Gabriel stayed longer than he’d thought he would. No past wound, real or perceived, no grievance or political dispute justified an act of murder on this scale. Pazner was right-the very sight of it moved him to intense anger. But there was something else, something more than anger. It made him hate. He turned and started walking back up the hill. Pazner followed silently after him.
“Who told you to bring me here?”
“It was my idea.”
“Who?”
“The old man,” Pazner said quietly.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
Gabriel stopped. “Why, Shimon?”
“Varash met last night after you checked in from Frankfurt. Go back to the safe flat. Wait there for further instructions. Someone will be in touch soon.”
And with that Pazner crossed the street and disappeared into the Villa Borghese.
BUT HE DID NOT return to the safe flat. Instead, he headed in the opposite direction, into the residential districts of north Rome. He found the Via Trieste and followed it west, until he arrived, ten minutes later, in an untidy little square called the Piazza Annabaliano.
Little about it had changed in the thirty years since Gabriel had first seen it-the same stand of melancholy trees in the center of the square, the same dreary shops catering to customers of the working classes. And at the northern edge, wedged between two streets, was the same apartment house, shaped like a slice of pie, with the point facing the square and the Bar Trieste on the ground floor. Zwaiter used to stop in the bar to use the telephone before heading upstairs to his room.
Gabriel crossed the square, picking his way through the cars and motorbikes parked haphazardly in the center, and entered the apartment house through a doorway marked “Entrance C.” The foyer was cold and in darkness. The lights, Gabriel remembered, operated on a timer to save electricity. Surveillance of the building had noted that residents, including Zwaiter, rarely bothered to switch them on-a fact that would prove to be an operational asset for Gabriel, because it had virtually assured him the advantage of working in the dark.
Now he paused in front of the elevator. Next to the elevator was a mirror. Surveillance had neglected to mention it. Gabriel, seeing his own reflection in the glass that night, had nearly drawn his Beretta and fired. Instead he had calmly reached into his jacket pocket for a coin and was holding it out toward the payment slot on the elevator when Zwaiter, dressed in a plaid jacket and clutching a paper sack containing a bottle of fig wine, walked through Entrance C for the last time.
“Excuse me, but are you Wadal Zwaiter?”
“No! Please, no!”
Gabriel had allowed the coin to fall from his fingertips. Before it had struck the floor he had drawn his Beretta and fired the first two shots. One of the rounds pierced the paper sack before striking Zwaiter in the chest. Blood and wine had mingled at Gabriel’s feet as he poured fire into the Palestinian’s collapsing body.
Now he looked into the mirror and saw himself as he had been that night, a boy angel in a leather jacket, an artist who had no comprehension of how the act he was about to commit would forever alter the course of his life. He had become someone else. He had remained someone else ever since. Shamron had neglected to tell him that would happen. He had taught him how to draw a gun and fire in one second, but he had done nothing to prepare him for what would happen afterward. Engaging the terrorist on his terms, on his battlefield, comes at a terrible price. It changes the men who do it, along with the society that dispatches them. It is the terrorist’s ultimate weapon. For Gabriel, the changes were visible as well. By the time he’d staggered into Paris for his next assignment, his temples were gray.
He looked into the mirror again and saw the bearded figure of Herr Klemp looking back at him. Images of the case flashed through his mind: a flattened embassy, his own dossier, Khaled… Was Shamron right? Was Khaled sending him a message? Had Khaled chosen Rome because of what Gabriel had done thirty years ago, on this very spot?
He heard the soft shuffle of footfalls behind him-an old woman, dressed in the black of widowhood, clutching a plastic sack of groceries. She stared directly at him. Gabriel, for an instant, feared she somehow remembered him. He bid her a pleasant morning and went back out into the sunlit piazza.
He felt suddenly feverish. He walked for a time on the Via Trieste, then flagged down a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the Piazza di Spagna. Entering the safe flat he saw a copy of that morning’s La Repubblica newspaper lying on the floor of the entrance hall. On page six was a large advertisement for an Italian sports car. Gabriel looked at the ad carefully and saw that it had been cut from another edition of the newspaper and glued over the corresponding page. He trimmed away the edges of the page and discovered, hidden between the two pages, a sheet of paper containing the coded text of the message. After reading it he burned it in the kitchen sink and went out again.
On the Via Condotti he bought a new suitcase and spent the next hour purchasing clothing appropriate to his next destination. He returned to the safe flat long enough to pack his new bag, then went to lunch at Nino on the Via Borgognona. At two o’clock he took a taxi to Fiumicino Airport, and at five-thirty he boarded a flight to Sardinia.
AS GABRIEL’S PLANE was taxiing toward the runway, Amira Assaf rolled up to the front gate of the Stratford Clinic and showed her ID badge to the security guard. He inspected it carefully, then waved her onto the grounds. She twisted the throttle of her motorbike and sped down the quarter-mile gravel drive toward the mansion. Dr. Avery was just leaving for the night, racing toward the gate in his big silver Jaguar. Amira tapped her horn and waved, but he ignored her and swept past in a shower of dust and gravel.
Staff parking was in the rear courtyard. She propped the bike on its kickstand, then removed her backpack from the seat storage compartment and left her helmet in its place. Two girls were just coming off duty. Amira bid them good night, then used her badge to unlock the secure staff entrance. The time clock was mounted to the wall of the foyer. She found her card, third slot from the bottom, and punched in: 5:56 P.M.
The locker room was a few paces down the hall. Amira went inside and changed into her uniform: white trousers, white shoes, and a peach-colored tunic that Dr. Avery believed was soothing to the patients. Five minutes later she reported for duty at the window of the head nurse’s station. Ginger Hall, peroxide blond and crimson-lipped, looked up and smiled.
“New haircut, Amira? Very fetching. My goodness, what I wouldn’t do for that thick raven hair of yours.”
“You can have it, along with the brown skin, the black eyes, and all the other shit that comes with it.”
“Ah, rubbish, petal. We’re all nurses here. Just doing our job and trying to make a decent living.”
“Maybe, but out there it’s different. What have you got for me?”
“Lee Martinson. She’s in the solarium. Get her back up to her room. Settle her in for the night.”
“That big bloke still hanging round her?”
“The bodyguard? Still here. Dr. Avery reckons he’ll be here awhile.”
“Why would a woman like Miss Martinson need a bodyguard?”
“Confidential, my sweet. Highly confidential.”
Amira set off down the corridor. A moment later she came to the entrance of the solarium. As she went inside the humidity greeted her like a wet blanket. Miss Martinson was in her wheelchair, staring at the blackened windows. The bodyguard, hearing Amira’s approach, got to his feet. He was a large, heavily built man in his twenties, with short hair and blue eyes. He spoke with a British accent, but Amira doubted he was truly British. She looked down at Miss Martinson.