The Black Widow Page 5

  Alone, Ephraim Cohen slipped through the curtain and stood before the canvas, scarcely able to draw a breath. Finally, he plucked the Winsor & Newton paintbrush from the trolley and slipped it into the pocket of his smock. It wasn’t fair, he thought, as he doused the halogen lamps. Perhaps he really was an archangel after all.

  6

  MA’ALE HAHAMISHA, ISRAEL

  THE OLD KIBBUTZ OF MA’ALE HAHAMISHA occupied a strategic hilltop in the craggy western approaches to Jerusalem, not far from the Arab town of Abu Ghosh. Founded during the Arab Revolt of 1936–39, it was one of fifty-seven so-called tower and stockade settlements hastily erected across British-ruled Palestine in a desperate bid to secure the Zionist endeavor and, ultimately, reclaim the ancient kingdom of Israel. It derived its name and very identity from an act of revenge. Translated into English, Ma’ale Hahamisha meant “the Ascent of the Five.” It was a not-so-subtle reminder that an Arab terrorist from a nearby village had died at the hands of five of the kibbutz’s Jews.

  Despite the violent circumstances of its birth, the kibbutz grew prosperous from its cauliflower and peaches and its charming mountain hotel. Ari Shamron, the twice-former chief of the Office and éminence grise of Israeli intelligence, often used the hotel as a meeting place when King Saul Boulevard or a safe flat wouldn’t do. One such meeting occurred on a brilliant afternoon in September 1972. On that occasion Shamron’s reluctant guest was a promising young painter named Gabriel Allon, whom Shamron had plucked from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. The Palestinian terrorist group Black September had just murdered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the Olympic games in Munich, and Shamron wanted Gabriel, a native German speaker who had spent time in Europe, to serve as his instrument of vengeance. Gabriel, with the defiance of youth, had told Shamron to find someone else. And Shamron, not for the last time, had bent him to his will.

  The operation was code-named Wrath of God, a phrase chosen by Shamron to give his undertaking the patina of divine sanction. For three years Gabriel and a small team of operatives stalked their prey across Western Europe and the Middle East, killing at night and in broad daylight, living in fear that at any moment they might be arrested by local authorities and charged as murderers. In all, twelve members of Black September died at their hands. Gabriel personally killed six of the terrorists with a .22-caliber Beretta pistol. Whenever possible, he shot his victims eleven times, one bullet for each murdered Jew. When finally he returned to Israel, his temples were gray from stress and exhaustion. Shamron called them smudges of ash on the prince of fire.

  It had been Gabriel’s intention to resume his career as an artist, but each time he stood before a canvas he saw only the faces of the men he had killed. And so with Shamron’s blessing he traveled to Venice as an expatriate Italian named Mario Delvecchio to study restoration. When his apprenticeship was complete, he returned to the Office and to the waiting arms of Ari Shamron. Posing as a gifted if taciturn European-based art restorer, he eliminated some of Israel’s most dangerous foes—including Abu Jihad, Yasir Arafat’s talented second-in-command, whom he killed in front of his wife and children in Tunis. Arafat returned the favor by ordering a terrorist to place a bomb beneath Gabriel’s car in Vienna. The explosion killed his young son Daniel and seriously wounded Leah, his first wife. She resided now in a psychiatric hospital on the other side of the ridge from Ma’ale Hahamisha, trapped in a prison of memory and a body ravaged by fire. The hospital was located in the old Arab village of Deir Yassin, where Jewish fighters from the Irgun and Lehi paramilitary organizations massacred more than a hundred Palestinians on the night of April 9, 1948. It was a cruel irony—that the shattered wife of Israel’s avenging angel should reside among the ghosts of Deir Yassin—but such was life in the twice–Promised Land. The past was inescapable. Arab and Jew were bound together by hatred, blood, and victimhood. And for their punishment they would be forced to live together as feuding neighbors for all eternity.

  The years after the bombing in Vienna were for Gabriel the lost years. He lived as a hermit in Cornwall, he wandered Europe quietly restoring paintings, he tried to forget. Eventually, Shamron came calling yet again, and the bond between Gabriel and the Office was renewed. Acting at his mentor’s behest, he carried off some of the most celebrated operations in the history of Israeli intelligence. His was the career against which all others would be measured, especially Uzi Navot’s. Like the Arabs and Jews of Palestine, Gabriel and Navot were inextricably bound. They were the sons of Ari Shamron, the trusted heirs of the service he had built and nurtured. Gabriel, the elder son, had been confident of the father’s love, but Navot had always struggled to win his approval. He had been given the job as chief only because Gabriel had turned it down. Now, remarried, a father once more, Gabriel was finally ready to assume his rightful place in the executive suite of King Saul Boulevard. For Uzi Navot it was a nakba, the word the Arabs used to describe the catastrophe of their flight from the land of Palestine.

  The old hotel in Ma’ale Hahamisha was less than a mile from the 1967 border, and from its terrace restaurant it was possible to see the orderly yellow lights of Jewish settlements spilling down the hillside into the West Bank. The terrace was in darkness, except for a few windblown candles flickering dimly on the empty tables. Navot sat alone in a distant corner, the same corner where Shamron had been waiting on that September afternoon in 1972. Gabriel sat down next to him and turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the cold. Navot was silent. He was staring down at the lights of Har Adar, the first Israeli settlement over the old Green Line.

