A CAR AND security detail were waiting downstairs in the drive. It took them only five minutes to reach the Prime Minister’s Office at 3 Kaplan Street. The guards took Gabriel into the building through an underground entrance and shepherded him upstairs, into the large unexpectedly plain office on the top floor. The room was in semidarkness; the prime minister was seated at his desk in a pool of light, dwarfed by the towering portrait of the Zionist leader Theodore Herzl that hung on the wall at his back. It had been more than a year since Gabriel had been in his presence. In that time his hair had turned from silver to white, and his brown eyes had taken on the rheumy look of an old man. The meeting of the Security Cabinet had just broken up, and the prime minister was alone except for Amos Sharret, the new director-general of the Office, who was seated tensely in a leather armchair. Gabriel shook his hand for the first time. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Amos said. “I wish the circumstances were different.”

Gabriel sat down.

“You’re wearing Shamron’s jacket,” the prime minister said.

“Gilah insisted I take it.”

“It becomes you.” He smiled distantly. “You know, you’re even beginning to look a little like him.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“He was very handsome when he was a young man.”

“He was never young, Prime Minister.”

“None of us were. We were all old before our time. We gave up our youth to build this country. Shamron hasn’t taken a day off since 1947. And this is how it ends?” The prime minister shook his head. “No, he’ll live. Trust me, Gabriel, I’ve known him longer than even you.”

“Shamron is eternal. That’s what Gilah says.”

“Maybe not eternal, but he’s not going to be killed by a bunch of terrorists.”

The prime minister scowled at his wristwatch.

“You had something you wanted to discuss with me, sir?”

“Your promotion to chief of Special Ops.”

“I’ve agreed to take the position, sir.”

“I realize that, but perhaps now isn’t the best time for you to be running the division.”

“May I ask why not?”

“Because all your attention needs to be focused on tracking down and punishing the men who did this to Shamron.”

The prime minister lapsed into a sudden silence, as if giving Gabriel an opportunity to mount an objection. Gabriel sat motionless, his gaze downward toward his hands.

“You surprise me,” the prime minister said.

“How so?”

“I was afraid you were going to tell me to find someone else.”

“One doesn’t turn down the prime minister, sir.”

“But surely there’s more to it than that.”

“I was in Rome when the terrorists attacked the Vatican, and I put Shamron in his car tonight. I heard the bomb go off.” He paused. “This network, whoever they are and whatever their goals, needs to be put out of business-and soon.”

“You sound as though you want vengeance.”

Gabriel looked up from his hands. “I do, Prime Minister. Perhaps under those circumstances, I’m the wrong man for the job.”

“Actually, under the circumstances, you are exactly the right man.”

It was Amos who had spoken these words. Gabriel turned and regarded him carefully for the first time. He was a small, broad man, shaped like a square, with a monkish fringe of dark hair and a heavy brow. He still carried the rank of general in the IDF but was dressed now in a pale-gray suit. His candor was a refreshing change. Lev had been a dental probe of a man, forever prodding and searching for weakness and decay. Amos was more like a tack hammer. Gabriel would have to watch his step around him, lest the hammer fall on him.

“Just make certain your anger doesn’t cloud your judgment,” Amos added.

“It never has before,” Gabriel said, holding Amos’s dark gaze.

Amos gave him a humorless smile, as if to say, There’ll be no shooting up French train stations on my watch, no matter what the circumstances. The prime minister leaned forward and braced himself on his elbows.

“Do you believe Saudis are behind this?”

“We have some evidence that points to a Saudi connection to the Brotherhood of Allah,” Gabriel said judiciously, “but we’ll need more intelligence before we start looking for a specific individual.”

“Ahmed bin Shafiq, for example.”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“And if it is him?”

“In my opinion, we’re dealing with a network, not a movement. A network bought and paid for with Saudi money. If we lop off the head, the network will die. But it won’t be easy, Prime Minister. We know very little about him. We don’t even know what he really looks like. It will also be complicated politically because of the Americans.”

“It’s not complicated at all. Ahmed bin Shafiq tried to kill my closest adviser. And so Ahmed bin Shafiq must die.”

“And if he’s acting at the behest of Prince Nabil or someone in the Royal Family-a family with close historic and economic ties to our most important ally?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

The prime minister gave a sideways glance at Amos.

“Adrian Carter of the CIA would like a word with you,” Amos said.

“I was supposed to go to Washington tomorrow to brief him on what we’ve learned about the attack on the Vatican.”

“Carter has requested a change of venue.”

“Where does he want to meet?”

“ London.”

“Why London?”

“It was Carter’s suggestion,” Amos said. “He wanted a convenient neutral location.”

“Since when is a CIA safe house in London neutral ground?” Gabriel looked at the prime minister, then Amos. “I don’t want to leave Jerusalem -not until we know whether Shamron is going to live.”

“Carter says it’s urgent,” Amos said. “He wants to see you tomorrow night.”

“Send someone else then.”

“We can’t,” said the prime minister. “You’re the only one invited.”

11.

HOW’S THE OLD MAN?” asked Adrian Carter. They were walking side by side in Eaton Place, sheltering from a thin night rain beneath Carter’s umbrella. They had met five minutes earlier, as if by chance encounter, in Belgrave Square. Carter had been the one wearing the mackintosh raincoat and holding a copy of The Independent. He was orthodox when it came to the conventions of tradecraft. According to the office wits at Langley, Adrian Carter left chalk marks on the bedpost when he wanted to make love to his wife.

“Still unconscious,” Gabriel replied, “but he made it through the night, and he’s not losing any more blood.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“Last night, I would have said no.”

“And now?”

“I’m more worried about how he’s going to come out of it. If he’s left with brain damage or trapped in a body that won’t obey his orders…” Gabriel’s voice trailed off. “Shamron has only one thing in his life, and that’s his work. If he can’t work, he’s going to be miserable-and so will everyone around him.”

“So what else is new?” Carter glanced toward the doorway of the Georgian house at Number 24. “The flat is in there. Let’s take a walk around the block once, shall we? I like to do things by the book.”

“Haven’t you heard, Adrian? The Soviet Union collapsed a few years back. The KGB are out of business. You and the Russians are friends now.”

“One can never be too careful, Gabriel.”

“Didn’t your security boys set up a surveillance detection route?”

“There are no boys, Gabriel.”

“Is that an Agency safe flat?”

“Not exactly,” Carter said. “It belongs to a friend.”

“A friend of the Agency?”

“A friend of the president’s, actually.”

Carter gave a gentle tug on Gabriel’s coat sleeve and led him down the darkened street. They made a slow tour of Eaton Square, which was silent except for the grumble of the evening traffic on the King’s Road. Carter moved at a ponderous pace, like a man bound for an appointment he would rather not keep. Gabriel was wrestling with a single thought: Why did the deputy director for operations of the Central Intelligence Agency want to talk in a place where his own government wouldn’t be listening?