by Daniel Silva
Michael Oren, the renowned Middle East scholar and writer who now serves as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, taught me many important lessons about the great empires that have left their mark, and the blood of their soldiers, on the soil of modern Israel. His beautiful wife, Sally, and their three amazing children, Yoav, Lia, and Noam, were by my side at many points along the journey and were a constant source of joy and love. Our dear friends Lior and Talia opened their home to us in suburban Tel Aviv and rode to the rescue when we ran into a logistical problem at a military checkpoint outside Hebron in the West Bank. Gabriel Motzkin and Emily Bilski, who have the misfortune of living next door to the Allons on Narkiss Street, accompanied us on our first visit to Israel two decades ago, and our two families spent many pleasant evenings together during our most recent trip. Rachel and Elliott Abrams shared their extraordinary knowledge of Israeli politics over dinner in Abu Ghosh; Avner took us on a late-night safari in the Golan Heights that included several high-speed pursuits of wild boar and jackals. Yehuda Deutsch led us on an unforgettable tour of the excavations in the City of David. In fact, I can still hear him singing Leonard Cohen’s majestic “Hallelujah” to steady our nerves as we walked through the dark, narrow passage of Hezekiah’s Tunnel, the cool Jerusalem spring water swirling around our ankles.
A heartfelt thanks to Yitz Applbaum, Yogi Loshinsky, and Miri Sack of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation for giving us a glimpse into the astonishing world that lies submerged along the edge of the Temple Mount. The archaeologists who pick at the ancient soil near the tunnel conduct their work with great professionalism and sensitivity, and their spirit found its way into the fictitious Eli Lavon. As the international campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel gains in intensity, the archaeologists’ efforts to unearth the ancient Jewish past in Jerusalem have taken on greater significance. To borrow a phrase from Ari Shamron, they are “waging war” in those tunnels. Fortunately, it is the one war in the Middle East in which no blood is shed.
I wish to thank my dear friend Doron Almog and his lovely wife, Didi, for taking such good care of us while we were in Israel. Before retiring from the Israel Defense Forces, Doron served as the chief of Southern Command and, in 1976, was the first Israeli soldier on the ground in Uganda during Operation Entebbe. But Doron is much more than one of his country’s most decorated soldiers; he is a humanitarian who has dedicated his life to caring for the weakest of Israel’s citizens, regardless of whether they are Arab or Jew. I will never forget the afternoon we spent together at Aleh Negev, the village he founded in southern Israel to care for the severely disabled. Nor will I forget the five members of Doron’s family who were murdered by a female Palestinian suicide bomber at Maxim restaurant in Haifa on October 4, 2003. Sixteen other innocent people were killed in the attack.
I consulted hundreds of books, newspaper and magazine articles, and Web sites while preparing this manuscript, far too many to name here. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention the extraordinary scholarship and reporting of Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, Vernon Silver, Margaret M. Miles, Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, Sharon Waxman, Roger Atwood, Dore Gold, Paul Johnson, Hershel Shanks, Leen and Kathleen Ritmeyer, and Simon Sebag Montefiore, whose magisterial Jerusalem: The Biography is perhaps the finest book ever written on the history of the much-fought-over city upon a hill. Louis Toscano, my dear friend and longtime personal editor, made countless improvements to my manuscript, as did my copy editor, Kathy Crosby. Obviously, responsibility for any mistakes or typographical errors that find their way into the finished book falls on my shoulders, not theirs.
We are blessed with many friends who fill our lives with love and laughter at critical junctures during the writing year, especially Rabbi David Wolpe, Jane and Burt Bacharach, Stacey and Henry Winkler, Joy and Jim Zorn, Mollie and Jack Blades, Angelique and Jim Bell, Steve Capus and Sophia Faskianos, Enola and Stephen Carter, Andrea and Tim Collins, Margarita and Andrew Pate, Mirella and Daniel Levinas, Jane and Rob Lynch, and the greater Kobak family. Former First Lady Barbara Bush and President George H. W. Bush have been a constant source of support throughout my writing career, as has their amazing chief of staff, Jean Becker, who truly runs the world from her offices in Houston and Kennebunkport. Doug Banker made certain that the time away from my desk was filled with as much fun and music as possible. Dr. Benjamin Shaffer, Washington’s preeminent orthopedic surgeon, expertly repaired a shoulder injury that made writing a novel even more painful than usual. Bob Barnett, Michael Gendler, and Linda Rappaport were a source of wise legal counsel and much laughter.
