The Black Widow

  “Mazel tov,” said the doctor.

  “Condolences are more appropriate,” answered Gabriel.

  “These are challenging times, but I’m sure you can handle it. And remember, if you ever need someone to talk to”—he patted Gabriel’s shoulder—“I’m always available.”

  Gabriel’s face vanished from the screen. He looked at Leah. She had not moved or even blinked. Woman in a Wheelchair, oil on canvas, by Tariq al-Hourani.

  “Do you have any advice for me?”

  “Be honest with her. She doesn’t like it when you try to mislead her.”

  “What if it’s too painful?”

  “It will be. But she won’t remember it for long.”

  With a nudge, the doctor cast Gabriel adrift. Slowly, he crossed the common room and sat down in the chair that had been placed at Leah’s side. Her hair, once long and wild like Chiara’s, was now institutionally short. Her hands were twisted and white with scar tissue. They were like patches of bare canvas. Gabriel longed to repair them, but could not. Leah was beyond restoration. He kissed her cheek softly and waited for her to become aware of his presence.

  “Look at the snow, Gabriel,” she said at once. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Gabriel looked out the window, where a bright sun shone upon the stone pine of the hospital’s garden.

  “Yes, Leah,” he said absently as his vision blurred with tears. “It’s beautiful.”

  “The snow absolves Vienna of its sins. The snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain down on Tel Aviv.”

  Gabriel squeezed Leah’s hand. The words were among the last she had spoken the night of the bombing in Vienna. She suffered from a particularly acute combination of psychotic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. At times, she experienced moments of lucidity, but for the most part she remained a prisoner of the past. Vienna played ceaselessly in her mind like a loop of videotape that she was unable to pause: the last meal they shared together, their last kiss, the fire that killed their only child and burned the flesh from Leah’s body. Her life had shrunk to five minutes, and she had been reliving it, over and over again, for more than twenty years.

  “I saw you on television,” she said, suddenly lucid. “It seems you’re not dead after all.”

  “No, Leah. It was just something we had to say.”

  “For your work?”

  He nodded.

  “And now they say you’re going to become the chief.”

  “Soon.”

  “I thought Ari was the chief.”

  “Not for many years.”

  “How many?”

  He didn’t answer. It was too depressing to think about.

  “He’s well?” asked Leah.

  “Ari?”

  “Yes.”

  “He has good days and bad days.”

  “Like me,” said Leah.

  Her expression darkened. The memories were welling. Somehow, she fought them off.

  “I can’t quite believe you’re actually going to be the memuneh.”

  It was an old word that meant “the one in charge.” There hadn’t been a true memuneh since Shamron.

  “Neither can I,” admitted Gabriel.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be the memuneh? After all, you’re only—”

  “I’m older now, Leah. We both are.”

  “You look exactly as I remember you.”

  “Look closely, Leah. You can see the lines and the gray hair.”

  “Thanks to Ari, you always had gray hair. Me, too.” She gazed out the window. “It looks like winter.”

  “It is.”

  “What year is it?”

  He told her.

  “How old are your children?”

  “Tomorrow is their first birthday.”

  “Will there be a party?”

  “At the Shamrons’ house in Tiberias. But they’re here now, if you feel up to seeing them.”

  Her face brightened. “What are their names?”

  He had told her several times. Now he told her again.

  “But Irene is your mother’s name,” she protested.

  “My mother died a long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Gabriel. Sometimes I—”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Bring them to me,” she said, smiling. “I want to see them.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Gabriel rose and went into the foyer.

  “Well?” asked Chiara and the doctor simultaneously.

  “She says she wants to see them.”

  “How should we do it?” asked Chiara.

  “One at a time,” suggested the doctor. “Otherwise, it might be overwhelming.”

  “I agree,” said Gabriel.

  He took Raphael from Chiara’s grasp and returned to the common room. Leah was gazing sightlessly out the window again, lost in memory. Gently, Gabriel placed his son in her lap. Her eyes focused, her mind came briefly back to the present.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “It’s him, Leah. It’s my son.”

