He was waiting when she arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport. He escorted her to a special holding room inside the terminal. Everything was designed to convey to her that she was now one of the elite. That she was walking through a secret door and her life would never be the same again. From the airport he whisked her through the streets of Tel Aviv to a luxurious safe flat in the Opera Tower with a large terrace overlooking the Promenade and Ge’ula Beach. “This will be your home for the next few weeks. I hope you find it to your liking.”
“It’s absolutely beautiful.”
“Tonight you rest. Tomorrow the real work begins.”
The next morning she went to the Academy and endured a crash course in Office tradecraft and doctrine. He lectured her on the basics of impersonal communication. He trained her to use a Beretta and to cut strategic slits in her clothing so she could grab it in a hurry. He taught her how to pick locks and how to make imprints of keys using a special device. He taught her how to detect and shake surveillance. Each afternoon she spent two hours with a man named Oded, who taught her rudimentary Arabic.
But most of the time at the Academy was spent developing her memory and awareness. He placed her alone in a room and flashed dozens of names on a projection screen, forcing her to memorize as many as possible. He took her into a small apartment, allowed her to look at the room for a matter of seconds, then pulled her out and made her describe it in detail. He took her to lunch at the canteen and asked her to describe the steward who had just served them. Jacqueline confessed she had no idea. “You must be aware of your surroundings all the time,” he said. “You must assume that the waiter is a potential enemy. You must be scanning, watching, and surveying constantly. And yet you must appear as though you are doing nothing of the sort.”
Her training did not stop at sundown. Each evening Shamron would appear at the Opera Tower and take her into the streets of Tel Aviv for more. He took her to a lawyer’s office, told her to break in and steal a specific set of files. He took her to a street filled with fashionable boutiques and told her to steal something.
“You’re joking.”
“What if you are on the run in a foreign country? What if you have no money and no way to make contact with us? The police are looking for you and you need a change of clothing quickly.”
“I’m not exactly built for shoplifting.”
“Make yourself inconspicuous.”
She entered a boutique and spent ten minutes trying on clothing. When she returned to the lobby she had bought nothing, but inside her handbag was a sexy black cocktail dress.
Shamron said, “Now I want you to find a place to change and discard your other clothing. Then meet me outside at the ice cream stand on the promenade.”
It was a warm evening for early November, and there were many people out strolling and taking in the air. They walked arm in arm along the waterfront, like a rich old man and his mistress, Jacqueline playfully licking an ice cream cone.
“You’re being followed by three people,” Shamron said. “Meet me in the bar of that restaurant in half an hour and tell me who they are. And keep in mind that I’m going to send a kidon to kill them, so don’t make a mistake.”
Jacqueline engaged in a standard countersurveillance routine, just as Shamron had taught her. Then she went to the bar and found him seated alone at a corner table.
“Black leather jacket, blue jeans with a Yale sweatshirt, blond girl with a rose tattooed on her shoulder blade.”
“Wrong, wrong, wrong. You just condemned three innocent tourists to death. Let’s try it again.”
They took a taxi a short distance to Rothschild Boulevard, a broad promenade lined with trees, benches, kiosks, and fashionable cafes.
“Once again, three people are following you. Meet me at Cafe Tamar in thirty minutes.”
“Where’s Cafe Tamar?”
But Shamron turned and melted into the flow of pedestrians. Half an hour later, having located the chic Cafe Tamar on Sheinkin Street, she joined him once again.
“The girl with the dog, the boy with the headphones and the Springsteen shirt, the kid from the kibbutz with the Uzi.”
Shamron smiled. “Very good. Just one more test tonight. See that man sitting alone over there?”
Jacqueline nodded.
“Strike up a conversation with him, learn everything you can, and then entice him back to your flat. When you get to the lobby, find some way of unsnarling yourself from the situation without making a scene.”
Shamron got up and walked away. Jacqueline made eye contact with the man, and after a few minutes he joined her. He said his name was Mark, that he was from Boston and worked for a computer firm doing business in Israel. They talked for an hour and began to flirt. But when she invited him back to her apartment, he confessed that he was married.
“Too bad,” she said. “We could have had a very nice time.”
He quickly changed his mind. Jacqueline excused herself to use the bathroom, went to a public telephone instead. She dialed the front desk at the Opera Tower and left a message for herself. Then she went back to the table and said, “Let’s go.”
They walked to her flat. Before going upstairs she checked with the front desk. “Your sister called from Herzliya,” the clerk said. “She tried your apartment, but there was no answer, so she called here and left a message.”
“What is it?”
“Your father has had a heart attack.”
“Oh, my God!”
“They’ve taken him to the hospital. She says he’s going to be all right, but she wants you to come right away.”
Jacqueline turned to the American. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
The American kissed her cheek and walked away, crestfallen. Shamron, who was watching the entire scene from across the lobby, came forward, grinning like a schoolboy. “That was pure poetry. Sarah Halevy, you’re a natural.”
Her first assignment didn’t require her to leave Paris. The Office was trying to recruit an Iraqi nuclear weapons scientist who lived in Paris and worked with Iraq ’s French suppliers. Shamron decided to set a “honey trap” and gave the job to Jacqueline. She met the Iraqi in a bar, seduced him, and began spending the night at his apartment. He fell head over heels in love. Jacqueline told her lover that if he wanted to continue seeing her, he would have to meet with a friend of hers who had a business proposition. The friend turned out to be Ari Shamron, the proposition simple: work for us or we will tell your wife and Saddam’s security thugs you’ve been fucking an Israeli agent. The Iraqi agreed to work for Shamron.
Jacqueline had been given her first taste of intelligence work. She found it exhilarating. She had played a small role in an operation that had dealt a blow to Iraq ’s nuclear ambitions. She had helped protect the State of Israel from an enemy that would do anything to destroy it. And in a small way she had avenged the deaths of her grandparents.
She had to wait another year for her next assignment: seducing and blackmailing a Syrian intelligence officer in London. It was another stunning success. Nine months later she was sent to Cyprus to seduce a German chemical company executive who was selling his wares to Libya. This time there was a twist. Shamron wanted her to drug the German and photograph the documents in his briefcase while he was unconscious. Once again she pulled off the job without a hitch.
After the operation Shamron flew her to Tel Aviv, presented her with a secret citation, told her she was finished. It didn’t take long for things to circulate through the intelligence underground. Her next target might suspect that the pretty French model was more than she appeared to be. And she might very well end up dead.
She begged him for one more job. Shamron reluctantly agreed.
Three months later he sent her to Tunis.
Jacqueline had thought it was strange that Shamron instructed her to meet Gabriel Allon in a church in Turin. She found him standing atop a platform, restoring a fresco depicting the Ascension. She worked with good-looking men every day in her overt life, but there was something about Gabriel that took her breath away. It was the
