Or maybe Shamron has already got to him.

“Shit!” he said softly.

He left the gallery, flagged down a taxi on Piccadilly, rode up to Great Russell Street. He paid off the cab a few blocks from the British Museum and stepped through the doorway of the L. Cornellissen amp; Son art supplies shop. He felt strangely calm as he stood on the scuffed wooden floor, surrounded by the varnished shelves filled with paints, palettes, paper, canvases, brushes, and charcoal pencils.

A flaxen angel called Penelope smiled at him over the counter.

“Hullo, Pen.”

“Julian, super,” she breathed. “How are you? God, but you look all in.”

“Lunch with Oliver Dimbleby.” No other explanation was necessary. “Listen, I was wondering if you’ve seen our friend. He’s not answering his phone, and I’m starting to think he’s wandered off the edge of a cliff down there in Cornwall.”

“Unfortunately, I haven’t been fortunate enough to lay eyes on that lovely man in quite some time.”

“Anyone else in the shop heard from him?”

“Hold on. I’ll check.”

Penelope asked Margaret, and Margaret asked Sherman, and Sherman asked Tricia, and on it went until a disembodied male voice from deep in the shop-the acrylic paint and pencil section judging by the sound of it-announced solemnly, “I spoke to him just this morning.”

“Mind telling me what he wanted?” said Isherwood to the ceiling.

“To cancel his monthly shipment of supplies.”

“How many monthly shipments exactly?”

“Every monthly until further notice.”

“Did he say why?”

“Does he ever, darling?”

Next morning Isherwood canceled his appointments for the rest of the week and hired a car. For five hours he sped along the motorways. Westward to Bristol. Southward along the Channel. Then the long haul down through Devon and Cornwall. Weather as volatile as Isherwood’s mood, marbles of rain one moment, weak white winter sun the next. The wind was constant, though. So much wind Isherwood had trouble keeping the little Ford Escort attached to the road. He ate lunch while he drove and stopped only three times-once for petrol, once for a piss, and a third time on the Dartmoor when his car struck a seabird. He picked up the corpse, using an empty plastic sandwich bag to protect his fingers, and said a brief Jewish prayer for the dead before ceremoniously tossing the bird into the heather.

He arrived at Gabriel’s cottage shortly before three o’clock. Gabriel’s boat was covered in a tarpaulin. He crossed the lane and rang the bell. He rang it a second time, then hammered on the door, then tried the latch. Locked.

He peered through the paned glass into a spotless kitchen. Gabriel was never one for food-throw him a scrap of bread and a few grains of rice and he could walk another fifty miles-but even by Gabriel’s standards the kitchen was exceptionally clean and free of supplies. He was gone, Isherwood concluded. Gone for a very long time.

He entered the back garden and walked along the edge of the cottage, trying each of the windows on the off chance that Gabriel had forgotten to lock one. Not Gabriel’s style.

He retraced his steps and stood on the quay again. Gunpowder clouds were rolling up the river from the sea. A fat ball of rain struck him in the center of the forehead and rolled down the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. He removed them and the river scene blurred. He dug a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face, and put the glasses back on.

When his surroundings came back into focus, he discovered a young boy standing a few feet away. He seemed to have come out of nowhere, like a cat stalking prey. Isherwood had never had children and was terrible at placing ages. He guessed that the pinched-faced lad was eleven or twelve.

The boy said, “Why are you sneaking around that cottage?”

“I’m not sneaking, and who the bloody hell are you?”

“I’m Peel. Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of the man who lives there. My name is Julian.”

Isherwood held out his hand, but the boy just stood there, body rigid and coiled.

“He never mentioned he had a friend named Julian.”

“He doesn’t mention a lot of things.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk to him.”

“He’s away.”

“I can see that. Do you know where he is?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Know when he’ll be back?”

“Didn’t say.”

The rain started to come down harder. The boy remained still. Isherwood held a hand over his head and turned to look at the cottage. “Do you know what he does for a living?” Isherwood asked.

Peel nodded.

“Does anyone else in the village?”

Peel shook his head.

“He works for me,” Isherwood said, as if he were confessing some misdeed. “I own the painting he’s restoring.”

“The Rembrandt or the Vecellio?”

Isherwood smiled and said, “The Vecellio, my dear fellow.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Indeed, it is.”

They stood side by side for a moment, oblivious of the rain. Isherwood saw something of himself in Gabriel’s miniature sentinel. Another Gabriel refugee, another piece of wreckage adrift in Gabriel’s wake. Another damaged soul in need of restoration by Gabriel’s skilled hands.

“Who took him?” Isherwood finally asked.

“The bald man who walked like a soldier. Do you know him?”

“Unfortunately, I do.” Isherwood smiled at Peel. “Are you hungry?”

Peel nodded.

“Is there someplace in the village to get some tea and sweets?”

“And a pastie,” Peel said. “Do you like sausage pasties?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever tried one, but there’s no time like the present. Should you ask your parents for permission first?”

Peel shook his head. “He’s not my dad, and my mum won’t care.”

Ari Shamron arrived at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv late the following evening. Rami was waiting at the gate. He shepherded Shamron through the arrivals area into a secure room reserved for Office personnel and special guests. Shamron stripped off his European business suit and pulled on his khakis and bomber jacket.

“The prime minister wants to see you tonight, Boss.”

Shamron thought: So much for keeping his nose out of the operation.

They rode into the hills toward Jerusalem. Shamron passed the time by leafing through a stack of paperwork that had piled up in his brief absence.

As usual there was a crisis in the prime minister’s diverse coalition. To reach his office Shamron first had to negotiate a smoky corridor filled with feuding politicians.

The prime minister listened raptly as Shamron brought him up-to-date. He was by nature a schemer. He had begun his career in the cutthroat atmosphere of academia, then moved to the hornets’ nest at the Foreign Ministry. By the time he entered the political arena, he was well-versed in the black arts of bureaucratic treachery. His meteoric rise through the party ranks was attributed to his powerful intellect and his willingness to resort to subterfuge, misdirection, and outright blackmail to get what he wanted. In Shamron he saw a kindred spirit-a man who would stop at nothing if he believed his cause was right.

“There’s only one problem,” Shamron said.

The prime minister glanced at the ceiling impatiently. He was fond of saying, “Bring me solutions, not problems.” Shamron had an innate distrust of men who lived by catchy maxims.

“Benjamin Stone.”

“What now?”

“His business is in terrible shape. He’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, and Peter’s friends are getting upset about it.”

“Will it affect us?”

“If he goes under quietly, we’ll just miss his money. But if he goes under in a messy way, he could make things uncomfortable for us. I’m afraid he knows too much.”

“Benjamin Stone never does anything quietly.”

“Point taken.”

“What about those lovely home movies you made of him last year at the King David?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Stone has developed a rather high threshold for public embarrassment. I’m not sure he’s going to be terribly upset if the world sees him utilizing the services of an Israeli prostitute.”