Gabriel Allon: Prince of Fire, the Messenger, the Secret Servant Page 37

  Gabriel looked at the emergency lights flashing on the television screen and nodded absently.

  “You were in the army?”

  “No, I’d finished with the army. I was studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art by then. Ari came to see me a few days after the hostages had been killed. No one knew it then, but Golda had already given the order to kill everyone involved.”

  “Why did he select you?”

  “I spoke languages, and he saw things in my army fitness reports—qualities he thought would make me suitable for the kind of work he had in mind.”

  “Killing at close range, face-to-face. That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Gilah.”

  “How many?”

  “Gilah.”

  “How many, Gabriel?”

  “Six,” he said. “I killed six of them.”

  She touched the gray hair at his temples. “But you were just a boy.”

  “It’s easier when you’re a boy. It gets harder as you get older.”

  “But you did it anyway. You were the one they sent to kill Abu Jihad, weren’t you? You walked into his villa in Tunis and killed him in front of his wife and children. And they took their revenge, not on the country but on you. They put a bomb beneath your car in Vienna.”

  She was pulling harder at the tear in Shamron’s coat. Gabriel took her hand. “It’s all right, Gilah. It was a long time ago.”

  “I remember when the call came. Ari told me a bomb had gone off beneath a diplomat’s car in Vienna. I remember going into the kitchen to make him some coffee and coming back to the bedroom to find him crying. He said, ‘It’s all my fault. I killed his wife and child.’ It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him cry. I didn’t see him for a week. When he finally came home, I asked him what had happened. He wouldn’t answer, of course. He’d regained his composure by then. But I know it’s eaten away at him all these years. He blames himself for what happened.”

  “He shouldn’t,” Gabriel said.

  “You weren’t even allowed to grieve properly, were you? The government told the world that the wife and child of the Israeli diplomat were both dead. You buried your son in secret on the Mount of Olives—just you, Ari, and a rabbi—and you hid your wife away in England under a false name. But Khaled found her. Khaled kidnapped your wife and used her to lure you to the Gare de Lyon.” A tear spilled down Gilah’s cheek. Gabriel brushed it away and found her wrinkled skin was still as soft as velvet. “All because my husband came to see you one afternoon in September so long ago. You could have had such a different life. You could have been a great artist. Instead we turned you into a killer. Why aren’t you bitter, Gabriel? Why don’t you hate Ari like his children do?”

  “The course of my life was charted the day the Germans chose the little Austrian corporal to be their chancellor. Ari was just the helmsman on the night watch.”

  “Are you that fatalistic?”

  “Believe me, Gilah, I went through a period of time where I couldn’t bear to look at Ari. But I’ve come to realize I’m more like him than I ever knew.”

  “Maybe that’s the quality he saw in your army fitness report.”

  Gabriel smiled briefly. “Maybe it was.”

  Gilah fingered the tear in Shamron’s jacket. “Do you know the story about how this happened?”

  “It’s one of the great mysteries inside the Office,” Gabriel said. “There are all sorts of wild theories about how it happened, but he always refused to tell us the truth.”

  “It was the night of the bombing in Vienna. Ari was in a hurry to get to King Saul Boulevard. As he was climbing into his car, the coat got caught on the door, and he tore it.” She ran her finger along the wound. “I tried to fix it for him many times, but he would never let me. It was for Leah and Dani, he said. He’s been wearing a ripped coat all these years because of what happened to your wife and son.”

  The telephone rang. Gabriel brought the receiver to his ear and listened in silence for a moment. “I’ll be right there, sir,” he said a moment later, then rang off.

  “That was the prime minister. He wants to see me right away. I’ll come back when I’m finished.”

  “Don’t worry, Gabriel. Yonatan will be here soon.”

  “I’ll be back, Gilah.”

  His tone was too forceful. He kissed her cheek apologetically and stood. Gilah seized his arm as he moved toward the door. “Take this,” she said, holding out Shamron’s coat. “He would have wanted you to have it.”

