The Secret Servant

60

Two homecomings of note occurred the day after Christmas. The first had for its backdrop Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington and was broadcast live around the world. A president was in attendance, as was his entire national security team and most of the Congress. A Marine band played; a country-music star sang a patriotic song. Speeches were made about American determination and resolve. Praise was heaped upon the men and women of American and British intelligence who had made this day possible. No mention was made of ransom or negotiation and the name Israel was not uttered. Elizabeth Halton, still traumatized by her captivity and the circumstances of her rescue, attempted to address the crowd, but managed only a few words before breaking down. She was immediately placed aboard a waiting helicopter and flown under heavy guard to a secret location to begin her recovery.

The second homecoming took place at Ben-Gurion Airport and, by coincidence, occurred at precisely the same moment. There were no politicians in attendance and no television cameras present to record the event for posterity. No patriotic music was performed, no speeches were made; indeed, there was no official reception of any kind. As far as the State of Israel was concerned, the twenty-six men and women aboard the arriving charter from London did not exist. They were nonpersons. Ghosts. Lies. They disembarked in darkness and, despite the lateness of the hour, were shuttled immediately to an anonymous office block in Tel Aviv’s King Saul Boulevard, where they endured the first of what would be many debriefings. There was nothing pro forma about these sessions; they knew that once the celebrations had ended the questions would begin. A storm was coming. Shelters would have to be hastily constructed. Provisions set aside. Cover stories made straight.

For the first seventy-two hours after Elizabeth Halton’s dramatic rescue, the official British version of events went unchallenged. Her recovery, according to this version, had been the result of tireless efforts by the intelligence and police services of the United Kingdom, working in concert with their friends in America. While ransom had been offered by Ambassador Halton in desperation, it had not been paid. The two gunmen who had killed the would-be suicide bombers at Westminster Abbey were members of the Met’s SO19 division. For obvious reasons of security, the two men could not be identified publicly or made available to the media for comment-now or at any point in the future, said the Met commissioner emphatically.

The first cracks in the story appeared four days after Christmas, not in the United Kingdom but in Denmark, where a local newspaper carried an intriguing report about a mysterious explosion at a summer cottage along the North Sea. The Danish police had originally said the cottage was unoccupied, but a local paramedic, speaking on condition of anonymity, disputed that claim, saying he had personally seen three bodies removed from the charred rubble. The paramedic also claimed to have treated a German-speaking man for superficial facial wounds. Lars Mortensen, chief of the Danish Security Intelligence Service, appeared before a hastily convened news conference in Copenhagen and confirmed that, yes, there were indeed three people killed in the incident and, yes, it was linked to the search for Elizabeth Halton. Mortensen then declared he would have nothing else to say about the matter until a formal investigation had been carried out.

The next crack in the official version of events came two days later in Amsterdam, where an Egyptian woman of late middle age appeared at a press conference and confirmed that one of the people killed in northern Denmark had been her husband, Ibrahim Fawaz. Speaking in Arabic through an interpreter, Mrs. Fawaz said that she had been informed by American officials that her husband had been working on their behalf and had perished during a failed attempt to rescue Miss Halton. She also said that all attempts to reach her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in Copenhagen had been unsuccessful. Her left-leaning lawyers speculated that Ibrahim Fawaz had been kidnapped by American agents and coerced into working on the CIA’s behalf. They called on the Dutch justice minister to order an investigation of the matter and the minister did so at four that afternoon, promising that it would be full and unflinching.

The next morning in London, a Home Office spokesman confirmed that the son of Ibrahim Fawaz had been one of two terrorists found dead in a bomb-laden transit van that crashed into a field in Essex shortly after dawn on Christmas morning. The spokesman also confirmed that Fawaz the younger had been shot several times in the leg and that the driver of the van, as yet still unidentified, had been fatally shot in the head. Who had inflicted the wounds, and precisely what had transpired in Essex, was not yet known, though British investigators were operating under the assumption that a second attack had been planned for Christmas morning and that it had somehow gone awry.

On New Year’s Day the Telegraph called into question the government’s version of the events at Westminster Abbey. According to the authoritative newspaper, several witnesses said the gunman who shouted at Elizabeth to run away did so in an accent that was not British. Another witness, who walked past the two gunmen seconds before the shootings, heard them speaking to one another in a language other than English. After listening to recordings of twenty different languages, the witness identified Hebrew as the one he had heard.

