Gabriel’s answer was the same as before, and Lavon never raised the subject again—even late at night, when the tables of the corner restaurant had been packed away and rain baptized the silent street. They dimmed the lights of the apartment so their shadows would not be visible from without, and in the darkness the years faded from their faces. They might have been the same boys of twenty whom the Office had dispatched in the autumn of 1972 to hunt down the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre. The operation had been code-named Wrath of God. In the Hebrew-based lexicon of the team, Lavon had been an ayin, a tracker. Gabriel was an aleph, an assassin. For three years they stalked their prey across Europe, killing in darkness and in broad daylight, living in fear that at any moment they might be arrested and charged as murderers. They had spent endless nights in shabby rooms watching doorways and men, secretly inhabiting the lives of others. Stress and visions of blood robbed them both of the ability to sleep. A transistor radio was their only link to the real world. It told them about wars won and lost, about an American president who resigned in disgrace, and sometimes, on warm summer nights, it played music for them—the same music that normal boys of twenty were listening to, boys who had not been sent forth by their country to serve as executioners, angels of vengeance for eleven murdered Jews.

Sleeplessness was soon epidemic in the little apartment in the Bairro Alto. They had planned to serve rotating two-hour shifts at the outpost by the window, but as the days wore on, and the mutual insomnia took hold, the three veteran operatives stood something like a joint permanent watch. All those who passed beneath their window were photographed, regardless of their age, gender, or national origin. Those who entered the target building received additional scrutiny, as did its residents. Gradually, their secrets came spilling into the observation post. Such was the nature of any long-term watch. More often than not, it was the venal sins of the innocent that were exposed.

The apartment contained a television with a satellite dish that lost hold of its signal each time rain fell from the sky or a modest exhalation of wind blew through the street. It served as their link to a world that with each passing day seemed to be spinning further out of control. It was the world Gabriel would inherit the moment he swore his oath as the next chief of the Office. And it would be Keller’s world, too, should he choose it. Keller was Gabriel’s last restoration. His dirty varnish had been removed, his canvas had been relined and retouched. He was no longer the English assassin. Soon he would be the English spy.