Shamron nodded his head slowly in agreement. “As far as your communications,” he said, “we’ll have to do it old school, the way we did during Wrath of God.”

“It’s hard to go old school in the modern world.”

“You have the ability to make a four-hundred-year-old painting look new again. I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Shamron consulted his wristwatch. “I wish you could make one last phone call to your wife, but I’m afraid it’s not possible under the circumstances.”

“How’s she taking word of my death?”

“As well as can be expected.” Shamron glanced at Gabriel. “You’re a lucky man. There aren’t many women who would let their husbands go to war against the Kremlin in the final weeks of a pregnancy.”

“It’s part of the deal.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I devoted my life to my people and my country. And in the process I drove away everyone I ever held dear.” Shamron paused, then added, “Everyone but you.”

Outside, it was beginning to rain again, a sudden onslaught that sent fat drops hissing onto the grate. Shamron seemed not to notice; he was staring at his wristwatch. Time had always been his enemy, never more so than now.

“How much longer?” he asked.

“Not long,” replied Gabriel.

Shamron smoked in silence as the raindrops sacrificed themselves upon the red-hot grate.

“Is this how you imagined it would be?” he asked.

“It’s exactly how I pictured it.”

“A terrible thing, isn’t it?”

“What’s that, Ari?”

“For the child to die before the parent. It upends the natural order of things.” He dropped his cigarette into the fire. “One can’t grieve properly. One can only think of vengeance.”

Ari Shamron, like Gabriel, had reached only limited accommodation with the modern world. He carried a mobile cellular device grudgingly, for he knew better than most the degree to which such contraptions could be turned against their users. Presently, it was resting in the wooden box on Parish’s desk reserved for the prohibited possessions of “company.” Parish was not ashamed to admit that he did not care for the old man. The smoking! My word, the smoking. Worse than the young Englishman who was always walking the moors. The old man smelled like an ashtray. Looked like death warmed over. And the teeth! Had a smile like a steel trap and just about as pleasant.

It was unclear whether the old man planned to spend the night. He had given no indication of his plans, and Parish had received no guidance from Vauxhall Cross, save for a curious note regarding the Web site of the Telegraph newspaper. Parish was to check it regularly beginning at midnight. A story would appear there that would be of interest to the two men from Israel. Vauxhall Cross didn’t bother to say why it would be of interest. Apparently, it would be self-evident. Parish was to print out the story and deliver it to the two men without comment and with appropriate solemnity, whatever that meant. Parish had worked for MI6 for nearly thirty years in one capacity or another. He was used to strange instructions from headquarters. In his experience, they went hand-in-hand with important operations.

And so he remained at his desk late that night, long after Miss Coventry had been driven home to her dreary Devon village, and long after the security guards, worn thin after a day of chasing the young Englishman across the moors, had turned in for the night. The installation had gone electronic, which meant that it was being protected by machines rather than men. Parish read a few pages of P. D. James, bless her soul, and listened to a bit of Handel on the radio. Mainly he listened to the rain. Another dirty night. When would it ever end?

Finally, at the stroke of midnight, he opened the Web browser on his computer and keyed in the address for the Telegraph. It was the usual drivel: a Westminster row over the NHS, a bombing in Baghdad, something about a pop star’s love life that Parish found deeply repellent. There was nothing, however, that looked as though it would be remotely of interest to the “company” from the Holy Land. Oh, there was some faint glimmer of hope regarding the Iran nuclear negotiations, but surely they didn’t need Parish to tell them about that.

So he returned to his P. D. James and his Handel until five minutes past, when he clicked REFRESH and saw the same rubbish as before. At ten past nothing had changed. But when he refreshed the page at twelve fifteen it froze like a block of ice. Parish was no expert in cybermatters, but he knew that Web sites often became unresponsive during periods of transition or heavy traffic. He knew, too, that no amount of clicking or tapping would speed the process, so he allowed a few more lines of the novel to flow past his eyes while the Web page wriggled free of its digital restraints.

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.”