On the opposite seat lay a copy of the overnight intelligence digest, courtesy of Uzi Navot. Gabriel opened the cover as the motorcade turned onto Highway 1 and started up the Bab al-Wad, the staircase-like gorge separating the Coastal Plain from Jerusalem. Its pages read like a catalogue of horrors from a world gone mad. The Arab Spring had turned into the Arab Calamity. Radical Islam now controlled a swath of territory that stretched from Afghanistan to Nigeria, an accomplishment that even Bin Laden would have never dreamed possible. It might have been funny were it not so dangerous—and so utterly predictable. The American president had allowed the old order to topple without a viable alternative in place, a reckless act with no precedent in modern statecraft. And for some reason he had chosen this moment in time to throw Israel to the wolves. Uzi was lucky, thought Gabriel, as he closed the digest. Uzi had managed to keep his finger in the dike. Now it would be left to Gabriel to build the ark. For the flood was coming, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.
By the time they reached the fringes of Jerusalem, the stars were melting and the skies above the West Bank were beginning to lighten. Morning traffic moved along the Jaffa Road, but Narkiss Street slept on under the watch of an Office security detail. Eli Lavon had not been exaggerating about its size. There were teams at either end of the street and another outside the little limestone apartment house at Number 16. As Gabriel moved up the garden walk, he realized he had no key in his possession. It was no matter; Chiara had left the door unlocked. He set his bag on the floor in the entrance foyer. Then, after noticing the immaculate condition of the sitting room, he picked it up again and carried it down the hall.
The door to the spare bedroom hung slightly ajar. Gabriel opened it the rest of the way and peered inside. It had once been his studio. Now there were two cribs, one with pink bedding, the other with blue. Giraffes and elephants marched across the carpet. Plump clouds scudded across the walls. Gabriel felt a stab of guilt; in his absence Chiara must have done the work herself. As he ran his hand over the surface of the changing table a memory overtook him. It was the evening of April 18, 1988. Gabriel had returned home from the assassination of Abu Jihad in Tunis to find Dani suffering from a ferocious fever. He held the burning child in his arms that night while images of fire and death played ceaselessly in his thoughts. Three years later the child was dead.
Apparently, it had something to do with a man named Tariq . . .
Gabriel closed the door and entered the master bedroom. His life-size portrait, painted by Leah after Operation Wrath of God, hung upon the wall. Beneath it slept Chiara. He placed his bag on the floor in the closet, removed his shoes and clothing, and eased into bed next to her. She lay motionless, apparently unaware of his presence. Then suddenly she asked, “Do you like it, darling?”
“The nursery?”
“Yes.”
“It’s beautiful, Chiara. I only wish you would have let me paint the clouds.”
“I wanted to,” she answered. “But I was afraid it might be true.”
“What’s that?”
She said nothing more. Gabriel closed his eyes. And for the first time in three days he slept.
When finally he woke it was late afternoon and the shadows were long and thin upon the bed. He swung his feet to the floor and ambled into the kitchen for coffee. Chiara was watching the war on television. An Israeli bomb had just landed on a Palestinian school filled exclusively with women and young children—or so claimed Hamas. It seemed nothing had changed.
“Do we have to watch that?”
Chiara lowered the volume. She was wearing a pair of loose-fitting silk pants, gold sandals, and a maternity blouse that hung elegantly over her swollen breasts and abdomen. Her face was unchanged. If anything, she was more radiantly beautiful than Gabriel remembered. Suddenly, he regretted the month of time he had lost with her.
“There’s coffee in the thermos.”
Gabriel poured a cup and asked Chiara how she was feeling.
“Like I’m about to pop.”
“Are you?”
“The doctor says they can come at any time.”
“Any complications?”
“I’m starting to run a bit low on amniotic fluid, and one child is slightly smaller than the other.”
“Which one?”
“The girl. The boy is fine.” She looked at him for a moment. “You know, darling, we’re going to have to choose a name for him at some point.”
“I know.”
“It would be better if we did it before they were born.”
“I suppose.”
“Moshe is a fine name.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always loved Yaakov.”
“Me, too. He’s a fine officer. But there’s a certain Iranian who’ll be happy never to lay eyes on him again.”
“Reza Nazari?”
Gabriel looked up from his coffee. “How do you know his name?”
“I received regular briefings during your absence.”
“Who briefed you?”
“Who do you think?” Chiara smiled. “They’re coming to dinner, by the way.”
“Can’t we do it another night? I just got home.”
“Why don’t you tell him you’re too tired? I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“It would be easier,” said Gabriel wearily, “to convince Hamas to stop shooting rockets at us.”
At sunset Gabriel showered and dressed. Then he rode in his motorcade to the Mahane Yehuda Market where, trailed by bodyguards, he secured the necessary provisions for that evening’s meal. Chiara had given him a list, which he left crumpled in his coat pocket. Instead, he shopped by instinct, his preferred method, and indulged his every whim and desire: nuts, dried fruits, hummus, baba ghanoush, bread, Israeli salad with feta cheese, prepared rice and meat, and several bottles of wine from the Galilee and Golan. A few heads turned to watch him pass, but otherwise his presence in the crowded souk went undetected.
