A gust of wind blew pellets of snow into their faces. Gabriel turned up his coat collar. Ibrahim slipped his hand back into the pocket of his overcoat.

“Our children heard all the insults that were hurled at us by our Dutch hosts, too. They spoke better Dutch than we did. They were more attuned to the subtleties of Dutch culture. They saw the way the Dutch treated us and they were humiliated. They became angry and resentful, not only at the Dutch but at us, their parents. Our children are trapped between two worlds, not fully Arab, not quite Dutch. They inhabit the ghurba , the land of strangers, and so they seek shelter in a safe place.”

“Islam,” said Gabriel.

Ibrahim nodded his head and repeated, “Islam.”

“You still make furniture for a living, Ibrahim?”

He shook his head. “I retired several years ago. The Dutch state pays me a generous pension and even a bit of disability because of my two missing fingers. I manage to do a little work on the side. It’s good for my self-respect. It keeps me from growing old.”

“Where do you work now?”

“Three years ago the state gave us funding to open an Islamic community center in the Oud West section of the city. I took a part-time job there as counselor. I help new arrivals find their footing. I help our people learn to speak proper Dutch. And I keep an eye on our angry young men. That’s where I first heard the rumor about a plot to shoot down a Jewish airplane.” He glanced at Gabriel to see his reaction. “When I looked into the matter further, I found out it was more than just a rumor, and so I told Professor Rosner. You have me to thank for the fact that two hundred and fifty Jews weren’t blown to pieces over Schiphol Airport.”

A pair of middle-aged homosexual men came toward them along the embankment. Ibrahim slowed his pace and lowered his gaze reflexively toward the paving stones.

“I have another job as well,” he said when the men were gone. “I work for a friend in the Ten Kate Market selling pots and pans. He pays me a share of what I take in and lets me leave the stall to pray. There’s a small mosque around the corner on the Jan Hazenstraat. It’s called the al-Hijrah Mosque. It has a well-deserved reputation for the extremism of its imam. There are many young men at the al-Hijrah. Young men whose minds are filled with images of jihad and terror. Young men who speak of martyrdom and blood. Young men who look to Osama bin Laden as a true Muslim. These young men believe in takfir . You know this term? Takfir? ”

Gabriel nodded. Takfir was a concept developed by Islamists in Egypt in the nineteen seventies, a theological sleight of hand designed to give the terrorists a sacred license to kill almost anyone they pleased in order to achieve their goals of imposing sharia and restoring the Caliphate. Its primary target was other Muslims. A secular Muslim leader who did not rule by sharia could be killed under takfir for having turned away from Islam. So could a citizen of a secular Islamic state or a Muslim residing in a Western democracy. To the takfiri , democracy was a heresy, for it supplanted the laws of God with the laws of man; therefore, Muslim citizens of a democracy were apostates and could be put to the sword. It was the concept of takfir that gave Osama bin Laden the right to fly airplanes into buildings or blow up embassies in Africa, even if many of his victims were Muslims. It gave the Sunni terrorists of Iraq the right to kill anyone they wanted in order to prevent democracy from taking root in Baghdad. And it gave Muslim boys born in Britain the right to blow themselves up on London subways and buses, even if some of the people they were taking to Paradise with them happened to be other Muslims who wished to remain on earth a little longer.

“There is a leader of these young men,” Ibrahim resumed. “He has not been in Amsterdam long-eighteen months, maybe a bit more. He is an Egyptian. He works in an Internet shop and phone center in the Oud West, but he likes to think of himself as an Islamist theoretician and a journalist. He claims to be a writer for Islamist magazines and websites.”

“His name?”

“Samir al-Masri-at least that’s what he calls himself. He claims to have connections to the mujahideen in Iraq. He tells our boys it is their sacred duty to go there and kill the infidels who have defiled Muslim lands. He lectures them about takfir and jihad. At night they gather in his apartment and read Sayyid Qutb and Ibn Taymiyyah. They download videos from the Internet and watch infidels being beheaded. They have taken trips together. A few of them went to Egypt with him. There is talk about Samir in the al-Hijrah. There usually is talk in the mosque, but this is different. Samir al-Masri is a dangerous man. If he is not al-Qaeda, then he is a close relative.”

“Where does he live?”

“On the Hudsonstraat. Number thirty-seven. Apartment D.”

“Alone?”

Ibrahim tugged thoughtfully at his beard and nodded his head.

“You told Solomon about Samir?”

“Yes, many months ago.”

“So why follow me tonight?”

