Brothers In Arms (24 page)

Youssef bin Hassan and Ahmad bin Faisal sat at an outside table at a café beside a bridge that crossed over the canal. Their seating arrangements gave them a good view of the canalside walkway below, as well as the street in both directions.

Youssef saw Isabelle first. He recognized the particular insouciance of her walk, a strange combination of a stroll and a glide, as she came down the street toward the café.

“That’s her,” he said to bin Faisal. “The one in the vest and skirt coming this way.”

“Finish your coffee,” bin Faisal said. He tipped up his own cup, enjoying the last little bit of fine espresso.

Isabelle saw them now, sitting at a table with a good vantage point. Youssef was dressed much as she’d seen him before, in T-shirt and jeans with his courier satchel; he wore a sleeveless sweater-vest over his T-shirt against the cool of evening. She stopped and took out another cigarette and took her time lighting it before she came on. She walked past their table without stopping, slowing only to make eye contact with Youssef, who showed no indication that he knew her. Then she walked on down the stairway to the paved walkway that followed the canal.

Youssef and bin Faisal stood up, their coffees already paid for, and bin Faisal dropped a few bills on the tabletop. They took their time getting up, and then followed Isabelle down the concrete stairway to the canal walkway below.

“Hold up,” Dale said to Charley. “Did you see those two men get up from the café?”

“Yeah,” Charley said.

“Let’s give them a little room. They’re going down the stairwell to the walkway and we don’t want a crowd there. We’ll take the eye.”

Isabelle walked for a while, then looked over her shoulder and saw Youssef and the man who would be his controller behind her. She came to the bench that was the designated contact point and sat down, still smoking her cigarette. Youssef and his companion came abreast of her, paused, and then Youssef said, “You are Marta’s friend, are you not?”

“Yes, Joe,” she said. “Have you forgotten already?”

“Put the cameras on those two,” Dale said. “I want full coverage of those two men. Can you get a mike on them?”

“We can try,” Hans said. “Perhaps it would be better for you two to withdraw.”

“No,” Dale said. “We’ll walk by and then come up. I want to see those faces for myself.”

“Who is your friend, Joe?” Isabelle said, blowing a perfect ring of smoke.

“This is my friend Arnold,” Youssef said.

“And you are?” bin Faisal said.

“As I think you may already know, my name is Isabelle.”

“I expected to meet your partner as well.”

“She is otherwise occupied this evening.”

“I see.”

“Shall we walk?” Youssef said.

“Yes,” Isabelle said. She stood up and ground the cigarette beneath her clog. She touched a finger to her lip and removed a grain of tobacco.

The three of them, Isabelle in the middle, walked along the canal.

“This is unusual,” Dale said softly.

All around Isabelle and the two Arabs, micro–video cameras recorded their every move. Back in the command center, video shots of the two men’s faces were run through a computer link with the mainframes in the US that maintained the huge database of people of interest to the intelligence community.

“Let them get ahead a bit,” Charley said.

“I want a close look at their faces,” Dale said.

“We’ve got good video coverage,” Charley said. “Wait so that we can stay with them.”

“I’ve explained our position to Joe,” Isabelle said. “We can no longer go forward. The lack of reliable information is why. It nearly got us killed in Minneapolis. You gave us no indication that there was a protection detail of that size and competence on the target. That is why there was a failure. You don’t have any better intelligence now on the whereabouts of the target, and you have little prospect of developing any. We’ve made more than a good-faith effort and we have exposed ourselves more than we are comfortable with. The contract is not doable. You can retain the portion remaining of the fee; we’ll accept that loss as a cost of doing business. But we will not go forward with the operation.”

“I understand your position,” bin Faisal said. “And we’re aware of your circumstances. If in the near future we were to develop better intelligence and targeting information, would you consider completing the contract?”

Isabelle was quiet for a moment, then said, “Of course we are open to discussing the matter, but our inclination would be to say no. We’ve been exposed and the quality of the protection on the target precludes us going against them again.”

“I see,” bin Faisal said.

“We have a hit,” Hans’s voice was tinny in the earpiece Dale wore. “The older Arab is Ahmad bin Faisal . . . he’s a top lieutenant in the Al-Bashir organization. He’s a planner and organizer, not normally in the field.”

“Does he have any specialty?” Dale whispered, the microphone concealed beneath his shirt picking up his every word.

“He’s one of the top planners for their operations . . . if you’re looking for a connection, it doesn’t get any better than this.” Hans’s voice was keen with the edge of the hunter in it. “The attack on the Dhofar barracks in Saudi Arabia, the shooting of an adviser in Yemen . . . those were all attributed to him.”

“Download his info and we’ll look at it later,” Dale said. “Let’s see what he’s doing here. Hans, can you put a tail onto him from here?”