The girl sat calmly with her ankles crossed and the gun lying in her lap. Gabriel wondered why Khaled had chosen her to escort him to his death. Because her youth and beauty stood in sharp contrast to Leah’s ravaged infirmity? Or was it an Arab insult of some sort? Did he wish to further humiliate Gabriel by making him take orders from a beautiful young girl? Whatever Khaled’s motives, she was nonetheless thoroughly trained. Gabriel had sensed it during their first encounter in Marseilles and again at the house in Martigues—and he could see it now in her muscular arms and shoulders and in the way she handled the gun. But it was her hands that intrigued him most. She had the short, dirty fingernails of a potter or someone who worked outdoors.

She hit him again without warning. The car swerved, and Gabriel had to battle to get it under control again.

“Why did you do that?”

“You were looking at the gun?”

“I was not.”

“You’re thinking about taking it away from me.”

“No.”

“Liar! Jewish liar!”

She raised the gun to strike him again, but his time Gabriel lifted his hand defensively and managed to deflect the blow.

“You’d better hurry,” she said, “or we won’t make it to Nîmes in time.”

“I’m going nearly two hundred kilometers an hour. I can’t drive any faster without killing us both. Next time Khaled calls, tell him he’s going to have to extend the deadlines.”

“Who?”

“Khaled,” Gabriel repeated. “The man you’re working for. The man who’s running this operation.”

“I’ve never heard of a man named Khaled.”

“My mistake.”

She studied him for a moment. “You speak Arabic very well. You grew up in the Jezreel Valley, yes? Not far from Afula. I’m told there are many Arabs there. People who refused to leave or be driven out.”

Gabriel didn’t rise to her baiting. “You’ve never seen it?”

“Palestine?” A flicker of a smile. “I’ve seen it from a distance,” she said.

Lebanon, thought Gabriel. She’s seen it from Lebanon.

“If we’re going to make this journey together, I should have a name to call you.”

“I don’t have a name. I’m just a Palestinian. No name, no face, no land, no home. My suitcase is my country.”

“Fine,” he said, “I’ll call you Palestine.”

“It’s not a proper name for a woman.”

“All right, then I’ll call you Palestina.”

She looked at the road and nodded. “You may call me Palestina.”