Special thanks to the remarkable team of professionals at HarperCollins, especially Jonathan Burnham, Brian Murray, Michael Morrison, Jennifer Barth, Josh Marwell, Tina Andreadis, Leslie Cohen, Leah Wasielewski, Mark Ferguson, Kathy Schneider, Brenda Segel, Carolyn Bodkin, Doug Jones, Karen Dziekonski, Archie Ferguson, David Watson, Cindy Achar, David Koral, and Leah Carlson-Stanisic.
I wish to extend my deepest gratitude and love to my children, Nicholas and Lily. Not only did they assist me with the final preparation of my manuscript, but they were at my side on a remarkable research trip that took us from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica to the Etruscan tombs in Cerveteri, to an ancient aqueduct beneath Jerusalem. Finally, I must thank my wife, the brilliant NBC News journalist Jamie Gangel, who skillfully edited each of my drafts and listened with remarkable forbearance as I worked through the plot and themes of this, the twelfth novel in the Gabriel Allon series. Were it not for her patience and attention to detail, The Fallen Angel would not have been completed by its deadline. My debt to her is immeasurable, as is my love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANIEL SILVA IS THE NUMBER ONE New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, and Portrait of a Spy. He is married to NBC News Today correspondent Jamie Gangel; they live in Washington, D.C., with their two children, Lily and Nicholas. In 2009 Silva was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.
www.danielsilvabooks.com
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ALSO BY DANIEL SILVA
Portrait of a Spy
The Rembrandt Affair
The Defector
Moscow Rules
The Secret Servant
The Messenger
Prince of Fire
A Death in Vienna
The Confessor
The English Assassin
The Kill Artist
The Marching Season
The Mark of the Assassin
The Unlikely Spy
CREDITS
Cover photograph © Abdul Kadir Audah/Getty Images
Cover design by Archie Ferguson
COPYRIGHT
The Fallen Angel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in the story are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE FALLEN ANGEL. Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Silva. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-06-207312-9 (Hardcover)<
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ISBN: 978-0-06-220364-9 (International Edition)
ISBN: 978-0-06-219145-8 (Signed Edition)
Epub Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN: 9780062073174
12 13 14 15 16 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
MAPS
PART ONE: CITY OF THE DEAD
1 - VATICAN CITY
2 - PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ROME
3 - THE SISTINE CHAPEL
4 - ST. PETER’S BASILICA
5 - PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ROME
6 - TRASTEVERE, ROME
7 - VATICAN CITY
8 - PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ROME
9 - CERVETERI, ITALY
10 - PIAZZA DI SANT’IGNAZIO, ROME
11 - PIAZZA DI SANT’IGNAZIO, ROME
12 - VILLA GIULIA, ROME
13 - APOSTOLIC PALACE, VATICAN CITY
14 - THE VATICAN GARDENS
15 - PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ROME
16 - THE VIA VENETO, ROME
PART TWO: CITY OF GOD
17 - BEN GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL
18 - JERUSALEM
19 - KING SAUL BOULEVARD, TEL AVIV
20 - KING SAUL BOULEVARD, TEL AVIV
21 - RUE DE MIROMESNIL, PARIS
22 - QUAI DES CÉLESTINS, PARIS
23 - ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND
24 - ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND
25 - ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND
26 - BERN, SWITZERLAND
27 - HERNDON, VIRGINIA
28 - WANNSEE, BERLIN
29 - BERLIN
30 - BERLIN
PART THREE: THE WELL OF SOULS
31 - BERLIN–NORTHERN DENMARK
32 - KANDESTEDERNE, DENMARK
33 - VIENNA
34 - VIENNA
35 - VIENNA
36 - VIENNA–TEL AVIV–VATICAN CITY
37 - EAST JERUSALEM
38 - VATICAN CITY
39 - VATICAN CITY–JERUSALEM
40 - JERUSALEM
41 - THE OLD CITY, JERUSALEM
42 - TEL AVIV–JERUSALEM
43 - THE OLD CITY, JERUSALEM
44 - JERUSALEM
45 - JERUSALEM
46 - THE TEMPLE MOUNT, JERUSALEM
PART FOUR: EGO TE ABSOLVO
47 - JERUSALEM
48 - JERUSALEM
49 - PIAZZA DI SANT’IGNAZIO, ROME
50 - VATICAN CITY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY DANIEL SILVA
CREDITS
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER