The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon #7)(9)
“Your disguise is quite effective,” Lavon said with professional admiration. “For an instant even I didn’t recognize you.”
Gabriel looked at his reflection in the mirror over the dressing table. He wore a pair of black-framed eyeglasses, contact lenses that turned his green eyes to brown, and a false goatee that accentuated his already-narrow features.
“I would have added a bit more gray to your hair,” Lavon said.
“I have enough already,” Gabriel said. “How did you get roped into this affair?”
“Proximity, I suppose. I was at a conference in Prague delivering a lecture on our dig at Tel Megiddo. As I came off the stage my mobile phone was ringing. You’ll never guess who it was.”
“Trust me, Eli—I can guess.”
“I hear that voice, the voice of God with a murderous Polish accent, telling me to leave Prague for Amsterdam at once.” Lavon shook his head slowly. “Does Shamron really have nothing better to do at his age than worry about a dead sayan? He’s lucky to be alive. He should be enjoying his last few years on this earth, but instead he clings to the Office like a drowning man grasping at a life ring.”
“Rosner was his sayan,” Gabriel said. “And I’m sure he feels partly responsible for his death.”
“He could have let Uzi handle it. But he doesn’t fully trust Uzi, does he, Gabriel? The old man wanted you in Special Ops, not Uzi, and he’s never going to rest until you’re running the place.” Lavon pushed up the sleeve of his tweed jacket and looked at his watch. “Sophie Vanderhaus awaits us. Have you given much thought to how you’re going to play it with her?”
“She’s an intelligent woman. I suspect she already has a good idea about Herr Heller’s true affiliation—and why Rosner always met with him outside the country.”
Lavon frowned. “I must confess I’m not really looking forward to this. I suppose there’s a ritual to these things. When agents die, their secrets have to go with them to the grave. It’s like tahara, the washing of the dead. Next time it could be one of us.”
“Promise me something, Eli.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me that if anything happens to me, you’ll be the one who buries all my secrets.”
“It would be my honor.” Lavon patted the pocket of his jacket. “Oh, I nearly forgot this. A bodel gave this to me at the airport this morning after I arrived.”
The bodelim were Office couriers. The item Lavon had been given was a Beretta 9mm pistol. Gabriel took it from his grasp and slipped it into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back.
“You’re not really going to bring that, are you?”
“I have enemies, Eli—lots of enemies.”
“Obviously, so did Solomon Rosner.”
“And one of them might still be hanging around his house.”
“Just try not to kill anyone while we’re in Amsterdam, Gabriel. Dead bodies have a way of spoiling an otherwise uneventful trip.”
It was beginning to get dark when Gabriel stepped out of the hotel. He turned to the right and, with Lavon trailing several paces behind, walked the length of the narrow street until he came to an iron bridge. On the opposite side stood Café de Doelen. It was open for business again, and the spot where Solomon Rosner had been standing at the time of his murder was piled high with tulips. There were no mourners or protesters condemning the ritual slaughter of their fellow countryman, only a single banner, hung from the fa?ade of the café, that read ONE AMSTERDAM, ONE PEOPLE.
“I’ve been staring at it for two days now and I still don’t quite know what it means.”
Gabriel turned around. The words had been spoken by a woman in her late twenties with sandstone-colored hair and pale blue eyes that shone with a calm intelligence.
“I’m Sophie Vanderhaus.” She extended her hand and added primly: “Professor Rosner’s assistant.” She released his hand and gazed at the makeshift memorial. “Quite moving, don’t you think? Even the Dutch press are treating him like a hero now. Too bad they weren’t so glowing in their praise when he was alive. For years they attacked him, all because he had the courage to say the things they chose to ignore. In my judgment they are complicit in his murder. They are as guilty as the extremist imams who filled Muhammad Hamza’s head with hate.” She turned and looked at Gabriel. “Come,” she said. “The house is this way.”
They set off down the Staalstraat together. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and saw Lavon start after them. Sophie Vanderhaus gazed down at the cobbles, as if organizing her thoughts.
“It’s been five days since his murder,” she said, “and not a single Muslim leader has bothered to condemn it. In fact, given a chance to do so by the Dutch media, they have chosen to blame it on him. Where are these so-called moderate Muslims one always hears about in the press? Do they exist or are they merely figments of our imagination? If one insults the Prophet Muhammad, our Muslim countrymen pour into the streets in a sacred rage and threaten us with beheading. But when one of them commits murder in the Prophet’s name…”
Her voice trailed off. Gabriel completed the thought for her.
“The silence is deafening.”
“Well put,” she said. “But you didn’t come to Amsterdam to listen to a lecture by me. You have a job to do.” She scrutinized him carefully for a moment while they walked side by side in the narrow street. “Do you know, Herr Kiever, it was exactly a year ago that Professor Rosner first told me about his relationship with a man named Rudolf Heller and what I was to do in the event anything ever happened to him. Needless to say, I hoped this day would never come.”