Prince of Fire

long will you be?”
    “That depends on him, I suppose.”
    “Prepare yourself for a tirade. He’s usually in a foul mood these days.”
    “Who could blame him?”
    “He has only himself to blame, Gabriel, remember that.”
    Gabriel opened the door and climbed out. “Are you going to be all right here alone?”
    “No problem,” Yonatan said. Then he waved to Gabriel and said, “Give him my best.”
    A P ALESTINIAN S ECURITY OFFICER greeted Gabriel through the bars of the gate. He wore an olive drab uniform, a flat cap, and a black patch over his left eye. He opened the gate wide enough for Gabriel to pass and beckoned him forward. His hand was missing the last three fingers. On the other side of the gate, Gabriel was set upon by two more uniformed men, who subjected him to a rigorous and intrusive body search while One-Eye looked on, grinning as though the whole thing had been arranged for his private amusement.
    One-Eye introduced himself as Colonel Kemel and led Gabriel into the compound. It was not the first time Gabriel had set foot in the Mukata. During the Mandate period it had been a British army fortress. After the Six-Day War, the IDF had taken it over from the Jordanians and used it throughout the occupation as a West Bank command post. Gabriel, when he was a soldier, had often reported for duty in the same place Yasir Arafat now used as his headquarters.
    Arafat’s office was located in a square two-story building huddled against the northern wall of the Mukata. Heavily damaged, it was one of the few buildings still standing in the compound. In the lobby Gabriel endured a second search, this time at the hands of a mustachioed giant in plain clothes with a compact submachine gun across his chest.
    The search complete, the security man nodded to Colonel Kemel, who prodded Gabriel up a narrow flight of stairs. On the landing, seated on a fragile-looking chair balanced precariously on two legs, was another Security man. He cast Gabriel an apathetic glance, then reached up and rapped his knuckle against the wooden door. An irritated voice on the other side said, “Come.” Colonel Kemel turned the latch and led Gabriel inside.
    T HE OFFICE G ABRIEL ENTERED was not much larger than his own at King Saul Boulevard. There was a modest wood desk and a small camp bed with a handsome leather-bound copy of the Koran laying atop the starched white pillowcase. Heavy velveteen curtains covered the window; a desk lamp, angled severely downward toward a stack of paperwork, was the only source of light. Along one wall, almost lost in the heavy shadows, hung row upon row of framed photographs showing the Palestinian leader with many famous people, including the American president who had bestowed de facto recognition upon his miniature state and whom Arafat had rewarded by stabbing in the back at Camp David and walking away from a peace deal.
    Behind the desk, elfin and sickly looking, sat Arafat himself. He wore a pressed uniform and a black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh. As usual, it was draped over his right shoulder and secured to the front of his uniform in such a way that it resembled the land of Palestine—Arafat’s version of Palestine, Gabriel noted, for it looked very much like the State of Israel. His hand, when he gestured for Gabriel to sit, shook violently, as did his pouting lower lip when he asked Gabriel whether he wished to have tea. Gabriel knew enough of Arab custom to realize that a refusal would get things off on the wrong foot, so he readily accepted the tea and watched, with a certain amount of pleasure, as Arafat dispatched Colonel Kemel to fetch it.
    Alone for the first time, they eyed each other silently over the small desk. The shadow of their last encounter hung over them. It had taken place in the study of a Manhattan apartment, where Tariq al-Hourani, the same man who had planted a bomb beneath Gabriel’s car in Vienna, had tried to murder Arafat for his supposed “betrayal” of the Palestinian people. Tariq, before fleeing the apartment house, had put a bullet into Gabriel’s chest, a wound that very nearly killed him.
    Seated now in Arafat’s presence, Gabriel’s chest ached for the first time in many years. No single person, other than perhaps Shamron, had influenced the course of Gabriel’s life more than Yasir Arafat. For thirty years they had been swimming together in the same river of blood. Gabriel had killed Arafat’s most trusted lieutenants;Arafat had ordered the