The English Spy (38 page)

I
T WAS A STOUT LITTLE HOUSE
, with a wrought-iron gate and a fine flight of steps rising to a white door. Potted flowers bloomed in the tiny forecourt, and in the drawing room window a light burned. The curtain was parted a few inches; through the gap Gabriel could see a man, Dr. Robert Keller, upright in a wing chair. He was reading a broadsheet newspaper. Gabriel could not discern which one because rain streaked the car windows and a pall of cigarette smoke clouded the interior. Keller had been smoking without a break since Gabriel had collected him from a street corner in Holborn, his temporary London address. Now he was staring at his father’s house as though it were the target of a close-observation surveillance operation. Gabriel realized suddenly that it was the first time he had ever seen Keller nervous.

“He’s old,” he said finally. “Older than I imagined he’d be.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“Then I suppose it won’t matter if we just sit here for a minute or two.”

“Take as much time as you need.”

“What time is your flight?”

“It’s not important.”

Gabriel cast a discreet glance at his wristwatch.

“I saw that,” said Keller.

In the window across the street, an elderly woman was placing a cup and saucer at the elbow of the man reading the newspaper. Keller turned away—in shame or anguish, Gabriel could not tell.

“What’s she doing now?” asked Keller

“She’s looking out the window.”

“Did she make us?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is she gone?”

“She’s gone.”

Keller looked up again.

“What kind of tea does he drink?” asked Gabriel.

“It’s a special blend he gets from a man in New Bond Street.”

“Maybe you should join him.”

“In a minute.” Keller crushed out his cigarette and immediately lit another.

“Must you?”

“At this moment,” said Keller, “I most definitely must.”

Gabriel lowered the window a few inches to vent the smoke. The night wind blew rain against his cheek.

“What are you going to say to them?”

“I was wondering whether you had any suggestions.”

“You might start with the truth.”

“They’re old,” said Keller. “The truth might kill them.”

“Then give it in small doses.”

“Like medicine,” said Keller. He was still staring at the house. “He wanted me to be a doctor. Did you know that?”

“I think you mentioned it once.”

“Can you imagine me as a doctor?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “I cannot.”

“You didn’t have to say it like that.”

Gabriel listened to the rain drumming on the roof.

“What if they won’t take me back?” asked Keller after a moment. “What if they send me away?”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?”

“Yes.”

“They’re your parents, Christopher.”

“You’re obviously not English.” Keller rubbed a porthole in his fogged window and frowned at the rain. “I’ve been wet since the day I got back to this godforsaken country.”

“It rains in Corsica, too.”

“Not like this.”

“Have you decided where you’re going to live?”

“Somewhere close to them,” Keller replied. “Unfortunately, they’ll have to carry on as though I’m still dead. That’s part of my deal with MI6.”

“When do you start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What’s your first assignment?”

“Find Quinn.” Keller glanced at Gabriel and said, “I would appreciate any help your service can provide. Apparently, I have to play by MI6 rules.”

“Too bad.”

Keller’s mother appeared in the window again.

“What’s she looking for?” he asked.

“Could be anything,” said Gabriel.

“Do you think she’ll be proud?”

“Of what?”

“Of the fact that I work for MI6 now.”

“I know she will.”

Keller reached for the latch, then stopped. “I’ve gone into a lot of dangerous situations before . . .” His voice trailed off. “Can I sit here a little longer?”

“Take as much time as you need.”

“What time is your flight?”

“I’ll put a hold on it if I have to.”

Keller smiled. “I’m going to miss working with you.”

“Who says it has to stop?”

“You’ll be the chief soon. And chiefs don’t associate with plebes like me.” Keller placed his hand on the latch and raised his eyes toward the window of the house. “I know that look,” he said.

“What look?”

“The look on my mother’s face. She always looked like that when I was running late.”

“You
are
running late, Christopher.”

Keller turned sharply. “What have you done?”

“Go,” said Gabriel, offering his hand. “You’ve kept them waiting long enough.”

Keller climbed out of the car and hurried across the wet street. He fumbled for a moment with the garden gate, then bounded up the steps as the front door swung open. His parents stood in the entrance hall, leaning on each other for support, disbelieving of their eyes. Keller raised a finger to his lips and gathered them into his powerful arms before quickly closing the door. Gabriel saw him one last time as he passed before the window of the drawing room. Then a shade fell and he was gone.

T
HAT SAME EVENING A CEASE
-
FIRE
between Israel and Hamas collapsed and war resumed in the Gaza Strip. As Gabriel’s flight approached Tel Aviv, flares and tracer fire lit the southern horizon. One Hamas rocket streaked dangerously close to Ben-Gurion Airport but was blown from the sky by an Iron Dome antimissile battery. Inside the terminal all appeared normal except for a group of Christian package tourists who huddled transfixed around a television monitor. No one noticed the deceased future chief of Israeli intelligence as he moved though the concourse, an overnight bag over his shoulder. At passport control he bypassed the long line and slipped through a door reserved for Office field personnel returning from missions abroad. Four Office security agents were drinking coffee in the waiting room on the other side. They led him along a brightly lit corridor to a secure door, beyond which two
American-made SUVs idled in the predawn dark. Gabriel slid into the back of one. The closing of the armor-plated door made his ears pop.

