SHAMRON STAYED FOR another hour, debriefing Gabriel about the attack on the Vatican. At nine-fifteen Gabriel walked him down to the car, then stood in the street for a moment and watched the taillights disappear around the corner. He went back upstairs and put the kitchen in order, then shut out the lights and went into his bedroom. Just then the apartment block shook with the clap of a thunderous explosion. Like all Israelis, he had become adept at estimating the casualty toll of suicide bombs by counting the sirens. The more sirens, the more ambulances. The more ambulances, the more dead and wounded. He heard a single siren, then another, then a third. Not too large, he thought. He switched on the television and waited for the first bulletin, but fifteen minutes after the explosion there was still no word. In frustration he picked up the phone and dialed Shamron’s car. There was no answer.

PART TWO Dr. Gachet’s Daughter

PART TWO

Dr. Gachet’s Daughter

10. Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

GILAH SHAMRON’S LIFE HAD been a succession of tense vigils. She had endured the secret missions to dangerous lands, the wars and the terror, the crises and the Security Cabinet meetings that never seemed to end before midnight. She had always feared an enemy from Shamron’s past would one day rise and take his revenge. She had always known that one day Ari would force her to wait for word of whether he was going to live or die.

Gabriel found her seated calmly in a private waiting room in the intensive care unit of the Hadassah Medical Center. Shamron’s famous bomber jacket lay across her lap, and she was absently plucking at the tear in the right breast that Shamron had never seen fit to repair. Gabriel had always seen something of Golda Meir in Gilah’s sad gaze and wild gray hair. He could not look at Gilah without thinking of the day Golda pinned a medal on his chest in secret and, with tears in her eyes, thanked him for avenging the eleven Israelis murdered at Munich.

“What happened, Gabriel? How did they get to Ari in the middle of Jerusalem?”

“He’s probably been under surveillance for a very long time. When he left my apartment tonight, he told me he was going back to the Prime Minister’s Office to do a bit of work.” Gabriel sat down and took Gilah’s hand. “They hit him at a traffic signal on King George Street.”

“A suicide bomber?”

“We think there were two men. They were in a van and disguised as haredi Jews. The bomb was abnormally large.”

She looked up at the television mounted high on the wall. “I can see that from the pictures. It’s remarkable anyone survived.”