Navot smiled. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to penetrate Saladin’s network. I’m going to find out who he really is and where he’s operating. And then I’m going to drop a very large bomb on his head.”
“That means sending an agent into Syria.”
“Yes, Uzi, that’s where ISIS is.”
“The new caliphate is a forbidden kingdom. If you send an agent in there, he’ll be lucky to come out again with his head still attached to his shoulders.”
“She,” said Gabriel. “Saladin clearly prefers women.”
Navot shook his head gravely. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s too dangerous not to, Uzi.”
After a belligerent silence, Navot asked, “One of ours or one of theirs?”
“Ours.”
“Languages?”
“French and Arabic. And I want someone who has something to offer. ISIS already has plenty of losers.” Gabriel paused, then asked, “Do you know anyone like that, Uzi?”
“I might,” said Navot.
One of the many improvements he had made to the director’s suite was a high-tech video wall upon which the global news channels flickered day and night. At present, it was filled with images of human misery, much of it emanating from the shattered remnants of an ancient land called Syria. Navot watched the screen for a long moment before twirling the combination lock of his private safe. He removed two items, a file and an unopened box of Viennese butter cookies. He handed the file to Gabriel. The cookies he kept for himself. By the time Gabriel looked up again, they were gone.
“She’s perfect.”
“Yes,” agreed Navot. “And if anything happens to her, it’s on your head, not mine.”
16
JERUSALEM
NO ONE COULD REALLY REMEMBER precisely when it all began. It might have been the Arab motorist who ran down three Jewish teenagers near a West Bank settlement south of Jerusalem. Or the Arab trader who stabbed two yeshiva students outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate. Or the Arab worker at a luxury hotel who tried to poison a visiting congressman from Ohio. Inspired by the words and deeds of ISIS, frustrated by the broken promises of peace, many young Palestinians had quite literally taken matters into their own hands. The violence was low level, deeply personal, and difficult to stop. An Arab with a suicide vest was relatively easy to detect. An Arab armed with a kitchen knife, or an automobile, was a security nightmare, especially if the Arab was prepared to die. The random nature of the attacks had deeply unsettled the Israeli public. A recent poll had found that an overwhelming majority said they feared being attacked on the street. Many no longer frequented places where Arabs might be present, a difficult proposition in a city like Jerusalem.
Invariably, the wounded and the dying were rushed to Hadassah Medical Center, Israel’s primary Level 1 trauma facility. Located in West Jerusalem, in the abandoned Arab village of Ein Kerem, the hospital’s remarkable team of doctors and nurses routinely cared for the victims of the world’s oldest conflict—the shattered survivors of suicide bombings, the IDF soldiers wounded in combat, the Arab demonstrators cut down by Israeli gunfire. They made no distinction between Arab and Jew, victim and perpetrator; they treated anyone who came through their door, including some of Israel’s most dangerous enemies. It was not unusual to see a senior member of Hamas at Hadassah. Even the rulers of Syria, before the outbreak of the civil war, had sent their influential sick to the hills of Ein Kerem for care.
According to Christian tradition, Ein Kerem was the birthplace of John the Baptist. Church towers rose above the squat old limestone dwellings of the vanished Arabs, and the tolling of bells ushered one day into the next. Between the ancient village and the modern hospital was a parking lot reserved for senior physicians and administrators. Dr. Natalie Mizrahi was not yet permitted to park there; her space was located in a distant satellite lot at the edge of a deep ravine. She arrived at eight thirty and as usual had to wait several minutes for a shuttle bus. It dropped her a short walk from the entrance to the emergency room. For the moment, all appeared quiet. There were no ambulances in the courtyard, and the trauma center was darkened, with only a single nurse on duty in the event a team had to be assembled.
In the staff lounge, Natalie placed her handbag in a locker, pulled a white lab coat over her blue-green scrubs, and hung a stethoscope round her neck. Her shift commenced at nine a.m. and would terminate at nine the following morning. The face she examined in the bathroom mirror appeared reasonably rested and alert, much better than it would look in twenty-four hours. Her skin was olive complected, her eyes were nearly black. So was her hair. It was drawn into a tight bun and secured with a simple elastic band. A few escaped tendrils hung down the length of her neck. She wore no makeup and no fragrance; her nails were trimmed and covered in clear polish. The loose-fitting hospital attire concealed a body that was slender and taut, with narrow hips and the lightly muscled thighs and calves of a long-distance runner. These days, Natalie was confined to the treadmill at her health club. Like most Jerusalemites, she no longer felt safe alone in public.
She cleaned her hands with disinfectant and then leaned in to the mirror for a closer look at her face. She hated her nose and thought that her mouth, while sensuous, was slightly too large for her face. Her eyes, she had decided, were her most alluring asset, wide, dark, intelligent, beguiling, with a trace of treachery and perhaps some hidden reservoir of pain. After ten years of practicing medicine, she no longer considered herself beautiful, but she knew empirically that men found her attractive. As yet, she had stumbled upon no example of the species worth marrying. Her love life had consisted of a string of monogamous but ultimately unhappy relationships—in France, where she had lived until the age of twenty-six, and in Israel, where she had moved with her parents after they concluded that Marseilles was no longer a place for Jews. Her parents lived in Netanya, in an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean. Their assimilation into Israeli society was glancing at best. They watched French television, read French newspapers, shopped in French markets, passed their afternoons in French cafés, and spoke Hebrew only when necessary. Natalie’s Hebrew, while fast and fluent, betrayed her Marseilles childhood. So, too, did her Arabic, which was flawless. In the markets of the Old City, she sometimes heard things that made her hair stand on end.
Leaving the staff room, she noticed two other doctors rushing into the trauma center. The emergency room was just down the hall. Only two of the bays were occupied. Dr. Ayelet Malkin, the shift supervisor, sat in the corral in the center of the room, glaring at the screen of a desktop computer.
“Just in time,” she said without looking up.