Gabriel discreetly lifted the cover. The photograph inside showed an attractive middle-aged woman with dark wavy hair, olive skin, and a long aquiline nose. She was holding an umbrella above her head and descending a flight of stone steps in Montmartre.
“Hannah Weinberg,” Navot said. “Forty-four, unmarried, childless. Jewish demographics in microcosm. An only child with no children. At this rate, we won’t need a state.” Navot looked down and picked morosely at a bowl of potted chicken and vegetables. He was prone to fits of despondency, especially when it came to the future of the Jewish people. “She owns a small boutique up in Montmartre on the rue Lepic. Boutique Lepic is the name of it. I snapped that photo of her earlier this afternoon as she was walking to lunch. One is left with the impression the boutique is more of a hobby than a vocation. I’ve seen her bank accounts. Marc Weinberg left his daughter very well off.”
The waiter approached and placed a bowl of purple dreck in front of Gabriel. He immediately pushed it toward the center of the table. He couldn’t bear the smell of borscht. Navot dropped a lump of bread into his broth and prodded it with his spoon.
“Weinberg was an interesting fellow. He was a prominent lawyer here in Paris. He was also something of a memory militant. He brought a great deal of pressure on the government to come clean about the role of the French in the Holocaust. As a result he wasn’t terribly popular in some circles here in Paris.”
“And the daughter? What are her politics?”
“Moderate Eurosocialist, but that’s no crime in France. She also inherited a bit of militancy from her father. She’s involved with a group that’s trying to combat the anti-Semitism here. She actually met with the French president once. Look underneath that photograph.”
Gabriel found a clipping from a French magazine about the current wave of anti-Semitism in France. The accompanying photograph showed Jewish protesters marching across one of the Seine bridges. At the head of the column, carrying a sign that read STOP THE HATRED NOW, was Hannah Weinberg.
“Has she ever been to Israel?”
“At least four times. Shabak is working that end of things to make certain she wasn’t sitting up in Ramallah plotting with the terrorists. I’m sure they’ll turn up nothing on her. She’s golden, Gabriel. She’s a gift from the intelligence gods.”
“Sexual preferences?”
“Men, as far as we can tell. She’s involved with a civil servant.”
“Jewish?”
“Thank God.”
“Have you been inside her flat.”
“I went in with the neviot team myself.”
Neviot teams specialized in gathering intelligence from hard targets such as apartments, offices, and hotel rooms. The unit employed some of the best break-in artists and thieves in the world. Gabriel had other plans for them later in the operation-provided, of course, Hannah Weinberg agreed to part with her van Gogh.
“Did you see the painting?”
Navot nodded. “She keeps it in her childhood bedroom.”
“How did it look?”
“You want my assessment of a van Gogh?” Navot shrugged his heavy shoulders. “It’s a very nice painting of a girl sitting at a dressing table. I’m not artistic like you. I’m potted chicken and a nice love story at the movies. You’re not eating your soup.”
“I don’t like it, Uzi. I told you I don’t like it.”
Navot took Gabriel’s spoon and swirled the dab of sour cream, lightening the hue of the purple mixture.
“We had a peek at her papers,” Navot said. “We rummaged through her closets and drawers. We left a little something on her phone and computer as well. One can never be too careful in a situation like this.”
“Room coverage?”
Navot appeared hurt by the question. “Of course,” he said.
“What are you using for a listening post?”
“A van for the moment. If she agrees to help us, we’re going to need something more permanent. One of the neviot boys is already scouting the neighborhood for a suitable flat.”
Navot pushed the remnants of his potted chicken to one side and started in on Gabriel’s borscht. For all his European sophistication, he was at heart still a peasant from the shtetl.
“I can see where this is going,” he said between spoonfuls. “You get to track down the bad guy, and I get to spend the next year watching a girl. But that’s the way it’s always been with us, hasn’t it? You get all the glory while the field hands like me do all the spade work. My God, you saved the Pope himself. How’s a mere mortal like me supposed to compete with that?”
“Shut up and eat your soup, Uzi.”
Being Shamron’s chosen one had not come without a price. Gabriel was used to the professional jealousy of his colleagues.
“I have to leave Paris tomorrow,” Navot said. “I’ll be gone only a day.”
“Where are you going?”
“Amos wants a word with me.” He paused, then added, “I think it’s about the Special Ops job. The job you turned down.”
It made sense, Gabriel thought. Navot was an extremely capable field agent who’d taken part in several major operations, including a few with Gabriel.
“Is that what you want, Uzi? A job at King Saul Boulevard?”
Navot shrugged. “I’ve been out here in the field a long time. Bella wants to get married. It’s hard to have a stable home life when you live like this. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I never know where I’m going to wind up at the end of the day. I can have breakfast in Berlin, lunch in Amsterdam, and be sitting in King Saul Boulevard at midnight briefing the director.” Navot gave Gabriel a conspiratorial smile. “That’s what the Americans don’t understand about us. They put their case officers into little boxes and slap their wrists when they step outside the lines. The Office isn’t that way. It never was. That’s what makes it the greatest job in the world-and that’s why our service is so much better than theirs. They wouldn’t know what to do with a man like you.”
Navot had lost interest in the borscht. He pushed it across the table, so that it looked as though Gabriel had eaten it. Gabriel reached for the glass of wine but thought better of it. He had a headache from the train ride and the rainy Paris weather, and the kosher wine smelled about as appealing as paint thinner.
“But it takes its toll on marriages and relationships, doesn’t it, Gabriel? How many of us are divorced? How many of us have had affairs with girls out there in the field? At least if I’m working in Tel Aviv, I’ll be around more often. There’s still a lot of travel with the job but less than this. Bella has a place near the beach in Caesarea. It will be a nice life.” He shrugged again. “Listen to me. I’m acting as though Amos has offered me the job. Amos hasn’t offered me anything. For all I know, he’s bringing me to King Saul Boulevard to fire me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the most qualified man for the job. You’ll be my boss, Uzi.”
“Your boss? Please. No one is your boss, Gabriel. Only the old man.” Navot’s expression turned suddenly grave. “How is he? I hear it’s not good.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Gabriel assured him.
They lapsed into silence as the waiter came to the table and cleared away the dishes. When he was gone again, Gabriel gave the file folder to Navot, who slipped it back into his briefcase.
“So how are you going to play it with Hannah Weinberg?”
“I’m going to ask her to give up a painting that’s worth eighty million dollars. I have to tell her the truth-or at least some version of the truth. And then we’ll have to deal with the security consequences.”
“What about the approach? Are you going to dance for a while or go straight in for the kill?”