Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

And so it went for twelve days and twelve seemingly endless nights, as each group labored to assemble its piece of the puzzle. Lavon, the biblical archaeologist, couldn’t help but compare the quest to the construction of the ancient underground aqueduct beneath the City of David that linked the Gihon Spring with the Pool of Siloam. More than seventeen hundred feet in length, it had been hastily carved out of the bedrock in the eighth century BC as the city prepared itself for a siege by the approaching Assyrian army. To speed the process, King Hezekiah ordered two separate teams to tunnel toward each other simultaneously. Somehow they managed to meet in the middle, and the life-saving water flowed into the city.

The team experienced a similar episode shortly after midnight on the thirteenth day, when Gabriel’s team took delivery of the nightly packet of material from Unit 8200. It included a list of all cash wire transfers that had flowed to and from the accounts of Lebanon Byzantine Bank that day. The document revealed that, at 4:17 p.m., LBB received a transfer of one and a half million euros from the Galleria Naxos of St. Moritz, Switzerland. Then, a few minutes after five o’clock Beirut time, a sum of one hundred and fifty thousand euros, ten percent of the original payment, was forwarded from LBB to an account at the Institute for Religious Works, otherwise known as the Vatican Bank. Eli Lavon would later describe the atmosphere in the room as a bit like the moment Hezekiah’s workmen first heard each other chiseling through the bedrock. Gabriel ordered his own teams to dig a little more, and by dawn they knew they had their man.

“HE CALLS HIMSELF DAVID GIRARD. But like almost everything else about him, it’s a lie.”

Gabriel dropped the file folder onto Uzi Navot’s preposterously large executive desk. It was fashioned of smoked glass and stood near the floor-to-ceiling bulletproof windows overlooking downtown Tel Aviv and the sea. Hazy sunlight filtered through the vertical blinds, imprisoning Navot in bars of shadow. He left the file untouched and with a wave of his hand invited Gabriel to elaborate.

“His real name is Daoud Ghandour. He was born in the village of Tayr Dibba in southern Lebanon, the same town as Imad Mughniyah, which means they probably knew each other when they were growing up.”

“How did he get from a shithole like Tayr Dibba to an antiquities gallery in St. Moritz?”

“The Lebanese way,” replied Gabriel. “In 1970, when Arafat and the PLO set up shop in southern Lebanon, the Ghandour family moved to Beirut. Apparently, Daoud was an exceptionally bright child. He went to a good school and learned to speak French and English. When it came time for him to attend university, he moved to Paris to study ancient history at the Sorbonne.”

“Is that when Daoud Ghandour became David Girard?”

“That wasn’t until he moved on to Oxford,” Gabriel answered. “After completing his PhD in classical archaeology, he went to work in the antiquities department of Sotheby’s in London. He was there in the late nineties when Sotheby’s was accused of selling unprovenanced antiquities. He left London under something of a cloud.”

“And went into business for himself?”

Gabriel nodded.

“How much does it cost to open a gallery in St. Moritz?”

“A lot.”

“Where did he get the money?”

“Good question.”

Gabriel removed a photograph from the file and dealt it across the desktop. It showed a slender figure in his late forties leaning against a glass display case filled with Greek and Etruscan pottery. He wore a dark pullover and a dark blazer. His gaze was soft and thoughtful. His posed smile managed to appear genuine.

“Handsome devil,” said Navot. “Where’d you get the photo?”

“From the Web site of the gallery. His official bio has a couple of glaring holes in it, such as his given name and place of birth.”

“What flavor passport is he carrying these days?”

“Swiss. He has a Swiss wife, too.”

“Which variety?”

“German speaker.”

“How cosmopolitan.” Navot frowned at the photograph. “What do we know about his travel habits?”

“Like most people in the antiquities trade, he spends a great deal of time on airplanes and in hotel rooms.”

“Lebanon?”

“He pops into Beirut at least twice a month.” Gabriel paused, then added, “He also spends a fair amount of time here in Israel.”

Navot looked up sharply but said nothing.

“According to Eli’s friends over at the Israel Antiquities Authority, Daoud Ghandour, aka David Girard, is a frequent visitor to the Temple Mount. Actually,” Gabriel corrected himself, “he spends most of his time under the Mount.”

“Doing what?”

“He’s an unpaid adviser to the Palestinian Authority and the Waqf on issues related to archaeological matters. By the way, that’s not in his official bio, either.”

Navot stared at the photo for a moment. “What’s your theory?”

“I think he’s Hezbollah’s man in Carlo’s network. He sells looted goods out of his gallery in St. Moritz, sends the profits back home through LBB, and gives a ten percent cut to his godfather Carlo Marchese.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Not yet. Which is why I’m proposing we go into business with him.”

“How?”

“I’m going to offer him something irresistible, and see if he bites.”

“I probably shouldn’t ask,” Navot sighed, “but just where do you intend to get something so irresistible?”

“I’m going to steal it, of course.”

“Of course,” said Navot, smiling. “Is there anything you need from me?”

“Money, Uzi. Lots of money.”

Office doctrine dictates that field agents departing for missions abroad spend their final night in Israel at a safe flat known as a jump site. There, free from the distractions of spouses, lovers, children, and pets, they assume the identities they will wear like body armor until they return home again. Only Gabriel and Eli Lavon chose not to participate in this enduring operational ritual, for by their own calculation, they had spent more time living under false names than their own.

As it turned out, both chose to pass at least part of that last evening in the company of damaged women. Lavon headed to the Western Wall Tunnel to spend a few hours with his beloved Rivka, while Gabriel made a pilgrimage to the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital to see Leah. As usual, he arrived after normal visiting hours. Leah’s doctor was waiting in the lobby. A rabbinical-looking man with a kippah and a long gray beard, he was the only person in Israel not connected to the Office who knew precisely what had happened that night in Vienna.

“It’s been a while since your last visit.” The doctor gave a forgiving smile. “She’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“How is she?”

“The same. At this stage of her life, that’s the best we can hope for.”

The doctor took Gabriel by the arm and guided him along a corridor of Jerusalem limestone to a common room with windows overlooking the hospital’s garden. It was there, in the shade of a stone pine, that Gabriel had sought Leah’s permission to marry Chiara. The moment was only partially imprinted in Leah’s watery memory. At times, she seemed to realize that Gabriel was no longer her husband, but for the most part she remained a prisoner of the past. In Leah’s bewildered mind, there was nothing unusual about Gabriel’s long absences. Thanks to Shamron, he had always entered and departed her world with little or no warning.

She was seated in her wheelchair with the twisted remnants of her hands resting in her lap. Her hair, once long and dark like Chiara’s, was now cut institutional short and shot with gray. Gabriel kissed the cool, firm scar tissue of her cheek before lowering himself into the armless little chair the doctor had placed at her side. Leah seemed unaware of his presence. She was staring sightlessly into the darkened garden.