The dam broke the following day when the Times, in an explosive exposé headlined THE JERUSALEM CONNECTION, laid out a compelling case of Israeli involvement in the rescue of Elizabeth Halton. Contained in the coverage was a photograph, snapped by a man waiting to enter the Abbey, that showed two gunmen fleeing Westminster seconds after the rescue. Facial-recognition experts hired by the Times stated conclusively that one of the men was none other than Gabriel Allon, the legendary Israeli agent who had killed three of the terrorists in Hyde Park the morning of Elizabeth ’s abduction.

By that evening there were full-throated demands in Parliament for Her Majesty’s Government and secret services to come clean about the events that had led to Miss Halton’s recovery. Those demands were echoed across the capitals of western Europe, and in Washington, where reporters and members of Congress called on the White House to explain what the president knew of Allon’s connection to the affair. It was becoming increasingly clear, said the president’s detractors, that American intelligence officers and their Israeli allies had run roughshod over Europe in their frantic quest to find Miss Halton before the deadline and secure her release. What, precisely, had transpired? Had laws been bent or broken? If so, by whom?

The government of Israel, besieged by press inquiries at home and abroad, broke its official silence on the affair the following morning. A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister’s Office conceded that the secret intelligence service of Israel had indeed granted assistance to American investigators. Then she made clear that the nature of the assistance given would never be divulged. As for suggestions that Gabriel Allon travel to London and Washington to assist in the official inquiries into the affair, her response was vague at best. Gabriel Allon was on an extended leave of absence for personal reasons, she explained, and as far as the government of Israel was concerned his whereabouts were unknown.

Had they made any serious attempt to locate him, which they most certainly had not, they would have found him resting quietly at his tidy little apartment in Narkiss Street. He had weathered storms like this before and knew that the best course of action was to place boards over the doors and windows and say nothing at all.

His injuries were such that he had little energy for anything else. Between the beatings he had suffered at the hands of his captors and the crash that occurred during his rescue, he had suffered numerous broken and cracked bones, dozens of facial and other lacerations, and deep bruises to every limb of his body. His abdomen ached so badly he could not take food, and two days after his return to Jerusalem he found that he could not turn his head. A doctor affiliated with the Office came round to see him and discovered he had suffered a previously undiagnosed injury to his neck that made it necessary for him to wear a stiff brace for several weeks.

For two weeks he did not move from his bed. Though used to the process of healing and recovery, his naturally restless nature made him a poor patient. To help pass the long empty hours, he diligently followed his own case in the newspapers and on television. As evidence of Israeli involvement in the affair mounted, so did expressions of outrage from Europe ’s restive Islamic communities and their quisling supporters on the European left. The horror of the London bombings and Elizabeth Halton’s abduction seemed quickly forgotten, and in its place rose a Continent-wide indignation over the tactics that had been used to find and rescue her. Shamron’s carefully brokered agreements with the justice ministries and security services of Europe soon lay in tatters. Gabriel was once more a wanted man-wanted for questioning in the Netherlands and Denmark over the death of Ibrahim Fawaz, wanted for questioning in the United Kingdom over his role in Elizabeth Halton’s rescue.

There was another storm raging, one that went largely unnoticed by the global media and a human rights community seemingly obsessed with the alleged misdeeds of Gabriel and his team. On the other side of Israel’s western border, in Egypt, the regime of Hosni Mubarak was dealing with a Sword of Allah-inspired insurrection the way it had dealt with every Islamic challenge in the past-with overwhelming force and ruthless brutality. The Office had picked up reports of street battles between the army and Islamists from the Nile Delta to Upper Egypt. There were also reports of massacres, summary executions, widespread use of torture, and a concentration camp in the Western Desert where thousands of radicals were being held without charge. A hastily prepared Office estimate had concluded that Mubarak would likely survive the challenge and that, for the moment at least, Israel would not be confronted with an Islamic republic on its western flank. But at what cost? Repression breeds radicals, said the estimate, and radicals commit acts of terror.

