Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

As expected, the reaction to the news was mixed at best. The video of the ancient pillars electrified the Israeli public and sent a tremor of anticipation through the global community of archaeologists and ancient historians. Most scholars immediately accepted the pillars as authentic, but in Germany the leader of a discipline of archaeology known as biblical minimalism dismissed them as “twenty-two hunks of wishful thinking.” Not surprisingly, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority seized on that statement when issuing its own response to the news. The pillars were an Israeli hoax, it said. And so was the “so-called bomb.”

But what had led the Israelis to enter the Temple Mount in the first place? And who had been the ultimate mastermind of the plot to bring it down? The Israeli government, citing its long-standing refusal to comment on matters related to intelligence gathering, declined to go into specifics. But as the pillars emerged slowly from the earth, a series of stories appeared in the press that began to shed a diffuse light on the mysterious chain of events that had led to their discovery.

There was the exposé in Le Monde about a Sorbonne graduate named David Girard, aka Daoud Ghandour, who had advised the Waqf on archaeological matters, and who, according to unnamed law enforcement officials, was a member of a criminal antiquities smuggling network with links to Hezbollah. And the story in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung about an Iranian connection to the bombing of Galleria Naxos in St. Moritz. And the investigative follow-up in Der Spiegel that linked David Girard to one Massoud Rahimi, the Iranian terrorist mastermind who had been briefly kidnapped in Germany. Which made it all the more interesting when, just twelve days later, that same Massoud Rahimi was killed in Tehran by a limpet-style bomb planted beneath his car. The television terrorism analysts had little doubt about who was behind the assassination or what it meant. Massoud had been the mastermind of the Temple Mount plot, they proclaimed, and the Israelis had just returned the favor.

But there were many aspects of the story the press would never learn, including the fact that the affair had begun when Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, had been summoned to St. Peter’s Basilica to view the corpse of a fallen angel. Or that Gabriel had spent the last two weeks sitting beside the hospital bed of the archaeologist whose blood stained the pillars of Solomon’s Temple. As a result, he was present when the archaeologist finally opened his eyes. “Rivka,” Eli Lavon murmured. “Make sure someone looks after Rivka.”

That same evening, a tense calm fell over Jerusalem for the first time since the beginning of the Temple Mount crisis. Gabriel went to the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital to spend a few minutes with Leah before meeting Chiara for dinner at a restaurant located in the original campus of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Afterward, he took her for ice cream and a walk in Ben Yehuda Street.

“Donati called this afternoon,” she said suddenly, as though it had slipped her mind. “He was wondering when you were coming back to Rome to finish the Caravaggio and deal with Carlo.”

“I’d almost forgotten about them both.”

“That’s understandable, darling. After all, you did save Israel and the world from Armageddon and find twenty-two pillars from the First Temple of Jerusalem.”

Gabriel smiled. “I’ll leave the day after tomorrow.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t. Besides,” he added quickly, “I have a job for you. Two jobs, actually.”

“What are they?”

“I need someone to look after Eli until I get back.”

“And the other?”

“The government has decided to put the pillars in a special wing at the Israel Museum. You’re going to be part of the team that will design the interior of the building and the overall exhibit.”

“Gabriel!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “How on earth did you manage that?”

“As one of the co-discoverers of the pillars, I have a certain amount of sway. In fact, they wanted to name the exhibit in my honor.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That it should be called the Eli Lavon Wing,” he said. “I’m just thankful it’s not going to be the Eli Lavon Memorial Wing.”

“Will they change anything?”

“The pillars?”

Chiara nodded.

“Did you hear what the Palestinians said about them?”

“Zionist lies.”

“Temple Denial,” said Gabriel. “They can’t admit that we were here before them because that would mean we have a right to be here now. In their eyes, we have to remain foreign invaders, something to be driven out, like the Crusaders.”

“Blood never sleeps,” Chiara said softly.

“Nor is it in short supply,” Gabriel added. “Our friends in the West like to think the Arab-Israeli conflict can be solved by drawing a line on a map. But they don’t understand history. This city has existed in a state of almost perpetual warfare for three thousand years. And the Palestinians are going to keep fighting until we’re gone.”

“So what do we do?”

“Hold fast,” said Gabriel. “Because the next time we lose Jerusalem, it will be for good. And then where will we go?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

The air had turned suddenly cooler. Chiara pulled her coat tightly around her and studied a group of Israeli teenagers laughing on the other side of the street. They were sixteen or seventeen. In a year or two, they would all be in the army, soldiers in the war without end.

“It’s not so easy, is it, Gabriel?”

“What’s that?”

“To think about leaving at a time like this.”

“It’s the other form of Jerusalem Syndrome. The worse it gets, the more you love it.”

“You do love it, don’t you?”

“I love it dearly,” he said. “I love the color of the limestone and the sky. I love the smell of the pine and the eucalyptus. I love it when the air turns cold at night. I even love the haredim who shout at me when I drive my car on Shabbat.”

“But do you love it enough to stay?”

“His Holiness thinks I have no choice.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gabriel told her about the conversation with the pope on the parapet of the Vatican walls, when the leader of a billion Catholics confessed he was having visions of the Apocalypse. “He thinks we’ve been wandering too long,” he said. “He thinks the country needs me.”

“The pope doesn’t have to wait in hotel rooms wondering whether you’re going to come back from an operation alive.”

“But he is infallible.”

“Not when it comes to matters of the heart.” Chiara looked at Gabriel for a moment. “Do you know what it’s going to be like if we live here? Every time we come home, Ari is going to be sitting in our living room.”

“As long as he doesn’t smoke, that’s fine with me.”

“Do you mean that?”

“He’s like a father to me, Chiara. I need to take care of him.”

“And when Uzi asks you to run an errand for the Office?”

“I suppose I’ll just have to learn those three little words.”

“Which words?”

“Find someone else.”

“What will you do for work?”

“I’ll find work.”

“It gets claustrophobic here.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We’ll need to travel, Gabriel.”

“I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“I’ve always wanted to spend an autumn in Provence.”

“I know just the village.”

“Have you ever been to Scotland?”

“Not that I can recall.”