Daniel Silva - The defector

Gabriel removed Grigori’s letter from his coat pocket and dealt it onto the table. Navot read it silently, his face an inscrutable mask, then looked up again.

“I want to know everything you did while you were in England, Gabriel. No shortcuts, deletions, edits, or abridgments. Do you understand me?”

Gabriel gave Navot a complete account, beginning with his first meeting with Graham Seymour and ending with the assassination attempt on Olga’s doorstep.

“They disabled the lock?” Navot asked.

“It was a nice touch.”

“It’s a shame the shooter didn’t realize you were unarmed. He could have simply climbed out of the car and killed you.”

“You don’t really mean that, Uzi.”

“No, but it makes me feel better to say it. Rather sloppy for a Russian hit team, don’t you think?”

“It’s not so easy to kill someone from a moving vehicle.”

“Unless you’re Gabriel Allon. When we set our sights on someone, he dies. The Russians are usually like that, too. They’re fanatics when it comes to planning and preparation.”

Gabriel nodded in agreement.

“So why send a couple of amateurs to Oxford?”

“Because they assumed it would be easy. They probably thought the second string could handle it.”

“You’re assuming Olga was the target and not you?”

“That’s correct.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I’d only been in the country three days. Even we would be hard-pressed to organize a hit that quickly.”

“So why didn’t they call it off when they saw she wasn’t alone?”

“It’s possible they simply mistook me for Olga’s boyfriend or one of her students, not someone who knows to hit the deck when a lock suddenly stops working.”

A waiter approached the table. Navot sent him away with a subtle gesture of his hand.

“It might have been wiser if you’d shared some of these observations with Graham Seymour. He allowed you to conduct your own review of Grigori’s disappearance. And how did you repay him? By sneaking out of the country with another one of his defectors.” Navot gave a humorless smile. “Graham and I could form our own little club. Men who have placed their trust in you, only to be burned.”

Navot looked at Olga and switched from Hebrew to English.

“Your neighbors didn’t notice the bullet holes and the broken front door until about eight o’clock. When they couldn’t find you, they called the Thames Valley Police.”

“I’m afraid I know what happened next,” she said. “Because my address had a special security flag on it, the dispatch officer immediately contacted the chief constable.”

“And guess what the chief constable did?”

“I suspect he called the Home Office in London. And then the Home Office contacted Graham Seymour.”

Navot’s gaze shifted from Olga to Gabriel. “And what do you think Graham Seymour did?”

“He called our London station chief.”

“Who’d been quietly scouring the city for you for the past three days,” Navot added. “And when Graham got the station chief on the telephone, he read him the riot act. Congratulations, Gabriel. You’ve managed to bring relations between the British and the Office to a new low. They want a full explanation of what happened in Oxford last night. And they’d also like their defector back. Graham Seymour is expecting us in London tomorrow morning, bright and early.”

“Us?”

“You, me, and Olga.” Then, almost as an afterthought, Navot added, “And the Old Man, too.”

“How did Shamron manage to get himself involved in this?”

“The same way he always does. Shamron abhors a vacuum. He sees an empty space and he fills it.”

“Tell him to stay in Tiberias. Tell him we can handle it.”

“Please, Gabriel. As far as Shamron is concerned, we’re still a couple of kids trying to learn how to ride a bicycle, and he can’t quite bring himself to let go of the seat. Besides, it’s too late. He’s already here.”

“Where is he?”

“A safe flat up in Montmartre. Olga and I will stay here and get better acquainted. Shamron would like a word with you. In private.”

“About what?”

“He didn’t tell me. After all, I’m only the chief of Special Ops.”

Navot looked down at his menu and frowned.

“No potted chicken. You know how much I loved the potted chicken at Jo Goldenberg. The only thing better than the potted chicken was the borscht.”

THE APARTMENT house stood in the eastern fringes of Montmartre, next to the cemetery. It had a tidy interior courtyard and an elegant staircase covered by a well-worn runner. The flat was on the third floor; from the window of the comfortably furnished sitting room, it might have been possible to see the white dome of Sacré-Coeur had Shamron not been blocking the view. Hearing the sound of the door, he turned round slowly and stared at Gabriel for a long moment, as if debating whether to have him shot or thrown to the wild dogs. He was wearing a gray pin-striped suit and a costly silk necktie the color of polished silver. It made him look like an aging Middle European businessman who made money in shady ways and never lost at baccarat.

“We missed you at lunch, Ari.”

“I don’t eat lunch.”

“Not even when you’re in Paris?”

“I loathe Paris. Especially in winter.”

He fished a cigarette case from the breast pocket of his jacket and thumbed open the lid.

“I thought you’d finally given up smoking.”

“And I thought you were in Italy finishing a painting.” Shamron removed a cigarette, tapped the end three times on the lid, and slipped it between his lips. “And you wonder why I won’t retire.”

His lighter flared. It was not the battered old Zippo he carried at home but a sleek silver device that, at Shamron’s command, produced a blue finger of flame. The cigarette, however, was his usual brand. Unfiltered and Turkish, it emitted an acrid odor that was as unique to Shamron as his trademark walk and his unyielding will to crush anyone foolish enough to oppose him.

To describe the influence of Ari Shamron on the defense and security of the State of Israel was tantamount to explaining the role played by water in the formation and maintenance of life on earth. In many respects, Ari Shamron was the State of Israel. He had fought in the war that led to Israel’s reconstitution and had spent the subsequent sixty years protecting the country from a host of enemies bent on its destruction. His star had burned brightest in times of war and crisis. He was named director of the Office for the first time not long after the disaster of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and served longer than any chief before or after him. When a series of public scandals dragged the reputation of the Office down to the lowest point in its history, he was called out of retirement and, with Gabriel’s help, restored the Office to its former glory. His second retirement, like his first, was involuntary. In some quarters, it was likened to the destruction of the Second Temple.

Shamron’s role now was that of an éminence grise. Though he no longer had a formal position or title, he remained the hidden hand that guided Israel’s security policies. It was not unusual to enter his home at midnight and find several men crowded around the kitchen table in their shirtsleeves, shouting at one another through a dense cloud of cigarette smoke-and poor Gilah, his long-suffering wife, sitting in the next room with her needle-point and her Mozart, waiting for the boys to leave so that she could see to the dishes.

“You’ve managed to create quite a row on the other side of the English Channel, my son. But then, that’s become your specialty.” Shamron exhaled a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, where it swirled in the half-light like gathering storm clouds. “Your friend Graham Seymour is apparently fighting for his job. Mazel tov , Gabriel. Not bad for three days’ work.”