By the middle of January, Gabriel was strong enough to leave his bed. The doctor came round again and, after poking and prodding at his neck, decided it had healed sufficiently to remove the brace. Eager to shut out the unpleasant events swirling around him, he focused solely on plans for the wedding. He sat for hours with Chiara in the living room, leafing through glossy bridal magazines and engaged in deep and meaningful discussions about matters such as food and flowers. They chose a date in mid-May and prepared a provisional guest list, which included seven hundred names. After two hours of hard bargaining, they managed to pare only twenty of them. A week later, when the bruising in his face finally dissipated to an acceptable level, they ventured out into Jerusalem together to inspect hotel ballrooms and other potential sites for the ceremony and reception. The special events coordinator at the King David Hotel, after inquiring about the size of the guest list, jokingly insisted they consider holding the wedding at Teddy Kollek Stadium instead, a suggestion Chiara did not find at all amusing. She sulked during the short drive back to Narkiss Street.

“Maybe this is a mistake,” said Gabriel carefully.

“Here we go again,” she replied.

“Not the wedding-only the size of the wedding. Maybe we should have something small and private. Family and friends. Real friends.”

She exhaled heavily. “Nothing would make me happier.”

By early February he felt a strong desire to work. He left Narkiss Street at ten o’clock one morning and drove up to the Israel Museum to see if there was anything lying about that might occupy his time. After a brief meeting with the head of the European paintings division, he left with a lovely panel by Rembrandt, appropriately called St. Peter in Prison. The panel was structurally sound and required only a clean coat of varnish and a bit of inpainting. He set up shop in the spare bedroom of the apartment, but Chiara complained about the stench of his solvents and pleaded with him to move his operations to a proper studio. He found one, in the artists’ colony overlooking the Valley of Hinnom, and began working there the following week.

With the arrival of the Rembrandt, his days finally acquired something of a routine. He would arrive at the studio early and work until midday; then, after taking a break for a leisurely lunch with Chiara, he would return to the studio and work until the light was no good. Once or twice a week, he would cut his afternoon session short and drive across Jerusalem to the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital to spend time with Leah. It had been many months since he had seen her last, and the first three times he appeared she did not recognize him. On his fourth visit she greeted him by name and lifted her cheek to him to be kissed. He wheeled her into the garden and together they sat beneath an olive tree-the same olive tree he had seen in his dreams while in the hands of the Sword of Allah. She placed her hand against his face. Her skin was scarred by fire and cold to the touch.

“You’ve been fighting again,” she said.

He nodded his head slowly.

“Black September?” she asked.

“That was a long time ago, Leah. They don’t exist anymore.”

She looked at his hands. They were smudged with pigment.

“You’re painting again?”

“Restoring.”

“Can you work on me when you’re finished?”

A tear spilled onto his cheek. She brushed it away and looked again at his hands.

“Why aren’t you wearing a wedding ring?”

“We’re not married yet.”

“Second thoughts?”

“No, Leah-no second thoughts.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” She looked away suddenly and the light went out of her eyes. “Look at the snow, Gabriel. Isn’t it beautiful?”

He stood and wheeled her back into the hospital.

61

He drove back to Narkiss Street through a cloudburst and entered his apartment to find the table set for four and the air scented with roasted chicken and Gilah Shamron’s famous eggplant with Moroccan spice. A small, thin woman with sad eyes and unruly gray hair, she was seated on the couch next to Chiara looking at photographs of wedding dresses. When Gabriel kissed her cheek it smelled of lilac and was smooth as silk.

“Where’s Ari?” he asked.

She pointed to the balcony. “Tell him not to smoke so much, Gabriel. You’re the only one he listens to.”

“You must have me confused with someone else, Gilah. Your husband has a well-honed ability to hear only what he wants to hear, and the last person he listens to is me.”

“That’s not what Ari says. He told me about your terrible quarrel in London. He said he didn’t even try to talk you out of delivering the money because he knew you had your mind made up.”

“I would have been wise to take his advice.”

“But then the American girl would be dead.” She shook her head. “No, Gabriel, you did the right thing, no matter what they’re saying about you now in London and Amsterdam. When the storm is over, they’ll come to their senses and thank you.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Gilah.”

“Go sit with him. I think he’s a little depressed. It’s not easy to grow old.”

“Tell me about it.”

He poured himself a glass of red wine and carried it out onto the balcony. Shamron was seated in a wrought-iron chair beneath the stripped awning, watching rainwater dripping from the leaves of the eucalyptus tree. Gabriel plucked the cigarette from his fingertips and tossed it over the balustrade onto the wet sidewalk.

“It’s against the law in this country to litter,” Shamron said. “Where have you been?”

