The Messenger

“I know,” Gabriel said. “Close your eyes again.”

“Make me,” she said, then she smiled and did what he wanted. “Aren’t you going to ask me whether I was with anyone while we were apart?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“But you must be curious. I can only imagine what you did to my apartment when you walked through the door.”

“If you’re suggesting I searched your things, I didn’t.”

“Oh, please.”

“Why can’t you sleep?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

He made no reply.

“There was no one else, Gabriel, but then you knew that, didn’t you? How could there be?” She gave him a bittersweet smile. “They never tell you that when they ask you to join their exclusive club. They never tell you how the lies begin to add up, or that you’ll never truly be comfortable around people who aren’t members. Is that the only reason why you fell in love with me, Gabriel? Because I was Office?”

“I liked your fettuccini and mushrooms. You make the best fettuccini and mushrooms in all of Venice.”

“And what about you? Were you with any other women while I was gone?”

“I spent all my time with a very large canvas.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot about your affliction. You can’t make love to a woman unless she knows you’ve killed on behalf of your country. I’m sure you could have found someone suitable at King Saul Boulevard if you’d set your mind to it. Every woman in the Office lusts after you.”

“You’re talking too much. I’ll never finish this if you keep talking.”

“I’m hungry. You shouldn’t have mentioned food. How’s Leah, by the way?”

Gabriel stopped sketching and glared at Chiara over the top of the sketchpad, as if to tell her he did not appreciate the rather cavalier juxta-position of food and his wife.

“I’m sorry,” Chiara said. “How is she?”

Gabriel heard himself say that Leah was doing well, that two or three days a week he drove up to the psychiatric hospital atop Mount Herzl to spend a few minutes with her. But as he told her these things his mind was elsewhere; on a tiny street in Vie

“Did you love this girl, Gabriel?”

“I loved her, but I gave her up for you.”

“Why on earth would you do that, my love? Look at me. There’s nothing left of me. Nothing but a memory.”

Chiara had lapsed into silence. The light on her face was fading slowly from coral-red to gray. The plump woman appeared in the window opposite and began reeling in her laundry. Chiara lifted the sheet to her throat.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want Signora Lorenzetto to see me naked.”

Gabriel, in pulling the sheet down to its original position, left a smudge of charcoal on her breast.

“I suppose I have to move back to Jerusalem,” she said. “Unless you feel like telling Shamron that you can’t take over Special Ops because you’re coming back to Venice.”

“It’s tempting,” Gabriel said.

“Tempting, but not possible. You’re a loyal soldier, Gabriel. You always do what you’re told. You always did.” She brushed the charcoal from her breast. “At least I won’t have to decorate the apartment.”

Gabriel’s eyes remained downward toward the sketchpad. Chiara studied his expression, then asked, “Gabriel, what have you done to the apartment?”

“I’m afraid I needed a place to work.”

“So you just moved some things around?”

“You know, I’m getting hungry, too.”

“Gabriel Allon, is there anything left?”

“It’s warm tonight,” he said. “Let’s take the boat out to Murano and have fish.”

9.

IT WAS EIGHT O’CLOCK the following evening when Gabriel returned to Narkiss Street. Shamron’s car was parked at the curb and Rami, his bodyguard, was standing watch in the walkway outside Number 16. Upstairs Gabriel found all the lights on and Shamron drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

“How did you get in?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, this used to be an Office safe flat. There’s a key in Housekeeping.”

“Yes, but I changed the locks over the summer.”

“Really?”

“I guess I’ll have to change them again.”

“Don’t bother.”

Gabriel pushed open the window to vent the smoke from the room. Six cigarette butts lay like spent bullets in one of Gabriel’s saucers. Shamron had been here for some time.

“How was Venice?” Shamron asked.

“ Venice was lovely, but the next time you break into my flat, please have the courtesy to not smoke.” Gabriel picked up the saucer by the edge and poured the cigarette butts into the garbage. “What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait till the morning?”

“Another Saudi link to the attack on the Vatican.”

Gabriel looked up at Shamron. “What is it?”

“Ibrahim el-Ba

“The Egyptian cleric? Why am I not surprised.”

Gabriel sat down at the table.

“Two nights ago our station chief in Cairo held a secret meeting with one of our top sources inside the Egyptian Mukhabarat. It seems Professor Ibrahim el-Ba

“Too bad our friend in the Mukhabarat didn’t tell the Vatican the truth about el-Ba

“The Egyptians knew something else about Professor el-Ba

“He was GID,” said Gabriel.

“Exactly.”

The GID, or General Intelligence Department, was the name of the Saudi intelligence service.

“What do we know about him?”

“Until four years ago, bin Shafiq was chief of a clandestine GID unit code-named Group 205, which was responsible for establishing and maintaining links between Saudi Arabia and Islamic militant groups around the Middle East. Egypt was one of Group 205’s top priorities, along with Afghanistan, of course.”

“What’s the significance of the number?”

“It was the extension of bin Shafiq’s office in GID Headquarters.”

“What happened four years ago?”

“Bin Shafiq and his operatives were fu

“Has he gone over to the other side of the street?”

“Are you asking whether he’s a terrorist? The answer is, we don’t know. What we do know is that Islamic militancy is in his blood. His grandfather was a commander of the Ikhwan, the Islamic movement created by Ibn Saud at the turn of the nineteenth century in the Najd.”