The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon #7)(73)

“I’ve never been one to dabble in self-delusion and conspiracy theory,” Ibrahim said. “You Jews deserve a national home. God knows you need one. But the sooner you give the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Gaza, the better for all of us.”

“And if that means giving it to your spiritual brethren in Hamas?”

“At the rate we’re going, Hamas will look like moderates soon,” Ibrahim said. “And when the Palestinian issue is finally removed from the table, the Arabs will have no one else to blame for their miserable condition. We will be forced to take a hard look in the mirror and solve our problems for ourselves.”

“That’s just one of the reasons why there will never be peace. We’re the scapegoat for Arab failings—the pressure valve for Arab unrest. The Arabs loathe us, but they cannot live without us.”

Ibrahim nodded in agreement and resumed the study of his shoes. “Is it also true that you are a famous art restorer?”

This time Gabriel nodded slowly. Ibrahim pulled his lips into an incredulous frown.

“Why, if you have the ability to heal beautiful paintings, do you engage in work such as this?”

“Duty,” said Gabriel. “I feel an obligation to protect my people.”

“The terrorists would say the same thing.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t murder the innocent.”

“You just threaten to send them to Egypt to be tortured.” Ibrahim looked at Gabriel. “Would you have done it?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No, Ibrahim, I wouldn’t have sent you back.”

Ibrahim looked out his window. “The snow is beautiful,” he said. “Is it a good omen or bad?”

“A friend of mine calls weather like this operational weather.”

“That’s good?”

Gabriel nodded. “It’s good.”

“You’ve done this kind of thing before?”

“Only once.”

“How did it end?”

With the Gare de Lyon in rubble, thought Gabriel. “I got the hostage back,” he said.

“This street that he wants us to walk down—do you know it?”

Gabriel lifted his hand from the wheel and pointed across the square. “It’s called Str?get. It’s a pedestrian mall lined with shops and restaurants, two miles long—the longest in Europe, if the hotel brochures are to be believed. It empties into a square called the R?dhuspladsen.”

“We walk and they watch—is that how it works?”

“That’s exactly how it works. And if they like what they see, someone will phone me when we reach the R?dhuspladsen and tell me where to go next.”

“When do we start?”

“Three o’clock.”

“Three o’clock,” Ibrahim repeated. “The hour of death—at least that’s what the Christians believe. Why do you think they chose three o’clock?”

“It gives them a few minutes of daylight to see us properly in Str?get. After that, it will be dark. That gives them the advantage. It makes it harder for me to see them.”

“What about your little helpers?” Ibrahim asked. “The ones who plucked me from that street corner in Amsterdam?”

“Ishaq says if he detects surveillance, the deal is off and Elizabeth Halton dies.”

“So we go alone?”

Gabriel nodded and looked at his watch. It was 2:59. “It’s not too late to back out, you know. You don’t have to do this.”

“I made you a promise in that house two nights ago—a promise that I would help you get the American woman back. It is a promise I intend to keep.” He squeezed his face into a quizzical frown. “Where were we, by the way?”

“We were in Germany.”

“A Jew threatening to torture an Arab in Germany,” Ibrahim replied. “How poetic.”

“You’re not going to give me another one of your lectures, are you, Ibrahim?”

“I’m inclined to, but I’m afraid there isn’t time.” He pointed to the dashboard clock. “The hour of death is upon us.”…





The atmosphere along Str?get was one of feverish festivity. To Gabriel it seemed like the last night before the start of a long-feared war, the night when fortunes are spent and love is made with headlong abandon. But there was no war coming, at least not for the shoppers along Copenhagen’s most famous street, only the holidays. Gabriel had been so absorbed in the search for Elizabeth Halton he had forgotten it was nearly Christmas.

They drifted through this joyous streetscape like detached spirits of the dead, hands thrust into coat pockets, elbows touching, silent. Ishaq had decreed that their journey would be a straight line and would include no stops. That meant that Gabriel was unable to conduct even the most basic countersurveillance maneuvers. It had been more than thirty years since he had walked a European street without checking his tail and to do so now made him feel as though he were trapped in one of those anxiety dreams where he was naked in a world of the fully clothed. He saw enemies everywhere, old and new. He saw men who might be Sword of Allah terrorists and men who might be Danish security—and, in the shelter of a storefront, he swore he saw Eli Lavon playing Christmas carols on a violin. It wasn’t Lavon, only his doppelg?nger. Besides, Gabriel remembered suddenly, Lavon couldn’t play the violin. Lavon, for all his gifts, had an ear of stone.