The Black Widow

The Black Widow
Daniel Silva

No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva delivers another stunning thriller in his latest tale of high-stakes international intrigue featuring the inimitable Gabriel Allon.Legendary spy Gabriel Allon is poised to become the chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. But on the eve of his promotion, ISIS detonate a massive bomb in the Marais district of Paris, and a desperate French government wants Gabriel to eliminate the man responsible.They call him Saladin…He is a terrorist mastermind, whose network communicates in total secrecy, leaving Gabriel no choice but to insert an agent into the most dangerous terrorist group the world has ever known. An extraordinary young doctor, she must pose as an ISIS recruit in waiting, a ticking time bomb, a black widow out for blood.

Daniel Silva

The Black Widow

Copyright (#u22dd4819-ba07-5eee-bd80-f28ab77d73ca)

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Daniel Silva 2016

Daniel Silva asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Cover photographs © Elisabeth Ansley/Trevillion Images (figure);

©Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com) (background)

Map designed by Nick Springer

Islamic pattern © DamienGeso/Shutterstock, Inc.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © JULY 2016 ISBN: 9780007552375

Source ISBN: 9780007552382

Version: 2018-09-24

Dedication (#u22dd4819-ba07-5eee-bd80-f28ab77d73ca)

For Stephen L. Carter, for friendship and faith.

And, as always, for my wife, Jamie, and my children, Lily and Nicholas.

Epigraph (#u22dd4819-ba07-5eee-bd80-f28ab77d73ca)

The black flags will come from the East, led by mighty men, with long hair and beards, their surnames taken from their home towns.

—THE HADITH

Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.

—MURIEL SPARK, THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE

Table of Contents

Cover (#u2ab4bdce-2fa1-5dd7-b4ba-01e318226141)

Title Page (#u275e622d-161e-5251-a55c-12ed64e8e0f8)

Copyright (#uba1899fc-707e-5eff-907a-4eaa9acdfc2d)

Dedication (#ud95ba510-2d60-519b-945a-dbb32638e7e0)

Epigraph (#u07340144-5da9-5b9d-8522-1cd4c2086e7b)

Foreword (#ud720a3a2-7545-5ca9-b533-4c2c9c469822)

Map (#ud9b880b2-4ef1-5d38-80bb-69e94ebeb7ed)

Part One (#u388ed053-d21d-5239-990b-e365bfe025cc)

Chapter 1: The Marais, Paris (#u9fbaff36-53b5-513d-89a6-87810d94f663)

Chapter 2: Rue de Grenelle, Paris (#u2ab18125-4b6a-5e96-b781-3ba4130edd69)

Chapter 3: Beirut (#u3acd4222-ae85-5ef9-bdf8-d444dcb434b1)

Chapter 4: Beirut—Tel Aviv (#uf274c3f3-28d4-5588-8447-71b9af8700b1)

Chapter 5: Israel Museum, Jerusalem (#u0a707ff4-0a29-5b0e-bfe0-d51d339e36b3)

Chapter 6: Ma’ale Hahamisha, Israel (#u38970e44-9805-56d0-a46e-061fc245ea82)

Chapter 7: Ma’ale Hahamisha, Israel (#u7b20e195-18d3-5e21-9c67-97f01f03542e)

Chapter 8: Narkiss Street, Jerusalem (#u98d2ce7e-a3f2-5404-b01e-9f3019334954)

Chapter 9: The Marais, Paris (#u0e6b4c9f-c09b-5176-a391-8152cf8761ad)

Chapter 10: Rue Pavée, Paris (#ub27cb2f9-4927-505e-9032-c579549402bc)