Prince of Fire Read online

  Shamron could see that Gabriel remained unconvinced.

  “Tell me something, Gabriel. Do you think that if the Arabs had won the war that there would be any Jewishrefugees? Look at what happened in Hebron. They brought the Jews to the center of town and cut them down. They attacked a convoy of doctors and nurses heading up Mount Scopus and butchered them all. To make certain no one survived, they doused the vehicles with gasoline and set them alight. This was the nature of our enemy. Their goal was to kill us all, so we would never come back. And that remains their goal today. They want to kill us all.”

  Gabriel recited to Shamron the words Fellah had spoken to him on the road to Paris. My Holocaust is as real as yours, and yet you deny my suffering and exonerate yourself of guilt. You claim my wounds are self-inflicted.

  “They are self-inflicted,” Shamron said.

  “But was there a blanket strategy of expulsion? Did you engage in ethnic cleansing as a matter of policy?

  “No,” Shamron said, “and the proof is all around us.

  You had dinner the other night in Abu Ghosh. If there was a blanket policy of expulsion, why is Abu Ghosh still there? In the Western Galilee, why is Sumayriyya gone but al-Makr still there? Because the residents of Abu Ghosh and al-Makr didn’t try to butcher us. But maybe that was our mistake. Maybe we should have expelled them all instead of trying to retain an Arab minority in our midst.”

  “Then there would have been more refugees.”

  “True, but if they had no hope of ever returning, perhaps they might have integrated themselves into Jordan and Lebanon, instead of allowing themselves to be used as a propaganda tool to demonize and delegitimizeus. Why is Fellah al-Tamari’s father still in Ein al-Hilweh after all these years? Why didn’t any of his brother Arab states—nations with whom he shares a common language, culture, and religion—why didn’t any of them take him in? Because they want to use him as a tool to question my right to exist. I’m here. I live. I breathe. I exist. I don’t need anyone’s permission to exist. I don’t need anyone’s approval. And I certainly have nowhere else to go.” He looked at Gabriel. “I just need you to watch over it for me. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  The lights of the fishing boat disappeared into the port of Tiberias. Shamron seemed suddenly weary. “There will never be peace in this place, but then there never was. Ever since we stumbled into this land from Egypt and Mesopotamia, we’ve been fighting. Canaanites,Assyrians, Philistines, Romans, Amalekites. We deludedourselves into believing our enemies had given up their dream of destroying us. We have prayed for impossiblethings. Peace without justice, forgiveness without restitution.” He looked provocatively at Gabriel. “Love without sacrifice.”

  Gabriel stood and prepared to take his leave.

  “What shall I tell the prime minister?”

  “Tell him I have to think about it.”

  “Operations is only a way station, Gabriel. One day you’ll be the chief. The Memuneh.”

  “You’re the Memuneh, Ari. And you always will be.”

  Shamron gave a satisfied laugh. “What shall I tell him, Gabriel?”

  “Tell him I have nowhere else to go, either.”

  The telephone call from Julian Isherwood provided Gabrielwith the excuse he’d been looking for to remove the last traces of Chiara from the flat. He contacted a charity for Russian immigrants and said he wished to make a donation. The following morning, two skinny boys from Moscow came and removed all the furniturefrom the living room: the couches and chairs, the end tables and lamps, the dining room table, even the decorative brass pots and ceramic dishes that Chiara had selected and placed with such care. The bedroom he left untouched, except for the sheets and the duvet, which still bore the vanilla scent of Chiara’s hair.

  During the days that followed, Narkiss Street was visited by a succession of delivery trucks. The large white examination table arrived first, followed by the fluorescentand halogen lamps with adjustable stanchions. The venerable art supply shop of L. Cornelissen & Son, Great Russell Street, London, dispatched a shipment of brushes, pigment, medium, and varnish. A chemical firm in Leeds sent several cases of potentially dangerous solventsthat aroused more than the passing interest of the Israeli postal authorities. From Germany came a costly microscope on a retractable arm; from a workshop in Venice two large oaken easels.

