself?
”
“
I try to live by a certain code.
”
“
Such as?
”
“
I would never intentionally try to hurt someone.
”
“
Even if he hurt you?
”
“
Yes. Even if he hurt me
.”
“
And what if you suspected someone had done something wrong, Jihan? Would you try to hurt him then?
”
STOP.
“If he suspects her of disloyalty,” said Lavon, “why is he offering her a promotion? Why not show her the door?”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“Did Shamron say that?”
“He might have.”
“Your point?”
“Al-Siddiqi can’t fire her because he’s afraid she knows too much. So he’s using the promotion as an excuse to vet her all over again.”
“He doesn’t need an excuse. All he needs to do is make a couple of phone calls to his friends in the Mukhabarat.”
“How long do we have, Eli?”
“Hard to say. After all, they’re rather busy at the moment.”
“How long?” Gabriel pressed him.
“A few days, maybe a week.”
Gabriel increased the volume on the live feed from Jihan’s phone. She was packing her handbag and bidding a good evening to Herr Weber.
“There’s no harm in bringing her in and calling it a day,” said Lavon quietly.
“There’s no money, either.”
Lavon was chewing at the inside of his cheek again. “What are we going to do?” he asked finally.
“We’re going to make sure nothing happens to her.”
“Let us hope Mr. al-Siddiqi’s friends in the Mukhabarat are too busy to take his call.”
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Let us hope.”
It was a few minutes after five o’clock when Jihan Nawaz stepped from the premises of Bank Weber AG. A streetcar was waiting in the roundabout; she rode it across the Danube to the Mozartstrasse and then walked through the quiet streets of the Innere Stadt, humming softly to herself to hide her fear. It was a song that had been playing on the radio all summer, the kind Jihan had never heard when she was a child. In the Barudi neighborhood of Hama, there had been no music, only the Koran.
As she turned into her street, she noticed a tall, lanky man with bloodless skin and gray eyes walking along the opposite pavement. She had seen him a number of times during the past few days; in fact, he had been sitting behind her on the streetcar that morning on the way to work. On the previous morning, it was the one with pockmarked cheeks who had followed her. And the day before that it had been a small, square man who looked as though he could bend a tire iron. Her favorite, though, was the man who had come to the bank as Herr Feliks Adler. He was different from the others, she thought. He was a true artist.
The fear released her long enough for her to collect the post from her mailbox. The floor of the foyer was scattered with flyers; she stepped over them, climbed the stairs to her apartment, and let herself inside. The sitting room was precisely as she had left it, as was the kitchen and her bedroom. She sat down at her computer and checked her Facebook page and her Twitter feed, and for a few minutes she managed to convince herself that the conversation with Mr. al-Siddiqi had been a normal workplace exchange. Then the fear returned and her hands began to shake.
And what if you suspected someone had done something wrong, Jihan? Would you try to hurt him then?
She reached for her phone and dialed the woman she knew as Ingrid Roth.
“I don’t feel like being alone right now. Any chance I can come over?”
“It might be better if you didn’t.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Just trying to get some work done.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You sure, Ingrid?”
“I’m sure.”
The call dropped away. Jihan placed the phone next to the computer and walked over to the window. And for an instant she glimpsed the face of a man watching her from across the street. Maybe you work for Mr. al-Siddiqi, she thought as the man’s face vanished. Maybe I am already dead.
T
HE DELEGATION FROM THE
G
ERMAN
ministry was the first to arrive. Viktor Orlov found this fitting, for he had always regarded the Germans as expansionist by nature. They were eased through passport control with the help of an official British minder and shepherded to the arrivals hall, where a pretty young woman—Russian, but not blatantly—stood behind a makeshift kiosk that read
THE EUROPEAN BUSINESS INITIATIVE
. The girl checked off their names and directed them to a waiting luxury coach, which ferried them to the Dorchester Hotel, the official hotel of the conference. Only one member of the delegation, a deputy who did something involving trade, complained about his accommodations. It was an otherwise fine beginning.