Lavon had been a promising young archaeologist in September 1972 when Shamron recruited him to be a member of the Wrath of God team. He’d been an ayin, a tracker. He’d followed the Black Septembrists and learned their habits. In many ways his job had been the most dangerous of all, because he had been exposed to the terrorists for days on end with no backup. The work had left him with a nervous disorder and chronic intestinal problems.

“How much do you know about the case, Eli?”

“I’d heard through the grapevine you were back in the country, something to do with the Rome bombing. Then Shamron showed up at my door one evening and told me you were chasing Sabri’s boy. Is it true? Did little Khaled really do Rome?”

“He’s not a little boy anymore. He did Rome, and he did Gare de Lyon. And Buenos Aires and Istanbul before that.”

“It doesn’t surprise me. Terrorism is in Khaled’s veins. He drank it with his mother’s milk.” Lavon shook his head. “You know, if I’d been watching your back in France, like I did in the old days, none of this would have happened.”

“That’s probably true, Eli.”

Lavon’s street skills were legendary. Shamron always said that Eli Lavon could disappear while shaking your hand. Once a year he went to the Academy to pass along the secrets of his trade to the next generation. Indeed, the watchers who’d been in Marseilles had probably spent time sitting at Lavon’s feet.

“So what brings you to Armageddon?”

Gabriel laid a photograph on the tabletop.

“Handsome devil,” Lavon said. “Who is he?”

Gabriel laid a second version of the same photo on the table. This one included the figure seated at the subject’s left, Yasir Arafat.

“Khaled?”

Gabriel nodded.

“What does this have to do with me?”

“I think you and Khaled might have something in common.”

“What’s that?”

Gabriel looked out at the excavation trenches.