Courtyard. Cassani sat down before a desktop computer and invited Gabriel to look over his shoulder.
“Monsignor Donati told me you wanted to see every image we had of the dead Russian.”
Gabriel nodded. The detective clicked the mouse and the first image appeared, a wide-angle shot of
St. Peter’s Square, taken from a camera mounted atop the left flank of the Colonnade. The shot advanced
at the rate of one frame per second. When the time code in the bottom left portion of the screen reached
15:47:23, Cassani clicked the PAUSE icon and pointed to the top right-hand corner.
“There’s Signore Ostrovsky. He enters the square alone and makes his way directly to the security
checkpoint outside the Basilica.” Cassani glanced at Gabriel. “It’s almost as if he was intending to meet
someone inside.”
“Can you set the shot in motion?” Gabriel asked.
The detective clicked the PLAY icon and Boris Ostrovsky began moving across the square, with Eli
Lavon following carefully in his wake. Ninety seconds later, as Ostrovsky was passing between the
Obelisk and the left fountain, he slipped out of the range of the camera atop the Colonnade and into the
range of another camera mounted near the Loggia of the Blessings. A few seconds later, he was
surrounded by a group of tourists. A solitary figure approached from the left side of the image; rather than
wait for the group to pass, he shouldered his way through it. The man appeared to bump several members
of the group, including Ostrovsky, then headed off toward the entrance of the square.
Gabriel watched the final three minutes of Boris Ostrovsky’s life: his brief wait at the security
checkpoint; his passage through the Filarete Door; his stop at the Chapel of the Pietà; his final walk to the
Monument to Pius XII. Precisely sixty-seven seconds after his arrival, he fell to his knees before the
statue and began clutching his throat. Gabriel appeared twenty-two seconds after that, advancing spiritlike
across the screen, one frame per second. The detective appeared moved by the sight of Gabriel lowering
the dying Russian carefully to the floor.
“Did he say anything to you?” the detective asked.
“No, nothing. He couldn’t speak.”
“What were you telling him?”
“I was telling him that it was all right to die. I was telling him he would be going to a better place.”
“You are a believer, Signore Allon?”
“Take it back to the shot at fifteen-fifty.”
The Vatican detective did as Gabriel requested and for the second time they watched as Ostrovsky
advanced toward the Basilica. And as the solitary figure approached him from the left…
“Stop it right there,” Gabriel said suddenly.
Cassani immediately clicked PAUSE.
“Back it up to the previous frame, please.”
The Vatican detective complied with the request.
“Can you enlarge the image?”
“I can,” Cassani said, “but the resolution will be poor.”
“Do it anyway.”
The Vatican detective used the mouse to crop the image to the necessary dimensions, then clicked the
ENLARGE icon. The resolution, as promised, was nebulous at best. Even so, Gabriel could clearly see
the right hand of the solitary figure wrapped around the upper portion of Boris Ostrovsky’s right arm.
“Where’s Ostrovsky’s body?”
“In our morgue.”
“Has anyone examined it yet?”
“I gave it a brief examination to see if there were any signs of physical trauma or wounds. There was
nothing.”
“If you check again, I suspect you’ll find a very small perforation to the skin of his upper arm. It’s
where the assassin injected him with a Russian poison that paralyzes the respiratory system within
minutes. It was developed by the KGB during the Cold War.”
“I’ll have a look right away.”
“There’s something I need from you first.” Gabriel tapped the screen. “I need to know what time this
man entered the square and which direction he went when he left. And I need the five best pictures of him
you can find.”
He was a professional, and, like all professionals, he had been aware of the cameras. He had
lowered his guard just once, at 15:47:33, ten seconds after Boris Ostrovsky was first picked up by
Vatican surveillance on the edge of the square. The image had been captured by a camera near the Bronze
Doors of the Apostolic Palace. It showed a sturdy-jawed man with wide cheekbones, heavy sunglasses,
and thick blond hair. Eli Lavon examined the photograph by the glow of a streetlamp atop the Spanish
Steps. Fifty yards away, an Office security team was hastily searching the safe flat for traces of toxins or
radioactive material.
“The hair is artificial, but I’d say those cheekbones are real. He’s a Russian, Gabriel, and he’s not
someone I’d ever care to meet in a dark alley.” Lavon studied the photo showing the assassin’s hand
wrapped around Ostrovsky’s upper arm. “Poor Boris barely gives him a look after they bump into each
other. I don’t think he ever knew what hit him.”
“He didn’t,” Gabriel said. “He walked straight into the Basilica and followed your instructions as
though there was nothing out of the ordinary. Even as he was dying, he didn’t seem to realize why.”
Lavon looked at the photograph of the assassin again. “I stand by what I said as we were leaving the
Basilica. Ostrovsky was clean. I didn’t see anyone following him. And there’s no way I could have
missed someone who looks like this.”
“Maybe Ostrovsky was clean, but
we
weren’t.”
“You’re suggesting they were watching the watchers?”
“Exactly.”
“But how did they know we were going to be there?”
“Ostrovsky’s probably been under watch in Moscow for months. When he came to Rome, he made
contact with our embassy on an insecure line. Someone from the other side picked up the call, either here
in Rome or from a listening post in Moscow. The assassin is a real pro. He knew we wouldn’t go near
Ostrovsky without sending him on a surveillance detection run. And he did what real pros are trained to
do. He ignored the target and watched us instead.”
“But how did he get to the Vatican ten minutes
before
Ostrovsky?”
“He must have been following
me
. I missed him, Eli. It’s my fault Ostrovsky died a miserable death
on the floor of the Basilica.”
“It makes sense, but it’s not something your average run-of-the-mill Russian gangster could pull off.”
