Kammerer led him to the rail and they both looked down. Fifteen feet below they saw nothing but the black Rhone rolling slowly westward, her rippled surface cold and empty.

Chapter 55

FIFTY-FIVE

For the second night in a row Evita Levine rose in the elevator of the Isrotel Tower Hotel in Tel Aviv. Tonight the call from Zacharias had come late, and indeed caught her by surprise.

She had talked in a hushed voice from the kitchen and made the usual arrangements, yet on hanging up Evita thought she sensed something new in his voice. Or perhaps something that wasn’t there. His panting enthusiasm? In any event, she dressed quickly and told her husband, who was nodding off in his decrepit chair behind a television that was running, of all things, an ad for an aerobic exercise video, that her mother was ill and she was going across town to tend to her. Evita had always tried to avoid outright lies, but seeing her liaisons with Zacharias clearly drawing to an end, she tonight allowed herself the expediency of deceit.

The elevator opened, and she walked down the hallway wondering if it was time to break things off. This was a speech Evita had long rehearsed, and one that varied, based on her degree of disgust at the given moment, from a curt letdown to screamed accusations of sexual inadequacy. As she reached the familiar door, however, it all went out of her head. As good as that might feel, there was still reason to be cautious.

He answered her knock immediately, and the first thing she noticed was that he did not have a drink in his hand. The second thing was the way he backed away from her. His usual leer was replaced by a decidedly grim expression that seemed completely out of character. Evita felt the first pang of fear.

“What is it, darling?” She stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. She moved closer and put a soft hand around the nape of his skinny neck. “It’s not your wife, I hope. Has she found out?”

“Evita Levine,” he said, “you are under arrest for treason against the State of Israel.”

She stepped back with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Before she could respond two men appeared from nowhere and pulled her hands roughly behind her back. Evita had no doubt that life as she knew it had just ended, but as was often the case with those in the process of being handcuffed, the question that came to her lips was, “How did you find out?”

Mossad’s director of operations gave her a subdued smile. “Don’t you see, my dear? I’ve known all along.”