Bern
Bittel agreed to meet Gabriel at nine the following morning at a café near the headquarters of the NDB, Switzerland’s foreign intelligence and domestic security service. Gabriel arrived twenty minutes early, Bittel ten minutes late, which wasn’t like him. Tall and bald, he had the stern demeanor of a Calvinist minister and the pallor of a man with no time for outdoor pursuits. Gabriel had once spent several unpleasant hours seated across an interrogation table from Bittel. Now they were something like allies. The NDB employed fewer than three hundred people and had an annual budget of only $60 million, less than the intelligence community of the United States spent in a typical afternoon. The Office was a valuable force multiplier.
“Nice place,” said Gabriel. He looked slowly around the interior of the sad little café, with its cracked linoleum floor and wobbly Formica tables and faded posters of Alpine vistas. The neighborhood outside was a hodgepodge of office blocks, small industrial concerns, and recycling yards. “Do you come here often, or only for special occasions?”
“You said you wanted something off the beaten path.”
“What path?”
Bittel frowned. “How long have you been in the country?”
Gabriel made an authentic show of thought. “I believe I arrived Thursday.”
“By plane?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Zurich?”
“Geneva, actually.”
“We routinely review the passenger manifests of all incoming flights.” Bittel was the chief of the NDB’s counterterrorism division. Keeping unwanted foreigners out of the country was part of his job description. “I’m quite certain I never saw your name on any of the lists.”
“With good reason.” Gabriel’s gaze wandered to the folded copy ofBerner Zeitungthat lay on the tabletop between them. The lead story concerned the arrest of a recent immigrant from Morocco who was plotting to carry out a truck-and-knife attack in the name of the Islamic State. “Mazel tov, Bittel. Sounds as though you dodged a bullet.”
“Not really. We had him under round-the-clock surveillance. We waited until he rented the truck to make our move.”
“What was his intended target?”
“The Limmatquai in Zurich.”
“And the original tip that led you to the suspect?” wondered Gabriel. “Where did that come from?”
“His name was found on one of the computers taken from that compound in Morocco where Saladin was killed. One of our partners gave it to us a couple of days after the attempted dirty bomb attack in London.”
“You don’t say.”
Bittel smiled. “I can’t thank you enough. It would have been a bloodbath.”
“I’m glad we were able to be of help.”
They were speaking quietly in Hochdeutsch, or High German. Had Bittel been speaking the dialect of Swiss German particular to the valley where he was raised in Nidwalden, Gabriel would have required an interpreter.
A waitress came over and took their order. When they were alone again, Bittel asked, “Were you the one who killed the bomber in London?”
“Don’t be silly, Bittel. I’m the chief of Israeli intelligence, for God’s sake.”
“And Saladin?”
“He’s dead. That’s all that matters.”
“But ISIS’s ideology endures, and it’s finally managed to seep into Switzerland.” Bittel fixed Gabriel with a reproachful stare. “And so I will overlook the fact you entered the country without bothering to inform the NDB, and on a false passport at that. I assume you’re not here for the skiing. It’s been terrible this year.”
Gabriel turned over the copy ofBerner Zeitungand tapped the story about the death of a British diplomat in the Bahnhofplatz.
Bittel raised an eyebrow. “A nasty piece of work, that.”
“They say it was an accident.”