“You tell me.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m having you followed?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I know you’re having me followed. Therefore it is merely a statement of fact.”

“Just because you’re home doesn’t mean you’re safe. You have far too many enemies to wander around without bodyguards-and far too many enemies to be working in plain view in an artist’s studio overlooking the walls of the Old City.”

“Chiara wouldn’t let me work in the apartment.” Gabriel sat down in the chair next to Shamron. “Are you angry because I’m working in a studio near the Old City, or are you angry because I’m working and it’s not for you?”

Shamron pointedly lit another cigarette but said nothing.

“The restoration helps, Ari. It always helps. It makes me forget.”

“Forget what?”

“Killing three men in Hyde Park. Killing a man on the lawn of Westminster. Killing Ishaq in a field in Essex. Shall I go on?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Shamron. “And when this Rembrandt is finished? What then?”

“I’m lucky to be alive, Ari. I hurt everywhere. Let me heal. Let me enjoy life for a few days before you begin hounding me about coming back to the Office.”

Shamron smoked his cigarette and watched the rain in silence. Devoutly secular, he marked the passage of time not by the Jewish festivals but by the rhythms of the land-the day the rains came, the day the wildflowers exploded in the Galilee, the day in early autumn when the cool winds returned. To Gabriel, he seemed to be wondering how many more such cycles he would be witnessing.

“Our ambassador in London received a rather humorous letter from the British Home Office this morning,” he said.

“Let me guess,” said Gabriel. “They would like me to testify before the commission of inquiry into the kidnapping and recovery of Elizabeth Halton.”

Shamron nodded. “We’ve made it very clear to the British that they will have to conduct their formal inquiry without our cooperation. There will be no replays of your testimony before Congress after the affair at the Vatican. The only way you’re going to set foot in England is to collect your knighthood.” Shamron smiled to himself. “Can you imagine?”

“ East London would burn,” said Gabriel. “But what about our relationships with MI5 and MI6? Won’t they go into the deep freeze if I refuse to cooperate in the inquiry?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. We’ve been in contact with the heads of both services in recent days, and they’ve made it clear that the last thing they want is for you to testify. Graham Seymour sends his best, by the way.”

“There’s another good reason for me to stay away from London,” Gabriel said. “If I agree to testify, the inquiry will naturally focus on us and the sins of the Israelis. If I stay away, it might just force them to confront the real problem.”

“Which is?”

“Londonistan,” said Gabriel. “They have allowed their capital to become a breeding ground, a spiritual mecca, and a safe haven for Islamic terrorists of every stripe. And it’s a threat to us all.”

Shamron nodded his head in agreement, then looked at Gabriel. “So what else have you been doing besides cleaning this Rembrandt and spending time on Mount Herzl with Leah?”

“I see your little surveillance men give you detailed watch reports.”

“As they were instructed to do,” said Shamron. “How is she?”

“She’s lucid at times,” Gabriel said. “Very lucid. Sometimes she sees things more clearly than I do. She always did.”

“Please tell me you’re not planning to get cold feet again.”

“Quite the opposite. Didn’t your watchers tell you about my search for a site for the ceremony?”

“They did, actually. I took the liberty of asking Shabak to draw up a contingency security plan for a public wedding of such proportions. I’m afraid the requirements will be such that it will not seem much like a wedding at all.” He crushed out his cigarette slowly. “Will you take some advice from an old man?”

“I’d like nothing more.”

“Perhaps you and Chiara should consider something smaller and more intimate.”

“We already have.”

“Do you have a date in mind?”

Gabriel told him.

“May? Why are you waiting until May? Did you learn nothing from this affair? Life is precious, Gabriel, and terribly short. I may not even be alive in May.”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to hang in there, Ari. Chiara needs time to plan the reception. We can’t do it any sooner.”

“Plan? What plan? You and I could do it in an afternoon.”

“Weddings aren’t operations, Ari.”

“Whoever said that?”

“Chiara.”

“Of course weddings are operations.” He brought his fist down on the arm of the chair. “Chiara has had to put up with considerable dithering and nonsense on your part. If I were you, I’d plan the wedding myself and surprise her.”

“She’s an Italian Jew, Ari. She has something of a temper and doesn’t like surprises.”

“All women like surprises, you dolt.”

Gabriel had to admit he liked the idea. “I’ll need help,” he said.