  Daniel in the Lions’ Den, oil on canvas, dubiously attributed to Erasmus Quellinus, arrived the following day. It took Gabriel the better part of the afternoon to disassemble the sophisticated shipping crate, and only with Shamron’s help was he able to maneuver the enormous canvas onto the twin easels. The image of Daniel surrounded by wild beasts intrigued Shamron, and he stayed late into the evening as Gabriel, armed with cotton swabs and a basin of distilled water and ammonia,began the tedious task of scrubbing more than a century’s worth of dirt and grime from the surface of the painting.

  To the degree possible he duplicated his work habits from Venice. He rose before it was light and resisted the impulse to switch on the radio, lest the daily toll of bloodshed and constant security alerts break the spell the painting had cast over him. He would remain in his studio all morning and usually worked a second shift late into the night. He spent as little time as possible at King Saul Boulevard; indeed he heard of Lev’s resignation on the car radio while driving from Narkiss Street to Mount Herzl to see Leah. During their visits together, her journeysto Vienna were shallower and shorter in duration. She asked him questions about their past.

  “Where did we meet, Gabriel?”

  “At Bezalel. You’re a painter, Leah.”

  “Where were we married?”

  “In Tiberias. On Shamron’s terrace overlooking the Sea of Galilee.”

  “And you’re a restorer now?”

  “I studied in Venice, with Umberto Conti. You used to visit me there every few months. You posed as a German girl from Bremen. Do you remember, Leah?”

  One searing afternoon in June, Gabriel had coffee with Dr. Bar-Zvi in the staff canteen.

  “Will she ever be able to leave this place?”

  “No.”

  “What about for short periods?”

  “I don’t see why not,” the doctor said. “In fact, I think it sounds like a rather good idea.”

  She came with a nurse the first few times. Then, as she grew more comfortable being away from the hospital,Gabriel brought her home alone. She sat in a chair in his studio and watched him work for hours on end. Sometimes her presence brought him peace, sometimes unbearable pain. Always, he wished he could set her upon his easel and re-create the woman he had placed in a car that snowy night in Vienna.

  “Do you have any of my paintings?”

  He showed her the portrait in the bedroom. When she asked who the model had been, Gabriel said it was him.

  “You look sad.”

  “I was tired,” he said. “I’d been gone for three years.”

  “Did I really paint this?”

  “You were good,” he said. “You were better than me.”

  One afternoon, while Gabriel was retouching a damagedportion of Daniel’s face, she asked him why she had come to Vienna.

  “We’d grown apart because of my work. I thought my cover was secure enough to bring you and Dani along. It was a foolish mistake, and you were the one to pay for it.”

  “There was another woman, wasn’t there? A French girl. Someone who worked for the Office.”

  Gabriel nodded once and returned to work on the face of Daniel. Leah pressed him for more. “Who did it?” she asked. “Who put the bomb in my car?”

  “It was Arafat. I was supposed to die with you and Dani, but the man who carried out the mission changed the plan.”

  “Is he alive, this man?”

  Gabriel shook his head.

  “And Arafat?”

  Leah’s grasp on the present situation was tenuous at best. Gabriel explained that Yasir Arafat, Israel’s mortal enemy, now lived a few miles away, in Ramallah.r />
  “Arafat is here? How can that be?”

  From the mouths of innocents, thought Gabriel. Just then he heard footfalls in the stairwell. Eli Lavon let himselfinto the flat without bothering to knock.

  37

  AIX-EN-PROVENCE: FIVE MONTHS LATER

  The first stirrings of a mistral were prowling the ravines and gorges of the Bouches-du-Rhône. Paul Martineau, climbing out of his Mercedes sedan, buttoned his canvas field coat and turned the collar up round his ears. Anotherwinter had come to Provence. A few more weeks, he thought, then he’d have to shut down the dig until spring.