  “Don’t talk like he’s not going to make it.”

  “Just take the jacket and go.” She gave him a bittersweet smile. “You mustn’t keep the prime minister waiting.”

  Gabriel went into the corridor and hurried to the elevators. You mustn’t keep the prime minister waiting. It was what Gilah always said to Shamron whenever he left her.

  A CAR AND security detail were waiting downstairs in the drive. It took them only five minutes to reach the Prime Minister’s Office at 3 Kaplan Street. The guards took Gabriel into the building through an underground entrance and shepherded him upstairs, into the large unexpectedly plain office on the top floor. The room was in semidarkness; the prime minister was seated at his desk in a pool of light, dwarfed by the towering portrait of the Zionist leader Theodore Herzl that hung on the wall at his back. It had been more than a year since Gabriel had been in his presence. In that time his hair had turned from silver to white, and his brown eyes had taken on the rheumy look of an old man. The meeting of the Security Cabinet had just broken up, and the prime minister was alone except for Amos Sharret, the new director-general of the Office, who was seated tensely in a leather armchair. Gabriel shook his hand for the first time. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Amos said. “I wish the circumstances were different.”

  Gabriel sat down.

  “You’re wearing Shamron’s jacket,” the prime minister said.

  “Gilah insisted I take it.”

  “It becomes you.” He smiled distantly. “You know, you’re even beginning to look a little like him.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “He was very handsome when he was a young man.”

  “He was never young, Prime Minister.”

  “None of us were. We were all old before our time. We gave up our youth to build this country. Shamron hasn’t taken a day off since 1947. And this is how it ends?” The prime minister shook his head. “No, he’ll live. Trust me, Gabriel, I’ve known him longer than even you.”

  “Shamron is eternal. That’s what Gilah says.”

  “Maybe not eternal, but he’s not going to be killed by a bunch of terrorists.”

  The prime minister scowled at his wristwatch.

  “You had something you wanted to discuss with me, sir?”

  “Your promotion to chief of Special Ops.”

  “I’ve agreed to take the position, sir.”

  “I realize that, but perhaps now isn’t the best time for you to be running the division.”

  “May I ask why not?”

  “Because all your attention needs to be focused on tracking down and punishing the men who did this to Shamron.”

  The prime minister lapsed into a sudden silence, as if giving Gabriel an opportunity to mount an objection. Gabriel sat motionless, his gaze downward toward his hands.

  “You surprise me,” the prime minister said.

  “How so?”

  “I was afraid you were going to tell me to find someone else.”

  “One doesn’t turn down the prime minister, sir.”

  “But surely there’s more to it than that.”

  “I was in Rome when the terrorists attacked the Vatican, and I put Shamron in his car tonight. I heard the bomb go off.” He paused. “This network, whoever they are and whatever their goals, needs to be put out of business—and soon.”

  “You sound as though you want vengeance.”

  Gabriel looked up from his hands. “I do, Prime Minist
er. Perhaps under those circumstances, I’m the wrong man for the job.”

  “Actually, under the circumstances, you are exactly the right man.”

  It was Amos who had spoken these words. Gabriel turned and regarded him carefully for the first time. He was a small, broad man, shaped like a square, with a monkish fringe of dark hair and a heavy brow. He still carried the rank of general in the IDF but was dressed now in a pale-gray suit. His candor was a refreshing change. Lev had been a dental probe of a man, forever prodding and searching for weakness and decay. Amos was more like a tack hammer. Gabriel would have to watch his step around him, lest the hammer fall on him.

  “Just make certain your anger doesn’t cloud your judgment,” Amos added.

  “It never has before,” Gabriel said, holding Amos’s dark gaze.

  Amos gave him a humorless smile, as if to say, There’ll be no shooting up French train stations on my watch, no matter what the circumstances. The prime minister leaned forward and braced himself on his elbows.

  “Do you believe Saudis are behind this?”

