“Tell me.”

“It’s classified.”

He reached for the talisman. Chiara, with a deft movement of her hand, twirled the talisman so that it wrapped securely around her fingertips, in the manner in which Arabs often toy with their prayer beads.

“A gift from one of your old lovers?” she asked.

“An old enemy, actually. A man who’d been hired to kill me and a woman I was protecting.”

“Anna Rolfe?”

Yes, Gabriel said, Anna Rolfe.

“Why did you keep it?” she asked. “To remind you of her?”

“Chiara, don’t be ridiculous.”

She tossed the talisman in his direction. The red-coral hand landed on his chest.

“Is something wrong, Chiara?”

“What were those papers that Shamron gave you before he left tonight? Or is that classified, too?”

Gabriel answered the question truthfully.

“Did you sign them yet?”

“I thought I should read them first.”

“You know what they say.”

“I’ll sign them,” Gabriel said.

“When?”

“When I’m ready to sign them.”

Just then the apartment block shook with the clap of a thunderous explosion. Chiara climbed out of bed and rushed to the window. Gabriel remained motionless on the bed.

“It’s close,” she said.

“Ben Yehuda Mall, I’d say. Probably a café.”

“Turn on the radio.”

“Just count the sirens, Chiara. You can tell how bad it is by the number of ambulances they call.”

A moment passed, still and deathly quiet. Gabriel closed his eyes and imagined, with the clarity of videotape, the nightmare taking place a few blocks from his new home. The first siren sounded, then a second, a third, a fourth. After seventeen, he lost count, for the night had become a symphony of sirens. Chiara returned to bed and clung to his chest.

“Sign the papers when you’re ready,” she said. “I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

10 JERUSALEM: MARCH 22

10

JERUSALEM: MARCH 22

THE ARMY COLONEL WAITING NEAR THE WALLS OF the Old City did not look much like Ari Shamron, but then Gabriel did not find this at all surprising. There was something about Israel—the sunlight, the intense social cohesiveness, the crackling tension of the atmosphere—that had the power to dramatically alter the appearance of its citizenry even within the space of a single generation. Yonatan Shamron was six inches taller than his famous father, strikingly handsome, and possessed none of the old man’s natural physical defensiveness—a result, Gabriel knew, of having been raised here instead of Poland. Only when the colonel leapt from the armored jeep and advanced on Gabriel with his hand out like a trench knife did Gabriel catch a faint glimpse of Shamron the Elder. His gait was not so much a walk as a death charge, and when he shook Gabriel’s hand fiercely and clapped him between the shoulder blades, Gabriel felt as though he’d been struck by a chunk of Herodion stone.