Portrait of a Spy

Chapter 67 Paris-Langley-Riyadh

MORE THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS WOULD elapse before AAB Holdings finally revealed to the world that its chairwoman and chief executive, Nadia al-Bakari, was missing and presumed kidnapped. According to a company statement, she had been traveling by limousine at the time of her disappearance, en route from Dubai’s famed Burj Al Arab hotel to the airport. Two calls had been placed from the car, both from the phone of her longtime security chief. During the first, he had instructed the head of AAB’s travel department to move up the departure of the company’s aircraft by fifteen minutes, from 11:00 p.m. to 10:45. Seven minutes later, he had phoned again to say Miss al-Bakari was feeling ill and would return to the hotel to spend the night. It was her wish, he said, that the rest of the staff return to Paris as planned. Needless to say, Emirati authorities now regarded the second call as highly suspect, though they had yet to determine whether the security man was part of a conspiracy or merely another victim. The bodyguard was missing, as was the driver of the car.

As expected, the news sent shockwaves through already jittery global financial markets. Share prices tumbled in Europe, where AAB’s portfolio was vast, and trading on Wall Street opened sharply lower. Hardest hit, though, was Dubai, Inc. Having spent untold billions portraying itself as an oasis of stability in a turbulent region, the emirate now appeared to be a place where even heavily guarded billionaires were not safe. The Ruler took to the airwaves to declare his city-state secure and open for business, but investors weren’t so sure. They pummeled Dubai-based firms and sovereign wealth funds with a merciless wave of selling that left the city of gold teetering once more on the brink of insolvency.

When an additional twenty-four hours passed with no word on Nadia’s fate, the press was left with no option but to speculate wildly on what might have transpired. One theory held that she was murdered by a Russian criminal gang who had lost millions investing in AAB Holdings. Another posited that she had offended powerful interests in Dubai with her call for better treatment of the emirate’s migrant laborers. Still another suggested the kidnapping was but a ruse, that Nadia al-Bakari, one of the world’s richest women, had simply gone into hiding for reasons no one could imagine.

Regrettably, it was this final theory that gained the most traction in certain quarters of the press, and before long, there was a rash of Nadia sightings at glamorous locations around the globe. The last had her living on a remote island in the Baltic Sea with the son of Sweden’s wealthiest man.

That report appeared on the same day the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finally announced that her body had been found in the Empty Quarter. The bodies of several men had been found with her, according to the Saudis, including that of her security chief. All had been killed by gunfire, as had Miss al-Bakari. As of yet, Saudi authorities had no suspects.

In keeping with past utterances by the Saudi regime, the statement told only part of the story. It did not say, for example, that Saudi intelligence was already acutely aware of the circumstances surrounding Miss al-Bakari’s murder. Nor did it mention that a Saudi military patrol had recovered her body within a few hours of her death, along with the only survivor of the incident. Seriously wounded, this survivor was now the subject of intense, if secret, backchannel negotiations between the Central Intelligence Agency and friendly elements of the House of Saud. Thus far, the talks had produced no breakthroughs. In fact, as far as the government of Saudi Arabia was concerned, the man in question did not exist. They promised to mount a search for him, but held out little in the way of hope. The Empty Quarter, they said, did not treat intruders kindly. Inshallah, they would find his corpse, but only if the Bedouin did not get to him first.

The miniature GPS tracking beacon lodged in Gabriel’s body told an entirely different story. It was the story of a man who, having been found alive in the Empty Quarter, had been flown by helicopter to Riyadh and deposited at the sprawling compound run by the Mabahith, the secret police division of the Interior Ministry. A week into his stay, it appeared as though he were taken out for a slow drive across Riyadh to the desert east of the city. For several anxious hours, the staff at Rashidistan feared the worst, that he had been executed and buried in the Wahhabi tradition, in a grave with no marker. Eventually, the Agency’s analysts were able to confirm, with palpable relief, that his new location was in fact Riyadh’s main sewage treatment plant. It meant that Gabriel had finally passed the beacon from his intestinal tract. It also meant that he was now off the grid and entirely beyond Langley’s reach.

The bullet had broken two of Gabriel’s ribs and damaged his right lung. The Saudis waited until he was sufficiently recovered before commencing their interrogation. It was conducted by a tall, angular man with a face like a falcon. His olive-drab uniform was starched and pressed, but contained little in the way of insignia. He called himself Khalid. He’d gone to school in England and had the diction of a BBC newsreader.

He began by asking for Gabriel’s name and a brief description of how he had ended up in the Empty Quarter clinging to the corpse of a Saudi woman. Gabriel gave his name as Roland Devereaux of Quebec City. He claimed that he had been kidnapped by Islamic extremists while on business in Dubai, that he had been beaten unconscious and driven into the desert to be killed. There had been an argument among the terrorists that led to an exchange of gunfire. He didn’t know the nature of the argument because he spoke no Arabic.

“None at all?”

“I can order coffee.”

“How do you like it?”

“Medium sweet.”

“What was the nature of your business in Dubai?”

“I work for a freight-forwarding firm.”

“And the woman who died in your arms?”

“I’d never seen her before.”

“Did you ever learn her name?”

Gabriel shook his head, then asked whether his embassy knew where he was.

“Which embassy is that?” asked the Saudi.

“The Canadian Embassy, of course.”

“Oh, yes,” Khalid said, smiling. “What was I thinking?”

“Have you contacted them?”

“We’re working on it.”

The officer jotted a few words in his notebook and departed. Gabriel was handcuffed and returned to his cell. After that, no one spoke to him for many days.

