Daniel Silva - The English Spy

“Do you believe him?” asked Seymour.

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Navot paused, then added, “And something tells me you believe him, too.”

When Seymour offered no reply, Navot drew a second document from his attaché case and laid it on the desktop next to the first. “It’s a copy of a report we sent to MI6 three years ago,” he explained. “We knew about his connection to the Iranians back then. We also knew he was working with Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and anyone else who would have him.” Navot added, “Your friend isn’t terribly discriminating about the company he keeps.”

“It was before my time,” Seymour intoned.

“But now it’s your problem.” Navot pointed toward a passage near the end of the document. “As you can see, we proposed an operation to take him out of circulation. We even volunteered to do the job. And how do you suppose your predecessor responded to our generous offer?”

“Obviously, he turned it down.”

“With extreme prejudice. In fact, he told us in no uncertain terms that we weren’t to lay a finger on him. He was afraid it would open a Pandora’s box.” Navot shook his head slowly. “And now here we are.”

The room was silent except for the ticking of C’s old grandfather clock. Finally, Navot asked quietly, “Where were you that day, Graham?”

“What day?”

“The fifteenth of August, nineteen ninety-eight.”

“The day of the bombing?”

Navot nodded.

“You know damn well where I was,” Seymour answered. “I was at Five.”

“You were the head of counterterrorism.”

“Yes.”

“Which meant it was your responsibility.”

Seymour said nothing.

“What happened, Graham? How did he get through?”

“Mistakes were made. Bad mistakes. Bad enough to ruin careers, even today.” Seymour gathered up the two documents and returned them to Navot. “Did your Iranian source tell you why he did it?”

“It’s possible he’s returned to the old fight. It’s also possible he was acting at the behest of others. Either way, he needs to be dealt with, sooner rather than later.”

Seymour made no response.

“Our offer still stands, Graham.”

“What offer is that?”

“We’ll take care of him,” Navot answered. “And then we’ll bury him in a hole so deep that none of the old problems will ever make it to the surface.”

Seymour lapsed into a contemplative silence. “There’s only one person I would trust with a job like this,” he said at last.

“That might be difficult.”

“The pregnancy?”

Navot nodded.

“When is she due?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified.”

Seymour managed a brief smile. “Do you suppose he might be persuaded to take the assignment?”

“Anything’s possible,” replied Navot noncommittally. “I’d be happy to make the approach on your behalf.”

“No,” said Seymour. “I’ll do it.”

“There is one other problem,” said Navot after a moment.

“Only one?”

“He doesn’t know much about that part of the world.”

“I know someone who can serve as his guide.”

“He won’t work with someone he doesn’t know.”

“Actually, they’re very well acquainted.”

“Is he MI6?”

“No,” replied Seymour. “Not yet.”

WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE MY flight is delayed?” asked Chiara.

“It could be a mechanical problem,” replied Gabriel.

“It could be,” she repeated without conviction.

They were seated in a quiet corner of a first-class departure lounge. It didn’t matter the city, thought Gabriel, they were all the same. Unread newspapers, tepid bottles of suspect pinot grigio, CNN International playing silently on a large flat-panel television. By his own calculation, Gabriel had spent one-third of his career in places like this. Unlike his wife, he was extraordinarily good at waiting.

“Go ask that pretty girl at the information desk why my flight hasn’t been called,” she said.

“I don’t want to talk to the pretty girl at the information desk.”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t know anything, and she’ll simply tell me something she thinks I want to hear.”

“Why must you always be so fatalistic?”

“It prevents me from being disappointed later.”

Chiara smiled and closed her eyes; Gabriel looked at the television. A British reporter in a helmet and flak jacket was talking about the latest airstrike on Gaza. Gabriel wondered why CNN had become so enamored with British reporters. He supposed it was the accent. The news always sounded more authoritative when delivered with a British accent, even if not a word of it was true.

“What’s he saying?” asked Chiara.

“Do you really want to know?”

“It’ll help pass the time.”

Gabriel squinted to read the closed captioning. “He says an Israeli warplane attacked a school where several hundred Palestinians were sheltering from the fighting. He says at least fifteen people were killed and several dozen more seriously wounded.”

“How many were women and children?”

“All of them, apparently.”

“Was the school the real target of the air raid?”

Gabriel typed a brief message into his BlackBerry and fired it securely to King Saul Boulevard, the headquarters of Israel’s foreign intelligence service. It had a long and deliberately misleading name that had very little to do with the true nature of its work. Employees referred to it as the Office and nothing else.

“The real target,” he said, his eyes on the BlackBerry, “was a house across the street.”

“Who lives in the house?”

“Muhammad Sarkis.”

“ The Muhammad Sarkis?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Is Muhammad still among the living?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What about the school?”

“It wasn’t hit. The only casualties were Sarkis and members of his family.”

“Maybe someone should tell that reporter the truth.”

“What good would it do?”

“More fatalism,” said Chiara.

“No disappointment.”

“Please find out why my flight is delayed.”

Gabriel typed another message into his BlackBerry. A moment later came the response.

“One of the Hamas rockets landed close to Ben-Gurion.”

“How close?” asked Chiara.

“Too close for comfort.”

“Do you think the pretty girl at the information desk knows my destination is under rocket fire?”

Gabriel was silent.

“Are you sure you want to go through with it?” asked Chiara.

“With what?”

“Don’t make me say it aloud.”

“Are you asking whether I still want to be the chief at a time like this?”

She nodded.

“At a time like this,” he said, watching the images of combat and explosions flickering on the screen, “I wish I could go to Gaza and fight alongside our boys.”

“I thought you hated the army.”

“I did.”

She tilted her head toward him and opened her eyes. They were the color of caramel and flecked with gold. Time had left no marks on her beautiful face. Were it not for her swollen abdomen and the band of gold on her finger, she might have been the same young girl he had first encountered a lifetime ago, in the ancient ghetto of Venice.

“Fitting, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“That the children of Gabriel Allon should be born in a time of war.”

“With a bit of luck, the war will be over by the time they’re born.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Chiara glanced at the departure board. The status box for Flight 386 to Tel Aviv read DELAYED. “If my plane doesn’t leave soon, they’re going to be born here in Italy.”