Gabriel looked at the screen; rockets were beginning to fall. Then he switched off the television and led Shamron outside to the terrace. It was warmer here than in Jerusalem, and a soft wind from the Golan Heights was making patterns on the silvery surface of the lake. Shamron sat down in one of the wrought-iron chairs along the balustrade and immediately lit one of his foul-smelling cigarettes. Gabriel handed him a glass of wine and sat next to him.
“It’s done nothing for my heart,” Shamron said after drinking some of the wine, “but I’ve become fond of it in my dotage. I suppose it reminds me of all the things I never had time for when I was young—wine, children, holidays.” He paused, then added, “Life.”
“There’s still time, Ari.”
“Spare me the banalities,” Shamron said. “Time is my enemy now, my son.”
“So why are you wasting a minute of it involving yourself in politics?”
“There’s a difference between politics and security.”
“Security is merely an extension of politics, Ari.”
“And if you were advising the prime minister on what to do about the missiles?”
“It’s Uzi’s job to advise him, not mine.”
Shamron let the subject drop for the moment. “I’ve been following the news from London with great interest,” he said. “It looks as though your friend Jonathan Lancaster is well on his way to victory.”
“He is perhaps the luckiest politician on the planet.”
“Luck is an important thing to have in life. I never had much of it. Neither did you, for that matter.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“Needless to say,” Shamron continued, “it is our fervent hope that current electoral trends continue and Lancaster prevails. If that is the case, we are confident he will be the most pro-Zionist British politician since Arthur Balfour.”
“You’re a ruthless bastard.”
“Someone has to be.” Shamron looked at Gabriel seriously for a moment. “I’m sorry I ever let you get mixed up in this business.”
“You got exactly what you wanted,” Gabriel said. “Lancaster might as well be on the Office payroll. He’s the worst thing a leader can be. He’s compromised.”
“It was his doing, not ours.”
“That’s true,” said Gabriel. “But it was Madeline Hart who paid the price.”
“You have to do your best to forget her.”
“I’m afraid I said something to the kidnappers that makes that impossible.”
“You threatened to kill them if they harmed her?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Death threats are like vows of endless love whispered in the heat of passion—easily made, soon forgotten.”
“Not when they’re made by me.”
Shamron crushed out his cigarette thoughtfully. “You surprise me, my son. But not Uzi. He predicted you would want to go after them, which is why he’s already taken it off the table.”
“So I’ll do it without his support.”
“That means you’ll be out there in the field on your own, with no Office resources and no Office protection.”
Gabriel was silent.
“And if I forbade you to go? Would you obey me?”
“Yes, Abba.”
“Really?” asked Shamron, surprised.
Gabriel nodded in response.
“And if I permitted you to find these men and give them the justice they deserve? What would I get in return?”
“Must everything be a negotiation with you?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.” Shamron paused, then added, “And the prime minister wants it, too.”
Shamron drank some of the wine and then lit another cigarette.
“These are consequential and turbulent times we are living through, and the challenges are only going to grow more serious. The decisions we make in the coming months and years will determine whether the enterprise succeeds or fails. How can you pass up the chance to shape history?”
“I already have shaped history, Ari. Many, many times.”
“So put your gun on the shelf and use that brain of yours to defeat our enemies. Steal their secrets. Recruit their spies and generals as agents. Confuse and confound them. By way of deception, my son, thou shalt do war.”
Gabriel lapsed into silence. The sky above the Golan was turning blue-black with the coming night, and the lake was now nearly invisible. Shamron loved the view because it allowed him to keep watch on his distant enemies. Gabriel loved it because he had beheld it while reciting his marriage vows to Chiara. Now he was about to take a vow of another sort, a vow that would make an old man very happy.
“I won’t be a party to any sort of palace coup,” Gabriel said at last. “Uzi and I have had our differences over the years, but we’ve become friends.”
Shamron knew better than to speak. He had the interrogator’s gift of silence.
“If the prime minister decides not to appoint Uzi to a second term,” Gabriel continued, “I will consider an offer to become the next chief of the Office.”
“I need better odds than that.”
“They’re the best you’re going to get.”
“Negotiating with kidnappers has sharpened your edge.”
“Yes, it has.”
“Where do you plan to start?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“What will you do for money?”
“I found a few thousand euros lying around a boat in Marseilles.”
“Who did the boat belong to?”
“A smuggler named Marcel Lacroix.”
“Where is he now?”
Gabriel told him.
“Poor devil.”