The Messenger

wholeheartedly and argued about them long past midnight. At the end of the evening there was another quarrel, this one about whose night it was to do the dishes. Dina and Rimona claimed exemption on the grounds that they had performed the task the last night in Surrey. Gabriel, in one of his few command decisions of the day, inflicted the task on the new boys: Oded and Mordecai, two experienced all-purpose fieldhands, and Mikhail, a gunman on loan to the Office from the Sayeret Matkal. He was a Russian-born Jew with bloodless skin and eyes the color of glacial ice. “A younger version of you,” Yaakov had said. “Good with a gun, but no conscience. He practically took down the command structure of Hamas by himself.”

Their accommodations lacked the grandeur of Alexandra’s, and no one was granted the privilege of private quarters. Gabriel and Lavon, veterans of manhunts past, bunked together in the prow. Lavon was used to Gabriel’s erratic operational sleeping habits and was not surprised the following morning when he woke before dawn to find Gabriel’s bed unoccupied. He climbed out of his bunk and went up to the deck. Gabriel was standing at the prow, coffee in hand, his gaze fixed on the smudge of light on the distant horizon. Lavon went back to his bunk and slept two more hours. When he returned to the deck, Gabriel was standing in the exact same spot, staring out at the empty sea.

23.

Off the Bahamas

HER DAYS QUICKLY ACQUIRED SHAPE.

She would rise early each morning and linger in a drowsy half-sleep in the enormous bed, listening to Alexandra slowly stirring to life around her. Then, usually around seven-thirty, she would ring the steward and order her morning coffee and brioche, which would come on a tray, always with a fresh flower, five minutes later. If there was no rain she would take her breakfast in the shade of her starboard-facing private sundeck. Alexandra was on a southeasterly heading, steaming without haste toward an unnamed destination, and usually Sarah could just make out the low, flat islands of the Bahamian chain in the distance. Zizi’s suite was one level above her. Some mornings she could hear him on the telephone, closing the day’s first deals.

After breakfast she would place two calls to London on the shipboard system. First she would dial her apartment in Chelsea and, invariably, would find two or three ersatz voice messages left by the Office. Then she would call the gallery and speak to Chiara. Her soft, Italian-accented English was like a lifeline. Sarah would pose questions about pending deals; Chiara would then read Sarah’s telephone messages. Contained in the seemingly benign patter was vital information: Sarah telling Chiara that she was safe and that there was no sign of Ahmed bin Shafiq; Chiara telling Sarah that Gabriel and the others were close by and that she was not alone. Hanging up on Chiara was the hardest part of Sarah’s day.

By then it was usually ten o’clock, which meant that Zizi and Jean-Michel were finished working out and the gym was now free to other staff and guests. The rest of them were a sedentary lot; Sarah’s only company each morning was Herr Wehrli, who would torment himself on the elliptical machine for a few minutes before retiring to the sauna for a proper Swiss sweat. Sarah would run thirty minutes on the treadmill, then row for thirty more. She had been on the Dartmouth crew, and within a few days began to see definition in her shoulders and back that hadn’t been there since Ben’s death.

After her workout Sarah would join the other women on the foredeck for a bit of sun before lunch. Nadia and Rahimah remained distant, but the wives gradually warmed to her, especially Frau Wehrli and Jihan, the fair- haired young Jordanian wife of Hassan, Zizi’s communications specialist. Monique, Jean-Michel’s wife, spoke rarely to her. Twice Sarah peered over the top of her paperback novel and saw Monique glaring at her, as though she were plotting to shove Sarah over the rail when no one else was looking.

Lunch was always a slow, lengthy affair. Afterward the ship’s crew would bring Alexandra to a stop for what Zizi referred to as the afternoon jet-ski derby. For the first two days Sarah remained safely on the deck, watching while Zizi and his executives leaped and plunged through the swells. On the third day he convinced her to take part and personally gave her a lesson in how to operate her craft. She sped away from Alexandra’s stern, then killed the engine and gazed for a long time at the pinprick of white on the horizon behind them. She must have strayed too far, because a few moments later Jean-Michel came alongside her and gestured for her to return to the mother ship. “One hundred meters is the boundary,” he said. “Zizi’s rules.”

His day was rigorously scheduled. A light breakfast in his room. Phone calls. Exercise with Jean-Michel in the gym. A late-morning meeting with staff. Lunch. The jet-ski derby. Another meeting with staff that usually lasted until dinner. Then, after dinner, phone calls late into the night. On the second day the helicopter departed Alexandra at ten in the morning and returned an hour later with a delegation of six men. Sarah examined their faces as they filed into Zizi’s conference room and concluded that none of them was Ahmed bin Shafiq. Later, an Abdul volunteered three of their names, which Sarah stored in her memory for later retrieval. That afternoon she encountered Zizi alone in one of the lounges and asked him whether they could discuss his job offer.

“What’s the rush, Sarah? Relax. Enjoy yourself. We’ll talk when the time is right.”

“I have to be getting back to London, Zizi.”

“To Julian Isherwood? How can you go back to Julian after this?”

“I can’t stay forever.”

“Of course you can.”

“Can you at least tell me where we’re headed?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “One of our little traditions. As honorary captain, I get to pick our destination. I keep it secret from the others. We’re planning to make a call tomorrow at Grand Turk. You can go ashore if you like and do a bit of shopping.”

Just then Hassan appeared, handed Zizi a phone, and murmured something in Arabic into his ear that Sarah couldn’t understand. “Will you excuse me, Sarah? I have to take this.” And with that he disappeared into his conference room and closed the door.

She woke the following morning to the sensation of utter stillness. Instead of lingering in bed, she rose immediately and went out onto the sundeck and saw that they had anchored off Cockburn Town, the capital of Turks and Caicos. She had breakfast in her room, checked in with Chiara in London, then made arrangements with the crew for a shore craft to take her into town. At eleven-thirty she went astern and found Jean-Michel waiting for her, dressed in a black pullover and white Bermuda shorts.

“I volunteered to be your escort,” he said.

“I don’t need an escort.”

“No one goes ashore without security, especially the girls. Zizi’s rules.”

“Is your wife coming?”

“Unfortunately, Monique is not well this morning. It seems dinner didn’t agree with her.”

They rode into the harbor in silence. Jean-Michel docked the boat expertly, then followed her along a waterfront shopping street while she ran her errands. In one boutique she selected two sundresses and a new bikini. In another she bought a pair of sandals, a beach bag, and a pair of sunglasses to replace the pair she’d lost in the previous day’s jet-ski derby. Then it was over to the pharmacy for shampoo and body lotion and a loofah to remove the peeling skin from her sunburned shoulders. Jean-Michel insisted on paying for everything with one of Zizi’s credit cards. On the way back to the boat, Rimona walked past, hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses and a floppy straw hat. And in a tiny bar overlooking the harbor, she noticed a familiar-looking man with a white bucket hat and sunglasses, peering mournfully into a drink with a festive umbrella. Only when she was back aboard Alexandra did she realize it had been Gabriel.

When she telephoned London the next day, Julian came briefly on the line and asked when she was planning to return. Two days later he did so again, but this time his voice contained an audible note of agitation. Late that afternoon Zizi rang Sarah’s room. “Would you come up to my office? I think it’s time we talked.” He hung up the