“So we’ll get you some help.”

“Where?”

Shamron smiled. “Silly boy.”

They were the dark side of a dark service, the ones who did the jobs no one else wanted, or dared, to do. But never before in the storied history of Special Ops had they ever planned a wedding, at least not a real one.

They gathered the following morning in Room 456C, Gabriel’s subterranean lair at King Saul Boulevard: Yaakov and Yossi, Dina and Rimona, Mordecai and Oded, Mikhail and Eli Lavon. Gabriel walked to the front of the room and tacked a photograph of Chiara to his bulletin board. “Ten days from now, I am going to marry this woman,” he said. “The wedding must be everything she wants and she must not know or suspect a thing. We must work quickly and we will make no mistakes.”

Like all good operations it started with intelligence gathering. They scoured her bridal magazines for telltale markings and interrogated Gabriel carefully about everything she had ever said to him. Alarmed by the poor quality of his answers, Dina and Rimona scheduled a crash luncheon meeting with Chiara the following afternoon at a trendy Tel Aviv restaurant. They returned to King Saul Boulevard slightly drunk but armed with all the information they needed to proceed.

The following morning Gabriel and Chiara were awakened at Narkiss Street by an officer from Personnel who informed Chiara that she was alarmingly overdue for a complete physical. There was an opening that morning, said the man from Personnel. Could she come to King Saul Boulevard immediately? Having nothing better to do that day, she complied with the request and by ten o’clock was being subjected to rather close scrutiny by two Office-affiliated physicians-one of whom was not a physician at all but a tailor from Identity. He was less interested in matters such as blood pressure and heart rate and more concerned with the length of her arms and legs and the size of her waist and bust. Later that afternoon he slipped down to Room 456C to ask Gabriel whether he was to leave room in the garment for a weapon. Gabriel said that would not be necessary.

With three days remaining, everything was in place with one notable exception: Chiara herself. For this phase of the operation Gabriel drafted none other than Gilah Shamron, who telephoned Chiara later that evening and asked whether they could come to Tiberias for a surprise birthday party for Shamron that Saturday. She agreed to Gilah’s request without even bothering to check with Gabriel and told him about their plans for the weekend that night over dinner.

“How old is he going to be?” she asked.

“It’s a carefully guarded state secret, but rumor has it he fought in the rebellion against Roman rule.”

“Did you know his birthday was in March?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” he said hastily.

It was in late August, actually, and the last person who had tried to throw Shamron a surprise party still walked with a limp. But Chiara didn’t know that. Chiara didn’t know anything.

It had rained steadily all week, a contingency for which they had not planned, but by midmorning Saturday the sun was shining brightly and the newly washed air was scented with stone pine and jasmine and eucalyptus. They slept late and ate a leisurely breakfast on the balcony, then packed a few things into an overnight bag and set out for the Galilee.

Gabriel drove down the Bab al-Wad to the Coastal Plain, then north to the Valley of Jezreel. They stopped there for a few minutes to collect Eli Lavon from the dig atop Tel Megiddo, then continued on to Tiberias. Shamron’s honey-colored villa was just a few miles north of the city, on a ledge overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Two dozen cars lined the steep drive, and in the forecourt was a large American Suburban with diplomatic license plates. Adrian Carter and Sarah Bancroft were standing at the balustrade of Shamron’s terrace, chatting with Uzi Navot and Bella.

“Gilah never told me Carter was coming,” Chiara said.

“She must have forgotten to mention it.”

“How do you forget to mention that the deputy director of the CIA is coming all the way from Washington? And what is Sarah doing here?”

“Gilah’s old, Chiara. Give her a break.”

Gabriel climbed out before she could pose another question, then retrieved the overnight bag from the trunk and led her up the steps. Gilah was standing in the entrance hall as they came inside. The large rooms had been emptied of their furniture and several round tables put in their place. Chiara stared at the place settings and the flower arrangements, then walked past Gilah and stepped on the terrace, where a hundred white chairs stood in neat rows around a chuppah hung with flowers. She spun round, mouth open, and looked at Gabriel.

“What’s going on here?”

Gabriel held up the overnight bag and said, “I’m going to take this up to our room.”

“Gabriel Allon, come back here.”

She followed quickly after him and chased him down the corridor to their room. As she stepped inside, she saw the dress laid out on the bed.

“My God, Gabriel, what have you done?”

