The operation was code-named Wrath of God, a phrase chosen by Shamron to give his undertaking the patina of divine sanction. For three years Gabriel and a small team of operatives stalked their prey across Western Europe and the Middle East, killing at night and in broad daylight, living in fear that at any moment they might be arrested by local authorities and charged as murderers. In all, twelve members of Black September died at their hands. Gabriel personally killed six of the terrorists with a .22-caliber Beretta pistol. Whenever possible, he shot his victims eleven times, one bullet for each murdered Jew. When finally he returned to Israel, his temples were gray from stress and exhaustion. Shamron called them smudges of ash on the prince of fire.
It had been Gabriel’s intention to resume his career as an artist, but each time he stood before a canvas he saw only the faces of the men he had killed. And so with Shamron’s blessing he traveled to Venice as an expatriate Italian named Mario Delvecchio to study restoration. When his apprenticeship was complete, he returned to the Office and to the waiting arms of Ari Shamron. Posing as a gifted if taciturn European-based art restorer, he eliminated some of Israel’s most dangerous foes—including Abu Jihad, Yasir Arafat’s talented second-in-command, whom he killed in front of his wife and children in Tunis. Arafat returned the favor by ordering a terrorist to place a bomb beneath Gabriel’s car in Vienna. The explosion killed his young son Daniel and seriously wounded Leah, his first wife. She resided now in a psychiatric hospital on the other side of the ridge from Ma’ale Hahamisha, trapped in a prison of memory and a body ravaged by fire. The hospital was located in the old Arab village of Deir Yassin, where Jewish fighters from the Irgun and Lehi paramilitary organizations massacred more than a hundred Palestinians on the night of April 9, 1948. It was a cruel irony—that the shattered wife of Israel’s avenging angel should reside among the ghosts of Deir Yassin—but such was life in the twice–Promised Land. The past was inescapable. Arab and Jew were bound together by hatred, blood, and victimhood. And for their punishment they would be forced to live together as feuding neighbors for all eternity.
The years after the bombing in Vienna were for Gabriel the lost years. He lived as a hermit in Cornwall, he wandered Europe quietly restoring paintings, he tried to forget. Eventually, Shamron came calling yet again, and the bond between Gabriel and the Office was renewed. Acting at his mentor’s behest, he carried off some of the most celebrated operations in the history of Israeli intelligence. His was the career against which all others would be measured, especially Uzi Navot’s. Like the Arabs and Jews of Palestine, Gabriel and Navot were inextricably bound. They were the sons of Ari Shamron, the trusted heirs of the service he had built and nurtured. Gabriel, the elder son, had been confident of the father’s love, but Navot had always struggled to win his approval. He had been given the job as chief only because Gabriel had turned it down. Now, remarried, a father once more, Gabriel was finally ready to assume his rightful place in the executive suite of King Saul Boulevard. For Uzi Navot it was a nakba, the word the Arabs used to describe the catastrophe of their flight from the land of Palestine.
The old hotel in Ma’ale Hahamisha was less than a mile from the 1967 border, and from its terrace restaurant it was possible to see the orderly yellow lights of Jewish settlements spilling down the hillside into the West Bank. The terrace was in darkness, except for a few windblown candles flickering dimly on the empty tables. Navot sat alone in a distant corner, the same corner where Shamron had been waiting on that September afternoon in 1972. Gabriel sat down next to him and turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the cold. Navot was silent. He was staring down at the lights of Har Adar, the first Israeli settlement over the old Green Line.
“Mazel tov,” he said at last.
“For what?”
“The painting,” said Navot. “I hear it’s almost finished.”
“Where did you hear a thing like that?”
“I’ve been monitoring your progress. So has the prime minister.” Navot regarded Gabriel through his small rimless spectacles. “Is it really done?”
“I think so.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I want to take one more look at it in the morning. If I like what I see, I’ll apply a coat of varnish and send it back to the Vatican.”
“And only ten days past your deadline.”
“Eleven, actually. But who’s counting?”
“I was.” Navot gave a rueful smile. “I enjoyed the reprieve, however brief.”
A silence descended between them. It was far from companionable.
“In case it’s slipped your mind,” Navot said at last, “it’s time for you to sign your new contract and move into my office. In fact, I was planning to pack up my things today, but I had to make one more trip as chief.”
“Where?”
“I had a piece of intelligence that I needed to share with our French brethren about the bombing of the Weinberg Center. I also wanted to make certain they were pursuing the perpetrators with appropriate vigor. After all, four Israeli citizens were killed, not to mention a woman who once did a very large favor for the Office.”
“Do they know about our links to her?”
“The French?”
“Yes, Uzi, the French.”
“I sent a team into her apartment to have a look around after the attack.”
“And?”
“The team found no mention of a certain Israeli intelligence officer who once borrowed her van Gogh in order to find a terrorist. Nor was there any reference to one Zizi al-Bakari, investment manager for the House of Saud and CEO of Jihad, Incorporated.” Navot paused, then added, “May he rest in peace.”
“What about the painting?”
“It was in its usual place. In hindsight, the team should have taken it.”
“Why?”
“As you no doubt remember, our Hannah was never married. No siblings, either. Her will was quite explicit when it came to the painting. Unfortunately, French intelligence got to her lawyer before he could make contact with us.”
“What are you talking about, Uzi?”
“It seems Hannah trusted only one person in the world to look after her van Gogh.”
“Who?”
“You, of course. But there’s just one problem,” Navot added.
“The French have taken the painting hostage. And they’re asking a rather high ransom.”
“How much?”
“The French don’t want money, Gabriel. The French want you.”
7
MA’ALE HAHAMISHA, ISRAEL
NAVOT LAID A PHOTOGRAPH ON the table, a street in Beirut littered with the ancient debris of an antiquities gallery.
“I assume you saw this.”
Gabriel nodded slowly. He had read about Clovis Mansour’s death in the newspapers. Given the events in Paris, the bombing in Beirut had received only minor press coverage. Not a single news outlet attempted to link the two events, nor was there any suggestion in the media that Clovis Mansour was on the payroll of any foreign intelligence service. In point of fact, he received money from at least four: the CIA, MI6, the Jordanian GID, and the Office. Gabriel knew this because, in preparation for taking over as chief, he had been devouring briefing books on all current operations and assets.
“Clovis was one of our best sources in Beirut,” Navot was saying, “especially when it came to matters involving money. Lately, he’d been keeping an eye on ISIS’s involvement in the illicit antiquities trade, which is why he requested a crash meeting the day after the bomb exploded in Paris.”
“Who did you send?”
Navot answered.