When next Gabriel was taken to the interrogation room, he arrived to find a stack of file folders piled ominously on the table. Khalid the falcon was smoking, something he had refrained from during their first encounter. This time, he posed no questions. Instead, he launched into a monologue not unlike the one Gabriel had endured at the feet of Rashid al-Husseini. In this case, however, the subject was not the inevitable triumph of Salafist Islam but the long and controversial career of an Israeli intelligence officer named Gabriel Allon. Khalid’s account was remarkably accurate. Particular attention was paid to Gabriel’s role in the killing of Abdul Aziz al-Bakari and to his subsequent use of Zizi’s daughter as a means of penetrating the terror network of Rashid al-Husseini and Malik al-Zubair.

“It was Nadia who died in your arms in the Empty Quarter,” the Saudi said. “Malik was there, too. We’d like you to tell us how it all happened.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your video confession is all over the Internet and television, Allon. If you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll have no choice but to put you on trial and publicly execute you.”

“How sporting of you.”

“I’m afraid the wheels of Saudi justice do not grind slowly.”

“If I were you, I’d tell His Highness to rethink the part about a public execution. It might cost him his oil fields.”

“The oil fields belong to the people of Saudi Arabia.”

“Oh, yes,” said Gabriel. “What was I thinking?”

For the next several nights, Gabriel’s cell echoed with the screams of men being tortured. Unable to sleep, he developed an infection that required a round of intravenous antibiotics. Several more pounds melted from his slight frame. He grew so thin that when he was delivered for his next interrogation session, even the falcon appeared concerned.

“Perhaps you and I can come to an accommodation,” he suggested.

“What sort of accommodation?”

“You will answer my questions and, in time, I will see that you are returned to your loved ones with your head still attached.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because as of this moment, my dear one, I’m the only friend you have.”

There is a truism about interrogations. Sooner or later, everyone talks. Not only terrorists, but professional intelligence officers as well. But it is how they talk, and what they say, that determines whether they will be capable of looking their colleagues in the eye if they are released. Gabriel understood this. So did the falcon.

Together they spent the next week engaged in a delicate ballet of mutual deception. Khalid posed many carefully worded questions to which Gabriel responded with many half-truths and outright lies. The operations he betrayed did not exist. Nor did the paid assets, the safe houses, or the methods of secure communication; it had all been invented in the copious amounts of time Gabriel spent locked in his cell. There were some things he claimed not to know and others he refused to divulge. For example, when Khalid asked for the names of all undercover case officers based in Europe, Gabriel said nothing. He also refused to answer when asked for the names of the officers who had worked with him against Rashid and Malik. Gabriel’s intransigence did not anger the falcon. In fact, he seemed to respect Gabriel more for it.

“Why not give me a few false names I can take to my superiors?” asked Khalid.

“Because your superiors know me well enough to realize I would never betray my closest friends,” said Gabriel. “They would never believe the names were real.”

There is another truism about interrogations. They sometimes reveal more about the man asking the questions than the one answering them. Gabriel had come to believe that Khalid was a true professional rather than a true believer. He was not an altogether unreasonable man. He had a conscience. He could be bargained with. Slowly, gradually, they were able to forge something like a bond. It was a bond of lies, the only kind possible in the secret world.

“Your son was killed that night in Vienna?” Khalid asked suddenly one afternoon. Or perhaps it was already late at night; Gabriel had only a vague grasp of time.

“My son has nothing to do with this.”

“Your son has everything to do with this,” Khalid said knowingly. “Your son is the reason you followed that shahid into Covent Garden. He’s also the reason you allowed Shamron and the Americans to lure you back into the game.”

“You have good sources,” said Gabriel.

Khalid accepted the compliment with a smile. “But there’s one thing I still don’t understand,” he said. “How were you able to convince Nadia to work with you?”

“I’m a professional, like you.”

“Why didn’t you ask for our help?”

“Would you have given it?”

“Of course not.”

The Saudi flipped through the pages of his notebook, frowning slightly, as if trying to decide where to take the questioning next. Gabriel, a skilled interrogator in his own right, knew the performance was all for his benefit. Finally, almost as an afterthought, the Saudi asked, “Is it true she was ill?”

The question managed to take Gabriel by surprise. He found no reason to answer with anything but the truth. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “she didn’t have long to live.”

“We’d heard rumors to that effect for some time,” the Saudi replied, “but we were never sure.”

“She kept it a secret from everyone, including her staff. Even her closest friends knew nothing.”

“But you knew?”

“She took me into her confidence because of the operation.”

“And the nature of this illness?” the Saudi asked, his pencil hovering over his notebook as if Nadia’s illness were but a small detail that needed clearing up for the official record.

“She suffered from a disorder called arteriovenous malformation,” Gabriel replied evenly. “It’s an abnormal connection between the veins and arteries in the brain. Her doctors had told her she couldn’t be treated. She knew it was only a matter of time before she suffered a devastating hemorrhagic stroke. It was possible she could have died at any moment.”

“So she committed suicide in the desert by stepping in front of a bullet meant for you?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “She sacrificed herself.” He paused, then added, “For all of us.”

Khalid looked down at his file again. “Unfortunately, she’s become a martyr to our more progressive women. Questions are being raised about her philanthropic activities. Apparently, she was something of a reformer.”

“Is that why you had her killed?”

Khalid’s face remained expressionless. “Miss al-Bakari was killed by Rashid and Malik.”

“That’s true,” said Gabriel, “but someone told them she was working for us.”

“Perhaps they had a source close to your operation.”

“Or perhaps you did,” Gabriel responded. “Perhaps Rashid and Malik were just pawns, a convenient means of eliminating a grave danger to the House of Saud.”

“That is mere conjecture on your part.”

“True,” said Gabriel, “but it’s supported by history. Whenever the al-Saud feel threatened, they turn to the bearded ones.”

