“You’re in this hospital bed instead of at your desk in the Prime Minister’s Office. That makes Zizi al-Bakari and Ahmed bin Shafiq my problem, too. Besides, the world has changed, Ari. We need to work together to survive. The old rules don’t apply.”
Shamron lifted his heavily veined hand and pointed toward the plastic water cup on his bedside table. Gabriel held it to Shamron’s lips while he sipped water through the straw.
“At whose request are you undertaking this errand?” Shamron asked. “Is it Adrian Carter, or higher up the chain of command?” Greeted by Gabriel’s silence, Shamron angrily pushed the water cup away. “Is it your intention to treat me as some sort of invalid? I’m still the prime minister’s special adviser on all matters dealing with security and intelligence. I’m still the…” His voice trailed off with a sudden fatigue.
“You’re still the memuneh,” Gabriel said, finishing the sentence for him. In Hebrew, memuneh meant the one in charge. For many years the title had been reserved for Shamron.
“You’re not going after some kid from Nablus, Gabriel. You have Ahmed bin Shafiq and Zizi al-Bakari in your sights. If something goes wrong, the world will fall on you from a very great height. And your friend Adrian Carter won’t be there to help scrape you up. You might want to consider taking me into your confidence. I’ve done this sort of thing a time or two.”
Gabriel poked his head into the corridor and asked the protective agents posted there to make certain any audio or visual surveillance of Shamron was switched off. Then he sat down again in the bedside chair and, with his mouth close to Shamron’s ear, told him everything. Shamron’s gaze, for a moment at least, seemed a little more focused. When he posed his first question it was almost possible for Gabriel to conjure an image of the iron bar of a man who had walked into his life one September afternoon in 1972.
“You’ve made up your mind about using a woman?”
Gabriel nodded.
“You’re going to need someone whose story will withstand the scrutiny of Zizi’s well-paid security staff. You can’t use one of our girls, and you can’t use a non-Israeli Jew. If Zizi even suspects he’s looking at a Jewish girl, he’ll steer clear of her. You need a gentile.”
“What I need,” said Gabriel, “is an American girl.”
“Where are you going to get one?”
Gabriel’s one-word answer caused Shamron to frown. “I don’t like the idea of us being responsible for one of their agents. What if something goes wrong?”
“What could go wrong?”
“Everything,” Shamron said. “You know that better than anyone.”
Shamron seemed suddenly weary. Gabriel lowered the dimmer on the bedside lamp.
“What are you going to do?” Shamron asked. “Read me a bedtime story?”
“I’m going to sit with you until you fall asleep.”
“Gilah can do that. Go home and get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
“I’ll stay for a while.”
“Go home,” Shamron insisted. “There’s someone waiting there who’s anxious to see you.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, when Gabriel turned into Narkiss Street, he saw lights burning in his apartment. He parked his Skoda around the corner and stole quietly up the darkened walkway into the building. As he slipped inside the apartment the air was heavy with the scent of vanilla. Chiara was seated cross-legged atop his examination table in the harsh light of his halogen work lamps. She scrutinized Gabriel as he came inside, then turned her gaze once more to what had once been a meticulously decorated living room.
“I like what you’ve done with the place, Gabriel. Please tell me you didn’t give away our bed, too.”
Gabriel shook his head, then kissed her.
“How long are you in town?” she asked.
“I leave tomorrow morning.”
“As usual, my timing is perfect. How long will you be gone?”
“Hard to say.”
“Can you take me with you?”
“Not this time.”
“Where are you going?”
Gabriel eased her off the examination table and switched off the lights.
13.
I NEED A VAN Gogh, Julian.”
“Don’t we all, petal.”
Isherwood pushed back his coat sleeve and glanced at his wristwatch. It was ten in the morning. He was usually in his gallery by now, not strolling along the lakeshore in St. James’s Park. He paused for a moment to watch a flotilla of ducks slicing through the calm water toward the island. Gabriel used the opportunity to cast his eyes around the park to see if they were being followed. Then he hooked Isherwood by the inside of the elbow and towed him toward the Horse Guards Road.
They were a mismatched pair, figures from different paintings. Gabriel wore dark jeans and suede brogues that made no sound as he walked. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his leather jacket, his shoulders were slouched forward, and his green eyes were flickering restlessly about the park. Isherwood, fifteen years older than Gabriel and several inches taller, wore a chalk-striped suit and woolen overcoat. His gray locks hung over the back of his coat collar and floated up and down with each lanky, loose-limbed stride. There was something precarious about Julian Isherwood. Gabriel, as always, had to resist an urge to reach out and steady him.
They had known each other for thirty years. Isherwood’s backbone-of-England surname and English scale concealed the fact that he was not, at least technically, English at all. British by nationality and passport, yes, but German by birth, French by upbringing, and Jewish by religion. Only a handful of trusted friends knew that Isherwood had staggered into London as a child refugee in 1942 after being carried across the snowbound Pyrenees by a pair of Basque shepherds. Or that his father, the renowned Paris art dealer Samuel Isakowitz, had been murdered at the Sobibor death camp along with Isherwood’s mother. There was something else Isherwood kept secret from his competitors in the London art world-and from nearly everyone else, for that matter. In the lexicon of the Office, Julian Isherwood was a sayan, a volunteer Jewish helper. He had been recruited by Ari Shamron for a single purpose: to help build and maintain the cover of a single very special agent.
“How’s my friend Mario Delvecchio?” Isherwood asked.
“Vanished without a trace,” said Gabriel. “I hope my unveiling didn’t cause you any problems.”
“None whatsoever.”
“No rumors on the street? No awkward questions at the auctions? No visits from the men of MI5?”
“Are you asking me whether people in London regard me as a poisonous Israeli spy?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking you.”
“All quiet on this front, but then we were never very flashy about our relationship, were we? That’s not your way. You’re not flashy about anything. One of the two or three best art restorers in the world, and no one really knows who you are. It’s a shame, that.”
They came to the corner of Great George Street. Gabriel led them to the right, into Birdcage Walk.
“Who knows about us in London, Julian? Who knows that you had a professional relationship with Mario?”
Isherwood looked up at the dripping trees along the pavement. “Very few people, really. There’s Jeremy Crabbe over at Bonhams, of course. He’s still miffed at you for stealing that Rubens from under his nose.” Isherwood placed a long, bony hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I have a buyer for it. All I need now is the painting.”
“I put the varnish on yesterday before I left Jerusalem,” Gabriel said. “I’ll use one of our front shippers to get it here as quickly as possible. You could have it by the end of the week. By the way, you owe me a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”