ON THE ROAD between Valence and Lyon, he pushed Leah from his mind and thought of nothing but the case. Instinctively, he approached it as though it were a painting. He stripped away the varnish and dissolved the paint, until there was nothing left but the fragmentary charcoal lines of the underdrawing; then he began building it back up again, layer by layer, tone and texture. For the moment he was unable to affix a reliable authentication. Was Khaled the artist, or had Khaled been only an apprentice in the workshop of the Old Master himself, Yasir Arafat? Had Arafat ordered it to avenge the destruction of his power and authority, or had Khaled undertaken the work on his own to avenge the death of a father and grandfather? Was it another battle in the war between two peoples or just an outbreak in the long-simmering feud between two families, the al-Khalifas and the Shamron-Allons? He suspected it was a combination of both, an intersection of shared needs and goals. Two great artists had cooperated on a single work—Titian and Bellini, he thought. The Feast of the Gods.

The date of the painting’s commission remained elusive to him as well, though. Of one thing he was sure: the work had taken several years and much blood to produce. He had been deceived, and skillfully so. They all had. The dossier found in Milan had been planted by Khaled in order to lure Gabriel into the search. Khaled had dropped a trail of clues and wound the clock, so that Gabriel had had no choice but to desperately pursue them. Mahmoud Arwish, David Quinnell, Mimi Ferrere—they’d all been a part of it. Gabriel saw them now, silent and still, as minor figures at the edges of a Bellini, allegorical in nature but supportive of the focal point. But what was the point? Gabriel knew that the painting was unfinished. Khaled had one more coup in store, one more spectacular of blood and fire. Somehow Gabriel had to survive it. He was certain the clue to his survival lay somewhere along the path he’d already traveled. And so, as he raced northward toward Lyon, he saw not the Autoroute but the case—every minute, every setting, every encounter, oil on canvas. He would survive it, he thought, and someday he would come back to Khaled on his own terms. And the girl, Palestina, would be his doorway.

“PULL OVER TO THE side of the road.”

Gabriel did as he was told. They were a few miles from the center of Lyon. This time, only two minutes elapsed before the telephone rang.

“Get back on the road,” she said. “We’re going to Chalon. It’s a—”

“I know where Chalon is. It’s just south of Dijon.”

He waited for an opening in the traffic, then accelerated back onto the Autoroute.