by Daniel Silva
Chiara rarely watched television in the evening. Raised in the cloistered world of Venice’s Jewish ghetto, educated at the University of Padua, she regarded herself as an ancient woman and was disdainful of modern distractions such as smartphones, social media, and fiber-optic television systems that delivered one thousand high-definition channels of largely unwatchable fare. Usually, Gabriel arrived home to find her engrossed in some weighty historical tract—she was commencing work on a PhD in the history of the Roman Empire when she was recruited by the Office—or in one of the serious literary novels she received by post from a bookseller on the Via Condotti in Rome. Lately, she had started reading pulp spy novels as well. They provided her with a connection, however tenuous and improbable, to the life she had gladly given up to become a mother.
On that evening, however, Gabriel arrived at his heavily guarded apartment in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem to find his wife glaring at one of the American cable news networks. A reporter was recounting, with obvious skepticism, Israel’s stated contention that it had had nothing to do with the events in Vienna. The chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service, he intoned, had just departed Kaplan Street. According to one of the prime minister’s national security aides, who wished to remain anonymous, the meeting had gone as well as could be expected.
“Is any of it true?” asked Chiara.
“I had a meeting with the prime minister. That’s about the extent of it.”
“It didn’t go well?”
“He didn’t offer me Chinese food. I took it as a bad sign.”
Chiara aimed the remote at the screen and pressed the power button. She wore a pair of stretch jeans that flattered her long slender legs, and a sweater the color of clotted cream, upon which her dark hair, with its shimmering auburn and chestnut highlights, tumbled riotously. Her eyes were the color of caramel and flecked with gold. At present, they were appraising Gabriel with thinly veiled pity. He could only imagine how he looked to her. The stress of the field had always been unkind to his appearance. His first operation, Wrath of God, had left him with gray hair at the age of twenty-five. He had gone swiftly downhill after that.
“Where are the children?” he asked.
“Out with friends. They told us not to wait up.” She raised an eyebrow provocatively. “We have the place all to ourselves. Perhaps you’d like to drag me to bed and have your way with me.”
Gabriel was sorely tempted; it had been a long time since Gabriel had made love with his beautiful young wife. There was no time for it. Chiara had two children to raise, and Gabriel a country to protect. They saw one another for a few minutes each morning and, if they were lucky, for an hour or so in the evening when Gabriel returned from work. He had use of an Office safe flat in Tel Aviv for those nights when events didn’t permit him to make the long drive to Jerusalem. He hated it, the flat. It reminded him of what his life had been like before Chiara. The Office had brought them together. And now it was conspiring to keep them apart.
“Do you think it’s possible,” he asked, “that the children slipped back into the apartment without your knowing it?”
“Anything’s possible. Why don’t you check?”
Gabriel moved silently to the door of the children’s room and entered. Before departing for Vienna, he had traded out their cribs for a pair of junior beds, which meant they were free to move nocturnally about the apartment at will. For now, though, they were sleeping soundly beneath a mural of Titianesque clouds that Gabriel had painted after a blood-soaked confrontation with the Russian secret service.
He leaned down and kissed Raphael’s forehead. The child’s face, lit by a shaft of light from the half-open door, looked shockingly like Gabriel’s. He had even been cursed with Gabriel’s green eyes. Irene, however, looked more like Gabriel’s mother, for whom she was named. Chiara was the forgotten ingredient of the children’s genetic recipe. Time would change that, thought Gabriel. A beauty like Chiara’s could not be suppressed forever.
“Is that you, Abba?”
It was Irene. Raphael could sleep through a bomb blast, but Irene, like Gabriel, was easily woken. He thought she had the makings of a perfect spy.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he whispered. “It’s me.”
“Stay for a while.”
Gabriel sat down at the edge of her bed.
“Pat my back,” she commanded, and he laid his hand gently on the warm fabric of her pajamas. “Did you have a good trip?”
“No,” he answered honestly.
“I saw you on television.”
“Did you?”
“You looked very serious.”
“Where did you learn a word like that?”
“Like what?”
“Serious.”
“From Mama.”
Such was the language of the Allon household. The children referred to Gabriel as “Abba,” the Hebrew world for father, but Chiara they called only “Mama.” They were learning Hebrew and Italian simultaneously, along with German. As a result, they spoke a language only their parents could possibly comprehend.
“Where did you go, Abba?”
“Nowhere interesting.”
“You always say that.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
The children had only the vaguest sense of what their father did for a living. They knew that his picture sometimes appeared on television, that he was recognized in public places, and that he was surrounded constantly by men with guns. So were they.
“Did you take good care of your mother while I was gone?”
“I tried, but she was sad.”
“Was she? Why?”
“Something she saw on television.”
“Be a good girl and go back to sleep.”
“Can I sleep with you and Mama?”
“Absolutely not.”
His tone was stern. Even so, Irene giggled. This was the one place where no one followed his orders. He patted the child’s back for another minute more, until her breathing grew deep and regular. Then he lifted himself cautiously from the edge of the bed and moved toward the door.
“Abba?”
“Yes, my love?”
