The English Spy (39 page)

A
S WITH MOST NOTEWORTHY OCCASIONS
in his life, Gabriel prepared for the birth of his children as though it were an operation. He planned the escape route, prepared a backup plan, and then devised backups for his backups. It was a model of economy and timing, with few moving parts, save for the star of the show. Shamron gave it a thorough review, as did Uzi Navot and the rest of Gabriel’s fabled team. Without exception, all declared it a masterpiece.

It was not as if Gabriel had much else to do. For the first time in years he had no work and no prospect of work. He had managed to put the Office on hold, and there were no paintings to restore. Chiara was his only project now. The dinner with the Shamrons turned out to be her last public appearance. She was too uncomfortable to receive visitors, and even brief phone calls fatigued her. Gabriel
hovered over her like a headwaiter, ever eager to fill an empty glass or send an unsatisfactory meal back to the kitchen. He was flawless in his demeanor and unfailingly considerate of her demands, be they physical or emotional. Even Chiara came to resent the perfection of his conduct.

Owing to her age and a complicated reproductive history, Chiara’s pregnancy was considered high-risk. Consequently, her doctor insisted on seeing her every few days for a sonogram. In Gabriel’s absence, she had traveled to Hadassah Medical Center accompanied by her bodyguards and, on occasion, Gilah Shamron. Now Gabriel came with her, with all the attendant madness of his official motorcade. In the examination room he would stand proprietarily over Chiara as the doctor ran the probe across her lubricated belly. Early in the pregnancy, the ultrasound had rendered the two children complete and distinct. Now it was difficult to tell where one child left off and the other began, though occasionally the machine would offer a shockingly clear glimpse of a face or hand that made Gabriel’s heart beat with operational swiftness. The ghostly images looked like X-rays depicting the underdrawing of a painting. The dwindling supply of amniotic fluid appeared as islands of solid black.

“How long does she have?” asked Gabriel, with the gravity of a man who conducted most of his conversations in safe flats and over secure phones.

“Three days,” said the doctor. “Four at most.”

“Any chance they could come before that?”

“There’s a
chance
,” replied the doctor, “that she could go into labor on the way home today. But that’s not likely to happen. She’ll run out of fluid long before she goes into labor.”

“What then?”

“A caesarean delivery is safest.”

The doctor seemed to sense his unease. “Your wife will be fine,” he said. Then, with a smile, he added, “I’m glad you’re not dead. We need you. And so do your children.”

The visits to the hospital were their only break from the long monotonous hours of bed rest and waiting. Restless with inactivity, Gabriel longed for a project. Chiara allowed him to pack her suitcase for the hospital, which consumed all of five minutes. Afterward, he went in search of something else to do. His quest led him into the nursery, where he stood for a long time before Chiara’s clouds, a hand pressed to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side.

“Would you mind terribly,” he asked Chiara, “if I retouch them a bit?”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re beautiful,” he said too hastily.

“But?”

“They’re a bit childlike.”

“They’re for children.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Grudgingly, she approved the commission, provided he use only child-safe paints and that the work be done within twenty-four hours. Gabriel hurried off to a nearby paint store with his bodyguards in tow and returned in short order with the necessary supplies. With a few strokes of a roller—an instrument he had never used before—he obliterated Chiara’s work beneath a fresh layer of pale blue paint. It remained too wet to work more that evening, so he rose early the next morning and swiftly decorated the wall in a bank of glowing Titianesque clouds. Lastly, he added a small child angel, a boy, who was peering downward over the edge of the highest cloud on the scene below. The figure was borrowed from Veronese’s
Virgin and Child in Glory with Saints
. With tears in his eyes and a trembling hand, Gabriel gave the angel the face of his son as it appeared on the
night of his death. Then he signed his name and the date, and it was done.