“Because two days ago Samir and four other young men from the al-Hijrah Mosque disappeared.”

Gabriel stopped walking and looked at the Egyptian. “Where did they go?”

“I’ve been asking around, but no one seems to know.”

“Do you have the names of the other four men?”

The Egyptian handed Gabriel a slip of paper. “Find them,” he said. “Otherwise, I’m afraid buildings are going to fall.”

I was really looking forward to that Thai food,” said Eli Lavon.

“I’ll get you Thai food after we break into Samir’s apartment.”

“Please tell me where you’re going to get me Thai food at three in the morning.”

“I’m very resourceful.”

Gabriel rubbed a porthole in the fogged windshield and peered out toward the entrance of the Hudsonstraat. Lavon looked down and tugged at the buttons of his overcoat.

“We’re not supposed to use rental cars in operational situations unless they’re procured from clean sources.”

“I know, Eli.”

“We’re also not supposed to conduct break-ins and crash searches without proper backup or approval from King Saul Boulevard.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.”

“You’re bending too many rules. That’s how mistakes happen. I was looking forward to spending the night at the Hotel Europa, not a Dutch holding cell.”

“Please tell me where I’m supposed to get a clean car and proper backup at three o’clock in the morning in Amsterdam.”

“So much for your resourcefulness.” Lavon stared gloomily out the window. “Look around, Gabriel. Have you ever seen so many satellite dishes?” He shook his head slowly. “They’re monuments to European naïveté. The Europeans thought they could take in millions of immigrants from the poorest regions of the Muslim world and turn them into good little social democrats in a single generation. And look at the results. For the most part the Muslims of Europe are ghettoized and seething with anger.”

Trapped between two worlds, thought Gabriel. Not fully Arab. Not quite Dutch. Lost in the land of strangers.

“This place has always been an incubator for violent ideologies,” Gabriel said. “Islamic extremism is just the latest virus to thrive in Europe ’s nurturing environment.”

Lavon nodded thoughtfully and blew into his hands. “You know, for a long time after I came back to Israel, I missed Vienna. I missed my coffeehouses. I missed walking down my favorite streets. But I’ve come to realize that this continent is dying a slow death. Europe is receding quietly into history. It’s old and tired, and its young are so pessimistic about the prospects of the future they refuse to have enough children to ensure their own survival. They believe in nothing but their thirty-five-hour workweek and their August vacation.”

“And their anti-Semitism,” said Gabriel.

“That’s the one thing about Vienna I never miss,” Lavon said. “The virus of modern anti-Semitism started here in Europe, but after the war it spread to the Arab world, where it mutated and grew stronger. Now Europe and the radical Muslims are passing it back and forth, infecting one another.” He looked at Gabriel. “And so here we are again, two nice Jewish boys sitting on a European street corner at three o’clock in the morning. My God, when will it end?”

“It’s never going to end, Eli. This is forever.”

Lavon pondered this notion in silence for a moment. “Have you given any thought to how you’re going to get into the apartment?” he asked.

Gabriel reached into his coat pocket and produced a small metal tool.

“I could never use one of those things,” Lavon said.

“I have better hands than you do.”

“Best hands in the business-that’s what Shamron always said. But I still don’t know what you think you’re going to find inside. If Samir and his cell are truly operational, the apartment will be sanitized.”

“You’d be surprised, Eli. Their masterminds are brilliant, but some of their foot soldiers aren’t exactly brain surgeons. They’re sloppy. They leave things laying around. They make little mistakes.”

“So do intelligence officers,” Lavon said. “Have you at least considered the possibility that we’re about to walk straight into a trap?”

“That’s what Berettas are for.”

Gabriel opened the door before Lavon could object again and climbed out of the car. They crossed the boulevard at an angle, pausing once to allow an empty streetcar to rattle past, and rounded the corner into the Hudsonstraat. It was a narrow side street lined with terraces of small tenement buildings. They were two levels in height and Orwellian in their uniformity and ugliness. At the front of each building was a small semicircular alcove with four separate doors, two leading to the apartments on the first floor and two leading to the apartments upstairs.

Gabriel stepped immediately into the alcove of Number 37 and, with Lavon at his back, went to work on the standard five-pin lock on the door for Apartment D. It surrendered ten seconds later. He slipped the lockpick into his pocket and removed the Beretta, then turned the latch and stepped inside. He stood motionless for a moment in the darkness, gun leveled in his outstretched hands, listening for the faintest sound or slightest suggestion of movement. Hearing nothing, he motioned for Lavon to come inside.