Daniel Silva - The Heist

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes and sipped from her plastic water bottle.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“You don’t have to ask me how I’m feeling all the time.”

“I want you to know that I’m concerned about you.”

“I know you’re concerned, darling. But I’m not terminally ill. I’m just pregnant.”

“What should I ask you?”

“You should ask me what I want for dinner.”

“I’m famished,” he said.

“I’m always famished.”

“Should we go out?”

“Actually, I feel like cooking.”

“Are you up to it?”

“Gabriel!”

She began to needlessly straighten the papers on her desk. It wasn’t a good sign. Chiara always straightened things when she was annoyed.

“How was your work?” she asked.

“It was a thrill a minute.”

“Don’t tell me you’re bored with the Veronese.”

“Removing dirty varnish isn’t the most rewarding part of a restoration.”

“No surprises?”

“With the painting?”

“In general,” she answered.

It was a peculiar question. “Adrianna Zinetti came to work dressed as Groucho Marx,” Gabriel replied, “but otherwise it was a normal day at the Church of San Sebastiano.”

Chiara frowned at him. Then she opened a drawer with the toe of her boot and absently inserted a few papers into a manila folder. Gabriel wouldn’t have been surprised if the papers bore no relation to the others already in the file.

“Is there something bothering you?” he asked.

“You’re not going to ask me how I’m feeling again, are you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She closed the drawer with more force than necessary. “I stopped by the church at lunchtime to surprise you,” she said after a moment, “but you weren’t there. Francesco said you had a visitor. He claimed not to know who it was.”

“And you knew Francesco was lying, of course.”

“It didn’t take a trained intelligence officer to see that.”

“Go on,” said Gabriel.

“I called the Operations Desk to see whether anyone from King Saul Boulevard was in town, but the Operations Desk told me that no one was looking for you.”

“For a change.”

“Who came to see you today, Gabriel?”

“This is beginning to sound like an interrogation.”

“Who was it?” she asked again.

Gabriel held up his right hand and then lowered two of the fingers.

“General Ferrari?”

Gabriel nodded. Chiara stared at her desk as if searching for something out of place.

“How are you feeling?” asked Gabriel quietly.

“I’m fine,” she replied without looking up. “But if you ask me that question one more time …”

It was true that Gabriel and Chiara did not actually live in the ancient ghetto of Venice. Their rented apartment was on the second floor of a faded old palazzo, in a quiet quarter of Cannaregio where Jews never had been forbidden to enter. On one side was a quiet square; on the other was a canal where King Saul Boulevard kept a small, fast boat, lest Gabriel had need to flee Venice for the second time in his storied career. Tel Aviv had good reason to be mindful of his security; after many years of resistance, he had agreed to become the next chief of the Office. A year remained until his term was to begin. After that, his every waking moment would be devoted to protecting the State of Israel from those who wished to destroy it. There would be no more restorations or extended stays in Venice with his beautiful young wife—at least, not without an army of bodyguards watching over them.

The apartment had been fitted with a sophisticated security system, which chirped benignly when Gabriel pushed open the door. Entering, he removed the cork from a bottle of Bardolino and sat at the kitchen counter, listening to the news on the BBC, while Chiara prepared a platter of bruschetta. A UN panel had predicted an apocalyptic warming of the global climate, a car bomb had killed forty in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, and the Syrian president, the butcher of Damascus, had once again used chemical weapons against his own people. Chiara frowned and switched off the radio. Then she looked longingly at the open bottle of wine. Gabriel was sorry for her. Chiara had always loved to drink Bardolino in the springtime.

“It won’t harm them if you take just a sip,” he said.

“My mother never touched wine when she was pregnant with me.”

“And look how you turned out.”

“Perfect in every way.”

She smiled and then placed the bruschetta in front of Gabriel. He selected two slices—one with chopped olives, the other with white beans and rosemary—and poured some of the Bardolino. Chiara peeled the skin from an onion and with a few quick thrusts of her knife turned it into a pile of perfect white cubes.

“You’d better be careful,” said Gabriel, watching her, “or you’ll end up looking like the general.”

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

“What was I supposed to say to him, Chiara?”

“You might have told him the truth.”

“Which version of the truth?”

“You have one year until you take your oath, darling. After that, you’ll be at the prime minister’s beck and call, and the security of the state will be your responsibility. Your life will be one long meeting interspersed with the occasional crisis.”

“Which is why I turned down the job several times before finally accepting it.”

“But now it’s yours. And this is your last chance to take some well-deserved time off before we go back to Israel.”

“I tried to explain that to the general without going into all the sordid details. That’s when he threatened to leave Julian rotting in an Italian jail cell.”

“He had nothing on Julian. He was bluffing.”

“He might have been,” Gabriel conceded. “But what if some enterprising British reporter decided to do a little digging into Julian’s background? And what if the same enterprising reporter somehow discovered he was an asset of the Office? I would have never forgiven myself if I’d allowed him to be dragged through the mud. He’s always been there when I needed him.”

“Do you remember the time you asked him to take care of that Russian defector’s cat?”

“How could I forget? I never knew Julian was allergic to cats. He had a rash for a month.”

Chiara smiled. She placed the onion in a heavy skillet with olive oil and butter, quickly chopped a carrot, and added it, too.

“What are you making?”

“It’s a local meat dish called calandraca .”

“Where did you learn to make it?”

Chiara glanced at the ceiling, as if to say such knowledge was to be found in the air and the water of Italy. It wasn’t far from the truth.

“What can I do to help?” asked Gabriel.

“You can stop hovering over me.”

Gabriel carried the platter of bruschetta and the wine into the small sitting room. Before lowering himself onto the couch, he removed the gun from the small of his back and placed it carefully on the coffee table, atop a pile of bright magazines having to do with pregnancy and childbirth. The gun was a Beretta 9mm, and its walnut grip was stained with paint: a dab of Titian, a bit of Bellini, a drop of Raphael and Tintoretto. Soon he would no longer carry a weapon; others would carry weapons on his behalf. He wondered how it was going to feel to walk through the world unarmed. It would be akin, he thought, to leaving home without first putting on a pair of trousers. Some men wore neckties when they went to the office. Gabriel Allon carried a gun.

“I still don’t understand why the general needs you to find out who killed Jack Bradshaw,” Chiara called from the kitchen.