Later that day the London
Sunday Telegraph
published an exclusive exposé linking Russia and its foreign intelligence service to the murder of the princess, the bombing on Brompton Road, the killing of four MI6 security personnel in West Cornwall, and the bloodbath in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland. The operation, said the paper, was in reprisal for the revocation of lucrative Russian drilling rights in the North Sea and the defection of Madeline Hart, the Russian sleeper agent who had briefly shared Prime Minister Lancaster’s bed. Russia’s president had ordered it; Alexei Rozanov, the SVR officer recently found dead in Germany, had overseen its implementation. His primary operative had been Eamon Quinn, the Omagh bomber turned international mercenary. Quinn was now missing and was the target of a global manhunt.

The reaction to the report was swift and explosive. Prime Minister Lancaster denounced the Kremlin’s actions as “barbaric,” a sentiment echoed across the Atlantic in Washington, where politicians from both sides of the political divide called for Russia’s expulsion from the G8 and the other economic clubs of the West. In Moscow a Kremlin spokesman dismissed the
Telegraph
’s story as a piece of anti-Russian propaganda, and he called on the reporter, Samantha Cooke, to reveal the identities of her sources—something she steadfastly refused to do during a round of television interviews. Those in the know suggested the Israelis had surely been of assistance. After all, they pointed out, the Russian operation had claimed the life of a legend. If anyone wanted Russian blood, it was the Israelis.

No one in Israeli officialdom agreed to speak about the
Telegraph
’s
piece—not in the prime minister’s office, not at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and surely not at King Saul Boulevard, where outside lines rang unanswered. A small piece on a gossipy Israeli Web site did provoke a comment, however. It stated that the same legendary Israeli operative who had died in the Brompton Road bombing had been spotted recently in the Mahane Yehuda Market looking none the worse for wear. An unidentified aide in an unnamed ministry dismissed the report as “hogwash.”

But his neighbors in Narkiss Street, were they not protective of him to a fault, would have told a different story. So, too, would the staff at Hadassah Medical Center, and the pair of rabbis who spotted him late that same afternoon placing a stone atop a grave on the Mount of Olives. They did not attempt to speak to him, for they could see he was grieving. He left the cemetery in twilight and traveled across Jerusalem to Mount Herzl. There was a woman there who needed to know he was still among the living, even if she would not remember him when he was gone.

D
URING THE DRIVE FROM
the Mount of Olives, a gentle snow began to fall upon God’s fractured city on a hill. It coated the tiny circular drive of the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital and whitened the limbs of the stone pine in the walled garden. Inside the clinic, Leah watched the snow vacantly from the windows of the common room. She was seated in her wheelchair. Her hair was gray and cut institutionally short; her hands were twisted and white with scar tissue. Her doctor, a rabbinical-looking man with a round face and a wondrous beard of many colors, had cleared the room of other patients. He seemed not entirely surprised to learn that Gabriel was still alive. He had been caring for Leah for more than ten years. He knew things about the legend others did not.

“You should have alerted me that it was all a ruse,” the doctor
said. “We could have done something to shield her. As you might expect, your death caused quite a stir.”

“There wasn’t time.”

“I’m sure you had good reason,” the doctor said reproachfully.

“I did.” Gabriel allowed a few seconds to pass to take the sharp edge off the conversation. “I never know how much she understands.”

“She knows more than you realize. We had a rough few days.”

“And now?”

“She’s better, but you have to be careful with her.” He shook Gabriel’s hand. “Take as much time as you want. I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”

When the doctor was gone, Gabriel moved quietly across the limestone tiles of the common room. A chair had been placed at Leah’s side. She was still watching the snow. But upon what city was it falling? Was she in Jerusalem at that moment? Or was she trapped in the past? Leah suffered from a particularly acute combination of post-traumatic stress disorder and psychotic depression. In her watery memory, time was elusive. Gabriel never quite knew which Leah he would encounter. One minute she could be the stunningly gifted painter he had fallen in love with at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. The next she could present herself as the mature mother of a beautiful young boy who had insisted on accompanying her husband on a work trip to Vienna.

For several minutes she watched the snow, unblinking. Perhaps she was unaware of his presence. Or perhaps she was punishing him for allowing her to think that he was dead. Finally, her head turned and her eyes traveled over him, as though she were searching for a lost object in the cluttered closets of her memory.