When Gabriel’s motorcade returned to Narkiss Street, a Peugeot limousine was parked curbside. Upstairs, he found Chiara and Gilah Shamron in the sitting room, surrounded by bags of clothing and other supplies. Shamron had already retired to the terrace to smoke. Gabriel plated the salads and laid them buffet-style on the kitchen counter. Then he placed the rice and the meat in a warm oven and poured two glasses of his favorite Israeli sauvignon blanc, which he carried onto the terrace. It was dark, and a cold wind was beginning to swirl. The smell of Shamron’s Turkish tobacco mingled with the sharp tang of the eucalyptus tree that rose from the building’s front garden. It was, thought Gabriel, an oddly comforting aroma. He handed Shamron a glass of wine and sat next to him.
“Future chiefs of the Office,” said Shamron in a tone of mild rebuke, “don’t go shopping in the Mahane Yehuda Market.”
“They do if their wife is the size of a zeppelin.”
“I’d keep thoughts like that to myself if I were you.” Shamron smiled, inclined his glass in Gabriel’s direction, and said, “Welcome home, my son.”
Gabriel drank of the wine but said nothing. He was staring at the southern sky, waiting for the streak of a rocket, the flash of an Iron Dome missile strike. Welcome home . . .
“I had coffee with the prime minister this morning,” Shamron was saying. “He sends his best. He’d also like to know when you intend to take your oath.”
“Doesn’t he know I’m dead?”
“Nice try.”
“I’m going to need some time with my children, Ari.”
“How much time?”
“Assuming they’re healthy,” said Gabriel thoughtfully, “I would think three months.”
“Three months is a long time to be without a chief.”
“We won’t be without a chief. We have Uzi.”
Shamron deliberately crushed out his cigarette. “Is it still your intention to keep him on?”
“By force if necessary.”
“What shall we call him?”
 
; “Let’s call him Uzi. It’s a very cool name.”
Gabriel looked down at the young bodyguards milling in the quiet street. Never again would he set foot in public without them. And neither would his wife and children. Shamron started to light a cigarette but stopped himself.
“I can’t say the prime minister is going to be pleased about a three-month paternity leave. In fact,” he added, “he was wondering whether you would be willing to undertake a diplomatic mission on his behalf.”
“Where?”
“Washington,” said Shamron. “Our relationship with the Americans could use a bit of restoration. You’ve always got on well with the Americans. Even the president seems to like you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Will you make the trip?”
“Some paintings are beyond repair, Ari. And so are some relationships.”
“You’re going to need the Americans when you become chief.”
“You always told me to keep my distance from them.”
“The world has changed, my son.”
“That’s true,” said Gabriel. “The American president writes love letters to the ayatollah. And us . . .” He gave an indifferent shrug of his shoulders but said nothing more.
“American presidents come and go, but we spies endure.”
“So do Persians,” remarked Gabriel.
“At least Reza Nazari won’t be feeding the Office any more taqiyya. For the record,” Shamron added, “I never thought much of him.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I did.” Shamron finally lit another cigarette. “He’s back in Tehran, by the way. He’d better stay there. Otherwise, the Russians are likely to kill him.” Shamron smiled. “Your operation managed to plant a seed of mistrust between two of our adversaries.”
“May it grow into a very large tree.”
“How long before the next shoe drops?”
“Her article will appear in the Sunday edition.”
“The Russians will deny it, of course.”
“But no one will believe them,” said Gabriel. “And they’ll think twice about ever taking another shot at me.”
“You underestimate them.”
“Never.”
A silence fell between them. Gabriel listened to the wind moving in the eucalyptus tree and the sound of Chiara’s gentle voice drifting from the sitting room. It seemed a lifetime ago that he was in South Armagh. Even Quinn was slipping from his grasp. Quinn who could make a ball of fire travel a thousand feet per second. Quinn who had made the acquaintance in Libya of a Palestinian named Tariq al-Hourani.
“Is this how you imagined it would be?” asked Shamron quietly.
“Coming home?” Gabriel lifted his gaze to the south sky and waited for a flash of fire. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “This is exactly how I imagined it would be.”
83
NARKISS STREET, JERUSALEM
AS WITH MOST NOTEWORTHY OCCASIONS in his life, Gabriel prepared for the birth of his children as though it were an operation. He planned the escape route, prepared a backup plan, and then devised backups for his backups. It was a model of economy and timing, with few moving parts, save for the star of the show. Shamron gave it a thorough review, as did Uzi Navot and the rest of Gabriel’s fabled team. Without exception, all declared it a masterpiece.
It was not as if Gabriel had much else to do. For the first time in years he had no work and no prospect of work. He had managed to put the Office on hold, and there were no paintings to restore. Chiara was his only project now. The dinner with the Shamrons turned out to be her last public appearance. She was too uncomfortable to receive visitors, and even brief phone calls fatigued her. Gabriel hovered over her like a headwaiter, ever eager to fill an empty glass or send an unsatisfactory meal back to the kitchen. He was flawless in his demeanor and unfailingly considerate of her demands, be they physical or emotional. Even Chiara came to resent the perfection of his conduct.