“The bearded ones, as you call them, are more of a threat to us than they are to you.”

“Then why are you still supporting them? It’s been ten years since 9/11. Ten years,” Gabriel repeated, “and Saudi Arabia is still a cash machine for terrorists and Sunni extremist groups. There’s only one possible explanation. The deal with the devil has been renewed. The House of Saud is willing to turn a blind eye to Islamic terror as long as the sacred rage is directed outward, away from the oil fields.”

“We’re not as blind as you think.”

“I funneled tens of millions of dollars into a Sunni terrorist group in a deal struck on Saudi soil.”

“Which is why you now find yourself here.”

“Then I assume Sheikh Bin Tayyib is in custody somewhere in the building as well?”

Khalid smiled uncomfortably but made no response. He posed a few more questions, none of any significance, then the session was concluded. Afterward, he took the unusual step of walking Gabriel back to his cell. He lingered for a moment in the corridor before unlocking the door. “I’m told the American president has taken an intense personal interest in your case,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say your stay with us is almost over.”

“When am I leaving?”

“Midnight.”

“What time is it now?”

The falcon smiled. “Five past.”

A fresh suit of clothing had been laid upon the bed in Gabriel’s cell. Khalid gave him a moment of privacy to dress. Then he escorted Gabriel up several flights of stairs to an internal courtyard. An SUV idled in the moonlight. It was large and American, as were the four men standing around it. “I left two things for you in the breast pocket of the suit,” Khalid said quietly as they crossed the courtyard. “One is the bullet that passed through Nadia and struck you. The other is a note for Adrian Carter. Think of it as a small parting gift to help you remember your stay with us.”

“What is it?”

“Some information he might find helpful. I’d appreciate it if you kept my name out of it.”

“Is it any good?”

“The information? I suppose you’ll just have to trust me.”

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that word.”

“Didn’t you learn anything from her?” Khalid nodded toward the SUV. “I’d get in quickly, if I were you. His Highness has been known to change his mind.”

Gabriel shook the Saudi’s hand before surrendering himself to the Americans. They drove at high speed to a military air base north of Riyadh and hustled him onto a waiting Gulfstream. There was an Agency doctor on board; he spent much of the flight pumping fluid into Gabriel’s emaciated body and fretting over the condition of the wound in his side. Finally, he permitted Gabriel to sleep. Tormented by dreams of Nadia’s death, he woke with a start as the plane bumped onto the runway at London City Airport. When the cabin door opened, he saw Chiara and Shamron waiting on the tarmac. He suspected they were the only two people on earth who looked worse than he did.

Chapter 68 The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

SHAMRON SETTLED INTO THE SPARE bedroom. He gave every indication his stay was permanent. The nightmare in the Empty Quarter, he told Chiara, had given him one last mission.

He appointed himself Gabriel’s personal bodyguard, physician, and grief counselor. He offered advice that was not solicited and suffered his patient’s depression and mood swings in stoic silence. Rarely did he allow Gabriel to stray out of his sight. He stalked him through the rooms of the cottage, walked with him along the sand beach in the cove, and even followed him when he went into the village to do the marketing. Gabriel told the shopkeepers that Shamron was his uncle from Milan. In public, he spoke to Shamron only in Italian, of which Shamron understood not a word.

Within days of Gabriel’s return to Cornwall, the weather turned rainy, which suited all their moods. Chiara cooked elaborate meals and watched with relief as Gabriel regained some of the weight he had lost in the Saudi prison. His emotional state, however, remained unchanged. He slept little and seemed incapable of talking about what had happened in the desert. Uzi Navot dispatched a doctor to examine him. “Guilt,” said the doctor after spending an hour alone with Gabriel. “Enormous, unfathomable, unremitting guilt. He promised to protect her, but in the end, he let her down. He doesn’t like to fail women.”

“What can we do?” Chiara asked.

“Give him time and space,” the doctor said. “And don’t ask too much of him for a while.”

“I’m not sure having Ari around is helping matters.”

“Good luck trying to dislodge him,” the doctor said. “Gabriel will eventually recover, but I’m not so sure about the Old Man. Let him stay as long as he wants. He’ll know when it’s time to leave.”

A daily routine eluded Gabriel. Unable to sleep at night, he slept in daylight, when his conscience allowed it. He moped, he stared at the rain and the sea, he walked in the cove. Sometimes, he sat on the veranda and worked with charcoal on paper. The sketches he produced were all of the operation. Many were of Nadia. Alarmed, Chiara secretly photographed the sketches and e-mailed the pictures to the doctor for analysis. “He’s his own best therapist,” said the doctor reassuringly. “Let him work it out on his own.”

Nadia was with them always. They made no effort to keep her at bay; even if they had tried, events in the Middle East would have made it impossible. From Morocco to the Emirates, the Arab world was aflame with a new wave of popular unrest. This time, even the old Sunni monarchies appeared vulnerable. Emboldened by Nadia’s brutal murder, Arab women poured into the streets by the thousands. Nadia was their martyr and patron saint. They chanted her name and carried signs bearing her photograph. In a macabre twisting of her message and beliefs, some said they wanted to emulate her by dying as martyrs, too.

The keepers of the old order tried to tarnish Nadia’s reputation by branding her an Israeli spy and provocateur. Because of Gabriel’s confession, which played ceaselessly on the Internet and the pan-Arab news networks, the charges against Nadia were widely dismissed. Her cultish following grew even larger when Zoe Reed of CNBC devoted an entire edition of her prime-time program to Nadia’s posthumous impact on the Arab Awakening. During the broadcast, Zoe revealed that she had conducted several private meetings with Nadia during which the Saudi heiress acknowledged secretly funneling tens of millions of dollars to reform-minded organizations across the Arab and Islamic world. The program also accused the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia of complicity in her death—an accusation that brought a swift denunciation from the House of Saud, along with the usual threats about withholding oil from the West. This time, no one paid much attention. Like every other regime in the region, the al-Saud were now hanging on for dear life.