“Made amends for all my mistakes, I hope.”

She threw her arms around him and kissed him, then ran a hand through her hair.

“It’s a mess. What am I going to do?”

“We brought a hair stylist from Tel Aviv. A very good one.”

“What about my family?”

He looked at his watch. “We flew them out of Venice aboard a charter. They landed at Ben-Gurion twenty minutes ago. We’re bringing them up here by helicopter.”

“And the rings?”

He pulled a small jewelry box from his coat pocket and opened it.

“They’re beautiful,” she said. “You thought of everything.”

“Weddings are operations.”

“No, they’re not, you dolt.” She slapped his arm playfully. “What time is the ceremony?”

“Whenever you want it to be.”

“What time is sundown?”

“Five-oh-eight.”

“We’ll start at five-oh-nine.” She kissed him again. “And don’t be late.”

62

You and your team ran a very nice operation,” said Adrian Carter.

“Which one?”

“The wedding, of course. Too bad London didn’t go as smoothly.”

“If it had gone smoothly, we wouldn’t have gotten Elizabeth back.”

“This is true.”

A waiter approached their table and freshened Carter’s coffee. Gabriel turned and looked toward the walls of the Old City, which were glowing softly in the gentle sunlight. It was Monday morning. Carter had rung Gabriel’s apartment at seven on the off chance he was free for breakfast. Gabriel had agreed to meet him here, the terrace restaurant of the King David Hotel, knowing full well that Adrian Carter never did anything on the off chance.

“Why are you still in Jerusalem, Adrian?”

“Officially, I am here to conduct meetings with our generously staffed CIA station. Unofficially, I stayed in order to see you.”

“Is Sarah still here?”

“She left yesterday. Poor thing had to fly commercial.” Carter raised his coffee cup to his lips and stared at Gabriel for a moment without drinking. “Did anything ever happen between you two that I should know about?”

“No, Adrian, nothing happened between us, during this operation or the last one.” Gabriel made swirls in his Israeli yogurt. “Is that why you stayed in Jerusalem? To ask me whether I slept with one of your officers?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you here, Adrian?”

He reached into the breast pocket of his Brooks Brothers blazer, withdrew an envelope, and handed it to Gabriel. The front bore no markings, but when he turned it over he saw THE WHITE HOUSE printed on the flap in simple lettering.

“What’s this? An invitation to a White House barbecue?”

“It’s a note,” said Carter, then he added somewhat pedantically: “From the president of the United States.”

“Yes, I can see that, Adrian. What’s the topic of the letter?”

“I’m not in the habit of reading other people’s mail.”

“You should be.”

“I assume the president wrote to you in order to thank you for what you did in London.”

“It might have been helpful if he had said something publicly a month ago, while I was twisting in the wind.”

“Trust me, Gabriel. If he had spoken out on your behalf, you would have been in more trouble than you are now. These things have a way of blowing themselves out, and sometimes the best course of action is to take no action at all.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun, and for a moment it seemed several degrees colder. Gabriel opened the note, read it quickly, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“What does it say?”

“It is private, Adrian, and it will remain so.”

“Good man,” said Carter.

“Did you get one, too?”

“A note from the president?” Carter shook his head. “I’m afraid that my position is somewhat tenuous at the moment. Isn’t it amazing? We got Elizabeth back and now we are under siege.”

“This, too, shall pass, Adrian.”

“I know,” he said. “But it doesn’t make it any more pleasant to go through. There are a band of Young Turks at Langley who think I’ve been running the DO for too long. They say I’ve lost a step. They say I should have never agreed to turn over so much of the operation to you.”

“Do you have any intention of ceding power?”

“None,” said Carter forcefully. “The world is too dangerous a place to be left to Young Turks. I intend to stay until this war against terrorism is won.”

“I hope longevity runs in your family.”

“My grandfather lived to be a hundred and four.”

“What about Sarah? Has she been hurt by this in any way?”

“None whatsoever,” Carter replied. “Only a handful of people even knew she was a part of it.”

The sun emerged from behind the clouds again. Gabriel slipped on his wraparound glasses while Carter pulled a second envelope from the pocket of his blazer. “This is from Robert Halton,” he said. “I’m afraid I know what’s inside that one.”

Gabriel withdrew the contents: a brief handwritten note and a check made out in Gabriel’s name for the sum of ten million dollars. Gabriel kept the letter and handed the check back to Carter.

