He told the old man the things the girl had said during the final miles before Paris-that her grandfather had been a village elder, not a muktar but an important man, and that he’d owned forty dunams of land and a large flock of goats. He’d had at least one son. After the fall of Sumayriyya, they’d gone north, to Ein al-Hilweh in Lebanon. Al-Samara listened thoughtfully to Gabriel’s description but seemed perplexed. He called over his shoulder, into the house. A woman emerged, elderly like him, her head covered by a veil. She spoke directly to al-Samara, carefully avoiding the gaze of Gabriel and Yaakov.

“You’re certain it was forty dunams?” he asked. “Not thirty, or twenty, but forty?”

“That’s what I was told.”

He made a contemplative draw on his pipe. “You’re right,” he said. “That family ended up in Lebanon, in Ein al-Hilweh. Things got bad during the Lebanese civil war. The boys became fighters. They’re all dead, from what I hear.”

“Do you know their name?”

“They’re called al-Tamari. If you meet any of them, please give them my regards. Tell them I’ve been to their house. Don’t tell them about my villa in al-Makr, though. It will only break their hearts.”

34 TEL AVIV

“EIN AL-HILWEH? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING mind?”

It was early the following morning. Lev was seated at his empty glass desk, his coffee cup suspended midway between his saucer and his lips. Gabriel had managed to slip into the Office while Lev’s secretary was in the ladies’ room. The girl would pay dearly for the lapse in security when Gabriel was gone.

“Ein al-Hilweh is a no-go zone, period, end of discussion. It’s worse now than it was in eighty-two. A half-dozen Islamic terror organizations have set up shop there. It’s not a place for the faint of heart-or an Office agent whose picture has been splashed about the French press.”

“Well, someone has to go.”

“You’re not even sure the old man’s still alive.”

Gabriel frowned, then sat, uninvited, in one of the sleek leather chairs in front of Lev’s desk.

“But if he is alive, he can tell us where his daughter went after she left the camp.”

“He might,” Lev agreed, “or he might know nothing at all. Khaled certainly told the girl to deceive her family for security reasons. For all we really know, the entire story about Sumayriyya might be a lie.”

“She had no reason to lie to me,” Gabriel said. “She thought I was going to be killed.”

Lev spent a long moment pondering his coffee. “There’s a man in Beirut who might be able to help us with this. His name is Nabil Azouri.”

“What’s his story?”

“He’s Lebanese and Palestinian. He does a little of everything. Works as a stringer for a few Western news outlets. Owns a nightclub. Does the odd bit of arms dealing and has been known to move the odd shipment of hashish now and again. He also works for us, of course.”

“Sounds like a real pillar of his community.”

“He’s a shit,” Lev said. “Lebanese to the core. Lebanon incarnate. But he’s exactly the kind of person we need to walk into Ein al-Hilweh and talk to the girl’s father.”

“Why does he work for us?”

“For money, of course. Nabil likes money.”

“How do we talk to him?”

“We leave a message on the phone at his nightclub in Beirut and an airline ticket with the concierge of the Commodore Hotel. We rarely talk to Nabil on his turf.”

“Where does he go?”

“ Cyprus,” Lev said. “Nabil likes Cyprus, too.”

IT WOULD BE three days before Gabriel was ready to move. Travel saw to his arrangements. Larnaca is a popular Israeli tourist destination, and so it was not necessary to travel on a forged foreign passport. Traveling under his real name was not possible, though, so Travel issued him an Israeli document under the rather unexceptional name of Michael Neumann. The day before his departure, Operations let him spend an hour perusing Nabil Azouri’s file in a secure reading room. When he had finished, they gave him an envelope with ten thousand dollars in cash and wished him luck. The next morning, at seven, he boarded an El Al plane at Ben-Gurion Airport for the one-hour flight to Cyprus. Upon arriving he rented a car at the airport and drove a short distance up the coast to a resort called the Palm Beach Hotel. A message from King Saul Boulevard awaited him. Nabil Azouri was coming that afternoon. Gabriel spent the remainder of the morning in his room, then, a short time after one o’clock, he went down to the poolside restaurant for lunch. Azouri already had a table. A bottle of expensive French champagne, drunk below the label, lay chilling in a silver bucket.

He had dark curly hair, frosted with the first strands of gray, and a thick mustache. When he removed his sunglasses, Gabriel found himself gazing into a pair of large sleepy brown eyes. On his left wrist was the obligatory gold watch; on his right, several gold bracelets that chimed when he lifted his champagne glass to his lips. His cotton shirt was cream-colored, his poplin trousers wrinkled from the flight from Beirut. He lit an American cigarette with a gold lighter and listened to Gabriel’s proposition.

“Ein al-Hilweh? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Gabriel had anticipated this reaction. Azouri treated his relationship with Israeli intelligence as though it were just another one of his business enterprises. He was the bazaar merchant, the Office was the customer. Haggling over the price was part of the process. The Lebanese leaned forward and fixed Gabriel in his sleepy stare.

“Have you been down there lately? It’s like the Wild West, Khomeini style. It’s gone to hell since you boys pulled out. Men in black, praise be to Allah the most merciful. Outsiders don’t stand a chance. Fuck it, Mike. Have some champagne and forget about it.”

“You’re not an outsider, Nabil. You know everyone, you can go everywhere. That’s why we pay you so lucratively.”

“Tip money, Mike, that’s all I get from your outfit-cigarettes and champagne and a few bucks to waste on the girls.”

“You must have expensive taste in girls, Nabil, because I’ve seen your pay stubs. You’ve made a rather large sum of money from your relationship with my firm.”

Azouri raised his glass in Gabriel’s direction. “We’ve made good business together, Mike. I won’t deny that. I’d like to continue working for you. That’s why someone else needs to run down to Ein al-Hilweh for you. It’s too rich for my blood. Too dangerous.”

Azouri signaled the waiter and ordered another bottle of the French champagne. Refusing an offer of work wasn’t going to keep him from having a good meal on the Office tab. Gabriel tossed an envelope onto the table. Azouri eyed it thoughtfully but made no move for it.

“How much is in there, Mike?”

“Two thousand.”

“What flavor?”

“Dollars.”

“So what’s the deal? Half now, half on delivery? I’m just a dumb Arab, but two thousand and two thousand add up to four thousand, and I’m not going into Ein al-Hilweh for four thousand dollars.”

“Two thousand is only the retainer.”

“And how much for delivery of the information?”

“Another five.”

Azouri shook his head. “No, another ten.”

“Six.”

Another shake of the head. “Nine.”

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

“Done,” said Gabriel. “Two thousand in advance, another eight on delivery. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. If you behave yourself we’ll even throw in gas money.”

“Oh, you’ll pay for the gas, Mike. My expenses are always separate from my fee.” The waiter brought the second bottle of champagne. When he was gone again, Azouri said, “So what do you want to know?”

“I want you to find someone.”

“There are forty-five thousand refugees in that camp, Mike. Help me out a little bit.”

“He’s an old man named al-Tamari.”

“First name?”