Late in the evening of his fifth full day here in the Ramat HaSharon safe house he sat looking out the window at the twinkling lights of Tel Aviv to the south and the water to the west. His near catatonic state was broken by some commotion outside of his room, and then the door opened.

Menachem Aurbach, the swarthy old man who ran the Mossad, stood in the doorway, along with two younger officers. In his right hand Aurbach held a thin blue file folder. He entered with a tired little smile and a nod to Alvey, and then with a wave of the folder he bade Alvey to follow him over to a small sitting area with a table in the corner.

Yanis did as his director asked, and soon the two men sat close to each other without a word, Aurbach calm and relaxed; Alvey tense and on edge.

The director of the Mossad waved his hand in the air and the two other men left the room. Only when they were gone and the door was shut did Aurbach speak.

“Shalom. Ma nishma, Yanis?” Hello. How are you, Yanis?

“Tov, Menachem. Toda.” Fine, Menachem. Thank you.

“The wound to your stomach has healed?”

“The wound is better. But I do not understand why I am here. I do not deserve this treatment from the service I served loyally for so long.”

Aurbach looked around the little apartment. “Five days of house arrest. You are still young, relative to me, anyway. I can see how a few days locked in a home, even a nice home like this, could be a nuisance for you. Me? I’d consider house arrest a wonderful holiday.” He laughed aloud and patted Yanis on the knee. “Why won’t someone sentence me to a little vacation?”

Alvey did not smile. He leaned forward, feeling the pinch of tethered scar tissue in his midsection as he did so. The gunshot wound had healed, but the scar, like the memory of the pain, would remain with him forever. “I know why you put me here, but I don’t know what I did wrong. I helped the man who saved our prime minister from assassination. How can that be bad?”

Aurbach put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it with a wooden match from a box he pulled from his pocket, then extinguished the match with a swirl of his wrist. As he blew out smoke he said, “You did it unilaterally, without telling your control. Without telling me. Why was that?”

Alvey spoke plainly and honestly. “Because the Americans wanted this man dead, and I worried you would give him to them. Your good relationship with the USA is a great benefit to this service and to our nation, don’t misunderstand me. But your good relationship with them would have meant the death of Mr. Gentry, and I thought we owed him better after what he did for us.”