“It hasn’t moved in forty-eight hours,” Lavon said.

“Dutch security?”

Lavon nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say they have a static post in the building across the street as well.”

Gabriel looked back toward the kitchen supplies stall and motioned for Sarah to join them. Then they turned to the left and walked along the Jan Hazenstraat. It was a quiet street lined with squat, mismatched tenement buildings and small storefronts. At the far end, overlooking a broad canal, was a tiny park with a few benches, a swing set, and a pair of rusted hobbyhorses on steel springs. Gabriel rounded the corner to the left and paused: more apartment blocks, but no storefronts or cafés, nothing that would be open after dark.

“Evening prayers begin tonight at six thirty-seven,” Lavon said. “Which means that Ibrahim will be passing by this spot at approximately seven o’clock. Once he comes around the corner, no one in the van or the static post will be able to see him. We just have to make sure we get him without making any noise. I recommend we put the getaway vehicle on this corner where the Dutch agents can’t see it. Then we have to do something that makes Ibrahim slow down long enough so that we can get him cleanly.”

Gabriel thought of the night he and Ibrahim had walked along the Amstel River together and a single image flashed in his memory—Ibrahim Fawaz lowering his gaze in disgust as two men strolled toward them arm in arm.

“He doesn’t like homosexuals,” Gabriel said.

“Few Islamists do,” Lavon replied. “What do you have in mind?”

Gabriel told him. Lavon smiled.

“To whom do you intend to give this assignment?”

“Mikhail and Yaakov,” Gabriel said without hesitation.

“Perfect,” said Eli Lavon. “But you tell them. Those boys make me nervous.”

Chapter 23

23

THE WHITE HOUSE: 12:45 P.M., MONDAY

There was no mistaking the perpetrator of the assault on the door of Nicholas Scanlon’s office. Two knocks, sharp as a tack hammer. The White House press secretary allowed ten uncomfortable seconds to elapse before looking up from his work. Melissa Stewart, NBC’s chief White House correspondent, was leaning against the doorjamb, her arms folded defiantly, her newly tinted hair tousled from her last live shot on the North Lawn.

“What’s on your mind, Melissa?”

“We need to talk.”

“No paper in the ladies’ room again?”

Stewart stepped inside the office and closed the door.

“Please come in, Melissa,” Scanlon said sarcastically. “Have a seat.”

“I’d love to, Nick, but I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Confirm a story.”

Scanlon shuffled the papers on his desk and played for time. “What have you got?”

“I know who’s holding Elizabeth Halton hostage.”

“Do tell, Melissa. We’d all like to know.”