Prince of Fire

committed against the State, if not the worst.”
    “How many dead?”
    “Still unclear.”
    “The ambassadors?”
    “Officially, they’re still listed as unaccounted for.”
    “And unofficially?”
    “It’s believed they’re dead.”
    “Both?”
    Shamron nodded. “And their deputies.”
    “How many dead for certain?”
    “The Italians report twelve police and security personnel dead. At the moment, the Foreign Ministry is confirming twenty-two personnel killed, along with thirteen family members from the residence complex. Eighteen people remain unaccounted for.”
    “Fifty-two dead?”
    “At least. Apparently there were several visitors standing at the entrance waiting to be admitted to the building.”
    “What about the Office station?”
    Shamron repeated what he’d just learned from Lev. Pazner was alive. Three Office employees were feared to be among the dead.
    “Who did it?”
    “Lev hasn’t reached any—”
    “I’m not asking Lev.”
    “The list of potential suspects, unfortunately, is long. Anything I might say now would be speculation, and at this point, speculation does us no good.”
    “Why Rome?”
    “Hard to say,” Shamron said. “Perhaps it was just a target of opportunity. Maybe they saw a weakness, a chink in our armor, and they decided to exploit it.”
    “But you don’t believe that?”
    “No, Prime Minister.”
    “Could it have something to do with that affair at the Vatican a couple of years ago—that business with Allon?”
    “I doubt it. All the evidence thus far suggests it was a suicide attack carried out by Arab terrorists.”
    “I want to make a statement after Varash meets.”
    “I think that would be wise.”
    “And I want you to write it for me.”
    “If you wish.”
    “You know about loss, Ari. We both do. Put some heart into it. Tap that reservoir of Polish pain you’re always carrying around with you. The country will need to cry tonight. Let them cry. But assure them that the animals who did this will be punished.”
    “They will, Prime Minister.”
    Shamron stood.
    “Who did this, Ari?”
    “We’ll know soon enough.”
    “I want his head,” the prime minister said savagely. “I want his head on a stick.”
    “And you shall have it.”
    F ORTY - EIGHT HOURS would pass before the first break in the case, and it would come not in Rome but in the northern industrial city of Milan. Units of the Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri, acting on a tip from a Tunisian immigrant informant, raided a pensione in a workers’ quarter north of the city center where two of the four surviving attackers were thought to be hiding. The men were no longer there, and based on the condition of the room, they had fled in a hurry. Police discovered a pair of suitcases filled with clothing and a half-dozen cellular telephones, along with false passports and stolen credit cards. The most intriguing item, however, was a compact disk sewn into the lining of one of the bags. Italian investigators at the national crime laboratory in Rome determined that the disk contained data but were unable to penetrate its sophisticated security firewall. Eventually, after much internal debate, it was decided to approach the Israelis for help.
    And so it was that Shimon Pazner received his summons to the headquarters of the Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica, Italy’s Intelligence and Democratic Security Service. He arrived a few minutes after ten in the evening and was shown immediately into the office of the deputy chief, a man named Martino Bellano. They were a mismatched pair: Bellano, tall and lean and dressed as though he had just stepped off the pages of an Italian fashion magazine; Pazner, short and muscular with hair like steel wool and a crumpled sports jacket. “A pile of yesterday’s laundry” is how Bellano would describe Pazner after the encounter, and in the aftermath of the affair, when it became clear that Pazner had behaved less than forthrightly, Bellano routinely referred to the Israeli as “that kosher shylock in a borrowed blazer.”
    On that first evening, however, Bellano could not have been more solicitous of his visitor. Pazner was not the type to elicit sympathy from strangers, but as he was shown into Bellano’s office, his eyes were heavy with exhaustion and a profound case of survivor’s guilt. Bellano spent several moments expressing his “profound grief” over the bombing before getting round to the reason for Pazner’s