On a blustery afternoon in the middle of February, while seated at the oaken desk in his large office, he received an unusual telephone call. The man at the other end was not looking to have someone eliminated—hardly surprising, thought the don, for the man was more than capable of seeing to his own killing. Instead, he was looking for a villa where he might spend a few weeks alone with his wife. It had to be in a place where no one would recognize him and where he had no need of bodyguards. The don had just the place. But there was one problem. There was only one road in and out—and the road passed the three ancient olive trees where Don Casabianca’s wretched palomino goat made his encampment.
“Is there any way it can have a tragic accident before we arrive?” asked the man on the telephone.
“Sorry,” replied Don Orsati. “But here on Corsica some things never change.”
They arrived on the island three days later, having flown from Tel Aviv to Paris and then from Paris to Ajaccio. Don Orsati had left a car at the airport, a shiny gray Peugeot sedan that Gabriel drove with Corsican abandon southward down the coast, then inland through the valleys thick with macchia. When they arrived at the three ancient olive trees, the goat rose menacingly from its resting place and blocked their path. But it quickly gave ground after Chiara spoke a few soothing words into its tattered ear.
“What did you say to it?” asked Gabriel when they were driving again.
“I told him you were sorry for being mean to him.”
“But I’m not sorry. He was definitely the aggressor.”
“He’s a goat, darling.”
“He’s a terrorist.”
“How can you possibly run the Office if you can’t get along with a goat?”
“Good question,” he said glumly.
The villa was a mile or so beyond the goat’s redoubt. It was small and simply furnished, with pale limestone floors and a granite terrace. Laricio pine shaded the terrace in the morning, but in the afternoon the sun beat brightly upon the stones. The days were cold and pleasant; at night the wind whistled in the pines. They drank Corsican red wine by the fire and watched the swaying of the trees. The fire burned blue-green from the macchia wood and smelled of rosemary and thyme. Soon, Gabriel and Chiara smelled of it, too.
They had no plan other than to do little of anything at all. They slept late. They drank their morning coffee in the village square. They ate fish for lunch by the sea. In the afternoon, if it was warm, they would sun themselves on the granite terrace; and if it was cold they would retreat to their simple bedroom and make love until they slept with exhaustion. Shamron left numerous plaintive messages that Gabriel happily ignored. In a year his every waking moment would be consumed by the job of protecting Israel from those who wished to destroy it. For now, though, there was only Chiara, and the cold sun and the sea, and the intoxicating smell of the pine and the macchia.
For the first few days, they avoided the newspapers, the Internet, and the television. But gradually Gabriel reconnected with a world of problems that would soon be his. The head of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, predicted Iran would be a nuclear power within a year. The next day there was a report the regime in Syria had transferred chemical weapons to Hezbollah. And the day after that the Muslim Brother who now ran Egypt was caught on tape talking about a new war with Israel. Indeed, the only good news Gabriel could find occurred in London, where Jonathan Lancaster, having survived the Downing Street Affair, appointed Graham Seymour to be the next chief of MI6. Gabriel called him that evening to offer his congratulations. Mainly, though, he was curious about Madeline.
“She’s doing better than I expected,” said Seymour.
“Where is she?”
“It seems a friend offered her a cottage by the sea.”
“Really?”
“It’s a bit unorthodox,” Seymour conceded, “but we decided it was as good a place as any.”
“Just don’t turn your back on her, Graham. The SVR has a very long reach.”
It was because of that long reach that Gabriel and Chiara kept a deliberately low profile on the island. They rarely left the villa after dark, and several times each night Gabriel stepped onto the terrace to listen for movement in the valley. A week into their stay, he heard the familiar rattle of a Renault hatchback, then, a moment later, saw lights burning for the first time in Keller’s villa. He waited until the following afternoon before dropping by unannounced. Keller was wearing a pair of loose-fitting white trousers and a white pullover. He opened a bottle of Sancerre, and they drank it outside in the sun. Sancerre in the afternoon, Corsican red in the evening—Gabriel thought he could get used to this. But there was no turning back now. His people needed him. He had an appointment with history.
“The Cézanne could use a bit of work,” Gabriel said offhandedly. “Why don’t you let me clean it up for you while I’m in town?”
“I like the Cézanne exactly the way it is. Besides,” Keller added, “you came here to rest.”
“You don’t need any?”
“What’s that?”
“Rest,” answered Gabriel.
Keller said nothing.
“Where have you been, Christopher?”
“I had a business trip.”
“Olive oil or blood?”
When Keller raised an eyebrow to indicate it was the latter, Gabriel shook his head reproachfully.
“Money doesn’t come from singing,” said Keller quietly.
“There are other ways of making money, you know.”