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Next came a man of late middle age named Eli Lavon. Small and disheveled, with wispy gray hair and intelligent brown eyes, Lavon was regarded as the finest street surveillance artist the Office had ever produced. Blessed with a natural anonymity, he appeared to be one of life’s downtrodden. In reality, he was a predator who could follow a highly trained intelligence officer or a hardened terrorist along any street in the world without arousing a flicker of interest. Lavon’s ties to the Office, like Gabriel’s, were now tenuous at best. He still lectured at the Academy—no Office recruit was ever sent into the field without first spending a few hours at Lavon’s feet—but these days, his primary work address was Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, where he taught archaeology. With but a handful of broken pottery, Eli Lavon could unlock the darkest secrets of a Bronze Age village. And given a few strands of relevant intelligence, he could do the same for a terror network.
Yaakov Rossman, a pockmarked veteran agent-runner, appeared next, followed by a pair of all-purpose field hands named Oded and Mordecai. Then came Rimona Stern, a former military intelligence officer who now dealt with issues related to Iran’s disabled nuclear program. A Rubenesque woman with sandstone-colored hair, Rimona also happened to be Shamron’s niece. Gabriel had known her since she was a child—indeed, his fondest memories of Rimona were of a fearless young girl on a kick scooter careening down the steep drive of her famous uncle’s house. On her generous left hip was the faded scar of a wound suffered during a particularly violent spill. Gabriel had applied the field dressing; Gilah had dried Rimona’s tears. Shamron had been far too distraught to offer any assistance. The only member of his family to survive the Holocaust, he could not bear to witness the suffering of loved ones.
A few minutes behind Rimona was Yossi Gavish. A tall, balding figure dressed in corduroy and tweed, Yossi was a top officer in Research, which is how the Office referred to its analytical division. Born in London, he had read classics at All Souls and spoke Hebrew with a pronounced English accent. He had also done a bit of acting—his portrayal of Iago was still recalled with great fondness by the critics in Stratford—and was a gifted cellist as well. Gabriel had yet to exploit Yossi’s musical talents, but his skills as an actor had on more than one occasion proven useful in the field. There was a beachside café in St. Barts where the waitresses thought him a dream and a hotel in Geneva where the concierge had taken a private vow to shoot him on sight.
As usual, Mikhail Abramov arrived last. Lanky and fair, with a fine-boned face and eyes the color of glacial ice, he had immigrated to Israel from Russia as a teenager and joined the Sayeret Matkal, the IDF’s elite special operations unit. Once described as “Gabriel without a conscience,” he had personally assassinated several of the top terror masterminds from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Burdened with two heavy cases filled with electronic gear, he greeted Sarah with an unambiguously frigid kiss. Eli Lavon would later describe it as the frostiest embrace since Shamron, during the halcyon days of the peace process, had been forced to shake the hand of Yasser Arafat.
Known by the code name Barak, the Hebrew word for lightning, the nine men and women of Gabriel’s team had many idiosyncrasies and many traditions. Among the idiosyncrasies was a ritual childlike squabble over room assignments. Among the traditions was a lavish first-night planning meal prepared by Chiara. The one that occurred at N Street was more poignant than most, in that it was never supposed to take place. Like everyone else at King Saul Boulevard, the team had expected the operation against the Iranian nuclear program to be Gabriel’s last. They had been told as much by their chief in name only, Uzi Navot, who was not altogether displeased, and by Shamron, who was distraught. “I had no choice but to set him free,” Shamron said after his fabled encounter with Gabriel atop the cliffs of Cornwall. “This time it’s for good.”
It might have been for good if Gabriel had not spotted Farid Khan walking along Wellington Street with a bomb beneath his overcoat. The men and women gathered around the dining room table understood the toll Covent Garden had taken on Gabriel. Many years earlier, in another lifetime, under another name, he had failed to prevent a bombing in Vienna that forever altered the course of his life. On that occasion, the bomb had been hidden not beneath the overcoat of a shahid but in the undercarriage of Gabriel’s car. The victims were not strangers but loved ones—his wife, Leah, and his only son, Dani. Leah lived now in a psychiatric hospital atop Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in a prison of memory and a body destroyed by fire. She had only a vague sense that Dani was buried not far from her, on the Mount of Olives.
The members of Gabriel’s team did not mention Leah and Dani that evening, nor did they dwell long on the chain of events that led Gabriel to be an unwilling witness to Farid Khan’s martyrdom. Instead, they spoke of friends and family, of books they had read and movies they had seen, and of the remarkable changes currently sweeping the Arab world. In Egypt, Pharaoh had finally fallen, unleashing a wave of protest that was threatening to topple the kings and secular dictators who had ruled the region for generations. Whether the changes would bring Israel greater security or place it in greater peril was a topic of hot debate inside the Office and around the dinner table that night. Yossi, an optimist by nature, believed the Arabs, if given the opportunity to govern themselves, would have no truck with those who wished to make war with Israel. Yaakov, who had spent years running spies against hostile Arab regimes, declared Yossi dangerously delusional, as did nearly everyone else. Only Dina refused to venture an opinion, for her thoughts were focused on the crates of files waiting in the living room. She had a clock ticking in her formidable brain and believed that a minute wasted was a minute left to terrorists to plot and plan. The files held the promise of lives saved. They were sacred texts that contained secrets only she could decode.
It was approaching midnight by the time the meal finally came to an end. It was followed by the traditional spat over who would clear the dishes, who would wash, and who would dry. After recusing himself, Gabriel acquainted Dina with the files, then showed Chiara upstairs to their room. It was on the third floor, overlooking the rear garden. The red aircraft warning lights atop the spires of Georgetown University winked softly in the distance, a reminder of the city’s vulnerability to aviation-based terrorism.
“I suppose there are worse places to spend a few days,” Chiara said. “Where did you put Mikhail and Sarah?”
“As far apart as possible.”
“What are the chances this operation might bring them back together?”
“About the same that the Arab world is suddenly going to recognize our right to exist.”
“That bad?”
“I’m afraid so.” Gabriel lifted Chiara’s bag and placed it at the end of the bed. It sagged beneath the weight. “What have you got in here?”
“Gilah sent along a few things for you.”
“Rocks?”
“Food,” Chiara said. “You know how Gilah is. She always thought you were too thin.”
“How is she?”
“Now that Ari isn’t spending so much time around the house, she seems to be doing much better.”
“Did he finally sign up for that pottery course he’s always wanted to take?”
“Actually, he’s back at King Saul Boulevard.”
“Doing what?”
“Uzi thought he needed something to keep him occupied, so he made him your operational coordinator. He’d like you to call him first thing in the morning.” Chiara kissed his cheek and smiled. “Welcome home, darling.”
Chapter 16
Georgetown,