Evita stared at him dumbly. She thought of the nights they’d been together, the things she had done. How she had controlled him. She closed her eyes tightly until a vision of Saud came to mind, her forever-young sculptor with his strong hands and liquid gaze. Evita kept her eyes shut as if to hold that picture, and soon cold tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Six minutes later, and one hundred miles north of Tel Aviv, a second group of Mossad agents, these more tactically oriented, burst into a hotel room where the Hezbollah agent known as Rafi was sleeping off a daylong and well documented bender. The man stirred and, it would be later claimed in the after-action report, made a threatening move toward the nightstand drawer. Perhaps because of this, or more likely since the Mossad team was operating on Lebanese soil, no handcuffs were produced.

Forty nine-millimeter rounds later, the bloody body of Rafi looked as though it had been stapled to the splintered headboard.

*   *   *

Christine had spent the evening at Anton Bloch’s bedside in Saint Göran Hospital. She told the police it was because he was an old friend. Bloch, whose rapidly improving condition the doctors found encouraging, knew otherwise.

“It’s getting late,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to turn on the television? There might be something new.”

She shook her head.

He had prevailed an hour earlier, and for ten minutes they witnessed the bloodshed in Geneva. The police gave few details, and the speculation by reporters was rampant, neither of which calmed Christine’s restless imagination. The few facts were damning enough: an attempt had been made on the life of Dr. Ibrahim Hamedi, leaving one assailant and a significant number of bodyguards dead. The scientist was missing. At that point, Christine had turned the television off.

Now she was pacing back and forth at the foot of Bloch’s bed, head low and arms crossed over her chest, and trying her level best to find hope.

“Sit down,” he said. “Can I order you some food?”

“I thought I was here for your sake.”

“I’m worried too, Christine. But I’ve had many nights like this. You simply can’t dwell on the worst-case scenario. Even if they’ve identified the shooter, they won’t release the name any time soon. Tomorrow is probably the earliest we can expect any good news.”

She stopped circling and went to his side. “Good news? From this?”

“It might not have been David,” he said. “Nurin could have sent another kidon to do the job.”

She probed his eyes. “Do you really believe that?”

His pause was too long for a lie. “No. But until we know something more accurate there’s no sense in—”

Assistant Commissioner Sjoberg walked through the doorway. He met Christine with a somber gaze that froze her in place.