“Are you sure you don’t want to think about that for a minute?” Carter asked.

“I don’t want his money, Adrian.”

“You’re entitled to it. You risked your life to save his daughter’s-not once but twice.”

“It’s what we do,” Gabriel said. “Tell him thanks but no thanks.”

Carter left the check on the table.

“You have anything else in your pocket for me, Adrian?”

Carter turned his gaze toward the Old City walls. “I have a name,” he said.

“The Sphinx?”

Carter nodded. The Sphinx.

His voice, already underpowered, fell to an almost inaudible level. It seemed that Carter, before coming to Israel for Gabriel’s wedding, had made a brief stopover in the South of France, not for the purposes of recreation-Carter hadn’t taken a proper holiday since 9/11-but for an operation. The target of this operation was none other than Prince Rashid bin Sultan, who had come to the French Riviera himself for a spot of gambling in the casinos of Monaco. The prince had played poorly and lost mightily, a fact the puritanical Carter seemed to find most offensive, and upon returning to the airport at Nice early the next morning in a highly inebriated state had found Carter and a team of CIA paramilitary officers relaxing in the luxurious confines of his private 747. Carter had presented the prince, now irate, with a CIA dossier detailing his many sins-sins that included financial support for al-Qaeda, the foreign fighters and Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and a militant Egyptian group called the Sword of Allah, which had just carried out the abduction of the goddaughter of the president of the United States. Carter had then given the prince a choice of destinations: Riyadh or Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“That sounds like something we would do,” Gabriel said.

“Yes, it did have a very Office-like quality to it.”

“I take it the prince chose Riyadh as his destination.”

“It was the only wise bet he made all night.”

“How much did the ride home cost him?”

“A name,” Carter said. “The question now is, what do we do with this name? Option one, we work with our Egyptian brethren and bring this fellow to trial in United States. Justice will be served if we follow this course but at a considerable price. A trial will expose the underside of our relationship with the Egyptian security services. It will also leave us saddled with another Sword of Allah prisoner whom they will almost certainly attempt to get back, thus placing American lives at risk.”

“And we can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t,” agreed Carter. “Which brings us to option number two: dealing with the matter quietly.”

“Our preferred method.”

“Indeed.”

Gabriel held out his hand. Carter delved into his pocket again and came out with a slip of paper. Gabriel read what was written there and smiled.

“Can you make him go away?” asked Carter.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Gabriel said. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to spread a little money around Cairo to make it happen.”

Carter held up Robert Halton’s check. “Will this be enough to get the job done?”

“More than enough. But what should I do with the change?”

“Keep it.”

“Can I kill the prince, too?”

“Maybe next time,” said Carter. “More coffee?”

63

He left Jerusalem for Cyprus three days later. Chiara pleaded with him to take her along but he refused. He had lost one wife to his enemies and had no intention of losing another.

He entered the country on an Israeli passport bearing the name Gideon Argov and told the Cypriot customs officers that the purpose of his visit was vacation. After collecting his rental car, a C-Class Mercedes that he subjected to a thorough inspection, he set out along the south coast toward the whitewashed villa by the sea. Wazir al-Zayyat had been vague about when he might appear, so Gabriel stopped briefly in a small village market and bought enough food to last him three days.

The March weather was unseasonably mild and he spent the first day relaxing on the terrace overlooking the Mediterranean, guilt-ridden for having abandoned Chiara to Jerusalem. By the second day he was restless with boredom, so he searched the Internet for a decent art-supply shop and found one a few miles up the coast. He spent the remainder of the afternoon producing sketches of the villa, and, late in the afternoon of the third day, he was working on a decent watercolor seascape when he spotted al-Zayyat’s car coming up the road from Larnaca.

Their encounter was conducted at a leisurely pace and in the cool sunshine on the terrace. Al-Zayyat worked his way slowly through the bottle of single malt while Gabriel sipped mineral water with wedges of lemon and lime. For a long time they talked in generalities about the situation inside Egypt, but as the sun was sinking slowly into the sea Gabriel brought the topic of conversation around to the real reason why he had asked al-Zayyat to come to Cyprus: the name he had been given in Jerusalem earlier that week by Adrian Carter. Upon hearing it, al-Zayyat smiled and nipped at his whisky.

“We’ve had our suspicions about the professor for some time,” he said.