By then, it was June and the Americans were clamoring for a post-operational debriefing. Chiara imposed strict limitations on the amount of time the inquisitors would be allowed to spend with their subject—two hours in the morning, two hours in the late afternoon, three days in all. Posing as tourists, they stayed at a dreadful little bed-and-breakfast in Helston that Gabriel had chosen personally. The sessions were held at the dining room table. Shamron remained at Gabriel’s side throughout, like a defense attorney at a deposition. There was no recording.

Chiara feared the debriefings would reopen wounds that were just then beginning to heal. Instead, they proved to be precisely the sort of therapy Gabriel so desperately required. The strictures of professionalism imposed a cold and emotionless tone on the proceedings. The debriefers posed their questions with the dryness of policemen investigating a minor traffic mishap, and Gabriel responded in kind. Only when the debriefers asked him to describe the moment of Nadia’s death did his voice catch with emotion. When Shamron asked for a change of subject, the debriefers produced a photo of a young Saudi who had recently graduated from the terrorist rehabilitation program and placed it carefully on the table.

“Do you recognize him?”

“Yes,” said Gabriel. “He’s the one who killed Malik and the others.”

“His name is Ali al-Masri,” said one of the Americans.

“Where is he?”

“Living quietly in Jeddah. He’s fallen out of the orbit of Sheikh Bin Tayyib and seems to have left the jihadist movement for good. His wife just gave birth to a little girl.”

“Hanan,” said Gabriel. “The child’s name is Hanan.”

The session was their last. That evening, Chiara lifted her ban on television during dinner so they could watch the Arab world unraveling. The regimes in Syria and Jordan were teetering, and there were reports the Saudis had ordered the National Guard to fire on protesters in Riyadh and Jeddah, killing dozens. Prince Nabil, the powerful Saudi interior minister, blamed the unrest on the Shiite regime in Iran and on followers of Nadia al-Bakari. His comments had the unintended effect of raising her profile among the demonstrators to new heights.

The following morning, Nadia became a posthumous hero to the art world as well when the Museum of Modern Art in New York announced that it had been entrusted with her entire collection. In return for the works, estimated to be worth at least five billion dollars, MoMA had agreed to allow Nadia’s estate to appoint the first curator. As she strode to the podium to meet the New York press for the first time, the denizens of the art world breathed an enormous sigh of relief. They did not know much about Sarah Bancroft, but at least she was one of them.

She called Chiara the next day. She had heard from Adrian Carter that Gabriel’s recovery wasn’t going well and had an idea she thought might help. It was a job offer. A commission. Chiara accepted it without bothering to consult with Gabriel. She asked only for the dimensions and a deadline. The dimensions were large. The deadline was tight. Two months was all he would have. Chiara wasn’t worried; her husband had relined and restored a Titian in a matter of days. Two months was an eternity. He began work the following morning by adhering a bolt of white canvas to a stretcher he made himself. Then he placed Chiara at one end of the couch and manipulated her limbs like those of a wooden sketch model until they conformed to the image in his memory. He spent a week working out the composition on paper. Satisfied, he began to paint.

The days of midsummer were very long. The portrait gave them purpose. Gabriel worked for several hours in the morning, took a break at midday for a meal and a walk in the cove, then worked again in the evening until the sun dropped into the sea. Much to his dismay, Shamron watched over him constantly. Chiara watched, too, but from a distance. Just as she had hoped, the work proved to be Gabriel’s salvation. There were some people who dealt with grief by talking to therapists, she thought, and others who felt compelled to write about it. But for Gabriel, the healing balm of oil on canvas had always been best, just as it had been for his mother before him. Standing before the easel, he had total control. Missteps could be corrected with a few strokes of the brush, or hidden beneath a layer of obliterating paint. No one bled. No one died. No one sought vengeance. There was only beauty and truth as he saw it.

He worked without an underdrawing and with a palette influenced by the colors he had seen in the Empty Quarter. Blending the meticulous draftsmanship of the Old Masters with the freedom of the Impressionists, he created a mood that was both classical and contemporary. He hung pearls around her neck and adorned her hands with diamonds and gold. A clock face shone moonlike over her shoulder. Orchids lay at her bare feet. For several days, he struggled with the background. In the end, he chose to depict her rising out of Caravaggesque darkness. Or was she actually sinking into the darkness? That would be determined by the uprising raging on the streets of the Arab world.

Despite the intensity of the work, Gabriel’s appearance improved dramatically. He gained weight. He slept more. The pain of his injuries receded. With time, he felt strong enough to return to the cliff tops. Each day, he roamed a little farther, leaving Shamron no choice but to watch from a distance. His mood darkened as Gabriel slipped slowly from his grasp. He knew it was time to leave; he just didn’t know how to go about it. Chiara quietly tried to arrange a crisis of some sort that would require him to return to King Saul Boulevard. Failing, she had no choice but to enlist the help of Gilah, who sounded as if she were thoroughly enjoying Shamron’s prolonged absence. Reluctantly, she decreed that her husband could remain in Cornwall only until the painting was finished. Then he would have to come home.

And so it was with a sense of foreboding that Shamron watched Nadia al-Bakari come slowly to life on the canvas. As the painting neared completion, Gabriel worked harder than ever. Yet at the same time, he appeared reluctant to finish. Beset by a rare case of indecision, he made countless minor additions and subtractions. Shamron privately relished Gabriel’s apparent inability to let go of the painting. Every day Gabriel delayed completion was another day Shamron would have with him.

