THE SECURITY SYSTEM DETECTED the intrusion at 2:38 A.M. It was sensor number 154, located on one of fourteen pairs of French doors leading from the rear garden into the mansion. The system was not connected to a commercial security company or to the Paris police, only to a central station within the mansion, staffed round the clock by a permanent detachment of security men, all former members of the Saudi National Guard.

The first security man arrived at the open French door within fifteen seconds of the silent alarm and was knocked unconscious by one of the six masked intruders. Two more guards arrived ten seconds later, guns drawn, and were shot to death by the same intruder. The fourth guard to arrive on the scene, a twenty-eight-year-old from Jeddah who had no wish to die for the possessions of a billionaire, raised his hands in immediate surrender.

The man with the gun knocked the Saudi to the ground and sat on his chest while he examined the display screen of a small handheld apparatus. Though he wore a balaclava helmet, the Saudi could see his eyes, which were an intense shade of green. Without speaking, the green-eyed man motioned toward the sweeping central staircase. Two members of his team responded by charging upward. Thirty seconds later they returned, carrying a single item. The green-eyed intruder looked down at the Saudi and gazed at him calmly. “Tell Zizi, the next time I come it’s for him,” he said in perfect Arabic. Then the gun slammed into the side of the Saudi’s head, and he blacked out.

THREE NIGHTS LATER the Isaac Weinberg Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism in France opened on the rue des Rosiers in the Marais. Like most matters dealing with the Jews of France, the creation of the center had not been without controversy. The far-right National Party of Jean-Marie Le Pen had raised questions about the source of its funding, while a prominent Islamic cleric had called for a boycott and organized a noisy demonstration the night of the opening reception. Thirty minutes into the party, there was a bomb threat. All of those in attendance, including Hannah Weinberg, the center’s creator and director, were shepherded out of the building by a unit of French antiterrorist police and the remainder of the reception canceled.

Later that night she gathered with a few friends for a quiet supper down the street at Jo Goldenberg. It was shortly after ten o’clock when she walked back to her apartment house on the rue Pavée, shadowed by a security agent attached to the Israeli embassy. Upstairs in her flat she unlocked the door at the end of the central corridor and switched on the lights. She stood for a moment, gazing at the painting that hung on the wall above her childhood dresser, then she shut out the lights and went to bed.

42. Istanbul: August

Istanbul: August