The coastline would be their collaborator, just as it had been in Tunis in April 1988. On that night, Gabriel and a team of twenty-six elite Sayeret Matkal commandos had come ashore in rubber rafts not far from Abu Jihad’s villa, and after completing their mission they had departed in the same fashion. During the weeks prior to the raid, they had rehearsed the landing countless times on an Israeli beach. They had even built a mock-up of Abu Jihad’s seaside villa in the middle of the Negev so that Gabriel could practice making his way from the front door to the upstairs study where the PLO’s second-in-command habitually spent his evenings. Such meticulous preparation, however, would not be possible for the operation against Saladin, for they had no idea where in Morocco he was hiding. Truth be told, they could not say for certain he was actually there. What they knew was that a man matching his appearance had been in Morocco several months earlier, after the attack on Washington. In short, they had much less than the Americans had before the raid on Abbottabad. And much more to lose.

Which meant they had to be prepared for any eventuality, or at least as many as reasonably possible. A large team would be required, larger than operations past, and each member would need a passport. Identity, the division of the Office that maintained agent legends, quickly exhausted its existing stock, thus requiring Gabriel to ask his partners—the French, the British, and the Americans—to make up the shortfall. All initially balked. But under Gabriel’s unrelenting pressure, all eventually capitulated. The Americans even agreed to reactivate an old U.S. passport that bore the name Jonathan Albright and a photograph that looked vaguely like Gabriel’s.

“You’re not actually thinking of going?” asked Adrian Carter over a secure video link.

“In summer? Oh, no,” said Gabriel. “I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s far too hot in Morocco at this time of year.”

There were cars and motorcycles to rent, open-ended airline tickets to book, and lodgings to acquire. Most of the team would stay in hotels, where they would be under the nose of Morocco’s internal security service: the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, or DST. But for the field command post, Gabriel required a proper safe house. It was Ari Shamron, from his fortress-like home in Tiberias, who offered a solution. He had a friend—a well-to-do Moroccan Jewish businessman who had fled the country in 1967 after the cataclysm of the Six-Day War—who still owned a large villa in the old colonial section of Casablanca. At present, the villa was unoccupied, save for a pair of guardians who lived in a guesthouse on the property. Shamron recommended an outright sale over a short-term rental, and Gabriel readily agreed. Fortunately, money was not an issue; Dmitri Antonov, despite his recent spending spree, was still dripping with it. He wrote a check for the entirety of the purchase price and dispatched a French lawyer—in point of fact, he was an officer of Alpha Group—to Casablanca to collect the deed. By day’s end the Office had taken possession of a forward operating base in the heart of the city. All it needed now was Saladin.

His network was quiet during those long days of planning—there were no attacks, directed or lone wolf—but ISIS’s many social media channels were ablaze with chatter that something big was coming. Something that would eclipse the attacks on Washington and London. It only added to the pressure inside King Saul Boulevard, and at Langley and Vauxhall Cross. Saladin needed to be removed from circulation, sooner rather than later.

But would his demise put a stop to the bloodshed? Would his network die with him? “Unlikely,” said Dina Sarid. In fact, her greatest fear was that Saladin had built the equivalent of a dead man’s switch into the network—a switch that would automatically set off a string of murderous strikes in the event of his passing. What’s more, ISIS had already demonstrated a remarkable adaptability. If the physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria were lost, said Dina, a virtual caliphate would arise in its place. A “cybercaliphate,” as she called it. Here the old rules would not apply. Martyrs-in-waiting would be radicalized in hidden corners of the dark Web and then guided toward their targets by masterminds they had never met. Such was the brave new world that the Internet, social media, and encrypted messaging had brought about.

Of more immediate concern, however, was the three hundred grams of cesium chloride resting in a French government laboratory outside Paris. The cesium chloride that, as far as Saladin was concerned, was still aboard an impounded cargo ship in the port of Toulon. But had he entrusted his entire stockpile to a single clandestine shipment? Was a portion of it already in the hands of an attack cell? Would the next bomb that exploded in a European city contain a radioactive core? As the days passed with no contact from Jean-Luc Martel’s Moroccan supplier, Paul Rousseau and his minister wondered whether it was time to warn their European counterparts of the elevated threat. But Gabriel, with the help of Graham Seymour and the Americans, convinced them to remain quiet. A warning, even if it were couched in routine language, risked exposing the operation. Inevitably, there would be a leak. And if it leaked, Saladin would conclude there was a link between the seizure of his drugs and the seizure of the radioactive powder hidden inside a spool of insulated wire.

“Maybe he’s already reached that conclusion,” said Rousseau dejectedly. “Maybe he’s beaten us yet again.”

Secretly, Gabriel feared the same. So, too, did the Americans. And during a heated secure videoconference on the second Friday of August, they renewed their demand that Gabriel hand over Jean-Luc Martel, and thus his operation, to Langley’s control. Gabriel objected, and when the Americans pressed their case he took the only course available to him. He wished the Americans a pleasant weekend. Then he rang Chiara and informed her they were going to Tiberias for Shabbat dinner.