The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon #7)(42)
“It was definitely Adrian’s.”
“You, of course, balked at the suggestion.”
“Absolutely.”
“Why did you cave?”
“It was either a knuckle dragger from the Clandestine Service or you. Naturally I chose you.”
“It’s good to know one is wanted.”
“I didn’t want anyone. Adrian insisted we include someone from the Agency and you seemed like the least harmful option. After all, we trained you. You know some of our personnel and you know how we operate. You know the difference between a bodel and a neviot officer. You speak our language.” He frowned. “Well, almost. I suppose the fact you don’t speak Hebrew is an advantage. It means we can still talk about you behind your back.”
“I can only imagine the things you all said about me.”
“Rest assured it was all complimentary, Sarah. You were the quickest study any of us had ever seen. But then we always knew you would be. That’s why we chose you in the first place.”
Actually, it was Adrian Carter who had chosen her. You find the painting, Carter had said. I’ll get you the girl. The painting Gabriel had found was a lost masterpiece by van Gogh called Marguerite Gachet at Her Dressing Table, which had vanished after Vincent’s death into the private collection of a Paris lawyer. Carter had managed to find a lost masterpiece of his own, a European-educated, multilingual art historian who was working as a curator at the Phillips Collection museum in Washington, D.C. Gabriel had used her to penetrate the business entourage of a Saudi billionaire terrorist financier named Zizi al-Bakari, and her life had never been the same since.
“You know, Gabriel, if I’m not mistaken, that might well have been the first compliment you ever paid me. During my preparation for the al-Bakari operation you barely said a word to me. You left me in the hands of your instructors and the other members of your team. Why was that?” Greeted by silence, she answered her own question. “Maybe you had to keep your distance. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to send me into Zizi’s camp. Who knows? Maybe you liked me a little too much.”
“My feelings for you were strictly professional, Sarah.”
“I wasn’t suggesting otherwise.” She was silent for a moment. “You know, after the operation ended, I missed you all terribly. You were the first real family I ever had.” She hesitated, then added: “I even missed you, Gabriel.”
“I almost got you killed.”
“Oh, that.” She looked down and made a church steeple of her ringless fingers. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It was a beautiful operation. I’ll let you in on a little secret. The Agency isn’t as good as the Office. Our operations are like bricks and mortar. Yours are like…” She paused, searching for the right word. “Like art,” she said. “They’re like one of your grandfather’s paintings.”
“My grandfather was a German Expressionist,” Gabriel said. “Some of his paintings were rather chaotic and violent.”
“And so are your operations.”
Sarah reclined her seat and propped one boot on the armrest of Gabriel’s chair. An image flashed in Gabriel’s memory: Sarah, in a black veil, chained to a torturer’s table in a chalet in the mountains of Switzerland.
“You’re looking at me that way again,” she said.
“Which way is that?”
“The way you used to look at that van Gogh we sold Zizi. You used to look at me and Marguerite Gachet the same way. You’re assessing me. You’re looking for losses and abrasions. You’re wondering whether the canvas can be brought back to life or whether it’s beyond repair.”
“What’s the answer?”
“The canvas is fine, Gabriel. It doesn’t need any work at all. In fact, it’s quite suitable for hanging just as it is.”
“No more nightmares? No more sessions with the Agency psychologists?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” She looked down again, and a shadow seemed to pass over her eyes. “No one at Langley knows what Elizabeth Halton is going through better than I do. Maybe that’s why Adrian chose me for this assignment. He’s a former case officer. He knows how to push buttons.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
She looked up at him as the Gulfstream swept down the runway. “So where are we going?”
“First we’re going to make a brief stop in Tel Aviv to assemble my team. Then we’re going to Amsterdam to have a quiet word with a man who’s going to help us find Elizabeth Halton.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Probably not.”
“Tell me about him,” she said.
Gabriel waited until the plane was airborne. Then he told her everything.
It was shortly after dawn the next morning when they arrived at King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv. Gabriel stopped briefly at the Operations Desk to collect Eli Lavon’s first surveillance photographs and watch reports from Amsterdam, then led Sarah along a subterranean corridor to a doorway marked 456C. For many years the room was nothing but a dumping ground for obsolete computers and worn-out office furniture, often used by the night staff as a place for romantic trysts. Now it was known throughout King Saul Boulevard as Gabriel’s Lair. Affixed to the door was a faded paper sign, written in his own stylish Hebrew hand, that read: TEMPORARY COMMITTEE FOR THE STUDY OF TERROR THREATS IN WESTERN EUROPE. The sign had served him well through two tumultuous operations. Gabriel decided to leave it for now.