On the opposite seat lay a copy of the overnight intelligence digest, courtesy of Uzi Navot. Gabriel opened the cover as the motorcade turned onto Highway 1 and started up the Bab al-Wad, the staircase-like gorge separating the Coastal Plain from Jerusalem. Its pages read like a catalogue of horrors from a world gone mad. The Arab Spring had turned into the Arab Calamity. Radical Islam now controlled a swath of territory that stretched from Afghanistan to Nigeria, an accomplishment that even Bin Laden would have never dreamed possible. It might have been funny were it not so dangerous—and so utterly predictable. The American president had allowed the old order to topple without a viable alternative in place, a reckless act with no precedent in modern statecraft. And for some reason he had chosen this moment in time to throw Israel to the wolves. Uzi was lucky, thought Gabriel, as he closed the digest. Uzi had managed to keep his finger in the dike. Now it would be left to Gabriel to build the ark. For the flood was coming, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.

By the time they reached the fringes of Jerusalem, the stars were melting and the skies above the West Bank were beginning to lighten. Morning traffic moved along the Jaffa Road, but Narkiss Street slept on under the watch of an Office security detail. Eli Lavon had not been exaggerating about its size. There were teams at either end of the street and another outside the little limestone apartment house at Number 16. As Gabriel moved up the garden walk, he realized he had no key in his possession. It was no matter; Chiara had left the door unlocked. He set his bag on the floor in the entrance foyer. Then, after noticing the immaculate condition of the sitting room, he picked it up again and carried it down the hall.

The door to the spare bedroom hung slightly ajar. Gabriel opened
it the rest of the way and peered inside. It had once been his studio. Now there were two cribs, one with pink bedding, the other with blue. Giraffes and elephants marched across the carpet. Plump clouds scudded across the walls. Gabriel felt a stab of guilt; in his absence Chiara must have done the work herself. As he ran his hand over the surface of the changing table a memory overtook him. It was the evening of April 18, 1988. Gabriel had returned home from the assassination of Abu Jihad in Tunis to find Dani suffering from a ferocious fever. He held the burning child in his arms that night while images of fire and death played ceaselessly in his thoughts. Three years later the child was dead.

Apparently, it had something to do with a man named Tariq . . .

Gabriel closed the door and entered the master bedroom. His life-size portrait, painted by Leah after Operation Wrath of God, hung upon the wall. Beneath it slept Chiara. He placed his bag on the floor in the closet, removed his shoes and clothing, and eased into bed next to her. She lay motionless, apparently unaware of his presence. Then suddenly she asked, “Do you like it, darling?”

“The nursery?”

“Yes.”

“It’s beautiful, Chiara. I only wish you would have let me paint the clouds.”

“I wanted to,” she answered. “But I was afraid it might be true.”

“What’s that?”

She said nothing more. Gabriel closed his eyes. And for the first time in three days he slept.

When finally he woke it was late afternoon and the shadows were long and thin upon the bed. He swung his feet to the floor and
ambled into the kitchen for coffee. Chiara was watching the war on television. An Israeli bomb had just landed on a Palestinian school filled exclusively with women and young children—or so claimed Hamas. It seemed nothing had changed.

“Do we have to watch that?”

Chiara lowered the volume. She was wearing a pair of loose-fitting silk pants, gold sandals, and a maternity blouse that hung elegantly over her swollen breasts and abdomen. Her face was unchanged. If anything, she was more radiantly beautiful than Gabriel remembered. Suddenly, he regretted the month of time he had lost with her.

“There’s coffee in the thermos.”

Gabriel poured a cup and asked Chiara how she was feeling.

“Like I’m about to pop.”

“Are you?”

“The doctor says they can come at any time.”

“Any complications?”

“I’m starting to run a bit low on amniotic fluid, and one child is slightly smaller than the other.”

“Which one?”

“The girl. The boy is fine.” She looked at him for a moment. “You know, darling, we’re going to have to choose a name for him at some point.”

“I know.”

“It would be better if we did it before they were born.”

“I suppose.”

“Moshe is a fine name.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve always loved Yaakov.”

“Me, too. He’s a fine officer. But there’s a certain Iranian who’ll be happy never to lay eyes on him again.”

“Reza Nazari?”

Gabriel looked up from his coffee. “How do you know his name?”

“I received regular briefings during your absence.”

“Who briefed you?”

“Who do you think?” Chiara smiled. “They’re coming to dinner, by the way.”

