Gilah studied him for a moment, then looked up at the television again. “You’re worried he’s not going to live, aren’t you, Gabriel?”

“Of course I am.”

“Don’t worry,” said Gilah. “Shamron is indestructible. Shamron is eternal.”

“What did they tell you about his injuries?”

She recited them calmly. The inventory of damaged organs, head trauma, and broken bones made clear to Gabriel that Shamron’s survival was by no means assured.

“Ari came through it the best of the three,” Gilah said. “Apparently Rami and the driver were hurt much worse. Poor Rami. He’s been standing guard over Ari for years. And now this.”

“Where’s Yonatan?”

“He was on duty in the north tonight. He’s on his way.”

Shamron’s only son was a colonel in the Israel Defense Force. Ronit, his wayward daughter, had moved to New Zealand in order to get away from her domineering father. She was living there on a chicken farm with a gentile. It had been years since she and Shamron had spoken.

“Ronit’s coming, too,” Gilah said. “Who knows? Maybe something good can come out of all this. Ronit’s absence has been very hard on him. He blames himself, as well he should. Ari’s very hard on his children. But then you know that, don’t you, Gabriel?”

Gilah stared directly into Gabriel’s eyes for a moment, then looked suddenly away. For years she had thought him a deskman of some sort who knew much about art and spent a great deal of time in Europe. Like the rest of the country she had learned the true nature of his work by reading the newspapers. Her demeanor toward him had changed since his unmasking. She was quiet around him, careful never to upset him, and incapable of looking him too long in the eye. Gabriel had seen behavior like Gilah’s before, as a child, whenever people had entered the Allon home. Death had left its mark on Gabriel’s face, just as Birkenau had stained the face of his mother. Gilah couldn’t gaze long into his eyes because she feared what she might see there.

“He wasn’t well before this. He’s been hiding it, of course-even from the prime minister.”

Gabriel wasn’t surprised. He knew Shamron had been covertly battling various ailments for years. The old man’s health, like almost every other aspect of his life, was a closely held secret.

“Is it the kidneys?”

Gilah shook her head. “The cancer is back.”

“I thought they got it all.”

“So did Ari,” she said. “And that’s not all. His lungs are a mess from the cigarettes. Tell him not to smoke so much.”

“He never listens to me.”

“You’re the only one he listens to. He loves you like a son, Gabriel. Sometimes I think he loves you more than Yonatan.”

“Don’t be silly, Gilah.”

“He’s never happier than when you’re sitting on the terrace together in Tiberias.”

“We’re usually arguing.”

“He likes arguing with you, Gabriel.”

“I’ve gathered that.”

On the television cabinet ministers and security chiefs were arriving at the Prime Minister’s Office for an emergency session. Under ordinary circumstances Shamron would have been among them. Gabriel looked at Gilah. She was pulling at the torn leather of Shamron’s jacket. “It was Ari, wasn’t it?” she asked. “It was Ari who dragged you into this life…after Munich.”

Gabriel looked at the emergency lights flashing on the television screen and nodded absently.

“You were in the army?”

“No, I’d finished with the army. I was studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art by then. Ari came to see me a few days after the hostages had been killed. No one knew it then, but Golda had already given the order to kill everyone involved.”

“Why did he select you?”

“I spoke languages, and he saw things in my army fitness reports-qualities he thought would make me suitable for the kind of work he had in mind.”

“Killing at close range, face-to-face. That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Gilah.”

“How many?”

“Gilah.”

“How many, Gabriel?”

“Six,” he said. “I killed six of them.”

She touched the gray hair at his temples. “But you were just a boy.”

“It’s easier when you’re a boy. It gets harder as you get older.”

“But you did it anyway. You were the one they sent to kill Abu Jihad, weren’t you? You walked into his villa in Tunis and killed him in front of his wife and children. And they took their revenge, not on the country but on you. They put a bomb beneath your car in Vienna.”

She was pulling harder at the tear in Shamron’s coat. Gabriel took her hand. “It’s all right, Gilah. It was a long time ago.”

“I remember when the call came. Ari told me a bomb had gone off beneath a diplomat’s car in Vienna. I remember going into the kitchen to make him some coffee and coming back to the bedroom to find him crying. He said, ‘It’s all my fault. I killed his wife and child.’ It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him cry. I didn’t see him for a week. When he finally came home, I asked him what had happened. He wouldn’t answer, of course. He’d regained his composure by then. But I know it’s eaten away at him all these years. He blames himself for what happened.”

“He shouldn’t,” Gabriel said.

“You weren’t even allowed to grieve properly, were you? The government told the world that the wife and child of the Israeli diplomat were both dead. You buried your son in secret on the Mount of Olives-just you, Ari, and a rabbi-and you hid your wife away in England under a false name. But Khaled found her. Khaled kidnapped your wife and used her to lure you to the Gare de Lyon.” A tear spilled down Gilah’s cheek. Gabriel brushed it away and found her wrinkled skin was still as soft as velvet. “All because my husband came to see you one afternoon in September so long ago. You could have had such a different life. You could have been a great artist. Instead we turned you into a killer. Why aren’t you bitter, Gabriel? Why don’t you hate Ari like his children do?”

“The course of my life was charted the day the Germans chose the little Austrian corporal to be their chancellor. Ari was just the helmsman on the night watch.”

“Are you that fatalistic?”

“Believe me, Gilah, I went through a period of time where I couldn’t bear to look at Ari. But I’ve come to realize I’m more like him than I ever knew.”

“Maybe that’s the quality he saw in your army fitness report.”

Gabriel smiled briefly. “Maybe it was.”

Gilah fingered the tear in Shamron’s jacket. “Do you know the story about how this happened?”

“It’s one of the great mysteries inside the Office,” Gabriel said. “There are all sorts of wild theories about how it happened, but he always refused to tell us the truth.”

“It was the night of the bombing in Vienna. Ari was in a hurry to get to King Saul Boulevard. As he was climbing into his car, the coat got caught on the door, and he tore it.” She ran her finger along the wound. “I tried to fix it for him many times, but he would never let me. It was for Leah and Dani, he said. He’s been wearing a ripped coat all these years because of what happened to your wife and son.”

The telephone rang. Gabriel brought the receiver to his ear and listened in silence for a moment. “I’ll be right there, sir,” he said a moment later, then rang off.

“That was the prime minister. He wants to see me right away. I’ll come back when I’m finished.”

“Don’t worry, Gabriel. Yonatan will be here soon.”

“I’ll be back, Gilah.”

His tone was too forceful. He kissed her cheek apologetically and stood. Gilah seized his arm as he moved toward the door. “Take this,” she said, holding out Shamron’s coat. “He would have wanted you to have it.”

“Don’t talk like he’s not going to make it.”

“Just take the jacket and go.” She gave him a bittersweet smile. “You mustn’t keep the prime minister waiting.”

Gabriel went into the corridor and hurried to the elevators. You mustn’t keep the prime minister waiting. It was what Gilah always said to Shamron whenever he left her.