“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?”

“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 shaheed s,” 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.”

G abriel 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?”