“It seems Christians can be violent, too.”

“It was the thirteenth century, Khalid.”

Gabriel’s BlackBerry vibrated with an incoming call. It was Mikhail with an update. Gabriel listened, then ordered him to proceed to Carcassonne.

“Were they followed?” asked Khalid.

“No,” said Gabriel. “No such luck.”

The sun was slipping below the horizon. Soon it would be gone. For that, if nothing else, he was grateful.

33

Mazamet, France

In the forty-eight hours since Princess Reema’s hasty evacuation from the safe house in the Basque Country of Spain, she had been kept in a state of near-constant motion. Her memories of the odyssey were fragmentary, for they were fogged by regular injections of sedative. She recalled a warehouse stacked with wooden crates, and a filthy shed that smelled of goat, and a tiny kitchen where she had overheard a quarrel in the next room between two of her captors. It was the first time she had heard them speak. The language shocked her.

Not long after the dispute was resolved, they gave her another injection of the drug. She awoke, as usual, with a blinding headache and a mouth as dry as the Arabian Desert. The rags in which they had kept her for some two weeks had been removed, and she was dressed in the outfit she had been wearing on the afternoon of her abduction. She was even wearing her favorite Burberry coat. It seemed heavier than normal, though Reema couldn’t be certain. She was weakened by inactivity, and the drugs made her feel as though her limbs were made of iron.

The final injection contained a smaller dose of the sedative. Reema seemed to be hovering close to consciousness. She was certain she was riding in the trunk of a moving car, for she could hear the rushing of the tires beneath her. She could also hear two voices from the passenger compartment. They were speaking the same language, the language that had shocked her. She recognized only two words.

Gabriel Allon . . .

The rocking of the car and the close smell of the dirty trunk were turning her stomach. Reema seemed to be having trouble drawing air into her lungs. Perhaps it was the drugs they had given her. No, she thought, it was the coat. It was pressing down on her.

Her hands were unbound. She loosened the toggles and pulled at the lapels, but it was no use, it wouldn’t open. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in many days she wept.

The coat was sewn shut.

The avenue du Général Leclerc was located beyond the double walls of Carcassonne’s ancient citadel and possessed none of the old quarter’s beauty or charm. Plein Sud occupied a pie-shaped building on the south side of the street, the last in a short parade of shops and enterprises that catered to the working-class residents of the neighborhood. The interior was clean and neat and brightly lit. There was a large man with southern features who worked the pizza ovens, and a mournful-looking woman who saw to the paella. Four tables stood in a small seating area. The walls were hung with African art, and a large sliding glass door overlooked the street. It was a sniper’s shooting gallery, thought Gabriel.

He and Khalid sat down at the only available table. The occupants of the other three looked like the people they had seen rioting in the streets of Paris that morning. They were citizens of the other France, the France one didn’t read about in guidebooks. They were the put-upon and the left-behind, the ones without glittering degrees from elite institutions of learning. Globalization and automation had eroded their value in the workforce. The service economy was their only option. Their counterparts in Britain and America had already had their say at the ballot box. France, reckoned Gabriel, would be next.

A message hit his BlackBerry. He read it, then returned the device to his pocket. Khalid’s phone was between them on the tabletop, darkened, silenced.

“Well?” he asked.

“My men.”

“Where are they?”

With a movement of his eyes, Gabriel indicated they were parked nearby.

“What about the kidnappers?”

“They’re not in here.”

“Do they know we’ve arrived?”

“Absolutely.”

“How do you know?”

“Check your phone.”

Khalid looked down. He had an incoming call. No name. No number.

Gabriel tapped accept and lifted the device to his ear. The voice that addressed him was female and vaguely erotic. It was not, however, a recording.

The voice was real.

34

Carcassonne, France

“You couldn’t resist, could you?”

“I suppose not. After all, how often does one get to speak to a man like you?”

“And what kind of man is that?”

“A war criminal. A murderer of those who struggle for dignity and self-determination.”

Her English was flawless. The accent was German but there was a trace of something else. Something farther to the east, thought Gabriel. “Are you a freedom fighter?” he asked.

“I am a professional, Allon. Like you.”

“Really? And what kind of work do you do when you’re not kidnapping and torturing children?”

“The child,” she replied, “has been well cared for.”

“I saw the room in Areatza where you kept her. It wasn’t fit for a dog, let alone a twelve-year-old girl.”

“A girl who has spent her entire life surrounded by unimaginable luxury. At least now she has some sense of how the vast majority of the people in the world live.”

“Where is she?”

“Close.”

“In that case, leave her in front of the restaurant. I won’t make any attempt to follow you.”

She laughed, low and throaty. Gabriel raised the volume on the phone to full and pressed it tightly to his ear. She was in a moving car, he was certain of it.

“Are you ready for the next set of instructions?” she asked.

“They’d better be the last.”

“There’s a village north of Carcassonne called Saissac. Follow the D629 to the border of the next département. After a kilometer you’ll see a break in the fence on the right side of the road. Follow the track into the field exactly one hundred meters and then switch off your headlamps. Any deviation on your part,” said the woman, “will result in the girl’s death.”

“If you harm a hair on her head, I’m going to put a bullet in yours.”

“Like this?”

At once, the café’s sliding glass door shattered, and a superheated round split the air between Gabriel and Khalid and embedded in the wall.

“You have thirty minutes,” said the woman calmly. “Otherwise, the next one is for her.”

Gabriel and Khalid followed the other panicked patrons of Plein Sud into the busy avenue. The Renault was parked outside the neighboring shop. Gabriel dropped behind the wheel, started the engine, and raced along the walls of the ancient citadel. Khalid charted their course on his mobile phone. In truth, Gabriel didn’t need the help—the route to Saissac was clearly marked with signposts—but it gave Khalid something to do other than shout at Gabriel to drive faster.

It was a drive of nearly forty kilometers to Saissac alone. Gabriel covered the distance in about twenty minutes. They flashed through the town’s old center in a blur. In his peripheral vision he glimpsed a rampart overlooking a lowland, the ruins of a battlement, and a single café. The newer quarter of the town was to the northwest. There was an outpost of the gendarmerie and a traffic circle where for an instant Gabriel feared the Renault might overturn.