  “Mazel tov,” he said at last.

  “For what?”

  “The painting,” said Navot. “I hear it’s almost finished.”

  “Where did you hear a thing like that?”

  “I’ve been monitoring your progress. So has the prime minister.” Navot regarded Gabriel through his small rimless spectacles. “Is it really done?”

  “I think so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I want to take one more look at it in the morning. If I like what I see, I’ll apply a coat of varnish and send it back to the Vatican.”

  “And only ten days past your deadline.”

  “Eleven, actually. But who’s counting?”

  “I was.” Navot gave a rueful smile. “I enjoyed the reprieve, however brief.”

  A silence descended between them. It was far from companionable.

  “In case it’s slipped your mind,” Navot said at last, “it’s time for you to sign your new contract and move into my office. In fact, I was planning to pack up my things today, but I had to make one more trip as chief.”

  “Where?”

  “I had a piece of intelligence that I needed to share with our French brethren about the bombing of the Weinberg Center. I also wanted to make certain they were pursuing the perpetrators with appropriate vigor. After all, four Israeli citizens were killed, not to mention a woman who once did a very large favor for the Office.”

  “Do they know about our links to her?”

  “The French?”

  “Yes, Uzi, the French.”

  “I sent a team into her apartment to have a look around after the attack.”

  “And?”

  “The team found no mention of a certain Israeli intelligence officer who once borrowed her van Gogh in order to find a terrorist. Nor was there any reference to one Zizi al-Bakari, investment manager for the House of Saud and CEO of Jihad, Incorporated.” Navot paused, then added, “May he rest in peace.”

  “What about the painting?”

  “It was in its usual place. In hindsight, the team should have taken it.”

  “Why?”

  “As you no doubt remember, our Hannah was never married. No siblings, either. Her will was quite explicit when it came to the painting. Unfortunately, French intelligence got to her lawyer before he could make contact with us.”

  “What are you talking about, Uzi?
”

  “It seems Hannah trusted only one person in the world to look after her van Gogh.”

  “Who?”

  “You, of course. But there’s just one problem,” Navot added.

  “The French have taken the painting hostage. And they’re asking a rather high ransom.”

  “How much?”

  “The French don’t want money, Gabriel. The French want you.”

  7

  MA’ALE HAHAMISHA, ISRAEL

  NAVOT LAID A PHOTOGRAPH ON the table, a street in Beirut littered with the ancient debris of an antiquities gallery.

  “I assume you saw this.”

  Gabriel nodded slowly. He had read about Clovis Mansour’s death in the newspapers. Given the events in Paris, the bombing in Beirut had received only minor press coverage. Not a single news outlet attempted to link the two events, nor was there any suggestion in the media that Clovis Mansour was on the payroll of any foreign intelligence service. In point of fact, he received money from at least four: the CIA, MI6, the Jordanian GID, and the Office. Gabriel knew this because, in preparation for taking over as chief, he had been devouring briefing books on all current operations and assets.

  “Clovis was one of our best sources in Beirut,” Navot was saying, “especially when it came to matters involving money. Lately, he’d been keeping an eye on ISIS’s involvement in the illicit antiquities trade, which is why he requested a crash meeting the day after the bomb exploded in Paris.”

  “Who did you send?”

  Navot answered.

  “Since when is Mikhail an agent runner?”

  Navot laid another photograph on the table. It had been taken by an overhead security camera and was of moderate quality. It showed two men sitting at a small round table. One was Clovis Mansour. As usual he was impeccably attired, but the man opposite looked as though he had borrowed clothing for the occasion. In the center of the table, resting on what appeared to be a swath of baize cloth, was a head, life-size, its eyes staring blankly into space. Gabriel recognized it as Roman in origin. He reckoned the poorly dressed man had more of the statue, perhaps the entire piece. The perfectly intact head was merely his calling card.

  “There’s no date or time code.”

  “It was the twenty-second of November, at four fifteen in the afternoon.”

  “Who’s the chap with the Roman head?”

  “His business card identified him as Iyad al-Hamzah.”

  “Lebanese?”

  “Syrian,” answered Navot. “Apparently, he rolled into town with a truckload of antiquities to sell—Greek, Roman, Persian, all high-quality, many bearing the telltale signs of recent excavation. Among the places he attempted to unload his wares was Gallerie Mansour. Clovis expressed interest in several items, but after making a few quiet inquiries he decided to take a pass.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the word on the street was that the gentleman from Syria was using the sale of looted antiquities to raise money for the Islamic State. Evidently, the money wasn’t intended for ISIS’s general fund. The Syrian gentleman was working on behalf of a high-ranking ISIS leader who was building a terror network capable of attacking targets in the West.”

  “Does the ISIS leader have a name?”

  “They call him Saladin.”

  Gabriel looked up from the photograph. “How grandiose.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “I don’t suppose Clovis managed to learn his real name?”

