“Yes, Leah, I’ll visit you.”

And then she looked away again. “Make sure Dani is buckled into his seat tightly. The streets are slippery.”

“He’s fine, Leah. Be careful driving home.”

“I’ll be careful, Gabriel. Give me a kiss.”

Gabriel pressed his lips against the scar tissue on her ruined cheek and closed his eyes.

Leah whispered, “One last kiss.”

THE WALLS of Gabriel’s bedroom were hung with paintings. There were three paintings by his grandfather-the only surviving works Gabriel had ever been able to find-and more than a dozen by his mother. There was also a portrait, painted in the style of Egon Schiele, that bore no signature. It showed a young man with prematurely gray hair and a gaunt face haunted by the shadow of death. Gabriel had always told Chiara that the painting was a self-portrait. Now, as she lay beside him, he told her the truth.

“When did she paint it?” Chiara asked.

“Right after I returned from the Black September operation.”

“She was amazing.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel, looking at the painting. “She was much better than me.”

Chiara was silent for a moment. Then she asked, “How long are we going to stay here?”

“Until we find him.”

“And how long is that going to take?”

“Maybe a month. Maybe a year. You know how these things go, Chiara.”

“I suppose we’re going to need some furniture.”

“Why?”

“Because we can’t live with only a studio and a bed.”

“Yes, we can,” he said. “What else do we need?”

41.

THE SECURITY SYSTEM DETECTED the intrusion at 2:38 A.M. It was sensor number 154, located on one of fourteen pairs of French doors leading from the rear garden into the mansion. The system was not connected to a commercial security company or to the Paris police, only to a central station within the mansion, staffed round the clock by a permanent detachment of security men, all former members of the Saudi National Guard.

The first security man arrived at the open French door within fifteen seconds of the silent alarm and was knocked unconscious by one of the six masked intruders. Two more guards arrived ten seconds later, guns drawn, and were shot to death by the same intruder. The fourth guard to arrive on the scene, a twenty-eight-year-old from Jeddah who had no wish to die for the possessions of a billionaire, raised his hands in immediate surrender.

The man with the gun knocked the Saudi to the ground and sat on his chest while he examined the display screen of a small handheld apparatus. Though he wore a balaclava helmet, the Saudi could see his eyes, which were an intense shade of green. Without speaking, the green-eyed man motioned toward the sweeping central staircase. Two members of his team responded by charging upward. Thirty seconds later they returned, carrying a single item. The green-eyed intruder looked down at the Saudi and gazed at him calmly. “Tell Zizi, the next time I come it’s for him,” he said in perfect Arabic. Then the gun slammed into the side of the Saudi’s head, and he blacked out.

THREE NIGHTS LATER the Isaac Weinberg Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism in France opened on the rue des Rosiers in the Marais. Like most matters dealing with the Jews of France, the creation of the center had not been without controversy. The far-right National Party of Jean-Marie Le Pen had raised questions about the source of its funding, while a prominent Islamic cleric had called for a boycott and organized a noisy demonstration the night of the opening reception. Thirty minutes into the party, there was a bomb threat. All of those in attendance, including Hannah Weinberg, the center’s creator and director, were shepherded out of the building by a unit of French antiterrorist police and the remainder of the reception canceled.

Later that night she gathered with a few friends for a quiet supper down the street at Jo Goldenberg. It was shortly after ten o’clock when she walked back to her apartment house on the rue Pavée, shadowed by a security agent attached to the Israeli embassy. Upstairs in her flat she unlocked the door at the end of the central corridor and switched on the lights. She stood for a moment, gazing at the painting that hung on the wall above her childhood dresser, then she shut out the lights and went to bed.

42.

IN THE END IT came down to a business transaction, which both Gabriel and Carter saw as proof of the Divine. Money for information: a Middle East tradition. Twenty million dollars for a life. The source was Carter’s, a low-level Saudi prince with cirrhosis of the liver and an addiction to Romanian prostitutes. The money was Gabriel’s, though it had once belonged to Zizi al-Bakari. The prince had not been able to supply a name, only a time and a place. The time was the second Monday of August. The place was the Ceylan Inter-Continental Hotel in Istanbul.

He arrived at ten under the name al-Rasheed. He was taller than they remembered. His hair was longish and quite gray, as was his heavy mustache. Despite the sweltering August heat, he wore a long-sleeved shirt and walked with his right hand in his pocket. He refused the bellman’s offer of help with his single bag and headed up to his suite, which was on the twenty-fifth floor. His balcony had a commanding view of the Bosphorus, a room with a view having been one of his many demands. Gabriel knew about his demands, just as he knew what room he had been assigned. Money had bought that, too. At 10:09, the man stepped onto his balcony and looked down at the straits. He did not realize that on the street below two men were gazing up at him.

“Is it him, Eli?”

“It’s him.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Gabriel offered Lavon the mobile phone. Lavon shook his head.

“You do it, Gabriel. I’ve never been one for the rough stuff.”

Gabriel dialed the number. An instant later the balcony was engulfed in a blinding fireball, and the flaming body of Ahmed bin Shafiq came plunging downward through the darkness. Gabriel waited until it hit the street, then slipped the Mercedes into gear and headed to Cannes.

THE RESTAURANT known as La Pizza is one of the most popular in Cannes, and so news that it had been booked for a private party spoiled what had otherwise been a perfect August day. There was a great deal of speculation along the Croisette about the identity of the man responsible for this outrage. Savvy visitors to the city, however, knew the answer lay in the waters just beyond the Old Port. Alexandra, Abdul Aziz al-Bakari’s enormous private yacht, had come to Cannes that morning, and everyone knew that Zizi always celebrated his arrival by commandeering the most popular restaurant in town.

Dinner was scheduled for nine. At 8:55 two large white launches set out from Alexandra and headed into the port through the sienna light of sunset. The vessels docked across the street from La Pizza at 8:58 and, under abnormally intense private security, the party disembarked and headed toward the restaurant. Most of the tourists who gathered to witness the auspicious arrival did not know the name Zizi al-Bakari, nor could they identify a single member of his large entourage. That was not the case for the three men watching from the grassy esplanade at the end of the Quai Saint-Pierre.

The entourage remained inside La Pizza for two hours. Later, in the aftermath, the press would make much of the fact that no wine was drunk at dinner and no cigarettes smoked, which was taken as proof of great religious faith. At 11:06 they emerged from the restaurant and started across the street toward the waiting launches. Zizi, as was his custom, was near the back of his entourage, flanked by two men. One was a large Arab with a round face, small eyes, and a goatee. The other was a Frenchman dressed in black with his blond hair drawn back into a ponytail.