Gabriel drove down the Bab al-Wad to the Coastal Plain, then north to the Valley of Jezreel. They stopped there for a few minutes to collect Eli Lavon from the dig atop Tel Megiddo, then continued on to Tiberias. Shamron’s honey-colored villa was just a few miles north of the city, on a ledge overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Two dozen cars lined the steep drive, and in the forecourt was a large American Suburban with diplomatic license plates. Adrian Carter and Sarah Bancroft were standing at the balustrade of Shamron’s terrace, chatting with Uzi Navot and Bella.
“Gilah never told me Carter was coming,” Chiara said.
“She must have forgotten to mention it.”
“How do you forget to mention that the deputy director of the CIA is coming all the way from Washington? And what is Sarah doing here?”
“Gilah’s old, Chiara. Give her a break.”
Gabriel climbed out before she could pose another question, then retrieved the overnight bag from the trunk and led her up the steps. Gilah was standing in the entrance hall as they came inside. The large rooms had been emptied of their furniture and several round tables put in their place. Chiara stared at the place settings and the flower arrangements, then walked past Gilah and stepped on the terrace, where a hundred white chairs stood in neat rows around a chuppah hung with flowers. She spun round, mouth open, and looked at Gabriel.
“What’s going on here?”
Gabriel held up the overnight bag and said, “I’m going to take this up to our room.”
“Gabriel Allon, come back here.”
She followed quickly after him and chased him down the corridor to their room. As she stepped inside, she saw the dress laid out on the bed.
“My God, Gabriel, what have you done?”
“Made amends for all my mistakes, I hope.”
She threw her arms around him and kissed him, then ran a hand through her hair.
“It’s a mess. What am I going to do?”
“We brought a hair stylist from Tel Aviv. A very good one.”
“What about my family?”
He looked at his watch. “We flew them out of Venice aboard a charter. They landed at Ben-Gurion twenty minutes ago. We’re bringing them up here by helicopter.”
“And the rings?”
He pulled a small jewelry box from his coat pocket and opened it.
“They’re beautiful,” she said. “You thought of everything.”
“Weddings are operations.”
“No, they’re not, you dolt.” She slapped his arm playfully. “What time is the ceremony?”
“Whenever you want it to be.”
“What time is sundown?”
“Five-oh-eight.”
“We’ll start at five-oh-nine.” She kissed him again. “And don’t be late.”
62
You and your team ran a very nice operation,” said Adrian Carter.
“Which one?”
“The wedding, of course. Too bad London didn’t go as smoothly.”
“If it had gone smoothly, we wouldn’t have gotten Elizabeth back.”
“This is true.”
A waiter approached their table and freshened Carter’s coffee. Gabriel turned and looked toward the walls of the Old City, which were glowing softly in the gentle sunlight. It was Monday morning. Carter had rung Gabriel’s apartment at seven on the off chance he was free for breakfast. Gabriel had agreed to meet him here, the terrace restaurant of the King David Hotel, knowing full well that Adrian Carter never did anything on the off chance.
“Why are you still in Jerusalem, Adrian?”
“Officially, I am here to conduct meetings with our generously staffed CIA station. Unofficially, I stayed in order to see you.”
“Is Sarah still here?”
“She left yesterday. Poor thing had to fly commercial.” Carter raised his coffee cup to his lips and stared at Gabriel for a moment without drinking. “Did anything ever happen between you two that I should know about?”
“No, Adrian, nothing happened between us, during this operation or the last one.” Gabriel made swirls in his Israeli yogurt. “Is that why you stayed in Jerusalem? To ask me whether I slept with one of your officers?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you here, Adrian?”
He reached into the breast pocket of his Brooks Brothers blazer, withdrew an envelope, and handed it to Gabriel. The front bore no markings, but when he turned it over he saw THE WHITE HOUSE printed on the flap in simple lettering.
“What’s this? An invitation to a White House barbecue?”
“It’s a note,” said Carter, then he added somewhat pedantically: “From the president of the United States.”
“Yes, I can see that, Adrian. What’s the topic of the letter?”
“I’m not in the habit of reading other people’s mail.”
“You should be.”
“I assume the president wrote to you in order to thank you for what you did in London.”
“It might have been helpful if he had said something publicly a month ago, while I was twisting in the wind.”
“Trust me, Gabriel. If he had spoken out on your behalf, you would have been in more trouble than you are now. These things have a way of blowing themselves out, and sometimes the best course of action is to take no action at all.”
A cloud passed in front of the sun, and for a moment it seemed several degrees colder. Gabriel opened the note, read it quickly, and slipped it into his coat pocket.
“What does it say?”
“It is private, Adrian, and it will remain so.”
“Good man,” said Carter.
“Did you get one, too?”
“A note from the president?” Carter shook his head. “I’m afraid that my position is somewhat tenuous at the moment. Isn’t it amazing? We got Elizabeth back and now we are under siege.”
“This, too, shall pass, Adrian.”
“I know,” he said. “But it doesn’t make it any more pleasant to go through. There are a band of Young Turks at Langley who think I’ve been running the DO for too long. They say I’ve lost a step. They say I should have never agreed to turn over so much of the operation to you.”
“Do you have any intention of ceding power?”
“None,” said Carter forcefully. “The world is too dangerous a place to be left to Young Turks. I intend to stay until this war against terrorism is won.”
“I hope longevity runs in your family.”
“My grandfather lived to be a hundred and four.”
“What about Sarah? Has she been hurt by this in any way?”
“None whatsoever,” Carter replied. “Only a handful of people even knew she was a part of it.”
The sun emerged from behind the clouds again. Gabriel slipped on his wraparound glasses while Carter pulled a second envelope from the pocket of his blazer. “This is from Robert Halton,” he said. “I’m afraid I know what’s inside that one.”
Gabriel withdrew the contents: a brief handwritten note and a check made out in Gabriel’s name for the sum of ten million dollars. Gabriel kept the letter and handed the check back to Carter.
“Are you sure you don’t want to think about that for a minute?” Carter asked.
“I don’t want his money, Adrian.”
“You’re entitled to it. You risked your life to save his daughter’s-not once but twice.”
“It’s what we do,” Gabriel said. “Tell him thanks but no thanks.”
Carter left the check on the table.
“You have anything else in your pocket for me, Adrian?”
Carter turned his gaze toward the Old City walls. “I have a name,” he said.
“The Sphinx?”
Carter nodded. The Sphinx.
His voice, already underpowered, fell to an almost inaudible level. It seemed that Carter, before coming to Israel for Gabriel’s wedding, had made a brief stopover in the South of France, not for the purposes of recreation-Carter hadn’t taken a proper holiday since 9/11-but for an operation. The target of this operation was none other than Prince Rashid bin Sultan, who had come to the French Riviera himself for a spot of gambling in the casinos of Monaco. The prince had played poorly and lost mightily, a fact the puritanical Carter seemed to find most offensive, and upon returning to the airport at Nice early the next morning in a highly inebriated state had found Carter and a team of CIA paramilitary officers relaxing in the luxurious confines of his private 747. Carter had presented the prince, now irate, with a CIA dossier detailing his many sins-sins that included financial support for al-Qaeda, the foreign fighters and Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and a militant Egyptian group called the Sword of Allah, which had just carried out the abduction of the goddaughter of the president of the United States. Carter had then given the prince a choice of destinations: Riyadh or Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.