“Gabriel?” she asked.

“Yes, Leah.”

“Are you real, my love? Or am I hallucinating?”

“I’m real.”

“Where are we?”

“Jerusalem.”

Her head turned and she watched the snow. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes, Leah.”

“The snow absolves Vienna of its sins. Snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain on Tel Aviv.” She came back to him. “I hear them at night,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“The missiles.”

“You’re safe here, Leah.”

“I want to talk to my mother. I want to hear the sound of my mother’s voice.”

“We’ll call her.”

“Make sure Dani is buckled into his seat. The streets are slippery.”

“He’s fine, Leah.”

She looked down at his hands and noticed smudges of paint. It seemed to wrench her back to the present. “You’ve been working?” she asked.

“A little.”

“Something important?”

He swallowed hard and said, “A nursery, Leah.”

“For your children?”

He nodded.

“Have they been born yet?”

“Soon,” he said.

“A boy and a girl?”

“Yes, Leah.”

“What are you going to call the girl?”

“She’ll be called Irene.”

“Irene is your mother’s name.”

“That’s right.”

“She’s dead, your mother?”

“A long time ago.”

“And the boy? What will you name the boy?”

Gabriel hesitated, then said, “The boy will be named Raphael.”

“The angel of healing.” She smiled and asked, “Are you healed, Gabriel?”

“Not quite.”

“Nor am I.”

She looked up at the television, puzzlement on her face. Gabriel held her hand. The scar tissue made it feel cold and firm. It was like a patch of bare canvas. He longed to retouch it but could not. Leah was the one thing in the world he could not restore.

“Are you dead?” she asked suddenly.

“No, Leah. I’m here with you.”

“The television said you were killed in London.”

“It was something we had to say.”

“Why?”

“It’s not important.”

“You always say that, my love.”

“Do I?”

“Only when it really is.” Her eyes settled on him. “Where were you?”

“I was looking for the man who helped Tariq build the bomb.”

“Did you find him?”

“Almost.”

She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “It was a long time ago, Gabriel. And it won’t change a thing. I’ll still be the way I am. And you’ll still be married to another woman.”

Gabriel couldn’t bear her accusatory stare any longer, so he watched the snow instead. After a few seconds she joined him.

“You’ll let me see them, won’t you, Gabriel?”

“As soon as I can.”

“And you’ll take good care of them, especially the boy?”

“Of course.”

Her eyes widened suddenly. “I want to hear the sound of my mother’s voice.”

“So do I.”

“Make sure Dani is buckled into his car seat tightly.”

“I will,” said Gabriel. “The streets are slippery.”

During the drive back to Narkiss Street, Gabriel received a text message from Chiara requesting his estimated time of arrival. He didn’t bother to respond because he was just around the corner. He hurried up the garden walk, leaving a trail of telltale size-ten footprints in the undisturbed layer of snow, and climbed the stairs to his apartment. Entering, he saw the suitcase he had so carefully packed standing in the entrance hall. Chiara was seated on the couch, dressed and coated, singing softly to herself as she leafed through a glossy magazine.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Gabriel asked.

“I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“I hate surprises.”

“I know.” She smiled beautifully.

“What happened?”

“I wasn’t feeling well this afternoon, so I called the doctor. He thought we should get it over with.”

“When?”

“Tonight, darling. We need to get to the hospital.”

Gabriel stood with the stillness of a bronze statue.

“This is the part where you help me to my feet,” said Chiara.

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“And don’t forget the bag.”

“Wait . . . what?”

“The suitcase, darling. I’ll need my things at the hospital.”

“Yes, the hospital.”

Gabriel helped Chiara down the stairs and across the front walk, all the while flogging himself for having neglected to factor the possibility of snow into his planning. In the back of the SUV, she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes to rest. Gabriel inhaled the intoxicating scent of vanilla and watched the snow dancing against the glass. It was beautiful, he thought. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.