“Where are you going, by the way?”

“We’re going to need an airplane tomorrow. I thought I’d book a reservation on Air Stone.”

“Ari, you’re not drinking! Unfair!”

“Sorry, Benjamin, but I have a long night ahead of me.”

“Work?”

Shamron inclined his head slightly to indicate the affirmative.

“So what brings you here?”

“I need a favor.”

“Course you need a favor. Wouldn’t be here otherwise. Hope you haven’t come looking for money, because the Bank of Stone is temporarily closed, and your account is badly overdrawn. Besides, money’s gone. Creditors are singing a bloody aria. They want what’s rightfully theirs. Funny how creditors can be. And as for my lenders, well, let’s just say they’re heading for calmer waters. What I’m trying to say to you, Ari, my old stick, is that I am in serious fucking financial trouble.”

“It’s not about money.”

“So what is it? Speak, Ari!”

“I need to borrow your jet. Actually, I need to borrow you and your jet.”

“I’m listening. You have my attention now.”

“Tomorrow an enemy of the State of Israel is going to board a flight at Charles de Gaulle. Unfortunately we don’t know what flight or what his destination is. And we won’t know until he gets on the plane. It’s imperative that we follow rapidly and that we arrive with some degree of secrecy. An unscheduled El Al charter, for example, might raise eyebrows. You, however, have a reputation for impetuous travel and last-minute changes in your schedule and itinerary.”

“Damn right, Ari. Come and go like the wind. Keeps people on their fucking toes. It’s that business in Paris, isn’t it? That’s why you took my money before. I must say I’m intrigued. It sounds as though I’m going to be involved in a real operation. Front lines, heavy stuff. How can I possibly say no?”

Stone snatched up the telephone. “Get the plane ready. Paris, one hour, usual suite at the Ritz, usual girl. One with the diamond stud in her tongue. A dream, that one. Have her waiting in the room. Ciao.”

He rang off, refilled his glass of champagne, and raised it in Shamron’s direction.

“I can’t thank you enough, Benjamin.”

“You owe me, Ari. Someday I’m going to need a favor. Someday, all debts come due.”

THIRTY-THREE

St. James’s, London

Jacqueline had hoped a brief walk alone would settle her nerves. It was a mistake. She should have taken a taxi straight to Yusef’s door, because now she felt like turning around and telling Shamron and Gabriel to go to hell. She had just a few seconds to pull herself together. She realized she was not used to fear, at least not the kind of fear that made it nearly impossible to breathe. She had felt fear like this only once in her life-the night of the raid in Tunis -but that night Gabriel had been at her side. Now she was alone. She thought of her grandparents and the fear they must have felt while they were waiting to die at Sobibor. If they could face death at the hands of the Nazis, I can face this, she thought.

But there was something else she was feeling: love. Intense, unbearable, intolerable love. Perfect love. Love that had survived twelve years, meaningless relationships with other men. It was the promise of Gabriel that finally pushed her forward toward Yusef’s door. She thought of something Shamron had said to her the night he recruited her: “You must believe in what you are doing.” Oh, yes, Ari, she thought. I definitely believe in what I’m doing now.

She pressed the buzzer for Yusef’s flat. A moment. Nothing. Pressed it again, waited, looked at her watch. He had told her to come at nine. She was so nervous about arriving late that she had managed to come five minutes early. So what should I do, Gabriel? Stay? Walk around the block? If she left she might never come back. She lit a cigarette, stamped her feet against the cold, waited.

A moment later a Ford van braked to a halt in the street in front of her. The side door slid open, and Yusef leapt onto the wet asphalt. He walked toward her, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, head swiveling from side to side. “How long have you been standing here?”

“I don’t know. Three minutes, five minutes. Where the hell have you been?”

“I told you to come at nine. I didn’t say five minutes before nine. I said nine.”

“So I was a few minutes early. What’s the big deal?”

“Because the rules have changed.”

She remembered what Gabriel had said to her: You have no reason to be afraid. If they push you, push back.

“Listen, the rules haven’t changed until I say they’ve changed. I haven’t decided whether I’m going. This is crazy, Yusef. You won’t tell me where I’m going. You won’t tell me when I’ll be back. I love you, Yusef. I want to help you. But you have to put yourself in my shoes.”

His demeanor softened immediately. “I’m sorry, Dominique. I’m just a little tense. Everything has to go right. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Come inside. We’ll talk. But we don’t have much time.”

Gabriel had never seen the Ford van till now. He wrote down the registration number as it vanished into the darkness. Shamron joined him in the window. Together they watched Yusef and Jacqueline disappear into the lobby. A moment later lights burned in Yusef’s flat. Gabriel could hear two voices. Yusef, calm and reassuring; Jacqueline, edgy, stressed. Shamron made a base camp at the end of the couch and watched the scene across the street as though it were being played out on a movie screen. Gabriel closed his eyes and listened. They were stalking each other, circling the room like prizefighters. Gabriel didn’t have to watch it. He could hear it in the way the audio level rose each time one of them passed by the telephone.

“What is it, Yusef? Drugs? A bomb? Tell me, you bastard!”

So convincing was her performance that Gabriel feared Yusef would change his mind. Shamron seemed to be enjoying the show. When Jacqueline finally agreed to go, he looked up at Gabriel. “That was marvelous. A nice touch. Well done. Bravo.”

Five minutes later Gabriel watched them climb into the back of a dark blue Vauxhall. A few seconds after the Vauxhall drove away, a car passed beneath Gabriel’s window: Shamron’s watchers. There was nothing to do now but wait. To fill the time he rewound the tape and listened to their conversation again. “Tell me something,” Jacqueline had said. “When this is over will I ever see you again?” Gabriel stopped the tape and wondered whether she was speaking to Yusef or to him.

The Cromwell Road at midnight: the dreary corridor connecting Central London to the western suburbs had never looked so beautiful to Jacqueline. The bleak Edwardian hotels with their flickering neon vacancy signs seemed enchanting to her. She watched the changing patterns of traffic lights reflected in the wet pavement and saw an urban masterpiece. She lowered her window a few inches and smelled the air: diesel fumes, damp, cheap fried food cooking somewhere. London at night. Spectacular.

They had switched cars, the blue Vauxhall for a gray Toyota with a cracked windshield. The Vauxhall had been driven by a good-looking boy with his hair drawn back into a ponytail. Sitting behind the wheel now was an older man-at least forty, she guessed-with a narrow face and nervous black eyes. He drove slowly.

Yusef murmured a few words to him in Arabic.

Jacqueline said, “Speak French or English or nothing at all.”

“We are Palestinians,” Yusef said. “Arabic is our language.”

“I don’t give a shit! I don’t speak Arabic. I can’t understand what you’re saying, and it’s making me uncomfortable, so please speak fucking English, or you can find someone else.”

“I was only telling him to slow down a little.”