  She gazed at the child spellbound, clutching him tightly with her ruined hands.

  “He looks exactly like—”

  “Me,” interjected Gabriel hastily. “Everyone says he looks like his father.”

  Leah trailed a twisted finger through the child’s hair and placed her lips to his forehead.

  “Look at the snow,” she whispered. “Isn’t it beautiful.”

  79

  JERUSALEM—TIBERIAS

  AT TEN THE FOLLOWING MORNING, the Israel Museum announced it had acquired a previously unknown work by Vincent van Gogh—Marguerite Gachet at Her Dressing Table, oil on canvas, 104 by 60 centimeters—from the estate of Hannah Weinberg. Later, the museum would be forced to acknowledge that, in point of fact, it had received the painting from an anonymous donor, who in turn had inherited it from Mademoiselle Weinberg after her tragic murder in Paris. In time, the museum would face enormous pressure to reveal the donor’s identity. It steadfastly refused, as did the government of France, which had permitted the transfer of the painting to Israel from French soil, much to the dismay of the editorialists and the cultural elite. It was, they said, yet another blow to French pride, this one entirely self-inflicted.

  On that Sunday in December, however, the painting was soon an afterthought. For at the stroke of noon, the prime minister announced that Gabriel Allon was very much alive and would be the next chief of the Office. There was little surprise; the press had been buzzing with rumors and speculation for days. Still, it was a shock to the country to see the angel in the flesh, looking for all the world like a mere mortal. His clothing for the occasion had been carefully chosen—a white oxford cloth shirt, a black leather jacket, slim-fitting khaki trousers, a pair of suede brogues with rubber soles that made no sound when he walked. Pointedly, the prime minister referred to him not as the ramsad but the memuneh, the one in charge.

  The flash of the cameras was like the glow of his halogen work lamps. He stood motionless, his hands clasped behind his back like a soldier at ease, while the prime minister delivered a highly sanitized version of his professional accomplishments. He then invited Gabriel to speak. His term, he promised, would be forward-looking but rooted in the great traditions of the past. The message was unmistakable. An assassin had been placed in charge of Israel’s intelligence service. Those who tried to harm the country or its citizenry would face serious, perhaps lethal, consequences.

  When the reporters attempted to question him, he smiled and then followed the prime minister into the Cabinet room, where he spoke at length of his plans and priorities and the many challenges, some immediate, some looming, confronting the Jewish state. ISIS, he said, was a threat that could no longer be ignored. He also made it clear that the previous ramsad would be remaining at the Office.

  “In what capacity?” asked the foreign minister incredulously.

  “In whatever capacity I see f
it.”

  “It’s unprecedented.”

  “Get used to it.”

  The chief of the Office does not swear an oath; he merely signs his contract. When the paperwork was complete, Gabriel traveled to King Saul Boulevard, where he addressed his troops and met briefly with the outgoing senior staff. Afterward, he and Navot rode in the same armored SUV to Shamron’s villa in Tiberias. The steep drive was so jammed with cars they had to abandon the vehicle far from the entrance. When they stepped onto the terrace overlooking the lake, there arose a great cheer that might very well have carried across the Golan Heights into Syria. It seemed that everyone from Gabriel’s tangled past had made the trip: Adrian Carter, Fareed Barakat, Paul Rousseau, even Graham Seymour, who had come from London. So, too, had Julian Isherwood, the art dealer who had provided Gabriel’s cover as a restorer, and Samantha Cooke, the reporter from the Telegraph who had quite intentionally blown the story regarding his death.

  “You owe me,” she said, kissing his cheek.

  “The check is in the mail.”

  “When should I expect it?”

  “Soon.”

  There were many others, of course. Timothy Peel, the Cornish boy who had lived next door to Gabriel when he was hiding out on the Helford Passage, made the trip at Office expense. So did Sarah Bancroft, the American art historian and curator whom Gabriel had used to penetrate the courts of Zizi and Ivan. She shook Mikhail’s hand coolly and glared at Natalie, but otherwise the evening proceeded without incident.