Eventually, the revisions stopped and Gabriel began the process of making peace with his work. Not just Nadia—all of it. Shamron saw the shadow of death lift gradually from Gabriel’s face. And on a clear morning in late August, he entered Gabriel’s makeshift studio to find him looking remarkably like the gifted young man he had plucked from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in the terrible autumn of 1972. Only Gabriel’s hair was different. Then it had been almost as black as Nadia’s. Now it was stained with gray at the temples—smudges of ash on the prince of fire.

He was standing before the canvas with one hand pressed to his chin and his head tilted slightly to one side. Nadia glowed under the intense white light of the halogen work lamps. It was a portrait of an unveiled woman. A portrait of a martyr. A portrait of a spy.

Shamron watched Gabriel for several minutes without speaking. Finally, he asked, “Is it finished, my son?”

“Yes, Abba,” replied Gabriel after a moment, “I think it is.”

The shippers came the next morning. By the time Gabriel returned from his walk along the cliffs, Shamron had gone. It was better that way, he told Chiara before leaving. The last thing Gabriel needed now was another messy scene.

Chapter 69 New York City

IT WAS SARAH BANCROFT’S IDEA to hold the gala opening of the Nadia al-Bakari wing on the anniversary of 9/11. The head of New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force suggested it might be wiser, given the current level of Middle East unrest, if she chose a less symbolic date, but Sarah held firm. The event would be held the evening of September 11. And if the task force couldn’t find a way to secure it, Sarah knew people who could.

The demonstrators arrived for the party early, jamming West Fifty-third Street by the thousands. Most were feminists and human rights activists who supported Nadia’s goals of sweeping change in the Middle East, but a few wild-eyed jihadis from Brooklyn and New Jersey showed up to denounce her as a heretic. None seemed to notice Gabriel and Chiara as they stepped from the back of an Escalade and slipped into the museum. A security guard escorted them upstairs to MoMA’s business offices, where they found Sarah struggling with the zipper of her evening gown. Everywhere there were stacks of MoMA’s official monograph for the collection. Gabriel’s portrait of Nadia was on the cover.

“You pushed us to the limit,” Sarah said, kissing his cheek. “We almost had to go with a backup cover.”

“I had a bit of difficulty making a few final decisions.” Gabriel looked around the large office. “Not bad for a former curator from the Phillips Collection. I hope your colleagues never find out about the little sabbatical you took after leaving Isherwood Fine Arts in London.”

“They’re under the impression I spent several years engaged in a private course of study in Europe. The hole in my provenance seems to have only added to my allure.”

“Something tells me your love life will be much improved.” He glanced at her dress. “Especially after tonight.”

“It’s Givenchy. It was scandalously expensive.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Chiara, helping Sarah with the zipper, “and so are you.”

“It’s funny how different the world looks when you’re not sitting in a dark room at Langley tracking the movements of terrorists.”

“Just don’t forget they’re out there,” Gabriel said. “Or that some of them know your name.”

“I suspect I’m the most carefully watched museum curator in the world.”

“Who’s handling it?”

“The Agency,” said Sarah, “with help from the joint task force. I’m afraid they’re rather annoyed with me at the moment. So is Adrian. He’s trying to find some way of keeping me on the payroll.”

“How is he?”

“Much better now that James McKenna has left the White House.”

“Did he land on his feet?”

“According to the rumor mill, he’s going to the Institute of Peace.”

“I’m sure he’ll be very happy there.” Gabriel picked up a copy of the monograph and examined the cover.

“Would you like to see the real thing before the crowd arrives?”

He looked at Chiara. “Go,” she said, “I’ll wait here.”

Sarah led him downstairs to the entrance of the al-Bakari wing. The caterers were laying out tables of canapés and opening the first bottles of champagne. Gabriel walked over to Nadia’s portrait and read the biographical plaque mounted next to it. The description of the circumstances surrounding her death was far from accurate. Her father was described only in passing.

“It’s not too late,” said Sarah.

“For what?”

“To sign your name to the painting.”

“I considered it.”

“And?”

“I’m not ready to be a normal person. Not yet.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready, either. But at some point . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Come,” she said, leading him through a passageway, “you have to see the rest to believe it. Our old friend Zizi had remarkable taste for a terrorist.”

They walked alone through rooms hung with paintings, Sarah in her evening gown, Gabriel in his black tie. In another time, they might have been playacting in one of Gabriel’s operations. But not now. With Nadia’s help, Gabriel had returned Sarah to the world where he had found her, at least for the moment.

“There’s more,” she was saying, gesturing toward a wall hung with Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Sisley. “Much more. We can only display about a quarter of what Nadia gave us. We’re already making arrangements to lend portions of the collection to museums around the world. I think Nadia would have liked that.”

They entered a room hung with paintings by Egon Schiele. Sarah walked over to a portrait of a young man who looked vaguely like Mikhail. “I told you not to say anything to him,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Gabriel. “You really shouldn’t have.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re one of the most gifted deceivers I’ve ever met, but you’ve never been able to lie to the people you care about. Especially women.”

“Why didn’t you invite him tonight?”

“And how would I have introduced him?” asked Sarah. “I’d like you to meet my friend, Mikhail Abramov. Mikhail is an assassin for the Israeli secret service. He helped to kill the man who once owned these paintings. We did a few ops together. It was fun while it lasted.” She gave another glance in Gabriel’s direction. “Do you see my point?”

“There are ways to get around things like that, Sarah, but only if you’re willing to make the effort.”

“I’m still willing.”

“Does he know that?”

“He knows.” She turned away from the canvas and touched the side of Gabriel’s face. “Why do I have this terrible feeling I’m never going to see you again?”

“Send me a picture to clean every once in a while.”

