The telephone on Arafat’s desk rang, tearing Gabriel’s memory of Vienna as a knife shreds canvas. Arafat turned suddenly and left Gabriel to see himself out. Colonel Kemel was waiting on the landing. He escorted Gabriel wordlessly through the debris of the Mukata. The harsh light, after the gloom of Arafat’s office, was nearly unbearable. Beyond the broken gate Yonatan Shamron was playing football with a few of the Palestinian guards. They climbed back into the armored jeep and drove through streets of death. When they were clear of Ramallah, Yonatan asked Gabriel whether he had learned anything useful.

“Khaled al-Khalifa bombed our embassy in Rome,” Gabriel said with certainty.

“Anything else?”

Yes, he thought. Yasir Arafat had personally ordered Tariq al-Hourani to murder his wife and son.

11 JERUSALEM: MARCH 23

11

JERUSALEM: MARCH 23

GABRIEL’S BEDSIDE TELEPHONE RANG AT TWO A.M. It was Yaakov.

“Looks like your visit to the Mukata has stirred the hornet’s nest.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m outside in the street.”

The connection went dead. Gabriel sat up in bed and dressed in the dark.

“Who was that?” Chiara asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

Gabriel told her.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

He bent to kiss her forehead. Chiara’s arm rose from the blankets, curled around the back of his neck, and drew him to her mouth. “Be careful,” she whispered, her lips against his cheek.

A moment later he was buckled into the passenger seat of Yaakov’s unmarked Volkswagen Golf, racing westward across Jerusalem. Yaakov drove ludicrously fast, in true Sabra fashion, with the wheel in one hand and coffee and a cigarette in the other. The headlamps of the oncoming traffic threw an unkind light on the pockmarked features of his uncompromising face.

“His name is Mahmoud Arwish,” Yaakov said. “One of our most important assets inside the Palestinian Authority. He works in the Mukata. Very close to Arafat.”

“Who made the approach?”

“Arwish sent up a flare a couple of hours ago and said he wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“Khaled, of course.”

“What does he know?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Why do you need me? Why isn’t he talking to his controller?”

“I’m his controller,” Yaakov said, “but the person he really wants to talk to is you.”