“Can I have one last kiss?”
He kissed her more times than he could possibly count. He kissed her until, happily, she begged him to leave.
Entering the kitchen, Gabriel found a stockpot of water bubbling on the stovetop and Chiara working a lump of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over the surface of a grater. She did so deftly and seemingly without effort, the way she did most things, including caring for the children. When she had produced the allotted amount, she traded the lump of Parmigiano-Reggiano for Pecorino and grated that, too. Gabriel quickly surveyed the other ingredients arrayed on the counter. Butter, olive oil, a tall pepper grinder: the makings of cacio e pepe. The simple Roman pasta dish was one of his favorites, especially the way Chiara prepared it.
“You know,” he said, watching her work, “there’s a very nice man in the Mahane Yehuda Market who will do that for you.”
“Or maybe I should just buy it in a jar at the supermarket.” She shook her head reproachfully. “The cheese has to be grated to the proper consistency. Otherwise, the results will be disastrous.”
He frowned at the small television at the end of the counter. “Just like Vienna.”
Chiara plucked a strand of spaghetti from the pot and after testing it poured the rest through a colander. Next she tossed it with melted butter, olive oil, the grated cheeses, and a few ounces of pasta water, and seasoned the dish with enough pepper to give it a bit of bite. They ate together at the little café table in the kitchen, the baby monitor between them, the television playing silently. Gabriel declined Chiara’s offer of Tuscan red wine; only heaven knew what the night might bring. She poured a small glass for herself and listened intently to his description of the events in Vienna.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“We undertake a rapid but unsparing review t
o determine where the leak occurred.”
“Who knew the address of the safe flat?”
“Eli, Mikhail, the Neviot officers, the deskman from Housekeeping who rented it, and six field security men, including my bodyguards. And Uzi, of course.”
“You didn’t mention the British.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Surely, you have a suspect.”
“I wouldn’t want to prejudice the investigation in any way.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with the prime minister.”
“It’s one of the hazards of my new job.”
Chiara’s gaze wandered to the television. “Forgive me for what I’m about to say, but Uzi must be secretly enjoying this. Kirov was recruited on his watch. And now he’s dead.”
“Uzi has been nothing but supportive.”
“He has no choice. But try to imagine how this looks from his point of view. He ran the Office competently for six years. Not brilliantly,” she added, “but competently. And for his reward, he was pushed out in favor of you.”
A silence fell between them. There was only the rhythmic breathing of the children on the monitor.
“You were adorable with Irene,” said Chiara at last. “She was so excited you were coming home that she refused to go to sleep. I must say, Raphael deals with your absences rather well. He’s a stoic young boy, just like his father must have been. But Irene misses you terribly when you’re away.” She paused, then added, “Almost as much as I do.”
“If this affair turns into a full-fledged scandal, you might be seeing much more of me.”
“Nothing would make us happier. But the prime minister would never dare fire the great Gabriel Allon. You’re the most popular figure in the country.”
“Second,” said Gabriel. “That actress is much more popular than I am.”
“Don’t believe those polls, they’re never right.” Chiara smiled. “You know, Gabriel, there are worse things than being fired.”
“Like what?”
“Having your brains blown out by a Russian assassin.” She raised her wineglass to her lips. “Are you sure you won’t have a little? It’s really quite good.”
9
King Saul Boulevard, Tel Aviv
The concerns of the prime minister notwithstanding, Gabriel left the inquiry in the hands of Yossi Gavish and Rimona Stern, two of his most trusted senior officers and closest friends. His reasons were personal. The Office’s last independent inquiry, conducted after a string of botched operations in the late 1990s, had hastened the recall of Ari Shamron from his restless retirement. Among his first official acts was to make his way to West Cornwall, where Gabriel had locked himself away in an isolated cottage with only his paintings and his grief for company. Shamron, as usual, had not arrived empty-handed; he had come bearing an operation. It would prove to be the first step of Gabriel’s long journey from self-imposed exile to the executive suite of King Saul Boulevard. The moral of the story, at least from Gabriel’s perspective, was that spies admitted outsiders into their midst at their peril.
The first order of business for Yossi and Rimona was to clear themselves of any suspicion over the leak. They did so by submitting to a pair of wholly unnecessary polygraph tests, which they passed with flying colors. Next they requested the assistance of an additional analyst. Reluctantly, Gabriel lent them Dina Sarid, a terrorism expert with a pile of active cases on her cluttered desk, including three involving ISIS that fell into the category of ticking time bombs. Dina knew almost nothing about the Kirov case or the Russian’s pending defection. Even so, Gabriel had her strapped to the poly. Not surprisingly, she passed. So did Eli Lavon, Mikhail Abramov, Yaakov Rossman, the Neviot team, the members of the field security unit, and the desk officer from Housekeeping.
The primary phase of the investigation, which was concluded at noon the following day, was predictable in its findings. The three analysts uncovered no evidence to suggest a leak by any Office personnel. Nor could they find fault with the execution of the operation itself. All had participated in undertakings far more complex than a garden-variety defection and exfiltration. It was, as Yossi wrote in his memorandum, “child’s play, by our standards.” Still, he acknowledged there were “knowns and unknowns.” Chief among them was the possibility the leak had come from none other than Konstantin Kirov himself.
