“You can hang up now.”

He punched the speaker button and severed the connection. “That didn’t sound much like Yusef.”

“It wasn’t Yusef. It was a man I knew before Yusef.”

“It sounds to me as though this man still cares for you.”

“No, he never really cared for me.”

“But it’s obvious to me you cared for him. Perhaps you still do.”

“I’m in love with Yusef.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot.” He stood abruptly. “Let’s go shopping.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Montreal

Zvi Yadin met Gabriel and Shamron at the airport and drove them into Montreal. He had thick, curly hair, a rather shaggy full beard, and the body of a rugby player. Because he was large, people tended to think he was stupid, which he was not. Gabriel had spent time at the Academy with him. They had been paired for the physical combat course, despite the vast difference in their size. On the final day Yadin had broken two of Gabriel’s ribs. Gabriel had retaliated with an elbow to Yadin’s chin that dislocated his jaw. Later, when they were being patched up in the infirmary, Yadin had admitted that Shamron had put him up to it-that he had wanted to test Gabriel’s capacity for pain. Gabriel wished he had broken Shamron’s jaw instead.

“They say it’s going to be thirty below tonight,” Yadin said as he sped along the motorway toward downtown. “I brought you some parkas and gloves. And I brought this for you, Gabriel.”

He handed Gabriel a stainless steel combat case. Inside was a.22 Beretta target pistol. Gabriel stroked the barrel and the walnut grip. The gun felt cold. He closed the lid and placed the case beneath the seat.

Shamron said, “Thanks for the weather update, Zvi, but where the hell is Jacqueline?”

Yadin brought them quickly up to date. The flight from Paris had arrived twenty minutes late. Yadin’s team had picked them up after they cleared immigration and customs. The girl had rented a car from Hertz and driven downtown to the Hotel Queen Elizabeth. She’d handed Jacqueline to a man: forties, well dressed, decent looking. They went upstairs to a room. Yadin had a sayan on the hotel staff: a senior concierge. He said the fellow in question had checked into the hotel earlier that day under the name Lucien Daveau. Room 1417.

“Pictures?” Shamron asked hopefully.

“No way, Boss. Not possible under the circumstances.”

“Was it Tariq?”

“Could have been. Hard to say.”

“What happened to the girl?”

“After the handoff she left the hotel. She was picked up by another car outside on the boulevard René Lévesque. I didn’t try to follow her. I didn’t think we could spare the personnel.”

“How many people do you have?”

“Three experienced men and that new girl you sent me from the Academy.”

“How are they deployed?”

“Two members of the team are in the hotel lobby pretending to be shopping. The other two are outside in the car.”

Gabriel said, “Can our friend on the concierge desk get us inside the room?”

“Sure.”

“I want to put a glass on his telephone.”

“No problem. I brought a kit from Ottawa. We can get another room at the hotel to set up a listening post. It will tie down one member of the team, though.”

“Getting his phone is well worth one member of your team.”

“I’ll use the new girl.”

“No, I may need the girl for street work.”

Yadin glanced at Shamron. “Now for the problems, Boss.”

“What problems?”

“Lev.”

“What about Lev?”

“While I was waiting for you to arrive, I checked in with the station.”

“And?”

“Mordecai called on a routine housekeeping matter after we’d left. Obviously he told Lev the entire station was missing, because Lev fired off a cable from the operations center about a half hour later, wondering what the fuck was going on.”

“What was Lev told?” Shamron said wearily.

“I left a cover story in place with our secretary. She told Lev that we received a tip from a friend in the Canadian service that a member of Islamic Jihad might be living in Quebec City and that we had run up to QC to have a look at him. Lev sends another rocket: On whose authority? Please supply the name of IJ Activist. So on and so forth. You get the picture, boss.”

Shamron swore softly. “Send him a message when you get home. Tell him it was a false alarm.”

“Listen, boss, we go back a long way. But you’re going to retire again soon, and Lev may be running this place. He could make my life miserable. He enjoys that sort of thing. He’s a bastard.”

“Let me worry about Lev. You were just doing what I told you to do.”

“Just following orders-right, boss?”

Yadin’s cell phone chirped softly. He flipped open the mouthpiece and brought it to his ear. “Yes?”

A pause.

“When?”

Another pause.

“Where?”

Another pause, slightly longer.

“Stay with them. But remember who you’re dealing with. Keep a safe distance.”

He severed the connection and tossed the phone onto the dash.

“What is it?” asked Shamron.

“He’s on the move.”

“What about Jacqueline?”

“They’re together.”

“Where?”

“Look’s like they’ve gone shopping.”

“Get me a picture, Zvi. I need to make sure it’s him.”

There are two Montreals. There is the Montreal of the surface. In winter it becomes a snowbound tundra. Icy Arctic winds roar between the skyscrapers and prowl the winding alleyways of the Old City down by the river. Then there is underground Montreal: a labyrinth of gleaming shops, cafés, bars, markets, and designer clothing stores that snakes its way beneath much of downtown, making it possible to travel for blocks without ever setting foot outside.

A fitting spot for it to end, thought Jacqueline; two worlds, two layers, two realities. I’m Jacqueline Delacroix, the model. I’m Dominique Bonard, the secretary from Isherwood Fine Arts in London. I’m Sarah Halévy, the Jewish girl from Marseilles, the agent from the Office. She had more layers than Montreal.

She was walking at his side. His hand was resting lightly on her shoulder, and he was using it to guide her through the crowds of evening shoppers. Jacqueline studied the kaleidoscope of faces streaming past her: pretty French boys and girls, Arabs, Africans, Jews-the ethnic patchwork quilt that is Montreal. She might have forgotten she had ever left Paris except for the blunt edge of their French accents.

He was checking to see if they were being followed-Jacqueline could see that. Pausing in storefronts, making abrupt changes in direction, inventing excuses to double back. She hoped Shamron’s team was good. If they weren’t, Tariq was going to spot them.

They walked through the exclusive shops beneath the rue St-Catherine. In one she picked out a full-length down-lined coat. In another a fur hat. In a third two pairs of jeans and several pairs of long underwear. Finally, in a shop specializing in outdoor goods, she picked out a pair of insulated boots. He hung at her side the entire time. When she went into a changing room to try on the jeans he waited just outside the door and smiled pleasantly at the salesgirls. He paid for everything with a credit card in the name of Lucien Daveau.

When they were finished they walked back toward the hotel. She thought: What are you waiting for? Do it now. Take him down. But they couldn’t do it here-not in underground Montreal. The entire network of shopping malls could be sealed off in a matter of minutes. Gabriel and the rest of the team would be trapped inside. They would be arrested and questioned. The police would establish a link to the Office, and the whole thing would blow up in Shamron’s face.

He suggested a coffee before dinner, so they stopped in an espresso bar a short distance from the hotel. Jacqueline flipped idly through a tourist guide while he sipped his drink. At one point he removed a prescription bottle from his pocket and swallowed two tablets. Five minutes later-she knew the exact time because she had been playing Shamron’s awareness games throughout the excursion-a man in a gray business suit sat down at the next table. He placed his briefcase on the ground: black leather, soft sides, gold combination latches. The man stayed for a few minutes, then stood and walked away, leaving the bag behind. When Tariq had finished his coffee, he nonchalantly picked up the bag along with Jacqueline’s parcels.