“Hello, Ari.”
“What do you think you’re playing at?”
“How did you get here so quickly?”
“I left Ben-Gurion this morning after learning about your exploits in Denmark. It was my intention to ease your way through Heathrow and bring you home again. But when I placed a call to the station to let them know I had arrived, I was told you had just left Downing Street.”
“I tried to steal some matches for you, but I was never alone.”
“You should have consulted with us before agreeing to this!”
“There wasn’t time.”
“There was abundant time! You see, Gabriel, it would have been a very short consultation. You would have asked for clearance to undertake this mission and I would have told you no. End of consultation.” He crushed out his cigarette and looked at Gabriel malevolently for a long moment without speaking. “But to back out of this arrangement now is not an option. Can you imagine the headlines? Vaunted Israeli intelligence service, afraid to rescue the American girl. You’ve left us no choice but to proceed. But that’s exactly what you intended, isn’t it? You are a manipulative little bastard.”
“I learned from the master.”
Shamron stuck another cigarette between his lips, cocked the lid of his old Zippo lighter, and fired. “I held my tongue when you decided to return to Amsterdam to kidnap and interrogate this man Ibrahim Fawaz. I held my tongue again when you went to Copenhagen and tried to negotiate with his son. If I had obeyed my first instinct, which was to bring you home, it wouldn’t have come to this. You had no right to agree to this assignment without first obtaining the permission of your director and your prime minister. If it were anyone but you, I would bring you up on charges and throw you into the Judean Wilderness to atone for your sins.”
“You can do that when I get home.”
“You’re liable to come home in a box. You don’t need to commit suicide in order to get out of being the next chief, Gabriel. If you don’t want the job, just say so.”
“I don’t want the job.”
“I know you don’t really mean that.”
“God, but you’re sounding more and more like a Jewish mother every day.”
“And you are providing me ample proof that you are not up to the job. By way of deception, thou shalt do war—this is our creed. We are not shaheeds, Gabriel. We leave the suicide missions to Hamas and all the other Islamic psychopaths who wish to destroy us. We move like shadows, strike like lightning, and then we vanish into thin air. We do not volunteer to serve as delivery boys for rich Americans, and we certainly don’t sacrifice ourselves for no good reason. You are one of the elite. You are a prince of a very small tribe.”
“And what do we do about Elizabeth Halton? Let her die?”
“If it is the only way to end this madness, then the answer is yes.”
“And if it were your daughter, Ari? If it were Ronit?”
“Then I would shake hands with the Devil himself in order to get her back again. But I wouldn’t ask the Americans to do it for me. Blue and white, Gabriel. Blue and white. We do things for ourselves, and we do not help others with problems of their own making. The Americans threw in their lot with the secular dictatorships of the Middle East a long time ago, and now the oppressed are rising up and taking their revenge on symbols of American power. On September eleventh it was the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Now it is the innocent daughter of the American ambassador to London.”
“And next it will be us.”
“And we will fight them—alone.” Shamron managed a faint smile of reminiscence. “I remember a boy who came home from Europe in 1975, a boy who looked twenty years older than he really was. A boy who wanted nothing more do to with this life in the shadows, nothing more to do with fighting and killing. What happened to this boy?”
“He became a man, Ari. And he is sick to death of this shit. And he will not let this woman be murdered because the Americans refuse to release a dying sheikh from prison.”
“And is this man prepared to die on behalf of this cause?” He looked at Chiara. “Is he prepared to give up his life with this beautiful woman in order to save one he does not know?”
“Trust me, Ari, I’m not a martyr, and the only people who are going to die are the terrorists. When we lost Ibrahim, we lost our only way into the conspiracy. Now, by demanding that I deliver the money, they’ve opened the door to us again. And we’re all going to walk through it, together.”
“You’re telling me that I should think of you as nothing more than an agent of penetration?”
Gabriel nodded. “Taking possession of money will be a major operational undertaking for them. It will expose their operatives and their means of communication. And if they do seize me, it will expose some of their hideouts and safe properties, which will give us additional names and telephone numbers. The British and the Americans have agreed to stay away and leave it to us. We’re going to fight them, Ari, right here on British soil, just the way we’ve always fought them. We’re going to kill them, and we’re going to bring that girl home to her father alive.” Gabriel paused, then added: “And then maybe they will stop blaming us for all their problems.”
“I don’t care what they say about us. You are like a son to me, Gabriel, and I cannot afford to lose you. Not now.”
“You won’t.”
Shamron appeared suddenly fatigued by the confrontation. Gabriel used his silence as an opportunity to close the door on the debate and press forward.
“Where’s the rest of my team?”
“They returned to Amsterdam after the debacle in Denmark,” Shamron said. “They can all be here by morning.”
“I’m going to need Mikhail and his gun.”
Shamron smiled. “Gabriel and Michael: the angel of death and the angel of destruction. If you two can’t bring the woman out alive, then I don’t suppose anyone can.”
“So you’ll give me your blessing?”
“Only my prayers,” he said. “Get some sleep, my son. You’re going to need it. We’ll assemble here at nine in the morning and start planning. Let us hope we are not planning a funeral.”
