By that evening, the intense efforts to prevent an attack were centered on a hotel at the foot of Key Bridge in Arlington, Virginia. In a room on the eighth floor were two women, one an agent of Israeli intelligence, the other an agent of a man called Saladin. The presence of the second woman on American soil had set off alarm bells inside the NCTC and throughout the rest of the U.S. homeland security apparatus. A dozen different government agencies were trying desperately to discover how she had managed to get into the country and how long she had been there. The White House had been advised of the situation. The president was said to be livid.
At half past eight that evening, the two women decided to leave the hotel for dinner. The concierge advised them to avoid Georgetown-"It"s a zoo because of the traffic"-and directed them instead to a chain bar-and-grill in the Clarendon section of Arlington. Natalie drove there in the bright red Impala and parked in a public lot off Wilson Boulevard. The bar-and-grill was a no-reservations establishment, infamous for the size of its portions and the length of its lines. The wait for a table was thirty minutes, but there was a small round high-top available in the bar. The menu was ten pages of spiral-bound plastic laminate. Safia Bourihane leafed desultorily through it, mystified.
"Who can eat so much food?" she asked in French, turning another page.
"Americans," said Natalie, glancing at the well-fed clientele around her. The room was high-ceilinged and impossibly loud. As a result, it was the perfect place to talk.
"I think I"ve lost my appet.i.te," Safia was saying.
"You should eat something."
"I ate on the train."
"What train?"
"The train from New York."
"How long were you in New York?"
"Just a day. I flew there from Paris."
"You can"t be serious."
"I told you I would go back to France one day."
Safia smiled. With her blond hair and snug-fitting dress, she looked very French. Natalie imagined the woman Safia might have become were it not for radical Islam and ISIS.
A waitress came and took their drink orders. They both asked for tea. Natalie was annoyed by the interruption. Safia, it seemed, was in a talkative mood.
"How did you manage to get back to France?"
"How do you think?"
"On a borrowed pa.s.sport?"
Safia nodded.
"Who did it belong to?"
"A new girl. She was the right height and weight, and her face was close enough."
"How did you travel?"
"By bus and train mostly. Once I was back in the EU, no one even looked at my pa.s.sport."
"How long were you in France?"
"About ten days."
"Paris?"
"Only at the end."
"And before Paris?"
"I was hidden by a cell in Vaulx-en-Velin."
"Did you use the same pa.s.sport to come here?"
She nodded.
"No problems?"
"None at all. The American customs agents were quite nice to me, actually."
"Were you wearing that dress?"
The tea arrived before Safia could answer. Natalie opened her menu for the first time.
"What"s the name on the pa.s.sport?"
"Why do you ask?"
"What happens if we"re detained? What if they ask me your name and I can"t tell them?"
Safia appeared to give the questions serious thought. "It"s Asma," she said finally. "Asma Doumaz."
"Where"s Asma from?"
Safia pulled her lips down and said, "Clichy-sous-Bois."
"I"m sorry to hear that."
"What are you going to have to eat?"
"An omelet."
"Do you think they can make a proper omelet?"
"We"ll find out."
"Are you going to have anything to start?"
"I was thinking about the soup."
"It sounds terrible. Have a salad instead."
"They look enormous."
"I"ll share it with you. But don"t get any of those horrible dressings. Just ask for oil and vinegar."
The waitress reappeared, Natalie did the ordering.
"You speak English very well," said Safia resentfully.
"My parents both speak English, and I studied it at school."
"I didn"t learn anything at my school." Safia glanced at the television over the bar. It was tuned to CNN. "What are they talking about?"
"The threat of an ISIS attack during the French president"s visit."
Safia was silent.
"Have you been given your target?" asked Natalie quietly.
"Yes."
"Is it a suicide operation?"
Safia, her eyes on the television screen, nodded slowly.
"What about me?"
"You"ll be given yours soon."
"By whom?"
Safia gave a noncommittal shrug.
"Do you know what it is?"
"No."
Natalie looked at the television.
"What are they saying now?" asked Safia.
"The same thing."
"They always say the same thing."
Natalie slid off her barstool.
"Where are you going?"
Natalie nodded toward the pa.s.sageway leading to the restrooms.
"You went before we left the hotel."
"It"s the tea."
"Don"t be long."
Natalie placed her handbag over her shoulder, her left, and wove her way slowly across the bar, through the maze of high-top tables. The women"s lounge was unoccupied. She entered one of the stalls, locked the door, and began counting slowly to herself. When she reached forty-five, she heard the restroom door open and close, followed by the hiss of water rushing into a basin and the blast of a hand dryer. To this symphony of bathroom sounds Natalie added the thunderous flush of an industrial toilet. Stepping from the stall, she saw a woman standing before the mirror applying makeup to her face. The woman was in her early thirties. She wore tight stretch jeans and a sleeveless pullover that did not flatter her powerful physique. She had the broad shoulders and muscular arms of an Olympic skier. Her skin was dry and porous. It was the skin of a woman who had lived in the desert or at alt.i.tude.
Natalie went to the second sink and opened the tap. When she looked up into the mirror, the woman was staring at her in the gla.s.s.
"How are you, Leila?"
"Who are you?"
"It doesn"t matter who I am."
"Unless you"re one of them. Then it matters a great deal to me."
The woman applied powder to the rough skin of her face. "I"m Megan," she said to her reflection. "Megan from the FBI. And you"re wasting valuable time."
"Do you know who that woman is?"
Nodding, the woman put away the powder and went to work on her lips. "How did she get into the country?"
"On a false pa.s.sport."
"Where did she come in?"
Natalie answered.
"Kennedy or Newark?"
"I don"t know."
"How did she get down to Washington?"
"The train."
"What"s the name on the pa.s.sport?"
"Asma Doumaz."
"Have you been given a target?"
"No. But she"s been given hers. It"s a suicide operation."
"Do you know her target?"
"No."
"Have you met any other members of the attack cells?"