  “We have some evidence that points to a Saudi connection to the Brotherhood of Allah,” Gabriel said judiciously, “but we’ll need more intelligence before we start looking for a specific individual.”

  “Ahmed bin Shafiq, for example.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  “And if it is him?”

  “In my opinion, we’re dealing with a network, not a movement. A network bought and paid for with Saudi money. If we lop off the head, the network will die. But it won’t be easy, Prime Minister. We know very little about him. We don’t even know what he really looks like. It will also be complicated politically because of the Americans.”

  “It’s not complicated at all. Ahmed bin Shafiq tried to kill my closest adviser. And so Ahmed bin Shafiq must die.”

  “And if he’s acting at the behest of Prince Nabil or someone in the Royal Family—a family with close historic and economic ties to our most important ally?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  The prime minister gave a sideways glance at Amos.

  “Adrian Carter of the CIA would like a word with you,” Amos said.

  “I was supposed to go to Washington tomorrow to brief him on what we’ve learned about the attack on the Vatican.”

  “Carter has requested a change of venue.”

  “Where does he want to meet?”

  “London.”

  “Why London?”

  “It was Carter’s suggestion,” Amos said. “He wanted a convenient neutral location.”

  “Since when is a CIA safe house in London neutral ground?” Gabriel looked at the prime minister, then Amos. “I don’t want to leave Jerusalem—not until we know whether Shamron is going to live.”

  “Carter says it’s urgent,” Amos said. “He wants to see you tomorrow night.”

  “Send someone else then.”

  “We can’t,” said the prime minister. “You’re the only one invited.”

  11.

  London

  HOW’S THE OLD MAN?” asked Adrian Carter. They were walking side by side in Eaton Place, sheltering from a thin night rain beneath Carter’s umbrella. They had met five minutes earlier, as if by chance encounter, in Belgrave Square. Carter had been the one wearing the mackintosh raincoat and holding a copy of The Independent. He was orthodox when it came to the conventions of tradecraft. According to the office wits at Langley, Adrian Carter left chalk marks on the bedpost when he wanted to make love to his wife.

  “Still unconscious,” Gabriel replied, “but he made it through the night, and he’s not losing any more blood.”

  “Is he going to make it?”

  “Last night, I would have said no.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m more worried about how he’s going to come out of it. If he’s left with brain damage or trapped in a body that won’t obey his orders…” Gabriel’s voice trailed off. “Shamron has only one thing in his life, and that’s his work. If he can’t work, he’s going to be miserable—and so will everyone around him.”

  “So what else is new?” Carter glanced toward the doorway of the Georgian house at Number 24. “The flat is in there. Let’s take a walk around the block once, shall we? I like to do things by the book.”

  “Haven’t you heard, Adrian? The Soviet Union collapsed a few years back. The KGB are out of business. You and the Russians are friends now.”

  “One can never be too careful, Gabriel.”

  “Didn’t your security boys set up a surveillance detection route?”

  “There are no boys, Gabriel.”

  “Is that an Agency safe flat?”

  “Not exactly,” Carter said. “It belongs to a friend.”

  “A friend of the Agency?”

  “A friend of the president’s, actually.”

  Carter gave a gentle tug on Gabriel’s coat sleeve and led him down the darkened street. They made a slow tour of Eaton Square, which was silent except for the grumble of the evening traffic on the King’s Road. Carter moved at a ponderous pace, like a man bound for an appointment he would rather not keep. Gabriel was wrestling with a single thought: Why did the deputy director for operations of the Central Intelligence Agency want to talk in a place where his own government wouldn’t be listening?

  They made their way back to Eaton Place. This time Carter led Gabriel down the steps to the basement entrance. As Carter inserted the key into the lock, Gabriel quietly lifted the lid of the rubbish bin and saw it was empty. Carter opened the door and led them inside, into the sort of kitchen that real estate brochures routinely describe as “gourmet.” The countertops were granite and agreeably lit by halogen lamps concealed beneath the custom cabinetry. The floor was covered in the Jerusalem limestone so admired by English and American sophisticates who wish to connect to their Mediterranean roots. Carter walked over to the stainless-steel range and filled the electric teakettle with water. He didn’t bother asking Gabriel whether he wanted something stronger. He knew Gabriel drank nothing but the occasional glass of wine and never mixed alcohol with business, except for reasons of cover.