Owing to her age and a complicated reproductive history, Chiara’s pregnancy was considered high-risk. Consequently, her doctor insisted on seeing her every few days for a sonogram. In Gabriel’s absence, she had traveled to Hadassah Medical Center accompanied by her bodyguards and, on occasion, Gilah Shamron. Now Gabriel came with her, with all the attendant madness of his official motorcade. In the examination room he would stand proprietarily over Chiara as the doctor ran the probe across her lubricated belly. Early in the pregnancy, the ultrasound had rendered the two children complete and distinct. Now it was difficult to tell where one child left off and the other began, though occasionally the machine would offer a shockingly clear glimpse of a face or hand that made Gabriel’s heart beat with operational swiftness. The ghostly images looked like X-rays depicting the underdrawing of a painting. The dwindling supply of amniotic fluid appeared as islands of solid black.
“How long does she have?” asked Gabriel, with the gravity of a man who conducted most of his conversations in safe flats and over secure phones.
“Three days,” said the doctor. “Four at most.”
“Any chance they could come before that?”
“There’s a chance,” replied the doctor, “that she could go into labor on the way home today. But that’s not likely to happen. She’ll run out of fluid long before she goes into labor.”
“What then?”
“A caesarean delivery is safest.”
The doctor seemed to sense his unease. “Your wife will be fine,” he said. Then, with a smile, he added, “I’m glad you’re not dead. We need you. And so do your children.”
The visits to the hospital were their only break from the long monotonous hours of bed rest and waiting. Restless with inactivity, Gabriel longed for a project. Chiara allowed him to pack her suitcase for the hospital, which consumed all of five minutes. Afterward, he went in search of something else to do. His quest led him into the nursery, where he stood for a long time before Chiara’s clouds, a hand pressed to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side.
“Would you mind terribly,” he asked Chiara, “if I retouch them a bit?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“They’re beautiful,” he said too hastily.
“But?”
“They’re a bit childlike.”
“They’re for children.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Grudgingly, she approved the commission, provided he use only child-safe paints and that the work be done within twenty-four hours. Gabriel hurried off to a nearby paint store with his bodyguards in tow and returned in short order with the necessary supplies. With a few strokes of a roller—an instrument he had never used before—he obliterated Chiara’s work beneath a fresh layer of pale blue paint. It remained too wet to work more that evening, so he rose early the next morning and swiftly decorated the wall in a bank of glowing Titianesque clouds. Lastly, he added a small child angel, a boy, who was peering downward over the edge of the highest cloud on the scene below. The figure was borrowed from Veronese’s Virgin and Child in Glory with Saints. With tears in his eyes and a trembling hand, Gabriel gave the angel the face of his son as it appeared on the night of his death. Then he signed his name and the date, and it was done.
Later that day the London Sunday Telegraph published an exclusive exposé linking Russia and its foreign intelligence service to the murder of the princess, the bombing on Brompton Road, the killing of four MI6 security personnel in West Cornwall, and the bloodbath in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland. The operation, said the paper, was in reprisal for the revocation of lucrative Russian drilling rights in the North Sea and the defection of Madeline Hart, the Russian sleeper agent who had briefly shared Prime Minister Lancaster’s bed. Russia’s president had ordered it; Alexei Rozanov, the SVR officer recently found dead in Germany, had overseen its implementation. His primary operative had been Eamon Quinn, the Omagh bomber turned international mercenary. Quinn was now missing and was the target of a globa
l manhunt.
The reaction to the report was swift and explosive. Prime Minister Lancaster denounced the Kremlin’s actions as “barbaric,” a sentiment echoed across the Atlantic in Washington, where politicians from both sides of the political divide called for Russia’s expulsion from the G8 and the other economic clubs of the West. In Moscow a Kremlin spokesman dismissed the Telegraph’s story as a piece of anti-Russian propaganda, and he called on the reporter, Samantha Cooke, to reveal the identities of her sources—something she steadfastly refused to do during a round of television interviews. Those in the know suggested the Israelis had surely been of assistance. After all, they pointed out, the Russian operation had claimed the life of a legend. If anyone wanted Russian blood, it was the Israelis.
No one in Israeli officialdom agreed to speak about the Telegraph’s piece—not in the prime minister’s office, not at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and surely not at King Saul Boulevard, where outside lines rang unanswered. A small piece on a gossipy Israeli Web site did provoke a comment, however. It stated that the same legendary Israeli operative who had died in the Brompton Road bombing had been spotted recently in the Mahane Yehuda Market looking none the worse for wear. An unidentified aide in an unnamed ministry dismissed the report as “hogwash.”
But his neighbors in Narkiss Street, were they not protective of him to a fault, would have told a different story. So, too, would the staff at Hadassah Medical Center, and the pair of rabbis who spotted him late that same afternoon placing a stone atop a grave on the Mount of Olives. They did not attempt to speak to him, for they could see he was grieving. He left the cemetery in twilight and traveled across Jerusalem to Mount Herzl. There was a woman there who needed to know he was still among the living, even if she would not remember him when he was gone.