  Maurice Durand, the world’s most successful art thief, popped in from Paris and somehow managed to avoid bumping into Paul Rousseau, who surely would have remembered him from the brasserie on the rue de Miromesnil. Monsignor Luigi Donati, private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII, was in attendance, as was Christoph Bittel, Gabriel’s new ally inside the Swiss security service. Half the Knesset came, along with several senior IDF officers and the chiefs of all the other Israeli intelligence agencies. And watching over it all, smiling contentedly as though the entire production had been arranged for his private amusement, was Shamron. He was happier than Gabriel had ever seen him. His life’s work was finally complete. Gabriel was remarried, a father, and the chief of the Office. The restorer was restored.

  But the evening was more than a celebration of Gabriel’s promotion, it was also the children’s first birthday party. Chiara presided over the lighting of the candles while Gabriel, playing the role of proud father, recorded the event on his secure mobile phone. When the entire gathering erupted into a rousing version of “Happy Birthday,” Irene wept hysterically. Then Shamron whispered a bit of Polish-accented nonsense into her ear, and she giggled with delight.

  By ten o’clock the first cars were moving slowly down the drive, and by midnight the party was over. Afterward, Shamron and Gabriel sat in their usual spot at the edge of the terrace, a gas heater burning between them, while the caterers cleared away the debris of the celebration. Shamron refrained from smoking because Raphael was sleeping soundly in Gabriel’s arms.

  “You made quite an impression today at the announcement,” Shamron said. “I liked your clothing. And your title.”

  “I wanted to send a signal.”

  “What signal is that?”

  “That I intend to be an operational chief.” Gabriel paused, then added, “That I can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

  With a glance toward the Golan Heights, Shamron said, “I’m not sure you have much of a choice.”

  The child stirred in Gabriel’s arms and then settled into sleep once more. Shamron twirled his old Zippo lighter in his fingertips. Two turns to the right, two turns to the left . . .

  “Is this how you expected it would end?” he asked after a moment.

  “How what would end?”

  “You and me.” Shamron looked at Gabriel and added, “Us.”

  “What are you talking about, Ari?”

  “I’m old, my son. I’ve been clinging to life for this night. Now that it’s over, I can go.” He smiled sadly. “It’s late, Gabriel. I’m very tired.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, Ari. I need you.”

  “No, you don’t,” replied Shamron. “You are me.”

  “Funny how it worked out that way.”

  “You seem to think it was serendipitous. But it wasn’t. It was all part of a plan.”

  “Whose plan?”

  “Maybe it was mine, maybe it was God’s.” Shamron shrugged. “What difference does it make? We are on the same side when it comes to you, God and me. We are accomplices.”

  “Who has the final say?”

  “Who do you think?” Shamron laid his large hand across Raphael. “Do you remember the day I came for you in Cornwall?”

  “Like it was yesterday.”

  “You drove like a madman through the hedgerows of the Lizard. We had omelets in that little café atop the cliffs. You treated me,” Shamron added with a note of bitterness, “like a debt collector.”

  “I remember,” said Gabriel distantly.

  “How do you suppose your life would have turned out if I hadn’t come that day?”

  “Just fine.”

  “I doubt it. You’d still be restoring paintings for Julian and sailing that old ketch down the Helford to the sea. You would never have come back to Israel or met Chiara. And you wouldn’t be holding that beautiful child in your arms right now.”

  Gabriel did not take issue with Shamron’s characterization. He had been a lost soul that day, a broken and bitter man.

  “It wasn’t all bad, was it?” asked Shamron.

  “I could have lived my entire life without seeing the inside of Lubyanka.”

  “What about that dog in the Swiss Alps that tried to tear your arm off?”

  “I got him in the end.”

  “And that motorcycle you crashed in Rome? Or the antiquities gallery that blew up in your face in St. Moritz?”