“How?” asked Gabriel.
“You sent a total of four text messages to him that night—is that correct?”
“You have them all, Yossi. You know it’s correct.”
“The first message instructed Kirov to leave the InterContinental and walk to the train station. The second instructed him to board the last train to Vienna. Upon arrival, you told him to take a taxi to the Best Western. But a minute before he arrived there, you sent him the address of the safe flat.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“He was still in the taxi, which meant Mikhail and Keller couldn’t see him clearly.”
“Your point?”
“He could have forwarded the message.”
“To whom?”
“Moscow Center.”
“He had himself killed?”
“Maybe he was under the impression the evening would turn out differently.”
“In what way?”
“A different target, for example.”
“Who?”
Yossi shrugged. “You.”
Which heralded the second phase of the inquiry: a full review of Konstantin Kirov’s recruitment, handling, and enormous output of intelligence. With the benefit of hindsight, the three analysts weighed each of Kirov’s reports. They found no evidence of deception. Kirov, they concluded, was that rarest of birds. Despite the circumstances of his coerced recruitment, he remained as good as gold.
But the Office had not kept Kirov’s precious intelligence to itself; it had shared the bounty with the Americans and the British. Each instance of sharing was logged in Kirov’s voluminous case file: the type of material, the date, the all-important distribution list. No one in Washington or London, however, knew the true identity of the agent code-named Heathcliff, and only a handful of senior officers were aware of his intention to defect. One MI6 officer had been given the address of the Vienna safe flat in advance. He had insisted on it, claiming it was necessary to ensure the defector’s safe transfer to Vienna International Airport, where a Falcon executive jet had been waiting to fly him to London.
“We would have demanded the same thing,” said Uzi Navot. “Besides, having access to a piece of information isn’t the same as having proof he gave it to the Russians.”
“That’s true,” agreed Gabriel. “But it’s a good place to start.”
Navot raised a dainty china teacup to his lips. It contained hot water with a slice of lemon. Next to the saucer was a plate of celery sticks. They were carefully arranged so as to enhance their appeal. Clearly, Bella was unhappy with Navot’s current weight, which fluctuated like a Latin American stock exchange. Poor Uzi had spent the better part of the last decade on a diet. Food was his only weakness, especially the heavy, calorie-laden cuisine of Central and Eastern Europe.
“It’s your call,” he went on, “but if I were in your position, I’d want more than a pile of supposition before making an accusation against an officer from a friendly intelligence service. I’ve actually met him. He doesn’t strike me as the sort to betray his country.”
“I’m sure Angleton said the same thing about Kim Philby.”
Navot, with a sage nod of his head, conceded the point. “So how do you intend to play it?”
“I’m going to fly to London and have a word with our partners.”
“Care for a prediction?”
“Why not?”
“Your partners are going to reject your findings categorically. And then they’ll blame us for what happened in Vienna. That’s the way it works when there’s a disaster in our business. Everyone runs for the nearest foxhole.”
“So I s
hould let it drop? Is that what you’re saying?”
“What I’m saying,” answered Navot, “is that pursuing the issue based on a flimsy estimate is liable to do serious damage to a valuable relationship.”
“There is no relationship between us and the British. It is suspended until further notice.”
“And I was afraid you were going to do something rash.” Lowering his voice, Navot added, “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, Gabriel.”
“My mother always told me that. I still don’t know what it means.”
“It means you should drop that report into your shredder.”
“Not a chance.”
“In that case,” said Navot with a sigh, “you should send someone back to Vienna to see if he can add a few more details. Someone who speaks the language like a native. Someone with a contact or two inside the local security service. Who knows? If he plays his cards right, he might be able to disabuse the Austrians of the notion we killed our own defector.”
“Know anyone who fits the bill?”
“I might.”
Gabriel smiled. “You can have a nice Wiener schnitzel while you’re in town, Uzi. I know how much you love the way they make it in Vienna.”
“And the Rindsgulasch.” Navot ran a hand absently over his ample midsection. “Just what I need. Bella’s liable to put me on punishment rations.”
“You sure you don’t mind going?”
“Someone has to do it.” Navot stared morosely at the plate of celery sticks. “It might as well be me.”
10
Vienna Woods, Austria
Uzi Navot passed an uneventful evening with Bella at their comfortable home in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva, and in the morning, having risen at the hateful hour of three, he boarded the five-ten El Al flight to Warsaw, known affectionately inside the Office as the Polish Express. His overnight bag contained two changes of clothing and three changes of identity. His seatmate, a woman of thirty-three from a town in the Upper Galilee, did not recognize him. Navot was both relieved and, when he analyzed his feelings honestly, deeply resentful. For six years he had led the Office without blemish, and yet already he was forgotten. He had long ago resigned himself to the fact he would be remembered merely as a placeholder chief, the one who had kept a chair warm for the chosen one. He was an asterisk.