TEN minutes later, Gabriel and Anna were walking along the Calle dell’Ascencione. The other members of the team had gone before them and taken up their positions-Jonathan to the San Marco vaporetto stop, Shimon and Ilana to look at shoes in the shop windows of the Calle Frezzeria, Yitzhak and Moshe to a table at Caffé Quadri in the Piazza San Marco. Deborah, the baby of the group, was given the unenviable assignment of feeding cracked corn to the pigeons in the shadow of the campanile tower. With admirable forbearance, she allowed the beasts to climb onto her shoulders and roost in her hair. She even found a handsome carabiniere to take her photograph with the disposable camera she’d purchased from a kiosk in the center of the square.
As Gabriel and Anna entered the piazza, a thin rain was falling, like mist from a room vaporizer. The forecast called for more heavy weather in the next two days, and there were fears of a severe acqua alta. Work crews were erecting a network of elevated duckboards, so that the tourist trade could continue when the lagoon tide turned San Marco into a shallow lake.
Anna wore a car-length quilted jacket, chunky enough to conceal the Kevlar vest beneath. Her hood was up, and she wore sunglasses in spite of the sunless afternoon sky. Gabriel was vaguely aware of Jonathan at his heels, a tourist guidebook open in his palms, his eyes flickering about the square. He glanced to his left and saw Shimon and Ilana strolling beneath the arcade. Hundreds of café tables receded into the distance like the ranks of an army on parade. The basilica floated before them, the great domes etched against the leaden sky.
Anna threaded her arm through Gabriel’s. It was a wholly spontaneous gesture, neither too intimate nor too detached. They might have been friends or professional colleagues; they might have just completed the act of love. No one would have been able to tell how she felt by the way she touched him. Only Gabriel could, and that was only because he could feel a slight tremor in her body and the powerful fingers of her left hand digging into the tendons of his arm.
They took a table at Caffé Florian beneath the shelter of the arcade. A quartet played Vivaldi rather poorly, which drove Anna to distraction. Shimon and Ilana had walked the length of the square and were pretending to gaze upon the lions in the Piazzetta dei Leoncini. Yitzhak and Moshe remained at their table on the opposite side of the piazza, while Deborah continued to be mauled by the pigeons. Jonathan sat down a few feet from Gabriel.
Anna ordered the coffees. Gabriel pulled out his telephone and checked in with each component of his team, beginning with Yitzhak and ending with a distraught Deborah. Then he pocketed the phone, caught Jonathan’s eye, and shook his head once.
They remained in place while Anna finished her coffee. Then Gabriel asked for the check, a signal to the rest of the team that the second act was about to begin. Jonathan did the same. Even though he was on Shamron’s expense account, his face revealed his disgust at the outrageous sum they were asking for a cappuccino and a bottle of mineral water.
Five minutes later, Team Giorgione was drifting in formation over the Ponte della Paglia into the sestiere of Castello-first Shimon and Ilana, then Yitzhak and Moshe, then Gabriel and Anna. Jonathan hovered a few feet from Gabriel’s back, though by now he had put away his tourist guide and had his fingers wrapped tightly around the butt of his Beretta.
AND forty yards behind them all was the Englishman. Two questions played in his thoughts. Why was the girl who had been feeding the pigeons in San Marco now walking five paces behind Gabriel Allon? And why was the man who had been seated near Allon at Caffé Florian walking five paces ahead of her?
The Englishman was well-versed in the art of countersurveillance. Anna Rolfe was under the protection of a skilled and professional service. But then that’s the way Allon would play it. The Englishman had studied at his feet; knew the way he thought. The Gabriel Allon that the Englishman met in Tel Aviv would never go out for a stroll without a purpose, and the purpose of this one was to expose the Englishman.
On the Riva degli Schiavoni, the Englishman bought a postcard from a tourist kiosk and watched Allon and Anna Rolfe disappear into the streets of Castello. Then he turned in the other direction and spent the next two hours walking slowly back to his hotel.
VENICE is a city where the usual rules of street surveillance and countersurveillance do not apply. It is a virtuoso piece requiring a virtuoso’s sure hand. There are no motorcars, no buses or streetcars. There are few places to establish a worthwhile fixed post. There are streets that lead to nowhere-into a canal or an enclosed courtyard with no means of escape. It is a city where the man being pursued holds all the advantages.
They were very good, Team Giorgione. They had been trained by the surveillance artists of the Office, and they had honed their skills on the streets of Europe and the Middle East. They communicated silently, drifting in and out of Gabriel’s orbit, appearing and reappearing from different directions. Only Jonathan remained constantly in the same position, five paces from Gabriel’s back, like a satellite in stationary orbit.
They moved north through a series of church squares, until finally they settled in a small café on the edge of the broad Campo Santa Maria della Formosa. Gabriel and Anna took a table, while Jonathan remained standing at the bar with a group of men. Through the windows, Gabriel caught momentary glimpses of the team: Shimon and Ilana buying gelato from a vendor at the center of the square. Yitzhak and Moshe admiring the plain exterior of the church of the Santa Maria Formosa. And Deborah, in a flash of her old spirit, playing football with a group of Italian schoolboys.
This time it was Jonathan who checked in with the team members by secure cell phone. When he was finished, he turned toward Gabriel and mouthed two words: She’s clean.
LATE that evening, when Team Giorgione had finished its debriefing and its members had decamped back to their hotel rooms, Gabriel lingered in the half-light of the sitting room, staring at the photographs of Christopher Keller. Upstairs, in the bedroom, Anna’s violin fell silent. Gabriel listened as she placed it back in its case and snapped the latches. A moment later, she descended the staircase. Gabriel gathered up the photographs and slipped them into a file folder. Anna sat down and lit a cigarette.
Gabriel said, “Are you going to try it?”
“ ‘The Devil’s Trill’?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“What will you do if you think you can’t pull it off?”
“I’ll substitute a series of unaccompanied sonatas by Bach. They’re quite beautiful, but they’re not the ‘Trill.’ The critics will wonder why I chose not to play it. They’ll speculate that I returned too quickly. It will be great fun.”
“Whatever you decide to play, it’s going to be marvelous.”
Her gaze fell upon the manila folder on the coffee table.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Why did you hide the photographs of him when I came into the room? Why don’t you want me to see him?”
“You worry about ‘The Devil’s Trill,’ and I’ll worry about the man with the gun.”
“Tell me about him.”
“There are some things you don’t need to know.”