“Can’t we do it another night? I just got home.”

“Why don’t you tell him you’re too tired? I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“It would be easier,” said Gabriel wearily, “to convince Hamas to stop shooting rockets at us.”

At sunset Gabriel showered and dressed. Then he rode in his motorcade to the Mahane Yehuda Market where, trailed by bodyguards, he secured the necessary provisions for that evening’s meal. Chiara had given him a list, which he left crumpled in his coat pocket. Instead, he shopped by instinct, his preferred method, and indulged his every whim and desire: nuts, dried fruits, hummus, baba ghanoush, bread, Israeli salad with feta cheese, prepared rice and meat, and several bottles of wine from the Galilee and Golan. A few heads turned to watch him pass, but otherwise his presence in the crowded souk went undetected.

When Gabriel’s motorcade returned to Narkiss Street, a Peugeot limousine was parked curbside. Upstairs, he found Chiara and Gilah Shamron in the sitting room, surrounded by bags of clothing and other supplies. Shamron had already retired to the terrace to smoke. Gabriel plated the salads and laid them buffet-style on the kitchen counter. Then he placed the rice and the meat in a warm oven and poured two glasses of his favorite Israeli sauvignon blanc, which he carried onto the terrace. It was dark, and a cold wind was beginning to swirl. The smell of Shamron’s Turkish tobacco mingled with the sharp tang of the eucalyptus tree that rose from the building’s front garden. It was, thought Gabriel, an oddly comforting aroma. He handed Shamron a glass of wine and sat next to him.

“Future chiefs of the Office,” said Shamron in a tone of mild rebuke, “don’t go shopping in the Mahane Yehuda Market.”

“They do if their wife is the size of a zeppelin.”

“I’d keep thoughts like that to myself if I were you.” Shamron smiled, inclined his glass in Gabriel’s direction, and said, “Welcome home, my son.”

Gabriel drank of the wine but said nothing. He was staring at the southern sky, waiting for the streak of a rocket, the flash of an Iron Dome missile strike.
Welcome home . . .

“I had coffee with the prime minister this morning,” Shamron was saying. “He sends his best. He’d also like to know when you intend to take your oath.”

“Doesn’t he know I’m dead?”

“Nice try.”

“I’m going to need some time with my children, Ari.”

“How much time?”

“Assuming they’re healthy,” said Gabriel thoughtfully, “I would think three months.”

“Three months is a long time to be without a chief.”

“We won’t be without a chief. We have Uzi.”

Shamron deliberately crushed out his cigarette. “Is it still your intention to keep him on?”

“By force if necessary.”

“What shall we call him?”

“Let’s call him Uzi. It’s a very cool name.”

Gabriel looked down at the young bodyguards milling in the quiet street. Never again would he set foot in public without them. And neither would his wife and children. Shamron started to light a cigarette but stopped himself.

“I can’t say the prime minister is going to be pleased about a three-month paternity leave. In fact,” he added, “he was wondering
whether you would be willing to undertake a diplomatic mission on his behalf.”

“Where?”

“Washington,” said Shamron. “Our relationship with the Americans could use a bit of restoration. You’ve always got on well with the Americans. Even the president seems to like you.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Will you make the trip?”

“Some paintings are beyond repair, Ari. And so are some relationships.”

“You’re going to need the Americans when you become chief.”

“You always told me to keep my distance from them.”

“The world has changed, my son.”

“That’s true,” said Gabriel. “The American president writes love letters to the ayatollah. And us . . .” He gave an indifferent shrug of his shoulders but said nothing more.

“American presidents come and go, but we spies endure.”

“So do Persians,” remarked Gabriel.

“At least Reza Nazari won’t be feeding the Office any more
taqiyya
. For the record,” Shamron added, “I never thought much of him.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did.” Shamron finally lit another cigarette. “He’s back in Tehran, by the way. He’d better stay there. Otherwise, the Russians are likely to kill him.” Shamron smiled. “Your operation managed to plant a seed of mistrust between two of our adversaries.”

“May it grow into a very large tree.”

“How long before the next shoe drops?”

“Her article will appear in the Sunday edition.”

“The Russians will deny it, of course.”

“But no one will believe them,” said Gabriel. “And they’ll think twice about ever taking another shot at me.”

“You underestimate them.”

“Never.”

A silence fell between them. Gabriel listened to the wind moving in the eucalyptus tree and the sound of Chiara’s gentle voice drifting from the sitting room. It seemed a lifetime ago that he was in South Armagh. Even Quinn was slipping from his grasp. Quinn who could make a ball of fire travel a thousand feet per second. Quinn who had made the acquaintance in Libya of a Palestinian named Tariq al-Hourani.

“Is this how you imagined it would be?” asked Shamron quietly.

“Coming home?” Gabriel lifted his gaze to the south sky and waited for a flash of fire. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “This is exactly how I imagined it would be.”