“I’m convinced it was Carter who leaked everything to the Times.” Gabriel detected a hint of admiration in the old man’s voice. He’d used the press to eviscerate an enemy once or twice himself over the years. “I suppose he had a right to be angry with me. I lied to his face about our knowledge of Tariq’s involvement in Paris.”
“Lev must have talked too.”
“Of course he did. Carter’s beyond my reach. Little Lev will pay dearly.” Shamron pushed his plate away a few inches, rested his stubby elbows on the table, and covered his mouth with his fist. “At least our reputation as a bold action service has been restored. After all, we did take down Tariq in the middle of Manhattan and save Arafat’s life.”
“No thanks to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tariq nearly killed me. And he could have killed Arafat if he hadn’t gotten cold feet at the last minute. Why did he let him live?”
“Arafat is being very tight-lipped about what transpired in that room. Obviously, he said something that made Tariq change his mind.”
“Any sign of Yusef?”
Shamron shook his head. “We’ll keep looking for him, of course, but I doubt we’ll ever find him again. He’s probably deep in the mountains of Afghanistan by now.”
“And Benjamin Stone?”
“Relaxing in the Caribbean aboard his yacht.” Shamron abruptly changed course. “I stopped in on Jacqueline today.”
“How is she?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself? She wants to see you.”
“I have to get back to Jerusalem.”
“Why, Gabriel? So you can waste more time wandering the Old City with the crazies? Go see the girl. Spend some time with her. Who knows? You might actually enjoy yourself.”
“When do I get to leave?”
“In my professional opinion it will never be safe for you to leave Israel.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home, Gabriel!”
But Gabriel just shook his head slowly.
“What have I done to you, Gabriel? Why do you hate your people and your country so?”
“I don’t hate anyone. I just have no peace here.”
“So you want to run back to Europe? Back to your paintings? Do me a favor. Get out of Jerusalem for a few days. Take a car and travel this country of yours. Get to know her again. You might like what you see.”
“I’m not up to it. I’d rather stay in Jerusalem until you set me free.”
“Damn you, Gabriel!” Shamron slammed his fist onto the table, rattling dishes. “You’ve spent the last years of your life fixing everything and everyone but yourself. You restore paintings and old sailboats. You restored the Office. You restored Jacqueline and Julian Isherwood. You even managed to restore Tariq in a strange way-you made certain we buried him in the Upper Galilee. But now it’s time to restore yourself. Get out of that flat. Live life, before you wake up one day and discover you’re an old man. Like me.”
“What about your watchers?”
“I put them there for your own good.”
“Get rid of them.”
Shamron stuck out his jaw. “Fine, you’re on your own.”
As Gabriel rode back to Jerusalem that night, he thought how well things had worked out for the old man. Lev and the others were gone, Tariq was dead, and the reputation of the Office had been restored. Not bad for a few weeks’ work, Ari. Not bad at all.
Gabriel went south first, down through the barren escarpments and craters of the Negev to Eilat and the Red Sea. He spent a day sunning himself on the beach but soon grew restless and set out toward the north, taking the fast road up the western Negev to Beersheba, then the black ribbon of highway through the Wilderness of Judea and the West Bank.
Something made him scale the punishing Snake Path up the eastern face of Masada and roam the ruins of the ancient fortress. He avoided the tourist kitsch of the Dead Sea, spent an afternoon wandering the Arab markets of Hebron and Jenin. He wished he could have seen Shamron’s face, watching him as he haggled with the merchants in their white kaffiyehs under the steady gaze of dark-eyed veterans of the intifada.
He drove through the Jezreel Valley and paused beyond the gates of the farming settlement, just outside Afula on the road to Nazareth, where he had lived as a boy. He considered going in. To do what? To see what? His parents were long dead, and if by some miracle he actually came across someone he knew, he could only lie.
He kept driving, kept moving north. Wildflowers burned on the hillsides as he headed into the Galilee. He drove around the shores of the lake. Then up to the ancient hill city of Safed. Then into the Golan. He parked beside the road near a Druse shepherd tending his flock, watched the sunset over the Finger of Galilee. For the first time in many years he felt something like contentment. Something like peace.
He got back into the car, drove down the Golan to a kibbutz outside Qiryat Shemona. It was a Friday night. He went to the dining hall for Shabbat meal, sat with a group of adults from the kibbutz: farmworkers with sunburned faces and callused hands. They ignored him for a time. Then one of them, an older man, asked his name and where he was from. He told them he was Gabriel. That he was from the Jezreel Valley but had been away for a long time.
In the morning he crossed the fertile flatlands of the coastal plain and drove south along the Mediterranean- through Akko, Haifa, Caesarea, and Netanya-until finally he found himself on the beach at Herzliya.
She was leaning against the balustrade, arms folded, looking out to sea at the setting sun, wind pushing strands of hair across her face. She wore a loose-fitting white blouse and the sunglasses of a woman in hiding.
Gabriel waited for her to notice him. Eventually she would. She had been trained by Ari Shamron, and no pupil of the great Shamron would ever fail to take notice of a man standing below her terrace. When she finally saw him a smile flared, then faded. She lifted her hand, the reluctant wave of someone who had been burned by the secret fire. Gabriel lowered his head and started walking.
They drank icy white wine on her terrace and made small talk, avoiding the operation or Shamron or Gabriel’s wounds. Gabriel told her about his journey. Jacqueline said she would have liked to come. Then she apologized for saying such a thing-she had no right.
“So why did you come here after all these weeks, Gabriel? You never do anything without a reason.”
He wanted to hear it one more time: Tariq’s version of the story. The way he had told it to her that night during the drive from the border to New York. He looked out to sea as she spoke, watching the wind tossing the sand about, the moonlight on the waves, but he was listening fiercely. When she was done, he still couldn’t put the final pieces into place. It was like an unfinished painting or a series of musical notes with no resolution. She invited him to stay for dinner. He lied and said he had pressing matters in Jerusalem.
“Ari tells me you want to leave. What are your plans?”
“I have a man named Vecellio waiting for me in England.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to go back?”
“I’ll be fine. What about you?”
“My story has been splashed across newspapers and television screens around the world. I’ll never be able to return to my old life. I have no choice but to stay here.”
“I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this business, Jacqueline. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgive you? No, Gabriel-quite the opposite, actually. I thank you. I got exactly what I wanted.” A second’s hesitation. “Well, almost everything.”
She walked him down to the beach. He kissed her softly on the mouth, touched her hair. Then he turned and walked to his car. He paused once to look over his shoulder at her, but she had already gone.
He was hungry, so instead of going straight to Jerusalem he stopped in Tel Aviv for dinner. He parked in Balfour Street, walked to Sheinkin, wandered past trendy cafes and avant-garde shops, thinking of the rue St- Denis in Montreal. He had the sense he was being followed. Nothing specific, just the flash of a familiar face too