“I can’t afford you.”

She looked at her watch. It was the one Nadia had been wearing at the time of her abduction. It was still set three minutes fast.

“I need to practice my speech once before the guests arrive,” she said. “Would you care to make a few remarks this evening?”

“I’d rather go back to my cell in Riyadh.”

“I still don’t know exactly what I’m going to say about her.”

“Tell the truth,” said Gabriel. “Just not all of it.”

At the stroke of seven, the art world, in all its folly and excess, came spilling into the Nadia al-Bakari Wing of the Museum of Modern Art. Gabriel and Chiara remained at the cocktail reception for only a few minutes before retreating to a parapet above the atrium to listen to the speeches. Sarah addressed the crowd last. Somehow, she managed to walk the fine line between truth and fiction. Her speech was part eulogy, part call to action. Nadia had given the world more than just her art, said Sarah. She had given her life. Her body was now buried in an unmarked grave in the Nejd, but this exhibit would be her memorial. As the art world roared its approval, Gabriel’s BlackBerry vibrated in the breast pocket of his jacket. He slipped into a quiet corner to take the call, then returned to Chiara’s side.

“Who was it?” she asked.

“Adrian.”

“What does he want?”

“He’d like us to come down to Langley.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Chapter 70 Langley, Virginia

RASHID HAD BEEN CARTER’S FOLLY, Carter’s bright idea gone terribly wrong. Gabriel had cleaned up the worst of the mess. Khalid the falcon, with his parting gift, had given Carter the means to sweep up the rest.

The gift had been a young Saudi jihadi named Yusuf. Langley and the NSA had been tracking his phone for several months. Yusuf was now one of Rashid’s most trusted couriers. Rashid gave Yusuf coded messages; Yusuf delivered the messages to the faithful. He was expecting a phone call that evening from a man in Germany. Yusuf believed the man was the leader of a new cell in Hamburg. But there was no new cell in Hamburg. Carter and the team at Rashidistan had invented it.

“He’s sitting in the front passenger seat of that Daihatsu,” Carter explained, nodding toward one of the giant display screens in the Rashidistan op center. “At the moment, they’re traveling on a remote road in the Rafadh Valley of Yemen. They picked up two men about an hour ago. We believe one of them is Rashid. In ten minutes, our phantom cell leader from Hamburg is going to call Yusuf. We’ve asked him to keep Yusuf talking for as long as possible. If we get lucky, Rashid will say something while the call is hot. As you know, Rashid is a bit on the loquacious side. He used to drive his Agency handlers crazy. He never shuts his damn mouth.”

“Who makes the decision whether to take the shot?” Gabriel asked.

“NSA will tell me if they can pick up any other voices in the background and whether they can make a positive match. If the computers say he’s there, we hit him. If there’s even a sliver of doubt, we hold our fire. Remember, the last thing we want to do is kill Yusuf before he can lead us to the prize.”

“I want to listen,” Gabriel said.

“That’s why you’re here.”

Gabriel slipped on a set of headphones. Ten minutes crawled past. Then the agent in Hamburg dialed. Two men began conversing in Arabic. In his mind, Gabriel set them aside. They were unimportant now. They were but a doorway to the man with a beautiful and seductive tongue. Talk to me, thought Gabriel. Tell me something important, even if it’s only another lie.

Yusuf and the ersatz Hamburg cell leader were still speaking, but the conversation was clearly starting to wind down. Thus far, there had been no sound in the background other than the rattle of the SUV over the pitted Yemeni road. Finally, Gabriel heard what he had been waiting for. It was an offhand remark, nothing more. He didn’t bother to mentally translate it; he was listening only to the tone and timbre of the voice. He knew it well. It was the voice that had condemned him to death in the Empty Quarter.

Do you wish to submit to the will of Islam and become a Muslim?

Gabriel turned to Adrian Carter. He was speaking tensely into the phone connected to the NSA. Gabriel was tempted to ask what they were waiting for, but he knew the answer. They were waiting for the computers to tell them what he already knew, that the voice in the background was Rashid’s. He watched the SUV careening along the road in Yemen and listened as the two jihadis, one real, the other a clever forgery, concluded their call. Carter slammed down the phone in a flash of uncharacteristic anger. “Sorry to bring you all the way down here for nothing,” he said. “Maybe next time.”

“There’s not going to be a next time, Adrian.”

“Why not?”

“Because it ends here, right now.”

Carter hesitated. “If I order the Predator to fire,” he said, “four people will die, including Yusuf.”

“They’re four terrorists,” said Gabriel. “And one of them is Rashid al-Husseini.”

“Are you sure?” Carter asked one last time.

“Take the shot, Adrian.”

Carter reached for the phone connected to the Predator control room, but Gabriel stopped him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Carter.

“Nothing,” said Gabriel. “Just wait a minute.”

He was staring at the clock. Thirty seconds later, he nodded his head and said, “Now.” Carter relayed the order, and the Daihatsu disappeared in a flash of brilliant white. A few members of the Rashidistan team began to applaud, but Carter sat with his hands over his face, saying nothing at all.

“I’ve done this a hundred times,” he said finally, “and each time I still feel like I’m going to be sick.”

“He deserved to die—for Nadia, if nothing else.”

“So why do I feel this way?”

“Because, in the end, it’s never clean or smart or forward-leaning, even when you take the shot from a room on the other side of the world.”

“Why did you make me wait?”

“Look at the time in Yemen.”

It was 10:03 a.m., the moment United Airlines Flight 93 plunged into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, instead of its likely target, the dome of the U.S. Capitol. Carter said nothing more. His right hand was shaking.

