He remained motionless for a long moment, his breathing rapid and shallow. There was a ritual in the Shamron household. At the termination of such telephone calls, Gilah would usually pose a single question: “How many dead this time?” But Gilah could tell by her husband’s reaction that this call was different. So she reached out in the darkness and touched the papery skin of his hollowed cheek. For only the second time in their marriage, she felt tears.
“What is it, Ari? What’s happened?”
Hearing his answer, she raised both hands to her face and wept.
“Where is he?”
“America.”
“Does he know yet?”
“He’s just been told.”
“Is he coming home?”
“He’ll be here by morning.”
“Do we know who did it?”
“We have a good idea.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Amos doesn’t want me around. He thinks I’ll be a distraction.”
“Who is Amos to tell you what to do? Gabriel is like a son to you. Tell Amos he can to go to hell. Tell him you’re coming back to King Saul Boulevard.”
Shamron was silent for a moment. “Maybe he won’t want me there.”
“Who?”
“Gabriel.”
“Why would you say that, Ari?”
“Because if I hadn’t…” His voice trailed off.
“Because if you hadn’t recruited him a long time ago, none of this would have ever happened? Is that what you were going to say?”
Shamron made no response.
“Gabriel is more like you than he realizes. He had no choice but to fight. None of us do.” Gilah wiped the tears from her husband’s cheeks. “Get out of bed, Ari. Go to Tel Aviv. And make sure you’re waiting at Ben-Gurion when he arrives. He needs to see a familiar face.” She paused, then said, “He needs to see his abba.”
Shamron sat up and swung his feet slowly to the floor.
“Can I make you some coffee or something to eat?”
“There isn’t time.”
“Let me get you some clean clothes.”
Gilah switched on her lamp and climbed out of bed. Shamron snatched up the receiver of his telephone again and placed a call to the guard shack at the foot of his drive. It was answered by Rami, the longtime chief of his permanent security detail.
“Get the car ready,” Shamron said.
“Something wrong, boss?”
“It’s Gabriel. You’ll know the rest soon enough.”
Shamron hung up the phone and got to his feet. By then Gilah had laid his clothes out at the foot of the bed: pressed khaki trousers, an oxford-cloth shirt, a leather bomber jacket with a tear in the right breast. Shamron reached down and tugged at it gently. We’ll wage one more fight together, he thought. One last operation.
He lit a cigarette and dressed slowly, as if armoring himself for the battle ahead. Pulling on his jacket, he made his way to the kitchen, where Gilah was brewing a pot of coffee.
“I told you there isn’t time.”
“It’s for me, Ari.”
“You should go back to bed, Gilah.”
“I won’t be able to sleep now.” She looked at the cigarette burning between his yellowed fingers but knew better than to scold him. “Try not to smoke too much. The doctor says-”
“I know what he says.”
She kissed his cheek. “You’ll call me when you can?”
“I’ll call.”
Shamron stepped outside. The house faced east, toward the Sea of Galilee and the looming dark mass of the Golan Heights. Shamron had bought it many years ago because it allowed him to keep watch on Israel’s enemies. Tonight those enemies were beyond the horizon. By their actions they had just declared war on the Office. And now the Office would make war on them in return.
Shamron’s armored limousine was waiting in the drive. Rami helped him into the back before settling into the front passenger seat. As the car lurched forward, the bodyguard shot a glance over his shoulder and asked where they were going.
“King Saul Boulevard.”
Rami gave a terse nod. Shamron reached for his secure phone and pressed a speed-dial button. The voice that answered was young, male, and impertinent. It immediately set Shamron’s teeth on edge. Making mincemeat of such voices was one of his favorite pastimes.
“I need to speak to him right away.”
“He’s asleep.”
“Not for long.”
“He asked not to be disturbed unless it’s a matter of national crisis.”
“Then I suggest you wake him.”
“It better be important.”
The aide placed Shamron on hold, never a good idea. Thirty seconds later, another voice came on the line. Heavy with sleep, it belonged to Israel’s prime minister.
“What is it, Ari?”
“We lost two boys in Italy tonight,” Shamron said. “And Gabriel’s wife is missing.”
IT WAS MARGHERITA, the housekeeper, who had made the discovery. Later, under questioning from Italian authorities, she would place the time at perhaps five minutes past ten, though she admitted to not having checked her wristwatch. The time happened to correspond satisfactorily to her mobile-phone records, which showed she placed her first call at 10:07. The time also dovetailed well with her movements that night. Several witnesses would recall seeing her leave a café in Amelia at roughly 9:50 p.m., leaving her plenty of time to make the drive back to Villa dei Fiori aboard her little motor scooter.
The first indication of trouble, she said, was the presence of a car outside the security gate. A Fiat sedan, it was parked at a drunken angle, nose against a tree, headlamps doused. She told the police she assumed it had been abandoned or involved in a minor accident. Rather than approach the car, she had first illuminated it with the beam of her headlamp. It was then she noticed the broken windows and the bits of safety glass scattered over the ground like crystals. She also realized the car was familiar. It belonged to the two friends of the restorer, the young men with odd names who spoke no known language. She told the police she had never truly believed their story. Her father had been a soldier, she said, and she knew a couple of security guards when she saw them. Dismounting the bike, she had hurried over to the car to see if anyone was injured. What she had found, she said, was clearly no accident. Both men had been shot many times and were drenched in blood.
Though Margherita was the first to be questioned by the police, she had not actually been the one to summon them. Like the other members of the staff, she had been given strict instructions about what to do in the event of any incident involving the restorer or his wife. She was to telephone Count Gasparri, the villa’s absentee owner, and inform him first. Which she had done at 10:07. The count had then placed a hasty call to Monsignor Luigi Donati, private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII, and Donati had contacted the Vatican Security Office. Within twenty minutes, units of both the Polizia di Stato and Carabiniere had arrived at the villa’s entrance and cordoned off the scene. Unable to locate the keys to the vehicle, the officers had opened the trunk by force. Inside they had found three suitcases, one filled with the belongings of a woman, and a woman’s handbag. The commanding officer had quickly surmised that the crime scene represented more than just a double homicide. It appeared there had been a woman in the car. And the woman was now missing.
Unbeknownst to the officers at the scene, a quiet call had already been placed from the Vatican to the woman’s employers in Tel Aviv. The officer who had taken the call immediately telephoned Uzi Navot, who was at that moment heading toward his home in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikvah. He swung a reckless U-turn and drove dangerously fast back to King Saul Boulevard. Along the way, he placed three calls from his secure phone: one to Adrian Carter at Langley, the next to the director of the Office, and a third to the Memuneh, the one in charge.