And with that he went back to his own end of the table and sat down next to Nadia. “Welcome to the family,” said Herr Wehrli. “He likes you very much. When you negotiate your salary, be unreasonable. He’ll pay whatever you want.”

DINNER THAT EVENING aboard Sun Dancer had been far less extravagant and the conversation far more animated. They did not avoid topics such as war and terrorism. Indeed they embraced them wholeheartedly and argued about them long past midnight. At the end of the evening there was another quarrel, this one about whose night it was to do the dishes. Dina and Rimona claimed exemption on the grounds that they had performed the task the last night in Surrey. Gabriel, in one of his few command decisions of the day, inflicted the task on the new boys: Oded and Mordecai, two experienced all-purpose fieldhands, and Mikhail, a gunman on loan to the Office from the Sayeret Matkal. He was a Russian-born Jew with bloodless skin and eyes the color of glacial ice. “A younger version of you,” Yaakov had said. “Good with a gun, but no conscience. He practically took down the command structure of Hamas by himself.”

Their accommodations lacked the grandeur of Alexandra’s, and no one was granted the privilege of private quarters. Gabriel and Lavon, veterans of manhunts past, bunked together in the prow. Lavon was used to Gabriel’s erratic operational sleeping habits and was not surprised the following morning when he woke before dawn to find Gabriel’s bed unoccupied. He climbed out of his bunk and went up to the deck. Gabriel was standing at the prow, coffee in hand, his gaze fixed on the smudge of light on the distant horizon. Lavon went back to his bunk and slept two more hours. When he returned to the deck, Gabriel was standing in the exact same spot, staring out at the empty sea.

23. Off the Bahamas

Off the Bahamas

HER DAYS QUICKLY ACQUIRED SHAPE.

She would rise early each morning and linger in a drowsy half-sleep in the enormous bed, listening to Alexandra slowly stirring to life around her. Then, usually around seven-thirty, she would ring the steward and order her morning coffee and brioche, which would come on a tray, always with a fresh flower, five minutes later. If there was no rain she would take her breakfast in the shade of her starboard-facing private sundeck. Alexandra was on a southeasterly heading, steaming without haste toward an unnamed destination, and usually Sarah could just make out the low, flat islands of the Bahamian chain in the distance. Zizi’s suite was one level above her. Some mornings she could hear him on the telephone, closing the day’s first deals.