The apartment on the Bayswater Road was precisely as he had left it the morning of the attack. His half-drunk cup of coffee stood on the desk by the window, next to the London A–Z atlas, which was still open to map number 82. In the bedroom his clothes lay scattered about, evidence of the haste with which he had dressed in the moments before disaster had struck. Samir al-Masri’s notebook, with his mountaintops and sand dunes and spider web of intersecting lines, lay on the unmade bed next to the woman with riotous auburn hair. A Beretta pistol protruded from the front of her faded blue jeans. Gabriel removed the weapon and placed his hand softly against her abdomen.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“An insatiable desire to touch something beautiful.”
“You know what I’m asking you, Gabriel. Why did you agree to the demands of the kidnappers?”
Gabriel, silent, deftly unsnapped Chiara’s jeans. Chiara pushed his hand away, then reached up to his face. He recoiled from her touch. His skin was throbbing again.
“It’s because of Dani, isn’t it? You know what it’s like to lose a child to the terrorists. You know how it makes you hate, how it can destroy your life.” She ran her fingers through the ash-colored hair at his temples. “Everyone always thought it was Leah who made you burn. They seemed to forget that you lost a son. It’s Dani who drives you. And it’s Dani who’s telling you to take this insane assignment.”
“There’s nothing insane about it.”
“Am I the only person to at least consider the possibility that these terrorists have no intention of releasing Elizabeth Halton—that they will take Ambassador Halton’s money and then kill her?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “That is exactly what they’re going to do.”
“Then why are we engaging in this folly of a ransom payment?”
&nb
sp; “Because it is the only way to save her. They’re not going to kill her in some cellar where no one can see it. They kidnapped her in a terrorist spectacular and they’ll kill her in one.” He paused, then added: “And me with her.”
“We are not shaheeds,” she said, parroting the words of Shamron. “We leave the suicide missions to Hamas and all the other Islamic psychopaths who wish to destroy us.”
Gabriel tugged at the zipper of her jeans. Once again she pushed his hand away.
“Did you enjoy working with Sarah again?”
“She performed better than I expected.”
“You trained her, Gabriel. Of course she performed well.”
Chiara lapsed into silence.
“Is there something you want to know?” Gabriel asked.
“Whose idea was it for her to work with you on this operation?”
“It was Carter’s. And it wasn’t an idea. It was a demand. They wanted an American component to our team.”
“He could have picked someone else.” She paused. “Someone who didn’t happen to be in love with you.”
“What are you talking about, Chiara?”
“She’s in love you, Gabriel. Everyone could see it during the al-Bakari operation—everyone but you, that is. You’re rather thick when it comes to matters of the heart.” She looked at him in the darkness. “Or maybe you’re not so thick after all. Maybe you’re secretly in love with her, too. Maybe you want Sarah watching your back tomorrow instead of me.”
His third attempt to remove her jeans met no resistance. The cashmere sweater was a joint operation. Chiara dealt with the brassiere alone and guided his hands to her breasts.
“Fraternization between employees in Office safe houses is strictly forbidden,” she said through his kisses.
“Yes, I know.”
“You’re going to be a terrible chief.”
He was about to take issue with her statement when the blue light on the telephone flashed. When Gabriel reached for it, Chiara seized his hand.
“What if it’s the Memuneh?” he asked.
She rolled on top of him. “Now I’m the Memuneh.”
She pressed her mouth against his. The blue light flashed unanswered.
“Marry me,” she said.
“I’ll marry you.”
“Now, Gabriel. Marry me now.”
“I do,” he said.
“Don’t die on me tomorrow night.”
“I won’t die.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise you.”
49
BAYSWATER, LONDON: 7:15 A.M., SATURDAY
Gabriel woke suddenly and with the sensation of having slept an eternity. He glanced at the alarm clock, then looked at Chiara. She lay tangled in the blankets next to him like a Greek statue toppled from its plinth. He slipped out of bed quietly and listened to the news on the radio while he made coffee. According to the BBC there had been no response to Ambassador Halton’s offer of ransom, and the fate of his missing daughter was still unknown. Londoners had been warned to expect heavy security along the city’s main shopping streets and in the Underground and rail stations. Gabriel took comfort in the weather forecast: light rain with intervals of brightness.
He drank his first cup of coffee, then spent an inordinate amount of time standing beneath the shower. The cuts on his face made shaving impossible. Besides, there was something he liked about the look of several days’ growth on his cheeks. Chiara stirred as he entered the bedroom. She drew him into the bed and made drowsy love to him one last time.
They left the apartment together at ten minutes to nine and climbed aboard Chiara’s BMW bike. The forecasted rain had not yet started, nor was there evidence of the expected rush of Christmas Eve shoppers. They sped down Bayswater Road to Notting Hill, then followed Kensington Church Street to Old Court Place. A small knot of protesters was gathered in the street outside the embassy; they waved Israeli flags emblazoned with swastikas and shouted something about Jews and Nazis as Gabriel and Chiara slipped through the open gate and disappeared inside.
