Portrait of a Spy

in Italian, of which Shamron understood not a word.
    Within days of Gabriel’s return to Cornwall, the weather turned rainy, which suited all their moods. Chiara cooked elaborate meals and watched with relief as Gabriel regained some of the weight he had lost in the Saudi prison. His emotional state, however, remained unchanged. He slept little and seemed incapable of talking about what had happened in the desert. Uzi Navot dispatched a doctor to examine him. “Guilt,” said the doctor after spending an hour alone with Gabriel. “Enormous, unfathomable, unremitting guilt. He promised to protect her, but in the end, he let her down. He doesn’t like to fail women.”
    “What can we do?” Chiara asked.
    “Give him time and space,” the doctor said. “And don’t ask too much of him for a while.”
    “I’m not sure having Ari around is helping matters.”
    “Good luck trying to dislodge him,” the doctor said. “Gabriel will eventually recover, but I’m not so sure about the Old Man. Let him stay as long as he wants. He’ll know when it’s time to leave.”
    A daily routine eluded Gabriel. Unable to sleep at night, he slept in daylight, when his conscience allowed it. He moped, he stared at the rain and the sea, he walked in the cove. Sometimes, he sat on the veranda and worked with charcoal on paper. The sketches he produced were all of the operation. Many were of Nadia. Alarmed, Chiara secretly photographed the sketches and e-mailed the pictures to the doctor for analysis. “He’s his own best therapist,” said the doctor reassuringly. “Let him work it out on his own.”
    Nadia was with them always. They made no effort to keep her at bay; even if they had tried, events in the Middle East would have made it impossible. From Morocco to the Emirates, the Arab world was aflame with a new wave of popular unrest. This time, even the old Sunni monarchies appeared vulnerable. Emboldened by Nadia’s brutal murder, Arab women poured into the streets by the thousands. Nadia was their martyr and patron saint. They chanted her name and carried signs bearing her photograph. In a macabre twisting of her message and beliefs, some said they wanted to emulate her by dying as martyrs, too.
    The keepers of the old order tried to tarnish Nadia’s reputation by branding her an Israeli spy and provocateur. Because of Gabriel’s confession, which played ceaselessly on the Internet and the pan-Arab news networks, the charges against Nadia were widely dismissed. Her cultish following grew even larger when Zoe Reed of CNBC devoted an entire edition of her prime-time program to Nadia’s posthumous impact on the Arab Awakening. During the broadcast, Zoe revealed that she had conducted several private meetings with Nadia during which the Saudi heiress acknowledged secretly funneling tens of millions of dollars to reform-minded organizations across the Arab and Islamic world. The program also accused the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia of complicity in her death—an accusation that brought a swift denunciation from the House of Saud, along with the usual threats about withholding oil from the West. This time, no one paid much attention. Like every other regime in the region, the al-Saud were now hanging on for dear life.
    By then, it was June and the Americans were clamoring for a post-operational debriefing. Chiara imposed strict limitations on the amount of time the inquisitors would be allowed to spend with their subject—two hours in the morning, two hours in the late afternoon, three days in all. Posing as tourists, they stayed at a dreadful little bed-and-breakfast in Helston that Gabriel had chosen personally. The sessions were held at the dining room table. Shamron remained at Gabriel’s side throughout, like a defense attorney at a deposition. There was no recording.
    Chiara feared the debriefings would reopen wounds that were just then beginning to heal. Instead, they proved to be precisely the sort of therapy Gabriel so desperately required. The strictures of professionalism imposed a cold and emotionless tone on the proceedings. The debriefers posed their questions with the dryness of policemen investigating a minor traffic mishap, and Gabriel responded in kind. Only when the debriefers asked him to describe the moment of Nadia’s death did his voice catch with emotion. When Shamron asked for a change of subject, the debriefers produced a photo of a young Saudi who had recently graduated from the