It happened at 12:17 precisely. The page rolled over, three words appeared at the top. Big typeface, big as Dartmoor. Parish took the Lord’s name in vain, immediately regretted it, and clicked print. Then he shoved the pages into his coat pocket and struck out across the courtyard to the back door of the cottage. And all the while he was turning over the curious instructions he had received from Vauxhall Cross. Appropriate solemnity, indeed! But how exactly was one supposed to tell a man he was dead?

38

LONDON–THE KREMLIN

IT LAY THERE FOR THE better part of an hour, unreported by the rest of the media, perhaps unnoticed. Then a producer from the BBC World Service, prompted by a phone call from a Telegraph editor, inserted the story into the one o’clock news bulletin. Israel Radio was listening, and within a few minutes phones were ringing and reporters were being roused from their beds. So, too, were members of the country’s influential security and intelligence services, past and present. On the record, no one would go near it. Off the record, they suggested it was probably true. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said only that it was looking into the report; the prime minister’s office said it hoped there was some mistake. Nevertheless, as the first rays of sun fell upon Jerusalem that morning, somber music filled the airwaves. Gabriel Allon, Israel’s avenging angel, next in line to be the chief of the Office, was dead.

In London, however, the news of Allon’s death was an occasion for controversy rather than sorrow. He’d had a long history on British soil, some of which was known to the public, most of which thankfully was not. There were his operations against Zizi al-Bakari, the Saudi financier of terror, and Ivan Kharkov, the Kremlin’s favorite arms dealer. There was his dramatic rescue of Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the American ambassador, outside Westminster Abbey, and there was the nightmare in Covent Garden. But why had he been following the bomb car along Brompton Road? And why had he made a headlong dash toward a white Ford trapped in the stalled traffic? Was he working in concert with MI6, or had he returned to London of his own accord? Was Israel’s notorious intelligence service somehow to blame for the tragedy? British intelligence refused all comment, as did the Metropolitan Police. Prime Minister Lancaster, while touring a distressed state school in London’s East End, ignored a reporter’s question about the matter, which the rest of the British media took as proof the story was true. The leader of the opposition demanded a parliamentary inquiry, but the imam of London’s most radical mosque could scarcely contain his joy. He called Allon’s death “long overdue and a welcome gift from Allah to the Palestinian people and the Islamic world at large.” The Archbishop of Canterbury gently criticized the remarks as “unhelpful.”