After that, there was just one last issue still to be resolved. In the end, it came down to a simple business transaction: five million dollars for a name. It was provided by Faisal Qahtani, Shamron’s old source from the Saudi GID. Fittingly enough, the five million dollars were deposited into the Zurich branch of TransArabian Bank.

They put the target under surveillance and spent weeks debating what to do. From his lakeside throne in Tiberias, Shamron decreed that only biblical justice would suffice. But Uzi Navot, in a sign of his rising influence, managed to overrule him. Gabriel had nearly given up his life in a quest for American equity, and under no circumstances would Navot squander it on an ill-advised covert operation in the heart of the American capital. Besides, he said, giving the Americans the name of a traitor would add still more value to King Saul Boulevard’s side of the ledger.

Navot waited until his next official visit to Washington to whisper the name to Adrian Carter. In return, he made only one request. Carter readily agreed. It was, he said, the least they could do.

The Bureau took over the surveillance and started tearing through phone records, credit card bills, and computer hard drives. Before long, they had more than enough to proceed to the next stage. They sent a plane to Cornwall. Then they put a chalk mark at the base of the brown wooden sign along MacArthur Boulevard and waited.

The chalk mark was in the shape of a cross. It intrigued Ellis Coyle, because it was the first time it had been used. It meant Coyle’s handler wished to conduct a crash face-to-face meeting. It was risky—any direct contact between source and case officer was inherently dangerous—but it was also a rare opportunity.

Coyle rubbed out the mark with the toe of his shoe and entered the park with Lucy at his heels. The leash was still attached to the dog’s collar. Coyle didn’t dare remove it. A bitter old dowager from Spring Valley had confronted him recently about his failure to collect Lucy’s droppings. There had been threats of community sanction, perhaps even a word with the authorities. The last thing Coyle needed now was an encounter with the police, not when he was just a few weeks from retirement. He promised to end his rebellious ways and began secretly plotting the demise of the dowager’s hateful little pug.

It was a few minutes past nine, and the clearing at the top of the trail was in darkness. Coyle glanced toward the picnic tables and saw the dark silhouette of a man seated alone. He led Lucy around the perimeter of the clearing, checking for evidence of surveillance, before walking over. Only when he was a few feet away did he realize that the man was not his usual handler from Saudi intelligence. He had gray temples and green eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. He looked at the dog in a way that made Coyle shiver.

“I’m sorry,” Coyle said. “I thought you were someone else.”

He turned to leave. The man spoke to his back.

“Who did you think I was?”

Coyle turned. The man with bright green eyes hadn’t moved.

“Who are you?” Coyle asked.

“I’m the one you sold to Saudi intelligence for thirty pieces of silver, along with Nadia al-Bakari. If it were up to me, I’d send you to hell for what you did. But this is your lucky night, Ellis.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to watch your face while they put the handcuffs on you.”

Coyle stepped away in fear and began frantically looking around. The man at the table gave a half smile.

“I was wondering whether you would accept your fate with the same dignity she accepted hers. I suppose I have my answer.”

Coyle dropped Lucy’s leash and started to run, but the FBI agents swarmed him in an instant. Gabriel remained in the park until Coyle was gone, then headed down the footpath to MacArthur Boulevard. By noon the following day, he was back in Cornwall.

Chapter 71 The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

HE WAS A CHANGED MAN when he came back from America; they could see that. The wounds had healed, the siege had been lifted, and whatever calamity he had suffered seemed finally to have passed. After encountering him one drizzly morning outside the old flint church, Vera Hobbs declared him fully restored and suitable for framing. But to whom had he entrusted the job? “Our mysterious friend from the cove isn’t the sort to place himself in the care of others,” replied Dottie Cox. “If I had to venture a guess, I’d say he propped himself on an easel and did the work with his own hand. That’s why he turned out so well.”

By then, it was mid-autumn again, and the days were short, a few hours of pale gray amid a seemingly endless night. They would see him in the morning when he came into the village to do the marketing, and again in the afternoon when he walked the cliffs alone. Of meaningful work there was no evidence. Occasionally, they would glimpse him in the gazebo with a sketchbook on his lap, but his easel stood empty in his studio. Dottie feared he had fallen victim to a bout of aimlessness, but Vera suspected the explanation lay elsewhere. “He’s happy for the first time in his life,” she said. “All he needs now is a couple of little ones to go with that gorgeous wife of his.”

Oddly, it was the wife who appeared restless now. She was still unfailingly polite on the streets of the village, but it was clear she was dreading the prospect of the coming winter. She busied herself by cooking elaborate meals that filled the cove with the savor of rosemary and garlic and tomato. Sometimes, if the windows were open, and if one paused in just the right spot, it was possible to hear her singing in Italian in that sultry voice of hers. Invariably, the tunes were hauntingly sad. Duncan Reynolds diagnosed her condition as cabin fever and suggested that the women invite her out for a girls-only night up at the Godolphin Arms. They tried. She turned them down. Politely, of course.

If the restorer was aware of his wife’s predicament, he gave no outward sign of it. Fearing the couple was headed for a crisis, Dottie Cox decided to have a word with him next time he came to her shop alone. A week would elapse before she was presented with an opportunity. Appearing at his usual time, half past ten, he took a plastic basket from the stack near the door and began filling it with all the joy of a soldier foraging for supplies. Dottie watched him nervously from behind the cash register, rehearsing her speech in her head, but when the restorer began placing his items on the counter, she was able to manage nothing more than her usual, “Morning, luv.”

Something about Dottie’s tone made the restorer fix her briefly with a suspicious stare. Then he looked down at the newspapers stacked on the floor and furrowed his brow before handing over a crumpled twenty-pound note. “Wait,” he said suddenly, taking a copy of the Times. “This, too.” Dottie slipped the newspaper into the sack and watched the restorer depart. Then she leaned over the counter to have a look at the paper. The lead story concerned the imminent collapse of the regime in Syria, but just below there was a piece about a recent anonymous donation of a painting by Titian to the National Gallery in London. No one in Gunwalloe imagined there might be any connection. And they never would.

