“I know,” he said.

A bullfrog croaked down by the water’s edge. Across the lake he could see the lights of the resort town of Tiberias shining on the water. Under Prince Judah, the rabbis of Israel had written the Mishna and determined the final form of the Old Testament there. Nearby twinkled the lights of Kfar Nahum, the biblical Capernaum, where Jesus used to preach. There was no escaping the past in a place like this, he thought.

She leaned across and kissed him on the mouth, her hand at the back of his neck, and for a moment they were lovers in the truest sense. Then he thought of Harris and the shadows of the past fell between them like a guillotine blade.

“You know why I had to leave Bahrain with Robert, don’t you? I thought he was my case officer,” she said, looking down for a moment. “And I had to find out where we stood with each other,” she said in that throaty voice which still tugged at his heart like a string.

“But I never thought he was … when I saw Gerard and him talking at the party and realized they were in it together—” she began, her eyes shining.

“Back in Paris you thought that one of the men you met—Gerard, or Jean-Paul, or Randy—was a contact from Israeli intelligence, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“They were contacts, all right. Small-time informers working for the French SDECE. It was Harris who was pulling the strings,” he said.

“Some Mata Hari. I was pretty naive, wasn’t I?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” he said and held her close. She vibrated in his arms like a tuning fork. He held her until she was still, knowing it was a moment he would remember until he died. She pulled away and looked directly into his eyes as if peering into the back of his brain. No one had ever looked at him like that, he thought.

“You’re the most special man I’ve ever known,” she said and he knew it was her way of saying goodbye.

“Don’t underestimate yourself, either. There’ll be lots of nights when trying not to think about you will be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do,” he said.

She cupped his chin in her hand and smiled fondly. “My knight in shining armor,” she said, her eyes brimming again. “But it wouldn’t work. Somehow, I can’t picture you in a kibbutz cow barn, shoveling manure. That’s not how the story goes. The knight’s supposed to kiss his lady-fair goodbye and ride off to his next adventure. So, where’s your next adventure?” she said bravely.

“I have some unfinished business in Afghanistan,” he said, wishing it didn’t sound so much like Indiana Jones.

“You see,” she said brightly, her mouth twisting as if she was about to cry.