Now he looked into the mirror and saw himself as he had been that night, a boy angel in a leather jacket, an artist who had no comprehension of how the act he was about to commit would forever alter the course of his life. He had become someone else. He had remained someone else ever since. Shamron had neglected to tell him that would happen. He had taught him how to draw a gun and fire in one second, but he had done nothing to prepare him for what would happen afterward. Engaging the terrorist on his terms, on his battlefield, comes at a terrible price. It changes the men who do it, along with the society that dispatches them. It is the terrorist’s ultimate weapon. For Gabriel, the changes were visible as well. By the time he’d staggered into Paris for his next assignment, his temples were gray.
He looked into the mirror again and saw the bearded figure of Herr Klemp looking back at him. Images of the case flashed through his mind: a flattened embassy, his own dossier,
He heard the soft shuffle of footfalls behind him-an old woman, dressed in the black of widowhood, clutching a plastic sack of groceries. She stared directly at him. Gabriel, for an instant, feared she somehow remembered him. He bid her a pleasant morning and went back out into the sunlit piazza.
He felt suddenly feverish. He walked for a time on the Via Trieste, then flagged down a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the Piazza di Spagna. Entering the safe flat he saw a copy of that morning’s
On the Via Condotti he bought a new suitcase and spent the next hour purchasing clothing appropriate to his next destination. He returned to the safe flat long enough to pack his new bag, then went to lunch at Nino on the Via Borgognona. At two o’clock he took a taxi to Fiumicino Airport, and at five-thirty he boarded a flight to Sardinia.
AS GABRIEL’S PLANE was taxiing toward the runway, Amira Assaf rolled up to the front gate of the Stratford Clinic and showed her ID badge to the security guard. He inspected it carefully, then waved her onto the grounds. She twisted the throttle of her motorbike and sped down the quarter-mile gravel drive toward the mansion. Dr. Avery was just leaving for the night, racing toward the gate in his big silver Jaguar. Amira tapped her horn and waved, but he ignored her and swept past in a shower of dust and gravel.
Staff parking was in the rear courtyard. She propped the bike on its kickstand, then removed her backpack from the seat storage compartment and left her helmet in its place. Two girls were just coming off duty. Amira bid them good night, then used her badge to unlock the secure staff entrance. The time clock was mounted to the wall of the foyer. She found her card, third slot from the bottom, and punched in: 5:56 P.M.
The locker room was a few paces down the hall. Amira went inside and changed into her uniform: white trousers, white shoes, and a peach-colored tunic that Dr. Avery believed was soothing to the patients. Five minutes later she reported for duty at the window of the head nurse’s station. Ginger Hall, peroxide blond and crimson- lipped, looked up and smiled.
“New haircut, Amira? Very fetching. My goodness, what I wouldn’t do for that thick raven hair of yours.”
“You can have it, along with the brown skin, the black eyes, and all the other shit that comes with it.”
“Ah, rubbish, petal. We’re all nurses here. Just doing our job and trying to make a decent living.”
“Maybe, but out there it’s different. What have you got for me?”
“Lee Martinson. She’s in the solarium. Get her back up to her room. Settle her in for the night.”
“That big bloke still hanging round her?”
“The bodyguard? Still here. Dr. Avery reckons he’ll be here awhile.”
“Why would a woman like Miss Martinson need a bodyguard?”
“Confidential, my sweet. Highly confidential.”
Amira set off down the corridor. A moment later she came to the entrance of the solarium. As she went inside the humidity greeted her like a wet blanket. Miss Martinson was in her wheelchair, staring at the blackened windows. The bodyguard, hearing Amira’s approach, got to his feet. He was a large, heavily built man in his twenties, with short hair and blue eyes. He spoke with a British accent, but Amira doubted he was truly British. She looked down at Miss Martinson.
“It’s getting late, sweetheart. Time to go upstairs and get ready for bed.”
She pushed the wheelchair out of the solarium, then along the corridor to the elevators. The bodyguard pressed the call button. A moment later they boarded a lift and rode silently upward to her room on the fourth floor. Before entering, Amira paused and looked at the guard.
“I’m going to bathe her. Why don’t you wait out here until I’m finished?”
“Wherever she goes, I go.”
“We do this
“Wherever she goes, I go,” he repeated.
Amira shook her head and wheeled Miss Martinson into her room, the bodyguard trailing silently after her.
17 BOSA, SARDINIA
FOR TWO DAYS GABRIEL WAITED FOR THEM TO make contact. The hotel, small and ochre-colored, stood in the ancient port near the spot where the river Temo flowed into the sea. His room was on the top floor and had a small balcony with an iron rail. He slept late, took breakfast in the dining room, and spent mornings reading. For lunch he would eat pasta and fish in one of the restaurants in the port, then he would hike up the road to the beach north of town and spread his towel on the sand and sleep some more. After two days, his appearance had improved dramatically. He’d gained weight and strength, and the skin beneath his eyes no longer looked yellow- brown and jaundiced. He was even beginning to like the way he looked with the beard.
On the third morning the telephone rang. He listened to the instructions without speaking, then hung up. He showered and dressed and packed his bag, then went downstairs to breakfast. After breakfast he paid his bill and placed his bag in the trunk of the car he’d rented in Cagliari and drove north, about thirty miles, to the port town of Alghero. He left the car on the street where he’d been told to, then walked along a shadowed alleyway that emptied into the waterfront.
Dina was seated in a cafe on the quay, drinking coffee. She wore sunglasses, sandals, and a sleeveless dress; her shoulder-length dark hair shone in the dazzling light reflected by the sea. Gabriel descended a flight of stone steps on the quay and boarded a fifteen-foot dinghy with the word
Gabriel guided the dinghy slowly out of the port, then, reaching the open water, he increased his speed and bounced toward the yacht over the gentle swells. As he drew near, Rami stepped onto the aft deck, dressed in khaki shorts and a white shirt. He climbed down to the swim step and was waiting there, hand outstretched, as Gabriel arrived.
The main salon, when they entered, looked like a substation of the team’s headquarters in the basement of King Saul Boulevard. The walls were hung with large-scale maps and aerial photographs, and the onboard electronics had been augmented with the sort of technical communications equipment Gabriel had not seen since the Abu Jihad assassination. Yaakov looked up from a computer terminal and extended his hand. Shamron, dressed in khaki trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt, was seated at the galley table. He pushed his reading glasses onto his forehead and appraised Gabriel as though he were a document or another map. “Welcome to
“Where did you get it?”
“From a friend of the Office. It happened to be in Cannes. We took it out to sea and added the additional