The National Gallery released a vague official statement concerning the donation, but within the corridors of British intelligence there came to exist an unofficial version of the story that unfolded roughly along the following lines. It seemed the legendary Israeli intelligence officer Gabriel Allon, with the full knowledge and approval of MI5, had cleverly manipulated a sale at the venerable Christie’s auction house in order to channel several million pounds into the terror network of Rashid al-Husseini. As a result, a newly rediscovered painting by Titian briefly entered the collection of the Saudi heiress Nadia al-Bakari. But upon her death, it was quietly returned to its rightful owner, the noted London art dealer Julian Isherwood. For understandable reasons, Isherwood initially considered keeping the painting but thought better of it after the aforementioned Allon suggested a far nobler course of action. The art dealer then made contact with an old chum from the National Gallery—an Italian Old Master expert who had unwittingly played a role in the initial deception—thus setting in motion one of the most important donations to a public British institution in years.

“And by the way, petal, I still haven’t received one red cent from the CIA.”

“Neither have I, Julian.”

“They don’t pay you for these little errands you’re always running for them?”

“Apparently, they regard my services as pro bono publico.”

“I suppose they are.”

They were walking along the Coastal Path. Isherwood wore country tweeds and Wellington boots. His steps were precarious. Gabriel, as always, had to resist an urge to reach out and steady him.

“How much bloody farther do you intend to make me walk?”

“It’s only been five minutes, Julian.”

“Which means we’ve already substantially exceeded the distance of my twice-daily trek from the gallery to the bar at Green’s.”

“How’s Oliver?”

“As ever.”

“Is he behaving himself?”

“Of course not,” said Isherwood. “But he hasn’t breathed a word about his role in your little caper.”

“Our little caper, Julian. You were involved, too.”

“But I’ve been involved from the beginning,” Isherwood replied. “This is all new and exciting for Oliver. Lord knows he has his faults, but beneath all that blubber and bluster beats the heart of a patriot. Don’t worry about Oliver. Your secret is safe with him.”

“And if it isn’t, he’ll be hearing from MI5.”

“I think I’d actually pay to see that.” Isherwood’s pace was beginning to flag. “I don’t suppose there’s a pub up ahead. I feel a drink coming on.”

“There’s time for that later. You need exercise, Julian.”

“What’s the point?”

“You’ll feel better.”

“I feel fine, petal.”

“Is that why you want me to take over the gallery?”

Isherwood stopped and placed his hands on his hips. “Not next week,” he said after a moment. “Not next month. Not even next year. But someday.”

“Sell it, Julian. Retire. Enjoy your life.”

“Sell it to whom? Oliver? Roddy? Some bloody Russian oligarch who wants to dabble in culture?” Isherwood shook his head. “I’ve put too much into the place to let it fall into the hands of a stranger. I want it to stay in the family. Since I have none, that leaves you.”

Gabriel was silent. Isherwood reluctantly started walking again.

“I’ll never forget the day Shamron brought you into my gallery for the first time. You were so quiet, I wasn’t sure you could actually speak. Your temples were as gray as mine. Shamron called it—”

“The stain of a boy who’d done a man’s job.”

Isherwood smiled sadly. “When I saw you with a brush in your hand, I hated Shamron for what he’d done. He should have left you at Bezalel to finish your studies. You would have been one of your generation’s finest painters. As of this moment, everyone in New York is trying to figure out who painted that portrait of Nadia al-Bakari. I only wish they knew the truth.”

Isherwood paused again to gaze down at the waves beating against the black rocks at the northern end of the cove. “Come to work for me,” he said. “I’ll teach you the tricks of the trade, such as how to lose your shirt in ten easy steps or less. And when it’s time for me to devote my remaining energy to gardening, I’ll leave you with more than enough resources to carry on in my absence. It’s what I want, petal. More important, it’s what your wife wants.”

“It’s very generous, Julian, but I can’t accept.”

“Why not?”

“Because one day, an old enemy will make an appointment to see a Bordone or a Luini, and I’ll end up with several bullets in my head. And so will Chiara.”

“Your wife is going to be disappointed.”

“Better disappointed than dead.”

“Heaven knows I’m no expert when it comes to long-term relationships,” said Isherwood, “but I have a hunch your wife might be in need of a change of scenery.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel, smiling, “she’s made that abundantly clear.”

“So come to London, at least for the winter. It will give Chiara the distraction she needs, and it will save me a fortune in shipping fees. I have a panel by Piero di Cosimo that’s in desperate need of your attention. I’ll make it well worth your while.”

“Actually, I may have something in Rome.”

“Really?” asked Isherwood. “Public or private?”

“Private,” replied Gabriel. “The owner lives in the very large house at the end of the Via della Conciliazione. He’s offering me a chance to clean one of my favorite pictures.”

“Which one?”

Gabriel answered.

“I’m afraid I can’t compete with that,” Isherwood said. “Is he going to pay you anything?”

“Acorns,” said Gabriel, “but it will be worth it. For Chiara’s sake, if nothing else.”

“Just try to stay out of trouble while you’re there. The last time you were in town . . .”

Isherwood stopped himself. It was clear from Gabriel’s expression he no longer wished to dwell on the past.

The wind had torn a hole in the veil of clouds, and the sun was hovering just above the sea like a white disk. They remained atop the cliffs a moment longer, until the sun was gone, then started toward home. As they entered the cottage, they could hear Chiara singing. It was one of those silly Italian pop songs she always sang when she was happy.