The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(54)

Night had fallen by the time Khalid came out of the mosque. “Where is the chamber where you found the pillars of the so-called Temple of Solomon?”

Gabriel pointed downward, into the depths of the plateau.

“And the Wailing Wall?”

Gabriel inclined his head toward the west.

“Can you take me to the chamber?” asked Khalid.

“Perhaps another time.”

“What about the wall?”

They were standing only a few meters from the top of the Western Wall, but they drove there in Gabriel’s SUV. The giant Herodian ashlars were ablaze with light, as was the broad plaza that lay at their base. Gabriel had made no attempt to close it for Khalid’s visit. It was crowded with worshippers and tourists.

“The men and women pray separately,” the Saudi observed archly.

“Much to the dismay of more liberal Jews.”

“Perhaps we can change that.”

“Shwaya, shwaya,” said Gabriel.

Khalid removed a small slip of paper from the breast pocket of his jacket. “It’s a prayer for Reema. I’d like to leave it in the wall.”

Gabriel placed a kippah atop Khalid’s dark hair and watched as he approached the wall. He slipped the note between two of the ashlars and bowed his head in silent prayer, and when he returned his eyes were wet with tears. Gabriel’s SUV was parked outside Dung Gate. They crossed to the western side of the city and made their way to the old neighborhood known as Nachlaot. At the entrance of Narkiss Street was a security checkpoint. They passed through without slowing and parked outside the limestone apartment house at Number 16.

“Where are we now?” asked Khalid.

“Home,” said Gabriel.





39

Jerusalem


Chiara had opened a bottle of Domaine du Castel, a Bordeaux-style wine from the Judean Hills. Khalid readily accepted a glass. Now that he had been deposed, he said, he no longer had any excuse to maintain the appearance of strict Wahhabi piety. He seemed surprised a man as powerful as Gabriel Allon lived in so modest a dwelling. But then again, almost any home would seem humble to a prince who had been raised in a palace the size of a city block.

His gaze traveled expertly over the paintings hanging on the walls of the sitting room. “Yours?”

“Some,” answered Gabriel.

“And the others?”

“My mother and grandfather. And one or two by my first wife.”

Chiara had prepared enough food for Khalid and the entourage that used to accompany him everywhere he went. It was arrayed on the buffet in the dining room. Khalid sat at the head of the table, with Gabriel and Chiara on one side and Raphael and Irene on the other. Gabriel introduced Khalid to the children as “Mr. Abdulaziz,” but he insisted they refer to him only by his given name. They were clearly intrigued by his presence in the Allon home. Gabriel rarely entertained outsiders at Narkiss Street, and the children, despite living in close proximity to East Jerusalem, seldom saw Arabs, let alone dined with them.

Nevertheless, it took only a few minutes for the children to fall under Khalid’s spell. With his black hair, sharp features, and warm brown eyes, he looked like the Hollywood version of an Arab prince. One could easily picture Khalid, in the robes and headdress of the desert, riding into battle at the side of T. E. Lawrence. Even without the money and expensive toys, his charm and charisma were irresistible.

They spoke only of safe topics—paintings, books, his journey through a portion of Israel and the West Bank, anything but Reema’s death and Khalid’s fall from grace. He was telling the children tales of falconry when sirens wailed over Nachlaot. Gabriel rang King Saul Boulevard and learned there was yet another incoming missile from Syria, this one heading in the general direction of Jerusalem.

“What if it hits the Haram al-Sharif?” asked Khaled.

“Your trip to Israel will get a lot more interesting.”

For several minutes they sat waiting for the thud of impact until finally the sirens went silent. Gabriel rang King Saul Boulevard a second time and learned the missile had been intercepted. Its wreckage had fallen harmlessly to earth in a field outside the West Bank settlement of Ofra.

By nine o’clock the children began to squirm and slump. Chiara shepherded them off to bed while Gabriel and Khalid finished the last of the wine on the terrace. Khalid sat in Shamron’s usual chair. The smell of eucalyptus was intoxicating.

“Is this part of hiding in plain sight?”

“I’m afraid my address is the worst-kept secret in Israel.”

“And your first wife? Where is she?”

Gabriel gazed toward the west. The hospital, he explained, was located in the old Arab village of Deir Yassin, where Jewish fighters from the Irgun and Lehi paramilitary groups massacred more than a hundred Palestinians on the night of April 9, 1948.

“How terribly poignant she should live in a place like that.”

“Such is life,” replied Gabriel, “in the twice-promised land.”

Khalid smiled sadly. “Did you see it happen?”

“What’s that?”

“The bomb that killed your child and wounded your wife?”

Gabriel nodded slowly.

“You spared me such a memory. I suppose I should be grateful.” Khalid drank some of the wine. “Do you remember the things you said to the kidnappers when you were negotiating Reema’s return?”