  “It’s a maisonette,” Carter said. “The drawing room’s upstairs. Go make yourself comfortable.”

  “Are you giving me permission to have a look round, Adrian?”

  Carter was now opening and closing the cabinet doors with a befuddled expression on his face. Gabriel walked over to the pantry, found a box of Earl Grey tea, and tossed it to Carter before heading upstairs. The drawing room was comfortably furnished but with an air of anonymity common in a pied-à-terre. It seemed to Gabriel that no one had ever loved or quarreled or grieved here. He picked up a framed photograph from a side table and saw a bluff, prosperous American with three well-fed children and a wife who’d had too much cosmetic surgery. Two more photographs showed the American standing stiffly at the side of the president. Both were signed: To Bill with gratitude.

  Carter came upstairs a moment later, a tea tray balanced between his hands. He had a head of thinning curly hair and the sort of broad mustache once worn by American college professors. Little about Carter’s demeanor suggested he was one of the most powerful members of Washington’s vast intelligence establishment—or that before his ascension to the rarified atmosphere of Langley’s seventh floor, he had been a field man of the highest reputation. Carter’s natural inclination to listen rather than speak led most to conclude he was a therapist of some sort. When one thought of Adrian Carter, one pictured a man enduring confessions of affairs and inadequacies, or a Dickensian figure hunched over thick books with long Latin words. People tended to underestimate Carter. It was one of his most potent weapons.

  “Who’s behind it, Adrian?” Gabriel asked.

  “You tell me, Gabriel.” Carter placed the tea tray on the center table and removed his raincoat as if weary from too much travel. “It’s your neighborhood.”

  “It’s our neighborhood, but something tells
me it’s your problem. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here in London”—Gabriel looked around the room—“in a borrowed safe flat, with no microphones and no backup from the local station.”

  “You don’t miss much, do you? Humor me, Gabriel. Tell me his name.”

  “He’s a former Saudi GID agent named Ahmed bin Shafiq.”

  “Bravo, Gabriel. Well done.” Carter threw his coat over the back of a chair. “Well done, indeed.”

  CARTER LIFTED the lid of the teapot, savored the aroma, and decided it needed to steep a moment longer.

  “How did you know?”

  “We didn’t know,” Gabriel said. “It was an educated guess, based on a few threads of evidence.”

  “Such as?”

  Gabriel told Carter everything he knew. The blown operation against Professor Ali Massoudi. The surveillance photos and Zurich bank account information found on Massoudi’s computer. The links between Ibrahim el-Banna and the Saudi agent who called himself Khalil. The reports of a Saudi by the same name trolling the refugee camps of southern Lebanon for recruits. All the while Carter was fussing with the tea. He poured the first cup and handed it to Gabriel plain. His own required more elaborate preparation: a careful measure of milk, then the tea, then a lump of sugar. Interrogators referred to such obvious playing for time as displacement activity. Carter was a pipe smoker. Gabriel feared it would make an appearance soon.

  “And what about you?” Gabriel asked. “When did you know it was bin Shafiq?”

  Carter snared a second lump with the tongs and briefly debated adding it to the cup before plopping it unceremoniously back into the bowl. “Maybe I knew the day we asked His Majesty to shut down Group 205,” he said. “Or maybe it was the day bin Shafiq seemed to vanish from the face of the earth. You see, Gabriel, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that for every action we take there’s bound to be a negative reaction. We drove the Russian bear out of Afghanistan and created a Hydra in the process. We smashed the corporate headquarters of al-Qaeda and now the branch offices are running their own affairs. We shut down bin Shafiq’s shop inside the GID, and now it seems bin Shafiq has gone into private practice.”