She spent nearly a month in the caliphate, in an apartment house near al-Rasheed Park in downtown Raqqa, in a training camp in the ancient city of Palmyra, and, finally, at the house near Mosul where, threatened with death, she had saved the life of the greatest terror mastermind since Osama bin Laden. During the period of his recovery, he had shown her great kindness. He had referred to her only as Maimonides, the philosopher and Talmudic scholar who served as one of the real Saladin’s court physicians in Cairo, and allowed her to be in his presence without veiling her face. Never once did she leave his side. She had monitored his vital signs, changed his bloody dressings, and muted his pain with injections of morphine. Many times she considered shoving him through death’s door with an overdose. Instead, bound by her oath as a doctor and her belief that it was essential she report what she had witnessed, she had nursed Saladin back to health, an act of mercy he repaid by dispatching her to Washington on a suicide mission.
It had been three months since that night, and yet even now Gabriel noticed remnants of Leila Hadawi in Natalie’s bearing and in her dark eyes. She had shed Leila’s veil and Leila’s rage, but not her quiet piety or her dignity. Otherwise, there was no visible trace of the ordeal she had suffered in the Islamic caliphate or in the cabin in Virginia, where Saladin had personally subjected her to a brutal interrogation. It had been his intention to execute Natalie in ISIS’s preferred manner, by taking her head, and her imminent death had the effect of loosening his tongue. He admitted he had served in the Iraqi Mukhabarat under Saddam Hussein, that he had supplied material and logistical support to rejectionist Palestinian terrorists such as Abu Nidal, and that he had joined the Iraq insurgency after the American invasion of 2003. Those three elements of his curriculum vitae represented the sum total of what the intelligence services of the West knew of him. Even his real name remained a mystery. Natalie, however, had been granted access to Saladin’s inner court, at a time when he was physically enfeebled. She knew every inch of his tall, powerful body, every mole and birthmark, every scar. It was only one of the reasons why Gabriel had come to the farm in Nahalal, in the valley of his birth.
The evening turned cold quickly, as it always did in the Galilee. Nevertheless, they sat outside in the garden, at the same table where ten months earlier Gabriel had conducted Natalie’s initial recruitment. Now, as then, she sat very straight, with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She wore a snug-fitting blue tracksuit and neon-green trainers, soiled by the dust of the farm roads. Her dark hair was drawn away from her face and constrained at the base of her neck by an elastic band. Her wide, sensuous mouth was set in a half-smile. She looked happy for the first time in many months. Suddenly, Gabriel felt another stab of pain. This time it was real.
“You know,” said Natalie, her expression serious, “you’ll heal faster if you take something.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’re leaning to one side to keep pressure off the fractures.”
Grimacing, Gabriel tried to imitate Natalie’s erect posture.
“And your respiration,” she said, “is very shallow.”
“That’s because it hurts to breathe. And every time I cough or sneeze I see stars.”
“Are you getting any sleep?”
“Enough.” Then he asked quietly, “You?”
Natalie drew the cork from a bottle of Galilean white and poured two glasses. She drank only a small amount from hers and then returned the glass to the tabletop. During the many months she had lived as a radicalized Muslim, she had largely abstained from alcohol. Her daily consumption of white wine—the Office talent spotters had regarded it as her one and only vice—had fallen sharply since her return to Israel.
“Are you?” asked Gabriel a second time.
“Sleeping? I was never really good at it, even before the operation. Besides,” she added with a glance toward the exterior of the bungalow, “it’s not exactly a house of secrets, is it? Every room is wired, and every move I make is recorded and analyzed by your psychiatrists.”
Gabriel didn’t bother with a denial. The bungalow was indeed wired for both audio and video, and a team of Office physicians had charted every facet of Natalie’s recovery. Their assessments painted a portrait of an officer who was still struggling with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. The officer suffered from prolonged periods of insomnia, night terrors, and bouts of severe depression. Her daily training runs in the valley had improved her overall health and tempered her mood swings. So, too, had her romantic relationship with Mikhail, who was a regular visitor to Nahalal. All in all, it was the opinion of Natalie’s doctors—and Mikhail—that she was ready to return to limited duty. Limited duty, however, was not what Gabriel had in mind. He had Saladin in his sights.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Natalie frowned.
“At least drink some of the wine. It might take the edge off the pain.”
He did. It didn’t.
“He was the same way,” said Natalie.
“Who?”
“Saladin. He didn’t want pain medication. I practically had to torture him to convince him he needed it. And every time I fed morphine into his drip he fought to remain conscious. If only I’d—”
“You did the right thing.”
“I’m not sure the victims in London would agree. Or Paris,” she added. “You’re lucky to be alive. And none of it would have happened if I’d killed him when I had the chance.”
“We’re not like them, Natalie. We don’t do suicide missions. Besides,” Gabriel went on, “someone else would have taken his place.”
“There is no one else like Saladin. He’s special. Trust me, I know.”
She warmed her hand over the candle that burned between them. The direction of the wind shifted subtly, bringing with it the acrid scent of the fires. Gabriel preferred it to the smell of the valley. Even as a child he had hated it.
Natalie removed her hand from the flame. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”
“Not for a minute. And I haven’t forgotten what you went through, either.”
“That makes two of us.”
She reached for her wine but stopped. Leila’s temperance, it seemed, had reclaimed her.
“Mikhail assures me that one day I won’t remember any of it, that it will be like an unpleasant memory from childhood, like the time I almost sliced my finger off playing with one of my mother’s kitchen knives.” She raised a hand in the darkness. “I still have the scar.”
The wind died, the flame of the candle burned straight.
“Do you approve of him?” she asked.
“Mikhail?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Of course it does. You’re the chief.”
He smiled. “Yes, Natalie, I approve. Wholeheartedly, in fact.”
“And did you approve of that American girl he was involved with? The one who worked for the CIA? Her name,” added Natalie coolly, “escapes me.”
“Her name was Sarah.”
“Sarah Bancroft,” she added, stressing the first syllable of the rather patrician-sounding family name.
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Sarah Bancroft.”
“It doesn’t sound Jewish, Bancroft.”
“With good reason. And no,” said Gabriel, “I did not approve of the relationship. At least not in the beginning.”
“Because she wasn’t Jewish?”
“Because relationships between intelligence officers are inherently complicated. And relationships between officers who work for services from different countries are unheard of.”
“But she was close to the Office.”
“Very.”
“And you were fond of her.”
“I was.”
“Who ended it?”
“I wasn’t privy to all the details.”
“Please,” she said dismissively.