“We’re not dealing with gangsters. These are professionals.”
Lavon handed the photographs back to Gabriel. “Whatever it was Boris intended to tell you, it must
have been important. Someone needs to find out who this man is and whom he’s working for.”
“Yes, someone should.”
“I could be wrong, Gabriel, but I think King Saul Boulevard already has a candidate in mind for the
job.”
Lavon handed him a slip of paper.
“What’s this?”
“A message from Shamron.”
“What does it say?”
“It says your honeymoon is now officially over.”
10 BEN-GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL
There is a VIP reception room at Ben-Gurion Airport that few people know and where even fewer
have set foot. Reached by an unmarked door near passport control, it has walls of Jerusalem limestone,
furnishings of black leather, and a permanent odor of burnt coffee and male tension. When Gabriel entered
the room the following evening, he found it occupied by a single man. He had settled himself at the edge
of his chair, with his legs slightly splayed and his large hands resting atop an olive-wood cane, like a
traveler on a rail platform resigned to a long wait. He was dressed, as always, in a pair of pressed khaki
trousers and a white oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His head was bullet-
shaped and bald, except for a monkish fringe of white hair. His ugly wire-framed spectacles magnified a
pair of blue eyes that were no longer clear.
“How long have you been sitting there?” Gabriel asked.
“Since the day you returned to Italy,” replied Ari Shamron.
Gabriel regarded him carefully.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m just wondering why you’re not smoking.”
“Gilah told me I have to quit-or
else
.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“This time she means it.”
Gabriel kissed Shamron on the top of the head. “Why didn’t you just let someone from Transport
pick me up?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“You live in Tiberias! You’re retired now, Ari. You should be spending time with Gilah to make up
for all those years when you were never around.”
“I’m
never
going to retire!” Shamron thumped the arm of his chair for emphasis. “As for Gilah, she
was the one who suggested I come here to wait for you. She told me to get out of the house for a few
hours. She said I was underfoot.”
Shamron closed his hooded eyes for a moment and gave a ghost of a smile. His loved ones, like his
power and influence, had slowly slipped through his fingers. His son was a brigadier general in the IDF’s
Northern Command and used almost any excuse to avoid spending time with his famous father, as did his
daughter, who had finally returned to Israel after spending years abroad. Only Gilah, his long-suffering
wife, remained faithfully by his side, but now that Shamron had no formal role in the affairs of state, even
Gilah, a woman of infinite patience, found his constant presence a burden. His real family were men like
Gabriel, Navot, and Lavon-men whom he had recruited and trained, men who operated by a creed, even
spoke a language, written by him. They were the secret guardians of the State, and Ari Shamron was their
overbearing, tyrannical father.
“I made a foolish wager a long time ago,” Shamron said. “I devoted my life to building and
protecting this country and I assumed that my wife and children would forgive my sins of absence and
neglect. I was wrong, of course.”
“And now you want to inflict the same outcome on my life.”
“You’re referring to the fact I’ve interrupted your honeymoon?”
“I am.”
“Your wife is still on the Office payroll. She understands the demands of your work. Besides,
you’ve been gone for over a month.”
“We agreed my stay in Italy would be indefinite.”
“
We
agreed to no such thing, Gabriel. You issued a demand and at the time I was in no position to
turn it down-not after what you’d just gone through in London.” Shamron squeezed his deeply lined face
into a heavy frown. “Do you know what I did for my honeymoon?”
“Of course I know what you did for your honeymoon. The whole country knows what you did for
your honeymoon.”
Shamron smiled. It was an exaggeration, of course, but only a slight one. Within the corridors and
conference rooms of the Israeli intelligence and security services, Ari Shamron was a legend. He had
penetrated the courts of kings, stolen the secrets of tyrants, and killed the enemies of Israel, sometimes
with his bare hands. His crowning achievement had come on a rainy night in May 1960, in a squalid
suburb north of Buenos Aires, when he had leapt from the back of a car and seized Adolf Eichmann,
architect of the Holocaust. Even now, Shamron could not go out in public in Israel without being
approached by aging survivors who simply wanted to touch the hands that had clamped around the neck of
the monster.
“Gilah and I were married in April of ’forty-seven, at the height of the War of Independence. I put
my foot on a glass, our friends and family shouted
‘Mazel tov,’
then I kissed my new wife and went back
to join my Palmach unit.”
“They were different times, Ari.”
“Not so different. We were fighting for survival then and we fight for survival now.” Shamron
scrutinized Gabriel for a long moment through his spectacles. “But you already know that, don’t you,
Gabriel? That explains why you simply didn’t ignore my message and return to your villa in Umbria.”
“I should have ignored your original summons. Then I wouldn’t be back here.” He made a show of
looking around the dreary furnishings. “Back in this room.”
“I wasn’t the one who summoned you. Boris Ostrovsky did. Then he had the terrible misfortune of
dying in your arms. And now you’re going to find out who killed him and why. Under the circumstances, it
is the least you can do for him.”
Gabriel glanced at his wristwatch. “Did Eli make it in all right?”
They had traveled on separate planes and by different routes. Lavon had taken the direct flight from
Fiumicino to Ben-Gurion; Gabriel had flown first to Frankfurt, where he had spent three hours waiting for
a connecting flight. He had put the time to good use by walking several miles through Frankfurt ’s endless
terminals, searching his tail for Russian assassins.
“Eli’s already inside King Saul Boulevard undergoing a rather unpleasant debriefing. When they’re
finished with him, they’d like a crack at you as well. As you might expect, Amos is unhappy about the way
things turned out in Rome. Given his precarious position, he wants to make certain that
you’re
the one
who gets the blame rather than him.”