The rest of the team had already arrived and was gathered in the largest of the embassy’s meeting rooms, looking like a band of refugees from a natural disaster. All of Gabriel’s original team was there, along with the entire staff of the London Station and several other European stations as well. Uzi Navot had made the trip overnight from King Saul Boulevard and had brought with him another half-dozen field operatives. It occurred to Gabriel that this would be the largest and most important Office operation ever conducted on European soil—and yet they had no idea how it would unfold.
He sat down at the conference table next to Shamron, who was dressed in khaki trousers and his leather bomber jacket. They looked at one another in silence for a long moment; then Shamron rose slowly to his feet and called the room to order.
“At ten o’clock this evening, Gabriel is going to walk into Hell,” he said. “It is our job to make sure he comes out the other end alive. I want ideas. No idea, no matter how meshuganah, is beyond consideration.”
Shamron sat down again and opened the floor to debate. Everyone in the room started talking at once. Gabriel threw his head back and laughed out loud. It was good to be home again.
They worked through the morning, broke for a working lunch, then worked throughout the afternoon. At 5:30, Gabriel drew Chiara into an empty office and kissed her one final time. Then, wishing to avoid an awkward scene with Shamron, he slipped out of the embassy alone and headed through the streets of Kensington toward Mayfair. As he crossed Hyde Park, he paused briefly at the place where on the morning of the attack he had come upon the body of Chris Petty, the American Diplomatic Security agent. A few yards beyond lay a pile of wilted memorial flowers and a crude cardboard placard of tribute to the fallen Americans. Then, on the spot where Samir al-Masri had died in Gabriel’s grasp, there was a second memorial to the “Hyde Park Martyrs,” as the terrorists had become known to their supporters in London. Here was the coming clash of civilizations, thought Gabriel, played out on a few square yards of a London park.
He crossed the open lawns at the eastern edge of the park and entered Upper Brook Street. Adrian Carter was standing next to the Marine guard at the North Gate, puffing nervously on his pipe. He greeted Gabriel as though mildly surprised to see him, then took him by the arm and led him inside.
The duffel bags of money were waiting in Ambassador Halton’s top-floor office, surrounded by a detachment of DS agents. Gabriel inspected them, then looked at Carter.
“No beacons, right, Adrian?”
“No beacons, Gabriel.”
“What kind of car did you get me?”
“A Vauxhall Vectra, dark gray and unassuming.”
“Where is it now?”
“Upper Brook Street.”
“The bags fit in the truck?”
“We checked it out. They fit.”
“Put the money inside now.”
Carter frowned. “I don’t know about you, Gabriel, but I never leave my wallet in the car, let alone thirty million in cash.”
“At this moment the embassy is surrounded by a hundred Metropolitan Police officers,” Gabriel said. “No one is going to break into the car.”
Carter nodded at the DS agents, and a moment later the bags were gone.
“You, too, Adrian. I’d like to have a word with the ambassador alone.”
Carter opened his mouth as though he were about to object, then thought better of it. “I’ll be down in the ops center,” he said. “Don’t be late, Gabriel. The show can’t start without you.”
Precisely what was said between Gabriel Allon and Ambassador Robert Halton never became known and was not included in any record of the affair, overt or secret. Their conversation was brief, no more than a minute in duration, and the DS agent standing guard outside the ambassador’s office later described Gabriel as looking damp-eyed but determined as he emerged and made his way toward the ops center. This time the kidnappers did
not make him wait. The call, according to the clock above John O’Donnell’s workstation, came at 20:00:14. Gabriel reached for it instantly, though he remembered thinking as he did so that he would be happy never to speak into a telephone again for as long as he lived. His greeting was calm and somewhat vague; his demeanor, as he listened to the instructions, was that of a traffic officer recording the details of a minor accident. He posed no questions, and his face registered no emotion other than profound irritation. At 20:00:57, he was heard to murmur: “I’ll be there.” Then he stood and pulled on his coat. This time Carter made no attempt to stop him as he started toward the stairs.
He paused for a moment in the ground-floor atrium to slip on his miniature earpiece and throat microphone, then nodded silently to the Marine guard as he exited the embassy grounds through the North Gate. Carter’s Vauxhall sedan was parked in a flagrantly illegal space on the corner of North Audley Street. The keys resided in Gabriel’s coat pocket, along with a GPS beacon the size of a five-pence coin. He opened the trunk and quickly inspected the cargo before adhering the beacon near the driver’s-side taillight. Then he climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. A moment later he was turning into Oxford Street and marveling at the crush of last minute shoppers. Carter’s watchers followed him as far as Albany Street, where they photographed him making a left turn and heading north. That would be their last contact with him. As far as the Americans and British were concerned, Gabriel had now disappeared from radar.
That was not the case, however, at the Israeli embassy in South Kensington, where, in one of the more bizarre coincidences of the entire affair, a group of well-meaning Christians had chosen that night to conduct a candlelight vigil calling for peace in the Holy Land. Inside the building, Ari Shamron and Uzi Navot were holding a vigil of their own. Their thoughts were not of peace or the holidays or even of home. They were huddled round a smoky table in the makeshift operations room, moving their forces into place, and watching a winking green light heading along the eastern fringe of Regent’s Park toward Hampstead.