“Would you like to see the photograph?”
Keller wordlessly poured two fingers of whiskey into a cut-glass tumbler. Gabriel blew on his tea.
“Have I not been a good friend to you despite the unfortunate circumstances of our beginning? Have I not offered you sound advice? After all, if it wasn’t for me you’d still be—”
“Your point?” interrupted Keller.
“Don’t make the same mistake I made,” said Gabriel. “Olivia knows more about you than any woman in the world other than that crazy fortune-teller on Corsica, and she’s far too old for you. What’s more, Vauxhall Cross has already rifled through all her dirty laundry, which means SIS won’t stand in the way of your relationship. You were made for each other, Christopher. Grab on to her and never let go.”
“Her past is—”
“Nothing compared to yours,” said Gabriel. “And look how well you turned out.”
Keller held out his hand.
“What?” asked Gabriel.
“Let me see it.”
Gabriel handed his mobile phone across the countertop. “The happy couple,” he said.
Keller looked at the photograph. It had been snapped from across the room while Olivia was whispering into his ear.
Whatever happened in your previous life, I promise I can make it all better . . .
“Who took it?”
“Julian,” said Gabriel. “The true hero of the operation.”
“Don’t forget the Antonovs,” said Keller.
“How could I?”
“They put in a brief appearance tonight, by the way. They actually looked happy for a change.”
“You don’t say.”
“Think they’re going to make it?”
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “I think they might.”
73
King Saul Boulevard, Tel Aviv
Which left one last loose thread. Not one, actually, but several hundred million. Not to mention a haunted house in the heart of old Casablanca, a lavish villa on France’s C?te d’Azur, and a collection of paintings acquired under the expert eye of Julian Isherwood. The real estate was disposed of quietly and at a substantial loss, furnishings, caretakers, and jinns included. The paintings, as promised, found their way to Jerusalem, and onto the walls of the Israel Museum. The director wanted to call it the Dmitri and Sophie Antonov Collection. Gabriel, however, insisted the donation remain anonymous.
“But why?”
“Because Dmitri and Sophie don’t really exist.”
But the Antonovs’ charity did not end there, for they had at their disposal a vast sum of money that had to go somewhere. Money they had borrowed, interest free, from the Butcher of Damascus. Money the Butcher had looted from his people before gassing and bombing them, and dispersing them to refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. The Antonovs, through their representatives, donated countless millions to feed, clothe, house, and care for the medical needs of the displaced. They also pledged millions to build schools in the Palestinian territories—schools that did not teach children merely to hate—and to a facility in the Negev Desert that cared for severely disabled children, Jewish and Arab alike. Hadassah Medical Center received twenty million dollars to help construct a new suite of underground operating rooms. Another ten million went to the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design for new studio space and a scholarship program for promising Israeli artists from low-income families.
The largest portion of the Antonovs’ fortune, however, would reside at the Bank of Israel, in an account controlled by the government agency headquartered in an anonymous office block on King Saul Boulevard. The amount was sufficiently large to see to all of life’s little extras—assassinations, paid informants, defectors, false passports, safe houses, travel expenses, even an engagement party. Mikhail signed the last of the documents in Gabriel’s office. In doing so, he laid Dmitri Antonov formally to rest.
“I’ll miss him. He wasn’t all bad, you know.”
“For a Russian arms dealer,” said Gabriel. “Did you bring the ring?”
Mikhail handed over the little velvet-covered box. Gabriel thumbed open the lid and frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Is there a stone in there somewhere?”
“A carat and a half,” protested Mikhail.
“It’s not as nice as the one she was wearing in Saint-Tropez.”
“That’s true. But I don’t have Dmitri’s money.”
No, thought Gabriel as he slipped the paperwork into his briefcase. Not anymore.
Chiara and the children were waiting downstairs in the parking garage, in the back of Gabriel’s armored SUV. As they drove eastward across the Galilee, they were followed by a second SUV containing Uzi and Bella Navot, and a caravan of cars filled with more than two hundred members of the Office’s analytical and operational staff. It was dark by the time they all reached Tiberias, but Shamron’s villa, perched atop its escarpment overlooking the lake and the ancient battlefield, was ablaze with light. Mikhail and Natalie were the last to arrive. The ring sparkled on Natalie’s left hand. Her eyes sparkled, too.
“It’s much nicer than Sophie’s, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes,” said Gabriel hastily. “Much.”
“Did you have anything to do with this?”
“Only by offering you a job no woman in her right mind would ever have taken.”
“And now I’m one of you,” she said, holding up the ring. “Till death do us part.”
The occasion lacked the debauchery of the Antonovs’ notorious parties at Villa Soleil, and for that everyone in attendance was grateful. Truth be told, none of them were real drinkers. Unlike their allies the British, they did not utilize heavy consumption of alcohol as part of their tradecraft. What’s more, it was a school night, as they liked to say, and most would be back at their desks in the morning, save for Mikhail, who was leaving at dawn for an operation in Budapest. Office doctrine dictated he spend the night in a jump site in Tel Aviv. Gabriel and Yaakov Rossman, who was going with him, had granted Mikhail a reprieve.
Still, there was music and laughter and more food than anyone could possibly eat. Saladin, however, was not far from their thoughts. They spoke of him with respect and, even in death, with a trace of foreboding. Dina Sarid’s dark prediction of the future—a future of endless cyberjihad—was coming to pass before their eyes. The caliphate of ISIS was slipping away. Too slowly, it was true, but it was dying nonetheless. But that did not mean the end of ISIS was at hand. In all likelihood, it would become just another Salafist-jihadi terrorist group, a first among equals with adherents around the globe who were willing to take up a knife or a bomb or an automobile in hatred’s name. Saladin was now their patron saint. And thanks to the story in the Telegraph, the story Gabriel had planted, Israel and the Jews of the diaspora were their primary targets.
“It was,” intoned Shamron, “a grave mistake on your part.”
“It wasn’t my first,” answered Gabriel. “And I’m certain it won’t be my last.”
“I hope she was worth it.”
“Olivia Watson? She was.”