“He was in Paris for the last year working on a book at something called the Institute for Islamic Studies. It’s a well-known front for jihadist activities, funded in part by Prince Rashid. He left Paris the day after Christmas and came back to Cairo, where he resumed his teaching duties at the American University.”

“I take it you’d like to grant the good professor a sabbatical?”

“A permanent one.”

“It’s going to cost you.”

“Trust me, Wazir-money is no obstacle.”

“When would you like to do it?”

“Late spring,” he said. “Before the weather gets too hot.”

“Just make sure it’s a clean job. I don’t want you making a mess in my town.”

One hour later al-Zayyat left the villa with a briefcase containing half a million dollars. The next morning Gabriel burned his sketches and the watercolor and flew home to Chiara.

64

The name on the reservation list sent a chill down the neck of Mr. Katubi, the chief concierge of Cairo’s InterContinental Hotel. Surely there was a glitch in the computer reservation system, he thought as he stared at it in disbelief. Surely it had to be a different Herr Johannes Klemp. Surely he hadn’t decided to come back for a return engagement. Surely it was all some sort of terrible misunderstanding. He picked up his house phone and dialed Reservations to see if the guest had made any special requests. The list was so long and detailed it took three minutes for the girl to recite them all.

“How long is he planning to be with us?”

“A week.”

“I see.”

He hung up the phone, then spent the remainder of the morning giving serious thought to taking the week off. In the end he decided that such a course of action would be cowardly and would inflict undue hardship on his colleagues. And so at 3:30 that afternoon he was planted firmly at the center of the glossy lobby, hands behind his back and chin raised like a defiant soldier before a firing squad, as Herr Klemp came whirling through the revolving doors, dressed head to toe in Euro black, sunglasses shoved into his head of silver hair. “Katubi!” he called brightly as he advanced on the steadfast little concierge with his hand extended like a bayonet. “I was hoping you would still be here.”

“There are things about Cairo that never change, Herr Klemp.”

“That’s what I love about the place. It does get under your skin, doesn’t it?”

“Just like the dust,” said Mr. Katubi. “If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.”

Mr. Katubi braced himself and his staff for a sandstorm of complaints, tirades, and lectures about Egyptian incompetence. But within forty-eight hours of Herr Klemp’s arrival, it had become clear to Mr. Katubi that the German was a changed man. His accommodations-an ordinary single room high on the north side of the building overlooking Tahrir Square and the campus of the American University-he declared to be Paradise on earth. The food, he announced, was ambrosia. The service, he raved, was second to none. He did his sightseeing in the morning, while it was still cool, and spent his afternoons relaxing by the pool. By dusk each day, he was resting quietly in his room. Mr. Katubi found himself longing for a flash of the old Herr Klemp, the one who berated the maids for making his bed improperly or lashed out at the valet staff for ruining his clothing. Instead, there was only the silence of a contented customer.

At 6:30 on the penultimate day of his scheduled stay, Herr Klemp appeared in the lobby, dressed for dinner. He asked Mr. Katubi to book a table for him at a French bistro on Zamalek for eight o’clock, then darted through the revolving doors and disappeared into the Cairo dusk. Mr. Katubi watched him go, then reached for the telephone, not knowing then that he would never see Herr Klemp again.

The silver Mercedes sedan was parked in Muhammad Street, within sight of the staff parking lot at the American University. Mordecai was seated calmly behind the wheel. Mikhail sat next to him in the front passenger seat, drumming his fingers nervously against his thigh. Gabriel climbed into the backseat and quietly closed the door. Mikhail drummed on, even after Gabriel told him to stop.

Five minutes later, Mikhail said, “There’s your boy.”

Gabriel watched as a tall, thin Egyptian in Western clothing handed a few piastres to the Nubian attendant and climbed behind the wheel of a Fiat sedan. Thirty seconds later he sped past their position and headed toward Tahrir Square. The traffic light on the edge of the square turned red. The Fiat came to a stop. The Sphinx was a careful man.

“Do it now,” Gabriel said.

Mikhail offered Gabriel the detonator switch. “You sure you don’t want him?”

“Just do it, Mikhail-before the light changes.”

Mikhail pressed the switch. An instant later the small, focused charge of explosives concealed inside the headrest exploded in a brilliant white flash. Mikhail started drumming his fingers again. Mordecai slipped the car into gear and headed for Sinai.