  “No such luck.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “The senior ISIS commanders are all Iraqis. They regard the Syrians as pack mules.”

  Gabriel looked down at the photograph again. “Why didn’t Clovis tell us about this sooner?”

  “It seems to have slipped his mind.”

  “Or maybe he’s lying.”

  “Clovis Mansour? Lying? How could you suggest such a thing?”

  “He’s a Lebanese antiquities dealer.”

  “What’s your theory?” asked Navot.

  “I have a feeling Clovis made a great deal of money selling those antiquities. And when a bomb exploded in the heart of Paris, he thought it might be wise to hedge his bets. So he came to us with a pretty story about how he was too virtuous to deal with the likes of ISIS.”

  “That pretty story,” said Navot, “cost Clovis his life.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they killed Sami Haddad, too. I’ll spare you the photo.”

  “Why just Clovis and Sami? Why not Mikhail, too?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know why. I’m just glad they didn’t kill him. It would have ruined my going-away party.”

  Gabriel returned the photograph. “How much did you tell the French?”

  “Enough to let them know that the plot against the Weinberg Center originated in the caliphate. They weren’t surprised. In fact, they were already well aware of the Syrian connection. Both of the attackers traveled there during the past year. One is a Frenchwoman of Algerian descent. Her male accomplice is a Belgian national from the Molenbeek district of Brussels.”

  “Belgium? How shocking,” said Gabriel derisively.

  Thousands of Muslims from France, Britain, and Germany had traveled to Syria to fight alongside ISIS, but tiny Belgium had earned the dubious distinction of being Western Europe’s largest per capita supplier of manpower to the Islamic caliphate.

  “Where are they now?” asked Gabriel.

  “In a few minutes the French interior minister is going to announce they’re back in Syria.”

  “How did they get there?”

  “Air France to Istanbul on borrowed passports.”

  “But of course.” There was a silence. Finally, Gabriel asked, “What does this have to do with me, Uzi?”

  “The French are concerned that ISIS has managed to construct a sophisticated network on French soil.”

  “Is that so?”

  “The French are also concerned,” said Navot, ignoring the remark, “that this network intends to strike again in short order. Obviously, they would like to roll it up before the next attack. And they’d like you to help them do it.”

  “Why me?”

  “It seems you have an admirer inside the French security service. His name is Paul Rousseau. He runs a small operational unit called Alpha Group. He wants you to fly to Paris tomorrow morning for a meeting.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “That painting will never leave French soil.”

  “I’m supposed to meet with the prime minister tomorrow. He’s going to tell the world that I wasn’t killed in that bombing on the Brompton Road. He’s going to announce that I’m the new chief of the Office.”

  “Yes,” said Navot dryly, “I know.”

  “Maybe you should be the one to work with the French.”

  “I suggested that.”

  “And?”

  “They only want you.” Navot paused, then added, “The story of my life.”

  Gabriel tried and failed to suppress a smile.

  “There is a silver lining to this,” Navot continued. “The prime minister thinks a joint operation with the French will help to repair our relations with a country that was once a valuable and trusted ally.”

  “Diplomacy by special ops?”

  “In so many words.”

  “Well,” said Gabriel, “you and the prime minister seem to have it all worked out.”

  “It was Paul Rousseau’s idea, not ours.”

  “Was it really, Uzi?”

  “What are you suggesting? That I engineered this to hold on to my job a little longer?”

  “Did you?”

  Navot waved his hand as though he were dispersing a foul odor. “Take the operation, Gabriel—for Hannah Weinberg, if for no other reason. Get inside the network. Find out who Saladin really is and where he’s operating. And then put him down before another bomb
explodes.”

  Gabriel gazed northward, toward the distant black mass of mountains separating Israel from what remained of Syria. “You don’t even know whether he really exists, Uzi. He’s only a rumor.”

  “Someone planned that attack and moved the pieces into place under the noses of the French security services. It wasn’t a twenty-nine-year-old woman from the banlieues and her friend from Brussels. And it wasn’t a rumor.”

  Navot’s phone flared like a match in the darkness. He raised it briefly to his ear before offering it to Gabriel.

  “Who is it?”

  “The prime minister.”

  “What does he want?”

  “An answer.”

  Gabriel stared at the phone for a moment. “Tell him I have to have a word with the most powerful person in the State of Israel. Tell him I’ll call first thing in the morning.”

  Navot relayed the message and rang off.

  “What did he say?”

  Navot smiled. “Good luck.”

  8

  NARKISS STREET, JERUSALEM

  THE GRUMBLE OF GABRIEL’S SUV disturbed the resolute quiet of Narkiss Street. He alighted from the backseat, passed through a metal gate, and headed up the garden walk to the entrance of a Jerusalem limestone apartment building. On the third-floor landing, he found the door to his flat slightly ajar. He opened it slowly, silently, and in the half-light saw Chiara seated at one end of the white couch, a child to her breast. The child was wrapped in a blanket. Only when Gabriel crept closer could he see it was Raphael. The boy had inherited his father’s face and the face of a half-brother he would never know. Gabriel toyed with the downy dark hair and then leaned down to kiss Chiara’s warm lips.