  He retrieved his canvas rucksack from the trunk, then set out along the edge of the ancient stone wall of the hill fort. A moment later, at the point where the wall ended, he paused. About fifty meters away, near the edge of the hilltop, a painter stood before a canvas. It was not unusual to see artists working atop the hill; Cézanne himself had adored the commanding view over the Chaine de l’Étoile. Still, Martineau reckoned it would be wise to have a closer look at the man before starting to work.

  He transferred his Makarov pistol from his rucksack to the pocket of his coat, then walked toward the painter. The man’s back was turned to Martineau. Judging from the attitude of his head he was gazing at the distant Mont Sainte-Victoire. This was confirmed for Martineau a few seconds later when he glimpsed the canvas for the first time. The work was very much in the style of Cézanne’s classic landscape. Actually, thought Martineau, it was an uncanny reproduction.

  The artist was so engrossed in his work he seemed not to hear Martineau’s approach. Only when Martineau was standing at his back did he cease painting and glance over his shoulder. He wore a heavy woolen sweater and a floppy wide-brimmed hat that moved with the wind. His gray beard was long and unkempt, his hands were smeared with paint. Judging from his expression he was a man who did not enjoy being interrupted while he was working. Martineau was sympathetic.

  “You’re obviously a devotee of Cézanne,” said Martineau.

  The painter nodded once, then resumed his work.

  “It’s quite good. Would you be willing to sell it to me?”

  “I’m afraid this one is spoken for, but I can do anotherif you like.”

  Martineau handed him his card. “You can reach me at my office at the university. We’ll discuss the price when I see the finished canvas.”

  The painter accepted the card and dropped it into a wooden case containing his paints and brushes. Martineaubid him a good morning, then set off across the site, until he arrived at the excavation trench where he’d been working the previous afternoon. He climbed down into the pit and removed the blue tarpaulin spread over the bottom, exposing a stone-carved severed head in semi-profile.He opened his rucksack and removed a small hand trowel and a brush. Just as he was about to begin working, a shadow darkened the base of the pit. He rose onto his knees and looked up. He had expected to see Yvette or one of the other archaeologists working on the dig. Instead, he saw the hatted silhouette of the painter, lit from behind by the bright sun. Martineau lifted his hand to his brow and shielded his eyes.

  “Would you mind moving away from there? You’re blocking my light.”

  The painter silently held up the card Martineau had just given him. “I believe the name on this is incorrect.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “The name says Paul Martineau.”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “But it’s not your real name, is it?”

  Martineau felt a searing heat across the back of his neck. He looked carefully at the figure standing at the edge of the trench. Was it really him? Martineau couldn’t be sure, not with the heavy beard and floppy hat. Then he thought of the landscape. It was a perfect imitation of Cézanne in tone and texture. Of course it was him. Martineau inched his hand toward his pocket and made one more play for time.

  “Listen, my friend, my name is—”

  “Khaled al-Khalifa,” the painter said, finishing the sentence for him. His next words were spoken in Arabic.“Do you really want to die as a Frenchman? You’re Khaled, son of Sabri, grandson of Asad, the Lion of Beit Sayeed. Your father’s gun is in your coat pocket. Reach for it. Tell me your name.”

  Khaled seized the grip of the Makarov and was pullingit from his pocket when the first round tore into his chest. The second shot caused the gun to slip from his grasp. He toppled backward and struck his head against the rocklike base of the pit. As he slipped toward unconsciousness,he looked up and saw the Jew scooping a handful of earth from the mound at the edge of the trench. He tossed the soil onto Khaled’s face, then raised his gun for the final time. Khaled saw a flash of fire, then darkness. The trench began to spin, and he felt himself spiraling downward, into the past.