  “Good times,” said Gabriel darkly. “But I lost a lot of friends along the way.”

  “Like Hannah Weinberg.”

  “Yes,” said Gabriel. “Like Hannah.”

  “Perhaps a bit of old-fashioned vengeance is in order.”

  “The deal is done.”

  “Who’s going to handle it?”

  “I’d like to see to it personally, but it’s probably not a wise move at the moment.”

  Shamron smiled. “You’re going to be a great chief, my son.”

  80

  BETHNAL GREEN, LONDON

  IN EVERY OPERATION THERE ARE loose threads, small problems that for one reason or another slip through the cracks. Jalal Nasser, talent spotter, recruiter, long arm of Saladin, fell into that category. An arrest was out of the question; a trial would expose not only Gabriel’s operation but the incompetence of the British and French security services as well. Nor was deportation an option. Were he to return to Jordan, he would have gone straight to the cellars of the Fingernail Factory—and then, in all likelihood, to an unmarked grave in a potter’s field. Such an outcome might have been acceptable during the earliest days of the global war on terror, but now that cooler, more civilized heads had prevailed, it was unthinkable. There would be international outrage, perhaps a lawsuit or even criminal prosecution of the spymasters involved. “Collateral damage,” intoned Fareed Barakat gravely. “And you know how His Majesty feels about collateral damage.”

  There was a simple solution, a Shamronian solution. All that was required was the connivance of the native service, which, for the above stated reasons, was not difficult to obtain. In fact, the agreement was reached during a private interlude in Shamron’s kitchen, on the night of the party. Much later, it would be regarded as Gabriel’s first official decision as chief.

  The other party to the agreement was Graham Seymour of MI6. The operation could not go forward, however, without the cooperation of Amanda Wallace, Seymour’s counterpart at MI5. He secured it over martinis in Amanda’s Thames House office. It wasn’t a difficult
sale; MI5’s watchers had long ago grown weary of chasing Jalal through the streets of London. For Amanda, it was little more than a manpower decision. By moving Jalal off her plate, she would have additional resources to deploy against her primary target, the Russians.

  “But no messes,” she cautioned.

  “No,” agreed Seymour, shaking his gray head vigorously. “No messes, indeed.”

  Within forty-eight hours, Amanda terminated all surveillance of the subject in question, which later, during the inevitable inquiry, she would describe as mere coincidence. Graham Seymour then rang Gabriel at King Saul Boulevard and informed him that the field was his. Secretly, he wished it were so, but that wouldn’t have been appropriate, not for a chief. That night he drove Mikhail to Ben Gurion Airport and placed him aboard a flight for London. Inside Mikhail’s false Russian passport, Gabriel had concealed a note. It was three words in length, the three words of Shamron’s eleventh commandment.

  Don’t get caught . . .

  Jalal Nasser spent his final day in London in much the same way he had spent the previous hundred, seemingly unaware of the fact he was blown to kingdom come. He shopped in Oxford Street, he loitered in Leicester Square, he prayed in the East London Mosque. Afterward, he had tea with a promising recruit. Gabriel forwarded the recruit’s name to Amanda Wallace. It was, he thought, the least he could do.

  By then, Jalal’s flat in Chilton Street had been emptied of its hidden cameras and microphones, leaving the team across the street with no option but to observe their quarry the old-fashioned way, with binoculars and a camera fitted with a telephoto lens. From afar, he seemed like a man without a care in the world. Perhaps it was a bit of performance art. But the more likely explanation was that Saladin had failed to inform his operative that the British, the Americans, the Israelis, and the Jordanians knew of his connection to the network and to the attacks in Paris, Amsterdam, and Washington. At King Saul Boulevard—and at Langley, Vauxhall Cross, and an elegant old building on the rue de Grenelle—this was seen as an encouraging sign. It meant that Jalal had no secrets to divulge, that the network, at least for the moment, was dormant. For Jalal, however, it meant that he was expendable, which is the worst thing a terrorist can be when his master is a man like Saladin.