  The painter slipped the Beretta back into the waistband of his trousers and walked back to the spot where he’d been working. He dipped his brush in black paint and signed his name to the canvas, then turned and started up the slope of the hill. In the shadow of the ancient wall, he encountered a girl with short hair who bore a vague resemblance to Fellah al-Tamari. He bid her a good morning and climbed into the saddle of his motorcycle.A moment later he was gone.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PRINCE OF FIRE is a work of fiction. That said, it is based heavily on real events and was inspired in large measure by a photograph—a photograph of a young boy at the funeral of his father, a master terrorist killed by agents of Israeli intelligence in Beirut in 1979. The terrorist was Black September’s Ali Hassan Salameh, architect of the Munich Olympics massacre and many other acts of murder,and the man upon whose lap the boy sits in the photographis none other than Yasir Arafat. Students of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will recognize that I borrowed much from Ali Hassan Salameh and his famous father to construct the fictional Asad and Sabri al-Khalifa. There are key differences between the Salamehs and the al-Khalifas,far too many to enumerate here. A search of the Coastal Plain will produce no evidence of a village called Beit Sayeed, for no such place exists. Tochnit Dalet was the real name of the plan to remove hostile Arab populationcenters from land allocated for the new State of Israel. There was once a village called Sumayriyya in the Western Galilee. Its destruction occurred as described in the pages of this novel. Black September was indeed a covert arm of Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization,and the consequences of its brief, bloody reign of terror live on today. It was Black September that first demonstrated the utility of carrying out spectacular acts of terrorism on the international stage, and evidence of its influence is all around us. It can be seen in a school in Beslan, in the wreckage of four trains in Madrid, and in the empty space in lower Manhattan where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

  Yasir Arafat fell ill and died as I was completing this novel. Had he chosen the path of peace instead of unleashing a wave of terror, it would have never been written, and thousands of people, Israeli and Palestinian, would still be alive today.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This novel, like the previous four books in the Gabriel Allon series, could not have been written without the assistance of David Bull. David truly is among the finest art restorers in the world, and his friendship and wisdom have enriched both my life and my work. Jeffrey Gold-berg,the brilliant correspondent of The New Yorker, generously shared with me his wealth of knowledge and experience and was kind enough to read my manuscript and offer several helpful suggestions. Aviva Raz Schechterof the Israeli embassy in Washington provided me with a unique window on Israel in a turbulent time. Louis Toscano twice read my manuscript, and it was made better by his sure editorial hand. My friend and literary agent, Esther Newberg of International Creative Management, read each of my early drafts and quietly pointed me in the right direction.

  I consulted hundreds of books, articles, and Web sites while preparing this manuscript, far too many to cite here, but I would be remiss if I did not mention a few. I am deeply indebted to the great Israeli scholar Benny Morris,whose gr
oundbreaking The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem helped to shape my views on the nature and scope of the Arab expulsions that took place in 1947 and 1948. Morris’s towering history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Righteous Victims, also proved to be an invaluable resource, as was Martin Gilbert’s Israel. My own impressionsof contemporary Israeli society were sharpened by three works in particular: The Israelis by Donna Rosenthal,Still Life with Bombers by David Horowitz, and War Without End by Anton La Guardia. The Quest for the Red Prince by Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber is a telling account of the Salameh family’s violent history. It was Yaron Ezrahi of the Israeli Democracy Institute in Jerusalem,not the fictitious Colonel Yonatan Shamron, who first compared the Separation Fence to the Wailing Wall, and with far more eloquence and passion than I managed here. Those familiar with the Yom Kippur evening service will recognize that I have borrowed four lines of prayer, composed originally for the British edition of Gates of Repentance, and placed them in the mouth of Ari Shamron in the penultimate chapter.

  None of this would be possible without the support and dedication of the remarkable team of professionals at Putnam: Carole Baron, Daniel Harvey, Marilyn Ducks-worth,and especially my editor, Neil Nyren. They are, quite simply, the very best at what they do.

  Finally, my wife, Jamie Gangel, skillfully read each of my early drafts, served as a sounding board for my ideas, and, as always, helped drag me across the finish line. I cannot overstate her contribution, nor can I thank her enough.